Beauty, Body, and Bath

My top five favorite beauty, body, and bath products of the moment:

1. Lip balm. I am OBSESSED with lip balm and must always have some kind of chapstick on me or I will freak out. I have a special little bowl that is full of different flavors and brands. My three favorites are Labello, Burt's Bees replenishing pomegranate, and Perfumeria Gal.

Labello is made by Nivea and is widely available in Western Europe. They look a lot like those candy lipsticks you can buy at sweet shops. They smell and taste like them too - the flavors are really yummy and fruity without being sickly sweet. The cherry smells like cherry, the strawberry smells like strawberry, and passionfruit smells like passionfruit. Not only are the smells perfect, the balms are tinted so you only need one. I stockpiled these when I came home from Europe and still have a bunch. Amazon.com has some 2-for offers for not too expensive. If you order a bunch, or buy expensive chap lip stuff anyway, it's a pretty solid deal. My favorite is strawberry.

Everyone knows what Burt's Bees is. I used to swear by the original beeswax lipbalm with the peppermint tingly business. But then I realized it would leave this weird white film on my lips, which was kind of gross. And maybe I was just obsessed with the cute little tins the balm came in. I decided to give their lip stuff another try with the pomegranate flavor and loved it. The flavor isn't that accurate (though I have never eaten a pomegranate), but the waxy white film is no longer an issue and I feel like it moisturizes impressively. I find mine at Target. They are also sold almost everywhere Burt's Bees products are sold.

Perfumeria Gal is based in Madrid and come in these wonderful art nouveau tins. I like how they look almost more than I like the product. It is a vaseline-like consistency with even juicier flavors than the Labellos. It doesn't really add color and is sort of goopy. The texture is between Chapstick and Rosebud Salve, if you can imagine that. I love the peach and red currant flavors. These are also sold on Amazon, and I've seen them in Atlanta at Urban Outfitters and bluemercury.

2. Mistral Soaps. We sell a huge collection of these at Anthro and I spend downtime smelling all of them. My boss told me about how wonderful they were my first day and I was intrigued enough to try some. Technically, I thought, one bar with discount is cheaper than one bottle of my favorite body wash. I am not a bar soap kind of girl, but after trying this, I might convert forever!

They are made in Provencal France using fancy milling processes and loads of shea butter. The soap is low lather and moisturizes beautifully. The scents are all pleasing, no matter what your taste, but don't really linger. My favorites so far are the Vanille Abricot (Vanilla Apricot) and Lychee Rose. I bought special little soap dishes just to display them! I'm not promoting them to make soap sales (seriously, whatever), but they smell good, are less expensive than L'Occitane, and my skin is seriously SO SOFT now. I don't know what to do with my leftover Dove bodywash. Available at Anthropologie stores and Mistral Soap.

3. Lush Coalface soap.

Maybe I have seen Annie Hall too many times, but I really love this for my skincare routine. It lathers black and little (non abrasive) bits of coal rinse out with each wash. I don't think it's a miracle for my complexion, but it's natural and I've had a hard time tracking down a face wash that doesn't aggravate my skin while keeping it in check. Plus it smells so ungirly to balance all the Hello Kitty and ~lychee~ flavored soaps in my bathroom. Available at Lush stores and online at lush.com.

4. Oil of Olay moisturizer - beauty fluid for sensitive skin. I talked about my adverse reaction to most perfumes once before. Most scented things make me want to vom, especially if it is on my face. The original formula of this (it's pink, in the same shaped bottle) smelled like much older ladies and made me gag the smell was too heavy. Same goes for the other drugstore kinds I've tried- Neutrogena and Aveeno both were way too smelly for me.

It's a simple thing - a light, unscented moisturizer that quickly sinks into skin. Doesn't make me break out, doesn't have a weird heavy texture, doesn't smell like too many ladies in an elevator. I choose the regular one over the one with SPF, because I'm convinced that changes the texture of any moisturizer. Sunscreen in moisturizer for me = breakouts and weird chunky lotion. Ew, pass. You can purchase this at your local drugstore and at drugstore.com.


I haven't been able to find a new shampoo/conditioner/hair care routine that works for my wonky hair right now. I used Pantene for literally 10 years of my life and switched about 6 years ago to Garnier. The Fructis stuff is fighting with my hair, though. I just bought the new L'Oreal stuff that's supposed to make your hair *shiny* and healthy and will report on that as I see the results. Eh, maybe my hair wouldn't be wonky if I spent more than three dollars on shampoo.