Lemondrop

This may be a weird way to start a post about pretty little beauty products, but -- as anyone who has read me before knows -- I'm a weird beauty blogger.

Anyway, here goes: My life has sort of sucked lately. I've been dealing with some personal issues and as a result have picked up this annoying, always-nagging negativity about stuff that wouldn't normally get me down -- you know, like not having any extra money to go shopping for clothes right now (usually I would not care -- seriously), or my apartment looking dumpy, or irrationally not feeling good about how I look because I've been skipping eyebrow appointments on my gloomy days. Blah blah blah.

But I'm a beauty expert, darn it, and I know just the products to cheer myself up -- and make my apartment look cuter, and make myself look cuter. Just a little pampering boost, right?

No, I'm not saying consumerism is the answer. Please. Both of my parents are shrinks! I'm simply saying that sometimes treating yourself to a lovely little present is just the thing to improve your mood. Here are 11 of my favorite affordable little beauty things. And you deserve to buy yourself a few of them, too. Even if you don't have a case of the sads.


Anna Sui Blotting Papers, $5
It's funny how you think you're going to grow out of your greasy-skin and acne phase as you get older, then time goes by, and you just ... don't. What you do learn about, though, are the chic things in life -- cool, inexpensive auxiliary products by glamorous fashion brands being one of them! These facial blotting papers by Anna Sui are a perfect omigod-they're-so-gorgeous-don't-you-just-die example. And they work beautifully too, to mattify your shiny face with just a few dabs. I seriously ENJOY using mine every single time, just because they're so great-looking. And there's nothing wrong with that, man -- succumbing to the shallow, I mean. Packaging works -- that's the point!

La Compagnie de Provence USA Cherry Blossom Duck Soap, $5
How much do I enjoy this little soap that comes in a box with glamorous French-y packaging (being an ugly American, I am easily suckered by French words on anything -- seriously, it's an issue), and is, most crucially, shaped like a duckling? If you guessed that I enjoy it wayyy too much, you are correct, my friend. I used to greedily hoard them when they were sent over at the magazine where I used to work, take them home, and then never use them -- just remove them from their boxes (there are different scents and colors), line them up, and look at them for years in my bathroom. Sometimes I greeted my little duck army in the morning. Yup, you talk to your husband and I talk to my soap duckies, and we all soldier on.

Paul and Joe Emory Boards, $5 each
Paul & Joe are an amazing French beauté brand that beauty editors consistently coo over every time a new collection arrives in our hot little hands. I mean, their stuff is always THE most gorgeously packaged product imaginable, and while gorgeous packaging is not really what counts with beauty, it's great for a quick fix when you want to buy something pretty -- like these two nail files! I barely touch my own nails, or even let anyone else touch them because I find manicures so pointless and soul-sucking and boring now that I don't have to clean up for the chi-chi office job anymore, but I'd lounge around with these babies at home and file away for hours, or sort of pretend to because I suck at it, so lovely are they. Next.

Love & Toast Honey Coconut Little Luxe Eau de Parfum, $9
I'm also obsessed with teeny-tiny perfume bottles! You can bring with you anywhere, but like little soap ducklings, I tend to collect them, align them somewhere where they will be clutter-y and then consistently knocked over, and gaze adoringly at them for the rest of my life! There are a few scents to choose from, but I like this one best -- you get sugared vanilla, violet sandalwood, and sweet honey, plus my favorite -- the only thing I care to smell like, really -- COCONUT! I adore the little bottle, too. Love & Toast is a great small indie brand; check out the rest of their stuff. So cute.


Papier d'Armenie La Rose Burning Papers, $7 for 12 sheets
OK, I know these look like blotting papers again, but they're actually a totally different type of product, and if you're a Francophile-meets-home-fragrance-fetishist like me you're about to become seriously ... aroused (for real!). These are sexy little BURNING PAPERS. Like paper-thin incense, lush-rose scented, that you light in a little dish or something, and they slowly burrrn away, emitting fantastic (though not cloying-smelling) smoke. Do you die? You do. I told you you would. Every lingerie boutique in America should sell these babies at the counter, and I should get a cut of the profits, because I'm a genius for putting everyone on them. Wouldn't you buy them? They're so appealing. Sorry. I just get excited when I think I've found great things. See how cheered up I am already? Glam little beauty buys work, I'm telling you!


Lulu Organics Travel Sized Hair Powder, $10
Would I live without hair powder? Yes. Would people think that I was totally gross? Definitely. Because, see, over the years I've really come to hate to wash my hair. The irony is that I'm a beauty editor and all that, I know. But I think I had to write about shampoo TOO much, you know? But you don't care about that -- back to the product. This dry shampoo by Lulu Organics is not only the prettiest little container ever -- you shake the stuff out, then distribute it at your roots and blend through -- it absorbs oil and re-volumizes like nothing else. Plus, it smells like lavender and something called clary-sage (whatever that is, it's a good thing). And so it makes your hair smell washed and clean again! I love it. It's the travel size, so you can take it around with you, being fake-clean everywhere you go. Deceptive, gross, lovely: Hair, and also beauty writers, can simultaneously be all these things, and now you know that. (Ah, this post just gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?)


