Product 45: Cutler Shampoo

Cutler shampoo was a bit of a bust in my book. It’s an alright shampoo. I just didn’t like how it would really only work on mostly clean hair and the fact it smelled like a styling gel.

Shampoo is about the cleaning power. On most hair types, I think this Cutler Daily Shampoo would be great but on my oily hair, it’s a different story. I know my hair is tough on most shampoos and I’m lucky that I never have to worry about using a conditioner most days. But I’m still tempted to try new products. So when Schiller’s marked down the Cutler products a little while ago (the sales rack is now being used to display some great gifting ideas for kids and pets), I gave into the temptation to get the pretty packaged shampoo even though I was skeptical it would work well on my hair.

It did an adequate job. If my hair was in a really oily mode, the Cutler shampoo just didn’t cut it. It didn’t strip my hair. Now for color treated hair, this would be awesome. If my hair was mostly clean but I didn’t trust that the clean look would hold up for a twelve hour day, this is when the Cutler shampoo worked best. It made it look healthy and kept it clean all day.

Scent is surprisingly important with shampoo. I was finding myself hesitant to pick up the Cutler bottle since I knew it smelt like styling gel. It’s not that I don’t like the way styling gel smells, but I simply don’t feel clean using something that smells like a product that adds a layer of stuff to my hair. So there were mornings where I never felt clean or refreshed since it the smell was making me feel like I kinda skipped a step and I was already starting to style my hair.

Definitely felt underwhelmed by the Cutler shampoo. It’s not that I hate it like I do with my Framesi shampoo but it’s not a favorite like my Paul Mitchel Clarifying. It’s one of those it’s not bad but not great products.

Product 44: Eos Honeydew Lip Balm

Eos lip balm is really fun. It’s something that moisturizes the lips really well, has great flavor and a fun method of dispensing.

Eos lip balm is an all-natural lip balm. As with all products, it’s about the ingredients. I’m not one of those people who has to have something that’s paraben free or really picky but I know what I like. This has shea, landolin, jojoba oil, and other great moisturizers. I have to admit if I let the lip balm stray off my lip line, it’s an instant zit since that is too many moisturizers for my already oily skin. This isn’t the first lip balm that I had this issue with so I remind myself that as long as it’s solely on the lips, I’m golden. Plus my dry lips are fixed up instantly.

I love the flavor. It’s honeydew. I never had a honeydew lip balm before. Vanilla, menthol, cherry, strawberry, and fruit flavors are the usual. Yet the melon flavor really works. With the outbreak of deadly melons, this is a nice way to get the hint of melon in my life without having to worry about any diseases.

But my favorite aspect of Eos is the packaging. It’s shaped like a ball and you just unscrew the cap to reveal a ball on the inside. It’s protected but all in front of you. Plus allows for dual lip application in a cleanly and quickly. It’s just way more fun then the lipstick tube and easier to apply then some of the adorable pots that protect the lip balm (but Schiller’s has the cutest lip balms right now that are in the pots shaped like purses and little tarts). It’s unusal to see have the functionality and fun wrapped up in one lip balm but Eos has it.

Since I won the Eos lipbalm from my other job, I can only guess where you can purchase them. You can definitely get it from Eos from Amazon (and you can just click the photo to lead you to the page- just like most of my products and books). I assume that you can also get it from Ulta or Sephora but that’s a guess.

I would definitely recommend this lip balm. It’s wonderful since it’s got great packaging, flavor and it really works.

Letters 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90

Letters 81-86: The first of a few Halloween Cards. Got to celebrate my favorite holiday

Letter 87: A Rosh Hannah Card to wish some friends a happy, healthy new year

Letter 88: Some friendly fun to friend

Letter 89: Another one to catching up

Letter 90: More friendly fun

Book 85: Comrade J

Comrade J by Peter Earley was a nice balance between a memoire and a more researched history book. It read really well and kept up the flow while at the same time trying to fact check the claims made by Sergei Tretyakov.

So I’m a huge fan of intelligence books. At least books that are based in fact (aka not James Bond). So I was drawn to Peter Earley’s book on two factors. First this was about a Russia spying on the Americans. And two, I’ve enjoyed a book by Peter Earley previously (Confessions of a Spy). He did an amazing portrait on Rick Ames. So I was looking forward to seeing another great portrait on a spy.

