this bathroom is brought to you by etsy.com

today my soap dish arrived, and i love it. i spent enough time in the bathroom, admiring how it adds colour and interest to the sink, that my kids started banging on the bathroom door and yelling for me. in other words, about 15 seconds. i hope to spend longer admiring it after my babies go to bed tonight. this beautiful item was purchased here.

i had been using body shop facial cream and it was ok, but i don't like body shop ethics. naturally, i went to etsy when i saw that it was time to replace my cream.

my search led me to summerland scrubs, where sample-sized jars of goat milk and cocoa butter souffle cream are less than 2$. i was surprised and delighted to see that the 'sample' contained almost as much as the body shop jar (1 oz vs 1.7 oz, if the body shop charged as much per ounce as summerland scrubs i would have paid about 3$ for my old jar)

the moisturizer itself is light, with the texture of chocolate mousse. a tiny bit goes a long way. it rubs in really well without residue. the body shop stuff left a residue. it was gross.

i'm not wild about the 'chocolate fudge' scent, it reminds me of chocolate skittles (bleugh!) in that it's a fake chocolate scent. sort of like how grape flavouring smells nothing like grapes. i'm not discouraged, though. i'll happily use up this cream and next time try another of her fantastic-sounding scents. maybe lemon cilantro.

the final way that my new cream kicks my old cream's ass is the ingredients list. the etsy stuff has about 1/4 as many ingredients as the body shop cream, and i can pronounce all of them. most of them i could find at the health food store. the body shop cream has the usual mile-long list of scary-sounding ingredients.

overall i give the summerland scrubs goat milk and cocoa butter souffle cream an enthusiastic two thumbs up and the body shop soy & calendula daily moisturizing cream a distasteful shrug.


the final etsy-based product i plan to review today is my bag of cocoa butter bath melts from bubbles n suds. these fizzy little bombs of joy are tiny - just look how shrimpy that one looks next to the huge, hulking lush bath bomb - but it's exactly as big as it needs to be. instead of being mostly fillers and air, these melts are dense and intense. it fizzed hard, and when it was done the bathroom smelled like a belgian chocolate factory and my skin was coated in delicious cocoa butter. all the patches of dry skin that had been forming on my body disappeared that day. i'm officially converted, and there's no going back.

to make things even better, a typical lush bath bomb costs ~6$. these delicious little treats are 6.50$ for 6. instead of a moisturizing bath being an expensive extravagance it can be an ordinary luxury.

seriously, these are the shizznit. buy them, and if you don't like them, send them to me. and when you're buying some, check out the lego shaped soap, the fight club soap, and all the other cool stuff to be found at the bubbles n suds soap company.

product review: honey nut cheerios

here's a product review to make up for yesterday's silliness. this review will be short, positive, and unsullied my photographic nonsense.

i really like honey nut cheerios. i only eat them a couple of times a year, thanks to the whole not-buying-milk thing, but when we have both milk and cereal and the stars are aligned, i can't get enough of their sweet, crunchy-then-soggy goodness. soluble fibre, artificial nut flavouring... what more does a cereal need? the excessive sweetness makes the roof of my mouth go numb for a while, each time i consume a bowl. plus i'm lactose intolerant so my forays into the world of cereal-eating always result in serious, toxic gas.

i don't like other types of cheerios, or other types of cereal, or most breakfast foods, even. but honey nut cheerios are special.

i'd go on for longer about the merits of my treasured oaty o's of goodness, but we have milk and honey nut cheerios in the house, so i can't stay in any one spot for too long. the fumes emanating from my ass get to me.

but while we're talking about being a fan, check it out: this blog has its own fanpage on facebook. yeah, it's a pointless exercise in self-promotion, but you should still become a fan of 584.
it looks like linking to the fan page doesn't work. if you really want to be a facebook fan, log in, type '584' into the box on the top right corner of your screen, and select 'pages' from the tabs above the list of choices. you'll see it.

product review: cafe mocha coffe-mate (with extraneous pictures!!)

why is it that i only review products i hate?normally i boycott nestle. they're right up there near monsanto on the list of evil corporations. i miss my coffee crisp and aero bars, though. why can't a local, fair-trade based company start making those? alas.

anyways, my partner thought he'd get me a treat and picked me up a bottle of nestle cafe mocha coffee-mate. i usually drink international delights flavoured creamers in my coffee, since we don't buy milk. they make the intense, delicious coffee we drink sweet and extra delicious. not healthy, but whatever. i don't have to justify myself to you.

so, to the review:

this stuff, when tasted on its own, tastes like oversweet chocolate milk. i guess they didn't get the memo that 'mocha' implies coffee flavouring, but whatever. and it's a dairy-free product, so the fact that it tastes to similar to milk is creepy. it contains:

• WATER,
• SUGAR,
• HYDROGENATED COCONUT OIL,
• SODIUM CASEINATE,
• FLAVOUR AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOUR, (no appropriate image found)
  
• DIPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE,
• COCOA,
• SALT,
• MONOGLYCERIDES,
• ACETYLATED TARTARIC ACID ESTERS OF MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES,
• CARRAGEENAN.

um, yuck? yeah, yuck. gross.

this creamer makes your coffee taste like there is chocolate milk in it. oversweet chocolate milk. it's not a horrible taste, but it's really nothing special and definitley not enough justification to consume all those ingredients listed above. if i want chocolate milk in my coffee i'll get chocolate milk and put it in my coffee.

plus, it all sinks to the bottom of the mug, no matter how fast you drink it, making the last mouthful into a cringe-inducing mouthful of disgusting sweetness.

so if you're out grocery shopping and this tasty-looking creamer catches your eye, keep walking. but if you're sipping your coffee and start wishing for a more expensive, less healthy and less ethical version of chocolate milk to put in it, nestle has just the thing for you!

product review: olympus fe-220

today i'll review my camera, the olympus fe-220.

DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA. IF YOU SEE IT, RUN FAR, FAR AWAY. DO NOT BE TAKEN IN BY ITS PRETTY BLUE EXTERIOR. THAT MATTE BLUE CASING HOLDS A BAD, BAD CAMERA. DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA.

so yeah, my camera is broken again. piece of shit. i've had it since april and it's been broken more often than it's been functioning during that time. it's still under warranty, but no matter how often i send it back, it just breaks again and again. i know exactly what doesn't work - the slot that fits the usb cable is really flimsy. the little thingie inside breaks so the usb cable can't connect. so they replace that part and return my camera, but then it breaks again within days of getting it back. i suggested that they just replace the piece of shit, but no. and it costs me 10$ in shipping every time i return it for servicing, so my bargain of a camera is becoming less of a bargain.

even if it didn't break all the time, it's not a good camera. it can't handle low light, takes blurry pictures most of the time, and it's not user friendly. of course, these annoyances are irrelevant since the stupid thing doesn't work. what i'm saying is that even if the camera weren't inherently defective, i still wouldn't like it.

fo'shizz, don't buy it.

feminine product reviews

happy buy nothing day! it's a holiday that everyone can enjoy, regardless of income. no purchase necessary!

contrary to the spirit of buy nothing day, i have a couple of product reviews for you.


no matter how opposed a gal is to accumulating stuff, once a month or so she's going to need a few accessories.
(as a side note, if you can't imagine what you'd do without menstrual products maybe you should donate to goods 4 girls, a charity that distributed cloth pads to girls in africa so they can attend school all month long. they're cool because they take both cash donations and handmade cloth pads, so people who don't have money can just sew some pads and make a big difference in a girl's life)

first, the keeper. i love my keeper. it's similar to a tampon in that it's internal, but better than a tampon in that it isn't a health hazard, holds more, is reusable, causes a lighter flow, is cheaper, is generally more comfortable*... i like it. there are a few different types of reusable menstrual cups. the divacup is another popular brand. the keeper is a little sturdier, the divacup squishes more easily. i suspect that i'd prefer a divacup for that reason, but i'm not about to trash my perfectly good keeper or go out and buy another. it's not like i can use more than one at a time, right? and the keeper is made in the states, so it's more ethical. either item is pretty freaking ethical, though. and economical. and environmentally friendly. look at this.

the downsides:
it sometimes seems to exacerbate cramps. i guess the walls of the cup push back against painful muscles or something. either way, when i'm really crampy i take it out.
public bathrooms can be a problem. i like to rinse it out and put it back in whenever i pee, which is hard to do in a little stall. i've found ways around this, like finding smaller, one-toilet bathrooms, but it is a little inconvenient.


the pros outweigh the cons by a lot.


but any girl who's ever had a period will tell you that accidents happen. regularly. and a reusable cup is no different from a tampon in that it can only hold so much. i generally prefer to have some extra lining in my underwear for my cycle, to keep me from needing to throw out perfectly good undies because of stains.

that's where this comes in:my organic cotton/ hemp pads from claire de lune. they're so ridiculously soft, i want to rub them on my face all day long. instead, i let my crotch enjoy them. and they are definitley enjoyable. after using cloth i could never use a scratchy, stinky, gross disposable pad. more common are lunapads or mother and maiden pads, but i prefer the smaller sellers on etsy and other places, since the prices and the customer service tend to be better. i throw my cloth in the diaper pail, but lots of other women just throw them in the wash with everything else. claire de lune says this in her store:

~Care~
Find a medium sized Tupperware container or buy a funky teapot to use as a soaking pot. This will reduce staining and keep you from having to launder everyday.
Hand or machine wash. I like washing by machine with like colors in cold-warm water. Cold will preserve the flannel better.
Tumble dry hang on your line!
If you are worried about staining try throwing in a natural oxybooster.

personally i'm not that worried about having a stain here or there. that's what they're for, right? and i spend less time rubbing them on my face when they're less than pristine.

*many women find cups to be uncomfortable until they trim the stem. trim the stem, baby!