PLUS, all my wedding skincare remedies qualified me for a free Skincare Challenge full-size product, and they finally had something I wanted — and I’ve been wanting to switch to a different moisturizer anyway as of late. Never seen a philosophy Skincare Challenge reward on their site before, so this was a pleasant surprise.

And lastly, I still have a crazy high number of points to redeem, so I’m due for another freebie soon! But none of the 500-point bonuses have appealed to me lately. Maybe I’ll just wind up stocking up on a zillion different $100-point perks instead…

*Like Phytodefrisant, Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer, Urban Decay Stardust shadow in a purpley color, and a replacement for my trial-size Smashbox Photo-Op Under Eye Brightener that I like to carry in my purse for loooong days (like this one). Quite the bonus bag!

Non-beauty inevitabilities that I officially welcome back into my life:

Yellow teeth — those Crest 3D WhiteStrips HURT! And my teeth look just fine all normal-colored, thank you very much.
Dry cuticles and unkempt nails — Sometimes you gotta be lazy!
Acne AND bacne — thanks for holding out for so long, epidermis! You can even throw some KP my way if you must.
Tan lines — gone are the days of swaddling myself in a goddamn cashmere wool wrap in 96 degree weather just to keep my back and shoulders line-free! OK, I still wear it sometimes as it’s great sunscreen and looks lovely — but I no longer feel OBLIGATED to wear it rain or shine.
Mosquito bites — I’m amazed you guys didn’t cover me in pink welts before the big day. Thanks, buddies! Have at it. I will tackle you with prescription-strength steroid cream and continue to catch you easily mid-flight.

Things I now bid adieu to for the foreseeable future:

Bustiers/corsets with boning — GOD PLEASE THE HORROR. I still have a scar from where it poked at me all night, from BEFORE the wedding! Boning is bullshit.
Spanx — I can finally both digest and breathe, to say nothing of going to the bathroom in a reasonable time frame.
Heels — OW.  At 5’11″ I’m done with that discomfort for a WHILE. (Though I’ll probably dye and keep my 2.5″ Jimmy Choo and/or Angela Nuran wedding heels, and re-wear them eventually!) But as of right now, I can’t feel the outer edge of my damn big toes because of my wedding-day footwear worn for a mere 2 hours. *&^@$@#! heels!
Manis/pedis — I gotta start saving my money again, and plus, I kind of miss my OWN neglected polish shades! And no more dremel for a while. Nails on a chalkboard. And no more soaking my fingers in acetone for ages to get the tough gel polish off.
Makeup artists — I love being pampered and all, and Carina and Swink both did an amazing job — I just kind of miss looking like ME. I normally never do foundation or blush, my eye makeup never looks as perfect as theirs, and I’m just *used to* my own shades and formulations. Plus it took like a year to get my false lashes off, and a few real ones came with each cluster. QQ Owie!

Well, I discovered a couple new hits this last time around.  Vanillary smells similar to my usual Comptoir Sud Pacifique Vanille Coco fragrance, but slightly less sweet; and the apparently best-selling Jungle solid conditioner bar is less of a pain in the ass than I would have predicted.  But the real show-stealer was a new cleanser meant for problem skin, called Dark Angels.

As you can see, this stuff was gritty, thick, messy, and DARK. Seriously, the depth of the charcoal pigment (meant to cleanse impurities from your pores) was kinda shocking. It felt surprisingly great, though… at first. After several uses, my skin, my tub and my fiancé were distinctly worse for the wear. It also felt like the pH was too high — I base this mostly on the fact that I ran out of toner while testing this stuff, but comparing it with other cleansers I use (namely PSF’s Green Tea Cleansing Milk), Dark Angels was much harsher.

But the real downside (other than Grant freaking out when he saw me use it for the first time!) was the tub maintenance. Like so many LUSH products, this stuff was prone to clinging to the insides of my bathtub and shower walls, and was just a messy pain to clean up. At least it’s charcoal leaving the stain this time and not FD&C Red 40 from some garish glitter-laden bath bomb — but still, I don’t welcome the extra housework!

I’ll happily use up my remaining quantity in the sink, where cleanup is less intensive, but I probably won’t re-purchase this cleanser. Still, a fun trip nonetheless! I hope it will be good for days when I’ve been under crazy sun exposure and I’ve gunked up my face with silicone-laden products — a cleanser with extra oomph is always welcome then.

However, the new stuff ALSO contains powdered dimethicone, which we all know I’m not a fan of.  And can you blame me?  The stuff blocks pores like none other, so I don’t exactly consider it a wonder ingredient for a product that’s designed to alleviate oily skin and acne.  (Perhaps there’s something I don’t know here — maybe dimethicone in powder form is less comedogenic.)

