I’m always on the hunt for a faster/easier/more efficient way to do everything. That’s how I ended up trying to shave my legs with baby oil gel. Pinterest said to do it. It clogged the hell out of my razor. It turned my shower floor into a living nightmare.* My legs weren’t any smoother than when I use shaving cream. I had to scrub the shower when I was done. That’s more work. NO DEAL.
Pinterest sent me chasing a lie. Again. I keep at it though. I just can’t help myself.
*My biggest fear used to be smashing my own forehead into the bathroom counter when I flip my hair over while I’m blow drying it. But, then I did that. Now my biggest fear is slipping in the shower to catastrophic result.
One of the best things about having this site is getting to see the summaries of search engine terms that bring people to the Lab Bunny every day. In this grab bag of internet psyche, some of the searches are hilarious, some are disturbing, and some are actually decent. Here are some little quickie answers to help with these UNSOLVED SEARCH HYSTERIES!!
trader joe’s coconut body butter ingredients
WHOA. I just flipped over my jar to check the list, and it is EXTENSIVE. Here we go…
You guys. Where am I? Are those real words? If anyone wants to know what those words all mean exactly, I can’t help with that. Consult your local Wikipedia.
i cut thru my nail bed with a razor can i super glue it
OH MY GOD ARE YOU OK?! I don’t know for sure if you can do this! Maybe? Super glue is used in a lot of medical offices in place of stitches, so, yeah, maybe. Nail glue is practically super glue, so I don’t really see why not. If you’re just trying to glue your nail back together, that’d probably work. I’d be afraid that my nail would always be stuck to the nail bed right there, and it would never grow out. But, what the fuck do I know?
do nail wraps look cheap
Some do! The wraps from NCLA don’t! Those are my favorite wraps right now. Every design I’ve bought has looked sharp and clear. I mean, they have this set, Seeing Signs, that actually looks like hundred dollar bills. So, yeah, those look really expensive!
smeared lipstick on a dick
Come on, man. What a waste of lipstick. Is this what you perverts are using the internet for?! Al Gore must be rolling over in his grave!
big boobs lush pubes
Put it on my headstone.
Keep on Googling with one hand, weirdos! I SEE YOU.
This is our old kitchen AKA photographic evidence of my cool LA life.
OK. So, this isn’t for putting on your face, but what we put into our faces is important too! Pimples are caused by bacteria, but dull, dry and sallow skin can all be caused by poor diet. Put good in, and good comes out. Blah, blah, blah. You guys know all this stuff.
Look, Dr Pepper is my favorite food. I need all the help I can get.
We started making this smoothie because I saw it on TV. We KEPT making this smoothie because it made us feel so good! For a little while, I was having one of these before breakfast most mornings, and everything was running great. I was full all morning, I had more energy, and I didn’t feel so bloaty.
And thats it! It’s green, so it tastes a little grassy, but the lemon and other fruit juices cut right through, so it’s not bad. I really like the fresh taste of it, actually. It’s pretty easy to get used to, and then, you just want it all the time! This recipe is enough to make 2 decent sized smoothies. If you don’t want to share, you can put the other half into a jar, and then have it the next morning. The prep is a little time consuming, but you could easily chop up most of this stuff in advance. If you chop your apples and pears ahead of time, just remember to add a squeeze of lemon juice over the tops to keep them from going brown. I guess in a smoothie, it doesn’t really matter, it’s just gross.
After being sick for so long, and then eating a bunch of garbage, I really feel like I need to start drinking this again. Like, you get to feel good in your body, and you get to have a smug sense of superiority over anyone who DIDN’T have a million pieces of produce before 10:00 AM. It’s totally worth it!
I don’t remember the last time I shaved them, and I have no plans to shave them in the immediate future. I wear a tank top pretty much every day.
It started by accident. I got used to the idea of letting my body hair grow in beauty school, of all places. When you wax, you need at least a 1/4″ of hair, so you can’t shave for a couple weeks. I was able to get over my embarrassment in a room full of girls with other equally hairy body parts.
