Excellent Excellence

In November of last year, I wrote about my preferred brand of hair color, Revlon's ColorSilk, in "My whites are showing." I've recently just changed brand loyalties. Now, my hair color of choice is L'Oreal's Excellence Creme.

What made me switch? The number one reason is the fact that it is a cream, not a liquid. No dripping! It's wonderful! That alone would have been enough reason to make me switch. The second reason is the conditioners that it comes with. Note that I used the plural. It comes with a pre-color conditioner aside from the regular after-color conditioner. It's an additional step and makes the process a little longer, but for someone like me who always struggles with dry hair, it's a very welcome step. And the after-color conditioner: L'Oreal has packaged Excellence with a small bottle of its Color Vive hair conditioner, enough for two or three applications. The applicator bottle also comes with two nozzles, the regular one-hole kind and this small comb where each tooth has holes in the sides, not the tips.

I love this new discovery. I've already bought my second bottle and it's waiting in the toiletry cabinet for my next application, about two months from now—just in time for the Christmas parties.

Foamy!

Bath & Body Works has some of the most fabulously delicious scented products ever. Unfortunately, I find them a little too expensive for everyday use. So you can imagine my delight when a college girlfriend came home for a visit last Christmas and one of the items she gave us was a bottle of its liquid hand soap.

Since I follow the FIFO policy even for household products, I only opened the bottle this past week. Another delight: the soap came out foamy! Silly me didn't read the label. Turns out that it was the Gentle Foaming variant. I love it! I've been like a little kid—I have to stop myself from pumping out more than what I need. And I was wondering why the pump was so thick.

I'm fascinated by that pump—it's obviously why the soap is coming out foamy. Much as I love the soap (and the scent—it's Exotic Coconut), I can't wait until the bottle's empty. I want to take it apart to find out how it works. Hey! That's what I did to find out how those child-proof caps work!

Erasing dirt like magic

Remember that article about keyboards being dirtier than toilets? I didn't just post it here—I also emailed it to a lot of friends and colleagues and may have caused a keyboard cleaning binge at work (and in Multiply).

Anyway, my husband—who originally sent me the link to that article—didn't stop at just disinfecting his keyboard. He decided that he wanted the keyboard to be as white as the day he bought it. Thanks to Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, he did.

I read a few forum topics about keeping computers and gadgets clean, and this product keeps getting recommended. After seeing my husband's keyboard, now I'm recommending it too. Since the sponges are kind of large, I suggest you cut it up first. Aside from saving a little money, you'll also have more surface area to clean with.

Dry + brittle nails?

Then get this darling little bottle: Sally Hansen Age Correct Strength Dry + Brittle Nail Care.

Several months ago, I noticed that my nails had suddenly turned extremely brittle. Anything and everything I did caused them to split, chip or break. Annoying, to say the least. I couldn't touch any fabric because the threads would snag on my nails. I tried using moisturizer—though the skin on my fingers turned nice and soft, it did nothing for my nails.

So I was forced to go hunting for a possible solution and found this in the beauty and health care section of the department store I regularly go to. It works! (Thank goodness. Or I would have been forced to search for another solution.)

You're supposed to apply it every other day until your nails heal. When applied, it looks like you have clear polish on, though not as shiny. Since I started using it, I haven't had a single chip or break. Of course, I'm now afraid to stop using it, but I think I will soon because I also want to find out how long it'll be before my nails turn brittle again. If or when they do, at least I know what to do already.

I just wish Sally Hansen would change its name. It's hard enough to be aging without having to use a product that shoves that fact into your face.

Not quite from scratch

I think I'm a little slow here, but I've just discovered how to make quick, chunky soup using canned condensed soup. My only excuse is that Campbell's soup is imported here and I don't pay it much attention when I do my grocery. There's not much variety either—we only seem to have a few of the cream-based soups plus the chicken noodle soup, and only the regular kind too—none of the chunky or low-sodium varieties. But I wanted to make a shrimp-based chunky soup last weekend—it's rainy season here already and nothing beats hot soup when it's raining—and I didn't have much time to make one from scratch because I woke up late Sunday morning. So I grabbed two cans of Campbell's New England Clam Chowder and a brick of low-fat milk and that's what I based my chunky soup on. I don't think I'll be doing this often though. I checked the nutrition information and the sodium content is high!

