Consumption

Crate & Barrel BAD IDEA GLASSES

Crate & Barrel sells something called "Dizzy Cocktail glasses".  Somehow, these are not them:

I bought these because they were $4 each, I had broken all six of my last rocks glasses in an unfortunate fire escape incident, and I thought they'd be good for a laugh.  As you can see, the bottoms are rounded, and when placed on a flat surface, they roll around.  This is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE IDEA.  Perhaps this is why they've been discontinued from C&B's website.  I'm hanging onto them, though, out of a kind of horrified fascination.

Opposite of success story #2:  I also picked up a few of these, thinking from the eensy picture that they kind of had a Mason jar aesthetic to them.  I missed the part where they cleverly have citrus-related words inscribed on them in Italian, so it's really more of a Euro-jackhole vibe.  These were promptly returned. 

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day

I'm a pretty big fan of the environment but these days I'm generally wary of any product that claims to be green. I think people so desperately want to feel good about themselves without actually doing any work that we've come to the point where there is bottled water that claims to be greener than other brands. It's WATER in a DISPOSABLE BOTTLE, ain't nothing green about it folks. So while Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day products are purported to be green, I don't know the science, and I don't care to. To me the fact that they may or may not be better for the environment snoozes in the back seat of a Hummer driven by Works Great that is zooming down the Smells Amazing highway. I discovered this stuff while housesitting for a particularly neat freaky friend. I must have scrubbed his sink every day during the two weeks I was there just because I wanted to use the surface scrub that much. It's like Comet without the Listerine and vomit references. I love love love the Lemon Verbena, but the other scents are awesome too. I'm currently doing laundry with the Lavender and it induces the happy just as effectively.

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day

LUSH Bath Bombs

We're back to the LUSH well already, but I can't go any longer without talking about their most glorious offering, the Bath Bomb. 

While studying abroad a few years ago, I took a nasty fall and sliced my leg open deep enough to need oodles of stitches--and couldn't get the bandages wet for six weeks.  SIX.  WEEKS.  After some horrifying experiments with plastic wrap and trying to shower with one foot in the awesome claw tub in our flat, I resorted to baths. 

Everything LUSH sells is fantastic, but these little darlings are simply genius.  (Pictured at left:  The Big Blue.)  They're packed full of herbs, dried flowers, extracts, and occasionally glitter (watch out for that--sometimes it's buried in the middle and it's ground very fine and you won't notice your lovely sheen until your bedmate lifts a shimmering gold limb in disgust and stalks from the room to go rinse off). 

Instructions:  Drop one (1) bomb in a full tub of water and observe as it fizzes and shoots around and makes bubbles and smells divine and try very hard not to clap like a seven-year-old.

[Warning:  No matter how much fun it looks like, do not climb into the tub until the fizzing is finished.  Any glee you may feel at the sensation of the bubbles whisking around your toes will be overshadowed by the fear that the ball of bicarbonate will go zooming straight into your nethers.]

They'll run you $5-8ish depending on how big they are and what's in them.  You can get them via the website, but you're better off finding one of their stores and sniffing through the bins yourself.  And blowing your entire paycheck on bath toys for grown-ass women.

I, Too, Sing ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBAW

I've gone extremely girly for the last two weeks, and that's fine. I am in fact a female, and therefore enjoy all the privileges of dousing myself in liquid honeysuckle and behaving like Belle Watling on a bender. However, the siren song of Footbaw is beginning to echo in my ears, and it must be obeyed.

Although Brett Favre is giving his all for ruining the preseason today, there is a ray of hope. A ray with piercing cornflower eyes, tumbling locks of purest gold, and a demented, godless smile on his Viking face. A ray named Jeremy Shockey.

Shockey (28; I had no idea! He's timeless) is a four-time Pro Bowler and is the sole reason the New York Giants made it to the playoffs. His off-field activities include drinking, whoring, Americaning (it's a word! He went to the U, BABY!), and poking Tom Coughlin with a stick until he cries. He used to shoot his older friends with a BB gun to make them pay attention to him (FACT!). Under normal circumstances, the utilization of a gay slur would make my eyes swell with furious tears; when Shockey calls Bill Parcells a homo, the tears are of unmitigated adoration. Does this make me a bad person? Yes. Do I care? No. I AM WOMAN.

