The (Liquid) Rock

One of my friends recommended that I try "rock" deodorant. You can do an Internet search for this and see the different varieties, but basically the idea is that rock (also know as crystal) deodorants are all natural and usually free of bad normal deodorant additives like aluminum and paraben. While I've only tried one brand of rock deodorant - "Liquid Rock" by Kiss My Face - I found it ineffective and in a word, wet. While I can appreciate the natural nature of this deodorant, I felt dirty after I put it on as it doesn't dry right away and I would have to hold my arms up and let my armpits dry for about a minute. I don't know about most of you, but when it comes to my morning rituals they need to be as short and easy as possible as I'm always pressed for time. While I recommend a natural deodorant - Kiss My Face makes others that aren't of the "rock" variety, as does Jason and Tom's of Maine to name a couple more - I'm not so sure the rock deodorant is right for me. Then again, maybe one of a less "liquid" constitution would work better for me. Either way, natural deodorants are the way to go and I've even found that they work! 

Letting go of Martha again

The Academy Awards are on in about eleven minutes so I have to post early! Today, I find myself letting go of a Martha Stewart Living from last April. It's basically the Easter issue. It has lots of tips on how to entertain for the day and how to make special cookies and make really cool Easter eggs. I'm tearing out some of my favorite pages - and definitely the four free recipe cards - and will then recycle it [insert weeping sound here]. I leave you with some of Martha's Taste Test Winners - a piece on page 72 of this edition - for reflection.
Honey: Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey
Cocoa:Valrhona's Dutch-process formula
Vanilla: Tahitian (this is true!)
You've just gotta love the eye for detail!
Oscar picks: Best Actress - Natalie Portman; Best Actor: Colin Firth (even though Jeff Bridges is awesome in True Grit, but the movie wasn't nearly as good as the original.

Cheap floss = abused gums

You know that thought stream I had about generics versus brand names (I think it was a couple of days ago)? A very good example I failed to remember at the time was dental floss. Generic dental floss is terrible. Even if you buy the waxed kind, it's ridiculously tough to get through your teeth. I bought some generic dental floss some time ago and thought I would keep it as a back up; tonight I discovered why it's not even a suitable back up - just awful. I will have to make sure to simply by good floss two at a time so as I never run out of it!
Thus, in the trash it goes. I hope my gums recover!

Cheaper is usually not better

There is one thing I have learned over the years: most things that are cheaper are not better. For example, generic macaroni and cheese, generic Oreos, and cheap shampoo and conditioner. But, every now and then I get dragged into the under a dollar shampoo and conditioner and I buy it. Well, I used to do this. I have vowed that unless it's something top shelf - like Paul Mitchell - I'm not buying it. While this may sound snobby, it's true. My hair rats all up when I use the cheap stuff. Thus, in the beloved hallway closet I found a bottle of V05 conditioner. It was not good to me. I was trying to save some money and I dealt with it - at least half a bottle - until I couldn't take how long it took me to comb out my hair after a shower. I just don't have that kind of time. Thus, this product is eighty-sixed.
Note: There are some things I've found that are better cheaper, but I'm too tired to think of them right now! Good night!

Smile pretty

There seems to be quite a fascination with whiter teeth. Sometimes, I meet people and there teeth are such an untoothy-like, white color, I'm just amazed. We've been no stranger to this. One of the last failed efforts was Crest Supreme Professional Whitening strips. I think Mark got these at the dentist since it says "only available through your dental professional". I say that as I know I didn't buy them. They are simply awful. You put one little flimsy strip on the top and one on the bottom. They are supposed to stay there for thirty minutes, but they're slipping off your teeth after one minute. They foam and make you drool. They taste bad. Overall, I think if you're going to get your teeth whitened you should just pay the dentist to do it while you're there. I say this knowing that almost all attempts I've made to whiten at home end poorly and with frustration. It seems I've never wanted to pay a dentist the two-hundred bucks or so to whiten my teeth, but perhaps I've wasted that much already on things like these Crest whitening strips?
Anyway, even though there are a lot of them left, they are going in the trash.

No-brainer

Today's source of eighty-sixing: the kitchen tensil drawer. I swear I have more places to look than the kitchen utensil drawer and the hallway closet, but these places are really ripe for eighty-sixing. If you remember an earlier post I did, I made brief mention to the fact that I was pretty sure there were pipe cleaners in there. Well, there were. There are actually ten of them, white in color, and wrapped in a plastic bag. I simply have NO IDEA why these are in the kitchen utensil drawer. At least they could be in the catch-all kitchen drawer, right? I find this post to be a no-brainer and there isn't that much more to say - when you have pipe cleaners in your kitchen utensil drawer you really do need to eighty-six some stuff!
For your amusement (put on your glasses as this pic is really small!):

Paraben-free is the way to be

There they were, buried deep in the hallway closet, another remnant of my I-can't-stop-buying-another-facial-cleansing-product past. For some reason, I thought the No.7 Beautifully Balanced Purifying Cleanser would be a miracle. That I would have less blemishes, that I would have clearer skin, that I would look, well, refreshed, as the product suggests. I used all of one ounce of the randomly sized 6.6 ounce product to learn that it wasn't going to be the miracle product I had built it up to be in my mind. Now that I look at the ingredients, I see that both the toner and the cleanser contain five different parabens individually. I didn't even know there were that many parabens! I even see what I never see - that one of the parabens is listed way up on the ingredient list, which is really uncommon as a paraben, in any form, seems to a last ditch filler/preservative as it appears the end of nearly all ingredient lists. Parabens have been linked to breast cancer, and my life is just too short to deal with any risk of breast cancer. And yes, there is debate on both sides - that parabens do cause breast cancer and that they don't - but any nod to causing breast cancer is reason enough for me to not use products with parabens. Thus, this eighty-six is to the point and the case is closed.