A Few of My (New) Favorite Things

I recently decided that my skin care regimen needed a makeover.

For the past few months, I've been working with a hodge-podge of my remaining Mary Kay inventory, some pre-moistened exfoliating skin cloths, and some Clean & Clear moisturizer. Needless to say, my face and neck have been pretty p!ssed about the whole mess and showed their displeasure by launching a protest...in the form of ridiculously angry breakouts. YUCK. Yes, even my neck was breaking out. DOUBLE YUCK.

So, when my last paycheck cleared, I forced myself to go to the store and weigh my options. I've long loved Burt's Bees lip balm (the kind with the pomegranate oil is to die for!), lip shimmer (in gloss OR stick form), and hand/foot care products. With all that love for their products that take care of other parts of my body, I figured, why not try the face stuff?

I left the store with a bottle of the Radiance Face Cleanser and a jar of the Radiance Night Creme, aka, New Favorite Things #1 and #2. I really wanted the whole line, but it was kind of expensive for my budget, so I got the absolute basics and made the commitment to buy the rest of the line one piece at a time.

At this point, you're probably wondering, "When in the holy h#ll is this chick going to tell me whether or not she liked the d@mn stuff?!?" So here you go: I LOVE IT. Within two days I saw a huge difference in my skin. It calmed down, the breakouts started to disappear, and it looks softer and brighter.

No more skin protests + no more trading stories of zit woes with my adolescent students = HAPPY ME!!

I also recently invested in some foundation primer. This is New Favorite Thing #3. I've been hearing about foundation primer for a few years, but have resisted the tempation to purchase it because, A.) Up until recently, it wasn't readily available to the general public at a price that wasn't astronomically ridiculous, and B.) Carmindy from "What Not to Wear" is all the time telling the people she makes over that EVERY WOMAN "of a certain age" needs to use a foundation primer. Carmindy's actually been the main reason behind my primer resistance. I really don't like her -- I think her name is stupid and she says douchy things like, "This color really makes your eyes POP!" (The term POP is way over-used in fashion and makeup and I am beyond sick of hearing it!) and, "You look so hot! You go girl." Ew! Blehhh!! Anyway, she makes me want to vomit a lot, and, as a rule, I try not to take cosmetic advice from people that make my stomach churn. That, and I honestly wasn't ready to classify myself as, "of a certain age," just yet.

All that said, right when it seemed like my three different kinds of eye moisturizers and undereye circle serum were no longer doing their job, it also seemed as though there was a foundation primer advertising explosion. Everywhere I looked, some cosmetic company or another was hocking their primer and telling me why it was the best. I immediately vetoed L'Oreal's version because L'Oreal is usually too far out of my pathetic budget AND they chose Linda Evangelista to be their face for that particular product, and I got overexposed to Linda during her supermodeling heyday in the mid-late 90's -- she was all over Vogue and it got old. Plus, she kind of almost always looks as though she's sniffing dog poo, and if that primer is what's doing it to her, then I definitely wanted no part of that sh!t.

I weighed all of the less expensive options, and settled on Maybelline's Age Rewind primer, mostly because it was about six bucks and it has a pink tint. I like pink. So, stupid Carmindy be d@mned, I got some. And as much as it irks me to say this, the silly cow is right. Every woman of a certain age DOES need a tube of this stuff!

So, the next time you see me, you won't have to wonder how I get that gorgeous glowing skin and reduced appearance of fine lines WITHOUT Botoxing! Yeah, that's right... I'm a living, breathing commercial. And as long as I look a little more late-20s and a little less mid-30s , I am COMPLETELY okay with being one.