Haulin': Sally Beauty Supply and Sephora

Seeing as how yesterday was payday, I spent my Saturday like any other normal college kid would.

I went shopping! And I picked up some super-cool things to share with you all =)

My first stop was Sally Beauty Supply. This awesome chain offers beauty and cosmetic products that are somewhat equal to their salon counterparts at a fraction of the price because there are no super-fancy names stamped on them. Recently, I spent the $5 it costs to join their Beauty Club which is a special rewards program that actually saves you about 10-15% on each item you buy at the store. I originally only went into Sally today to find a good damage repair shampoo as my hairstylist told me that with my constant bleaching and coloring, my hair was becoming dry and brittle. I was totally fine with that, until she tried to sell me a $24, 7 oz. bottle of name-brand shampoo. Umm... I don't think so!

So I went to Sally's and found this awesome product:
In all honesty, this product wasn't THAT new (I already had bought and fell in love with the brand's 2 Minute Repairing Mask). Since I loved it so much, I figure the shampoo must be awesome too. Aphogee's Shampoo for Damaged Hair cost $7.39. I'll try it out tonight and let you know how it goes.

I then walked down the nail polish aisle and these two products caught my eye:
Beauty Secrets' Base Coat (left) and Top Coat (right) came highly recommended from numerous Youtube makeup gurus and nail salons, so I knew they were the real deal. Each bottle cost $2.79. I just tried them out this evening (as I painted my nails with OPI's Teal We Meet Again) and they worked like magic! I especially impressed with the top coat, which helped my nails dry in thirty seconds.

Recently, I really needed a new pencil sharpener for my eye pencils. So, I picked this one up at the check-out counter:
I really like that it has an attached piece for all of your pencil shavings. At $2.99, it was slightly pricey, but it looks like it will work much better than my current sharpener.

I also got a strange impulse to buy this:
It's a 'Lip Crayon', which basically means it doubles as a pencil and lipstick. I bought one in the shade Coral Shimmer for $1.89 and so far, I really like it! It's a peachy-nude, slightly on the orange side, but still very wearable. I'll probably layer lipstick on top of it to ensure that it stays on for longer and doesn't make my lips look dry.

After Sally's, I drove over to Sephora. I originally intended to only buy this:
When I got my Urban Decay Naked Palette, it came with a mini Primer Potion and I fell in love with it. So, I went back to Sephora today and shelled out the $18 to buy a full-sized one. I think it's a smart buy, though, because it works so incredibly well and really holds my eyeshadow in place all day.

I also grabbed this in Sephora:
Though I have been cleaning my brushes weekly, I've been scared to clean them daily because the formula could dry them out and destroy the quality of the brush hairs. This brush cleanser ($6), however, is mild enough to use every day, so I will test it tomorrow and let you know how it goes!

And then my FABULOUS boyfriend bought me the COOLEST Valentine's Day gift ever:
Uh-huh. That would be the Nars Orgasm blush/Laguna Bronzer ($40). I AM SO EXCITED! For those who don't know, this duo is famous for being suitable for practically ANY skin tone (okay, maybe not Laguna. It can be a bit too dark for some skin tones. But Orgasm is definitely appropriate for everyone). I've been lusting after it forever and my darling boyfriend knew it would be the perfect Valentine's Day gift for me. How cute is that?!

So that's my haul! I did do some other shopping, but it was for clothes, so that doesn't really fit on this blog. Have you bought anything super cool lately? Share it in the comments!

What's in my Shower?

A really popular Tag video is "What's in My Purse". While I think it's fun to watch and I would consider making my own post like that (would you guys want one?), I think it'd be much more fun and slightly more appropriate to this blog for me to make a "What's in my Shower" post since, after all, I'm sticking to beauty-related blogs here.

So let's get started! For this post, I'm going to focus solely on hair care products: shampoo and conditioner. And here is my collection...

Back row (L to R): Tresemme Color Protection Shampoo and Conditioner, John Frieda Sheer Blonde Lustrous Touch Shampoo and Condtioner, Herbal Essences Hydralicious Self-Targeting Conditioner, Dove Damage Therapy Frizz Control Shampoo
Front Row (L to R): Aveda Shampure Shampoo and Conditioner, Lush Daddy-O Shampoo

Let me first say that I have wavy to curly hair that is pretty thin (though I have a lot of it on my head). My hair is naturally a very dark brown but I've been coloring it on and off since I was in about 6th grade. Recently, though, I've made the commitment and have gone 100% blonde (which I adore! Future blog post perhaps?) and have a honey-gold blonde color with lots of highlights mixed in. I don't use hot tools very much. In fact, I hardly touch my blowdryer and very rarely flatiron my hair. The only hot tool I really use is a curling iron because I love big, smooth curls, a la Marilyn Monroe, my idol. Most of the time, I'm really a wash-and-go kind of girl when it comes to my hair. I normally just throw my hair in a ponytail or bun, pin my bangs back, and walk out the door.