Sergei Tretyakov was Comrade Jean for the KGB and the SVR. He ran operations in New York City. So he knew all the key information going in and around the city when it came to the spying game. He shared an amazing amount of information many of it in the recent past (the past ten years) since he was working in NYC from 1995-2000. So many of the books I’ve read about the Russian/American spying game on each other were related to just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So it was interesting to see how things changed but at the same time they really didn’t change at all.

It was so refreshing to read a book that felt like I was in one of my classes with Sealy. It was about spycraft at its core. But it wasn’t the American spycraft so there were some differences. It was just a fun book that shared a lot.

Throughout the book, I couldn’t believe how many times I thought the Russians were genius and even more often thought that the anecdotes were ridiculous. At times it seemed amazing that the Russians were on of the top intelligence agencies in the world. They feared their own phones were being tapped but they used a pay phone to set up meetings (which are probably just as likely to be tapped thanks to the war on drugs). But then you hear how they have an ambassador who is supposedly still working for the SVR (was former KGB before the break-up of the Soviet Union), using Raul Castro as a trusted friend, and some of the handling of the trusted friends. They could be brilliant.

Comrade J had some distinct problems. First off I think Sergei would exaggerate his ability to persuade his contacts. Some of the stories seemed like they were considering talks and dinners (which are very much in the process of trying to recruit an agent) never really got beyond the recruiting stage. Seemed like his ability to use his analytical skills were stronger then his actual recruitment skill. Which means he was able to really generate a lot of useful information was huge but very difficult to prove. Plus Earley had the issue of when he tried to get proof of Sergei’s stories, a lot of people said we met but I was never his spy. Plus this book didn’t have some background/collaborating information But Earley did even say how he ran into the roadblock of many people pressuring/suggesting that he didn’t return to Russia to make inquires into this case due to the current political situation.

One of the things I respect about this book is how Earley did a great job of managing to tell an engaging story about an interesting man while at the same time, he understood when to limit information. You can tell he respects the intelligence world immensely and doesn’t want to see people be hurt through really bad leaks of information that can endanger people’s lives which is why he didn’t go to Russia like he did for his Rick Ames book. At the same time, he didn’t give an unreadable book or seem to be scoffing at the institution. He did a great job of telling good stories and sharing information that were more personal. He did make it clear that certain parts of the narrative had to be classified by law.

I recommend this book to friends. I found myself talking about it in letters and just casual conversation. It was just a good read. I learned a lot even though I don’t trust all the information. I laughed, I was shocked and I was baffled.

Book 84: Moon Called

I’m so glad that I finally got a chance to read a whole novel by Patricia Briggs. Moon Called is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series. This book has been a lot of fun. I love how this was both a werewolf story but took a couple different twists like having a main character who was a walker. It was very entertaining.

I’ve been wanting to read a whole Patricia Briggs books for a long time. But Amazon.com while phenomenal for book selections, sometimes it’s not very good at helping to point out the best book to start with especially if the author has dozen of books and a couple different series. That’s where friends come in. Thank you so much to the friend who included this book in a pile of books that she thought I should read.

I love the way this series started. There is a rich amount of back history especially between Mercy and Samuel. In some ways, it was like reading a series that already started but at the same time everything felt so good and real.

I have to admit, it’s cool that Mercy has a connection to the werewolves without being a werewolf herself. She’ s an insider without being an insider. It creates some fun ties where she could get away with things other pack members couldn’t but she wasn’t left out in the cold either.

Plus I liked the plot twists and the layers to the story. It was just an entertaining read since there wasn’t a dull moment and things all built upon each other. You had to remember who was who and the political connections within the packs, the pack hierarchy, the relationship between species, and the fact not all magical species were out in the open while others were. But everything built upon each other and created a fairly neat little ending (can’t tie up all loose ends, so the triangle of claims over Mercy was left ambiguous).

I plan to read the rest of the books in the series and I already put them on my Amazon wishlist of stuff since the holidays are on quickly on the way. I am glad this was a great little dip into the werewolf genre.

