It’s been a month of breaking the rules for me..

… in terms of fashion & shopping that is.

This month has been cr-azy for spending!!

Let’s start with the easy purchases… shall we?

RuMe (Large) Bags – $24!

Reason: I LOVE my Envirosax bags, but they do seem a bit.. thin and I have a couple of issues with them carrying VERY heavy items like milk or lots of fruit and veggies.

The RuMe bags are sewn with a double lining, and have an actual bottom sewn in rather than two flaps together.

So I got 2 of them for heavy stuff like milk & lots of fruit.

They are a bit noisy though, but better on my shoulders and they still fold up neatly.

Proactiv Solution — Just the Refining Masque – $31 for 2.5 oz.

The woman tried to tell me that I could pay another $25 more and buy the travel set that comes with the cleanser, toner, bladdity bla bla..

But when I said I wanted the full-sized bottle, she told me that for another $50 more (wow, it doesn’t get cheaper does it).. I could buy the FULL SIZED set!

Hah. I read the ingredients on the cleanser & cream, and it was just benzoyl peroxide, which I can buy for $5 in the drug store.

The masque is more interesting to me, because it has sulphur in it which (no kidding!!) really works on my skin to get rid of those deep acneic bumps almost instantly.

In about 4 days, my face is clear of them, instead of 3 weeks.

There’s another version — the Mario Badescu Drying Cream, that I’ve tried in a sample that also has sulphur in it, but it irritates my skin because of the addition of Lemon Extract in there,

It also costs more at $12 for 5 oz which costs almost 50% more because I paid $31 for 2.5 oz for the Proactiv one.

MUGG Boots – $40

Hahahaha.. Just kidding. They’re not called MUGG boots. They’re Cost-co UGG-knock off boots with genuine sheepskin.

$40!

It’s my first fashion faux pas.

I tried them on, and loooooooooooved them. It’s like wearing a comfy sock. And they look stupid, but I don’t care because it’s cold here in the winters and my toes freeze into little ice blocks.

However, I refuse to wear them in the summer with a miniskirt. What’s the point?

I got the LAST PAIR of size 7s in the tall boot in brown. The other colour was this super pale, gorgeous creamy white. But they’re impractical for real life.

They’d turn grey and splotchy in two days with me.

HUGO NATURALS SHAMPOO & CONDITIONER – $40 for both big, 473 mL bottles

*GASP*

How could the girl who STOPPED using shampoo & conditioner possibly think about buying .. shampoo and conditioner?

Because, my friends.. I couldn’t resist trying it out.

I was in Whole Foods the other day, and I just happened to browse that aisle.

Then my eye fell on the HUGO NATURALS brand of the Vanilla & Sweet Orange Shampoo (it smells good enough to eat)…

• No Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (or any kind of SLS derivative which is bad for the environment)
• No Parabens
• No Animal-Derived Fats
• No Animal Testing done (Cruelty-Free)
• No Petroleum Products
• No Alcohols
• No Artificial Fragances
• No Artificial Colours

Phew!
With that kind of label (I diligently checked all the others, including Green Beaver which I wasn’t sold on), and concluded that not only was this one the best, it also smelled great and was THE CHEAPEST per mL.

(Yes, I geekily whipped out a mini calculator and divided the price by mL, right in the store to the amusement of all the employees)

I also checked the brand Hugo Naturals using SkinDeep (See the report here that has a range of 1-3 as their toxicity levels for the brand) and found the following major yellow flags:

• Unspecified Fragrace — Toxicity of 4 (not present in the products below)
• Oryza Sativa (Rice Bran Oil) — Toxicity of of 4
• Citric Acid — Toxicity of 4 (not present in the products below)

So, Rice Bran Oil was the only toxic ingredient in that list, and doesn’t bother me.

