There’s nothing better than bringing home new beauty products.

You know what I mean, right? That feeling of heft of a full bottle of something in it’s brand new box. That feeling of luxury when you unscrew the lid on a full jar of moisturizer. The joy of of knowing all 4 ounces of scrub are all mine, mine, MINE! But let’s face it, quality skin care is, more often than not, going to cost you a good ol’ chunk o’change. It’s not like treating yourself to a 7 dollar lippie at the grocery store as a reward for not yelling at the moron in front of you on the freeway, no, you need commit to that purchase, get prepared for the total at the register, before you’ve even entered the store. It’s gonna hurt a little.

Needless to say, it’s been a while since I’ve had the joy of a brand new jar, pot, or bottle of anything. (Ok, ok, ok, I have to be real. I’m speaking ONLY to skin care here! There have been far too many morons on the road lately for me to not have purchased any make up stuffs but that’s a different discush.) But now that I’ve been a good girl and finished up every last drop of a few products…he he he…*rubs hands together gleefully*…

Let’s get cracking on the listeroozie! The sooner we finish it, the sooner I can find a way to convince my husband to take me shopping! I love that new car, I mean skin care, smell!

The first thing I hit the bottom of this week was my DDF Protective Eye Cream. I scored this little gem at TJMaxx for $16, half off retail! I’ve never purchased from this treatment line before but I was fully aware of it’s quality reputation. (Admit it, you feel like a total ROCKSTAR when you find this kind of stuff at TJMaxx!) No surprise that I found it to be a winner. It really delivered on results; tightening of the overall orbital area, vanished the few fine lines I had, and gave excellent sun protection. The only thing I didn’t like was that the sunscreen, as necessary as it is, easily migrated into my eyes and would cause them to water. Not always but frequently enough through our extreme Arizona summer. I think if you don’t have an oily eye area like I do, this shouldn’t be a problem. For me this was enough of a detraction that I won’t run to Sephora and repurchase at retail, I’ll just haunt TJ’s until it shows back up again.

Next to find it’s way to File 13 was my Lancome Le Stilo eyeliner in Prune that I purchased several years ago. This little baby got stuck in a travel bag after a trip waaaaaay back, I’m talking like 3 or 4 years ago, all lonely and sad, until I rediscovered it this summer. Little did I know I only had a few swipes left in it. Sad times. Not sad enough to go repurchase it though. At 25 smackeroos, a dupeable color, and industry standard wear time, there are plenty of other options at a lower price point to replace it with. Like this one from Too Faced for $18 and this one from NYX Cosmetics for $8.

Then, on the same day no less, I used up my precious Clinique 7 Day Scrub and Cosmedicine Healthy Cleanse Foaming Cleanser and Toner. These two products I need to have in my life at all times. The scrub is super gentle, keeping my skin from becoming ruddy and even combats my blackheads with great success (take that oxidized pore junk!). The foaming cleanser is gentle as well as non-stripping, and highly effective. I feel like it’s just chasing away those yucky bacteria and shooing away the daily pollutants hiding in the nooks and crannies. Yep, Ulta and Sephora are on the To Do list tomorrow for these two!

What have you finished up lately? What will you be replacing? I’m always SUPER interested in what other people use and love. Dish it down in the comments below!

If you are feeling Internet Happy today, you can click on around to my other little shiny happy places:

BLOGLOVIN ~ ❤~ TWITTERIFIC ~❤~ FACEBOOK ME Baby! ~❤~ PINTEREST

You can find me on Instagram  as Heather Troynak

Did you enjoy yourself? Maybe a little too much sun? A little too much everything?

So many parts of the country are experiencing record heat and, chances are, most of us are pretty dehydrated. We need to fix that! For our mental health, our overall health, and for the healthy appearance of our pretty faces!

Go drink 8 8oz glasses of water, done. Jeez, that was easy!

No? You find it hard to do that? Um, see, yeah…me too.

It’s widely recognized that all liquids count towards hydration so long as they don’t contain caffeine. Caffeinated coffee and many soda’s just don’t make the list, sorry! It’s also  logical that drinking juices and drinks that contain sugar are not great for our waist line. Diet Soda’s can be found without caffeine and calorie free but they are loaded with chemicals that rob your body of precious minerals. They are ok occasionally but should not be counted as healthy hydration. The list is getting narrower isn’t it!

I don’t even bother thinking about all of that. I don’t. I go with what I know. What I know is that green tea is good for me, I don’t memorize why, I just know it’s natural and super good for me.

So here’s what I do:

• First, get yourself a little 2 quart pitcher like this one. I picked it up for about $2 at Walmart. I chose it because it has a snap on lid with a spout I can snap closed for safe storage in the fridge and around my work. I didn’t want the hassle of a lid that I had to spin to the open spot or try to arm wrestle off.

  

• Next, go find  Tazo Tea Green Tea, it’s with all of the other bagged teas. Each bag makes a 2 quart serving.

• After boiling 1 quart of water, pour into your pitcher along with a tea bag  for a 3 minute swim.

