Valentina's Home-Brewed Hydrating Body & Massage Oil

I tried a sample of Tata Harper's body oil and was subsequently ruined. It's amazing, but who can afford such a pricy bottle of body oil? And at the same time, nothing I found compared with it; either the ingredients weren't clean, the scent was lack luster or it didn't have that sublime feeling. That luxuriating feeling of freshly shaved legs and silk sheets. 

Not Body Oil, but here's the Body Wash, which is equally fantastic. And paired with a loofah, a great substitute for traditional shaving cream.

Then these art deco bohemian bottles from a new line, Valentina's Home-Brewed started popping up in my local coops. Turns out they're local-ish as in, they're from the Pacific Northwest (hi, Portland!) and tick ALL my boxes. And you can order them off Pharmaca, and with one of the myriad promo codes they float around online, can snag a bottle for <$11 a pop. So I snapped one up in every scent and am in the process of working my way through them all.

My absolute favorite is True Love (Cardamom, Chocolate & Roses).  if you're a sucker for gourmand cocktails or the smell of cocoa butter, or Lush's massage bars, you'll be very happy. Protection (Frankincense, Myrrh & Patchouli) is my second favorite, it's got that upscale serious earthiness I get from well built, woodsy fragrances from lines like Lurk or Le Labo. And it'll be my goto during cooler months.

Sunny Outlook (Mandarin, Lemon & Ginger) is perfect for these balmy summer mornings and evenings, and if you're experiencing decision fatigue, you can't go wrong with Sweet Dreams (Jasmine, Sandalwood & Vanilla). These two are light, as in the fragrance is gone a couple hours post application.

Jane Iredale Bitty Brow Kit

When I worked for Benefit Cosmetics, I could never keep their Brow-zing! eyebrow palettes in stock. Why? Because whenever I did a client's makeup, I always used one of their wax based brow pigments. Even if the client wasn't in the market for a brow product, had no interest in plucking their full set of pre-Cara Delevingne brows, or had tweezed what nature gave them into oblivion and were marred with a permanent expression of surprise or anger, they almost always would ask me what I did.

It was simple, I just dipped an angle brush into the taupe-y shaded wax and lightly buff it along the highest point of the arch, sometimes working down to the tail. I learned this trick from Meredith, an incredible makeup artist at Barney's New York. She believed defining the arch and adding a swirl of blush to the cheeks is fool proof way to bring out the eyes. Instead of rimming them with a dark smokey liner, she thought this a balanced and less obvious way of framing the eyes.

Sadly, I've yet to find a perfectly neutral colored brow wax in the clean beauty industry. But this Jane Iredale kit comes pretty close, one only needs to blend a bit of the wax and powder on the same brush. It's believable looking, no one would guess you've got anything on. And if you're on the fence about which color, go with the ashy blonde shade. Any dark haired brunettes like myself, better stick with the brunette shade, photographed below: