Categories
This blog was designed with love

Are you interested in showing your support for my site? Feel free to post a blog button!

Blueshelled.com

We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Freebies make me happy

Have I mentioned lately that I have the best sponsors in the world? The way to this girl’s heart is freebies. You buy me stuff or give me a freebie and I’m a happy camper. Restaurants that offer free toothpicks or mints to me get higher stars in my personal restaurant monitor than do those that don’t. It’s simple psychology in that people like to feel like they are getting a deal. My love language is presents and when someone hits that button, I’m a happy girl.

So, when my rep at SkincareRx.com, Mike, said “Hey, I’m sending you stuff, let me know if you like it,” I was over the moon. In the interest of full disclosure, my sponsor sent me the bag. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m giving you my completely honest review of the products contained within knowing my sponsor is probably going to read this, because I know, and they know, that not every product is right for every person or every skin type. You are going to hear me say that alot.

So, without further review, you wanna know about the stuff I got and what it was like. The beauty cache is a box filled with beauty stuff, some sample sized and some full sized. It is $29.95 and has a beautiful little case to put your new products in. Mine was blue. My products were not all the same as the pictured products, as some caches are different, and mine didn’t have the awesome little gift card because I’m a blogger and not a buyer. I used the products over the course of a month or so and used the skincare products on different weeks so I could tell if I had reactions to them.

Here is what mine contained based upon star review value:

Juara rice facial cleanser- 1.1 fl. oz. Holy wow. The best of the best. This stuff smelled amazing and cleansed my super sensitive skin without stripping it. I found myself looking online to see if they made a lotion in the scent. It only took a little and it was easy to use. It also made my hands soft after use. When I run out of the sample, which I haven’t yet, after a month, I’m going to be purchasing this. It is wonderful.

Jane Iredle Pure Lash Extender and Conditioner I have teeny tiny short, sparse lashes. Really? I have bald eyes. It’s true. The Telly Savalas of eyeballs. When I applied the extender/conditioner duo, I had lashes! It was amazing. A couple of things to note: It will feel like you have false lashes on. For some people, they can’t handle this and will fiddle with their lids. Don’t do it. You will just pull out your eyelashes or upset your eyelids. I was fine with it and I’m neurotic. Second, my eyelashes didn’t feel conditioned, but they didn’t feel brittle. For me, it was totally worth it. With this and my TooFaced Lash Injection, I had some serious peepers.

The Name is Product Pomade I’m a freak about my hair. When I was younger, I was ok with not caring about my hair, but now? Totally different story. My stylist always comments upon how healthy my hair is. I like that positive feedback. I crave it. My stylist is hot. It makes me feel special. My low self-esteem demands that attention. So….I was leery about trying something with a name like this. And I was wrong. WRONG. It looks non-descript. It’s in a jar and it looks like it might need to be heated in a microwave. Nope. I put the amount of a pencil eraser in my hand, rubbed it together and magically it made my wavy hair into “naturally curly hotness.” My hair goes all the way down my back. This little jar will last me ages. And it held for 2 days without feeling the slightest bit crunchy or greasy. I hid my jar. Nobody touches my jar.

Bond No. 9 So New York Eau de Parfum Where perfume is concerned, I don’t like hard scents. My everyday scent is a lemon scent. Yep. I’m a clean, light scented girl. But holy jeepers, this is hot. Just, HOT. I wore it and felt like every man in the room was looking at me. I know, that was slightly creepy, but it smelled good. And it lasted all day. And it’s expensive, but a little bit would last a long, long time. And I want more.

Pharmacopia Lavender body lotion 1.8 fl oz For most of my life, I despised the smell of lavender, but lately, I’ve been craving it. I’m not sure why other than it soothes me. Most aromatherapists agree that the scent of lavender is meant to be soothing and calming and relaxing. Life has been hectic lately and all I want is some peace, so lavender it is! Now, I have to be honest in that I have a quirk. I HATE the way lotion feels on the palm of my hand. I’ll wait while you process that and give me a look like this: o.O However, I soldiered on and found that I liked the way this felt on my body. It was luscious, for lack of a better term. Silky and thick and I found myself enjoying the scent of it all day. The only reason it was down a star is because it took a while to sink into my skin and I did not like the way my jammie pants felt when up against it.

Kinerase Advanced Radiance Face Peel-3 day supply Peels scare me. Seriously. When I said I have sensitive skin, that was no joke. When I saw a face peel I seriously considered not trying it and just throwing it into the “neutral not gonna do it” category. But, I’m a strong, amazing woman who takes one for the team. Well, that and I was curious. It kills cats, but in this case, it made my skin look great! After 3 days, I was glowing. I’m pretty certain there is nothing radioactive in my diet, so it had to be the peels. And, best of all, my skin wasn’t itchy or irritated. The price is a downfall here, and I might be reluctant to commit to a peel. One of my peel sticks was dried up, as well, but I have no doubt that the company would send me a new one if I’d asked. Not a bad peel if you are looking to peel.

