friday finds xii

this month is finally over. i have just never seen eye-to-eye with february. it's the worst.

but it's friday. and march is almost here.  and everything you see here is under $50. actually it's all under $35 today. just celebrate the end of this month.

bottle opener | shirt | planters | wipes | matches | dress

i love those wipes btw. i bought them as something to bring in my hospital bag when i had jake and ended up loving them so much they're a daily thing for me now. they eat waterproof mascara for breakfast. or maybe dinner since i use them at the end of the day.

anyways, here's to a great weekend.

bad luck

i seem to have bad luck with beauty products. every once in a while, i find something that i love, something that just really works for me and i keep buying it.

in the image above are my favorite eyebrow pencil, leave-in conditioner and mascara. i've written about the mascara before. that's been hard to find for about five years now. for a while, after they stopped selling it in stores, i was buying it on ebay. thankfully now, it's back on amazon at its normal price. it used to be on there for about forty bucks. crazy.

then, my leave-in conditioner became impossible to find in stores. no cvs, target or even wal-mart had it. and i still never see it there. it's online but again--was i the only person buying it? why did this one product out of their line get removed from the shelves?

my latest bad luck is with my eyebrow pencil. i loved maybelline's light to dark blonde shade. all of a sudden, i couldn't find it. this crazy lady must have went to 12 cvs stores to try to find it. they still make every other color but seemed to have stopped producing this one altogether. it's on amazon at double the price and on ebay too. four for $43.99 suckers!

i wouldn't care if they stopped making my eyeshadow or some other product i'm not really attached to, but these were my go-to buys. 

bleh. oh well. i'll continue to stock up online while they'll still let me.

beauty faves

i've never been a huge make up person. 

i mean, i love trying new products, but you're not going to find 57 different eye shadows on my vanity.

but there are few products that i really love and have consistently bought over the years that i wanted to share. 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

eye makeup remover: i've been using this brand since high school. it's the only remover that truly does what it's supposed to do. there's no oily residue left behind and you can bet every last drop of even the toughest of mascara comes off with this stuff. my tip: thoroughly soak two cotton rounds with this stuff and gently press on your eye for at least 60 seconds. 

mascara: i've mentioned this mascara many times before, but, much like the remover, it's a staple for me and has been since college. there's not another mascara out there that works like this one does. it makes my thin blonde lashes pop all day long. two coats always, please.

clarisonic: yes yes yes. i don't think i need to say too much about this little gem since so many people own one and can attest to its smoothing power already. but i love mine. 

liner: i like a solid, thick (but not too thick) dark black line. this one stays on all day too. and even though the felt tip takes a bit of practice, once you figure it out, you'll love it too. 

dry shampoo: i hate the process of washing my hair every day. mostly because blow drying it all the time gets old fast. but i hate the feel and look of unclean hair and have loved having my handy dry shampoo to make things feel fresh again. 

_ _ _

anything you can't live without?

skin care

 i've never had awesome skin. it's not bad, but it's not the best either.

like most people, i've tried a lot of things over the years: face washes, creams, masks.

and not once have i ever truly noticed a difference. i figured that's the way it was gonna be with skin products. they never really made my skin worse, but it's not like i ever looked in the mirror and saw a visible improvement.

_ _ _

last year, i was introduced to one love organics and josie maran products, and i was prepared to be underwhelmed. another run-of-the-mill product that really doesn't do anything except rid me of the guilt i feel for NOT washing my face.

but let me tell you: these work. and almost immediately.

it's taken me a long time to want to write a review of these products. i wanted to make sure it wasn't just a fluke. a happy accident of a few breakout-free days combined with still being in the honeymoon phase with a new product. 

but nope.

one year later and they're still awesome.

i had somewhat uneven skin on my forehead (got that, internet?). nothing too noticeable, but i was always a little self-conscious about it. and i'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that this was how my skin was going to be, that this was the best i could do, dammit.

but - i bullshit you not - my skin cleared up within two days of using the argan oil. two days! it was all i could do to keep myself from constantly stroking my skin like a weirdo. so freaking smooth.

i was also quite skeptical of putting oil on my already somewhat oily skin, but i was a fool for worrying about that. those oils have changed my whole perspective on skincare. i'll never go back.

_ _ _

below are some of my favorite products from these two fine retailers. i don't use them all on a daily basis, but that josie maran cleansing oil and the one love organics skin savior have made it to the once-a-day rotation. and the fact that the skin savior smells eerily similar to an orange julius is a fun touch.

the other products shown here are amazing too. and you can use the argan oil as a flyaway hair smoother and cuticle oil. i love a hard-working product, don't you?

1 | 2 | 3

1 | 2 

and it's funny: i never really considered using organic products on my skin, but now i see no reason to go back. who needs all those chemicals anyways? it's nice to be able to look at the ingredient list and actually understand what's in there.

if you're not ready to commit to buying the full-sized versions of these products, i don't blame you. i wasn't either. i bought this little trial/travel pack at first, just to make sure it was worth it.

still not convinced? 

check out the reader feedback underneath the product description. here's what people are saying about the argan cleansing oil. it's overwhelmingly positive.

_ _ _

i'm not really big on product reviews or glowing recommendations. but this one was too good to keep to myself. it's given me the best skin of my life. and that's sayin something.

highest bidder

i have a sad story to share with you guys today.

my all-time go-to, #1 seed mascara hasn't been sold in the united states. for years.

let's back up a bit. i'm somewhat of a crazy lady when it comes to mascara. every once in a while, you come across the "if you could only use one beauty product for the rest of your life" question in a magazine or as a tired poll online somewhere. for me, the answer is only and always mascara. loads of it.

my lashes are long. but they're very light blonde. and thin. and straight.

kinda the opposite of what you want in lashes, right? throughout my teens and into my early 20s, i was entrenched in The Ultimate Mascara Quest. i probably tried twenty tubes. drugstore, department store, sephora, i went through them all.

and then it happened. max factor 2000 calorie aqua lash in rich black. bam.


i don't remember exactly when i started my now decade-long love affair with this product. but once i found it, none of the other brands existed. this waterproof mascara was cheap ($5.99!), could stand up to even the steamiest humidity, and it went on my lashes like it was built for multiple coats. 


and lord knows, i love my multiple coats.

 other mascaras can claim some of those things too, but max did all of that without ever looking scary. even after three coats, my eyelashes still looked like they were made of hair. not some clumpy plastic fibers attached to my eye. i'm picky about my lashes and i have no time for this.

now, my memory is hazy here, but some time around 2005, the only place i could find my precious was at wal-mart. fine. so out to the suburbs i went, buying four or five tubes at a time. then wal-mart stopped carrying it. so off i went to the internet. the internet has everything, right?

and they did. drugstore.com was my dealer. and we had a great relationship while it lasted. until they stopped carrying it too. i started hearing all these scary rumors that max factor would no longer be sold in the u.s. at all. ever. 

what?

i tried to live in denial. "that won't happen," i convinced myself. but it did. and it became harder and harder to find. i even bought some imposters on amazon once. that was fun. but now, it's come to this:

i'm the person buying their mascara from some guy in the vale of glamorgan (could that sound more british btw?) and i'll continue to do so until davids7566 runs out of his secret stash. 

please tell me you stocked up, sir.

my lashes will thank you.