My Not So Lush Life

Living in Portland, which is essentially a bucket of water disguised as a city, you'd think the LAST thing a girl would have a problem with is dry skin.  But between the heater at home, on the train and in the office sucking out any drop of moisture in a 5 mile radius, this SSG always feels PARCHED around this time of year.

Before ... when I had a job that paid me 40% more than my current job, I'd trot off to Lush for some lotion that I probably read about in US Weekly or In Style Magazine.  It cost $20 and came in a little container that looked like a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  And. It. Was. Awesome.  If I could remember the name of it, I'd totally tell you but I think I blocked it from my memory ... along with the fact that I used to make A LOT more money than I do now.

(Excuse me while I go cry into a piece of one ply toilet paper ... torn in half.)

So I had heard about this lady, Paula Begoun before.  She wrote a book called Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me that I used to thumb through at Barnes and Noble before they put it in an SSG Proof plastic wrapper the likes of which I don't even think they use on Hustler.

Anyhoo ... edition # 708(ish) of the book is out and Ms. Begoun was doing a book tour.  I happened to catch her on an interview where she was talking about drugstore products she likes for dry skin.  I THINK she may have been a dermatologist or whatever, so she knows chemistry and ingredients and blah, blah, blah (SSG should really think about becoming a journalist or something).

She said that if you buy these two products:

Then your skin would be like totally teh AWESOME.  

I've been using this combo for the past couple months and I've got to say at just under $10 for both, they last me three times as long and cost half as much as the Lush stuff.  And I no longer have a case of the itchies.

Tell SSG, how do YOU combat the itchies?  (And if it requires antibiotics, SSG is going to ask you to go ahead and keep that to yourself.)

For product reviews on more cheapies you can find at the drugstore, hop on over to Paula's site here.

Next up!  SSG searches for someone to tell her how to get her old job's salary but with her current job's stress level.  She's pretty sure she'll find them right next to the person who will hand her the winning Powerball numbers.  And then both peeps will pour her a lemon drop, offer up a foot massage and hand her keys to a brand new BMW.  Stay tuned!