It’s late winter/early spring, which means New Product Launches for a lot of my favorite brands, especially skin care launches. Also, Valentines. I love Valentines stuff, even though I’m not really all that big into the holiday itself. I just like fun products. Here are five things I really wish I had the budget to buy!

1. Boscia Tsubaki Beauty Oil. I loooooove facial oils. I like to use a drop or two either by itself or under moisturizer at night. They make my skin happy. This facial oil contains camellia oil and rice bran oil (both of which my face likes a lot), as well as some really nice essential oils. I wannit!

2. Many items from Flower Cosmetics, which has launched at Wal-Mart stores and online. I love the packaging for this product line, AND the price points! I really need to get on over to a Wal-Mart to check it out.

3. This Red Ruby Groovy Natural Body Wash from gud smells THE BEST. Strong grapefruit scents are basically instant cheerful in a bottle, for me. I just need to use up a bottle or two of body wash, and then I can justify buying this.

4. Grapefruit must be a thing for 2013 because Yes To has launched a Pink Grapefruit product line targeting skin brightness and clarity. I want the eye cream and the serum and the towelettes. I already love the Blueberry and Cucumber towelettes, so I’m guessing I’ll love the Pink Grapefruit ones too.

5. Lush’s Valentines stuff sounds lovely, and DAMN THEM! These perfumes… oh God. I don’t love all of Lush’s perfumes, but the ones I like I LOOOOOVE. They’re seriously killing me here.

Lush always makes the best smelly stuff, especially at Holiday time. This year is no exception, and I was suckered into buying their limited edition face cleanser called Let The Good Times Roll. It’s a delectably-scented corn-based slightly scrubby cleanser, and I’m totally hooked. Too bad it’s limited edition!

Let The Good Times Roll is a bit of a pun, since Lush’s fresh facial cleansers are called “Cleansing Rolls.” Let The Good Times Roll is basically a cornmeal and corn flour scrub with a sweet popcorn scent and a hint of cinnamon. You use a pea-sized amount and mix it with a few drops of water to make a paste, and then massage it on your face. It’s not so great with eye makeup, but fabulous for the rest of your face. It leaves my face soft and clean, and not dry or tight. And the scent! It’s so yummy, I just love it.

It’s not cheap, at $12.95 for 3.5 oz., but it’s good for a splurge – a nice wintertime treat for yourself, if you will. I’ll probably try to get another jar before it goes away because I like it so much. I really wish they’d make this one permanent!

The weather has been amazing in Portland this week, so I decided to do some fun “summer” kinds of things with my makeup. This was today’s effort, involving two of my favorite colors from Silk Naturals and an awesome hot pink.

The pale gold color is Juiced, from Silk Naturals. Juiced is a pale gold with suede pearl finish, and a fair amount of gold glimmer. I used a sticky base for maximum glimmer adhesion. Heat is a deep coppery orange tone with a silky pearl finish. I put Heat in the outer corners. The hot pink color is She Bop from Madd Style Cosmetics. She Bop is a bright, deep pink color with a silvery shimmer and aqua glitter. The highlight is Kingslayer from Geek Chic Cosmetics. The eyeliner on the upper lashline is Milani’s Infinite Liquid Liner in Forever. The lower lashline is a taupe eye pencil (it’s a discontinued color).

I mixed my Lush Colour Supplement with moisturizer today rather than my usual mineral foundation. I did brush on some mattifying powder on top though. The blush is Orchid Convertible Color from Stila – which they don’t seem to carry anymore. It’s a deep plum kind of color.

The lip gloss is Gloss Pur from Yves Saint Laurent and is 04 Pure Raspberry. I don’t wear it nearly enough, it’s a fun color for summer.

I love citrus-y perfumes for summer. There’s something very refreshing about a citrus fragrance when the weather is really warm. The two perfumes I have from Lush (Tuca Tuca and Imogen Rose) are both more cool weather fragrances for me, so I was really excited to try out a new one and find it PERFECT!

25:43 was named for the amount of time it took the perfumer to develop it (25 minutes 43 seconds, apparently). It has notes of lime, tonka bean, lemongrass, vanilla, ylang ylang and litsea. This is a very lemon-y perfume, but the addition of ylang ylang, vanilla, and tonka bean keep it from veering off into Pledge territory. It comes a bit close to smelling like lemon sandwich cookies, but manages not to stray too far in that direction from the herbaceous lemongrass and litsea notes.

I love this perfume. It wears a bit close to the skin, which is nice if the weather is particularly warm. I catch whiffs of it now and then that are quite pleasant. Like most citrus fragrances, it’ll last longer on well moisturized skin – I recommend spraying it on right after you’ve applied lotion (even if it’s not particularly matching lotion).

The 0.3 oz size is only $14.95. I suspect I’m using it up faster than my other Lush perfumes in that size, because you can spray it more liberally without creating a suffocating cloud. All this is to say that I’m probably going to wish I’d gotten the big bottle.

If you’re looking for a beautifully sunny citrus scent with a bit of sweetness, do check out 25:43. It’s lovely.

WHY DOES ALL THE REALLY AWESOME STUFF HAVE TO BE EXPENSIVE??? Okay, I got my whine out of the way. The last time I was at Lush, I was really cheap and just bought my Oatifix. But while I was there, the nice shop ladies gave me a sample of the new Ro’s Argan Body Conditioner, and I’m in love.

You might be asking, what’s a body conditioner? Think of it as an in-shower body lotion. It is to your body what conditioner is for your hair. It moisturizes, it softens, it smells amazing… It has lots of cocoa butter and cupuacu butter, almond oil and Argan oil. The scent is like rose jam, sweet and floral all at the same time. Yum!

To use it, step out of the shower stream and rub it all over your skin. Then, give your skin a light rinse and step out of the shower. Be sure to pat dry rather than toweling off, so you don’t wipe off all the oils! Your skin is left smelling amazing and feeling so soft. I didn’t use lotion afterwards.

I really, really wish the product wasn’t $29.99 a jar, because I can’t see myself splurging on it any time soon… but as soon as I feel a splurge coming on, it’s at the top of my list!!

I’ve been neglecting the blog lately, so sorry! Other things were cropping up this week to distract me and I also wasn’t feeling very pretty.

I bought a fair amount of perfume this year (and wanted a fair amount more…) so here is a short list of my five favorite scents from 2011. Some of these are limited edition, so if you want to try them you’ll have to hurry.

In no particular order:

1. The Body Shop White Musk Libertine is such a creamy, soft scent. I’m really happy I bought it. It’s a good year-round scent, never too heavy or overwhelming.

2. Balenciaga Paris was a big splurge this year. The peppery violet notes are very feminine and beautiful though, like the perfume equivalent of a cashmere sweater.

3. L’Occitane Immortelle de Corse is the perfect winter scent. It’s warm, vanilla-y, but also spicy and just a teensy bit floral.

4. Lush Imogen Rose is a luscious, rich rose fragrance with baby powder overtones. It is KNOCK YOU DOWN strong, so a little goes a loooong way.

5. Lavanila Pure Vanilla is my current favorite vanilla perfume. It’s easy to wear, never too strong, and lasts for a reasonably long time.

Lush just released a bunch of new perfumes and they all sound A-MAY-ZING! This is terrible! I want all the smellies…

First, is B Scent. B Scebt is described as “A romantic, floral fragrance with a fresh lemony top note” and has notes of lemon, bergamot, fennel, lavender, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, sandalwood, and musk. I’m having a hard time imagining a lemon-y rose, but it sounds good.

Then there is 1000 Kisses Deep. Lush writes, “With a touch of citrus and deep resins, and osmanthus blossom absolute which provides a light apricot top note, a bit like having butterflies in your stomach; this perfume encompasses that powerful rush of emotion that we call love.” Oh man. I love the scent of osmanthus.

I love apples and cinnamon, therefore I love the description of Love. Love “has a fresh apple, cinnamon spice fragrance fit for men and women.” Mmmmm. I want some Love.

Dear John is supposed to be a man smell, but who cares about that? I only care if it smells good, and Dear John sounds pretty good on paper! This one has notes of lime, pine, coffee, coriander, clove, cedarwood, and vetivert. I’ll at least be giving it a sniff.

The Smell of Weather Turning. Just read the words. It sounds enchanting, doesn’t it? I think it does. It’s supposed to “combine the fresh feeling of rain with a darker, smokier character as it warms on the skin.” I wanna smell.

Then there is Superworld Unknown. It’s got notes of cocoa, vanilla, tonka, cassie, juniper, petitgrain, neroli, lime, lemon, bergamot, rose, ylang ylang, bensoin, and sandalwood. *whimpers*

Last, but not least, is Ladyboy. It has violets. I love violets.

Unfortunately for me, it sounds like they are all online-only. I’m still going to call the local store though, just in case.

It’s been a while since I wrote a 5 Things dedicated to things I love to wear/use in the Fall, so I decided it was a good time. I seem to write more 5 Things articles about Spring and Summer, I guess because I like those seasons better.

1. I like to wear Lolita Lempicka Eau de Parfum in the Fall. This has been one of my favorite perfumes for almost 10 years now. It’s a classic that never seems to get old. I love the anise-y goodness.

2. Every year Aura Cacia comes out with an essential oil blend in the fall/early winter, in a more holiday theme. I always like them, so I usually buy one each year. Last year it was a tree blend with pine, fir, lemon, peppermint, and cypress essential oils. I use them in an oil warmer to scent the house.

3. Tuca Tuca from Lush is another perfume I prefer in the Fall (and into Winter). It’s just toooo overwhelming in the hot weather, with it’s rich violet notes.

4. I seem to have quite a few purple/purple-ish lipsticks. I like to bust these out in the Fall too. Darker, vampy lipstick seems totally appropriate this time of the year.

5. The Julep nail color Alfre is really thrilling me this Fall. I like the darker gray/purple thing going on with it.