Herbacin Chamomile and Silicon Hand Cream, $6
Guess what I'm not? A hand cream aficionado. As beauty products go, I find it to be a tad on the boring side, and by "a tad" boring I mean I rank it right up there with the four-minute voicemail my dad leaves me once a week about how crucial it is that I get rid of a storage unit he's convinced will hurt his credit rating (seriously: four minutes, once a week, for two years) -- that boring! Anyway, hand cream. Am I right or am I right? But I've always had a tin of this one by Herbacin on my bedside table along with my reading lamp, a big stack of Vice magazines and, inexplicably, an authentic Chanel boomerang, because it's so cheery-looking and super-softening that I actually love using it. Though it better be ultra-effective, you know? I have about ninety different parts of my face and body I could apply ninety different products to every day, and priority-wise, silky hands are most decidedly not at the top of my list. I don't have a boyfriend; no one is holding them at the movies, WHATEVER. And I really like the cheerful German tin -- you know, because it makes me feel better about being so alone. JOKING! But no, really, it does. (Joking again.) (But seriously, do you understand now why I don't have a boyfriend? My jokes suck.)


Anatomical Puffy the Eyebag Slayer Revitalising Eye Mask, $6
My eyes are always puffy. I have a mental deficiency, not seriously but sort of seriously, that forbids my brain from sleeping. I can't stand trying to sleep; I get so bored. But what I do like is whining to people about how I never can sleep, and lounging around my apartment, melodramatically, with an eye mask on, while my friends ignore me and order Movies on Demand that I have to pay for later, which I can't even see that they're doing because I'm wearing this, the most fun eye mask ever from one of my favorite UK brands -- ANATOMICALS! They have super-cutesy names that made my ex-boss sort of gag, but I love them and I love how they look, and all of the products are great. Go to the link -- this is a re-useable gel-filled mask you keep in your fridge, bright red. I live for it. Especially during my La Vida Lohan phases, and oh yes, I do have them. Paging Captian Obvious.


Claus Porto Shea Butter Bar Soap, $10.50
I wouldn't have put this bar soap in here because it doesn't look like the greatest deal in the world until you understand several things. First of all, $10.50 for soap is a rad deal when the thing is the most luxurious Italian import, um, ever, and most important to size queens everywhere, friggin' huge! It is the soap equivalent of a Chipotle burrito. It's the kind of almost brick-sized bar soap that would be most effective if wrapped in a menacing note and flung violently through the apartment window of a next-door neighbor who never shuts up their stupid mewling baby when you're trying to write hugely intellectual soap blogs. But of course, then you'd be giving the stupid neighbors the most special, wondrously-lathering soaps ever, and they'd probably go and WASH the baby in it because it's all-natural and fabulous like that, and life would be just grand for them and especially the loathsome child who deserves it least of all, and more miserable than ever for you! So scratch all that, which surely you had already anyway, and keep this hotness for yourself, I say. Though like almost all Claus Porto products, I always find 'em too pretty to use. I mean, it'll pain you when you go and try to open it. Just wait.

Smith's Rosebud Salve Tube, $6
Smith's Rosebud Salve -- in it's original incarnation, the tin -- was one of those products that I, in my former life as a former magazine beauty editor, basically all but officially vowed never to include in my mag stories because press-wise was, in a word, overplayed. I mean, seriously. How many times have you read a makeup artist or model or celebrity tell you that it's their bare-lips-with-a-natural-rosy-sheen essential? Over the course of years and years and years? My ex-magazine, Lucky -- which I truly believe does better beauty than anyone, don't get me wrong -- was a particularly naughty repeat offender. I may be an insomniac, but having to write about Rosebud Salve put me to sleep every time. Then the manufacturers put it in a tube and like magic, I was charmed and ready to promote it again! Sigh. I'm so easily lured, I know. No, but it is the best lip product: hugely curative balm but glossy like makeup-y makeup, with just enough pinky-flushed color. I was just sick of looking at the tin, and I was sick of the lid of the tin coming off in my bag and all my stuff getting all goopy. So hooray, this is the best reinvention ever. Sorry, Madonna (and don't think we've forgotten that goofy Justin Timberlake collabo, either).

Sonia Kashuk Makeup Brushes, $10–$15 each
All beauty editors I've ever known love Sonia Kashuk products (which, FYI, are and always have been Target exclusives), and her tools are particularly excellent (also very much considered for this post: her false lashes, which my ex-boss, the magazine beauty director, swears are the only false lashes she's ever been able to apply to herself without a makeup artist, and which come with the best glue in the game). I am a big fan of the makeup brushes, as are many makeup artists whom I've tortured with my terrible interview skills over the years. And yes, they are cheap. Other brushes from department store brands are three, four, five times are much, and sometimes not even as good as these, which distribute color beautifully, blend so well, and are ultra-soft. Good for those Lohan-nights: smoky eyes and all that. Trust.

What do you treat yourself to, beauty-wise? it doesn't have to be a bargain, either -- maybe you're not broke like I am. Discuss!


Cat Marnell was a magazine beauty editor before she was a blogger. By the time she finished writing this post, she felt a zillion times better, and even went out and bought a bunch of drugstore candles for fun. Beauty is like magic!