I avoid writing about my love of Target on a daily basis because I fear this would turn into the world’s longest post. I LOVE Target with capital letters. I have a method with which I attack the store, a special way I walk the aisles to ensure I appropriately browse all of the aisles. Lately, I almost entirely disregard their clothing section, not so much because I don’t like it, but because I have made an internal promise to only buy good clothes that I will like for several seasons. I am totally guilty of buying lots and lots of throwaway clothes, and I don’t want to do this anymore. I love their Champion line for sports bras and and their Gillian and O’Malley Hanky Panky rip-off thongs. I also love their selection of super cheap Hanes bras and underwear which are super comfy and perfect for lounging. I always breeze through the baby area and pick up little creams and trinkets I can’t get in NY. Then I beeline to the beauty and haircare area and scan all of the products. I like to see what Sonia Kashuk is up to. I rarely buy her product but I always scan it. I also love to see if they have brought in anything new from Boots, the british line. I pick up cheapy shampoos, rubberbands, and barrettes and then spend loads of time in the detergent/soap/cleaning area. They have all of the newbie items I can’t find in NY. I get great pleasure from assessing what is new and bringing it back to NY with me. In short, I love Target. I love it with a passion. The fact that the only Target nearby is in Brooklyn (and is relatively junkie) makes my trips to Targets in NC even more special.

I am home in North Carolina for the holidays and this affords me the opportunity to visit all of the stores I don’t have in New York. (It is also a time for me to grab dinners at my fave chain eateries P.F. Changs and Outback Steakhouse.) Aside from a daily (literally) visit to Target to get my fix of this ultimate favorite store, I sometimes happen into Ulta when I have time to kill. I always enter Ulta optimistically, hoping that I will find a new and exciting brand or product. Sadly, Ulta always seems to disappoint me. This sounds counter-intuitive as I love makeup, hair, and beauty products, but I just find the Ulta concept so odd. They carry drugstore makeup and several upscale but random boutique-y prestige brands like Too Faced and Lola. (Both of these brands have either been removed from the Sephora floor or relegated to some obscure spot in the store.) Ulta’s own brand, while inexpensive, doesn’t offer the color or quality you would expect from a beauty store. They also carry Elizabeth Arden, Bare Escentuals, Smashbox, and another brand named Red Earth that is equally odd. I mean who uses Arden anymore anyway? They haven’t been remotely relevant in years. The store itself is also a bit too brightly lit. It doesn’t have that upscale beauty feel, like a Sephora, which is obviously my gold standard for makeup and beauty shopping. I simply don’t get the concept. It needs to be a bit more special to win my affections. 

I have followed the rise of the Bobbi Brown product line from its very inception. I love the packaging and the lipstick and gloss colors and find this line is generally an excellent back up when I get bored with something I am using. While traveling for work, I took a time out at the fabulous flagship Nordstrom store in Seattle for a little face time at the Bobbi booth and purchased a new bronzer in Natural. If you know the BB line, you know her idea of the perfect face involves a little bronzer and then a “pop” of bright blush on the apple of the cheek. I am not one to go for the blush pop but I do love me a good bronzer, and Natural is a perfect brown. Very light, very summery, very bronze.

I am presently on the hunt for a topical acne solution. Wexler is just not doing the job anymore, and it hard to find the pieces of the kit that I use, so I think I have to give up on it. Many visits to the derm later, I am still spotty and struggling with this fact. I am looking into giving Proactiv another try. I always fall back on Proactiv but it hasn’t done much for me as of late. I wonder if I am not giving it enough time to do its thing because I cannot be monogamous to one product line. I have been traveling for work, and lots of flying generally tends to bring out the worst in my skin as well. I will continue to update as I search for that holy grail of skincare lines.

I am officially Ugg-ing. Blame it on the wintery mix outside or the fact that they are so supremely comfy, but I have been tempted by my Uggs almost every day this week and have given in at least 3 times. I am sooo guilty of giving other anti-Ugg looks that by wearing them, I am being the ultimate fashion hypocrite. I have a love/hate relationship with these shoes that goes back to the very introduction of the fad. I mean, they are the perfect winter shoe in theory. Lined in wool, practically waterproof and super-warm, they can brave even the nastiest winter weather. In contrast, they are sooo 3 years ago, and I also feel they make one’s legs look short and kind of squat. However, they are so easy to slide my jeans into and hit the ground in that I am officially Ugging these days, although feeling slightly guilty about it. 

I simply had to write a post from Georgetown. I am presently in DC for work and am staying at a cute little hotel on M street. I took a little run/walk this morning around this lovely little hamlet in DC was absolutely thrilled with the mix of clothing and beauty shops that line lovely M street. While it is super chilly here, I managed to keep warm by popping into every little store along the street, from Intermix to J. Crew to Sephora, to a latte stop at Star-b’s, nothing could be finer than Georgetown right now. I even managed to find the perfect shade of Givenchy lipstick at Sephora. It’s called Rose Caprice and it is shimmery, sheer, and perfectly pink/beige.

I have a new and exciting makeup tip to share that simply eliminates the need for self tanner and/or bronzer as we enter the ghostly pale months of winter. I happened upon this new trick purely by accident. I was looking for a different, more blendable foundation and purchased some L’Oreal True Match, a relatively reliable foundation that I bounce back to every now and again. I am often confused by True Match because of the way their color scales work. As you may know, the foundations are made to blend perfectly and seamlessly with one’s skin tone. The foundations come in shades for cools, neutrals, and warms. I am, in essence, a “cool” by their definition, however I don’t want to play up the redness in my skin and therefore often opt for base with a yellow undertone to even out that redness. Rather than looking into the cool and neutral families as per usual, I opted to purchase a “warm” foundation. I went for W3 in the aisle and was surprised to find it rather dark on my skin. Yet, because it blended so very well, it left me sort of sunkissed and healthy looking. I have been using it for a week now and just picked up the jar and was surprised to find it was a W6, not W3, like 3 shades deeper than it should have been. I obviously grabbed the wrong color, but I am loving it. I need that extra punch of color in the winter months and think I have discovered my “go to” product for the chill ahead.