L de Lolita Lempicka

I've decided to try something new this week. I'm going to try to stick to just one fragrance for the entire week. As you can probably tell from past posts, I love perfume and have a lot to choose from. I rarely wear the same scent two days in a row and frequently change scents between morning and evening depending on the longevity of the scent. I have no desire to go back to my days of being a one scent girl. But I thought it might be interesting to see how long I can stick to one scent before getting itchy for a change.

I chose L de Lolita Lempicka for the experiment. I adore this scent. An ideal scent for fall. The smooth creamy cinnamon is so unique. Fragrantica lists the notes as: Top notes are bitter orange and bergamot; middle notes are immortelle, cinnamon and musk; base notes are tonka bean, vanilla and sandalwood. I mostly get cinnamon, musk and vanilla. It is perfect for any time of day. Goes well for work or casual. It doesn't go weird if the day turns hot. It is comforting and soothing when you get a wiff of it throughout the day. Definitely a great scarf scent. All in all, it's one pretty versatile perfume that I tend to overlook.

The bottle, while quite lovely, belies the contents. One would think with an aqua colored, heart-shaped bottle adorned with netting shells and starfish that the scent would be aquatic or at the very least summery. This is not at all the case.

I will be sure to report back how I make out with sticking to one perfume.

Review of Glade Expressions

My most recent BzzAgent campaign was for the Glade Expressions line. For this campaign I was supplied with coupons to get the products for free rather than receiving actual samples. This proved a bit of a problem because I couldn't find the products at the store where I normally shop. Eventually I did find the fragrance mist at another store and picked up the Cotton & Italian Mandarin scent (the store only had 2 scents to choose from!)

The product is a little different than other room sprays I've tried. There is an outer sleeve that covers the canister of spray. You twist off the bottom of the sleeve to change the spray cans out. To dispense the spray, you squeeze the bottle rather than push a button on top.

The sleeve helps to camouflage the room spray and has a nice sleek appearance. I don't tend to leave room spray sitting around so this has never really been an issue for me. The sleeve and bottom cap are all plastic. I think this might be helpful if you are storing your spray in a bathroom, near a kitchen sink, or other damp area where a normal metal bottle could possible leave a rust ring.

It is pretty easy to change out the spray can. Just untwist the bottom, tap the sleeve on the table to release the can and pop in a new one.

The scent is very nice. I get mostly the cotton/linen/fresh laundry type scent, almost no citrus as the name would imply. It's not overly strong (ie: headache inducing). The mist did a fair job of removing cooking odors. It does a wonderful job of just generally freshening up the air when the house is closed up. The scent dissipates within an hour or so. (If I want long lasting scent I go for candles or tart warmers).

The only disappointment I had with the actual product was the squeeze to spray function. I feel you have to squeeze rather firmly and that is a bit uncomfortable for me. Someone with arthritis or a weak grip would not like this packaging.

I wish the stores where I shop would have had the scent diffusers as I would have liked to try that for the basement for a longer lasting freshening. I would also like to find some of the other scents. Doesn't Fuji Apple and Cardamom Spice sound wonderful for fall? If you like using fragrance products in your home, I think this would be a line worth checking out.

2012 Scents of Summer

Summer is my least favorite season. I hate being hot and sticky. I hate the clothes (give me a cozy sweater and jeans any day!) I hate being blinded by the sun every time I step out the door. I'm also not a huge fan of warm weather perfume. It seems I'm on a constant hunt to find a good summer scent. Cool weather is easy. My heavy vanilla/musky/chocolate scents scream cold weather. But once it gets hot, they feel cloying and can literally choke me. This year, I think I found some pretty good warm weather scents. Here are the 10 I reached for most often this summer, in no particular order.

Burberry Weekend - Quite possibly my favorite summer scent. Sweet hyacinth flower mixed with peach. Perfectly blended, super long lasting.

Clean Warm Cotton - Ok, I'm not a super huge fan of "fresh laundry" scents, which is exactly what this is. But, on a super hot day, there is something comforting in it. I reach for this one when we go walking. It's a great pick me up.

Laugh Often by Reese Witherspoon- Lemon ice tea in a bottle. Love this one for work.

Lilly Pulitzer Squeeze - Got this one super cheap at Perfumania over the summer. It's a sweet citrus. Very well balanced and refreshing. Plus it is light so you can spray a good dose of it and not offend anyone.