The point of all this is to say that Jeremy Shockey--volatile, mentally unbalanced, gleefully anarchic Jeremy Shockey--has been traded to the New Orleans Saints. He is now playing football in the most corrupt city in the world, where he can rampage through the French Quarter with hand grenades and hurricanes in his clenched fists, demanding that every woman he sees immediately disrobes before him, snorting uncontrollably while he shovels fried dough into his gaping maw. If you can think of a better scenario for the National Football League or humanity, please let me know immediately.

Buy this jersey, belt it, and wear it with some gold lame underwear. Then take a casual stroll through the Quarter at three in the morning. If you feel you must, spritz yourself lightly with HGH and tiger musk. The pieces should fall into place from there.

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE WHERE'S MY DRINK

Custom Vans Slip-Ons

I know what you're thinking. Well, yeah, technically, these are kinda hideous. But let's get this straight: college football season begins in three weeks, a girl needs to sport her colors, and just anyone can buy some college-specific Nike IDs (those are for banner ad-susceptible commoners; also, Nike offers a pink version of your college logo for girls which is just insulting and I refuse to support that as well as pink hammers and screwdrivers and toolboxes).  These Vans slip-ons are both old school and completely customizable, thereby allowing you such whimsy as adding a camo heel counter to remind everyone looking at your ass that you're a soldier reporting for duty here and not to be trifled with - unless it's half time and I'm in the beer line, in which case: [bats eyelashes].  Are they made for people born deformed and archless?  Yes.  Will you have to cut a slit in the elastic gore just to get them on?  Yes. Will you get a weird tan line because the vamp comes up high?  Yes, because your team plays in a stadium approximately 300 yards from the sun.  Are these minor obstacles you should ignore in favor of looking like a street-wise sexpot while cheering your boys this fall like a champ?  Absolutely, and you're just 3-5 weeks away.

Vans | $50

Sensual Amber by Bath and Body Works

I blame strippers.

I should elaborate, yeah? I enjoy the occasional outing to the strip club (strictly sociological curiosity of course), but the law in Tennessee strictly dictates there be no fun actually had in such establishments (hint: no booze). So when I found out that a) my future husband had never experienced the wonder of strange women disrobing to terrible music and b) there is a place near Atlanta that features both strange men and women disrobing to terrible music, I knew there was a road trip in our near future. A friend tipped me off to a Priceline trick that reliably yielded a luxury suite downtown at a ridiculously low price and it was, as the kids say, on.

I usually find myself in the sliver-of-dial-soap-type establishment when sojourning at hotels. This one, however, had an adorable little set of Bath and Body Works aromatherapy products in their shockingly delicious Orange Ginger scent. It served as a refreshing antithesis to that “strip club smell” (Equate baby oil, smoke, drugstore cologne, desperation) and I decided it might be time to lift my personal ban on Bath and Body Works that had been in place since what I like to call the “Sun-ripened Raspberry Incident” (more commonly known as ages 11-13). Unlike some of our OTHER contributors, my hair is so lame that pretty much all I can do is dye it intense colors and make it smell nice so I went in for a bottle of the shampoo. They were giving away a lotion with purchase so I hastily grabbed the one with the fewest flowers or fruits on the label. It smelled pretty okay in the bottle and I thought I could put it in my locker in the studio or something.

Then, I put it on.

This stuff was apparently created for my body chemistry because WOW. Every single person I walked by commented that I smelled amazing. I kept bringing my arm to my nose, inhaling deeply and feeling like I’d just done something incredibly naughty. Soon I owned the handsoap, the creamy bodywash, the shower gel, the body cream, the glittery lotion and body spray, and the regular body spray. I acquired the body scrub this afternoon. Somehow there are still several products I do not own but I’m working to correct this.

