Photo: webmd.com
I hope you are grinning at the title. It’s a joke! I do not have a beauty regime. I just shower and go. Nevertheless, I do seem to accumulate products so I thought I’d show you what I have, à la Lucinda Sans.
The Basics
I will mention the brand names I have but I’m not especially recommending anything. They just work for me. I work in a scent-free workplace and only use scented products on the weekends.
Left to right, back row:
- OFF bug spray (green tube standing at left), yes with lots of Deet – for mosquito-proofing when I mow the lawn
- Compliments (store brand) unscented oatmeal moisturizer. This is a copy of the Aveeno brand.
- Herbal Essence shampoo and conditioner: Thai Lemon Basil. Usually use Garnier Fructis Citrus Mint. These types of scents are very, very well-tolerated at work.
- St. Ives Citrus (grapefruit) body wash. My favourite and has no plastic microbeads in it. Reserved for weekends.
- Dove unscented bar soap. For weekday showers. Small bits used for hand washing at the sink.
- Softsoap (aloe vera/not antibacterial) to refill dispensers for guests. No bar soap for them!
- Toothpaste & floss
- Dry Idea unscented roll-on anti-perspirant (have 2)
Front area of photo:
- 2 tubes of Banana Boat sunscreen. The “natural” one does not absorb well and is more a barrier-type (zinc oxide). The other one is easier to apply. But both work great.
- Little bottle of Murine wetting eye drops, used when overwhelmed by heating or air conditioning, or when travelling
- Clean and Clear. I can’t believe I still get the occasional zit and I am over 50!
- Alberto “Texturizing Gum” to make my hair stand up properly (hand-tousle and go)
- One Step hand sanitizer (kept in purse/backpack)
- Locally made chapstick/ lip gloss tube (I have a few of them and lemon is my favourite)
- Body Shop strawberry body butter and lip gloss. I use these before bed and shower them off in the morning!
- Simple (brand name) facial moisturizer. I use the SPF one in the summer.
- Garnier Ultra-Lift eye cream. Can’t use sunscreen on my eyes! In winter I use the Simple without sunscreen and therefore don’t use eye cream.
Now here is the stuff I own and am not using, but I have a sincere belief I will someday:
Extras
At left, a 3-piece set of mango bath products, one extra jar of mango body butter, a 2-piece set of vanilla bath products, an Xmas package of more strawberry Body Shop, and a spray of Victoria’s Secret Love Spell (a scent I used for a long time and still like, but only on weekends/holidays of course)
At the back, a container of baby powder and something many readers will never have seen: a powder puff! (in the blue container/jar) Also, nail polish remover and one new nail polish which I have actually used this year. Then, an anti-perspirant I can’t use because of the baby powder scent, so for days off only.
Nearer to the front I have 3 spare toothbrushes from the dentist’s office (but I do like the brand) and then a herd of sample-size products either bought for travel, or gathered during travel. The only one I really like is the lavender/peppermint body lotion from C.O. Bigelow. It was from our hotel room in NYC and I later learned their historic store was just down the street on 6th Avenue.
That is my travel bag on the right, shown in closeup below.
Travel Bag
This contains holders for a regular toothbrush and regular soap. I fill the three containers on the left with shampoo, conditioner and moisturizer. The small clear jar (centre) is a mild dish detergent for hand washing clothes (although some shampoos are OK too). The orange circle thingy was intended as a medication holder but I use it for earrings! The 3 random things in there are a lint brush, a small eyeglasses repair kit, and a little sewing kit with needles, pins, thread and buttons.
For the record, I disposed of the last of my make-up, purchased 6 years ago and only used twice; all of my old nail polish which was no longer usable; and 3 colognes which were just not me. I am finding bath products are enough scent for non-work days.
So there you have it; my entire collection of beauty products. I’d be tempted to call it a cleaning kit 🙂
And the items indicated in green? Those are the ones Rom also uses. This is our total products collection for both of us.
Would love to see yours. Any products you recommend?
An Exacting Life 
Scent-free workplace? You have me curious. A colleague used to wear perfume that gave me such hay fever, she had to stop wearing it to work. I do love my Black Blazer cologne, though!