Book 83: Jane Boleyn The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford

Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford by Julia Fox was an interesting look into the life during the Henry the VIII reign. This book was able to capture the life and times of that era while maintaining a very readable narrative. But the biggest fault was that there was a lot of information truly about Jane Boleyn that could be shared.

Jane Boleyn lived an interesting life by working in the privy chambers of several of the Queens of Henry VIII. She was able to rise in the court at first due to the fact her sister in-law (Anne Boleyn) became Queen. But unlike Anne and her own husband, she was able to live through the trials. Then she worked for Jane Seymour and Katherine Howard. But it wasn’t until she helped Katherine Howard set up clandestine meetings with her lover, that she was to lose her life.

I loved how Julia Fox really was able to bring the life and times of Henry the VIII to life. The book was so well researched and it was able to really capture so much. At times you could almost feel like you were there. The book actually read more like a narrative then it did a history book. Which was refreshing. It wasn’t overwrought with superfluous sentence structure.

But the book had one major short coming. Many aspects of Jane Boleyn’s life didn’t survive through history. We actually don’t know for sure if she attended many key events. It’s probable that she did, but we don’t really know for sure. But that is the price of trying to focus on someone who was around the major players but not necessarily a major player until later on in her life. It wasn’t until later when her name took on the name the Infamous Lady Rochford title developed and that was by people who focused on how she testified against Anne and George Boleyn (thus leading to their deaths).This myth is false since she was executed solely due to the fact she helped Katherine commit adultery, not her Boleyn family ties.

At times Julia Fox seemed to repeat the theme that Jane Boleyn was childless. While it’s important to realize, but the way she would word things made it seem like that the author could relate with Jane all too well and was hoping for children of her own.

But I enjoyed Jane Boleyn a lot. I’m glad that I listened to the minority vote (I asked three friends if I should read about a Russian Spy, Jane Boleyn or a tennis star-technically the spy won and will be read as my next nonfiction book). It was a good read. I learned a lot about the era and a fair amount about Jane Boleyn despite the fact that there wasn’t always a lot of historical documentation about Jane herself.

Book 82: Fair Game

I went from reading about bad intelligence in fiction to bad intelligence in real life. But I will have to say Fair Game by Valerie Plame Wilson was exactly what I wanted to read about. While Valerie didn’t actually do bad intelligence per say, she experienced firsthand how carelessness and exposure is damaging to the intelligence community. I enjoyed the book a lot.

It’s been a while since I enjoyed a memoire from the intelligence world. But this book just called to me. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It also reminded me how much I enjoy trying to understand what was redacted. Since this book had to go past the PRB (Publication Review Board), it’s entertaining to see what is deemed to be classified or dangerous to print and what is not. Some books are given a thorough job of redactions while other books have so much detail, you can scratch your head in amazement in that the book was able to get approved by PRB.

Now I will admit I was uncomfortable to read the afterward, that is where there is a lot more information in there that the CIA didn’t want Mrs. Wilson to publish but since it was in the open source, the publishers decided to put it in print. I hope that it didn’t add any additional blowback. It was interesting to see that Ames might have given Valerie’s name to the Russians as a potential spy (although that’s being debated and probably why the CIA wants to limit some of the information by Plame Wilson so it won’t confirm/deny that she was a said spy or if it was someone else). I place a lot of trust in the PRB in order to decide what is fit for print rather then a publisher or journalist to decide what is safe.

Now the life of Valerie Plame Wilson is both interesting and in a way a bit tragic. Her name was released to journalists as a way to minimize a critique that the US used faulty intelligence as a basis for the Iraq war. That act alone caused a lot of exposure for the CIA and damaged a lot of cases around the world that had any contact with Wilson (who was working with the counterproflieration of WMD). It was a dumb thing to by the government officials to let slip. But it was great to see the personal side to the problem. Since the leak not only damaged the cases, it killed her career and her livelihood.

I'm also very disappointed by how the publishers steered people to reading about postpartum depression rather then books about gathering intelligence. Quite frankly, that is more reading page should have directed readers. Her postpartum was only one chapter versus the many chapters about being an operative.


I really liked this book. But this book is not for people who don’t like redacted material. There are a lot of black out words, phrases and even paragraphs.