Upping the Fabulousity Quotient

By some miracle, when I emailed Rich this week all "hey I need to spend $172 on crap for my face, either in bulk or incrementally" he actually agreed, and thus I now have in my posession a bunch of fun stuff from Sephora. Two of the items are things I have talked about before, Laura Mericer tinted moisturizer (in Porcelain, because I am one skin tone away from people asking me if I use white lead based makeup), and Philosophy's When Hope is Not Enough serum. Both are fabulous and as School Friend Cindy has pointed out before, I am a total Philosophy pusher. Makeup Optional kit, body washes, get on it, immediately. I understand from Sephora's advertising, which I am hopelessly susceptible to, that Dark Lips Are In for fall. I am trying to work up the balls to try the insanely dark, glossy lipcolor shown in their mag:...but until I get that hardcore, I have opted for a Dior lipstick in "Devilish Pink." Three notes about Dior products...1.) I have yet to find one that is not amazing. I use their 5-Colour eyeshadow compacts, DiorShow mascara, Dior Addict lipgloss, and now this lipstick, and all have had great color and stay where you put them. 2.) Their packaging seriously sells me every time...it's usually in beautiful glossy navy with silver accents, feels good in your hands, and is well designed in general. I am superficial. 3.) I don't know who names their products, but I suspect that that person has Tourettes Syndrome. All of their products seem to have the brand name in it nineteen times, like Dior DiorShow Pretty Dior Magic Dior LipDiorColor. This particular one is called "Dior Rouge Dior Replenishing Lipcolor". Per che?
Speaking of my susceptibility to advertising, a catalog or two ago, Sephora featured "The Ball" by Ojon.
Looks like an alien pod, no? I wanted to give it a try, since it claims to do all kinds of great things while also touting some inexplicable things, to wit: "Ojon Tawaka 'The Ball' contains a high dose of wildcrafted Ojon oil, rich in essential fatty acids, Omega-3, -6, and -9. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential components for skin's functioning and Omega-6 fatty acids are essential components of skin's structure. A deficiency of these essential fatty acids is common and can cause dry, flaky skin. Additionally, the rare, wildcrafted Tawaka Cacao blend in 'The Ball' contains the same antioxidant amount as 2,834 lbs of blueberries." That all sounds exciting, right? Okay, well...what does the antioxidant amount of blueberries have to do with determining what to rub on your skin? Have you ever rubbed blueberries on your skin? I also usually avoid anything that uses lingo like "wildcrafted" but frankly the alien pod angle was to alluring to overcome, so I ordered it, and used it last night.

So. If you have reasonably dexterous and crafty children who like chocolate, you'll need a storage plan for this to avoid them being lured to this thing by the sweet siren scent of it. What you do is rub the ball in a circular motion all over your body, then let it set in a bit (I shampooed my hair while it sunk in). Rinse, and you're done. I can feel a noticeable difference in my skin already, having used it once. Insane though the lingo may be, it appears to work, and in any case, what's not to love about starting your day with the smell of chocolate? One thing I will note is that it's a bit messy...the oils it transfers to your skin are brown in color and it leaves little exfoliatey bits. Nothing that a quick extra rinse of the shower won't solve.
Sephora is also great with the samples, so I got three small ones and one large one because I hit some kind of critical mass with my Beauty Insider membership. The large one was of the new foaming version of the facewash I always use...it's from - you guessed it - Philosophy, and it's called Purity Made Simple. I also got a sample of Tend Skin for the Man of the House, who shaves his head, and an aggressively adorable teensy lipstick sample of Sephora's Lip Attitude in Talented Berry (again, who names these things?). The last sample was of Too Faced's Lip Injection Extreme, which is a lip plumper. There is a girl working here who has some kind of lip situation going on that flashes, last-moments-of-life style before my eyes whenever I think about tinkering with my lips (not often to begin with), so we're breaking down barriers, here. Tried it last night before bed, and it's interesting. It does as advertised, though it does get quite tingly and made my lips fairly red...not in a bad way necessarily, but mostly in a way that necessitates very accurate application. I am intrigued...we'll see how it goes as I continue to use it this week.