Last weekend, I thought I had a firm plan to do my fifty third weekly catch-up post on Sunday afternoon but in my relatively chill and lazy state, I had decided that I might as well put it off a day. I was feeling absolutely wretched after all, suffering under the weight of my yearly terrible cold and all that it entailed – fatigue, wheezing, coughing, sneezing, sore throat, congestion and that horribly runny nose – so without a thought to the week ahead, piled with deadlines each and every day, I put it off. I had gone through the motions of promising myself to do it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and its only today that I have the time and relatively calm state of mind to put it all together. It has been a trying week and I’m fortunate to have survived and to have the reading week ahead off, even though I have a paper-ish thing due on Monday – a life-saving extension – and a good number of things due right after the break. Err, I’ll stop with the complaining…

Over the last almost-two-weeks, I can think of three items that I’ve been loving of the life-and-kind-of-beauty-related-variety: kleenex that does not rub your nose raw, the Eucerin Calming Daily Moisturizing Cream ($12.79) and my questionably old Clinique Superdefense Daily Defense Moisturizer SPF 20 ($51). The kleenex are an extremely obvious one given the cold situation and how weirdly sensitive my skin can get and the soothing and rich body cream is similarly obvious, as my skin is sensitive and extremely dry normally without a cold being added into the mix – the cream has the bonus of being pleasantly rich and soothing so that it does not irritate my sensitive skin with – you-guessed-it, eczema. The most interesting item out of the mix is my years old Clinique moisturizer that I’ve dug out again after losing it underneath my sink for a good six or eight months a few times. I’ve kind of forgot about the purchase years ago, motivated by the promise of a free gift and the chemical-sunscreen like pretty much all others, had irritated my sensitive skin in the past, especially when I was going through that rough patch of skin going on two years ago. I know, being in jar packaging especially, the SPF and the moisturizer in general should be long expired by now, but I have not noticed a smell/texture change, or any sort of adverse reaction on my skin so I’ve been giving the cream a go. I find I can avoid the irritation factor if I layer a soothing product (such as an oil etc.) underneath and with that addition, I’ve been enjoying applying this hydrating, illuminating and lightweight cream in the morning. I know the sun protection is really questionable but considering that it does not appear to have changed in any sort of way, I like to think that it’s a first step into getting sunscreen into my daily routine, no? By the way, I have the Dry Combination version that no longer exists but I have a sneaking suspicion that the Very Dry to Dry Combination offering is very similar, if not identical.

The (Bi)Weekly Link: Over the last little while I’ve been enjoying the beauty videos over on redheadphd’s beauty channel – in the real world, she goes by the name Lauren by the way and she’s the perfect balance of intelligent, humorous, beyond informative and calming, if you were wondering. I enjoyed her “January Favourites, Fails and ‘Fumes” tremendously. She does the best reviews period and I may or may not enjoy her use of alliteration…

The Shameless Self-Promotion: As a blogger, I’ve certainly viewed myself as quite a failure in the last week or so but I was rather proud of myself for getting my January Favourites up before too much of February went rolling by and I was rather pleased with how it turned out as well. Note: it is in fact over 1000 words long and concise by any means – oh well?

On an ending note, I did something shameful and as it tends to happen, it happened on a shopping trip with my good ol’ pal, Lauren, at Target because of the sad clearout sale that has been happening across Canada – I came out with a hundred dollars worth of stuff in my bag and bought a cringe worthy amount of lip products but if you want to hear about them you’ll have to stay tuned!

How was your last week or two?

Maggie, x.