I love this time of the year. The flowers, the warmer days, the increased sunshine… I get a lot less gloomy. Here are five things for spring – floral scents, pretty colors, stuff to remind you summer is right around the corner.

1. Lolita Lempicka Fleur Défendue – a soft floral scent with some fruity accents. I wants. The yellow bottle is so pretty!

2. Stila Summer Eye Shadow Palette. The colors are awesome!! I am seriously lusting after this.

3. Just about anything Korres.  I particularly want the makeup wipes and any of the makeup. I love the body washes too.

4. The Lime & Coriander Body Wash at Bath & Body Works just hit my wish list.  I love the fresh and savory scent.

5. Speaking of savory scents, Dune Grass at Yankee Candle caught my nose and I had to get a votive or two. Loving this scent! It’s a nice blend of fresh and clean, without that annoying tickle-my-nose sensation that I get from other “clean” scents (anything with cotton in the name offends my nose for sure).

I love Badger Balms. Back when I was in college, I loved the original Badger Balm on my hands – I was a photography major and the developing chemicals in the darkroom dried the heck outta my skin. Then I discovered that the Sore Muscle balm helped with this annoying, tight, sore knot I get around my left shoulder blade pretty frequently.

Next, I acquainted myself with the lip balms, which double nicely as hand balm when needed. This led to an obsession with collecting the lip balm tubes as well…

Today Badger has expanded their product line in some really awesome ways. I really want to try the body oils, and I bet the Baby Balm is fantastic on rashes. I will probably get a tube of the sunscreen for summer gardening. If I was fantastically wealthy, I’d probably have one of everything, really. I mean, foot balm and cuticle balm and joint balm… and it’s all BEAUTIFULLY packaged and full of amazing plant-based oils and butters and essential oils. Be still my beating heart. The Cocoa lip balms rank as some of my favorite all time lip balm, especially the coffee one.

Which brings me to the Yoga & Meditation Balm, the latest to join my collection. Really, I wanted all three – Yoga, the Stress Soother, and the Headache Soother. But I felt like I should pick one (darned budget again!), and the Yoga balm smelled sooooo divine. It has cedarwood and sandalwood, frankincense and myrrh, and litsea cubeba for a little lemony kick too.

Anyway, I smear it on the backs of my hands before bed and breathe it in… and sleep like a baby. I’m in love.

At the beginning of April, I had this brilliant idea that I would do a series of posts about earth-friendly cosmetics and household products – in honor of April 22nd, Earth Day.

But here it is April 23rd, and my series did not materialize. *sigh* Life, it gets in the way sometimes. But not to despair, I am still going to start a new category so I can label posts throughout the year when I write about something earth-friendly.

And on that note, here are a few quick ideas for being more green.

I buy shampoo and conditioner in liter bottles now, and refill smaller bottles to put in the shower. Right now I’m using TIGI Oatmeal & Honey Shampoo and Aveda conditioner. I use less plastic this way, and I save money too, since the bigger bottles are a better value.

I avoid buying cosmetics (and everything else for that matter) that are overly packaged. Does that shower gel really need an outer box? Nope. You can print all the relevant info on the bottle, so the box is redundant. Stuff that’s boxed AND wrapped in plastic really yanks my chain.

When I wore powder foundation, I preferred brands that had refillable compacts – it’s so wasteful throwing away the whole compact every time you run out of foundation. I also like companies that have palette-able products – like mark., Stila, and Aveda.

Something I consider big is cutting down on my use of the hair dryer. I try to plan better so that I can let my hair air-dry mostly dry and then only use the dryer for finishing the style. Otherwise, I wear my hair in a style that doesn’t need the dryer at all (I’m big on octopus clips these days).  It’s better for my hair, my electricity bill, and the environment!

Cruising through New Seasons the other day, I happened to sniff the Pacifica Tibetan Mountain Temple body cream. I hadn’t tried that one before (I’m already a fan of the fig and neroli, as well as the vanilla), so I figured I’ve give it a sniff. Wow!

It has notes of vetiver, patchouli, ginger, and orange. It’s warm and spicy, with a certain something that draws you in. I couldn’t resist, and bought the perfume and a soap. The soap could be more lathery, but otherwise is a perfectly fine glycerin soap.

The perfume has very nice staying power (the patchouli and vetiver, I’m sure) and is nicely balanced. The orange notes are very apparent, and I swear I smell caraway too. It reminds me strongly of Swedish Limpa Rye bread, which is flavored with orange, caraway, and anise. The ginger is definitely there too. Then the patchouli and vetiver come along to make things a little richer and deeper.

