Review: Equitance Brightening Serum & Spot Corrector

I received this product through Influenster as a complimentary sample for testing purposes.  Used it for a few weeks now, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it!  The full-size tube gives you a lot of product, and only a little is needed.  I loved the light scent which was pleasant but not overly pefumey, and the fact that it was easily absorbed into the skin as opposed to just sitting there, drying out, and getting sticky.  I have a lot of redness and angry patches on my skin, so this was a nice product to try.

My tips on how to use this product:  Make sure that your face is really, really clean.  Don't use a moisturizer or something and then add the Equitance serum because otherwise it may not be absorbed as well -- which I figured out when trying to combine with my Boots calming serum.  Also, it seemed to me that exfoliating on a regular basis helped boost the effectiveness of the Equitance serum as well.  It's best to put this on overnight so that your skin can repair itself and show the nicest benefits possible.  Another quick tip:  I've heard some people say that the scent is a wee bit overwhelming at first.  You don't need much product to get results!  Try using a little less than you have been, and give the product time to be absorbed to the skin.  The scent will dissipate as the product is absorbed.  Personally, though, I like the fragrance. :)

Boogie on down to the Equitance website at Equitance-US.com and use their promo code, INFL15 to get a 15% discount on your brightening serum from Equitance!  You also get a free skin care kit full of fun trial products that compliment the serum very well.  Enjoy!

Fresh Blueberry Cobbler for the Bakingly Challenged

A cozy home scene: Baked goods and skulls!

I once had a recipe for "mock cobbler" that rocked my damn world.  No idea where the hell it went, though.  Someday I'll find it again, maybe.

But this is a story about blueberries.  I am not a big blueberry fan, having eaten about 9 thousand tons of them one summer afternoon in my youth.  My older brother and I were afflicted with the worst attack of food poisoning that the planet had ever known.  Fortunately, our vomming urges seemed to be in perfect sync; first one of us would have to run to blow some blueberry chunks, and then a few minutes upon that kid's return, the other would begin to heave.  We gave one another reports on the color, amount, and consistency all afternoon until finally, the torturous barfing finally ended. 

But, I digress!  I recently came into about 3 pounds of blueberries that needed to be used up before going bad!  At first, my plan was to make a lovely pie or two, but bugs in the flour ruled out that option.  (Despite the bonus protein that the bugs provide, I've gotta draw the line somewhere.)  Here's a great recipe for blueberry cobbler that hopefully won't remind you of the above story.  I did find a box of bug-free Jiffy mix, so decided to make cobbler instead.  I divided the batch into two pie plates to make it seem more pie-y.  Why the hell not?

Hopefully, the recipe below won't remind you much of the Vomit-Fest story above.  If you visit me and I bake this for you, eat all you like -- I still have an aversion to blueberries!

INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup of water
1 cup of flax milk
4 cups of blueberries
4 tablespoons of butter
3/4 cup of sugar
2 cups of Jiffy biscuit/baking mix
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of ginger

Here it is, all raw and yummy. No canned pie filling required.

 

 

DIRECTIONS:  This is super easy to make!  First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Spray your cobbler dish (or use some pie plates like I did) and put your blueberries in the bottom, then sprinkle with spices.   In a separate bowl, mix the Jiffy, salt, and butter together until it's grainy and pea-like in consistency, then pour in the milk and continue to knead until the milk is thoroughly incorporated.  Crumble (or rip apart) the biscuit mixture, and then add dollops of it to the top of the berries.  Then, sprinkle the sugar over the biscuit blobs and berries.  Pour the cup of water over the whole thing, and pop into the oven for about 35 minutes.  (I turned my oven off and allowed the dishes to stay in there for a little while after.)

The recipe yielded a cobbler that was a bit runny, but still not bad.  The biscuit bits were surrounded with delicious berry syrup, and it wasn't too cinnamon-y for me.  Next time, I think I'll add my spices to the sugar, or at least sprinkle a little cinnamon on the top of the cobbler.  I may also mix the blobs and berries together next time, just to see if it makes a nicer variation in consistency.

Btw -- the original cobbler recipe can be found here on the Jiffy site.  I added my own twist to it, but the good news of it is that you can use pretty much any fruit that you've got, even mix it up, as long as you get to about 4 cups of fruit.  Pretty awesome, eh?