Marina Cosmetics Sea Perfected Lipstick in Beach Breeze The major problem I found with this lipstick is that it was a frost. I’m too young to do a frost well and pull it off and the coloring was a little off for me as a person. This is going to be where personal preference comes in. I still gave it 3 stars because it was a GREAT moisturizing lipstick and hours later, when the frost wore off, my lips looked good.

MD Skincare All-In-One Tinted Moisturizer Sunscreen SPF 15 – Light Houston, we have a problem. While this tinted moisturizer moisturized my skin, it had the same fatal flaw that I’ve found all other tinted moisturizers have: Light doesn’t really mean light. My pretty porcelain princess sisters will agree that light doesn’t mean tan. I’m very light skinned with yellowish undertones and often have to go with products made for Asian skin because light means light, not medium. For some people, this would be a great tinted moisturizer, but for me, it was only a three.

Colorescience Sunforgettable SPF 30 – All Clear Well, I’m fair skinned and I burned baby burned. I was red like a lobster after this on the half of my body facing the sun. It did not last a 3 hour little league game. But it did keep me from sweating, strangely enough?

Heliocare Dietary Supplement For The Skin- 10 day supply I didn’t notice any skin changes for the better, but my skin didn’t get worse, either. I couldn’t say that this helped or hurt. Maybe I needed a longer go with or it’s possible it didn’t work for me.



MD Skincare Hydra-Pure Vitamin C Serum full size product Out of all the products I received, this is the one I most wanted to try. I’ve had excellent luck in the past with products that contain Vitamin C making my skin just glow. The minute I applied this one, my skin burned so badly that my eyes teared up and I immediately started looking for a washrag to remove it. This is not for a sensitive skin person.

SkinCeuticals Phloretin CF I had a similar experience with the Phloretin CF that I had to the C-serum. When I put it on, it was fine, however, the next morning, my forehead broke out and I itched like crazy. For a week. Sometimes products just are not chemically perfect for your skin. This wasn’t for me.

VitaMedica Arnica Montana 30X 5-Day Blister Pack – 40 Tablets This is a really specialized product for people who are undergoing plastic surgery procedures and therefore I couldn’t review it. It helps decrease swelling and the discomfort from surgery. It gets a neutral star because I don’t have anything, good or bad, to say about it, but it was in my pack and I wanted to acknowledge it was there.

So, overall, the beauty cache was well worth it’s price to try the products alone. There were several full sized/close to full sized products in there and if you did the cost analysis, it was silly not to try them if there were several you might use. I was happy to find several things I didn’t know about and I’m pretty well versed in skincare and make-up. Thanks again, to Mike and SkincareRx.com for the opportunity to try this stuff and let you guys know about it.

Jillian

Going to the movies

Everyone in my family enjoys going to the movies. There is nothing like spending $30 just to get in the door, another $40 on tasteless treats and sugary sodas and then the opportunity to sit next to people who are either going to yell at the screen, text non-stop (you know who you are twitterphiles), whisper to one another about how you just can’t liiiiiiive without out each other (gag) or put their hands all over each other.

Let me clarify this. I hate going to the movies unless the movie has been out for at least 8 weeks, everyone else has seen it and there is the remote chance that I could be sitting in the theater room by myself. Then I LOVE going to the movies. And I will enjoy the biggest Coca Cola there is while I’m there. Mmmm.

And the movie will be awesome until my 9-year old inevitably says, “Mom, I’ve gotta pee.”

Now, I’ve been lucky in that, well, he’s a boy. I can’t go into the boy’s bathroom and his daddy generally is a good sport about saying “C’mon I’ll take you” or threatening him to within an inch of his life that he’d “better hold that pee until this movie is over because I offered to take you to pee and you swore on your life you didn’t have to pee.” Every now and then, though, I have to bite the bullet because I’m with him at the theater without a man or because I get THE LOOK.

As I was reading an older Woman’s Day, I think it was from March, something caught my eye. A website called Runpee.com. I love potty humor, so anything that talks about peeing automatically gets my full and complete attention. Runpee.com is a website that will tell you the best times in movies to take “a break” and how long you can “break.”

This is incredibly helpful not just for those little ones, but also for people like me who enjoy the super large keg sized Coca Cola in the dark theater.

So, who is going to a really old movie with me this weekend? If you text during it, I reserve the right to throw your phone across the theater.

Jillian

More Mapco love

I know you may be tired of hearing how much I love my Mapco. I promise they don’t sponsor my blog, but if they did, I’d shout it even more. One of the advertising folks over there read the post about Bryan and my 1am adventure and sent me a very sweet note and a gas card as a thank you. It made my day. I’d post the note, but my phone camera just isn’t that great. It looks gorgeous, but doesn’t like Times New Roman. And my Mapco now has a Quiznos which means I can get my ham and swiss EVERY DAY. I love them. And they aren’t paying me to say that. I LOVE THEM. I believe in rewarding places that are clean, nice, well-stocked and helpful to me when I’m there. It’s capitalism, people! And now that they were more nice to me, I’ll go there even more often. Yes, I will.

