I do so love the fact that everyone is making earth-friendly products. But please, for the love of God, make sure the damn things actually WORK! I was lured by the eco-friendly and cute packaging of Palmolive’s ECO+ dish detergent (in citrus-apple splash-mm!) and I bought it, like an idiot, even though I usually use those little cube thingies in my crotchety old dishwasher. I was so excited! But then…drumroll please…It did not clean the dishes at all, in fact, most of them were covered in crusties (yes I am guilty of not pre-rinsing all the way so bite it) and all of the glasses, plastic and silverwear was covered in a DISGUSTING icky film! Eew I am shuddering just thinking about it!

IMHO (in my humble opinion) there are some kickass recipies out there for earth-friendly stuff that’s way more “earth friendly” then stupid Palmolive will ever touch. Plus you can make it yourself. Take for example this little recipie for liquid (yes you heard right) laundry detergent that I found a few years ago, check it out:

Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe

(All ingredients can be found in the laundry soap aisle,
usually on the bottom shelves)

• 3 Pints Water (6 cups)
• 1/3 Bar Fels Naptha Soap, Grated
• ½ Cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)
• ½ Cup Borax
• 2 Gallon Bucket
• 1 Quart (4 Cups) Hot Water
• 1 Quart (4 Cups) Cold Water
• 2 Gallon Bucket

1. Mix Fels Naptha Soap in a saucepan with 3 pints (6 cups) water

2. Heat on Low until dissolved

3. Stir in Washing Soda and Borax

4. Stir until thickened, and remove from heat

5. Pour into 2 gallon bucket

6. Add 1 Quart (4 cups) Hot water in bucket and Stir

7. Add 1 Quart (4 cups) Cold water in bucket and Stir

8. Let sit for 24 hours or until congealed

9. Blend in bucket with hand mixer until no longer lumpy

10. Pour into old laundry detergent container using funnel

Viola! Cheap, earth-friendly laundry Detergent! Enjoy!

I’ve been eyeing the fancy-schmancey packaging of Kerastase Oleo-relax for some time. Okay, second confession: I’ve been looking at it for years. So what the heck, I bought it at Target the other day. Like an idiot.

Here is the culprit.

Now don’t get me wrong, the stuff is pretty luxurious, smells good and it’s okay for softening. But my ends are still dry. If you don’t have hair down to your booty cheeks like me then perhaps it might be worth it. But are there other products that are similar that can get the job done for much less?

Of course there is! Try Neutrogena’s Triple Moisture masque. Good stuff. Neutrogena’s orange packaging even looks like the Kerastase, LOL!

Much better @ $6.99

By the way, sorry I’ve been MIA lately.  I’ve been sick.  But my chicken soup recipie always makes me better.  Check the “Bad-Ass Chicken Soup Recipie” page at the top of this blog if you want to try it. 

TTYL

K

 I have a confession  to make.  Something I’ve been holding in for months…Something that I want to confess to the WORLD!  Something I just have to jump, screaming from the mountaintop about… READY?!

I LOVE YOU MABELLINE COLOSSAL VOLUME EXPRESS!  I LOVE YOU!  Let me count the ways…

1.  They say size doesn’t matter.  But we all know that’s a bunch of crap.  With your gigantic brush you make my lashes really dark really fast.  No need for falsies!  Best of all, your large yellow container makes it impossible for you to get lost in my makeup bag. 

2.  You last forever.  I’m talkin’ all day.  No streaky stuff, no flakes, no panda eye circles.  Love it.

3.  No clumps.  I can pump as much as I want!  But I don’t need to because the exact amount I need comes out on the first try. 

4.  The glam brown/black is a sexy, subtle and natural for day, black is bombastic for night-time activity!

5.  You now come in WATERPROOF!  Not that you need it.  I’ve cried and you’ve been there for me!

*sigh*  Now if you only you were a man! 

(just kidding honey!)

PS Seriously girls, want to avoid mayhem on your bottom lashes?  Put mascara on your bottom lashes like this:

and go check out this chick’s blog too while you’re at it!  (www.petitebelle.wordpress.com) It’s called “All the Pretty Shimmers”  Cute!

NO BULLSH*T ALLOWED!

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies,

I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely sick and tired of being “marketed” by these big huge companies with their big sexy web tv and print ads for beauty products, only to get seduced, go out and buy the tube of mascara or bottle of lotion or hair dye or whatever, only to get it home, try it out and seven dollars and two hours later find out that it absolutely SUCKS!  If this is you, then you are not alone, my friends…

Girls, you may or may not realize but every time we pick up a cosmo, glamour, marie-claire, women’s health, allure or whatever (don’t think I’m dissing these ones because I subscribe to all of them-LOL) we are being marketed!  Used!  These places are paid to write about these products and talk about how great they are.  Those bitches even get bribed with free stuff from those companies!  WTF! Can someone please send ME fifty tubes of free $50 yves st. laurent mascara each month? 

Plus I know all my wonderful, intellectual, hard-working, liberal-arts-degreed buddies can’t afford to go to Macy’s and spend $50 on a tube of mascara.  If we do, we want to make damn sure that it works!  In effect we’re pretty much limited to CVS.  Even harder to find good products here because we’re constantly subject to all this commercialization.  Yuck.  Not only that but good luck finding stuff that doesn’t cause cancer or isn’t tested on poor, cute, LIVE fuzzy bunnies!  You get what you pay for, they say, and for every bottle of crappy shower gel, tube of lipstick that we buy and had to begrudgingly use up, perhaps if we had just gone straight for the stuff that works we would not have wasted our cash in the first place.

You probably already know this too, but google is just as bad.  The rankings themselves are earned by folks trying to get their ad up their the highest, or who are being paid to do so.  I know because as a freelance writer, I have (shame, shame) been paid by some of these skanky companies myself. Perhaps a book from the library here and there on beauty would give us non-biased advice on what to buy but how are they supposed to keep up with all the new products that come out all the time?  WHERE DO I GO FOR NON-BIASED INFORMATION ON HOW TO NOT LOOK AND SMELL LIKE A DEAD RAT IN THE MORNING?  Sick and tired of it, people.

I am on a mission to save myself and all of my girls from this hassle!  I am starting this blog to share all of my mishaps, adventures, rants and most importantly, raves in the beauty realm.  I am inviting all my girls to do the same.  In the end, I intend for all of us to have a wonderful resource to refer to before we go out and spend our hard-earned cash!

Ladies, start sending in those comments and posts…

Love ya!

K

Karin_Elizabeth@yahoo.com