Scent-free workplaces are common here. The basic rule is that after drying off from your bath or shower, you don’t add any scented products, such as cologne, after-shave, or body spray. And any products you do use, such as moisturizer, anti-perspirant or hair products, need to be unscented.
Ah. Thanks for explaining!
God has a sense of humor. I thought once the grey hair appeared it would release a toxin to kill future zits. Sadly, I was mistaken.
Ha ha!!
No, can’t believe it! That’s all? What about lippie, blush, eyeliner, gifts of body lotion, foot scrub? Bubble bath?
Don’t know if I’m jealous or still feeling pity. Just joking. Though my surprise probably equals yours on finding we still wear pantyhose. Had a nice blue pair on today that attracted compliments from an American visitor to my work who called them hose. And layered two lipsticks in the morning. Not that I reapply during the day at work.
Well, I have bought full arrays of makeup for special occasions, and as noted, ended up throwing them out. Just not for me. All of the bath products shown in the “extras” photo (mango, vanilla, etc. ) were gifts. I don’t do baths! I may have a holdout pink lipgloss in one of my bags.
Interesting – we have TWO baby powders – not three – one in the water polo bag (where I put it in swimming caps, occassionally like never), the other acquired when the BF’s ‘needed’ them in humid temps. It baffles me why and how we have so much! Meanwhile, my parents love the baby powder scented spray deo – I can’t stand it.
I’m aware of these powder puff things, but yes, not ever had one.
I’ll see if I can muster the photography genius to my cosmetics and toliteries. I bought a ‘new’ foundation right when BF & I started dating, and seldom used it – here I was thinking it’s predecessor was ‘running out’ – it still is, almost three years later. I shouldn’t have bothered with a ‘next’. And my pallette is a gift from g’ma from high school – but I can’t throw it out…
I know what you mean about not being able to throw out cosmetics.But in my case it was more of a “sunk costs” argument (I paid so much for that – surely it will be of use someday!) Would love to see your stuff!
Wow! You don’t wear any foundation at all! I am really impressed. I’d like to be completely against the expensive ‘beauty’ industry and its questionable mores but I do still wear foundation everyday. I own one lipstick (natural look) and a few other items for ‘going out.)
I took photos of my bathroom cabinet last weekend and will post them soon!
Fiona, our excuse = our sun. We have sun damage Canadian and European pale skinned people wouldn’t know needs covering. And I like to think of foundation as sun block.
I think you would find us pasty looking! I brown up easily so after gardening and walking to work all summer with #50 sunscreen I am still tanned. Well, at least with a Farmer’s Tan (neck and arms!)
I’m very pale. I stay out of the sun as much as possible but unfortunately we age quickly and badly here because one can’t avoid the sun completely. But having s natural tan is no longer in here. Too many people are having skin cancers frozen off or cut out. So you’re probably currently browner than me but you’ll still have lovelier skin – youthful overexposure and daily strong sun exposure wrinkles and causes spots.
Same here for all the above, except our annual time in the sun is short so lifetime exposure would be low.
Yeah, as long as I use sunscreen in the (brief) summers I don’t feel I need foundation. In my case, I was pretty spotty in my teens and 20s and foundation made it worse, so I never got into the habit. More recently I tried a tinted moisturizer. Do Australians generally tend to tan? I had thought your sunscreen promotion campaigns would be deeply ingrained. But maybe because of the amount of sun year-round, the effects are unavoidable. I look forward to your post!
I hadn’t considered the effect of sun but yes, that’s part of it. The sunscreen promotion campaigns they have now didn’t exist back in the 70s when I was a kid, so lots of us grew up with no hats or sunscreen and do have weathered skin as a result – foundation evens up the patches and lines! A weird thing is too is that the pill reacts to sunlight for lots of people, causing distinctive brown patches/spots on the face. For years, I used foundation to even out the spots.
I have one of those brown spots too, Fiona. Just one month later they started labelling the pill to say it made you photosensitive.