How to describe the smell? The packaging says Pink Lotus petals enveloped by a golden piece of precious amber. Seductive. Rich. Beautiful. Whatevs, I like to think of it as the way a strip club would smell if it were in heaven by way of Marrakesh. Unfortunately during my trip to the B&BW today the salesclerk noted that if I liked Sensual Amber I should try their new scent, Black Amethyst, so I dabbed on some lotion. I have been smelling my hands for the last few hours and I have to say, there may be some competition here.....

Bath and Body Works Sensual Amber $3.50-$18.50 Currently buy 1 get one 50% off.

The Company Store's Primaloft Comforters

I sleep cold, by choice.  Back home I was ill-rested all summer, every summer, because it was too hot to get under the covers.  In Los Angeles, this involves a year-round  ritual of jacking the AC down to 65 right before bed and burrowing into a nest of pillows and blankets like a very pretty and accomplished desert rodent.  Yet even the sturdiest of air conditioners doesn't have a prayer of matching the chilly snap of a winter we never see this far south. 

Enter Primaloft.

I love love LOVE The Company Store.   Everything's all clean lines and classically pretty, and their stuff lasts forever.  I discovered their Primaloft comforters my last year in Knoxville when I was living in a hundred year old house with no heat or air conditioning and windows that refused to shut.  Primaloft is a down alternative found in camping gear, and is (warning: science) the least gross down alternative in the world, ever.  It doesn't form hard little balls inside the blanket or disintegrate into dust when washed, it won't make you sneeze, and best of all for we warm-weather nesters--it's completely breathable. 

These comforters are huge and soft and fluffy to such a degree that you'll be tempted to just wander around the house all day with it wrapped around you like a toddler with a security blanket.  You can wash them in your own machine (ever try hauling your down blankets to the clearners?).  They have four different weight classes available depending on your warmth needs.  Mine's a medium, and I can rest quite snuggily under it in Southern California, in July, for an entire night without breaking a sweat. 

Summation:  If you're going to buy a comforter, buy it from The Company Store.  And if you're going to buy one from The Company Store, do it now, because their famous Comforter Sale is upon us.  During the sale you can pick one up for $100-200, which is a total steal.  Sleep tight!

Like a margarita. But for your face.

Normally when I mix vodka, lime, coconut, avocado, seaweed, and sea salt, it means I'm at Jay's beach house, watching The Birdcage and weeping while wrapped in a shark towel and shoveling clam dip down my gullet. When LUSH mixes those things, they come up with a product that achieves a similar catharsis without the hangover: Ocean Salt Facial Scrub. For those of us whose skin is so delicate and fair that it makes Scarlett O'Hara look like a leathery peasant, it can be difficult to find a cleanser that doesn't irritate and inflame. This is that cleanser.

The salt and vodka extracts exfoliate without grating your face like delicious parmesan, and the violet and avocado leave you feeling moisturized, not oily. The ingredients revitalize your face without stinging. Also, it smells like happiness (by which I mean it smells like the ocean if the ocean were made of vodka). It's a little on the pricey side ($18.55 for a 4.2 oz tub), but it lasts; you use less than a teaspoonful per scrub, and I recommend using it only ever other day. Wet your face, rub it in gently and let the exfoliants work their magic. This is also brilliant on the elbows and knees, hobbit feetsies, and any other rough patches you may have. My notoriously problematic skin was soft and clear within about a week.

One note: it may smell like a margarita and look like a Sonic Slushie, but don't let it get in your mouth when you're washing; the salty taste is overpowering.

Happy Salt Funtimes

 

Icarus Lamp by Tord Boontje

The Dutch are killing it these days.  On the design front is Tord Boontje, who hit the scene with gorgeous laser-cut and brass clip-on pendant lights that looked like  gardens lit from within.  And then he came out with the Icarus light, inspired by the mythological Greek god whose homemade wings melted when, carried away by the euphoria of flight, he flew too close to the sun.  The lamp is both materially cheeky and visually romantic; made from very modern mylar, Icarus comes in a flat, laser-cut piece which one hooks into a circle to form a long, rustling wing to hang over a light bulb.  It's simple, but uncommonly beautiful when lit, with a dreamy quality that makes it a perfect for over a bed (ahem).  It's all the sexiness of a shirtless Greek dude in flight, but without all inconvenience of a terrifying death plunge into the sea and the hassle of getting all the melted wax off your floor.