This dessert microwaves well the next day, too, by the way.

Review: Revlon Velet Touch Lipstick (Discontinued)

I apologize for not posting much lately.  My doctor has put me on a bizarre new eating regimen, so I haven't really been able to actually, y'know, cook food. So I haven't tried any awesome new recipes lately.

And now for the good news.  Earlier this year (in January, to be exact), a moratorium on buying stuff was put into effect.  Absolutely nothing was supposed to come into this house that wasn't absolutely essential.  But, now that the moratorium has lifted, I've decided to put all of this extra money that comes with not eating awesome food to good use:  by buying a bunch of crap that I've been dying to have.

Lately, I have been on a vintage lipstick kick.  Something in my brain has just been pushing me to long for the scents, the feels, and the colors of my youth.  It is in this spirit that I present a review of a vintage product which I've recently acquired through the magic of eBay: Revlon Velvet Touch lipstick!

Now when I was a mere slip of a girl in perhaps 8th or 9th grade, this shit was all the rage.  The commercial was so elegant, grown-up, and sophisticated... the one that I was remembering seemed to harken back to old-fashioned Hollywood glamour.  Unfortunately, all I could find on YouTube was the Cindy Crawford version which came out later.  I like the original better, though admittedly this slice of 1990s nostalgia makes wearing Velvet Touch lipstick look like a party in a tube!



The lipstick names all had sexy, sensuous, velvety sounding names.  With a lifelong fetish for velvet and a love of vintagey glamour, how could a youth like me resist that seductively colorful eye-popping display at the local smalltown Hills department store?  At the time, I was going through a zany "orange makeup" phase (blame it on my love of Halloween!), though the shade that I settled on was called "Cherry Crush," -- a deep blue-toned crimson which was perfect for that bloodred look that I craved.  Oh, how I loved it.  I bought others, too, later... which included a metallic coral shade that just barely fit in with my orange repertoire.

The feel of this lipstick was unlike anything I had previously experienced.  It truly did have a soft, velvety, long-wearing consistency with a slightly powdery feel and a highly pigmented finish.  The smell of this formula was distinctive, too.  I can't describe it -- it's a subtle powdery/perfumey/chemical scent that stuck in my mind for two decades after Velvet Touch had come and gone.  The color and staying power had earned Cherry Crush a place in the "active" section of my teenage lipstick collection (which was an impressive 3-digit array of all sorts of delectable shades!).

Recently, I was siezed with a longing to possess more Velvet Touch so that my lips could relive the experience.  I checked eBay, and to my surprise, there were some 20-year old tubes available for sale!  However, they were fairly expensive (at about $20 each).  I was able to find a smaller version for $7.95.  It's somewhere between a sample and full size.

The color is called Plum Velour.  Online, it seemed to much deeper and darker than it was in person.  In actuality, it's more of a magenta color.  In fact, when I opened the tube, the first thing I noticed was that it was the same color as my hair!  (Here's one with my hair so that you can see what I mean.)  And that smell!  It was exactly the same as it was back in the day -- miraculously, the lipstick hadn't gone bad or anything!  I was ecstatic that even 20 years later, the product is still so wearable!  Although this is touted as a "creme," the color does have a very slight shimmery finish.  It isn't glossy or sparkly per se, just has a nice bit of shimmer to the color, so that it still looks 90% matte with a 10% shine factor that seems to add a little more texture and velvet-y-ness to the product.  It is a fairly long-wearing formula, though I didn't attempt "6 velvety hours" in it just yet!  All in all, I have to give this product a good strong "A" for its awesomeness.

Can anyone recommend a style of lipstick that has a similar consistency or texture so that we can have a "dupe" of these classic colors?  Have a favorite vintage lipstick that you'd like me to find and review?  Comment below and maybe we can help each other!

Emergency Guacamole!

It only has 2 ingredients, and it looks pretty disgusting when it's done, but it scratches the guac itch!!

First, you need a ripe avocado and a bottle of Cholula chili-lime hot sauce. (OMG. I love it -- I could *drink* this stuff!!)

Mash the living hell out of the avocado and add as much sauce as you can stand!

When it's done, might look kinda brown. (If you care, add some cilantro, green onion, even parsley or tomatillos to even out the color.)

Close enough! :)