HELLO!!!!! It’s been awhile, I stopped blogging for a few months, because well… Real life became very serious for awhile… don’t you just hate when we have to be grown ups? 😀 All kidding aside, when I came to your blog, I did notice something about trash, so I’m going to go check out that post as well, I have always been concerned about our planet, but just lately, I am a bonafide Tree Hugger! I have, like yourself, about a gazillian products, and I don’t necessarily buy them. Every Christmas, every birthday, and every time I visit England, I accumulate “stuff”, so it’s been hard on me getting rid of it all, as I’m trying to go completely Earth Friendly. There is so much junk in our products that we are actually destroying our water supply, not to mention our planet. People just don’t realize what’s actually in our beauty products. Don’t get me started on the companies that actually make the stuff!!
It’s nice to be blogging and very nice to see you again!
Tammy x
Hi Tammy! Glad you’re back! I suppose my first priority has been to scent-free products. I try to avoid products with offensively overblown packaging. I am starting to buy more products with safer ingredients. I find the major beauty/personal care product manufacturers are hit-and-miss. They’ll try to avoid the ingredient that is in the news at the moment (like parabens) but ignore the rest.
You and I actually use a lot of similar products. My workplace is scent-free environment (although they’re lenient if it’s lightly scented – just not additional perfumes and stuff.) For moisturizers, I love Cetaphil. Very moisturizing. I do use Body Shop’s Shea Butter but only before bed though.
A tip I just learned. Instead of moisturizers, try baby oil after a shower. Like right after – before drying off. In the winter, switch the routine, and slather baby oil BEFORE showering. It’s a wonderful trick. And practically no scent.
I will have to try that – thanks!
After the TSA made the 3oz rule for carry on liquids requiring me to get new bottles, I made an all purpose toilet kit with a travel set of shampoo, conditioner, liquid soap, and everything else that I would normally take. Now I just top off the bottles before I go, and make sure that there is enough deodorant left on the stick to get me through the trip. It does mean that I have duplicates at home, but that is OK, I just grab the toilet kit when it is time to pack knowing that I’m not going to leave anything behind.
I am halfway there – if I don’t use up the contents of my travel containers in one trip, I save it for next time. Since I use the same products almost all the time, I don’t worry much about switching things up.
Lovely — I’m trying to pare down possessions (somewhat) and makeup/toiletries are a tough one for me. Partly because I tend to receive scented lotions as gifts. I think I will not have to buy lotion for a very long time — I am using up some bottles I received over the last two years right now and still have some from this past Christmas (from my husband, who should know better) that I haven’t even touched. Scents are really touch and go for me — I am sensitive to them especially when I have a headache (migraine) but the really strongly scented stuff is just terrible no matter when I come across it. But I actually prefer a light scent to unscented products as sometimes there is a slight chemical scent that I can detect and that bothers my head too!
Living in Florida, I have to say that I am very grateful for scented deodorant/antiperspirant. 🙂
I can relate – I receive bath products for birthdays and holidays too. I like them but it takes forever to use them up. I have started hinting for food instead (coffee, chocolate, etc!) Generally I am fine with other people’s scented products except when I have a cold coming on; then they launch me into coughing fits! And I really agree about light scents often being preferable to a chemical odour! In fact I even know some people with environmental sensitivies, for whom some light scents will go under the radar (like the mint shampoo I use) while they find unscented lotions to be problematic.
The nosy part of me loves when people share this stuff 🙂 Elise did a post about this recently that you might like, though her focus is greener products:
http://eliseblaha.typepad.com/golden/2015/07/final-green-skincare-post.html
I also use a pill organizer to hold earrings when I travel if I’m taking more than one pair. It’s a step up from the empty floss container I used to use, ha!
Thanks for the link! I wouldn’t have thought of a floss container 🙂
I love when people share pictures of their stuff too. Who knew looking at everyone’s product stash could be so interesting?! Your stash seems very reasonable to me. Now that I’ve photographed and posted mine I see that it’s a bit out of control. 😦 I’m also impressed you and Rom can share products. I’m not so good about sharing.
Also, while I’m sure I’d adjust, I don’t love the sound of a scent-free workplace. I hate it when people go overboard, but I do like a nice-smelling product, like Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle body wash.
I think tea tree is the perfect kind of product for work (if any) because it smells fresh and rarely bothers people.
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