Body Shop White Musk Libertine - A musk that works great in warm weather. This is a white musk so it's bright and light. There is some rose in this one making it feel nicely feminine.

Jennifer Aniston - I only bought a rollerball of this last year because I thought it would be too beachy. I was wrong. It is lovely. A little reminiscent of Burberry Weekend, but lighter. White floral scent. Very girly.

Avon FreeO2 -  This one was a sleeper in the Avon book this year. I think I only saw it twice, once at full price and then on clearance a few weeks later. The bottle is dead ugly (Avon could really step up their game with their bottles). The scent is honeysuckle and tea. It is light but short lived.

Tommy Girl - Perfumes: The A-Z Guide gives this one 5 stars and I totally agree. This one gives Weekend a run for it's money for my favorite summer scent. This is a beautiful rosey perfume. However, I think Tommy Girl will work year round.  

DKNY Golden Delicious - This is the one I reach for when I want a more serious, sophisticated scent. Works very well for work. Fruity and woody. The only drawback is the horrible sprayer. The bottle design is just awful. It's pretty and does look vaguely like an apple, but you can't aim the darn thing. I end up spraying perfume everywhere but on me!



Tea Rose (The Perfumers Workshop) - I had to include this one. It is one of the cheapest perfumes I own. I think you can get a big bottle for under $15. But it is the absolute best true rose perfume I have ever smelled. It is exactly like smelling a good, fresh garden rose bush. It is linear and one dimensional and perfect. I love it as a perfume, as a pillow spray, as a room spray.

Now that cooler temps are starting to creep in, I wanted to get this list up so I don't forget for next year! Most of these won't seem much love the next few months since I'm itching to get back to cozy scents.

Cover Girl & Olay Tone Rehab Foundation & Powder

A few weeks ago I received a Cover Girl & Olay Tone Rehab foundation and a matching pressed powder compact as part of a Bzzz Agent campaign.

The foundation I received is color 125 Buff Beige and the powder is 320 fair/light. Although I tend to be rather pale complected, I have a bit of a tan from walking every evening this summer. The Buff Beige color was a pretty perfect match for me. The foundation is a combination skin serum and foundation. I found that I do not need to use moisturizer before applying the foundation. This is normally unheard of for my very dry skin. The foundation has silicones which makes it easy to apply. The finish is a bit dewy without powder. I prefer a slightly more matte finish. I find the foundation does indeed even out my skin tone quite well and does not look like a mask or feel heavy. The coverage is light but buildable if necessary. I do not see any lightening or evening of skin tone when the foundation is removed. In other words, its a fine foundation but I wouldn't consider it to have any long term effects. The foundation does stay true for me for the whole day in my indoor work environment. I did not notice any caking, fading or settling throughout the day. I do prefer my other foundations (Avon Ideal Flawless or Lancome Teint Miracle) to this one. However, I consider this to be a fine choice of a drugstore foundation. I will certainly finish the bottle I have.

I was less impressed with the powder. I found it settled in my lines and wrinkles if not carefully applied. The "puff" that comes with it is useless. I threw it away immediately and preferred applying with a fluffy powder brush. I have dry skin so do not use a lot of powder normally. I like MAC Mineralized Skinfinish for its super fine light feel. This powder is heavy in comparison. It is serviceable to set the foundation but I would not repurchase it.

Galaxy Nails

 It's Labor Day and I had a little extra time to do a fancy manicure today. This style is called galaxy nails or sometimes I see nebula nails. The process is really quite easy and only takes a little longer than a regular manicure to complete. I'm not doing a tutorial or process shots. Just search galaxy nails on You Tube and you'll find a plethora of great tutorials.

I started with a dark blue for the base and sponged on pink, metallic green, pale aqua blue and lined with black and silver. On top is a chunky silver glitter polish. It's the glitter polish that pulls the look together and makes it look like you've got stars on your nails. Awesome and easy.

Sweet Delicious Madness and The Many Mysterious Deaths of Silvio Berlusconi

Despite having 2 e-readers, an iPod, and about 3 dozen book books on my shelf, I've only managed to read 2 books this summer. Pitiful! I'm so ashamed of myself not even reading enough to log an entry in the library's summer reading program (you need 3 for each ticket). There are reasons/excuses, of course, but truth is I really wish I could carve out more time for reading because I truly do love a good book. So anyway, excuses aside, I did just finish a quite good book and thought I'd offer a little review.



