The Lush Bath and Body Works Shop to Cliniqually avoid Bed Head and other such nonsense

Since my post on my make-up rituals was so well received, I thought I would do a follow-up post on my entire "beauty" regime. So here's what you missed on Glee.

Oops. Wrong forum.

So here are the things I use.

1.TIGI Bed Head Foxy Curls Conditioner: I don't know if it foxifies my curls, but it does smell great! (Here's a message from my hairdresser: USE CONDITIONER!!!!!ALWAYS!!!!!)

2. Kerastase Specifique Shampoo: My other hairdresser made me buy this, promising me that in exchange for the money that I handed over to her (which was a lot), she would give me something that would halt my seemingly inevitable progress towards being bald. I'll tell you if it works in a few years.

3. Clinique Pore Minimizer: This is something that I should be using, but I never do. I am hoping that one day all my pores will just open up completely and join so that I end up with a thinner face. Does that make sense?

4. Avene Soap-free Gel Cleanser: This is awesome! I don't break out half as much now. (Break dance. Don't break out! Can you believe I said that? Me neither.)

5.Kumkumadi Thailam: Any glow that you saw on my face on my wedding day was because of this innocuous little thing. Well, this and the diamond facials that I did. But this is oil with saffron infused in it and it truly is excellent for your skin. It is also bloody expensive. So if you can get your hands on it, don't let go. Apply it on your face for half an hour and wash it off. If you ever come to Kerala (or to India) go to Kottackal Arya Vaidyasala and you'll get this stuff. Shhh. This is my biggest beauty secret.

6. The Body Shop Blueberry Body Butter: How can you go wrong with something that is so named. I love all of their Body Butters. Strawberry and Cocoa Butter both make me go wild and I start eating up my own arm; so I stay away from them. Blueberry is safer. I wanna be embalmed in this stuff when I die. It is that good!

7. This is not what it seems.Inside this container is T'eo the dry deo from LUSH. I love this brand. They look good, so they make me look good. There I said it. T'eo's awesome though. Hands down.

8. Bath and Body Works Body Wash in Sweet Pea: I love this thing. Sweet Pea is such an amazing fragrance! I want everyone to call me sweet pea henceforth, understood.

9. The Body Shop Bath and Shower Gel in Almond: I am such a shower gel fiend that I have around twenty different kinds. This and the Coconut Cream one are my favorites from Body Shop. Sometimes, I mix them both up and go totally wild!

One last thing.

I use these bath gloves and they completely changed by life. They are like an extra pair of hands. I'll never use a loofah again, I think.

And.... I'm done. Now it's your turn to tell me your secrets. Spill. :)

Perfect foods

God crafted these things with his own hands; try as you may, they cannot be improved on. And while 100 things that you must eat before you die lists are socially and culturally of great significance, I truly believe that you haven't lived if you have not eaten these foods at least once. 

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They are

1. Mangosteen

2. Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake or an equivalent with equal amounts of Butter and Cream.

3. Bacon

4. Nutella

5. Alphonso Mango with Cream

6. Condensed Milk

7. Mashed Potatoes with Butter, Salt, and Pepper

8. Liqueur Chocolates (Anthon Berg, anyone?)

9. Hollandaise Sauce

10. Buttercream   

I am dying of gluttonous feelings here! Care to join me with a list of your own?

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Beauty and the beast

If anyone that I know in real life reads this post, they will laugh at me because I am not the wake up and put on my make up kinda gal. Technically, I'm the kinda person who would have no right to talk about make up. But I gotta tell ya... I've been making all kinds of efforts these days to brush my hair and be more... um... lets say, conscientious about the way I look and this is what I do for that. :)

1. L'Oreal Infallible Le Rouge in Bordeaux Bold: This. Is. Foxy. It makes me more than who I am on my own.

2. M.A.C. Technakohl Liner in Graphblack: I use this every day. EVERY day. Except when I am pretending to be sick. Because when I want to look sick, all I need to do is not wear this. This is my secret weapon. 

3. M.A.C. Studio Fix Powder + Foundation: Love this thing. Changed my life. No shine for 3 whole hours these days! 'Nuff said.

