Consumption

Voluspa's Malayan Coco Roll-On Perfume Oil

I really, really love using oils rather than alcohol-based perfumes.  This affair began in 2003, when I bought a random bottle of perfume oil from a hippie at the Portland Market, and discovered that what I'd really purchased was a couple ounces of spanish fly.  I was like the reverse Pepé Le Pew - people would actually follow me down the street to ask what I was wearing.  Strangers on the subway sniffed my neck.  And it led to me drunkenly and disgustedly dismissing a date at the Hub when he couldn't stop telling me how good I smelled.

"I know," Whiskey Janie replied instead of a polite "Thank you."

I mean, I DID know.  I could smell me.

"You don't understand," he said, eyes wild, practically drooling. "You smell REALLY, REALLY good." 

"Yeah, I know."

"No, I mean, so, soooooo good. It's amazing. I've never smelled anything like you." 

Cue bored eye roll and stool swivel - when tipsy, I was completely unsympathetic to the power this oil stuff wielded over others.

In the sober light of day, however, imagine my disappointment to find that before I could place an order for a lifetime supply, the hippie stand was out of business.  I horded that oil for another year, using sparingly, but I couldn't sit on it.  The world needed to smell it, and then I was out.  It still makes me sad to think of all the stuff left unconquered by the strategic application of that glorious oil.  What might have been.

Anyway,having grown attached to how close the scent clings with oil, I now keep my eyes peeled for them. Last Saturday before Miami lost to FSU, I felt sure of my impending doom and decided to conquer the pain by numbing my entire being with a xanax and 90-minute deep tissue massage at a nearby spa.  To my delight, they carry a line of candles and smelly things called Voluspa, and Voluspa makes some very pretty little oil-based roll-ons just PERFECTLY sized for a clutch.  They packaging caught my eye, and from a practical standpoint the bottle's screw-top is made well enough not to pop off and coat the contents of your purse in an aromatic slime you will never get rid off (this is key).  And then I smelled the Malayan Coco scent, and fell in love for real. 

Coconut's tough.  There's a verrrry fine line between smelling like cheap sunscreen and smelling like the promise of summer and everything good and tropical and lovely and moon-kissed. This Malayan Coco was musky enough to pull off the former thanks to notes of sandalwood and lemony hinoki wood, and I was sold.  It's not my beloved hippie oil, but it's a very nice runner-up.

$24ish | Voluspa

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.

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

 

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.

Smashbox Cream Eyeliner

Last week I got a MacBook Pro, and mentioned that this week I’d write about it for my post. Look at that, I just did. I’m ecstatic, let’s move on.

On the first day of my Intro to Drawing class my professor made us draw straight lines freehand for the entire class period. As she looked over my shoulder she remarked “well, it’s all uphill from here for you, isn’t it?” I somehow made it out of art school without being able to draw a straight line on a page.

Imagine, then, my difficulty with the base of my eyelashes. My eyes are nicely shaped, but they are a little small and squinty for my taste. From a distance, without eyeliner and mascara, I look like pair of lips on a blank face. I am a master at the application of mascara, but I have been searching for an eyeliner I couldn’t screw up since I was fifteen. For a long time I went with a subtle brown, smudged all to hell to conceal my inability to apply it correctly. Later, envious of my friend Heidi’s perfect, thin black lines with the slight cat-eye flick at the corners that made her look demure but saucy, I picked up some liquid black. Determined that practice makes perfect, I went around looking like Amy Winehouse for longer than I should have. She, at least, has the excuse of crack addiction.

Long story short, I recently found Smashbox, a cosmetics company that makes many fine products and the most amazing eyeliner I have ever used. It’s a cream, which would normally scare the bejeezus out of someone with my oily skin. It’s all about the brush, wide and flat. Load it up with a touch of your favorite color and (to use Smashbox’s terminology) “walk” it across the base of your lashes. Flawless! You can smudge it or let it set in a line. Defying all makeup logic it stays! The flat little brush makes it simple to do the little corner flick I’ve sought in vain all this time. I can do both eyes in seconds.

It’s pricey, sure, but I’ll be using the same $20 brush as long as they keep making this stuff (and they’d better), and I can’t see running through this generous pot anytime soon. For the commitment wary, they even make tiny sampler palettes. I can have my everyday brown and bust out the sparkly green when the mood is right. Worth absolutely every penny.

Smashbox Cream Eyeliner
Smashbox Cream Eyeliner Brush #9

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow/ Hid in this silent, dull retreat

     Take a minute and imagine the scents of your youthful summers. If you're anything like me, you just smelled freshly mown grass, chlorine, grape popsicles, the salty tears of furious tantrums, entitlement, and honeysuckle. Unfortunately, cosmetic companies have yet to catch up to my dreams of lightly misting myself with the salty tears of furious tantrums; however, Boss Lady has made my fantasies of smelling exactly like a honeysuckle plant into delectable reality.

 

     Scientific fact: honeysuckle contains nepetalactone, otherwise known as the primary ingredient of catnip. Unscientific fact: catnips makes cats go donkey-ass crazy in a frenzy of rubbing, licking, and general sluttery. I bet you didn't know that honeysuckle has this exact same effect on boys...BUT IT DOES. The sweet nectar is simultaneously nostalgic and alluring, the best possible combination for making someone want to take their pants off. "This reminds me of the happy times I had before I went to law school and watched a lot of anime...[joyous tear]...I'M LIKE A HUMMINGBIRD [nosedive into cleavage]".

     As if this weren't incentive enough, the honeysuckle scent of Boss Lady is light and subtle enough to be tantalizing without being completely overpowering. It's feminine and summery. Bottom line: it just plain makes me happy.

     You can find Boss Lady at eclectic locations such as Earth to the Old City in Knoxville, or you can buy it online (I recommend just googling to find the provider of your choice). The honeysuckle scent is available in several incarnations, but the Spray is by far the best purchase; the cream is just too oily, whilst the spray is very light.

     Warning: Product may cause frequent vicious hummingbird attacks.