• Next, I dump in a whole bunch of ice, and I do mean a lot, and top off with cold water. Sometimes I am in the mood for a sweetened green tea, in which case, while the tea is steeping, I squeeze in a few tablespoons of agave nectar(you could also use honey, I just find agave to have a smoother flavor).

Keeping the tea on ice, the pitcher lives at my workspace, ready for cooled off refills. Also think about convenience, using a covered cup makes it beyond easy to just grab it and head out the door.

Voila! Hydration enough for several hours at your fingertips in less than 5 minutes!

Need some more inspiration? Here ya go:

This is the season of melons and I don’t mean your boobies.

No, I mean the kind you buy in the produce department. Melons are filled with vitamins and minerals, fiber, and pertinent to this conversation, WATER! Especially watermelon, 92%, HOLY COW! Um, go buy some. Right now.

All those big bins of the green and white lumps containing pinked up goodness, what’s not to love? Heft one into the cart and you have yourself Instasummer. Why pay a premium for a tray of melon that’s already been cut up…who does that?

Um, Me. Me does that. If it’s not easy, people, I’m not going to do it. I am LAZY. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought a watermelon and it’s only use was to keep watch over my kitchen counter. Much like the bags of salad that guard the veggie drawer in the fridge. It’s pathetic. So cut up fruit it is. See?

Often we mistake dehydration as hunger, we all do it. Seriously, nobody is free of guilt on this! If you just can’t bring yourself to drink, you really need to munch, you want something sweet, a plate of melon is a very smart choice to serve up on a pretty plate…it’s chock  full of natural SPF(true story!), fiber, cancer fighting lycopene and many other good for your stuffs.

One last little tip for you, use that watermelon juice to flavor your boring ol’ water.  You can even float a few pieces in there for garnish. Don’t you feel better already?

Hydrated Love

Heather

One last point to consider: Try to avoid heating your water to high boil…shoot for before boiling. It’s much more gentle on those green tea leaves, preserving as much as the healing powers as possible.

I’m in need of a large cash influx so that I can indulge in any and every whim I have secreted away in my heart

for your bath bombs, bars, and melts; your freshly made masks, delicious massage bars,  other worldy shower jellies. Your Karma sends me whirling.

I’m headed out to this land of exquisite eco friendly and karmic cleansing goodness on Friday to shop for a birthday gift for my mom and OF COURSE a little something for myself! I’ve had a love affair from afar for this place for a while now,  only indulging just a little baby bit. So I’m looking for suggestions, Boca Chics! I need some guidance, what sets your heart aflutter? What do you run straight for when you walk through the door? What products will turn me into an Insta-Goddess?(who wants to work at being a Goddess anyway?)

If I bring home one or more of your suggestions, I’ll give you a shout out here on my website as well as on my Twitter feed and FB page. And if I don’t? Well, I’ll likely still give you a shout out just because I love you all so much!

Get to suggesting, girlie girls, in the comments below!

Bubble bathed kisses   ❤Heather

We were all girl all the way with a Take No Prisoners edge that really meant something.

Shrinking violets and overly confident femmes alike had every opportunity to don the costume, flaunt the flair, embody the music, and, to quote Tyler Perry’s powerhouse of a female character, Medea: “Speak ya damn mind, girl!” Awful lip liner and rhinestone bras aside, it was truly a great time to be a girl.

I think, on the whole, we’ve found a balance since then; we no longer need to shout it in anyone’s faces, our power, but go with a quietude that speaks to our confidence. To be truthful,  though, I would be more than happy to bring some of the bitch back. Just enough to get the juices flowing, enough to remind those that need reminding, “Listen up, I’m moving forward…step aside or step along”.

Grab your shoulder pads girls, we’re going back in time to move our future forward!
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Lipgloss, my gateway drug.

I have, like, 50 bajilliontrillioneleventy glosses but I only own one from benefit cosmetics. I use it all the time. For that matter, I don’t own any other piece of benefit make up, the hell? . So why don’t I own more? I have no idea, I really don’t. I’m always at the counter looking and touching and admiring every single gloss, thinking to myself how ME the colors and formulations are.

Imagine my utter glee when I spied that there is a new line of glosses on the horizon! To boot the glosses are paired with 6 of their most popular Box O’Powders! I mean, really, it’s like they KNOW I won’t be able to resist. It’s like they understand that I’ve been just looking for an excuse to give into my hot desire to join the ranks of Benefit Gals, lusting after our own faces every day. These Ultra Plush glosses will be my utter benefit undoing. In short order I will have every one of the glosses and their matching Box O’s. Don’t send help, I don’t want to be rescued.

Of the 11 powders, 6 of them will have a matched gloss. This product line will be called Ultra Plush Lip Gloss and will launch in July, retailing for $16 each. A color description break down:

In need of a cavity? Look at this picture:

My name is Heather, and I am addicted to lipgloss.

all photos by benefit cosmetics and sourced via temptalia.com. Cupcake stand image manipulated by me.

I knew I had housework to do, I knew my working space was not organized, I knew I didn’t have the best lighting to shoot with, and I knew my battery was dying on the camera but I figured, I’ll just hurry. I’ll just do it. No time like the present, right?