2 cans condensed clam chowder cream soup
1 brick (250ml) low-fat milk
1/8 cup butter or margarine
2 small onions, minced
1 kilo peeled shrimp, sliced into bite-size pieces
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
2 small carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped

Place the condensed soup and milk in a stockpot and use a whisk to mix the two until smooth. Set aside.

In a wok or large skillet, melt the butter and sauté the onions until translucent. Add the shrimp, salt, black pepper and marjoram and sauté until the shrimp turns pink. Add the carrots and zucchini and sauté for about two more minutes. Set aside.

Heat the soup. Add the sautéed shrimp and vegetables, including the liquid, and mix well. Simmer for three minutes.

Sucking on sugar-free

I don't usually choose sugar-free products over their regular variants. The main reason is because my husband and I don't really consume products with loads of sugar—like softdrinks, powdered juice drinks, cookies, candies, chocolates, and such. Another reason is because of all those horror stories I've heard about aspartame. And the third reason is because I haven't eaten or drunk anything sugar-free that tasted better than its original variant. (If I'm going to have something that's not good for me, I might as well enjoy it to the fullest, right?)

These past two weeks, though, I've discovered that there is one product that I like the sugar-free variant more than the original: Strepsils. For some reason, it's much smoother than the regular kind. It also isn't as sweet, which is great. Here in Manila, we don't get the sugar-free kind in different flavors—there's only one and the package, which is lime green so it's probably lemon, doesn't say what flavor it is. I don't mind at all. I like it.

And yes, our Strepsils come in foil packs—not tamper-proof bubbles (or whatever they're called) in boxes.

Inhale…

I finally fought off that bug I caught last week, but I still have a bad cough and the sniffles. Since Wednesday, the day I felt well enough to go back to work, this has been my best friend at night:

Vicks VapoRub. A small dab outside my nose, and a large dollop rubbed on my chest. The dab on the nose definitely eases my breathing, and I like the warm-then-cool sensation of it on my skin.

This thing's been around for ages, and I can understand why—it really works!

Perfect for traveling

Sachets!

I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in the Philippines, almost everything is available in single-serve packets.

These made up my toiletry kit for the weekend retreat. Shampoo, hair conditioner, feminine wash, facial wash, moisturizer, toothpaste and mosquito repellent, all in spill-proof foil or plastic sachets.

I love these things for traveling. They're not bulky, they don't spill (unless you're silly enough to keep them with something sharp and pointed), I can bring only what I will exactly need, and if I don't finish the pack, it's not painful to the pocket to leave them behind.

And I have a confession to make: you know those little bars of soap that hotels place in your bathroom? I always bring home the ones we don't use. (Just the soap, okay!) And it was one of those that I packed with these sachets. So even with my toothbrush, dental floss and hair serum, everything fit in a 2" x 6" x 2" case.

Designer soda

I've never been much of a soda drinker. When we were growing up, we only had water to drink at home, and sometimes, fruit juices. We'd have soda ("softdrinks" to Filipinos) only when we had visitors, so it was always a treat. Now that I'm older, I still don't drink soda much—bad for hyperacidity.

But last December, my husband came home with freebies from Pepsi: two cartons (six cans per carton) of Pepsi Deluxe. Zero calories. One flavor was Creme Caramel and the other was Strawberries and Cream. They were down to four cans last weekend and I finally decided to try them out.

They're good. Creamy is the correct word for them, and the fizz adds a nice tartness.

Why designer soda? I have no idea. At the bottom of the can, it says: "Uncover more at armaniexchange.com/pepsideluxe." See, the problem is that I didn't check it early enough and the Pepsi Deluxe page at Armani is gone. Now I'm left wondering what that whole thing was all about.

Dinner, anyone?

Sigh. I have gained some inches over the past couple of months. The jeans that were beginning to become loose enough to become hipsters now fit snuggly around my waist again.

And it's not just the fault of those cupcakes—though I'm sure they didn't help! I have to confess: I'm a stress eater. It's not that I begin munching when I'm stressed out, unlike most people I know at work. But I do tend to eat larger servings and choose food that's not as healthy. More meat, less fresh vegetables and fruits. The past two weeks alone, I had McDonald's spaghetti and chicken nuggets four times. Add the pastries and the chips, and I'm looking at a 10-pound gain (minimum!) by the end of the year.

