bunnyshop shopping fashion blog

Possibly Our Most Idiotic Hair Care Decision Ever (And Korres Love)

So a few weeks ago we were in the Korres store in London, and the gave us all these amazing samples. Like Halloween candy, we have been hoarding them. Unlike Halloween candy, they are suitable for the hair. One of the samples was "conditioner acacia milk," which we recently wrote about here, because we love it. It says it is "for dry hair." Now. Apparently we have not been thinking straight lately. Because there is dry (opposite of oily) and there is dry (opposite of wet.) We chose to interpret "dry" as the latter. Now we are thinking this was an idiotic choice. Now that we're thinking about it, we have used plenty of regular conditioners, and a number of leave-in conditioners, and a few dry shampoos, like from Lush—but all the "for dry hair" conditioners we've ever used did not involve putting conditioner on dry hair.

We think we might go to the Korres store and ask. And because we're almost out of sample—because, after all, this is the only product we've ever used that has actually dealt successfully with our frizzy hair.

We just showed the acacia conditioner a few days ago, so the photo above is of the lip butter. We are obsessed with this—the wild rose is like Benetint, but without that slightly oily sheen you can sometimes get with Benetint. So it's better, and the perfect color. We would have bought it on the spot yesterday, but we left our Sephora gift card at home and—hey, recession. We'll get it tomorrow, though. And! Under $10! Wild Rose lip butter, $9

Reader Mail: Green Beauty

In today's Reader Mail!

Great thread on eco-friendly cleaning products. I have been trying to do the organic/no crap makeup/hair/skin care as well. It is hard! I would love to know what people have tried and liked. It is hard to know because there are now SO many things to avoid. I wonder if in 25 years we will be laughing at ourselves, sort of like how I laugh at my mom who insisted on putting bran in EVERYTHING for a year when I was a kid, because it was the cure-all.

L.

We're convinced one day someone will discover that sunscreen gives you exactly the sort of ailment it is supposed to prevent. (Er, don't listen to us—we're just bitter because we always forget to wear it.) Anyway: indeed, and still, we go along with it, at least in aspiring to eco-friendly beauty products. But we're easily swayed (we're pretty sure we think of Philosophy as being organic because its packaging is black type on a plain background and that's it.)

We thought we'd point out here that Sephora now has a "natural & organic" tab that features, among many other products, this Juice Beauty Green Apple Antioxidant Moisturizer: "This nutrient-rich moisturizer combines a brightening complex of organic apple, lemon, and grape juices." Sounds delicious, no? And now that we have about $150 in gift cards at Sephora (thanks to their amazingly liberal return policy—never change, Sephora!), maybe we'll try it out.

We'd love to hear from people who are using organic make-up and hair or skincare. Fill us in on what's working! Or not.

We Test the Sephora Return Policy!

So! After all the discussion of the Sephora return policy, we decided to test it ourselves. We've been doing a fairly massive pre-pre-pre-spring clean and since we only got halfway through it before leaving for Sundance (which we're twittering!), it is quite terrifying to observe the current state of our apartment. (Looks like: frat house at dissolute university.) Anyhoo, we ransacked our medicine cabinet and two plastic bags of random makeup and beauty products for anything we bought (or, er, could have bought) at Sephora. First, we noticed that a lot of what we have needs to be thrown away because it is lame hotel giveaways that we hate. Second, we have a lot of Kiehl's. Third: hurrah! Plenty of stuff to return. All things we should have returned ages ago but spaced on.

Our first effort: at the Short Hills Mall in NJ. (We couldn't deal with taking them back in NYC, though now we think that it might even have been less stressful since they're just busy and have less time to snark.) We returned almost-full bottles of Peter Thomas Roth sunscreen ("it made us breakout") and Philosophy Hope Is Not Enough ("it just didn't work.") We did bring the item numbers, but couldn't tell if they made us look helpful or like professional returners. The salesgirl asked us if the HINE was part of a set—we said no, and then that we couldn't remember. (All true.) She gave us credit for both. We bought a Black Honey Clinique lip gloss and a replacement Fibrewig (the best mascara ever created.) Net result: gift card, about $20.

Our second effort! The Bridgewater Commons Mall, also in NJ. Here we took back a high-ticket item (that we cannot name since it was a gift) and something we forget—anyway, for $120! All of gift card. Moving forward, our personal rules:

1: No more than two products at a time

2: No need to concoct fancy excuses

3: Er, refer back to #1. It's pretty straightforward. We did write down the product numbers from the website—which we think helped the process but also might have made us look a bit too fluent in the whole process. Not sure if we'd do that again.

4. And we definitely wouldn't take back individual items from gift sets, or anything that wasn't compelling pretty close to full

Yay, Sephora! They own us lock, stock now. In that vein, we'd love any similar stories of people and their favorite brands....

Is It Wrong To Take Stuff Back To Sephora? (And Our Contest Winner)

Obviously, for a multitude of reasons, our answer is no. We will admit this: We absolutely use different shopping standards for local, independent shops than we will for a multi-national chain, like Sephora: We'll return something to the Gap, when we won't to Bird. We've witnessed how these corporations work enough to know that a relatively lax return policy likely benefits them in the long run—we haven't returned anything to Sephora in a long time (if ever), but they earn our custom in part because we know we could, if we want to.