Lately, I’ve had a lot of time to think and what I think is that being kind is underrated. The simple things in day to day life are making or breaking me the last couple of weeks and a nice word or gesture is really all it takes to salvage a day.

What I’ve also realized is that the little things in life that make a person miserable aren’t worth it and if something is toxic that it needs to be cut out like a boil. If you constantly find yourself feeling a certain way about a certain thing, a certain idea, or a certain person that makes you feel bad or unhappy, then, as painful as that is, sometimes you have to let go. Especially if you feel like you can’t confront the feeling head-on or support the person as they are.

But mainly, kindness is really really important. And if someone isn’t kind to you in your darkest of moments, move on. And when a gas company is, support them.

Jillian
Comments Off

Biggest Giveaway Ever-SkincareRx.com

Since I started writing blueshelled.com, I have been very lucky to have the support of some excellent people. One of those companies is SkincareRx.com. For the last six months, they have been a proud sponsor of my site and have been quietly working behind the scenes to support me in any way possible. They are one of the companies that make it possible for me to write here and I want to say thank you.

Besides being awesome and supporting unknown bloggers, they also do fun things such as giveaways to the faithful readers of said unknown blogs. It is another way of supporting this blog and rewarding the people who spend time here and I am incredibly grateful for their support. As such, I’d like to direct you back to their amazing home page and ask you to give them a whirl.

They are offering a great line of Skinceutical Advanced Brightening products, as well as all of the amazing skincare stuff you love. The Advanced Brightening products are particularly good for damaged skin, as they decrease the effects of that damage as well as protect your skin. If you aren’t using skincare, now is a good time to get started. I can tell the difference in my skin on the days that I use skincare versus the days I don’t. Soap and water isn’t enough, especially with the pollution we encounter daily in the air around us. I’m a fan of even toned skin, as mine tends to be blotchy, and this particular set helps even out the skin tone, as well.

My favorite product in the set is the sunscreen. I hate sunscreen. I hate the way it feels. I hate applying it. I hate having it on my face and stinging my eyes. I actually tried this brand a couple of years ago and it’s the only sunscreen I’ll use on my face because I can apply it with a makeup sponge and it feels like there is nothing there. Ok, enough gushing about the skincare. You want to know about the prize, right?

You don’t have the money to invest in skincare? This is where I come in and SkincareRx.com helps you out. We’re offering a giveaway for my readers! It is the largest prize I have ever offered and I’m thankful to them for sponsoring it. A gift card to SkincareRx.com is up for grabs in the amount of $150! This is NOT just for women. Men have skin, too, that needs protection. Even if you aren’t into your skin, I’m sure you know someone who is. Mother’s Day is coming up. What better gift than a $150 gift card to a great site? It’s pretty easy to enter, too. Here’s what you do:

As the sponsoring blog I will track and validate all entries. So when you post here that you posted or retweeted. I will check to see if you did. The winner MUST provide me with their full name, email address and a mailing address. Those are the rules. If you can’t do it, you can’t win.

How can you enter?

SkinCareRx Giveaway Entries

1) One entry for becoming a fan of SkincareRx on FaceBook
2) One entry for following SkincareRx on Twitter
3) 2 entries for retweeting any one of my tweets about this giveaway
4) 7 Entries for a blog post with a link directed to Skinceuticals Advanced Brightening System. This blog post must have a minimum of 100 words and use the words “SkinCeuticals Advanced Brightening System.”

That’s up to 11 entries! Post here when you have completed all of the entries you’d like to complete and I will keep track of them. The contest will run for 2 weeks and the winner will be posted March 22, 2010. Good luck everyone!

Jillian

And an interesting contest happening

winnersOk, since my last contest only had 4 entries (hello!), here is what I decided to do. I have 2 planners and was going to do separate giveaways, but since only 3 people wanted them, I’m going to give away the 2 planners and a lipstick palette via drawing. The first two numbers drawn will get the planners and the person who doesn’t get drawn gets the palette! Everyone wins this time around!

Planner #1:
Here are your random numbers:
1 Timestamp: 2009-11-10 05:30:29 UTC

Congrats, Loopy! Please email me your mailing address to jillian at blueshelled.com within a week!

Planner #2: Here are your random numbers:
3 Timestamp: 2009-11-10 05:31:21 UTC

Congrats, Ellie! Please email me your mailing address to jillian at blueshelled.com within a week!

Lipstick Palette goes to my girl, Natalie! Please email me your mailing address to jillian at blueshelled.com within a week!

Thanks to all of you for spreading the word and for entering my contest and congratulations!!

Jillian
About Me
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
Contact me

jillian@blueshelled.com
P.O. Box 252, Franklin, TN 37064

Donations

Shine


I'm a featured blogger on Mamapedia Voices

Misc


MyFreeCopyright.com Registered & Protected

Sponsors
Korres Body

I am currently accepting new sponsorships. Please email me for more information.