Thirsty skin?

It seems like the cold weather is coming in full force now... and with every cool wind that blows, I think of the horrible last winter I went through! (It snowed forever, and ever, and ever....) My skin tends to take a beating in the winter time...which is why I'm very happy that I have my Lancome Nutrix Royal Body Intense Lipid Body Cream! One of my recent favorites =] I received it in a free gift with a purchase from Lancome last Fall, I believe, and it was AWESOME because they gave it to me in this little tube that I just threw in my purse and carried with me EVERYWHERE, and it restored life to my hands when the hard Syracuse winter threatened to drain it all out. When I actually returned to Macy's to BUY the cream, however, I learned that they only had it in a jar.... hmph. But I love it anyway!!! I love to use it after the shower.. It's really got a great emolliating effect, and it smells nice too! it makes my skin happy =]

*cheeeese* (I need to clean my room....as usual...haha)

<3

Soothing moments...

    Nothing relaxes me quite like a warm, late-night shower. Tonight, I    decided to use this scrub from St. Ives that I bought a long time ago,    but only used once or twice, called "Smoothing In-shower exfoliating    body polish, mineral therapy." I'm not sure how popular it is or if its     still out there, but it provided just that, THERAPY. The aroma was     just so soft and soothing...it was delightful. While in the shower, I    also took the time to comb out my thick curls with the plain and    simple, yet pleasantly fragrant suave naturals "fresh mountain    strawberry" conditioner. It's not the fanciest    stuff I have, but    all the pretty smells made for    some good "me-time." Sometimes it's the    SIMPLE pleasures in life that really make a    difference, ya know? The     days can get a little    bit crazy, and I tend to spend so much time thinking about what I have to do, or what I haven't done! it felt nice to let it all go away for a while, and to take the extra time to just focus on me, the warmth, and coming clean! I used to be a really big worrier, always worrying about all types of things I couldn't control on my own. Although I've calmed down a lot, sometimes I still have my moments. I told a friend having a rough day earlier that I am sure God will work everything out in its own time. I think I need to listen to where that part of my voice is coming from and not let myself get so tense about certain situations in my life. So more about one of my favorite topics: HAIR!! =] I recently got a trim/cut....I'm calling it that because apparently my split ends were so bad that the scissor-happy hairdresser "trimmed" away a lot more than I would have wanted to part with. BUT, it was best for my hair health, so I just had to stop pouting about it. Now, I'm trying to be EXTRA good to my hair. I think I got a little lazy with my wash-and-gos, especially in the summertime when I was busy with schoolwork and clinical, which is SUPER bad, since I colored it sometime in June, I think? I don't even remember (what does THAT tell you?)! My natural hair seems to handle color much better than my hair did when it was relaxed, but I need to be careful to keep it well-moisturized. One thing my hair has been LOVING lately is the "One 'n Only" Argan Oil Curl Cream. I was SOOO confused recently when I went into a Sally's Beauty Supply store to pick it up, and right next to it was a bottle that looked almost exactly the same, except it was called One 'n Only Argan Oil "styling cream." I already loved the curl cream so much that I was curious, yet torn, all in the same moment, trying to figure out what the heck was the difference, and which one I should pick up, and whether or not I should go ahead and get both??? I looked at the ingredients...and it looks like one of the differences is that the "styling cream" did not contain mineral oil, where as the "curl cream" does...? I have heard some negative things about mineral oil in products...but my trial with the curl cream so far has been great, so I didn't care! I decided to pick up another bottle of the One 'n Only Argan oil curl cream, and I still love it so far. I used it today in combination with the Carol's daughter "Hair Milk" that I wasn't too thrilled about when I first purchased, but it (the hair milk) seems to have plenty of ingredients in it that are good for my hair, and it also seems to keep my curls happy enough thus far when used with the argan oil curl cream, so I'll give it a chance for now. Besides, I already spent my money on it. So WHAT, my hair will smell like an herbal tea for a while... Well, have a lovely week!

A little outing....

So when I woke up this morning, I was gonna go to the doctor to complain about how my bladder is ruining my life. Ever see those over-active bladder commercials? You know, the one with the little jingle, "gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!" ? yeah...THAT'S pretty much my LIFE. So I've decided (with some help, i.e. the boyfriend yelling at me about how I should take my issues more seriously) that I really need to do something about it soon. BUT, I called the doctor's office this morning, and he wasn't in... SOoOo....I decided to meet up with my best friend for happy hour & go shopping INSTEAD! :-) hahaha....

We went to this place called 1849 down on Bleecker street in Manhattan, where they serve 20 cent wings and $3.50 drinks.  It's apparently a pretty hot spot for my friend & her NYU buddies...she had taken me there once before during the summer, & this time, my brother Karlex came along with his girlfriend. Afterwards, Ashley, who's my best friend from junior high school, decided to continue happy hour & go meet some of her high school buddies.  I departed from her & took the opportunity to go do a little shopping (with the money I don't have)!


