A Guide To The Beauty Aisle Of Trader Joe's

Here is a guide for those of you who are as intrigued by the beauty section of Trader Joe's as the food. Maybe not as intrigued, because...food. But there are some real gems to be found and almost everything is under ten dollars. It's also Trader Joe's so you can count on being sucked in to their clever marketing efforts. Case in point: bag of potatoes that introduces itself. So kind, so thoughtful.

Mango Body Butter ($4.99)

The smell of this is perfect. Maybe not the creamiest body butter in the world, but it is very hydrating. The main goal when using this is to smell like a tropical smoothie. On that front it delivers.

Tea Tree Tingle Shampoo ($3.99)

There is nothing as refreshing as peppermint in the shower. There is also something refreshing about a shampoo that just washes your hair and doesn't make seemingly impossible claims (mending split ends is farfetched, no?) It's sulfate-free, mildly clarifying, and have I mentioned it smells like peppermint? They also have a body wash in this scent. Just as tingly and refreshing.

Vitamin E Oil ($3.99)

This is a newfound love. The name is a little deceiving as this isn't pure vitamin E oil, it's mixed in with soybean oil. Vitamin E oil is thick and gloopy, so having a base oil makes it easier to spread. Good for winter or before bed. Also a good mixer. Add to jojoba for a thinner oil, coconut oil for a hair mask, or hand cream to boost the hydration. This oil means business so unless you want to look like a greased turkey I'd avoid during the day.

Ultra Moisturizing Hand Cream ($4.99)

This is a hand cream that smells like laundry. Not as luxurious as L'Occitane, but it does perform the exact same. 20% Shea Butter and thick but not greasy. This might not suffice in the dead of winter when my hands truly betray me and become not only ice cold but also as dry and cracked as a desert. As an everyday hand cream I love it.

Blueberry & Açaí Facial Scrub ($5.99)

The standout of everything here, and also the product I was most nervous to put on my face. I generally wouldn't trust a cheap chemical exfoliant (and I never trust a physical exfoliant). This claims to be a scrub, so I was worried it'd be both. However, this really is just an AHA exfoliant; it contains citric acid, malic acid, and lactic acid, as well as colloidal oatmeal and shea butter. It smells very strongly of blueberries.

I would compare this scrub to the Peter Thomas Roth Pumpkin Enzyme mask or the Kate Somerville Exfolikate. This happens to be a fraction of the price and delivers amazing results. It makes my skin buttery smooth and isn't irritating or harsh. It's a quick treatment, I leave it on for about a minute at night and my face glows the following morning.

I am fully on board with a budget-friendly AHA scrub that smells like blueberry jam and can be purchased alongside cauliflower rice and mini peanut butter cups.

Bedside Things

I'm really into a bedside table. By that I mean the contents on top of it. If the bedroom is meant to be an oasis of relaxation, then one could consider the bed and bedside table to be the pinnacle of this relaxation. There's something very comforting about having specific items within arms reach of your bed no matter where in the world you are. 

I always have something to write in. It's usually just a journal but at the moment I have the "Start Where You Are" journal by Meera Lee Patel which has self-love and self-exploration exercises. I received this as a gift and I love it.

A book. I always read before bed; and as a person who once read a freshly published Harry Potter while walking in the streets of NYC I can't sleep without a book next to me. Currently reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier for the second time. It's just as amazing as the first time I read it. Suspense in the most poetic fashion.

Lip balm. Right now I have the Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask; whose fancy name should give you a good idea of the price ($17 on Amazon). It comes with a very tiny spatula (why are tiny things always cute?) and envelope to put said spatula in. It's expensive for a lip balm but I have a feeling this will last me forever because you only need the smallest amount - also it smells like bubblegum.

Some sort of aromatherapy spray. Right now I have one from Moon Hollow of Salem, MA which are handcrafted underneath a full moon and sealed with Reiki energy. I take this information lightheartedly; except the fact that the spray I have is "associated with elf magic," which I take very, very seriously. It's called Stork Moon and has lavender, eucalyptus, and geranium essential oils. If I didn't have this I would be using Aura Cacia Chill Pill which is lavender, citrus, and patchouli and smells like yoga studios.

I usually have some sort of hand cream. Right now I have the Burt's Bees Coconut Foot Cream. It's a thick glycerin based gel and is best used with socks. It's very effective, but the smell is half the reason I love it: honey + peppermint.

