Picture, if you will, a room shaped like a barn. You know, with a 3-sided slanty roof. Only a really short roof-- like 7 feet tall at its tallest point. Said room is 8'x12'. It has dingy carpet and stains on the walls that the primer didn't quite cover up.

Imagine, if you will, what said room will be in two weeks. Painted a beautiful ice blue, stippled over with pale lilac. The windows and ceiling will be painted metallic silver. The carpet will be steam-cleaned, and there will be a nice soft blue rug on the floor. Sheer lavender curtains will hang off of a beautiful, interesting curtain rod that match a new full-size floor lamp. My best friend will love me so much that she will agree to do an abstract portrait session with me for Christmas, so three 8"x11" black and white photographs will adorn the walls. My things will be moved in, and I will have a nice new matching bedspread.

That'll all run me somewhere between $350 and $400. Brokeness, thy name is Christina. I'd planned on warmer colors-- reds and harvest golds. Something more akin to this. Dixie bought the pale blue because she thought I wanted something more neutral. It's okay, though. I'm going with it. It's not very me, but it will be pretty, and I will learn to love it. My mom is giving me $250 for the holidays, and I requested gift cards to Target from the rest of my family. I think I'll be covered for most of it-- I'll just have to be frugal.

( Notes to self.Collapse )

I did get my holiday BPAL order yesterday. The Cracked Bell is nice and sort of metallic, Beaver Moon is smells spot-on like buttercream frosting, Midnight Mass is incensy, but perhaps a smidge too dry.

The two hands-down sucesses? Talvikku, which smells like last year's Skadi-- full of soft fir and rich forest notes. If Snow Bunny is akin to this, I might get a bottle after the holidays. Also, Jacob's Ladder is wonderful. It's like an aged bottle of The Lion-- soft, velvety amber with a pinch of spice and benzoin. My bottle of The Lion is still fairly new, and lighter than the first imp I tried out. Hence, it needs a little aging, but Jacob's Ladder is perfect until it does.

Also, I got another bottle of Snow White, my favorite from last year. To me, it's the scent of snuggling under the covers with tea and a book as a soft snow begins to fall. I asked Skyler to smell it. His take? "It smells like the flowers that emerge from a battlefield that has been strewn with the massacred bodies of fallen soldiers, streaked with blood. Peaceful, you know?" I think his brain nose is broken.

I just made my first student loan payment. I feel all growned up.

All growned up and poor, that is. So, the silver lining-- only $18,000 more to go! Considering my college was something like $34,000 a year, I shouldn't complain.

I thought I had a favorite bath scrub. I thought that Bath & Body Works' Sandalwood Rose scrub and I would ride of happily ever after into the sunset, the end. No. No y'all. I was so unschooled. I pompously and definitively may claim that I have found the end-all and be-all of shower scrubs.

Never again will I be without Villainess's GingerSnapped Smooch.
I was browsing the site one day because a friend of mine from the BPAL forum really likes Villainess products. I've heard pekeana rave about Brooke's stuff so much that my curiosity was piqued. Still, I was a bit worried that it'd smell artificial, as foody products tend to smell. Also, I couldn't bear another disappointment-- I had such high hopes for Philosophy's Pumpkin Pie shower gel, and let's just say I was immensely grateful I had only gotten a teeny one-use packet to try. So, I was e-shopping at Villainess, getting a Secret Santa gift for my BPAL swap partner. Deciding I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, I ordered a 2 oz. sample jar of GingerSnapped.

When order came today, in record time and just in time for gifting, and I noticed that my jar looked significantly larger than 2 oz I had ordered. Brooke had upgraded me, for enabling purposes, she said. Consider me enabled, because I took one sniff of this stuff and just about died. Rich, thick spice cake batter. Not really sweet, not fakely sugary. Cinnamon and nutmeg and cardamom.

I took it into the shower and popped the lid. The stuff is thick, like cookie dough, and scrubby without being abrasive. It's not at all oily or thin. I scrubbed down with it. I think I used about a fourth of the jar, not because I had to, but because I couldn't stop slathering it on. My skin feels amazing-- moisturized, not greasy. It's pink and warm and glowy. I am absolutely smitten. My only regret is that I didn't discover this before I bought the vast majority of my Christmas gifts. Every girl I know would have gotten a sample. Instead, I'm pimping the hell out of it and lying in wait for birthdays. If ever there was a high-quality, but low-priced indulgence, this is it.

It's catapoulted itself into my select list of Products I Cannot Live Without, alongside LUSH bath bombs, Skindazzles Body Frosting, BPAL oils, and feMaledictions Merry Hallowe'en shea butter soap. I swear, if you ever want your wallet drained, stop by the BPAL.org boards. I've been introduced to so many top-quality etailers run by kick-ass, awesome chicks.

Okay. Gushing. I'm done.