I thought I'd pick up a little something for Ashley at Ricky's in Union Square, since they have all those natural hair products, and Ashley, like me, recently chopped off most of her hair in the quest to go "au naturel."  Ohhhh my goodness, I had the worst time trying to pick something out!!! I'm soooooo indecisive!!! I wanted to get her something that would be good for her natural hair, and at first I thought they'd have some type of special hair gift basket or SOMETHING to make my life a LITTLE bit easier, but they DIDN'T. So I was just standing in the aisle staring at some of the natural hair products, which OF COURSE included the VERY PRICEY Miss JESSIE'S, which just HAPPENED to be having a buy one get one free sale for ALL of December.  I still had a lot of trouble though, because I remember Ashley was one of the people who told me she preferred the Kinky Curly Curling Custard over Miss Jessie's Curly Pudding, and that either way, her hair didn't really CURL so much as it "POUFFED"? So yea..I dunno. I set out looking for some good haircare stuff. I remembered this one conversation I had with the cleaning lady at my school, and she said that miss jessie's buttercreme made her daughter's hair soooo soft! and I was looking at the curly buttercreme, and the baby buttercreme, and they each said SLIGHTLY different things about "dry curls" and/or "growing curls" and I dunno if there really was any difference in the products or if there were just slight differences in the marketing??? I dunno. So yea, you can probably get an idea right now of just how long I was standing in that aisle debating with myself.

It came down to this: 
I really wanted to put together a little gift set of good hair stuff for my friend. While I was standing in the aisle staring at stuff, I saw the "Carol's daughter" products, which I had heard NOTHING but good things about...so I bought a nice shampoo & conditioner from there, and then I also picked up some type of moisturizer balm from them as well, annnnnnd, because I had heard the good things about the buttercreme from miss jessie's, and I wasn't sure if Ashley had already tried that one, I also picked that up. And then the man in the aisle started raving to me about Moroccan oil, and how great it was, and how I should try it and how I would LOVE it....and although I shouldn't have been shopping for myself, I picked it up. and alllsooooo....I REALLY couldn't decide which Miss Jessie's product would be the second one that I would want to gift as part of the "buy one get one free" deal...sooooo.....I picked up a jar of Miss Jessie's curly pudding for myself, despite the fact that I had only heard 2 of my friends say they like the kinky curly better than miss jessies!! eeekkk....I've been a bad girl. I could hardly help myself. hahahaha....especially since I was very curious to try the product when I saw the e-mail from Rickysnyc.com about the "Buy one get one free" sale! But I just couldn't bring myself to order it online...then when I was in the store...it was alll...in my FACE! Ohhh yea...plus, somewhere in between my getting the e-mail, and ending up in the store, I had read this Dec 14th blogpost from DPrincess28 letting us all know how fabulous she felt it to be!!! & I have looked to her videos and post for hair advice for the past year. =] You can go read it at her blog: http://glorycrown.blogspot.com/

Here is a pic of the total damage I did:

oHhh...and if anyone has heard anything about this Moroccan oil, I'd like to know. I'll probably do some research later....I thought about getting the travel size for ashley...but I dunno...I ended up getting the hair balm from carol's daughter instead....which is supposed to act to condition & shine the hair. 

So that's my story. I hope that nobody else was as naughty as I was! heheheheh...

have a NICE week before Christmas! 

So I've been lounging around today doing a whole lot of nothing!! It's my 3rd full day at home from break, and I've been soaking it in! haha....I decided to do a bit of pampering with Lush's "mask of magnaminty" because I was looking at my face when I got out of the shower, and it needed a pick-me-up (darn lack of sleep)!

It was really funny walking around the house since my dad & brother were around, and they thought I looked scary, and...I did. heheh. You can see that my brother even decided to join me and my scary face in one of the photos below:

Yuup. Funny stuff. 

Then, After I rinsed, My face felt so fresh and so clean, clean!!! =]  heheheh

 And this is me trying to look glamorous in a T-shirt that I sleep in:

Hahaha. My lips look SUPER pink!! I'm wearing this lipstick that I got as a free sample from Lancome when I went to go buy my Magnifique (I LOOOVE THAT FRAGRANCE!) at Macy's. I think the flash from the camera makes the pink of this lipstick look even more harsh than it already is....if pink can be harsh? haha But anyway, it's Color Design, "Love it! Cream" or something like that. 

 So yea, I had fun pampering myself a bit since I was home just being a bum.  I just finished a session of Super Mario Bros 3, upstairs in my brother's room. It was soooo fun! I haven't played video games in foreverrrr! So yeah....I was a little rusty to start out with. But then, the game kept starting over and didn't save at all! After I got to World 3, TWICE!! It's cuz my brother just got this special download of the game for Wii and then he couldn't figure out how to save it properly---until it was TOO late! So I decided I had enough Super Mario Bros for tonight. It was nice to go back to the classics though :-)

So yesterday (or THIS MORNING, I guess, since I was up realllly late), I ordered a few books on Amazon, and I finally ordered "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" after hearing good things about it from a few good sources ;-) heheh...I've really been wanting to get back into some leisurely reading, since school runs my life, and if I'm not reading about respiratory diseases, I'm hardly reading at all!!!! My books won't get here until right before Christmas though :-( I mean I guess it's a good self-gift, but I was looking forward to reading sooner than that! It's back to class for me starting January 3rd!!! eek!

Well, I hope everyone has a restful break for the upcoming holidays....

<3 TheMzDiimples