^^ I highly reccommend the "Sheer Blonde" line. My roommate and I went from dorm life to an apartment, and the change in water was bad. VERY bad (Think: verging-on-green for my box-dye-job roommie). Using the shampoo and conditioner helped SO much, her hair went blonde again, and mine got un-brassy.
I just discovered this thread, and was skipping through it, and saw the little section where prenatal vitamins were suggested... They're not good to take if you're not pregnant! They can be expensive, and anything excess you ingest that's water soluable you'll just piss out. AND you can get to toxic levels with things like iron, and fat soluable vitaimns (A, D, E and I believe K) which pregnant women need in much higher levels. They make your nails and hair stronger, but so do normal vitamins and certian types of lotions/conditioners!
As for my daily regemine:
I use Dove soaps, I'm in love with the smell of the new cucumber-green bar soap! I have harsh water, and any Dove products leave my skin clear and it counterbalances the drying effect of the water.
For shaving I use Bath & Body Works salt scrub (it stings a bit when you shave, but you get silky smooth results) in Moonlight Path. It's salt in scented oil, and it's wonderful just to exfoliate with, also. I don't have a preferred razor brand, as long as it's 3 or more blades, and the head pivots.
I follow up every shower with Lubriderm Intensive lotion (it has a dark red label/cap). I get rough patches on my arms, and it's the only thing I've ever found that smooths my skin. You don't need much at a time--it lasts forever! My face gets Nutrogena Non-Commedegenic (sp?) lotion during the winter, I don't usually use anything during the summer because I use sunscreen before I leave the house. Over-moisturizing makes me blotchy.
I have fine, blonde, wavy, highlighted hair, and in the back it's pretty short--I like to spike it up. I start out with stick wax, almost any brand will do. I usually follow that up with a shot or two of hairspray (my hairdresser likes to pass on the stuff she gets as samples. She's a goddess.) The hairspray helps to hold everything in place without getting too stiff. The front of my hair (which is about jaw-length) gets a little wax to control flyaways, after some stuff I get at CVS called "Hair Goo." It's this green gooey stuff that works beautifully: controls the wave without weighing down.
I never put any dye on my hair that comes from a box. It's so fine I don't dare. Luckily my hairdresser is a friend of my mothers, and I let her go a little crazy on my hair (most of her clients want the same boring blonde highlights, so I let her do what she feels like), so she cuts and colors it for around $30 about once every 6 weeks. Her salon charges like $45 for a haircut and blow dry, and starts at $90 for highlights... without her, I'd die.
My scent is from the Body Shop, called Lemon Tea. I love it, I have the perfume and the oil, but they don't sell it anymore (I don't think) so I use it sparingly.
For makeup, I basically use whatever. I really only wear it for work, where it's a required part of the dress code. My makeup bag never even leaves my car! Some of it is (don't ask me why) the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson line from Wal-Mart. They're these shimmery crayons to use as eyeliner, and they're great for people like me who apply makeup while in the car and can't be too precise. Plus they're blunt enough that I can't take out an eye while merging into traffic. The one mascara I've found that I loved was Clinique... very few clumps, and great coverage, but expensive, and I always dry out my mascara.
I recently discovered something, after years of trying every makeup remover and scrub and mask... I just wash my makeup off with water and a MINUTE amount of Dove bar soap (mostly for the mascara) and I'm blemish free. Even the ever-present-but-barely-noticeable blackheads on the end of my nose have begun to clear up. A few of my girlfriends have tried cutting down on the amount of cleansers for thier faces, and some have had the same results. I think we've been brainwashed into believing we need to wash obsessively, and then we add more things to our routines to counteract the effects of the things we're using... it's a horrible cycle. And expensive.
I never realized Sephora stores were so rare. One moved into the mall in my town a few years ago, and I guess I took it for granted... plus everything is SO expensive in there. I'd rather get MAC from the MAC store in the mall, and Hard Candy and Urban Decay both have counters or displays in Nordstroms (last time I was there). I did get some Sephora-brand eyeshadow once, and it was great... very fine powder with an even texture, but it smudged easily (in the bad way).
