Empty

I started to call this something like "recent empties" but I'm not sure some of these actually qualify. Sometimes I take the picture, throw the container away, and then don't necessarily get around to posting it for a while. I think that's true of this first one, at least:

I had two of these because it was a BOGO sale or something, and I'm still working my way through the second one. I don't use dry shampoo a whole lot, but when I do, this one is my favorite. Everybody always talks about Batiste but Batiste makes my head itch, for some reason - I guess there's something in it I'm sensitive to. Clean Freak here doesn't have that problem and it works and it's relatively cheap - I guess I'd call it my Holy Grail of dry shampoos for that combination of qualities. (I unearthed a post from almost two years ago where I talk about this same product - not the same can, though! - and complain about it not lasting very long. But I think I was just using way too much; I haven't had that problem lately.)

The next picture are both samples - I don't always talk about every sample I use up, only if I have something to say about them. First there's a John Frieda sea-salt spray, and the thing I have to say about sea-salt spray in general is that I've had samples of quite a few and at least one full-size bottle (which was Verb) and I liked all of them, but as far as I can tell they're all about the same. So the moral of the story, I guess, is don't think you have to buy the expensive brands of sea-salt spray in order to get properly beachy waves. This one was fine, but I think pretty much every hair-care company has one of these now, don't they? John Frieda is probably a good moderately-priced option and seems to be in every grocery store and drug store these days.

I'm not even sure where the John Frieda stuff came from (a Wal-mart box, maybe?) but the Boscia black cleanser came from a Play box, I'm pretty sure about that one. And I liked it enough that I bought a full-size one shortly afterwards. It isn't cheap, but you only have to use a little bit so it lasts a long time. It's really not meant for my now "mature" (dry) skin type and I don't use it daily, so I still haven't used up that 5-ounce bottle in over a year. But I think I would have liked it even more - and used it more often - when I was younger and my skin was much oilier.

Then there's this Clinique, which is also a sample size. I used the "yellow moisturizer" from Clinique (meaning this one, the Dramatically Different Moisturing Lotion) for years and years - I know I've talked about this before. Again, my skin type has changed, and when I had oilier skin, this was totally my Holy Grail moisturizer, because it's lightweight, it doesn't break your skin out, all of those earlier-in-life kind of concerns. And it's not cheap but it's sort of moderately priced. For years, I would time my yellow-lotion purchases with Clinique Bonus Time at one store or another, and the bonus item I really wanted was this item right here, the yellow moisturizer in a tube, so I could carry it around with me.

They've changed the formula recently but I've had a sample of the new one and it seemed fine, too. I've mostly switched to other brands these days but I would still recommend this as a lightweight moisturizer.

And then I think this is also something I've talked about before, the L'Oreal sulfate-free shampoo line:

This is the one I just used up - it is the frizz-defying formula but before that I had the color-care formula. I wasn't coloring my hair for a while there and I didn't need it, but actually I loved the color-care one partly because it smelled so good. I bought a new one lately, and I found an ad for it in my September Vogue so I'm showing it here so you can see. I guess it's rosemary that I think smells so good.

(Regarding that issue of Vogue, 125th-anniversary "commemorative" edition or not, the only way I can read those giant issues like that one is to tear the pages out of them as I go. Which is why these ads lay so nice and flat!)