All Eyes On Her

I’ve been using John Masters’ Honey and Hibiscus Hair Reconstructor in and off for about a year, but I never did splurge for the matching (and equally pricy) shampoo until recently. Turns out the duo is pretty awesome! Neither component of the set is particularly “reconstructing”, in my experience, but they certainly are lovely to use.

The main thing I’ve noticed since trying this duo as a complete set is that my horrible, itchy, annoying dandruff is finally at bay. (I always get a crazy scalp when the seasons start to change, and my standard Redken AllSoft only makes it worse.) For the scalp relief alone, this pair was worth it. I do wish the price tag were cheaper, though.

The Honey & Hibiscus Shampoo is surprisingly sudsy, considering the lack of SLS (and comparing it to other JMO shampoos, like their Zinc & Sage Shampoo + Conditioner or their Evening Primrose Shampoo for Dry Hair).  It felt like it cleaned my hair pretty deeply, and got rid of the silicones that tend to build up on my hair what with all the smoothing products I use.  Yet it didn’t feel like it had dried out my scalp at all, which is something of a miracle given how picky my poor head has been lately.

The one drawback is that the shampoo seems to lack its sister’s amazing honey-hibiscus scent.  (Or maybe it’s just me, and the shampoo’s scent is just lighter than the conditioner’s so it’s harder to notice.)  And neither one has a scent that lingers, which is a shame since they’re so yummy in the shower.

All in all, I’ll probably keep purchasing this duo, but only use them when my scalp acts up.  (My coarse hair begs for silicone-rich smoothing products, but my scalp always complains.)  They don’t make my hair look fabulous, by any means — they’re just nicer than the average non-smoothing duo.

Our kitty, Trumpet, is an adorable sweet feline — but he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He often uses his litterbox, forgets to cover up his own kitty-products, and then refuses to go in it if there’s exposed kitty-product the next time around. So he goes on the floor in front of the box.

We purchased a special rubberized mat that goes in front of the box to help remedy this problem. It has little grooved tracks to help remove excess litter from his paws when he steps out of the box. And usually when he gets confused and goes in the wrong place, it all goes on the mat, which makes it a pretty simple thing to clean up. We just rinse out the mat in our spare shower, and then suds it up with some soap.

That’s where the lavender comes in. The soap I always use for this task is just our lavender-infused hand soap, because it’s naturally antibacterial and deodorizing. But after several months of doing this off and on, I now can’t smell lavender without thinking of cat piss.

Way to go, kitty. You ruined an entire genre of skincare items for me! I’m hoping my love of lavender will return to me someday, but it kind of amuses me how strong this association is. We’re DEFINITELY switching hand soaps when this stuff runs out, though — I feel like I’m washing my hands in… well you know.

Thanks a lot, kitty!

Ever since Aveda discontinued their much-adored Curessence deep conditioner, they’ve been on my hit list. (That stuff was fabulous, and a cult classic — you don’t go changing/pulling something so beloved by so many! Bad form, Aveda!) But then, they’ve pretty much lost all my respect since selling out to Estée Lauder anyway.

Okay, staying on track. Despite said loss of respect, I’m still on their mailing list, and I still get occasional freebie vouchers for whatever new product they’ve come up with. A couple years ago they came out with an “alternative” to Curessence, i.e. their Damage Remedy shampoo and conditioner.  But that stuff sucked — it wasn’t nearly as moisturizing or penetrating as Curessence was.*

AAAAANYWAY, you probably didn’t come here for a history lesson!  Nope, you came for my review.  So now that I’ve taken you through all that, I’ll try and be brief: the newest stuff sucks.

Yep, they realized that the Damage Remedy duo wasn’t really cutting it compared to days of yore, so came out with a new set called Dry Remedy which included the Dry Remedy Moisturizing Treatment Masque, another new attempt at a deep conditioner (instead of just bringing back Curessence like they friggin’ SHOULD HAVE).  And the new stuff is just as non-deep as Damage Remedy was, but in a crappier way.

