Eyes Lips Face (aka ELF) Sucks

A girlfriend of mine (C.A.) circulated around an email citing that this make-up business called E.L.F. (Eyes Lips Face) was being bought by Nordstrom and that they were selling everything off for $1 as they needed to repackage their product line.

Here's the email:

DOLLAR DEALS for DIVAS

The make-up line E.L.F. has been bought out by Nordstrom and will be re-packaged with the Nordstrom name on it. They are liquidating all the make-up in ELF packaging and are selling everything for $1. YES ONE DOLLAR. This includes brushes, nail polish and more.

Use the coupon code: CAROLINA and get $7.50 off your first $15 of your purchase (which should cover shipping costs). Enjoy!

Sounds like a deal too good to be true, eh? Well check out the tidbit I just found on the Nordstrom page:

09/04/2007
Customer Alert!

We have learned that some of our customers received e-mails from an unauthorized and unknown source regarding the website eyeslipsface.com. We want you to know that Nordstrom and Nordstrom.com are not affiliated with eyeslipsface.com or the e.l.f. product line, nor with any e-mail regarding that website or product line. Nordstrom does not sell e.l.f. products.

My first of two shipments arrived today. I excitably opened the box and everything was packaged nicely. No red flags. Eager to try out my new products, I tore the wrappers off of each item.

Being a lipgloss nut, I tried that first. I put it on and immediately noticed that it smelled of harsh chemicals. Something I've smelled in the organic chemistry lab. Something gross. Okay. So it's supposed to be a plumbing lipgloss, but it has a clear and a colored side. I'd put on the colored side without the plumping chemicals. So it just stunk, and it wasn't because I'd used the plumper. Can't imagine kissing ANYONE with THAT crap on my mouth. *tosses lipgloss into trash*

Maybe it was just one of their products.

I moved onto the eyeliners. Black? Check. Brown? Check. Hmm...caps don't stay on. Color flakes and clumps. Ewwww....

Skin concealer. Weird color. Powder? Weird too. Sort of reminds me of the color of a barbie doll.

Okay, so the brushes I ordered have to be OK. Right? Who could screw up brushes? I pulled them out of their sleeves and took a sniff. They stunk too. Barf.

I noticed that one of the items was made in China. Oy. Make up made in China where they have no industry controls. I turned a few more products over. "Made in China"..."Made in China"..."Made in China"...yikes! Every single thing was made in China. I make a point of never buying things made in China, if I can help it, and here I was sitting with an entire of body products from the land of toxic waste.

Their website doesn't allow returns and, oddly, a site search fails to turn up a single reference to their products being made in China.

Never again will I buy something from an email touting claims such as this.

Ugh.

Stuttgart Bound

I'm heading to Stuttgart to visit my friend AA and, of course, this means I'll have to start a new travel blog. I already have a blog for Paris, so perhaps I'll have to just turn the Paris blog into a general travel blog, and then retag my Paris posts as "Paris", Stuttgart, as "Germany", etcetera. Hopefully it doesn't turn into one helluva mess. It just doesn't make sense to have a separate blog for everything. Ya know?

I'm rather excited at the culinary prospects, the quaint little villages such as Tubingen, and the fact that I'll be in Stuttgart during the beginning of their Christmas festival. Christmas shopping in Stuttgart? Every shopaholic's dream. I think that only Zurich, London, or Paris might top it, but who says I can't get to Zurich? The last night of this whirlwind trip will be a Saturday night stop in Amsterdam as I have an overnight layover. Oh the horror of it. What shall I do with myself all night in Amsterdam?

I doubt that I'll do an "all-nighter" like I did last November in the Malpensa (Italy) airport but, rather, I plan to check my bags and then, with all due haste, hop the train at AMS into the city. Can I cram an evening dinner/boat tour, a trip to a kaffee shop (or two?), some touristy sightseeing, and random walking into a single evening and get back to the airport by 6AM?

Hell yes!

Who needs a hotel at 80E a night when there's so much to do?

I will pour my limp and well fed body onto my 8AM flight and hopefully sleep like a baby until I hit Detroit. :)

Happy Anniversary

Today marks 7 years since the day that J and I met for the first time in person. We initially met online, as so many Silicon Valley-ites do, and our first meeting was at Printers Inc. in Mountain View. At that time I was working at my first dotcom and J was at a bigtime advertising company: if I wrote their famous three initials you'd recognize it in a heartbeat.

It wasn't exactly love at first sight for me as he was in the throes of a separation. I didn't want to get mixed up with THAT. I said, apologetically, "Let's just try to be friends", which lasted for precisely three dates. Okay, they weren't really dates as we were just being friends. So three meetings? Three excursions? Call them what you will.

I think the pivotal moment, when I changed my mind, occurred the night he was over my roommate's and my home for a dinner party and at some moment I spied him washing the dishes WITHOUT HAVING TO BE ASKED. Unprompted. I was stunned. Taken aback. I'm sure my jaw hit the ground. "Surely", I thought, "such a creature is not to be let go."

And I didn't.

Happy Anniversary Sweetheart.

My Sweetpea...My Princess

blue eyes, pointy ears
blonde puma slinking about
sound of princess feet

Popoki
"Kiki"
(1991 to 2000)

.:. silence .:.

light breeze, long slow breaths
summer light passes thru lids
napping cats mimic

---

I love writing haiku. This one was an entry for the Haiku Hotel.

Mayberry in the Bay Area

I ran into a sweetheart of a man at the bank yesterday. He eyeballed me driving one of my vintage mercedes benz and asked if I'd sell it. There's always a price at which one will sell, so I said, "Yes, actually I would."

That set off a long conversation which ensued in my being invited to his house today to see the work that he and his partner are doing on his vintage craftsman. Also part of the invitation was the chance to watch the Naglee Park Parade from his covered patio and then to a lovely picnic at the park around the corner.

It was like being in Mayberry, a veritable 1950's paradise, the parade and picnic. Darling little kids riding on their bicycles, all decorated in red, white, and blue, followed by all of the mothers to babies born since the last 4th of July. There was cars and trucks disguised as "pirate ships", children launching candy out of their cannons. A firetruck, a police car, and a dog that jumped through a hoop on command. Where in California does this happen but here? I've never seen such a spectacle. And I mean that in a good way.

I took mom along today, partly to get her out of the house and partly to persuade her that we might just want to live in the house that we're nearly in escrow on in this lovely, adorable neighborhood. Seeing people in such a neighborly way is heartwarming and makes me, more than ever, want to move into our house.

Colette? Gigi. Gigi? Colette.

We brought home a new kitten yesterday: a rescue Siamese kitten who is about 8 weeks old, chocolate point mix (maybe seal, actually), and a cute little girl at that. She was incredibly shy when we first met her and we were afraid that she might not fit in with our resident Siamese, Gigi, who is the Queen bee of the household. Gigi has only been with us for a mere 3 months or so and she, also, is a rescue Siamese, albeit a mix of a Blue Point and maybe a bit of something else thrown in.

Needless to say, there has been quite a bit of hissing and growling in our household over the last 24 hours. Gigi isn't taking it too well that there's another kitty in the house. I'm sure she smells funny, and "What's that she's eating (that I haven't got)?"

The little newcomer is eager to get to know Gigi...and is doing all the right things that an invading kitty should do, but Gigi's not having any of it.

We've named her Colette, a name which fits nicely to Gigi. We'll probably call her Coco, though, as that rolls off of the tongue a bit easier.

Hopefully the hissing will die down in the next few days to a dull roar or, better yet, a purr.