Unica Home | $84

Redken/Nexxus, remixed

It's easy to slip into pathological vanity wherever your best feature's concerned.  Mine can be found bouncing atop my noggin. The only person on this planet with better hair than me is Kaitlin, and it's a mark of what a precious critter she is that I don't scalp her out of sheer envy.

I have the thickest mane in recorded human history, and it's usually running wild down to the middle of my back because I've had it cut by the same stylist since 1991 and NO ONE ELSE IS ALLOWED NEAR IT WITH ANY CUTTING IMPLEMENT and getting back to Tennessee and into her capable hands is a twice-yearly prospect at best right now.  It's not dry, coarse, or frizzy, but it's got some natural curl to it that can be tricky to handle when it's as short as it is right now, and there's so f'ing MUCH of it that I stick with intensive moisturizing products to keep the lot of it weighed down.

By the grace of Redken, I'm able to go six months between cuts without looking like a sawgrass patch from the forehead up.  It took lengthy experimentation with three of their product lines before I found a combination that worked for me--look through their fetching rainbow haircare family to find your path to follicular glory.   My stylist usually sticks with their Clear Moisture line, depending on how much damage my hair's sustained in the previous six months, which is fairly lightweight and works perfectly fine when I've got freshly trimmed layers to show off, but those layers grow out fast, and after a couple weeks I start to look like the Jesus-Lion and need something with a little more heft.

Extreme. In looking for a good general regimen, I tried this line first because the bottles are my favorite shade of blue (stay with me here, I promise it gets more science-y).  Listen, I'm the first to snort derisively at anything labeled "extreme", especially with an awkwardly placed accent on a random vowel, but they're not kidding here--I have approximately twenty-three pounds of hair on my head and this left it just drenched in moisture.  I'd go so far as to say it's a little too extreme.  If you've just spent a week at the beach and find your locks have been destroyed by wind and water and stray blobs of sunscreen, maybe stock this for emergencies, but I found using either the shampoo or the conditioner more than once a week to be too much of a good thing.

Smooth Down.  Extreme is designated for use on "damaged" hair, so I turned to the next lightest product, designed to control frizz.  This line has an alluring spicy scent--and is still too heavy for everyday use.  (Which, don't get me wrong, is the best possible problem as far as I'm concerned--any product my hair doesn't immediately soak up with no visible effect is a godsend.)  Together, this line is still a little too much for regular applications, but the shampoo has quickly become my carry-on/time-crunch product of choice--one wash and I'm out the door with no need for a separate conditioner (another first).

All Soft. Time to drop down a weight class, and with the addition of All Soft to my day I was nearly completely satisfied.  This conditioner is a thing of wonder--shiny, bouncy locks abound without going limp at the 8-hour mark.  But the scent is a little too bubblegummy for my liking. My hair hangs in my face all the time and I don't fancy smelling like children's toothpaste.

Solution?

REEEEEEMIXXXXXXX (ix...ix....ix....)

After several months of tweaking, I arrived at a formula that sounds unnecessarily complicated but leaves me with glorious tresses and makes grown heterosexual men sniff the air around my head and excuse their behavior by saying, "I'm sorry, but did you wash your hair four minutes ago, because it smells amazing."*  The solution: Little dabs of All Soft conditioner every day just on the ends, and alternating the Smooth Down shampoo with another national treasure of hair care, Therappe from Nexxus (awkwardly unpronounceable name, delicious coconut aroma).   If I'm fresh from the beach and need some extra moisture, it's the Therappe shampoo (smells like sunscreen!) plus the hardcore Smooth Down conditioner.   I'm fully aware this requires having four bottles of something on hand at all times, but consider your very green lawn--exquisite natural loveliness of this magnitude doesn't just look after itself.  It takes devotion and proper tools, and look! I found them for you!  You're welcome, internet.

[All these are somehow occasionally available at Target, but the selection's hit or miss, and weirdly expensive.  I've been buying it in liter bottles from a hair salon supply store.  They'll run you from $20-$25 each, but each bottle will last several months.]

*True story.