Basically me when I opened the beauty bag I won.
Basically me when I opened the beauty bag I won.

Welcome to my personal blog—a place where I’ll be writing about all of the random stuff in my life that has no place being on my orchid blog, Brooklyn Orchids. In addition to being obsessed with orchids, I am also a bit of a beauty product addict.* I knit, I cross-stitch, I read, watch tons of tv shows, I’m a crazy cat lady, I love traveling, and above all, I love geeking out about and documenting every little thing in my life. So I decided it was high time I created a place to collect all of this documentation!

My first outing here is about a bag of organic beauty products that I won in a raffle back in December. How did this come about? My good friend is a graduate of NYC’s Farm School, and she invited me to the school’s graduation/holiday party back at the end of 2014. The entry fee included some raffle tickets, a few of which I put in the running for an organic beauty bag—and I actually won! I never win ANYTHING! The bag wasn’t actually at the party, so my friend picked it up for me and I kept forgetting to get it from her until last night when I was at her house for a night of wine, pizza, and Settlers of Catan. So it was like Christmakwanzaakkah in February! I was surprised at how much stuff was in the bag, which I’ve estimated to be valued at about $66:

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Top row L -R:

Bottom row L-R:

I would also like to point out the official name of the güd wipes:

IMG_4123They’ve already won this horror movie nerd over with the name!

I do have mixed feelings about Dr. Bronner’s, because his products have bizarre religious language plastered ALL OVER their labels. I’d prefer zero religion in my shower (or anywhere else, to be 100% honest). But we are working our way through a giant bottle of his lavender liquid soap (the distinct scent of which my brain now associates with having a colonoscopy, because I used the soap after an evening of feeling really disgusting after a good old fashioned colon prep). I might as well give the eucalyptus scent a shot next time I go on vacation since it’s the perfect travel size.

I am super looking forward to trying out all of these products. I think the one I’m most excited about is the Gabriel tonic:

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I just purchased a bottle of Thayer’s Alcohol-Free Original Witch Hazel Toner with Aloe last week, so the timing isn’t great, but maybe this is a good opportunity to do a little experiment (SCIENCE!) and see which one works better for my skin.

*When I say I’m “a bit of a beauty addict,” that’s an understatement. Here lies Exhibit A, one drawer full of lip products:

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Lest you think Exhibit A is the end of it, there’s also Exhibit B, a box full of (mostly) mini lip products I’ve amassed from those fun gift sets at the Happiest Place on Earth Sephora:

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my first foray into personal blogging.** What are your favorite organic beauty products? Let me know in the comments!

**Yes, I know my first asterisk should have gone at the very bottom. But this is my blog and I’ll put my asterisks where I want to put them.

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