the dry shampoo struggle

the first dry shampoo i ever tried was bumble and bumble spray for blondish hair, i loved it. i've had medium to long hair all my life and washing/drying it every day is not only bad for it, but a pain and a time suck. over the last 10 or so years i feel like i've tried them all. my favorite spray is elizabeth & james black nirvana, even 3rd day hair is acceptable. for powders, it's oscar blandi i fear is discountinued. with no blandi to order and areosole shipping not allowed, what did i manage to find in budapest?

bumble and bumble pret a powder is a good travel size and does nearly as good a job as the oscar blandi. i say nearly b/c it's a bit harder to get out of the bottle after a few shakes.

lee stafford was a co-worker reccomendation and is a close second to elizabeth and james. it's got good absorbsion for a spray, blends into my darker hair and doesn't have an offensive smell. the downside is the size of the can, it runs out pretty quickly.

batiste has a stronger smell. the original is fine but there's no 3rd day possibility here. the xxl volume is pretty sticky, like a hairspray with powder, which might be what you're looking for.

aussie miracle is pretty crap. the smell is the standard aussie smell which is a bit over powering. the powder also seems to separate from the spray, it needs a lot of shaking before each use.

my skin and europe aren't always friends

a quick note to say i'm sorry for the delay in posts. i had company in town 2 weekends in a row and we are about to start filming at work so, my free time has been extremely limited. i will have some great budapest updates next week tho, promise! now, on to the good stuff.

my skin has been a problem my whole life. i've had eczema since birth and still will scratch a random patch in my sleep so that it's very hard to fully heal. i've managed to keep it a bay for the most part with a water filter shower attachment and a strict seasonal rotation of aveeno products. guess what they don't have in budapest: aveeno!

coming to europe without my trusty aveeno wasn't entirely planned or unplanned. i stocked up on the travel size gold bond cremes and eucerine because i like to keep those in my purse as my hands get very dry. having not had a real flare up in a while, it didn't really occur to me to worry about my body lotion. i had already scoped out shops on google maps, i knew i'd be able to get my lush dream wash and butterballs locally. i figured finding body lotion would be the easy part, oops.

it never occurred to me that i wouldn't be able to find fragrance free body products here. the stores are jam packed heavily with perfumed body wash, lotions and balms, (and 20 kinds of femme wash) but fragrance free was hard to find. same with laundry detergent. my beau thinks this is a hold over from when they showered less so needed to smell artificially clean, who knows. after fruitless trips to every supermarket and drugstore chain in town, i settled on nivea cocoa body lotion. i've used it before sporadically and knew it wouldn't break me out. for the most part i was right.

minimal-ish travel beauty bag

while i've never been the full on face of make up type, i don't consider myself a minimalist either. my skin is too dry for that!

on my recent overnight trip to prague i was only packing in my backpack so i knew i'd need to streamline even further than i usually do. here's how the packing in went:

the whole load

my face

high end on a budget

while this post may seem unrelated to my move, it came about because of it. i've spent a great deal of time moving around various bank accounts, comparing fees and rewards, as well as holding off on some purchases to make them more cost effective so, here we go.

i'm a frugal shopaholic. i grew up pretty poor and while i learned the value of a good deal and coupon/sale shopping, i didn't get the talk on credit card debt. while i got in a little deep in college, i managed to climb my way out. i'm not going to go into all the hows, that's a little too personal for me, but i will share some personal insight i've learned along the way.*

rewards credit cards: check out points guy, he's got the most comprehensive run down and tips, especially with travel rewards. i haven't been traveling much the last few years but i'm about to start. i also love any rewards points. amex allows points to be turned in for cash, flights or (most bang) gift cards. i've purchased many a nike gear, william sonoma cookware, clothes from nieman marcus and shoes from zappos. the available store has gone down but there's still good value. about a year ago i cashed in all my points for my garmin.

my "slight" youtube addiction

it began innocently enough, i wanted to check out a video game before i committed to buying it. it devolved into me spending a saturday selecting "next" in playlists on youtube. the same thing happened with beauty.

one minute i'm watching grace helbig do a "sweater weather" tag, whatever the hell that is, and the next thing i know i'm on ingrid nilsens' channel who tagged her learning how to tightline my eyes. wow, i've always wondered about that. looks a little painful. oh look, there's a video about how to use the concealer, i knew i was doing it wrong.

several videos and "vlog" playlists later, i discovered fleur de force. the english accent, the english countryside, the dogs, that hair, i was hooked. there's something about having a person talk at you about a product that isn't going to make a commission off of it so much less annoying than a customer service rep.* and what's best, the person on youtube can't interact. if i decide i'm not feeling the product, fast forward, skip. no awkward "um, maybe something else" conversation while they desperately try and convince me that i really need this brand new $100 foundation.

lately i've been

i was able to prep this post while on the plane from nyc so, here we go!

lately i’ve been…

since i’ve recently started posting again i decided to on this survey i saw on peanut butter fingers blog so we could all get better acquainted.

cooking: my own lunch for work. it’s mostly some lazy variations of chicken breast and rotating bases and toppings, ie. rice, salad, pasta. i’m going to get into that in next tuesdays post.

a glossier life part 3

we have reached our conclusion!

the optional: but not really, i mean come on, i've saved the best for last.

a glossier life part 2

how did the phase 1 set hold up? i'm going to do a bit of comparison to my previous regimen which had a much higher price point. here we go...

a glossier life part 1

i'm a big fan of intothegloss, it should basically be my home page. about a year ago they released their own line of skin care products called glossier (like dossier) and i just had to try it.

in february i finally ran out of everything i'd ever bought, sampled or been gifted. i was ready to try out the phase 1 set. of course there were 2 face masks released as i was ordering so, go big or go home right?

(l - r) soothing face mist, perfecting tint, balm dotcom,
priming moisturizer, magical moon, mega greens

so...um...yeah

it's been a long while.

i went back to freelance film work in september of last year and so my life is a tad less structured, which i happen to love. i can be a tad ocd organized but i'm also a problem solver so when the work gets flipped upside down, i dig it. that's probably going to be how this blog is going to go from now on.