4. M.A.C Prep + Prime Face Protect: Of all the things in this list, this is probably what I would recommend the most. I use it in place of sunscreen and before I apply foundation and somehow, my face just looks instantly clearer and more toned. Primer is seriously underrated.

5. L'Oreal Resist and Shine Titanium Nail Polish in Scarlet Red: I don't know how we all lived without red nail polish in that weird period between 2000 and 2005.

6. M.A.C. Tinted Lip Conditioner in Petting Pink: Looks good, tastes even better. It unchaps my super chapped lips like none other. {Coconut oil comes a close second for this purpose.}

7. Yves Saint Laurent's Young Sexy Lovely: This parfum is what helps me day after day, unquestioningly and unconditionally, on my my journey to becoming more young, sexy, and lovely. I am fighting all odds, including time and nature. Watch my journey, live, on your local sports channel.

8. Maybelline Moisture Extreme in Chocolate Delight: Seriously. I love this color. The lipstick lasts for like 10 minutes and it smells like old feet now because I bought it ages ago, but this lipstick shade is my favorite eva!

9. The Body Shop Super Volume Mascara" For va-voom volume," they would say, and its kinda true.

Now this is what these products actually look like. Look at the pink on seven. Blush!

I gotta tell you, I am writing this post simply because this is a peek into my life; I think it's fun to know the things that other people do.Voyeuristic pleasure is the fifth best of all the different kinds of pleasure, if you ask me.

Now tell me... what goes in your house? ;)

Life or something like it

Can I puh-lease tell you about this new found learning that I've got that has blown my mind, metaphorically of course. This insight has changed how I see the world in entirety, and particularly, how I look at men. This is what happened.


Recently, Thom turned to me ingenuously and asked me, "Babe, we got married on the 30th of August, right?" My initial reaction was sheer bewilderment; 6 months after getting married, how could he mistake our wedding date for another!!! {We got married on the 31st, btw.}A myriad emotions flitted through me in quick succession—amusement, fear, rage, curiosity, and deep, dark sorrow, to name a few... How typical, I thought, and I made fun of him about it, resentfully and unresentfully. This had happened a thousand times before. He does not remember a single other important date other than my birthday (and that too, he forgets the year), which he would never forget because I talk about it endlessly. Figures that he would forget our anniversary—that was the only date left untainted by his forgetting.


Well, it was only today that something stupefying struck me. He had not forgotten my wedding anniversary or even our wedding anniversary. He had forgotten his own. "Selfishness" or "self-obsession" or "insensitivity" or "not caring" or "being irresponsible" was not the reason. This whole thing, in fact, had nothing to do with me. He forgot a significant event in his life, which means a) that dates are not important to him in any way, or b) he is super forgetful. Neither has nothing to do with how he feels about me or how responsible he is as a boyfriend. 

I do not know if I have explained this well enough here, but this revelation has possibly freed me from a lifetime of anger, bitterness, and tears over forgotten anniversaries and missed birthdays. I am not saying that these are not important. Signifcants days in my life mean that world to me. And I really believe that the more excuses there are to celebrate, the better it is. But maybe I will never play games about dates or test Thom about this. Maybe. Let's see what else he remembers and forgets. ;)

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Bless

In her quintessentially sweet and non-assuming way, Tani wrote this on her blog. It was a vital piece of education that her mother had passed on to her, and she, unwittingly, to me. "And that if you absolutely must say something negative about someone then make sure to say, 'bless her heart' afterwards." Isn't it strange and wonderful how certain things that people say stay with you... they stay with you and become an organic part of you and pretty soon, you begin to teach other people the same lesson. 


A simple act of blessing someone is such a powerful thing, and something we often do. But this piece of advice is so much more than that. In a way, it is like salve on a wound—blessing someone who has spited you, blessing someone who you just spoke badly about.


I told 3 people yesterday what Tani's mother told her. I don't know whether it made a difference to anybody, but I'm not gonna stop telling people this. The thing about advice is that while its always free, sometimes it is invaluable.  

Do, doing, done

You need to do these now. I need to do these now. The whole courtroom needs to do these now. 