From H., with the cashmere-scarf winning comment from our discussion on closet-shopping:

I suppose this is sort of reverse shopping, but I recently went through all my makeup and skincare stuff and sorted through and returned to Sephora all the stuff that they sell. I made boatloads of money (we're talking several hundred dollars) in gift cards! So now I can do actual shopping at Sephora without spending any more money. I love that store, with their no-holds-barred return policy.

The question, from L.

Sephora returners: What do you tell the salesperson when you return a collection of random used things? I've always been to timid to consider it.

We'd love answers from anyone out there who's been there and done it.

Above: Sephora glitter pot, $8

Reader Mail: Color Correcting Primers

In today's Reader Mail:

Dear BS:

My nose is red! I don't think it's dry, or oily, or anything; it's just sort of always brighter than the rest of my face. I don't know if there's a product to stop this (I sort of doubt it) but I'd love a suggestion for one to correct it, if anyone has an idea. Please! Help!

Love,

R.

Well! We have one suggestion, and the hope that others will have better. Above: Smashbox's Photo Finish Color Correcting primer—the apricot's supposed to solve sun damage, veins or dark spots." (Honestly, it's just sort of along for the ride.) The subject of our conversation is instead the green one, meant to counteract redness. We're big believers in primer-only make-up, so we're hoping that this could, on its own, solve the issue. It won't replace our favorite Becca primer in our own metaphorical makeup bags or literal makeup pile, but if we were suddenly all Rudolph-y we'd totally go for it.

Excuse, please, the Christmas imagery as we are all about SS 09.

Any other ideas?

Smashbox Photo Finish Color Correcting (small size), $17

Shopping the Closet: CO Bigelow's Rosemary Mint Body Cleanser—Plus Win a Cashmere Scarf From Shopbop!

So with this month's Harper's Bazaar in mind—and we honestly don't remember the last time we had that thought—we "shopped the closet" of our bathroom cabinet, partly because it is overflowing with beauty products we bought and promptly forgot about and partly because we are focusing on being all thrifty-like. (The fact that we needed to take a shower and had forgotten to buy shower gel is another factor.) Anyway, we found four sample-size samples of this CO Bigelow Rosemary Mint body cleanser, and we will say: very impressed! We bought them last year during the after xmas sales, and then put them aside, where we forgot about them. We're usually fairly skeptical about aromatherapy-type beauty\skincare products, as we're always like: Want! More! Aroma! And therapy! But this was just the way we like it: almost overpowering. We truly did feel aroma-therapized. And: free! More or less.

We'd love to know what everyone is discovering in their own closets and medicine cabinets. Comment below and we'll choose somebody later today to win a bright red cashmere scarf \ throw from Shopbop's Bop Basics line!

CO Bigelow Rosemary Mint cleanser, $12

Tarte Friends and Family Discount

Like we said, we're not buying anything this season we don't have to unless it's deeply, deeply discounted—which means, hurrah, we can now buy Tarte! 40% off with discount code FF08 through Monday. We'd use it on the Natural Cheek Stain—was $28, with discount, $16.80

Fall Must Have! Or Not! (Chanel Edition)

We understand that this Chanel nail polish is limited edition and everything, but $50? And that's on eBay? It's weird—we think it looks totally gorge in the bottle, with the nice black top, but we've seen it on actual human hands and to us, anyway, it looks like a whole lot of yellow—and not even the lovely lemon-y yellow we still want from Rescue Beauty Lounge:

Fall! We are preparing to be fleeced, literally and metaphorically.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Square Pants, $18 and Chanel Facettes d'Or on eBay (buy it now), $49.99

We Saw The Most Fashionable Girl In The World Wearing This

We looked high and low for the right shade—this pink-ity-pink—and this is as close as we can get. We look at this and say: too much pink! But obviously it is perfect for summer. That is all.

Rescue Beauty nail polish in coral, $18

The Waterproofness: Reader Mail

In today's Reader Mail:

Dear BS,

I am going on a Fourth of July weekend with my boyfriend's family to their beach house. We will be spending a lot of time in and around the water and I wanted to know what sort of makeup I can wear that won't come off easily.

Thanks,
E.

Oh! We know the feeling. We once spent a first weekend at a new boyfriend's family home and bizarrely spent the entire time crying, desperately missing not our own parents, but our friends' parents. (It was weird.) We got over it. We are sure you will have a much better time than we did. We would pack these essentials—basically our MO is to wear stuff that's all summery but won't look amiss if it's suddenly not there, post-swimming. (We'll leave the ruby lipstick out for the weekend.)

1: Sunscreen, but we're total liars who only get an SPF with our Becca tinted moisturizer ($42). (SPF 25+!)

2: We also wear a Becca bronzer, as it happens—a nice bit of color without getting all blush-y. Becca bronzer (we like the Calypso), $38

3: And finally: Fiberwig mascara (above, $22). We are so happy with this for a number of reasons—not least that we actually found out about it here! We swear this stuff never comes off—and even better, it doesn't smudge. We'd stopped wearing mascara because the smudging was too annoying, but now we're back to daily application.

4: Er, one more thing. Personally, all we'd add to this would be a bit of lip stain, and Benefit says Benetint is waterproof. We're not sure our personal use bears this out, but that's the official word. Benetint, $28