Revelations

I'm 26. Which means I'm practically 30. Yet I'm still finding out basic things about being a grown-up; more particularly, a grown-up woman. I'm pretty sure that every single person who is reading this sentence has a self-care and/or beauty regimen that they have refined to fit their needs, and adhere to on a daily basis. Jordan has even crafted one for herself in the last couple weeks:

• morning refresh: make mom change my diaper
• morning nutrition: make mom make me eggs with ketchup or muffins with bananas or plain tomatoes
• morning exercise: sprint back and forth across the tabletop and grin hugely as mom fends off a heart attack
• morning beauty routine: gnaw on my toothbrush whose bristles i've already defeated into sad splayed strings, while doing my best to interrupt mom's attempts at fixing her face for work. make mom lift me to the bathroom counter and apply eyeliner to my eyebrows and cheeks. splash any residual water in the sink on myself so i can have a new outfit because i don't like this one anyway.

See? This child is ahead of the curve. My point is, I've just had a couple revelations. They just happened like two days ago. I do  have a "regimen" so to speak, but it sucks. I always buy crappy drugstore facial cleansers/moisturizers and crappy drugstore makeup and crappy drugstore shampoo/conditioner. Always. I just never thought expensive products made that much of a difference. It took getting a Christmas gift of Sephora bucks from mi madre to change things up.

A good friend and I ventured to the mall last weekend, clutching our gift cards and meandering aimlessly. We decided to stop into LUSH because a) my friend is three months preg (cutest.preg.ever) and has been experiencing some pregnant pigment problems and b) I'm prone to breakouts along my hairline and shoulders, and for whatever reason my liter of Cetaphil picked up for an easy $6 wasn't curing my issues. But at least the price was right. Enter Herbalism, which looks and smells like algae. Oh, is that not really a selling point? No seriously, this stuff rocks. LUSH will cut whatever amount you choose from their blocks of product in the store, so I only got $13 worth, but it will last me months.

So after spending 3x as much on a cleanser as I ever have ever, I skipped over to Sephora for the free stuff. At my friend's recommendation, I sampled and immediately purchased bare Minerals Purely Nourishing moisturizer. I parted with $8 because my gift card didn't cover it, but between these two luscious products it was the BEST $20 I EVER spent. My face feels like a new face! Is this what newborns feel like? Aside from disorientation and confusion as to why they're no longer enveloped in womb?

My "spoil yourself" attitude is catching fire because I immediately updated my shampoo & conditioner set to L'oreal EverPure, which is sulfate-free. And I don't know what that means but I know that's good. It's $6 each for the shampoo and conditioner, so it's really not spoiling myself that much (hey, it's not Pureology, though I wish), just collectively about $7 more than I would spend.

Behold, the new beaut-route (that's "beauty routine" in lazy speak)

So does your face feel like someone has replaced your dry, blemished, irritated skin with Charlize Theron's beautifully flawless skin, everyday? Because since I went on my spree to both LUSH and Sephora, MINE DOES. But please note: I said my new products have made me feel  like Charlize's skin was subbed in for mine. It does not look like it. Not yet. But I'm gonna cross my fingers that magic exists.