I picked up Sweet Delicious Madness when it was a freebie for Kindle. This indie book tells the story of Lily, an American in Italy who is working to support her young twin boys while trying to get a divorce from her philandering husband. Lily seems a bit of a ditz to me, but a very likeable ditz. Her estranged husband's aunt lands here a job as a housekeeper at the vacation home of a famous Hollywood actor where she is in charge of staff. The story revolves around a small cast of somewhat eccentric characters, I liked that there weren't so many characters that you can't keep them all straight. The plot lines are easy to follow as well making for a very enjoyable read. There's a little romance, a little mystery, a little escapism to the lovely country of Italy. Recommended for a light, fast read. I believe there will be/is a sequel but I don't see it on Amazon just yet.

Bathing Garden wax melts

Ever since I bought a Scentsy plug in last year, I've been loving wax melts. I've tried several different brands, some good some not so good. I've been wanting to do reviews but just haven't gotten around to it. So when my first order came from Bathing Garden this week I decided I'm going to get back in the swing of things and make a haul post.

Here's the goodies I got. The bottom row has the melts I ordered. I also ordered the large scrub in the top row. The other two and the little scrub were freebies. 3 freebies!! How cool is that!! The scents are:
Top row, left to right: Bitten, Honeysuckle Hollow, Lavender Serenity scrub and Vintage Circus scrub
Bottom row, left to right: Celtic Moonspice, Pink Sugar Bomshell, Marie Antoinette's Boudoir, London Mist and Beautiful Zen

These melts are the classic six cube clamshell. All the melts have some form of decoration...glitter, crystals, wax imbeds, etc. The decoration is kind of cut I guess, but totally unnecessary from my perspective. I'm just looking for a great scent. And these seem to deliver. They all smell great in the package. I broke off a cube of Bitten to melt in my downstairs bathroom Scentsy plug in. Within an hour or two the scent filled the downstairs. Granted, our house is small, but most melts don't have that kind of throw for me. Amazingly, not only did it scent my downstairs, but when I got up in the middle of the night, I could detect the scent UPSTAIRS as well! Incredible!! I will be thrilled to death if all her scents have this kind of projection.

Bathing Garden can be found on Etsy. If you'd like to hear more rave reviews just do a search on You Tube and you'll find a plethora of them. So far, I'm giving them a thumbs up!

Bzz Agent reviews

I love free samples. Well, I love samples in general, but free ones are the best. A little while back I heard about a program that provides sample products for people to try in exchange for the individual reviewing and spreading the word about the product. It sounded pretty easy and kind of fun so I signed up. The program is called Bzz Agent and is at www.bzzagent.com. The program is free to join. You fill out surveys with your interests and preferences. Based on your surveys you may (or may not) be selected for specific promotions. If selected you receive an invitation to join and its your choice whether or not you are interested in joining. When you join a project you will receive either samples of the product or vouchers to acquire the product yourself for free. All BzzAgent asks is that you provide feedback on the products and share your experiences with friends and family and online as you see fit.

The reason I'm telling you all this is twofold.

1. This might sound fun and appealing to some of you and maybe you want to join up too. 
2. You are probably going to be seeing more product reviews popping up on my blog/twitter/facebook. I've not had much to share lately so these have all been relatively quiet. I don't want to turn into a walking advertisement either, so I will try to get back to posting other things as well.

I've already received 3 invites and have started on my first campaign which you'll be hearing about soon. I hope the Bzz Agent experience will prove to be interesting and fun and to discover some good new products.

Fire review

I received my Kindle Fire on November 16 and decided to use it for awhile before posting a review.

The Fire is similar in size to my Kindle 2. The Fire is a bit narrower but twice as thick. It is also much heavier. In general I don't have too much problem with the weight since I usually have it laying on a table or my lap when I'm reading. 

I love that the Fire is a multitasker. I tend to get bored rather easily and like to have multiple options to occupy myself. While the Kindle offers books and some games maybe a little background music, the Fire offers that and much more. The addition of apps makes the Fire a winner. I can check the weather, surf the internet, read and write email, shop and play games. Books download super fast. It is constrained to wi-fi connectivity which is probably the biggest downside I've found. With the addition of 3G this would be killer.