Wrong. Just, wrong. After an hour with the camera and a healthy bunch of shots there was no denying the lighting wasn’t right. The lens was totally on a bend to not focus properly on anything I asked it to. Worst of all, I was sitting on the floor making it up as I went along. It just wasn’t coming together. In truth, it was a hot mess.

So I walked away for a few minutes, swept my hair up into a high ponytail, turned on some music and said to myself: “What the hell? What’s going on? THINK about it.” So I did.

I hadn’t done my job. I hadn’t created a proper working environment for myself. The house is a mess, my desk isn’t orderly, and my “photoshoot” area wasn’t at all conducive to getting the kind of quality I expect of myself. That’s not right. Boca Chics don’t do their work half assed. I know I’m not going to have a professional set up for some time but, really? Sitting in the middle of the floor and hoping for the best? I don’t think so.

So instead of jumping the gun and ending up with a post I’m not proud of, a post my peeps wouldn’t be altogether too impressed with, I’m going to do my job. Which is to start from the very beginning and do it right! Clean up my mess, get my ducks in a row, and be prepared. I had shown up for work in my pajamas…not ok.

I’m just keeping it real, folks.

Head on over to the Fan Page, Like it, then leave a comment on the Event post shown in the picture below.

What else do you have to do? Besides coming back to bocachicas.com to clickety click around, leave some fun comments, make me dinner? Nothing. That stuff won’t count towards the giveaway, they will just make your life sparklier. Especially the making me dinner part.

One thing I have found is that I do really prefer a marker style liner, NYX Cosmetics has 2 very nice options for a great price(I am a huge NYX fan), but the one I have been using with good success is the Revlon Colorstay liquid eye pen. This pen is available in Blackened Brown, Black, and Blackest Black and retails wherever Revlon is sold for $8-9.

As to how to apply it? Carefully. But that doesn’t really help you so I’ve found for a comprehensive tutorial by beauty guru MakeUpbyTiffanyD. Her style is very classic and feminine, always, she won’t steer you wrong! I hope you find it useful.
Do you wing?

Homepage photo credit: photo via makeupbytiffanyd

So why did I buy it? For the color of course! This shade is an almost foiled finish with a perfect balance of peach and gold tones. It’s not exactly a shimmer, it’s not really metallic, somewhere in between. Definitely not glittery or frosted.

The color, against my skin, which is only just slightly tanned, makes it appear glowing and healthy. I imagine it would be gorgeous on a wide range of skin tones saving for the darkest beauties where this may look washed out.

As to the intensity of tingling one would expect from any lip plumper, this one, in relation to others that I’ve tried(including one that I had to wipe off my lips immediately), is really quite tame. It feels more warm and tingly, not at all like someone is pricking my lips all over with a hot needle.

Wear time is a little longer than you would expect from a gloss that isn’t sticky, 2.5-3 hours. I attribute that to the almost metallic finish, which tends to leave behind a hint of the color as the glossy aspect wears away.

I also enjoyed that I could give one pass of the gloss and get a sheer lock, give a second pass and build the color evenly. Three would be overkill. No feathering, no bleeding. Holy good quality for cheap moola!

For $5.50, this is an affordable addition to the Bronzed Goddess looks I’ve been favoring this season.

Would you wear a plumper and deal with the tingling to get the color you want? Are you embracing your Bronzed Goddess this season?

Take music for instance, I know guys love and really get into music, but girls…us girls, we can really take a song and pull into our blood and get turned on by it. It can change our mood, it can physically alter our appearance to become the most smoldering creature ever created, suddenly we can dance like nobody’s friggin business. I swear, sometimes my shitty t-shirt turns into a belly shirt a la Britney Spears, perfect for the sexy little diamond ring now gracing my navel. I’m quite the stunner when I’m rocking my music…

To be honest, my day is almost always summed up by the playlist I’ve chosen to get me from hour to hour. So many times, I’ll be driving up the highway, the music is loud (as it should be, you feeling me?), and I feel bitchy, the good kind of bitchy, the sexy kind of bitchy. Before long, I’ve reapplied my lipgloss, my stature and confidence is FOR SURE  getting every guy on the road’s notice, somehow the car surges forward with more pep on the pedal, and I BECOME the melodies and bass lines. Does this happen to you? It feeds me and I wish I could just capture how I’m feeling in the moment, play the song for my best friends and say, “Here, this is me today.” Do you ever feel like that?

Life is messy and frustrating and filled with shit I don’t want to do. It just is. But turn on that music, man, and I’m good to go. Get me a good push up bra and cut off shorts and that laundry is DONE!

*whispers* Want to know which song gets me pole dancing (aka known as dusting that damned armoire, again) ready? Tina Turner’s Typical Male. Go look it up, trust me.

Go ahead, turn on that music nice and loud today. I promise you, your adrenaline will rush, your pheromones will get a healthy kick in the ass, and you WILL feel better. I can’t make any promises about the laundry getting done but, really, that’s beside the point…

musically induced sexiness, Heather