It’s a dimethicone-heavy formulation, and it feels fabulous when it first goes on and when you first rinse it out.  But after the hair is dried?  Frizz city.  Let me be more precise: dry, coarse, brittle frizz city, without a pleasant Aveda fragrance.  That’s right, it doesn’t even soften, at least not for me — it only felt nice while my hair was still wet.  And the smell is just nothing to get excited over — toned down compared to their old signature Aveda scents, and much more generic.  (Again, probably a new marketing thing, i.e. alienating the original customer base in an attempt to gain mainstream popularity.  Sayonara, I say.)

Anyway, can you tell I’m bitter?  Aveda was once the kind of company that I’d be willing to move to friggin’ Minnesota to work for.  (And I don’t like the extreme cold, extreme heat, or extreme lack of ocean.)  Now it’s just another faceless corporate BS front, and it really does sadden me.  But in a nutshell: don’t bother with this new product, either!

*You know the worst part of this whole discontinuation of a rockstar product?  I was complaining about this with an Aveda employee who was also a big Curessence fan, and she told me privately that they only pulled the stuff because some dumb Aveda customers were ignoring the directions and using the protein-heavy Curessence weekly treatment as a daily conditioner, and — guess what — they got weighed down by buildup and then complained.  So a handful of idiots ruined it for the rest of us!  And Aveda, King Idiot, took their opinion more seriously than that of all its hardcore Curessence fans! SIGH…

I’ve been dabbling with the idea of getting a high-end hair straightener, because I keep hearing how gosh darned amazing they are.  But the combination of a high price tag and mixed reviews with reports of shoddy wiring has always made me shy away at the last minute.  And boy, am I glad I trusted my cheapskate instinct!

I just got a mini Conair straightener for $18.99, and it’s AWESOME.  To be precise, it’s not one of the newish travel straighteners, which I’ve seen ranging from $30 to $130.  It’s just a standard sized 3/4″ flat iron, which is tiny compared to my old 2″ one.

The smaller barrel makes it much, MUCH easier to style my bangs and the shorter framing layers around my face.  Now I just use the tiny one on days I’m touching up, and I use both on days I’m doing a full-out straightening — the 2″ for the bulk of my hair, and the 3/4″ for the shorter bits.  Totally worth it, and I wound up spending MUCH less than I would have for a high-end iron.

Plus, my old Conair 2″ is two years old and still going strong, and still gets to plenty hot temperatures.  Compare that with the many CHI reviews on Folica, claiming that the fuses burn out right *after* the warranty runs out, and… I call this a wise decision, indeed.  And even if this lil’ slugger does burn a fuse, I’m out less than $20.

I recently caught wind of the Rare Minerals acne-fighting mineral powder concealer by Bare Escentuals, and now I see that it’s been voted a Sephora best-of.

I’ve always wanted to avoid anything by BE, since they are notorious for including the chemical bismuth oxychloride in their formulations.  (Many people are quite allergic to bismuth, and it causes a rash-like reaction that takes ages to clear up.  I’m not eager to find out whether I should count myself in those ranks or not!)  And bismuth aside, this stuff definitely has some other ingredients (like dimethicone) that would aggravate my breakouts.

However, the idea of making a powder concealer that contains acne-fighting ingredients definitely intrigues me.  I’ve been trying to figure out a good BHA solution for ages and ages, and concealers that help dry up and bust blemishes definitely appeal to me.  And since my problem with salicylic acid was always figuring out how to get it to dissolve in a liquid base, the idea of being able to leave it in its powdered form is a definite bonus!

I’m going to try this out with my Everyday Minerals concealer set.  I’ll mix the shades that best match my skin for covering blemishes, and I’ll add a few drops of manuka essential oil (gentler than BE’s tea tree oil, and less stinky), and a bit of powdered salicylic acid.  I may also try adding some powdered zinc oxide, both for extra sun protection and for its soothing properties.  (I just have to make sure it doesn’t lighten the mix too much.)

