Samantha on the Prairie

Two months after having my hair colored at eSalon headquarters , my hair still looked pretty good. I had some root growth and gray hairs appearing at the temples, but otherwise, the color was lovely, rich, shiny, and not brassy. After a week in the California desert visiting my in-laws, using terrible hotel hair products (my bad for leaving my good stuff at home), I was a bit bleached out on top. It was definitely time for a root touch up! before coloring My eSalon kit had arrived while I was traveling, so as soon as I got home, I grabbed the kit and made the grey and the sun-bleached hair disappear. I was super careful in reading the instructions because I wanted to be sure I'm touching up the color without over darkening the ends. Once thing that is new since I first posted about eSalon is the gloves all come in one bag now. They supply two pair but rather than packaging them separately and wasting plastic, they're combined in one set. Perfect! I sti

There's been something happening constantly all summer, so I am being terrible with blog updates. It's not that this blog isn't fun or valuable, but we've been traveling, working, playing, gardening, and spending time with family. To hold you over until the next product-focused post, here's a cute picture of my dog, Huckleberry. He's a "working" Basset Hound (aka non-confirming to breed standards). Kids at parks love petting him and he loves sniffing and giving them kisses. He goes with us when we take Miss P to the park and he likes to socialize at the dog park, though mostly with people rather than other dogs. He'll be two next week but he's still very much a puppy. He's a sweetie.

I haven't been working on many Tomoson promotions lately, being more careful about what I'm agreeing to review. It had been a while when Cleopatra's Choice invited me to try another one of their products, a Mineral Eye Gel . Since I had enjoyed working on a previous Adovia review (Dead Sea Mud Mask), I agreed to try the eye gel. I'm no stranger to eye creams. Four years ago, I got a free jar of a Lancome eye cream through an American Cancer Society program for cancer patients. I really liked how noticeable the results were, but the cost made continuing to use the cream completely impractical. It would have been $180+ a year just for eye cream and that's just way out of my budget for one small, very targeted product. Since then, I have tried several eye creams, from major to lesser known brands at various price points, but none wowed me. I know I'm not likely to see fine lines disappear or dark circles magically vanish, but I do expect more moisturized