Products – Like I Say…

Not a Flower Girl

Despite being a female, I’m not too into your typical floral scents like rose and lavender. You’re aghast, I’m sure. So it’s not especially easy for me to find fragrant products that I really like. I usually go for citrus or other fruits, more earthy plants like tea tree and eucalyptus, or those that are common to eat like vanilla, cinnamon, etc.

And I’m guessing my preferred scent profile isn’t very common, as it seems that the scented items I find I like aren’t usually sold for very long. This would point to the need to stock up whenever I find something I’m really fond of, right? Except not only are some items, like perfumes, expensive for buying multiples at a time, but this has also burned me in the past. It turns out, some bath and body products (such as Bath & Body Works’ Be Enchanted, which I love) contain something that I’m apparently pretty allergic to. The problem is, which ingredient I’m allergic to, or what products contain said ingredient and will eventually have me sneezing and cursing while trying to look through incredibly itchy, watery, and painful eyes is not apparent.

So alas, even when I find a lotion or perfume or what-have-you that I really like, and it’s on sale so that I can buy several of them,… it’s not until after I’ve gotten home and used the item a couple times that I find out the wonderful smell is actually going to do me dirty. Then I have to give away the beautiful-smelling products to someone else whose body isn’t going to go crazy over… whatever the hell it is that mine doesn’t like.

And this is why a perfume that I love (even though it does have some florals) – Poppy by Coach – is sitting on my dresser close to empty but seldom touched. I love the bright, playful smell of Poppy, it doesn’t cause my face to explode nasty liquids, and it’s in a pretty yet not expensive little decanter. And of course Coach stopped making it so I’ve only been using it for special occasions – for years.

For this particular product though, Chat GPT just told me that there may be an alternative – a possible knockoff fragrance on Amazon called Catch for Women. I’ve put it in my shopping cart and am hoping for the best. Wish me luck.

Top Leggings

You never know what you’ll find on the interwebz. I randomly came across this pic today and decided it needed some commentary. What’s next – shirts for your legs?

Leggings have gotten very popular. Many women even wear them as pants. (Please don’t do this.) Now take your legging-wearing to a whole new level with Top Leggings!

Top Leggings are just like regular leggings, but are specially formulated into the perfect shape with just the right amount of holes to fit your torso. With Top Leggings, the upper half of your body can enjoy the ultimate stretch and comfort your lower half has been taking for granted!

shirts: now top leggings

Dear McCormick

Dear McCormick,

What did you do to the pure vanilla extract cap? It was absolutely fine for years, and then you changed it. Why? Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to mess with a good thing?

This large, waterslide-like contraption is no good, McCormick! This is vanilla we’re talking about, not vodka. There is no possible way to pore only a teeny bit of anything out of this bottle. And unless you’re like my husband’s brother as a teenager and actually want to down pure vanilla in an attempt to get drunk, you only want a teeny, tiny bit at a time.

And I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t care for this new cap, McCormick. Though I only live with my husband, I have a large family, and whenever one or more of them come to visit we invariably bake sweets. At some point in the process of baking cookies, chocolate lava cake, banana bread, cake, brownies, or any combination thereof, someone will grab the vanilla extract bottle and inevitably proclaim, “What’s with this vanilla cap? It sucks!” And I’ll reply, “Yes, yes it does.”

So I ask you, McCormick, we ask you, to go back to the original design of the vanilla cap. No one wants bad-tasting cookies, vanilla-reeking and stained counter tops, or to get drunk on nasty-tasting alcohol while the oven and mixer are both on. This will only result in lawsuits, McCormick, and death.

Yours in baking,

sweettems

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Neutrogena Deep Clean Gentle Scrub

I used to love this face scrub. It was recommended by Beautypedia and I’ve used it for years. But sadly, it just keeps changing.

I get that it had to change at one point, as the plastic beads were causing harm in the ocean. We don’t want that. But each iteration has changed a lot on scrubbiness, so I never know what I’m going to get. Is it going to scrub/manually exfoliate, or not?

Online it’s also listed as a cleanser, but I wouldn’t buy it for that alone. This is not the type of facial soap that will remove makeup.

It’s still easily found in stores and online, and has stayed relatively inexpensive. So it’s not a bad purchase. Just know that it will be gentle, but it won’t clean away makeup, and it may or may not be scrubby – varying from a scrub to a paste, depending.