So last night, just before drifting off to sleep, I made the decision to stop all the junk, have more salads for lunch again, and go back to my cereal drink for dinner. Nestle's Nesvita. Whole wheat, soya and rice flour in skimmed milk and buttermilk. It's got sugar though but I guess I can't have everything. And yes, I actually like Nesvita's taste, and I've done this before so it's not going to be difficult at all. So here's to loose pants and saying good-bye to this heavy, bloated feeling—cheers!

Kissed by the Snow Queen

I always use lip balm before I put on lipstick. The moisturizers they put in lipsticks are never enough for me—I always end up with dry, chapped lips without the balm. I finished my tube of lip balm last week so I had to get another over the weekend. And I discovered this in our neighborhood drugstore:

ChapStick's Peppermint lip balm. Ooh! Sure enough, it makes my lips cool. Only for half an hour after application, though—I wish the sensation lasted longer.

Caring for sensitive eyes

Mine, this time.

I stopped wearing contact lenses almost a decade ago, and I do not touch my eyes with my fingers, yet every few months or so, I get a darned irritating eye infection—a stye. The curse of oily, bacteria-prone skin. (There is a blessing that comes with it, though: I'm not going to get wrinkles any time soon.)

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a sore right eye and sure enough, when I checked in the mirror, there was a little red spot on my lid. So now, after bathing or washing my face, I have to go through the extra step of cleaning my lid with Blephagel on a cotton bud. Sigh. It's not as if my morning and evening rituals aren't long enough! But a girl friend told me this morning that her daughter's ophthalmologist recommended Johnson's Baby Shampoo for everyday eye washing. (Her daughter's prone to styes too—way worse than me.) I have no idea why it should be any better than plain soap, but I'm willing to try it if it means no more mysterious eye infections.

Dream dinnerware

All that discussion yesterday about dinnerware got me thinking (again!) about ours. What exactly do I want our dinnerware to be? Of the four everyday-use sets we have, it's the fiesta pattern—the pattern's real name is "Diablo"—that I like the most. I'm not exactly a pastel and small flower pattern kind of girl. The thing is, I do get tired of seeing the same pattern year in and year out, which is why I tend to rotate the small stuff in the house. Dinnerware, place mats, shower curtains, towels, bed sheets, table runners… you name it. If it's easy to change, I will change it. (I'm like that with scents too.)

The closest to an ideal dinnerware set for me would be several stoneware sets (I'm strictly casual) of one model made by one company in all its different colors. So I went surfing and I actually found it: Fiesta, made by the Homer Laughlin China Company. They have more than a dozen colors! Oh wow! I'll be able to mix and match to my heart's delight!

Now to find it here in Manila, find out how much, and schedule the purchase (depends on the first two, of course). Oh, and figure out how to tell the hubby. Leaving you now, humming happily…

Cruel knives

Thanks to an email sent by a young friend this morning—which had me grinning from ear to ear—I'm going to start a series of blog entries featuring funky home gadgets and furniture. Here's the first: knife blocks.

Inspired by the sword cabinet illusion of stage magicians, this knife block has a crouching man cowering in terror at the bottom of the box. A design exclusive to boingboing: A Directory of Wonderful Things.




"Voodoo" designed by Raffaele Iannello. Do I really need to say anything about it?




There's another funky knife block I discovered while surfing, but I decided not to feature it. Call me a softy, but I just found it too cruel. If you really want to check it out, though, click here.

Sensual mint

My love affair with mint and eucalyptus is not limited to shampoo. I especially love it in soap. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any in supermarkets. I am lucky that we have a friend that makes handcrafted soap—Annomi Soapworks—and several of his variants have mint or eucalyptus: Eucalyptus Lavender, Peppermint Scrubby, Minty Lavender and Blue Mint Swirl. Some are smooth, some scrubby. He usually only frequents bazaars, but he lives close enough to us that we can go to his house if I want to buy some.

Like the shampoo, it's the sensation of coolness that I adore. Especially in one particular area. Which area, you'll have to try mint soap yourself because I am not mentioning it here. Let's just say that sensual is definitely the word you'll be using to describe it too.

Keep a cool head

Literally.

I suffer from seborrhea / seborrheic dermatitis, thankfully only on a particular spot on my scalp, near the nape. (For you lucky ones who have no idea what seborrhea is, read the article on MedicineNet.com—just don't laugh!)