Eye mask. A contoured eye mask is life-changing. Also perfect for traveling, assuming you don't mind wearing what looks like a small bra on your face on an airplane.

5 Principles To Natural Makeup

You can find a lot of "natural makeup" tutorials on YouTube that require 20 steps. No hate, I love the end result. But for the general population, spending 20 minutes applying makeup that doesn't look like makeup and dotting on fake freckles isn't realistic.

Here are my 5 principles that make your makeup look natural no matter what kind of look it is.

1. No foundation on the nose

I can't take credit for this, although it is something I found myself doing even before seeing this video. What this really means is keeping coverage light in the areas you don't need it. For example: a bare freckled nose or a sheered out tinted moisturizer with concealer where you need it. This technique tricks the eye and makes it seem like you're wearing much less (if any) foundation.

In simpler terms: Less is more. If you have freckles, let those cute babies breathe.

2. Cream products

Cream products melt into the skin and tend to look more natural. I use only cream products on a day to day basis. Especially since getting this Hourglass Trio which is my favorite makeup product of all time. If you love powders, a synergy of both powders and creams adds dimension and glow to the face. Just make sure you apply cream/liquid products first.

On zee face: MUFE HD stick foundation in 117, Benefit ka-brow in 04, NYX dark circle concealer, and Hourglass Illume Sheer Color Trio

3. Under-eye darkness can be your friend

I might be alone in this but I actually like the darkness underneath my eyes. I tried very hard to listen to Bobbi Brown and every magazine out there telling me that I should completely blank out the darkness under my eyes. But after a while I realized that doing this made my eyes look smaller and just generally weird.

I do use under eye concealer, I just don't apply it all the way up to the lash line. Keeping that darkness there actually makes your eyes look bigger. If you want to hear a professional explain this, watch 8:30 to 9:30 of this video. Or watch the whole thing if you're a makeup nerd like me.

4. Skincare

Prepping the skin is the most important step in any makeup look, especially when you want the skin to shine and look natural. Facial massage with oil is a good way to wake up the face if you want to go all in. But for every day, a good moisturizer and/or primer can make a huge difference in how minimal makeup blends in with the rest of the face. I love L'Oreal's Lumi Primer (avoiding t-zone), but use whatever suits your skin.

5. Natural Light

Put your makeup on by a window! It's the best way to make sure your skin looks like skin. Also, no better way to discover that the foundation you tried to shade-match at Sephora is 3 shades off and makes you look either ill or like a peach colored floating head.

My Top 10 Organizing Tips

I've always had highly organized tendencies. When I was in elementary school I frequently made time-lapse videos of me cleaning my room. I for some reason thought these, and other such short films (a clay-motion saga of a caterpillar), would be really interesting for my friends and family to watch. Blasting music and cleaning has always been a part of my life, and consistently puts me in a good mood. Here are my top 10 tips that keep the space around me organized.

daily:

(1) I make my bed every morning. There's about 30 articles about why making your bed will change your life. That's a bold claim, but it does feel nice to come home to a made bed. Having a nice space also includes (2) putting away clothes or things that have gathered on my desk. (3) I make a to-do list in my phone every day in the Reminders app. It's become a habit to constantly check this list, so I never forget the tasks I've put on it for the day.

weekly:

(4) I also make a to-do list for the week. I love having everything on my mind written out for me. It keeps me on track and reminds me to make time for errands, or schedule appointments. Or take a bath. Because why shouldn't self-care be part of our weekly routine? (5) I clean out my purse every week. I empty it completely, get rid of receipts I don't need, and re-organize it. I almost always have 4 tinted lip balms in my purse by the end of the week. (6) I try to do a quick clean up of my bathroom every week, at the very least wiping down the counter. (7) I wash my makeup brushes at least every two weeks.

seasonally:

This next one, possibly my favorite, I've been doing since high school. (8) I go through my entire wardrobe at the start of every season and get rid of clothes that I don't like, don't wear, or that don't fit anymore. I am sentimental towards certain things, but for the most part I am the opposite of a hoarder. I am a girl who loves to get rid of things. It takes a whole day, and you'll end up pulling out your whole wardrobe and making a huge mess. But when you're done, you'll have a curated wardrobe of clothes you actually wear. I also take this time to re-organize where I put my clothes according to season.