It’s a unisex scent, easily worn by a man or a woman. Now I want the body butter. Yum.

For a limited time, Pacifica is offering Tibetan Mountain Temple products for 20% off. I’m not sure how long the sale lasts, though.

With the help of my dear husband, I’ve updated the color scheme for spring! I wanted some brighter colors and a fresh look.

Hello Spring!

Ooh, how excited am I about the new summer products from Stila?? The eyeshadow palette is so pretty, with the famous Kitten shade. The other shades are really popular Stila colors too – Ray, Wheat, and Sun are shades I’ve always liked.

The new tinted moisturizer is the product I really want to try.  I used the original last summer, and really liked it – although my skin doesn’t need the extra hydration if I’m already using a moisturizer. The new formula has SPF 30 (vs the 15 of the old), is oil-free, and has willow bark extract in it, which helps fight blemishes. It sounds perfect.

The Silk Shimmer Gloss looks cute, and again, Kitten is a popular shade.  The gloss has vitamins A, C, and E, as well as shea butter. I wish they’d make more shades though. I like Kitten, but it’s a tad light on my lips.

I can’t wait until these products come to my local Sephora so I can check them out in person!

There hasn’t been a lot of action around here lately because I had surgery on my elbow about two weeks ago. I had a compressed ulnar nerve in the elbow (kind of like carpal tunnel syndrome except the compression is in the elbow instead of the wrist). It hurt. *sad face*

Now I have a 4″ incision on the back of my elbow. The stitches came on out Thursday (April 3rd), so now I have a bunch of steri-strips across the incision. Boy howdy, it’s ugly! I call it Frankenstein elbow.  It’s a nice, long, icky scar.

I have a small bottle of Burt’s Bees Repair Serum, so as the steri-strips fall off, I’m applying it to the scar to try to keep it looking better. The serum is a lightweight oil, and has rosehip seed oil, borage oil, evening primrose oil, and a few others as well, all of which are recommended for skin healing.  I’ll report back if it seems to make a difference.

It seems like all I ever write about is positive stuff, and since I have actually tried things that I really disliked, I thought I’d do a special “this really sucked” 5 things post. So, in no particular order, “Five Things I Didn’t Like.”

1. Bliss Wrinkle Twinkle. I tried this for five days and got a zit right under my eye next to the bridge of my nose. Imagine about where your glasses might sit. I had never before gotten a zit in that area before. Being game, I quit using it, waited for the zit to go away, and tried it again. I got another zit. So… back to Sephora for a refund. Zits in this area are really painful, by the way.

2. Okay, I posted about this before. It’s Paula’s Choice 2% Beta Hydroxy Acid Gel. But I still don’t like it and I dislike it enough I may just ditch it, half-finished. It’s a chore making myself use it, since it means going to bed with a sticky face – with my hair and/or pillow sticking to my face unless I try to go to sleep on my back. It basically sucks.

3. Most mainstream perfumes. I’m usually disappointed, like I was with Vera Wang Flower Princess. I was prepared to like Flower Princess, since I really like Vera Wang Princess (I know, it’s kind of teenager-y, but I like smelling like cupcakes sometimes.) Flower Princess smells like every other slightly fruity-floral ever made. BORING. I cruised through the women’s fragrance sections of Macy’s and Nordstrom recently and nothing new caught my nose. I am sad.

4. Nars Lip Gloss/Lip Stain Duo. I realize this may make me weird, but I just shouldn’t try stain/gloss combos. I am always annoyed when the dark part of the stain gets all over the lighter wand of the gloss and mixes with it. It grosses me out. Plus, the shade I had (Indian Red/Moon Fleet) was very hard to apply and stay within the lines without first using a lipliner and being very very careful. I have the stain in Daredevil, and I love it. But it just looks better by itself, no gloss involved in my opinion. Plus, the gloss makes it not stay as well as just the stain alone. It rubbed off too easily. I may try again with Indian Red by itself – the color looked good on me. Just don’t try to apply it in the car mirror (even while parked). This needs a real mirror and a steady hand – a lip brush is handy too.

5. Bare Escentuals mineral foundation. I’ve tried this three times now and I still don’t like it. It looks chalky on my skin. It’s a pity it’s the most well known mineral makeup because there are much better brands out there – like Meow Minerals.