If I can track some down, I might also add powdered sulphur, since that’s the acne-fighting ingredient that always shows me great results on individual blemishes.  However, sulphur’s smell really turns my stomach, so it may be worth while to leave that out of the mix.  It looks like I’ll be making up to four different batches to test this idea out, so I’ll post updates soon.  Thanks for the great idea, BE!

So it turns out the Primer Potion I so adore was voted “Best Cult Must-Have” by Sephora customers.  I’m not surprised!

A little update, though — after a particularly hot and sweaty summer, half of which I spent working in a non-air-conditioned office, I can tell you that even this stuff has its limits.  It’s great for normal levels of temperature and sweat, but my eyeshadow *did* crease in the crazy heat and moisture.

Still by far the best eye shadow base I’ve ever tried, though!  I just want people to have realistic expectations.

As promised, here come more 100% Pure cosmetics reviews… this time, the Fruit Pigmented Lip Gloss (in Sheer Pomegranate Wine and Pink Caramel). I already talked some about these glosses here, but I figured a few more details can’t hurt.

The QVC site had a lot of reviews saying these glosses had hardly any pigment to them, so I first ordered one of the darkest colors based on that. I’m glad I did — the Sheer Pomegranate Wine color was very sheer indeed, and only gave me a slight boost to my natural lip color.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what I was going for! I then ordered the Pink Caramel, which is a bit lighter and has a touch of shimmer to it. Thankfully, the shimmer doesn’t feel grainy like mineral-pigmented lip glosses sometimes can, and sometimes it seems opaque-ish and sometimes it seems invisible. Hard to say.

The consistency is, well, pretty much like any other lip gloss. I like that it’s not too sticky and that it doesn’t have any grainy feel to it (which I find usually comes from shimmer particles — so who knows how the super-duper-shimmery shades feel). It’s moisturizing and, well, glossy!

Like most natural lip glosses, it doesn’t exactly have vavoom staying power, but it’s certainly no worse than other glosses, and I like the formulation better. (I find it’s hard to find nice, natural glosses that don’t contain shimmer — since so many “natural” companies are “mineral” companies, they use shimmery minerals that just annoy me for lip wear.)

These aren’t any real miracle, but I do like them quite a bit. And since I tend to accidentally ingest an awful lot of lip product when I wear it, I like that these are quite natural and non-skeevy ingredient-wise.

I’ll probably try some of the Silk Naturals glosses that Kris recommended, when I want a more pigmented look… but for now I’m happy with these two tubes in my purse!

In the spirit of doing some more long-awaited 100% Pure reviews, here are my first impressions on their Fruit Pigmented Cheek and Lip Tints (in Sugar Plum).

Personally, I’m not much of a lipstick girl, so this didn’t do much for me in that arena. And oddly enough, the color looks totally weird on my lips — way more coral, and opaque enough to look weird but sheer enough to not quite pull off a lipstick-like look. For whatever reason, it just didn’t do it for me in that context, but I like it as a blush stick.

I only got this color for cheek use because at the time, it was the only shade on the 100% Pure website that wasn’t shimmery. (I already got hooked on Too Faced Pink Leopard Bronzer for my shimmery blush.) They sell more colors on QVC that aren’t shimmery, but they only sell them in trios, and I didn’t want to buy three. (Plus, they only had certain items on QVC and certain other ones on 100% Pure — still so frustrating! — and 100% Pure had more things I wanted, plus a free shipping minimum.)

I got lucky in the shade I picked, because it’s just like my natural flush color. I wouldn’t say it’s similar to Benetint on everyone, necessarily, but the end result looks the same for me, and this stuff is easier to apply. However, I do find that it goes on best if your skin is freshly moisturized, and I sometimes find that I like to blot with a tissue after applying it. I also don’t think it has fabulous lasting power, so a bit of loose powder on top is necessary to help set it. I also sometimes use it underneath my Too Faced blush for a look that’s both flushed and shimmery.