1.To begin with, Chevron stripes have my heart. These prints, made with potatoes and paint, are the stuff awesome is made of.


You start with this...

And you end up with this...

Go to Strawberry Chic for more and more and more.


2. Molly Jacques has found what I am looking for—a dream job, in her own words. Plus she is super pwetty. Plus she has red lipstick.{She basically has everything I want from life!}You go girl, MJ! ;)

And she does amazingly beautiful illustrations and calligraphy. 

There are a lot of things that she teaches you about on her gorgeous blog. This is one of them and it is stunning.

Is it chalk? Is it not? Who could tell!

Well, Molly will tell you that it is made in Photoshop and then she proceeds to teach you how to do it.

And it is easy as pie!

3. How crazy cute are these spoons and forks!

Imagine them hanging from your kitchen shelves. Imagine yourself ladling out French onion soup with them. Imagine throwing them up in the air and catching them. Imagine giving someone a massage with them. Ok, maybe it's time to stop imagining now, but you get my point: you can do anything with these spoons and forks.Or you can make them and give them to me. This is how you make them.

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4. Yarn + Bottle + Glue =

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5. Eggs are awesome to begin with. Painted eggs are even better. Look at these...

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Now, painted eggs with messages inside them... that's what I want.

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Taye Diggs, now's your time. What do you wanna say to me?

6. This is an infomercial; be warned!

"Can't find a mug that says what your heart wants to say? Or maybe your mind is as fickle the notes from a fiddle and it wants to say a new thing everyday. Look no further. I'm about to teach you how to do exactly that with the new and improved "Chalkboard Mug"! It's cute, it's pretty, it's pretty cute, it's smart, it's cheeky, and the coffee in it will make you do cartwheels. To make it, all you need is love and some paint. Amongst other things, that is. Remember, life's a cup. You gotta drink from it to the lees. Ciao!"

 

7. And last and certainly the least, this is how you tie a bow (tying a bow is nothing compared to painting spoons or making chalkboard signs!!!).

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And then you can peobably graduate to making these bows.

After you have mastered that, you can apply for the job currently occupied by Queen Elizabeth II.

Which of these are you gonna do today?

10 things that are making me flippin' happy

1. I won something!!! I actually won! There was an amazingly fun contest at Felicity's lovely blog Gifts of Serendipity as a part of which she asked everyone to list out their favourite words. Then she made word clouds out of them and we had to choose one of the lines and make sentences using the words on the line. This is one such cloud.
  
Isn't it ingenious?And aren't the words lovely? These some of people's favorite words. And this was my sentence: "She was walking through the 'gully,' 'naughty' thoughts swarming through her head, when she tripped on the bow that held up her 'kimono' and it all came undone." You are right, my name was picked from a hat!


But I won! Go have an apple crumble in my name. :)


2. My guest blogging stint at English Muse. The posts are here, here, here, and here.


3. The weekend is coming! Yaay! I plan to cook and eat and sleep and watch New Girl and cook and eat and sleep. I plan for it to be splendid!


4. My nails! They are long and well-shaped and perfectly fuchsia (Thom painted them for me!) and they totally make up for my badly shaven legs and undone eyebrows.


5.  The itsy bitsy boy who crossed the street in front of my car and gave me a salute of thanks as he walked by. What a gentlebaby!


6. My wedding ring. It is the simplest of gold bands with my loverboy's name etched onto its insides, but every time I look at it, my heart swells just a little. It is the symbol of the greatest show of devotion I could ever make and it is a source of immense strength. It is my cape and my sword, my elixir and my shield.


7. These jeans.They have grown on me like second skin and I love them! Zara makes me happy. I think I'll buy a plant and name it Zara.


8. A cuppa tea. It never, ever fails me. It always makes me feel happier, healthier, more rested, and more alive. Tea, like water, is perfection.


9. My family:1. They are always there for me. 2. They are the only people I can be absolutely myself with (at my screaming, shouting best) 3. They are generous and sweet and kind and cute.


10. The angels that surround me all day and all night. Today I asked for good music on the radio while driving back, and guess what I got? Baby got back, All the single ladies, Judas, and Papa don't preach. What more can a girl ask for?