The Case For Bliss

We get hundreds of catalogs in the mail and most of them are interesting only for the truly absurd Objects De Crap that they attempt to foist on an unsuspecting public, particularly during the holiday season when spending $200 on a reproduction Leg Lamp from the flick A Christmas Story seems almost reasonable. Then there's the Bliss catalog, which sells the most extravagant face, body and hair potions imaginable. I have neither a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, so the idea of spending $125 on one ounce of moisturizer from La Mer is totally alien to me, never mind if it has sapphire extract or whatever in it. However, I was washing my hair yesterday when I noticed something interesting. I bought some shampoo and conditioner over the internet that was supposed to help with unexplained hair loss (Rudy's Emu Oil products). When it arrived, I was sharp enough to write the date on one of the bottles and yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the purchse. The shampoo, conditioner and treatment serum cost me $40 including shipping and handling. I have quite a bit left in all three bottles and I have also used it on my son's hair because both he and I are mildly allergic to sodium lauryl sulfate,an ingredient in almost every shampoo on the market except this stuff (apparently). $40 a year is not an extravagant sum to spend on hair care products that address a specific problem and WORK, by the way. When I was still buying shampoo form the grocery store, I would frequently use it as bubble bath and/or body wash/and or dish soap, so we'd go through a couple of bottles a month at $2 a pop. I do not do that with my fancy-pants shampoo. Six months ago I bought some expensive facial care products from Origins ($60). I still have 3/4 of the jar of gommage, and about 1/4 jar of moisturizer left and I use those products according to the labels, gommage twice a week (for sun damage) and moisturizer twice a day. When I bought the stuff, the saleslady gave me free samples of facial wash containing mushroom extract, which makes me feel as though I'm washing my face with something I should be using to flavor the gravy. I still have a tube and a half left out of three even though I have used it five times a week for six months! So that $125 ounce would probably last for at least six months. If I bought a kit of products from that particular purveyor, it would cost about $300 and last for a year. If one were to spend that kind of dosh on a "system" it is unlikely that any further impulse facial care purchases would be made until the "system" ran dry. For a regular woman over 35, $300 a year isn't so very much to spend on facial care, is it? Especially if the stuff is megasuperluxurious and also works wonders. I'd bet that the average woman blows $300 a year on impulse-buy grooming supplies that make no claims whatsoever except "on sale". Since my purchases from Rudy's and Origins, I have spent zero dollars on shampoo, conditioner, facial wash, exfoliant or facial moisturizer and I still have enough of the stuff to see me through a number of future months. So, if you just HAVE to have that kit from La Mer, go ahead and get it and don't buy anything else until you've used it all up. And if your hair is falling out, just go see Rudy.