The summer after beauty school, I had an epiphany while I was in between waxes; if I didn’t care about my hairy pits while I was waiting to be waxed, why was I waxing at all?
BECAUSE OF SOCIETY, RIGHT?
Because supposedly it’s mannish, radical, disgusting, dirty, unladylike, wrong for me to have underarm hair. Because someone actually told me if I loved Jason, I wouldn’t let my underarms get that way.
Am I maybe mannish, radical, disgusting, dirty, unladylike and wrong? Very possibly. I’ve been accused of being any number of those things throughout most of my life. I mean, in elementary school, I found out about Amelia Earhart and decided to start wearing an old leather fighter pilot’s helmet to school.
I had already taken to wearing a black sailor cap around, so probably nobody was surprised by my new hat.
Growing up fat, female, while dealing with depression and anxiety in a sometimes oppressively religious home, there are a lot of ways to question who you are; there are a lot of ways to feel like your body isn’t your own. The diet industry, the patriarchy, the church, everyone lays claim to your body. When you’re 13, with big boobs, and adult men catcall you, it’s your own body you blame. If you live your life desperately trying to change your body while it seems to only do what it wants, you don’t feel like you’re in charge. Hearing from puberty that your body belongs to your future husband. Knowing that just by leaving the house, I’m inviting commentary from the public. I’ve done decades worth of harm to myself mentally, physically and emotionally by letting other people tell me what to do with what’s mine.
I have super sensitive underarms. Regular deodorant+shaving gives me gross pit zits, every natural deodorant I’ve used+shaving ends up burning my skin. These issues hurt, but I shaved anyways until I had the realization that I didn’t have to do anything to my body that was painful just because it was expected. If I didn’t care about the hair, why should I keep hurting myself? For other people? Other people can suck a million.
I took some control by letting my body do what it does naturally.
This is me. This is my body. This is what it does, and it makes me happy.
It scared me more to show you guys my upper arm fat.
I can’t believe how freeing it is. It seems so stupid and small, but seizing that tiny bit of myself back from the world was exhilarating. That FUCK YOU makes me feel good every day. I start a revolution for myself every time I lift my arms over my head in public. I see people look, and it makes me feel proud and defiant. I haven’t felt so punk in years. I’ve started peace talks with myself here in my unshaven underarms. A small piece of neutral territory, where there has never been any before. My pits are Switzerland.
My body is the one thing I had when I came into this world, it’s the one thing I’ll take through my whole life, it’s mine. I share it with my husband, I share it with the world, but ultimately it belongs to me. I’m trying so hard to be beautiful on my own terms. My terms say my eyebrows are perfectly shaped, but my pits grow free. Take it or kick rocks.
Here’s the picture of me they’ll use on my “Monsters of Feminism” postage stamp.
Did you used to have a signature Bath & Body Works scent?
You did. Everyone did!
Mine was “Night Blooming Jasmine.” It smelled SO GOOD; like jasmine and lilacs and musk. At the height of my daily addiction, I would use the shower gel, cover myself from high boobs to toes with the lotion, and give myself a generous mist of the body spray. Then, I’d straighten out my little Bettie Page bangs, maybe put some spiked chopsticks in my hair (this was the early 2000s), and I’d take it all out into the world. I was barely 21, mostly drunk, smellin’ nice and looking for dudes.
Lucky for me, dudes really liked this stuff.
Now, they might have just liked my general “ready to mingle” attitude, and the aforementioned high boobs. But, in my body spray’s defense, upon first meeting me, hardly anyone ever said, “Man. You slut it up so good.” No. They said, “You smell really good. Like, really good.”
It happened so often, if such a thing existed at the time, I would have gone over to the Bath & Body Works site and written a review for this scent that just said, “WANG MAGNET. 4 STARS.”
