Beauty

[just bee]

[Caffeina]

Merry Christmas everyone!

[geezerette]

[rnmom]

Merry belated Christmas everyone! I hope that everyone had a truly wonderful and blessed day!

The BBW semi annual sale started today and I wanted to make sure that I was able to grab some Twisted Peppermint body spray and lotion while they were still in stock, so I placed a good sized order early this morning already.

I ended up getting a total of 12 items including body lotiion, fragrance spray and shower gel. I had an online coupon code and a gift card so my out of pocket total was less than $11.

I should definitely be set for the whole year now on fragrance items, so my goal for this upcoming year is to use up not only some of the new items that I have coming, but also most, if not all, of the current items that I already have here. I should have more than enough to get me thru the 12 months. 

If I can stick to that plan, I will actually save a lot of money, if it only ends up costing me $11 for the entire year. The hard part will be not buying anything else for the whole year, but I am going to try, and then stock up again this time next year.

[just bee]

I have exactly 48 hours to start feeling like a healthy human.  If that doesn't happen, I'll have to cancel/postpone a third blood donation.

[Oshare-girl]

Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! I really need to pop in more often than every 3 weeks.  So much chatting has been missed. @just bee I hope your cold has been healed and you were able to give blood. @geezerette I'm so sorry about your headaches & migraines. That sucks and I hope you haven't had any recently. And it sounds like everyone has been doing at least a little decluttering. 

Count me in on Team Caramel. We got a tin of Trader Joe's Stroopwafels and they are SOOOO good. The Dutch are geniuses.

I took the opportunity to stock up on skincare during the holiday sales. I should be good for a while. I also will not be purchasing color cosmetics. I wish I was in @just bee's shoes, but I shouldn't be looking at blushes and eyeshadows in 2019. Those Burt's Bees cosmetics look really nice, BTW! And I had no idea they made baby clothes. @aprilskies I hope you have been able to dig into some of your eyeshadow palettes this month. I know that I enjoy doing my makeup as an almost meditative activity. 

This morning I started doing some cleaning for New Year's. I've been keeping a lot of little bottles and jars thinking that they would be good for traveling. But who am I kidding? I don't travel that much and I won't be taking enough to make use of all those containers. I tossed about 1/3 of them. Also tossed 3 old nail polishes. I'm down to 4 colors plus base and top coats, which makes me very happy. I only use polish on my toes (open toe shoes all year in HI), which I finally realized are much smaller than my fingernails, which is why it takes forever to finish nail polish in this way. And another revelation was that I really only need to spend more on a good topcoat and can buy cheap color polishes because the topcoat is the one that really shines and keeps everything together. 

So my fav YouTuber, Hannah Louise Poston taught me another handy idea: to categorize beauty into 3 areas. Short-term staples, long-term staples and long-term pleasures. It helps to think about products in these terms as far as price per usage. Spending more on a long-term staple means I get a better value in price per usage. Short-term staples means I'll be having to buy these products more often and I should be spending less on them. And long-term pleasures are sunk costs: products such as color cosmetics that take a long time to use up and I don't actually need, because I have already overspent in that area. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier but it really makes sense. I'm not as articulate as she is but it was totally eye-opening to me.

I'm also back on the HEP-wagon. Or at least on the moderation-wagon. I really need to fit into my pants.

[rnmom]

@just bee-I hope that you start feeling better soon! Seems like this cold of yours has been dragging on for quite a long time now. 

[just bee]

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@rnmom wrote:

@just bee-I hope that you start feeling better soon! Seems like this cold of yours has been dragging on for quite a long time now. 

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@rnmom

I realized something wasn't right on the morning of December 14.  First symptom: Irritability.  It takes a lot for me to feel irritable and I was irritable.  Then came the sneezing.  And then the non-stop multicolored mucus.

It's been more than two weeks and this morning is the best I've felt since it started.  Why?  Because whatever this is, it has crawled out of my body and has finally infected Better-half.

[rnmom]

@just bee-So glad to hear that you are finally starting to feel better. Over 2 weeks, wow, that is a long time to feel sick.

Too bad about your better half though. After watching what you've gone thru, I'm sure he has to be dreading finally coming down with it. 

[just bee]

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@Oshare-girl wrote:

Count me in on Team Caramel. We got a tin of Trader Joe's Stroopwafels and they are SOOOO good. The Dutch are geniuses.

So my fav YouTuber, Hannah Louise Poston taught me another handy idea: to categorize beauty into 3 areas. Short-term staples, long-term staples and long-term pleasures. It helps to think about products in these terms as far as price per usage. Spending more on a long-term staple means I get a better value in price per usage. Short-term staples means I'll be having to buy these products more often and I should be spending less on them. And long-term pleasures are sunk costs: products such as color cosmetics that take a long time to use up and I don't actually need, because I have already overspent in that area. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier but it really makes sense. I'm not as articulate as she is but it was totally eye-opening to me.

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@Oshare-girl

My father's mother was Dutch, but I'll pass on the stroopwafels.  I'm becoming sensitive to salt and sugar.  I ate a Kit Kat after Halloween and almost gagged.  Way too sweet.  I brought my leftover candy to work on Christmas and they gobbled it down.  The only "chocolate" left in the house is a few M&M's in a jar. 

It's still early and I haven't started my second mug of tea so I'll need more time to ponder the whole staple thing.

When I think of long-term staples I think of Paula's Choice facial cleanser.  When I think of short-term staples I think of cheapo eyeliner pencils and mascara.

Long-term pleasures for me would be an expensive bottle of fragrance but I don't do that anymore.

Like I said, I need to think more about this.