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!

Stay tuned. Surely they’ll come out with a seventh innovative bottle of cetearyl alcohol soon!

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.

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!

The main thing I’ve noticed since trying this duo as a complete set is that my horrible, itchy, annoying dandruff is finally at bay. (I always get a crazy scalp when the seasons start to change, and my standard Redken AllSoft only makes it worse.) For the scalp relief alone, this pair was worth it. I do wish the price tag were cheaper, though.

The Honey & Hibiscus Shampoo is surprisingly sudsy, considering the lack of SLS (and comparing it to other JMO shampoos, like their Zinc & Sage Shampoo + Conditioner or their Evening Primrose Shampoo for Dry Hair).  It felt like it cleaned my hair pretty deeply, and got rid of the silicones that tend to build up on my hair what with all the smoothing products I use.  Yet it didn’t feel like it had dried out my scalp at all, which is something of a miracle given how picky my poor head has been lately.

The one drawback is that the shampoo seems to lack its sister’s amazing honey-hibiscus scent.  (Or maybe it’s just me, and the shampoo’s scent is just lighter than the conditioner’s so it’s harder to notice.)  And neither one has a scent that lingers, which is a shame since they’re so yummy in the shower.

All in all, I’ll probably keep purchasing this duo, but only use them when my scalp acts up.  (My coarse hair begs for silicone-rich smoothing products, but my scalp always complains.)  They don’t make my hair look fabulous, by any means — they’re just nicer than the average non-smoothing duo.