About 5 years ago, after dealing with allergies and multiple trips to allergists & dermatologists, I made a conscious decision to cut down on all the crazy toiletries and lotions that I use. Not only was it affecting my skin & body in weird ways, it was a BIG waste of money. Do you really need 5 different scented lotions even if the are 5 for $25? I also realized that my Grandmother managed to live her life without all this jazz, so why couldn’t I. Now she is also the type to use lard as lotion so I’m not going that far. So here is my general break-down:
- Oil of Olay Sensitive Unscented Soap
- Clean & Clear Sensitive Facial Cleanser (or Kiehl’s Blue Gel Cleanser when I can afford it)
- Purpose Moisturizer w/SPF15
- Aveeno Lotion (unscented)
- Dove Unscented Deodorant
- Almond Oil (for the grocery store aisle) for hair, and skin in the winter months
-5 perfumes : 2 Body shop oils (mango,vanilla) & 3 quality perfumes (Hanae Mori, Givenchy Indecence, Gaultier Classique)
Makeup: I don’t wear makeup on a daily basis but when I do I use MAC products & Loreal mascara
It’s not all natural but it’s as basic as I can get my regimen to be. One of the best things I learned was to use unscented products and stick to using 1 perfume so that the smells of deodorants & lotions don’t clash.
The Daily Mail had this interesting article today titled “Revealed… the 515 chemicals women put on their bodies every” day
[photo courtesy of Daily Mail]
It’s interesting to see their take on the things the average women uses on a daily basis and the daily chemical intake. Sometimes you really don’t consider what you are putting on your body and how that still affects you and your health. Even with my minimal regimen I may need to revamp to change to more natural products.
Take a look at the article and see how your daily chemical intake stacks up.
Suddenly it’s cool to be cheap
Let me set the scene…..
It was 2001 -2007….the days where the standards of fashionable living was set by these broads…….
The days when you couldn’t step out the house unless all your clothing had a name and your shoes were made by some man who’s name you couldn’t pronounce. The days when the mere idea of stepping foot into a Target or Payless was worthy of getting you sent into exile.
Now flash forward to present day and you awaken to the oddest happenings. You turn on the tv and you see Target commercials where it’s “cool to be a Frugalista”.( Frugalista? I remember when frugal was the equivalent of a curse word.) You start to see more Payless and JCPenney commercials than you could ever remember or you hear that Vera Wang has a line at Kohls, Anna Sui is collaborating with Target, or Jimmy Choo is bringing their collection to H&M
WHAT GIVES! WHAT GIVES! What is this crazy world we have awakened to!?!?!
Well, don’t be alarmed my friends. It would seem that the rest of the world is catching up to what most of us already knew. Style is about taste, not price. For years television and other media encouraged us to go into debt for that all-exclusive handbag or $700 shoes. Now that the world is cutting back on the unnecessary items, those high-end designers are realizing that most of the world really couldn’t afford that stuff in the first place. Not that it wasn’t a quality product but, more often than not, it was WAY overpriced. Now the tide has turned and high-end designers are trying to appeal to those that, for years, they forgot.
The reality is that there are many more Targets, JCPenneys, Kohls, etc. than there are high-end boutique shops or department stores like Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, etc. In Manhattan, for example, there is 1 Saks, 2 Bloomingdales, 1 Bergdorfs, and 1 Macys but 10 H&M’s and 20 Payless locations. It may be a cheaper product but volume is clearly making up the difference. If they are selling in big volumes that means that there are tons more people willing to spend money in these places than in more expensive department stores. The other part of the reality is that if you don’t plan to wear something more than 1 season you don’t want to spend that much money on it.
So where do you fall into the fray? Where have you been shopping lately?