When the unthinkable happened, and they discontinued the scent, I was totally crushed. I ran through a bunch of their other offerings, but I never liked anything else as much. So, that was that.
Until, all of a sudden, 10 years later, I could order Night Blooming Jasmine from their site. I was so fucking stoked! I bought all the pieces of my old regimen (you know the drill, buy 3, get 2 free), sat back, and dreamed about the day my order would show up and I could seduce my husband with how good I smelled.
The second it came, I immediately knew it was a bad idea. Opening that jasmine scented package was like lifting up the lid on some old haunted jewelry box and having the ghost of my most embarrassing former self jump out. I rubbed on a little of the lotion, and there she was; with her underwear in her furry leopard purse, slept on eye makeup and Lucky Strikes mouth.
I couldn’t wear it. It wasn’t me anymore! It had been so long since the last time I’d smelled it, I just assumed I’d still love it. Instead, in an it-all-came-rushing-back moment, the scent brought up so many old memories, it literally made my stomach turn. It was fucking gross.
It was a relief to return it; I didn’t even want it in my house.
It’s not like that period of my life was a nightmare. It was just so long ago. Like any other distinguishable time in my life, it had its good moments (running wild with my BFF, my superhuman Mad Dog 20/20* drinking skills), and its bad moments (any time I picked up my phone to hear someone’s secret girlfriend yelling at me, the night I learned about peppermint schnapps). It’s fun to relive those times in your mind, but it’s a different thing to add in a sensory memory. It makes you remember exactly what you felt like. It’s a trip.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me.
I hate the blue kind of mint gum too because my sophomore year boyfriend chewed it nonstop, and now, when I chew it, I only taste a 17 year old boy’s sticky mouth on mine.
That was just a long story about another product to bring you to the product I really want to talk about: LUSH’s Lust Perfume.
I was just playing around at LUSH one day, rubbing the lotion on the skin, and I found Lust by accident. I’m still such a sucker for jasmine, but nothing ever came close to the love I had for that Bath & Body Works body spray until I randomly ran across this perfume.
LUSH describes Lust as “a heady mash-up of rich florals and a warm, woody base” with notes of jasmine, ylang ylang, rose, vanilla and sandalwood. It is deliciously, unashamedly sexy without smelling like an old lady perfume. To me, it smells sexy like sitting out on some secret jasmine garden patio in Morocco** on an old colorful rug, topless (but you know, classy, with my hair covering my boobs), and smoking a joint. Floral and musky and exotic like that.
I sprayed some on my arm to find out how it would react with my skin, left to do some other shopping, and found myself constantly bringing my arm up to my nose, taking a big whiff and going, “MMMMM!!!” It was love at first sniff. The perfume itself was gorgeous, and the way it smelled on me was divine. Finding Lust was such an awesome, cosmic occurrence. It was like running across my grown up self just sitting on a shelf, waiting for me. It’s so perfect, I brought it home, and it’s my new signature scent.
Please don’t buy this if you know me in real life.
Unlike Night Blooming Jasmine, it’s a scent that suits who I am now. NBJ me was cool, but she was very unattached, super young and pretty dumb. Lust me is older, smarter (ehhh? I don’t get into cars with strangers anymore, I guess), and married.
Like, I still want to do ho shit, but I do ho shit in a different context now.
So, these days, I spray Lust all over my not-as-high-but-still-rocking boobs, fix up my bangs free*** hair (I’m almost 2 years bangs sober), and climb all over Jason.
They say you can’t turn a ho into a housewife, I say you can’t spell housewife without ho.
*Go ahead and do a Google Image Search for “Mad Dog 20/20” if you want to barf.
**Is this what Morocco is like? I have no idea. If it isn’t, please don’t tell me.
***I still love bangs so much. After 15 years with them though, I felt like I was stuck in a rut. I am still your bangs sister. Always and forever.
I learned about them from Mindy Kaling. My good, personal, imaginary friend, Mindy Kaling.