Not being satisfied, I also researched every single name that I didn’t recognize on the bottle, and came up with the conclusions that I found about 2 ingredients that were questionable but since they were so far down the ingredient list, they are actually in very small doses (the first 3 -5 ingredients are the majority of the product), and seemed to be okay.

These may be the BEST shampoos & conditioners out there that I’ve found for what they DON’T have in them!!!

Anyway, I don’t use them often.

But there have been recent days where I’ve walked, and sweated for 14 hours up and down hills and around town, and no amount of water washing, including any Apple Cider Vinegar rinse gets that oil and gunk out of your hair after 3 days of doing that.

You HAVE to use something to cut the oils & fat in your hair when that happens.

I figure those bottles will last me a while, and I am still doing the water-only thing and using these bottles sparingly, and only when required.

Update: They suck. They stripped my hair and the conditioner was USELESS.

H&M Linen Pants – $45

Another fashion faux pas for me here.

I have never owned a pair of linen pants in my LIFE, because they are too wrinkly. Even if they are soft and feel like PJs, I hate looking like a wrinkled mess.

BUT!

I am going to need them where I’m going, because it is freaking HOT and SUNNY like nowhere else, and linen pants are going to keep me tan free, cool and comfortable.

Plus, they look like actual trousers so I can do double duty and wear them to work in the summer.

Er.. this is a picture of them un-ironed. I’m going to iron them before I wear them on the plane.

It’s going to be my own version of people’s flying outfits of sweatpants and hoodies, but with linen pants & a tank top with a pashmina shawl instead.

BOSE Quiet Comfort 2 Headphones (Over the ear) – $319

Come to mama, my baby!

Sweet.. sweet silence.

They don’t work as well when not on a plane or train, because the active noise cancelling feature only works with very low, humming frequencies that give me massive headaches on planes.

My dad tried them on and sniffed: “I am not convinced they are worth the price.”

HAH! Typical.

But if he had tried them on while on a plane.. he would have been a believer. I tried them on near the Bose soundbooth where they simulated the airplane hum & it was INCREDIBLE how the noise disappeared when the headphones went on.

I CANNOT wait to use them on my next vacation, which.. is coming up in a week. I’m leaving for 3 weeks on vacation and these will come in handy.

My only 2 major cons were the price ($319 .. I was hoping to buy the Audio-Technica ATH ANC7 Headphones for $180 but NO ONE sells them here)… and that you cannot turn off the noise cancelling feature without cutting out the actual sound as well.

The two go together, and that sucks ass because the noise cancelling feature gives me a slight headache when I wore them as a test while using my laptop.

Travel Pillow – $25

A must-have for long flights. This one folds up and squishes down into a quarter of that size in the picture.

I need it for when I lean my head back, and rest.. and it’ll do double-duty when I go to hotels & refuse to use their sweat-stained pillows covered in a clean pillowcase, and use this one instead with my own travel sheets.

Other expenses that I cannot or am not bothering show here?

• Dentist – $100 (my dentist is awesome)
• A candy thermometer for my mom as a gift – $65
• 12 months of Yasmin pills – $200
• DubFX CD – $20 (DubFX.net)
• Book of piano songs (82) – $20
• A small calculator – $1
• A fan – $1
• New keys & a keychain because my dumb ass lost my keys – $12

I think they’re practical need/want purchases, and I am not going to do the PF blogger guilt thing. They’re all worth the price!

But wait, the spending isn’t done yet…..

Now on to the spending for my half of our upcoming trip:

• Round trip Plane ticket: $1205.79
• One way bus ticket: $20.92
• 5 Star Hotel: $251.50

TOTAL spent in advance for my trip for August: $1478.20

SWEET! I am going overseas for $1500!! Round trip. Accomodations & flight included at a 5 star hotel (I am living the high life this time)…

This is, of course not including food and entertainment, but I am feeling that I won’t spend more than $2000 in total.

So my grand total for this month will be around $3358, but technically speaking, next month’s trip has been pre-paid, and I should be around $700 next month.