With all that being said, I still live in the south and the climate just terrorizes my hair. All of the humidity makes me hair frizz like crazy or go completely flat. Constant changes between hot and cold? Yeah, bad news bears for my hair as well! So, I wind up trying a whole lot of different hair care products to make my hair more cooperative and easy to style. That's how I amassed this huge collection. :-)


Tresemme Color Protection Shampoo and Conditioner is available at pretty much any drugstore along with the rest of the company's line ($4.49 each at Walgreens for the 32 fl oz bottles) and is pretty reliable for a drugstore product. It's not my number one pick, but it smells pleasant -- kind of sweet, but still unisex -- and I think it does a pretty good job at protecting my hair color and keeping it fresh. My stylist says it's okay, but if you want volume it's just going to pull your hair down straight, killing any volume or curl.


Next up is John Frieda Collection's Sheer Blonde: Lustrous Touch Strengthening Shampoo and Conditioner (that's a mouthful!). This combo has been a recent favorite of mine and I think it's really working on my hair. I've noticed that I haven't been shedding as much and my hair is not breaking in half when I try to brush it. At the same time, it feels soft and sleek which is fantastic. The scent is also fabulous: sunflowers and amber. John Frieda's color sensitive shampoos and conditioners sell at Walmart for $5.87 each.


Moving on, we have Herbal Essences' Hydralicious Self-Targeting Conditioner. What this claims to do is balance your hair's moisture so that certain parts don't look more oily than others. I use it pretty rarely because my stylist told me Herbal Essences is extremely drying and not a good choice for people who color their hair like me. Still, I tend to use it when my hair feels extremely gross (like, after an intense workout or a long day out in the sun) and I think it works alright. It smells like sweet aloe to me and costs $3.22 at CVS.


Dove is by far one of my favorite companies and has been since I was about 7. I always loved that they encouraged women to love their own bodies and take care of themselves. So, when my hair started to freak out this summer and get all frizzy and nasty, I picked up their Damage Therapy Frizz Control Shampoo at Walgreens for $4.49. To me, the formula smells like warm sugar cookies (yummy!) and definitely does the trick. I prefer to use it on days when it's been humid, rainy, or muggy outside because that's when my hair frizzes out and turns ugly.


Over the past several weeks, I heard nothing but fabulous reviews about Aveda's Shampure Shampoo and Conditioner. Since I go to an Aveda salon, I picked up a bottle of each the last time I went for $9.50 a pop (a bit pricey, but I figured I'd make an exception for such a fantastic product). Aveda markets these products as being the latest and greatest in hair care as they contain morikue protein (basically, damaged hair is lacking protein. If you add protein to it, damaged hair will start to regain it's natural, healthy state) and other natural ingredients. The smell is a deliciously herbal citrus and definitely appropriate for anyone! However, I'm not too crazy about the shampoo. In my humble opinion, it just dries my hair out every time I use it and my hair seems brittle and sticky the next day. I'm not sure if that's supposed to happen and will eventually stop when my hair is no longer as damaged, but I don't like it! I've honestly been avoiding the shampoo and using the conditioner sparingly as well. I'll have to have a chat with the manager of my salon the next time I'm there and see why it's not quite working.


Lastly, in my shower, I have the superb Daddy-O from Lush Cosmetics. This itty-bitty bottle was $8.95 and the full 16.9 fl oz bottle is a scary $27.95. I know.. it's ridiculous! But to be quite honest, the baby-sized bottle is lasting me quite well. For those of you who aren't in the know, Lush Cosmetics is a fabulous company that creates all-natural bath and cosmetic products. Daddy-O in particular is vegan, which means it contains absolutely NO animal by-products and is not tested on animals. Anyway, this is a violet shampoo made for blondes or people with white or gray hair. The purple tone of the shampoo (and yes, it IS purple. And not just a light purple. No, this is a so-purple-it's-almost-black kind of purple) helps brighten blonde or light hair by pulling out any impurities. It smells floral, but natural. I would highly recommend it because I DO see results with it. However, because of the price, I use it as a once-a-week treatment and use it Sundays or Mondays in place of any other shampoo. Do not be surprised when it doesn't get very foamy. It's made with very little sulfate, the ingredient in most shampoos and soaps that creates foam.

The reason I have so many different hair products in my shower, by the way, is because I like to keep things fresh with my hair. In other words, I sort of believe that if I'm constantly using the same shampoo and conditioner, my hair won't react the way it's supposed to to it, so changing it up keeps my hair from "getting used to" any particular formula. Another helpful hint? Don't wash your hair every day! While it sounds a little gross, it is really, really, REALLY bad to shampoo every day because it strips your hair of its natural oils which it needs to stay damage-free.

What's your favorite shampoo or conditioner? Post below and let me know!