3 posts from May 2009

I was a passenger en route to Minneapolis when the police officer pulled out behind Mandy's car. We were driving through Eau Claire county at the end of the month. If it were earlier in the day we might have been going slower to peek in passing vehicles to see if Justin Vernon was in any of them. Alas, it was 8 or 9pm and Minneapolis beckoned us with it's pizza luce and it's grain belt beer (well maybe not so much the grain belt beer - let's say surly instead). A half-hour or so later we were on the road again, this time Mandy had a ticket in her wallet and her plans for a Sephora run to stock up on $80 essentials had deflated. Thus she asked us for more economical recommendations to replace her upscale shampoo and night creme. I shared some stories of my attempt to wash my hair with baking soda and vinegar. The vinegar seemed to leave it greasy so I used a dilute lemon water instead...but I never got the percentages quite right. I think I might give this another shot this summer in between bouts of enhancing my red. I then made a more realistic mention of how much I love Trader Joe's Citrus shampoo and conditioner, my current Aveda backup. $2.99 a bottle (same price as the wine), smells great and the ingredients are recognizable rather than reading like a science experiment. And then my night creme recommendation - extra virgin olive oil! I keep some in a salad oil dispenser in my medicine cabinet. I don't use this every day and when experiencing t-zone break-outs I only use this on my cheeks and neck. I generally alternate between this and aloe vera. Real aloe vera is clear, I stay away from the drugstore stuff with the green dye. I get mine at the local natural foods cooperative. I find Aloe to be both soothing to dry skin yet drying to oily spots and it keeps my pale skin from becoming too ruddy in extreme temps. I used to drink about a shot of aloe vera juice a day, sometimes mixed with juice and sometimes just a swig from the bottle. That last bit might seem gross but there was never a danger of any roommate/partner wanting any. While good for you, aloe juice is not pleasant tasting. Before that there was the time where I would put a little barley in a bowl, cover it with warm water and set someplace warm for a day or two. Usually a windowsill or by a heating vent. It would ferment a bit and then I would drink it - I swore these things made my skin "glowier." I've always been big on the glow-factor. There's no chance of my skin ever being bronzed and not looking like a oompa-loompa so I'm sticking with glowy. These days I'm pretty happy with my glow results due to exercise, moderate portion sizes that include brown rice at least once a week. Gotta get those pockets of waste out of your system so they're not reabsorbed or excreted through your skin. And brown rice is ever so much more pleasant than a colonic - at least I would imagine so. Certainly cheaper.