(9) Every few months I do a clutter overhaul in my room. I find that after a few months I end up with a bunch of sh*t stuffed in my drawers that I don't need. Take everything out, throw away what you don't need, and re-organize. (10) Lastly, I go through my bathroom and get rid of old beauty products: expired foundation, sample sizes of serum, and heat protection spray that I never use. As much I love makeup and skincare, when I look at an overflowing amount of products it overwhelms instead of excites me.

I actually get rid of things more than I maybe should because I love the feeling of shedding excess so much. But if you tend to hold on to clothes or have products in your bathroom that are 5 years old, give the clear out a go. It'll feel amazing, promise.

Social Media "Detox"

I have always been intrinsically opposed to technology. It always scared me, even before smartphones and social media. Over the years the "world" of social media has changed immensely. And I say world because it is a world, your "social media life" feels like a separate life from your real one. People are now making money, brands are taking advantage, and suddenly your profile is an amalgam of you as a person: the aesthetic, the themes, the filters. The moments you choose to share.

It feels inclusive which is possibly why it feels good. We're all laughing at the same memes together. You feel close to someone you don't know in a way you never could before.

That's interesting. It's intriguing. And I'm not over here on a high horse saying that I don't engage with it, because I do. But lately I'm finding that although it might bring momentary entertainment, it isn't bringing me happiness. I think because a lot of what I find on social media is becoming a bit disingenuous. There are exceptions, but most people are posting the curated versions of their lives. The best moments. I mean, for how long can we watch the same bloggers and models go on the same paid-for vacations and continue to be impressed by it?

Social media can be beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, and inspiring. But my question isn't really with the quality of the content, but rather the quantity. How healthy is it to engage with social media the way we do now?

Before having an iPhone I would pick up a magazine occasionally, lazily flip through the pages, study the ads. I craved that sort of glamour, the curated content that magazines provided was fun.

But now, instead of engaging with this content on a weekly basis, we engage with it daily. Hourly even. That, I'm sure, is part of the reason why a lot of the memes I see are poking fun at the fact that we're all depressed and anxious. We're spending less time genuinely connecting (with ourselves and other people), and more time distracting ourselves with other people's best moments.

"Detoxing" from social media is a new fad I'm seeing thrown around, and I can understand why. But, like any detox, it usually implies a complete withdrawal and then a few days later right back into the exact same routine [PSA: Don't spend money on a "smoothie cleanse"]. Which I'm not sure is helpful, and I say that from experience.

I think about this a lot, and I've found a few ways that help me spend less time on social media and feel less jaded by the whole thing.

1. Unfollow people who don't make you happy.

This seems obvious, but you get to choose what type of content you look at, and also how much. Find people that are real, authentic, and inspire you in some way.

2. Do one thing at a time.

If you're watching TV, watch TV. If you're with friends, be with friends. If you're in a car, look out the window. We all carry our phones around with us like it's an extraneous limb that we can't be without. But you can. Put it away, and when you want to scroll through social media do it for a set amount of time, and not in conjunction with 10 other things.

3. Pick a day to put your phone away every week.

I don't do this every week, but I do frequently hide my phone in my drawer for hours at a time, much to the chagrin of people trying to reach me.

4. Do the human thing (and go outside).

Spend less time on your computer/iPad/phone and more time with people. Humans thrive on connection, and even though social media feels like connecting, it isn't the same as face-to-face. Or at least not for me. But then, I'm old school, and will continue to be one of those annoying people who asks for a typewriter for their birthday.

Review: Demeter Fragrance Library

I'm not sure how I came across this company, but if you've never heard of it check it out here, and prepare to be lost in a vortex of interesting sounding colognes ranging from Vanilla Ice Cream to Myrrh.

Demeter has an interesting take on fragrance in that most of their colognes are one note, or as they describe it in their mission statement, "the smallest combination of ingredients that expresses an olfactory idea." Their first 3 colognes when they started in 1996 were Dirt, Grass, and Tomato. All of which sound strangely enticing to me, but then again I also love the smell of skunk.

Not only do I love and am fascinated by scent, I am also incredibly indecisive, so it took me a solid month before deciding what to order.

The colognes are relatively cheap, $20 for a 1 oz. spray, and come in a variety of sizes for trial.