Late last year, Unilever launched it's newest shampoo and conditioner in the Philippine market, and it has quickly become my (current) favorite hair product. Clear, the Ice Cool variant (I think of them as flavors, actually, but then that's me). Even if I didn't need its anti-dandruff properties, I'd probably use it anyway because it has mint. Mint! I love the sensation of my head literally feeling cooler, especially from the conditioner because it has to be kept on for several minutes.

I have my humongous pot!

Kinox, 18/10 stainless steel, 8.8 liters (about 9.3 quarts), steam release valve

And the sweetest things about it is, one, we got it at a 25% discount (took advantage of the post-Christmas sales going on right now) and, two, we bought it in a store where my husband has gift certificates which he won at a raffle so we spent all of 403 pesos (about US$10) for it.

Now my stews won't be forever spilling over!

(See My cookware wish list here.)

Creamy lips

I'm not very picky when it comes to lipstick brands. In fact, I only have two requirements. One, it has to be tasteless and odorless. (Much as I'd like to patronize local brands, it's next to impossible with lipstick—most of them stink! They haven't figured out the right formulation—they smell and taste like rancid oil. Yuck.) Two, I should not feel like I'm buying jewelry rather than just make-up. (Those high-end brands have appalling prices!)

What I am picky about is color. I've always at least half a dozen at a time because the lipstick I use has to complement what I'm wearing. (Not match—I'm not about to use orange lipstick just because I'm wearing an orange blouse!)

It took me quite some time to find a particular brown shade I wanted. I'd always pass by the make-up section during my monthly mall trips and I just couldn't find the right shade. Early this month, I finally did—from our office's Avon lady: My Lip Miracle Lipcolor in Brown Unbound (in the Philippines, at least—in Avon's website, the only lipstick I found in the same form factor is listed as Perfect Wear All-Day Comfort Lipstick).

Anyway, what surprised me about the brand was its texture. All the lip color I've been using the past several years are those ultra-light ones, the ones which feel like you're not wearing any lipstick at all (well, except for the glosses, that is). This one glides on like cream, and the feeling that I have cream on my lips actually stays. And I discovered (or is that re-discovered?) that I like it.

My whites are showing

Thank goodness I don't have any errands to do outside the house today. So I've scheduled myself, after bathing our dog and cooking, for hair coloring.

White hair runs in the family, though it's a blessing that we retain our full mops until old age. Because of this gene, though, I started coloring even before I was thirty (twenty-seven, I think). I always do it myself—salons are expensive and I really just get antsy sitting doing nothing for an hour or more. I can't even read because I have to remove my glasses for the duration.

Over the years, I've tried out so many brands of hair color and even henna. Henna, I can never use again. Aside from the fact that it stains awfully (skin, scalp, and paint, omg! be extra careful that you don't touch anything painted if you've henna on your fingers—no way to remove the stain, you'll just have to paint over it), I've also developed a pretty bad allergy to it.

I've finally settled on Revlon ColorSilk. I've no allergic reactions to it, the developer doesn't have a strong odor, and the hair conditioner that comes with it is fantastic and smells great. Before, I'd only use dark brown, my natural color. After all, the whole point was just to cover the whites. In my mid-years though, I'm finally experimenting a bit. I've moved on to the medium browns, and today I'm using a medium one with a golden shade. Maybe one of these days I'll have the guts to use even lighter colors.

Liquid or solid?

Soap, that is.

Only two years ago, I discovered that liquid hand soap is actually more cost-efficient than bar soap because they dispense a limited amount of soap (but not when you have little kids—they just love playing with the pump!). But for the feeling of a good scrub, nothing beats bars (though that's probably just psychological).

So now, I have both kinds in the house. For the kitchen sink, it has to be liquid, and anti-bacterial. I spend so much time there, bars never get enough time to dry out. They get all soft and mushy that so much of it goes to waste. Sometimes, too, little bits and pieces of yicky whatever get stuck on the bar if you don't pay attention. For the bathroom downstairs (which also serves as the guest powder room), the lavatory has both liquid and bar. I really prefer liquid for lavatories, but the one there is old and it has a shallow indentation (with a groove for the run-off)—a built-in soap dish—and it looks funny without a bar of soap in it so I put one. I also tend to use the special, scented kinds there. The upstairs bathroom's lavatory only has the liquid kind. The shower, however, has both again. I usually just use the bar for my daily showers, but when I feel like I need a good exfoliating, then it's the shower gel on a loofah for me.