The touch screen took a little getting used to. I hate hate hate the unavoidable fingerprints all over the screen and keep a microfiber cloth in the case to constantly clean it. I did put a screen protector on it as soon as I got it but took it off after a week because it made the screen a tad blurry. Naked, the images are crystal clear although (as you can tell from the picture) the screen is quite reflective which is a problem in sunlight. 

I purchased a hard cover for the Fire to help protect the screen. I chose a convertible cover since the Fire is also an excellent video player. I stream videos all the time. Streaming is smooth (if you notice lagging in your playback, reboot and it will solve the problem). The sound is great with built in stereo speakers (my iPod Touch has horrible, tin-ny sound without external speakers). 

I'm not enamored with the Carousel, the Fire's feature that shows all of your recently accessed content on the top row of the display. You are not able to remove items from the Carousel, hopefully this will be available in a future update. I like to keep my stuff uncluttered and this is quite annoying. The flipping action is also irritating. Although you can see 4 or 5 items on the row you can only open the left most icon and I frequently scroll right past what I need. I generally just ignore the Carousel and tap the menu bar to go to the content I want be it books, apps or web. You can pin favorite apps to your home screen as well. You can see I've got mail, weather, Pulse (blog reader) and You Tube pinned to my first shelf. I'm not sure how many shelves you get since I've not really pinned too much yet.

My last complaint is the power switch. On the Kindle the switch is a slider at the top of the device. It's pretty darn hard to accidentally turn it off. On the Fire the switch is a push button at the bottom of the unit. I have no idea what brainiac came up with this ridiculous idea. I find if I'm holding it like a book I frequently push the button and put my screen to sleep or worse, reboot it. The option, of course, is just to hold it upside down. Once the device is taken out of sleep mode the screen automatically adjusts itself to the orientation you are holding it in. 

All in all I LOVE my Fire. Would I recommend it to replace a Kindle? Depends on what you want to do. The Kindle is by far a better reading device. The screen is much easier on your eyes. Page turning is easier. In my opinion buttons are way easier than tapping at exactly the right spot to turn a page. Plus, I fell asleep reading on my Fire the other night and must have had my finger resting on the screen. I found my spot had jumped from 17% to 85% when I woke up! That couldn't happen on a Kindle. To my surprise (and disappointment) they did not include page numbers on the Fire's reader even though it is available on other Kindle reading apps. The Kindle is much lighter in weight so if you like to read for long periods of time or if your eyesight requires you to hold your book at a certain distance a Kindle would be a much better choice. Another big advantage to the Kindle is being able to organize your library by collections. Fire doesn't offer any user-driven organization of your library (again, hopefully this will come in an update at some point). If you are looking for more of a multi-function device, though, I wholeheartedly recommend the Fire!!

Eco Emi

A few posts back I talked about Birchbox, a subscription beauty sample program. I stayed subscribed for 3 months but then dropped out. Too many of the products were things I just wouldn't use and it didn't seem like the best fit for me right now.

Since then I've heard of a number of other sample programs but one that particularly struck my fancy is Eco Emi. While Birchbox is generally just beauty products (although I did get a nutrition bar in one box) Eco Emi is all about the natural. The boxes feature all sorts of naturally minded products from beauty to home care to food. Since I'm making the effort to be more conscious of the products I use I decided to make the switch. Eco Emi is a bit more expensive at $15 per month. However, you get more samples per box. Plus there are discount codes for most of the items in the box so you could save some money if you decide to purchase full size products of the items you've sampled. My first box arrived this week.

 

I am really happy with my first box and will try every one of the samples. My box included a foot cream, shampoo, conditioner, essential mist (which is a fabulous face mist!), a chocolate bar (can not wait to try this one!!), a colored lip balm, hand cream, face mask and eye shadow. Not only are the products all things I normally use, I'm totally chuffed that they are made with ingredients I don't have to worry about. 

The downsides (at least for me) about Eco Emi are that they charge you the first of the month prior to when they ship your box. I paid for November's box in the beginning of October. And they don't ship until late in the month, this month the boxes shipped on the 21st. So you've got quite a wait until you get your first box. 

If you are interested in Eco Emi and want to see more of what they include in their boxes, just do a You Tube search for Eco Emi.