I ordered Fig Leaf in a 1 oz. spray, and two 1/2 oz. splash bottles (no spray, unfortunately) of Firefly and Wet Garden. I also received a gift with purchase which was a 1 oz. spray of Honey. That's a pretty generous gift, and it ended up being my favorite of the bunch.

Fig Leaf - This supposedly smells similar to Diptyque's Philosykos, which is a fig based perfume that costs a mere $130 more than this one. I really like this. It's earthy, fruity, and fresh. If you like fig, you'll probably like this. Don't expect a very complex Tom Ford-esque fragrance. It's summery and I enjoy it, especially paired with Honey.

Honey - I love this. It's a warm, comforting scent that smells exactly like Honey but somehow made wearable. What I love most about it is it's ability to be mixed. I've been mixing it with fig leaf most days and it adds a sweetness that I love. Not sugary-vanilla sweet, but a natural take on a sweet note. I can't imagine a perfume that this wouldn't pair well with.

Firefly - This perfume is described as the "essence of an early northeastern spring evening at dusk, the smells associated with that magical night when the first fireflies of the year appear." I mean first of all, this company kills it with the marketing. I wanted to love this. Smelled in the bottle it does have that grassy nighttime smell. But as soon as I put it on my body it transformed quite devastatingly into a gross body odor smell that made me gag every time I smelled my forearm. This, along with Wet Garden, might work better as a candle.

Wet Garden - It smells exactly like you'd expect: wet, earthy, grassy and floral. Like a wet garden in spring. It's a really nice smell; but it turns out I don't actually want to smell like wet grass. Still intrigued by Tomato though, will have to get back to you on that one.

How To Relax And A DIY Body Butter

It occurred to me the other day as I was watching Friends on Netflix as a means of relaxing after a stressful day, that I was not actually relaxing. All the stress of my day had not dissipated, but was lingering under a heavy blanket of distraction. Don't get me wrong, there's a time for binge-ing Netflix. But in order to truly relax I needed to be in the present moment. Sans social media and late 90's sitcoms.

I used to relax pretty effortlessly. I would light incense, put on a guided meditation, listen to music, dance in my room, go on walks. The day it stopped being so natural for me to relax was the day I got an iPhone. Suddenly I had other things to do to distract from stress.

To actually bring yourself peace, you have to put in effort. Maybe it's driving to a yoga class, playing an instrument, meditating, taking a bath, or listening to a Tara Brach podcast (!) We all have an activity that focuses us in the present moment and brings us a sense of peace.

And it's important to realize that being entertained endlessly by the constant stream of new information in the internet world will most likely not bring us peace. We must occasionally step away from these pleasures in order to de-stress.

For me that means running a bath, listening to Joni Mitchell and/or the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack, and lighting my favorite candle in the world (Bath and Body Works Marshmallow Fireside). Post bath, I slather myself in body butter because we all know that moisturizing is the best possible form of self-care.

Hence, the following recipe, and the reason you probably clicked on this post in the first place.

Not pictured: The grapeseed oil I used, and another glass container full of body butter because this recipe makes enough to last months. Or share, if you're feeling generous.

This is without a doubt the best body butter you'll ever use and is all natural. I usually steer clear of anything that starts with the letters "DIY," but this is worth the effort. I got the recipe from Wellness Mama and altered it slightly.

Ingredients:

1 cup Shea Butter

1/2 cup Coconut Oil

1/2 cup Grapeseed Oil (or another light oil)

10-30 drops of essential oil

1. Melt the shea butter, coconut oil, and grapeseed oil in a glass bowl over boiling water

2. Let cool for 5 minutes, and add essential oils. Use more if you want the body butter to have any fragrance. I used 25 drops of lavender but the overwhelming scent is more "health food store" than lavender. Doesn't bother me.

3. Let it cool in the fridge for about an hour until it's partially hardened.

4. Whip with a kitchen aid or hand mixer for 10 minutes, until it's light and fluffy.

5. Transfer to glass jars and set for another 10 minutes in the fridge.

The consistency is whipped but melts into a delicious creamy oil when warmed between the fingers. You only need a tiny bit to cover your whole body, it melts almost instantly into the skin and is so ultra moisturizing that I actually feel inclined to use it every day. Unlike any other lotion or body butter I've owned, which have all been relegated to the dark, sad corners of my cabinet.