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Monday, August 25, 2025
5 Body Lotions Similar To EOS
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Clinique’s Black Honey Dupes
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This is #6 Baisen Diary in Honey |
1) e.l.f. Cosmetics Hydrating Core Lip Shine in Delightful
2) Honest Beauty Tinted Lip Balm With Avocado Oil in Plum Drop
3) Revlon Super Lustrous Glass Shine Moisturizing Lipstick in o12 Black Cherry4) Maybelline’s Glaze Balm in Acai Glaze
5) Covergirl’s Clean Fresh Tinted Lip Balm in Bliss You Berry
6) Baisen Diary in Honey - This made BuzzFeed’s Wishful List. Fans of it like it better than the original Black Honey as it leans brownish over a more reddish tint. 👆Compare the Baisen Diary in Honey top image with Clinique's Black Honey image below.👇
Original Black Honey on 3 different skin tones. |
I have linked the 2 dupes, wearers tend to be the happiest with as nearly identical to Clinique’s original Black Honey Tint, however all 6 dupes have their fans as close matches for less. Look for them on Amazon, Walmart, Target, CVS and Walgreens to find the lowest price. Feel free to highlight the brand and color names, then enter each one in the search boxes of the 5 retailers for comparison to find your honey of a deal!🍯🐝
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Discover Nude Envie Cosmetics
At every age I’ve gravitated towards nude colors in makeup. Personally I'd rather look like my best self over wild and crazy combinations of bold colors, not that there’s anything wrong with bold colors, or experimentation.
What’s more, all the make-up in the collection will work together in any combination. Some are matte, while others have a touch of frost for a little extra pizzazz.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Savvy Shoppers Know That Size Matters
It takes a surprising amount of commodities to maintain ourselves! Doesn’t it?! Even a minimalist has to agree. From household germicides to skincare to haircare to personal care, we certainly need to buy a slew of solutions, soaps, lotions, and potions to clean, groom, and perfume our homes and physiques until the day we die!😳 Today and everyday, I mean, stop and what’s next? Germs? Bad smells? Dishevelment? Surely people in their right minds would never just let themselves go!
A reason I love T.J Maxx is the many botanical and organic finds including liquid soaps, moisturizing lotions, shampoos and hair conditioners that are also sold in huge 1 liter or 33 oz sizes for less. My practice is to buy one, plus one to keep on deck for when the first bottle turns into an empty.
I do the exact same thing when buying household cleaners like gallon sizes of distilled white vinegar, a 4 lb box of baking soda, Pinalen (pine oil), ammonia, and bleach from Walmart, Target, Key Food, or C-Town. (I’ve decided not to replace the ammonia because the others do the same jobs. I hardly reach for it anymore. Before switching to white vinegar to clean my floors and counters, I used ammonia to keep from ruining colored rugs with splatters while cleaning.)
Neither overbuying nor underbuying saves you money. Learn which products keep and which lose potency with the passage of time. Then the trick is to figure out what you need and will continue using. We might make a few mistakes before we figure it out, but eventually we do figure it out.After we figure it out, buying staples in big ole sizes not only saves time and money, but simplifies our lives. You make fewer trips to the store to restock and instead can do other tasks or pleasures.
Monday, June 9, 2025
Korean Beauty: Meditherapy
I’m a big fan of Korean Beauty. Its skincare contains good clean ingredients based on science that works, and it's great value for the money. Generous sizes for less!
Meditherapy is a skincare brand to put on your radar. It’s potent anti-aging serums and creams are formulated to be moisturizing, quick absorbing, non-greasy, non-sticky, suitable for sensitive skin and most importantly, affordable. I mean what more do we want?
If you only try one product, the top image Retinal Skin Booster Serum is it! (Before tariffs, it sold for $11!) So what makes it so good? The serum contains non-irritating retinaldehyde, which is a nonprescription derivative of retin-A. (Retin-A is the prescription strength.) Retinal is another name for Retinaldhyde. Another non-perscription strength of retinol-A is the more familiar retinol. All 3 strengths are highly effective, but the non-presciption strengths require conversions after their application on the skin to become retinoic acid (i.e. retin-A), often called the holy grail in anti-aging serums.
2 Conversions: Retinol --> Retinaldehyde --> Retinoic Acid
As you can see the Meditherapy Retinal Skin Booster only needs one conversion to become retinoic acid, not retinol’s two. But remember all 3 strengths are excellent anti-aging ingredients as all 3 work. Think of it like eating carrots to get your vitamin A. Carrots contain beta carotene which you body converts to vitamin A.
If you have the budget to try more products in the Meditheraphy line, below are a few others worth considering:
Friday, May 30, 2025
The Ordinary GF 15% Solution: An Anti-ager
The Ordinary keeps evolving because skincare keeps evolving as science evolves. I try to keep up with the science of skincare and enjoy trying new products.
