grease be gone.

i do not often do product reviews, but i simply HAD to tell you about my fancy new shampoo. i know, random, but seriously, this stuff is too cool for school.

stacks of solid shampoo by LUSH.

you see, last year when my pregnancy was headed into the second trimester, my head turned into a grease factory. so much for that "healthy hair" everyone had promised. it was awful, but i found a new shampoo and conditioner and figured it would all wash away (literally) after the baby was born. so problem solved.

and then i gave birth to pringle. thanks to some wild post-pregnancy hormones everything was once again out of whack. argh! at first i did not notice, because i was too busy oohing and aahing about my baby. but six weeks after pringle's grand entrance, i emerged from my cloud of euphoria long enough to chop off my locks. oh dear. now there was nowhere for the goo to hide. so at the moment when you feel like a lumpy sack of potatoes and your only saving grace is your hair...i was stuck with a greasy do. depressing to say the least. i tried skipping the conditioner. no dice. i scoured the shelves at target and tried out five different shampoos, but apparently the oil factory had amped up production, because nothing was working.

solid shampoo by LUSH.

i attempted to find some information on the internet, but the searching yielded few results. apparently oily hair is a taboo topic. why? i do not know. so i am taking the topic out of hiding and putting it in the spotlight. during my googling, the only useful thing i found was this list of the top 10 shampoos for oily hair. i have always been a drugstore shampoo kinda girl, so i balked at the idea of spending $30 or more for a bottle of shampoo based solely on some random online review. and i was even less convinced that i should buy a bar of shampoo. yes, a BAR of shampoo. 

jumping juniper shampoo by LUSH.

but i had reached a point of desperation, so pringle and i headed to the mall and went to LUSH to pick up a bar of their jumping juniper shampoo. ummm..can we say wow? i was totally skeptical that bar soap for my noggin would work, but the reviews were nothing short of glowing. and now i have to add my two cents...this shampoo is beyond fabulous. 1) my hair is 100% not greasy. yay. 2) it lathers better than any shampoo i have ever had. 3) it only costs ten dollars 4) it seems to last forever. 5) it is not liquid, so the transportation security administration does not care how much shampoo i have in my carry-on. 6) it will not spill in my luggage or gym bag. 7) it is a BAR of shampoo people!

jungle conditioner by LUSH.

so for everyone out there with oily hair or any other hair issues or non-issues...seriously, you should check out LUSH's solid shampoos. there are 15 varieties designed to combat every possible hair problem. i like my little puck so much that i am heading to LUSH to buy their solid conditioner. yay for shiny, happy hair!!

this product has earned the pickel stamp of approval.

note 1: i was not given any compensation to write this review.
note 2: all photos of LUSH products are courtesy of the internets.

the joy of the flush.

the mister and i live in a cozy one bedroom apartment. well, technically it is a condominium, but using that term makes me feel like i should dye my hair purple, sit in the sun until i am crisp like bacon, and develop an i-used-to-live-in-new-york accent. i am not yet that florida. maybe someday. 

back to our munchkin house. despite its wee size, our home actually has two bathrooms. the master bath and the half bath. as a child i was always suspicious of those half bathrooms, assuming that they only had a half of a toilet. okay, so that childhood assumption was a bit off, but our wee water closet does sometimes feel so teeny that one has to wonder if it was designed to only fit half a person.

seems silly to get all worked up about a little bathroom, but then the toilet started leaking. for three days every five or six weeks. whaaat?! what is this nonsense? either we have a leak or we do not. this is pure craziness, but cross my heart, our toilet only leaked at its discretion. great. kind of hard to diagnose a leak that is not always present. grrrrr. to make matters worse, the stupid porcelain contraption stopped working. is it a coincidence that the mister lost a nail brush around the same time? nope. ummm...super. so now our finicky toilet is choking on a nail brush. i gave up. we turned off the water, closed the lid, attached a sign that said "me no worky" and turned the bathroom into a storage closet. problem solved. and then visitors arrived. suddenly our bathroom turned into the only bathroom. egads. this is so uncool.

clearly we needed a solution fast! so we waited two years. actually, we would still be waiting except that mommy rolled into town. mommy is the world's greatest handywoman, so she can do random plumbing in her sleep. lucky us. she informed me that we were going to remove the toilet and hopefully find the nail brush, solve the problem, and fix the leak all in one fell swoop. uhhh...oooookay? i guess. how do you remove a toilet? you need a toilet ring? what's a toilet ring? uh huh. sure. sure. yup. right-o. we're good. needless to say i was sort of baffled when we were in home depot looking for toilet rings and i found out they are made of WAX, but i am trying to roll with it.

 for those of you who are not in the know...this is a toilet ring.

when we got home we removed the toilet. oh. my. god. the used wax is positively disgusting. gross. yellow beeswax everywhere. gag. glug. yuck. i could not bear to take a picture of the filth that was under our toilet, so instead i am sharing this picture. it does not do justice to the horror we discovered, but at least it gives you an idea of the goo factor.

we found the nail brush. yay. and mommy discovered that our previous ring was not properly installed. we got everything cleaned up and put it all back together. yay yay yay. and it worked. even more yay.

you know that's not the end, right? i mean that would seriously be way to easy. obviously. so naturally when the mums goes to check on the toilet there is water everywhere. arrrrrrrrg. now i am typically an upbeat person, but i was instantly catapulted into a dark and dreary depression. mommy told me all would be well, but i was not to be convinced. the next day i replaced half of the moving parts in a last-ditch effort to make the sun once again shine in my world. shockingly, amazingly, and wondrously, it worked. and it is still working. yes folks...our half bathroom is once again functional and i use it every chance i get.

now that i am constantly visiting our little bathroom, i have officially concluded that it needs to be revamped. i have always known that the lavender is sadly lacking in saturation. i mean seriously, it is practically white, which is the color of the toilet. and the sink. and the cabinet. and the hardware. and the frame of the mirror. blah blah blah. but not to worry....my current plan is to reinvent my grandma's hot pink powder room.

a$$-kicking hot pink.

of course painting the entire bathroom hot pink might be a little much for the mister. do not fret. the lovely miss K wrote about fancy pants stenciling, so before she has a chance to boss me into stenciling the bathroom, i am going to choose to stencil the bathroom. clearly this will be a small nightmare with lots of misery, but i am sure there will be plenty of joyful cursing.

 a dizzying design that might just be perfect.

anyhow, i am thinking i will paint the walls hot pink and then stencil a design in either silver, dark gray, or black all over. or maybe i will paint the walls white and stencil hot pink over them. that might look better with the bah humbug white accessories. obviously now that the toilet is working the bathroom project has entered a new phase, which means a new saga. just what i needed, because you know, i don't already have enough projects planned. obviously this will not be the last you hear of these 7.2 square feet of our home.