Old-School Beauty: Bonne Bell Lip Smackers!

The other night, while I'm sure some tony types were having Fashion Week dinners at Koi or Nobu or whatevs (or, you know, not eating), Beauty Blogging Junkie's Amber, Spoiled Pretty's Daneen, and All Lacquered Up's Michelle and I all were having dinner at a Japanese hole in Hell's Kitchen. For some reason, after laughter-induced tears stopped flowing (God knows what we were LOLsing about), talk turned to old-school beauty products and sending away for products in the mail and going to the drug store back in the day (for me it was Bernie Schulman's in Cleveland, where I'd buy Ten-O-Six astringent, which smelled like melted tar.) Out of that convo came the old-school deodarant Tussy, which I totally used! It was discovered that based on spelling alone, it COULD rhyme with the P-word. EW!

Anyway, that convo begat the discussion of BONNE BELL LIP SMACKERS, a beloved childhood fave I still cherish. Also, tangent, having grown up in Northeastern Ohio, I remember once on a camp field trip they TOOK US ON A TRIP TO THE BONNE BELL FACTORY! The only thing I remember taking away from that trip is some 1980s "beauty expert" lady told us that instead of scraping the inside of a tube of mascara, you should roll the tube between your hands to create heat, which causes the product to stick to the wand. Weird, right? Accurate? Who knows.

Anyway, like probably 20 years later, I still love the fun colors and smells and super cheapiness (you can afford like 20 at once!) of Lip Smackers. I love getting them a mini giftie add-on or as a gift all by itself. Is there anything more squeetastic? Such a happy, cheap little "treasure," as Makeup Loves Me's Marina would say. Anyone remember the BIG huge Orange Crush ones? The ones that were the size and width of toilet paper rolls? (That wasn't a nasty germ risk or anything!)

So, for some reason, I actually get Lip Smacker emails (the little tubes themselves send them out from little flavored computers made of wax!), which take you to the Bonne Bell site where you can buy TONS of Lip Smackers for like NOTHING. Because what's better than buying ONE of something? BUYING EIGHT of something!

($9.95, Bonne Belle, Colorandflavorshop.com)

I'm slightly disheartened they don't have the Jumbo Peppermint one, but they do have a one-hitter!

($1.75, Bonne Bell, Colorandflavorshop.com)

(Photo via: Brooklynometry)

Binge Beauty Cold-Weather Dechapping MUSTS!

A couple of products keeping me from looking like Robert Downey, Jr. in The Singing Detective (and obviously, I mean no offense if you have the world's worst case of eczema or are a Katie Holmes fan).

($12.99, Yes To Carrots, Walgreens)

Yes To Carrots C Through the Dry Spell Body Butter is the shiz. It smells like something you should keep refrigerated and dip veggie chips into, yet I wouldn't recommend the latter. It's all natural, non-greasifying, and the excessively sad, dry skin on my shins and hips soaks this up like woah. And it smells all fresh and not grossly perfumed or anything. I also love Yes To Carrots Hand & Elbow Cream.

($6, Einstein Lip Therapy, LipTheory)

While I wasn't a fan of their lip moisturizer, I LOVE Einstein's genius little Lip Therapy tub -- it's not as mediciney and el stinko and thick as Carmex, and it leaves a gorgeous balmy gloss with a refreshing minty zing!

Alba's all-natural, petroleum-free lip balms are more exciting than boring-ass Chapstick, and both the Passion Fruit Lip Balm, which I'm a big fan of, and the Cherry Lip Balm with SPF 18 are only lightly flavored. The former leaves more of a glossy sheen, while the Cherry Lip Balm is good for guys too. (And me!) They're both under $3.50 and available at CVS and other such drug store locays.