Mindy says:
“Not only will they scare the shit out of your boyfriend if he visits your house, it will make your hair grow faster, thicker, and keep your skin glow-y and smooth.”
Beautiful hair AND a funny prank all in one bottle? Yes, please!
Before I started taking these, I had never finished a bottle of vitamins in my life. After I started taking them, and found out she was right on all counts, plus they do great things for your nails, AND they helped with my chronic anemia (I’m so precious and delicate, like an antique Taylor Swift doll), I gulped them down and bought more!
Thanks, my so-close-we’re-actually-more-like-sisters friend, Mindy! See you at brunch on Sunday with our other best friends; Tina Fey, Poehlcat, Julie Klausner, RuPaul and Adele.
*These vitamins won’t actually get you high. Sorry.
I am a lotion serial killer. I stalk my prey up and down the aisles at Target, and the shelves at Sephora. Searching, searching, always searching for the perfect one; the perfect victim to fulfill my insatiable need for impossibly silky, glowing skin. My house is where bottles of lotion go to die.
Well, not die exactly. More like, my house is where lotions go to get used for a week, before languishing in a cabinet for years, until I finally break down and throw them away. It’s cruel, really. Off the top of my head, I can think of 8 lotions or body oils shoved into various places around the house. I’m always trying to pawn old lotions off on Jason with a wink, but he doesn’t want them either. Some people are so wasteful!
“This is a thick, smooth, buttery, body cream that’s made with pure coconut oil and other natural, skin-soothing ingredients, like aloe vera, shea butter and vitamin E. It absorbs into your skin very quickly, and doesn’t leave it feeling oily. So whether you have eczema, dry skin or just like to keep your skin feeling soft and fresh, our Coconut Body Butter is healing, gentle, and restorative.”
I always read stuff like this, fall in love with the sound of it, imagine all the ways my life will be different, run out and buy the product, then get super disappointed, never return it, aaaand the cycle starts all over again. That is not this. This right hurr is completely true copy. Not only does it completely deliver on all those promises, it smells amazing! I hate fake, overly sweet fragrances, but this lotion hits the perfect spot on the vanilla spectrum. Like, it smells like how creamy, homemade coconut pudding eaten on a beach in the Bahamas would taste. I guess? PLUS, it only costs FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS! I’m working on my third jar right now!
Full disclosure: I *did* have a relapse after I finished the first jar. I had a quick obsession with almond oil, that ultimately turned disastrous. I’d oil up after my shower, toss around like a greasy lint roller in our bed all night, and wake up with everyone’s detritus stuck to my skin. Chihuahua hair, my hair, Jason’s beard hairs, pubes maybe (we sleep “European”), random crud!! FUCKING GROSSS, RIGHT? YES, TOTALLY SICK! It was making me break out! The almond oil was just not a good fit for our super sheddy lifestyle. Plus, I took a look at the ingredients one day, and the first one was peanut oil! Pass.
Why was I still looking for another lotion? “Oh, this lotion makes my skin totally soft, even on the nights I’m too lazy to put it on before bed, all my chronically dry patches are clearing up, it’s basically my perfect product. It’s probably what Rihanna smells like. But, that’s ok! I’ll try something else!” What is wrong with me?! I have a condition!
So, back to the Trader Joe’s I went!
truffle cheese
crazy beers
generic Pirate’s Booty
coconut lotion
Now, all is right with my lotion world again. As long as Trader Joe’s keeps making this body butter, I’ll keep buying it.
Shit. It has just occurred to me that Trader Joe’s has a long history of discontinuing products as soon as I’ve fallen in love with them. This could be a big problem. I have to stock up fast! I’m going to corner the market on Trader Joe’s Coconut Body Butter Duke bros. style!
That’s how the stock market works, right? I can force them to keep making it? Something, something, supply and demand?
Hopefully, this lotion and I will be together for a very long time. It really is making my thigh bumps life better!