Here’s a new one from The Ordinary I’m curious to try. It's called GF 15% Solution, an age support serum to help minimize and repair the visible signs of aging, including skin damage. The key ingredients are IGF, EGF, and TGE, which are growth hormones and peptites to regenerate the skin, firming it up and restoring elasticity. GF 15% Solution softens fine lines and wrinkles on the forehead, around the eyes and mouth, and smooths rough skin along with brighting dull skin. Sounds desirable to me!
You apply a few drops after washing your face in the morning and at bedtime. GF 15% Solution doesn’t play nice when used with direct acids, direct vitamin C, or salicylic acid. On the other hand, it pairs well with hyaluronic acid, retinol, and heavier moisturizers. If you use retinol (at night) or bakuchiol (day or night), apply the GF 15% Solution 1st, then retinol or bakuchiol and followed by sunscreen or moisturizers.
I’m writing about GF 15% Solution without testing it first because the Ordinary has proven to be extraordinary skincare. Trying this new product will let me know if its right for my complexion.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
e.l.f. Sun Boss Lip Gloss with Sunscreen
The long name on the product leaves nothing to the imagination: e.l.f. Boss Gloss Broad Spectrum SPF 25 Sunscreen. It is pigmented lip gloss with high SPF sun protection.
The main reason I'm featuring the gloss is because it's not sticky. The strains of your hair won't stick to your lips every time you turn your head, which is so annoying. We've all been there. The Burt's Bee's lip gloss I bought a few year's ago was so sticky I never bought it again.
E.l.f.'s color (a choice of 5) is buildable with a high shine finish. Zinc oxide, vitamin E, and hyaluronic acid are the key ingredients. It has a coconut scent, which is fine. People like makeup with a pleasant smell, right? All of e.l.f.'s cosmetics are Fair Trade Certified. They are free from the usual harmful suspects and are vegan and cruelty free.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
The Parallel Makeup Bag
Without a doubt, at $78 for the small size, the Parallel Cosmetic Bag is expensive! Still we can admire how revolutionary it is. A traveler can organize her makeup essentials upright and visible instead of packing it in one big clump of brushes, powder, blush, and lipsticks. No riffling through the bag to find an item.
We are asked to pay for the attractive, sophisticated design that turns chaos into the clever organization of all our beauty tools, the patent-pending folding technology, its intuitive compartments and compactness, and the ease it gives us of grabbing our makeup on the road.
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Frankly Retinol 0.1%
For many people I recommend only buying one strength at a time since everybody's skin reacts differently and you don't know when your skin will tolerate a higher strength. So you may need to buy retinol 0.01 repeatedly before you can bump up the potency. Retin-A (prescription strength) and Retinol (non-prescription strength) tends not to have an eternal shelf life.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Commence By Brooke Shields
Let's take a closer look at each one:
The 2-in-1 Instant Shampoo - Cleans and balances dry hair, adds volume and leaves the hair more squeaky clean, lifted, and full. Cost: $21 for .75oz/21 g.
The 3-in-1 Leave-in Conditioner - Hydrates, tames frizz, adds shine, and contains ingredients like alfalfa extract and quinoa peptics to protect hair from the heat of blow dryers, straighteners, and curling irons. It is a lightweight formula that supports hair growth and thickens hair strands. Cost: 26 for 5 Fl oz/150 ml
The Root Serum - Is designed to nourish and support the scalp microbiome. It calms, hydrates, and strengthens hair from its roots to its ends. The result is softer, smoother, and stronger hair. Cost: $30 4 fl oz/ 120 ml.
While testers are pleased with how the products improve the texture of their hair, the products are costly! You could probably splurge to try them, but you must decide how much you can afford to continue using them. Ask what sum you are comfortable spending on your hair over the course of a year. The Commence haircare line adds up to a pretty penny!
I won't lie, I'll spend more on skin products than hair products. Over time, I've found budget-friendly drugstore brands to match expensive luxury brands, and T.J. Maxx stocks amazing shampoos and conditioners containing botanicals. Enter T.J. Maxx in the blog's search box to read about some of those.
Monday, January 27, 2025
Neutrogena Collagen Bank Face Moisturizer with SPF 30 Sunscreen
Sunscreen should be worn on exposed skin every day of the year without exception. While many drugstore brands of sunscreen are ample and cheap, I can understand paying a little more for what goes on your face. If the consistency of sunscreen is too thick, white, or greasy we're less likely to reach for it. To boot, it might cause some faces to break out!
Neutrogena, a drugstore brand, is a top-notch skincare line, bar none. Neutrogena's Collagen Bank SPF 30 Moisturizer and Sunscreen does double duty as a fantastic sunscreen and anti-aging face moisturizer. It contains peptides that reportedly penetrate "10 layers of skin" to stimulate the production of collagen. Peptides (short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds) are anti-aging ingredients that help treat fine lines and sagging by plumping up the skin.
This non-greasy formula melts into the skin, absorbs quickly, and does not leave a white cast, the reason to pay a bit more! It's also fragrance-free, paraben-free, phthalate-free, dye-free, dermatologist-tested and non-comedogenic. Because it's a light agreeable formula, we're more likely to use it.