I’m a *tiny* bit worried that the cocoa butter in it clogs my pores or makes me a bit more prone to breaking out on my cheeks. But since I’m theoretically using both Retin-A and my Clarisonic, I should be fine — I think it’s only a problem when I’m not consistent about those two items.

All in all, I like this item — it’s the most natural-looking blush I’ve ever found, and it never has any risk of looking unnatural or dry (which are my main objections to most powder blush formulations). And after I started using Retin-A, Benetint had a weird way of sticking to my skin right where I first applied it — I think it clung to the dead skin cells that Retin-A left behind, so it would always look blotchy no matter how quickly or thoroughly I blended it. But that never seems to happen with my Sugar Plum stuff, so I’m a happy camper!

I kept promising I’d update some 100% Pure reviews here, and the drafts have been sitting around for ages. So I figured I’d finally get started and kick some of these out!

First up is the Peach Pigmented Brightening Concealer (in White Peach). Not surprisingly, this stuff isn’t even close to a good color match for me. And with only three shades, I’m not surprised! I do wish the company would make more shades for all of their products. I’d love to try out their new-ish tinted moisturizer and powder, but I suspect even the palest shade will be as dark and orangey-awful as this was… and most QVC reviews seem to confirm this.

But enough about the color! At first I liked the consistency of this concealer, just based on how it felt on my skin… but eventually I realized that it gave blotchy and weak coverage at best (especially for really red acne marks). This was a real bummer, since I’m concerned about mineral pigment concealers clogging my pores and making my acne worse. But alas, I’ll be sticking with my Everyday Minerals custom palette, since I haven’t yet found a better solution.

And as far as under-eye concealing goes, I found that this stuff clung to any dry/flaky skin patches that my Retin-A might leave behind, and that it was prone to settling into the fine lines I admit I’m developing there. So that was a no go, too.

However, I was surprised by how much I liked the brush-tip applicator. (I had always shied away from those, thinking they’d spread bacteria if I used them to conceal acne. But when I saw this one up close, I could tell it would be possible possible to wash the brush without contaminating the product, as long as I was careful to keep the brush facing down the whole time.) It’s still not my ideal, but I didn’t hate it, which is big for someone as picky as me!

I wound up just giving this away to someone on Makeup Alley. I see from QVC that they seem to have switched to a wand-tipped applicator — fair enough, but the important changes need to be the formulation, not the packaging!

Ages ago, I received a swap on Makeup Alley for an Ojon conditioner. I remember using the conditioner, adoring its rich sweet/spicy scent, and being absolutely amazed at how it left my hair. However, since I was a) reluctant to pay Ojon’s high prices and b) already committed to my Redken AllSoft duo, I never really pursued the Ojon thing further. (I left it as a wishlist item on Makeup Alley, but no dice.)

I finally caved and decided to order the trial-sized versions of their Ultra Hydrating Shampoo and Conditioner with my last Sephora order. I could’ve sworn that the sample I tried ages ago was a brown-tan color, but this time around the conditioner was bright yellow. And I swear, it just doesn’t feel like the same product.

The same fabulous smell is there, but my locks are left kind of dry and unhappy with this stuff. And the shampoo is frustrating — it feels fairly drying and not all that moisturizing/frizz reducing, yet it has a really weak lather and I have to use it twice to even get my scalp clean after a mere two days of unwash. I even tried doubling this duo with Ojon serum and my standard L’Oréal leave-in conditioner (that’s meant for African-American hair, it’s so rich!) but it STILL left me feeling parched.

The verdict? No way am I spending Ojon-high dollars on haircare. Many a hairstylist has pooh-pooed my addiction to Redken AllSoft, but nothing has EVER made my hair look, feel or behave as well as that stuff. At some point, I hope I learn to just quit experimenting with other options… but until then, at least I’ve gotten smart enough to stick to the travel size options when I deviate, so I don’t go TOTALLY broke!