The second new tube contains the same antioxidants and sunscreen ingredients (albeit in higher concentration), and no salicylic acid. And they’ve somehow packed butylene glycol in there.  But BOTH new versions contain bismuth oxychloride, which is a real bummer — it’s known to make some people break out in an irritated, bumpy red rash.  No thank you!

The old stuff I still have a tube of contains silica and the Antioxidant Trifecta, but no dimethicone or bismuth oxychloride.  It also has significantly less titanium dioxide (and less zinc oxide as well), and it’s WAY too dark for my skin tone so it’s pretty obvious.  I tested these two new ones on my hand at Sephora and they both seemed a bit paler, but it was tricky to tell.  However, the ingredient list in the old stuff is much shorter, which of course makes me happy.

Honestly, since they still share the same crappy packaging with the coarse, shed-prone brush and the cap that comes unscrewed, I’ll probably just concoct my own and put it in a synthetic dispensing brush that I found online.  I will update if and when I get around to actually seeing this through… now I just need some free time to clear out our storage closet!

Turns out this system has a teensy catch — your points expire if you don’t use the account frequently enough.  So, even though I paid my $10 for this privilege, I’m about to have my account shut down and my existing points voided.  Why is this, you ask?  Because Aveda has literally not made a SINGLE product that I can or would use, in the past TWO YEARS.

And it’s not for lack of trying, trust me.  Back when they came out with their Smoothing Collection a couple years ago, I bought the shampoo and conditioner duo to give it a try.  And it wasn’t totally horrible — it kind of made my scalp freak out, like most dimethicone-heavy smoothing formulations do — but it delivered similar results to that holiest of hair grails for me, the Redken All Soft collection.  However, it smelled so incredibly foul that even my fiancé begged me to return it!

And recently, I returned to the scene of the crime to try and buy a tiny trial-sized item just to activate my account, and I of course got into a discussion with the Aveda sales gal about the company’s downfall and crappy products.  (I can never keep my mouth shut when they start to pry or go for a hard sale.) She badgered me into buying a bottle of the Style Prep Smoother, which had a different but still bleh smell, and which TOTALLY did not work on my coarser, wavier hair.  WAY too much cetyl alcohol content for a leave-in product — it dried out my ends like crazy, despite the fact that she swore it made her hair more moisturized.  And shockingly, I hated it and returned that too.

So what’s a girl to do?  I went down to the local Aveda today since they’re having yet another Double Points Extravaganza!!! event, and I went with the intention of actually making a purchase that I would keep.  Yes, lately I’ve been missing having a salicylic acid-based acne spot treatment, so I went with the intention of checking out their relatively new acne line.  Well, my faithful three readers, guess what I discovered?

Every single acne product contains dimethicone — one of the MOST comedogenic ingredients that acne-prone people fear.  OH my GOD, how the mighty have fallen.  You can have your expired Pure Privilege points, Horst/Aerin.  I know it took me a long time to finally break things off with you, but it is SO OVER now!

Along with the weight-loss goal comes a set of skincare goals for me.  And much like losing weight, for me these goals are things I’ve been meaning to do in or out of wedlock, just to keep my skin feeling and looking its happiest and healthiest.  And now I have a really good excuse to make it official! So I’m writing myself a set of skincare vows to follow while leading up to the big day and beyond.

1) I vow to use my Clarisonic at least once per day, with no more than one lapse per week. (I mean, I paid enough for the thing, and I love the results… when I actually take the time to use it!)

2) I vow to at least remove my makeup before going to bed, no matter how tired I am. (A very bad beauty habit of mine — I always tell people that I’m full of great skincare advice that I have lots of trouble following!)

3) I vow not to skip lotion/body oil after more than one shower per week. (Taking care of dry skin needs consistency!)

4) I vow to file my nails BEFORE they break and tear from getting too long. (I’ve been carrying a top-notch nail file in my purse since January 1st, but I have yet to use it once this year!  And I notice my ragged nails much more now, every time I show off my ring… it feels wrong to have crappy cuticles and crooked nails next to such a beautiful heirloom.  I should give the rock the respect it deserves and take care of my manicure!)

5) I vow to be consistent in the application of my topical actives. (No more starting things like Retin-A but skipping it six nights a week — no good will come of it, and I hate getting perpetually stuck in the dry flaky phase!)

Hopefully the fact that I made these vows public will mean that I actually follow them, to some degree.  I’m also going to post them on EDS so that my pals online can help egg me on.