Modern Life

In the morning, I slather my entire body with this:

And then later, I slather my entire body with this:

Is it just me, or does this strike anyone else as mildly ridiculous?

::sigh::

The Moment Has Not Yet Passed

I think my Purple Moment is now officially a Purple Hour. Still on my all-things-violet-and-plum kick, which most lately extends to this:

Yves Saint Laurent GOLDEN GLOSS Shimmering Lip Gloss in 14 -- Golden Purple

I was at the YSL counter buying some Touche Eclat when this jumped out at me. SUCH a gorgeous color in the tube, and amazingly, it was absolutely gorgeous on me. Again & again I find myself wondering why I haven't been wearing more purple my whole life -- purple lurrrrrves a blue-eyed redhead.

Now, let me just say that I'm not a huge makeup person. I mean, I wear makeup, of course, but it's not my big thing. Most of what I put on my face, cosmetics-wise, can be found in the grocery store. Can usually be found in the grocery store, I should say -- right now they are & have been for a while out of my very favorite mascara

(Max Factor Lash Perfection, which I raved about here -- click photo for link)

One of the reasons I love this stuff, besides the formula being excellent, is that is has a great wand with little plastic bristles instead of a spoolie. Since they're out of it, I went with this

(Rimmel Eye Magnifier -- again, click for link)

which has a similar kind of wand. So far I've only used it once, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'll keep you posted. While I was at the YSL counter I got to chatting with the very nice SA about mascaras and she gave me a sample of the Diorshow Black Out which she swears by. I've heard lots of women swear by this one, actually, it always tops Best Of lists; but I have to say -- I didn't love it. This particular iteration of the DiorShow, the Blackout, evidently has actual kohl in it, which is cool in a Cleopatra sort of way, but may be what led it to flake in little tiny particles. I hate the little tiny particles. A lot of mascaras that bill themselves as "lash extending" have stuff in them -- like tiny fibers -- that eventually drops off my lashes and either gets under a contact lens or just looks sloppy. And forget those ones with the basecoat that you put on before color. Oh, waaaaay too much trouble, and all that "lash building" stuff just becomes a storm of tiny flakes settling on the skin under my eyes. Bleah.

So, yeah, while I'm not opposed to drugstore makeup, I do really swear by the Touche Eclat, which is a brilliant highlighter/cover up that does great things for my undereye circles. I have a very thin face and fair skin and this time of year when the allergies have kicked in I can look like I lost a tough boxing match a few days ago, but the Touche Eclat does a great job of mitigating that. Also, I'm semi-obsessed with the YSL Golden Glosses. (And also with their Touche Brilliance Glosses -- equally wonderful.) I freely admit to being a complete ho for lip gloss and lipstick, I regularly have to go through the makeup drawer and purge because lip colors are a fun, easy, often inexpensive way to indulge my consumer instinct. The YSL glosses are not, of course, what one would call a bargain, but they are really, really good, so I don't mind spending the money. They have gorgeous color, an excellent, not-too-goopy texture with some actual grip, and the sparkly bits are A) golden, as promised, and not silvery and B) teeny-tiny and not in the least gritty, which I absolutely loathe in a gloss. (I've tried the Chanel Glossimers, another big favorite of the Glosserati, and it made me do that compulsive lip-licking thing that Shine does when she's tasted something she doesn't like -- I couldn't get it off my mouth fast enough. Grit is bad.)

The color on my nails in the photo above is also a result of my New Purple Thing. It's OPI and the name is "We'll Always Have Paris," so you can see that it felt like Nail Polish Destiny when I encountered it. It's a great color for winter, but only when nails are short. Otherwise it gets a bit Dragon Lady. I think my next Violet Adventure is going to be eyeliner. That sounds like fun, doesn't it? Anyone who has any suggestions is welcome to give them!

Oh, Poo!

Here's a new favorite thing I wanted to share with you.

Deva Curl Deva Care No Poo

This is my new favorite shampoo. Actually, it's a no-poo, which means it doesn't have the sulfates that are usually added to shampoos in order to make them lather. Apparently, if I'm getting my information right, lathering agents aren't actually necessary to clean the hair, they're just something added in because we as a culture are trained to associate suds with cleanliness. Those sulfates are actually pretty hard on the hair, especially curly hair (like mine), and especially color-treated hair (again, like mine). Red is the single hardest color to hang on to, and when your hair is curly (which means it's extra porous) it's even harder to keep the color from fading. Until recently I've been devoted to a color-depositing shampoo made by Wella, but like seemingly all the good stuff in my life, it has been discontinued. (Isn't that always the way?) So since my last visit to the salon, I've been using this product, and I have to tell you, I really, really like it. My hair is feeling very healthy and the color has held up really well, much better than usual.

Now. It is not easy to get used to this stuff. Basically, it's like washing your hair with conditioner -- there are no suds. There is a little peppermint in the formula, so you can feel it on your scalp and that feeling helps make up for the lack of suds. I find I'm using a little more more of than I ordinarily would, and I have to work a little harder at it, to get the stuff down into my roots at my scalp. Also, I'm washing my hair every other day instead of every third day. Part of this is that it's hot outside and I'm running almost every day, so my head is just skanky (Style Spy is not a pretty sight when she gets back from her three-mile run. How not pretty? The words "drowned rat" come to mind.), and some of it is that currently I'm using a silicone product to smooth my hair, which according to my current research, is also a no-no because the silicones are stubborn little critters that require strong measures to wash them out. (I'm on the lookout for a styling product that will replace my silicone goo.)

