Tag: consume

Personal Economy: Buy what you want/need, don’t buy it if you don’t like it.

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Throughout my life I’ve gone through being a minimalist as far as the standard beauty products, and paying the mid-range, aspirational prices of department store counters. I’ve never been able to successfully toss aside my chains of oppression by the fashion and beauty industries, and my feelings between guilt and celebration have waxed and waned.

Oh boy, but now I’m looking at 31, and I’ve got a deep line across my forehead. I started a little mini-panic when I realized it wasn’t going away. I instantly thought, maybe I can get a cream that will arrest it, or make it go away – and maybe I wouldn’t have to spend $50 to do it! I saw a lot of reviews and a lot of promises, and I came to the conclusion that none of the claims could be trusted, and I couldn’t stomach $50+ for a face cream that wouldn’t ultimately do what I want it to do, which is permanently stop my face from creasing.

So what do I do? When I was in a Whole Foods in White Plains, NY, I found that they had my, to this point, most favorite face cleanser and cream ever. Why have I not been using it? Because I first bought it at a small store in Chicago, and couldn’t find it locally in Seattle. I thought to myself – it IS pricey, and couldn’t I find an alternative that was just as good? The answer, after about 3 years, was no. I purchased the Evan Healy Blue Face Care Kit, and have been happy ever since. Even Dr. Hauschka, which makes holistic skin care in the same vein as Evan Healy, doesn’t have all that I love about Evan Healy’s products.

The lesson learned is that, in the time I’ve played with all these other products (and used up most of them), the product I’ve been most enthusiastic about is one I could have bought online, and likely saved more time and money just by doing so than trying to find less expensive alternatives.

Evan Healy’s products don’t promise to do anything special, other than clean the skin, not strip it too much of the oils you need, and that it be allowed to breathe. It doesn’t promise to make these deep creases go away, but maybe they don’t need to. And maybe I go back to purchasing my favorite make up, Bare Escentuals Bare Minerals, which I keep going back to after trying cheaper or more flashy options.

None of these things are what I need – but it is just something I want and makes me feel good. The less I spend on other crap I truly don’t need, the better – esp. if that means I’m not trying out the new best thing and deciding I’m hating it.

Product Love: Aubrey Honeysuckle Rose Shampoo and Conditioner

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My hair is brittle.

Why? I have a few ideas. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and like many of these northern dwellers, I’m deficient in Vitamin D – I’ve started supplementing, and even got a sunburn last week, so hopefully I’ll start life towards the solstice a little less deficient than last year. Additionally, I’ve been diving, in the cold waters of Puget Sound, which means that along with ravaging my hair with salt water, I’ve been wearing a hood to keep the heat in, and have a nice thick wetsuit to birth my head through before every dive. This, as you can imagine, tortures my hair.

And then there was my ill-thought out decision to try flat-ironing my hair a few months ago. So this, plus chemical processing, has left my hair in a less than enviable position. Pantene wasn’t quite helping, and frankly, I’ve been wanting to get back to my “less chemicals is better” trend I fell into when working at Whole Foods.

This enters my trial of Aubrey Organics – Honeysuckle Rose Shampoo, which claims to be 100% natural, and sure enough, the label doesn’t seem to cite anything chemically funny. The shampoo feels astringent, but the Aubrey Organics – Honeysuckle Rose Conditioner feels super-moisturizing, so much so that I’ve had to decrease the amount I thought I’d need for my hair. I’m a few weeks in, and I’m liking the smell as well as the texture of my hair. I also feel a little better about the suds washing down the drain.

I’m not sure how long I’ll love it, but I’m definitely a fan now. Who knew? I’d been passing up this stuff for years!

Missing Metropolis, Needing Iced Coffee

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While I was in Chicago, I had the pleasure of being just less than a mile from Metropolis Coffee Company on Granville in Edgewater. During my 12 days in Chicago, I went there probably about 12 times, and only once did I have a slightly disappointing cup of coffee. My usual iced Americano was fantastic every single time, and I actually felt like I could taste the notes within the espresso. Since returning to Seattle, I’ve been longing to get such a high quality iced coffee drink that was worth my unemployed dollars.

Then I remembered that another place I had coffee in Chicago offered their iced coffee as made with the Toddy cold brewing system. I had made coffee w/ the Toddy system when I worked for Seattle’s Best Coffee around 2001, so yesterday I set out on a money saving experiment. I picked up a Toddy brewer at Seattle’s Best Coffee in Pike Place Market, and just previous to that, bought 12 oz of beans from Stumptown (their House Blend). The barista at Stumptown steared me towards their House Blend with the knowledge I’d be making it with the Toddy. While I was at SBC, they offered me a free pound to go with my Toddy maker, so I picked up some of their new-age sealed (good for a year!) Panorama Blend.

I don’t know that much about coffee – especially compared to some – but I did spend the better part of 3 years of my life between Starbucks (back when you learned to pull real shots) and SBC (back when they were owned by a chicken company). I have the hope that the Panorama Blend might be palatable. We shall see.

For today, I’m on my second glass of the Stumptown House Blend. It’s a little more bitter than I’d like, but I’m liking it so far, and am glad I’ll have a carafe of it in the fridge whenever I need a bit of a boost. For the newly unemployed such as myself, inspiration is needed to get my butt into gear, so I hope this will provide it.

Black Love

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I was going over my last.fm while trying to figure out what to listen to next. My top music picks are similar to what I was listening to 15 years ago, with some additions. One of those is the Afghan Whigs.

Growing up in the Cincinnati area, I knew who the Afghan Whigs were. They played them on local radio, and I heard they were pretty cool. I passed by the albums at the used cd store more than a few times, and I knew they were chocked full of latent awesomeness – and I had rocked out to “Honky’s Ladder” on the radio.

Despite my curiosity with the Whigs after I saw their CD’s easily available in Dublin, Ireland in 1996, it wasn’t until 1999 that I remembered that the Afghan Whigs were worth devotional listening. This I have Lev (of BoingBoing Gadgets fame) to thank. He and I made the long trek across country to Burning Man in 1999, and of course every good road trip requires good tunes. I got reminded of the awesomeness of the Whigs on that trip and became desperately hooked.

I’m still hooked to all things Dulli (Greg, that is). I’ve loved the Twilight Singers, his solo work, and his joint project w/ Mark Lanigan, The Gutter Twins.

Black Love – which I’m listening to now, is still one of my favorite Whigs albums. I feel a need to listen to it from start to finish, every song in order, as if there is some divine completeness to it. The first song, Crime Scene Part One is perfectly bookended by Faded. Love, violence, sex, drugs and alcohol with an intense reverence to classic R&B, funk and soul played – this is what I love about the Whigs, and Greg Dulli.

Just thought I’d share – because hey, it’s my blog, and I don’t write in this thing enough.