But all things considered, I highly recommend this stuff. If you have curly hair, if you have dry hair, if you have color-treated hair or just any kind of hair that needs a little bit of babying, I'd say give it a try. Deva Curl also makes a product called Low-Poo, which might be easier for some to transition with rather than going cold turkey on the suds. Deva also makes color-specific products, which I will be looking into, and I know there are other no- and low-poo products out there.

So how about you guys? Anyone use this stuff, or something like it? What do you think about it?

Waste Not, Want Not

So here's a product I use:

I really like this stuff. It's a microbead scrub that I really feel makes a difference in my skin. It's gentle enough that I can use it every day, it has a nice smell, and it's not a terribly expensive product. As a matter of fact, it's really a bit of a bargain (you can click the photo to get some for yourself) at $5.99 a tube. But. The packaging...

Ooooooh, I really think there may be a special circle of hell just for packaging designers. We've all struggled with this kind of tube, right? It's very rigid plastic that squeezes down pretty successfully until you get to the bottom where it attaches to the nozzle thingie. At which point, you just can't smash it any smaller without mighty exertions and contortions, and when I'm standing in the shower with wet hands it becomes next to impossible. Usually I just get fed up & throw the thing away, even though I suspect there are several more applications of whatever product is in there, but I start thinking, "Oh, it's just not worth it!" and give up. What's even worse, the plastic of this particular tube is somewhat transparent, so I didn't just suspect that there was a good deal left in that tube, I could see it. Which really grated my cheese.

Now. This may seem extremely silly: fussing over a few dollops of a $6 product while my closet is stocked with shoes that in some cases cost more than my rent. But the waste of it really ticks me off. And even worse than that is the feeling that the company is trying to play me: they put 5 ounces of product in that tube, but they know I can't use all of them, so I'm going to have to buy another tube that much faster. Grrrrr...

Well, I showed them!

I marched that bad boy into the kitchen and whipped out my trusty kitchen shears, cut off the top and along the sides



And scooped all of the leftover scrub out of there with my skinniest spatula. (Be careful if you do this -- the cut edges of that plastic were sharp.)

Victory!

How much did I get? This much:


1.25 ounces. Yep. Fully 25% of the product I had purchased that I would have otherwise had to toss into the bin. I'm pretty sure this is going to get me through another two to three weeks of face scrubbin'.

While we're on the subject of product sizes & packaging, you know what else bugs me? Nail polish. I don't believe I have ever gotten through more than half a bottle of nail polish before it turned too hopelessly goopy to use, even with judiciously added drops of remover used as thinner. Why don't they make the bottles half as big and charge us half as much? (What a silly question, I know.) Honestly, even if they didn't lower the price, I'd probably feel better about it just because I didn't throw half of it away -- I'd feel that I was at least getting to use what I'd paid for.

So how about you guys? What's your pet packaging peeve?

Photos: Beauty.com, Style Spy

Slave to Goo

Every night when I perform my nocturnal ablutions, I gather up all my products in a little assembly on the bathroom counter and begin the process, working through my roster of creams, goos, potions & lotions. The other day it occurred to me to tally up all the various products I use, and I was semi-shocked to find that that number is seven.

Seven!



Does this seem like a lot? Does this make me a slave to my goo? Have I bought into the Beauty Industry Myth? Am I a product whore?

In my defense, my daytime routine is much more streamlined than this:


an all-over facial moisturizer and a sunscreen. If I'm feeling particularly crinkly, I'll use an extra dab of eye cream. And every other day in the shower I use a micro-whatsis scrub (also Garnier).

Honestly, while I'm performing my routine, it doesn't seem excessive. I wash my face with Cetaphil, use that brilliant Almay remover to get whatever eye makeup the Cetaphil missed, then I hit the vitamin C serum. I was using the Bliss Sleeping Peel Serum, which I loved, but the stuff was $60 an ounce. So now I've replaced it with the Garnier Skin Renew Serum, and I like it just as well. (Plus, it's 12 bucks for 1.7 ounces, and my math is shaky, but it's at least good enough to figure that out. I do wish Garnier would lay off the fragrance a little, though -- their products all smell like fruit baskets.) Full disclosure: I alternate the serum every other night with a version of Retin-A cream that was also much less than the Bliss product. (Ah, we love those Mexican farmacias.) When the products are less costly, I'm not so miserly in using them, and I also don't feel bad about putting them on my neck & décolletage as well as my face, which is important when you're a giraffe like me. After the serum comes the moisturizer, then the eye, lip & neck treatments. Which might seem excessive to some, but I am positively devoted to my Clarins lip treatment -- that stuff is magic. It seriously reduced the fine lines around my mouth, I swear. (I'm a Clarins devotée in general, you may notice. Their products really agree with my skin and I think that once you find a line that works for you, you should stick to it.)

So I dunno. Is the industry (the Cosmetic-Beauty Industrial Complex, as it were) pulling a fast one on me? Or am I hallucinating that I actually look not-too-shabby for a 42-year old person? It helps, I'm sure, that my mother drilled the necessity for sunscreen into me when I was just a whipper (and a few spectacular and excruciating sunburns when I was a kid really drove the point home). I never, EVER leave the house (especially living where I live) without an application of the Clarins UV Plus -- that stuff is brilliant and I don't care how much it costs, I'll never stop using it. So I wonder -- are all these products really doing what I think they're doing, or am I a victim of marketing and magical thinking? What do you think?

Tell ya what: tell me how many products you use every night & morning in the comments box. I'll draw a name randomly from the comments Tuesday morning and whomever wins will get a little package from Style Spy with a buncha fun product samples I've accumulated to try out. Also, let us know your holy grail skincare product -- the one thing they would have to pry from your cold dead cream-applying fingers before you'd give it up.

Have a good weekend, everyone! Wear your sunscreen!!

Photos: Style Spy