Oh look, it’s that time of year again when I pretend to be a dedicated blogger. So exciting! My theme hasn’t changed, but the location has. I decided to make a dedicated site for me to prattle on about movies and i’m now adding in tv shows. More exciting!

(graphic by Amanda Chronister)

I don’t have all of the little touches finished yet, but all of the content from previous MoFos is there and there will be new stuff starting tomorrow. But in the meantime, I thought I would share with you some important VeganMoFo essentials for getting through a month of blogging without burning out. AKA, I am procrastinating doing other things so I did this.

1.  Remotes handy so you can watch reruns of Always Sunny, The Office, or whatever you kids are into while you blog.  Or if you’re me, it’s ‘research’.
2.  Caffeinated beverage of your choice.
3.  Vegan snacks that can stay on your desk without refrigeration, sorry hummus.
4.  A large supply of Amy’s burritos and wraps.  Trust me.  (and yes they immediately went back in the freezer, what kind of weirdo keeps frozen burritos on their desk)

5.  If you are so inclined, a variety of nail polish because waiting for your nails to dry is one of the few things you can do with your hands while also blogging.
6.  Hippie deodorant, because you will get ‘too much time in front of the computer’ funk.
7.  B-12, because you always need to take it!
8. Papaya enzymes, because they help alleviate heartburn and stress is a major factor in heartburn.
9. Hand cream because I have really dry hands, okay.
10.  Dry shampoo, because reading other people’s blogs is more important than washing your hair.

11.  Any source materials you may need, be it cookbooks or a semi-random stack of movies that you grabbed that may or may not actually get used.
12.  Tissues because the tears.
13.  Your phone.  I’m just kidding, you don’t need this, you don’t have time to talk to anyone!
14.  Post-its and writing instruments because you refuse to use your smart phone to actually keep track of anything but how bad you are at Sudoku.

15.  You need twitter open at all times.
16.  You should probably keep WordPress (or whatever you’re using) open to remind you to actually do the blogging part.  I guess that’s important.
17.  You need a nice, healthy distraction like Hearthstone.  I actually got 90% of my pre-MoFo prep done while playing!

Happy almost VeganMoFo, guys! As always, I am super excited to be involved, and yes, I am doing Vegan Dinner & A Movie this year, with a slight twist. Not an exciting twist, mind you, but a theme within my theme. People ask me where I get this, I don’t know, it’s… maybe a gift from God or somethin’.

Before a month of movies and menus and my horrible, horrible writing and joke skills start I wanted to post a short review of the second Vegan Cuts beauty box and just mention some of my other favorites from the last few months. Also, I changed my comments over to Disqus to try and avoid getting 300+ spam comments during MoFo, but that means that all of my previous comments got wiped out. 🙁

If you got the box, you’ll notice my lip tint is missing but I already squared up with customer service and they got back to me promptly and I will get an extra item in my next box.

So mostly what people want to know is, is the box still worth $20? I think so! Even missing the lip tint, the nail wraps are normally $16. There were two kinds of nail wraps you could get (I LOVE THE NAVY STRIPES, MELISSER) and the lotion and deodorant samples came in a few different scents. I’m very happy with the scents I got, the pear lotion smells like something from Bath & Body Works but without the overpowering perfume and actually drying out my skin (eczema = overly-scented lotions are worthless). The deodorant makes my armpits smell like a mojito! Sunscreen samples are always welcome as it’s something we all need (or you should use if you don’t think you need it). I haven’t used the sample soap yet but I am down for anything pepperminty. I haven’t tried the nail wraps yet because I want my nails to at least be semi-uniform in length. So of course I broke a nail yesterday.

If I had to get rid of one thing, it would be the zit stick. I do have acne problems, but that’s why I already have a daily routine that involves zit cream so a spot stick will just result in my drying my zits out to the point of flaking. However, Brian rarely gets zits and complains when I try to put things in his face, so I will save it for chasing him around the house.

Above all, I like to try new things so even if I get something and it isn’t totally my jam, I still think it’s fun to try.  If you want to order your own beauty box, and you should, do it!  [affiliate link]

And here are some other things that i’ve tried out and enjoyed these past few months, either to put on my person or in my mouth.

Wet n Wild MegaEyes Crème Eyeliner, Black: I finally found a type of eye-liner that I can’t totally mess up! I don’t know what’s wrong with my hands or my eyelids, but I cannot get a clean line with pencils, sticks, and certainly not liquid eyeliners. My hand isn’t steady and maybe my eyelids are coated in satan. It’s easy to get a pigmented line and put this on in short strokes instead of trying to be swift about it. I’m sure I could upgrade to a fancier brand, but I have no complaints so far about WnW and i’m on a budget. (P.S. Wet n’ Wild has a vegan list, I recommend copying it into wordpad so you can take a print out and peer back and forth between the list and the numbers. I found trying to scroll up and down on my phone to be even more annoying.)

Wet n Wild Fergie Eyeshadow Primer: Okay, I have oily lids and I have tried all kinds of eye primers and they’ve all done dick for me. Not only are my eyelids oily, but they’re hooded and droopy and I basically stopped wearing eyeshadow because it got to the point where nothing would stay. And then I decided to take a chance on being embarrassed by owning a Fergie product, and omgzzzzzzzzz. I have tried this with tarte eyeshadows, ELF (cheap-o and mineral) eyeshadows, super natural cream eyeshadows, every level of quality basically and shit stays put. It’s a god damned miracle product.

Everything I found at TJ Maxx! Your mileage will certainly vary, the first time I went into the TJ Maxx here they had no makeup of any kind, but I lucked out big time and found Spa Ritual for the first time ever, some ORLY duos and mini sets (I love mini polishes, I got more colors and will still get multiple applications out of each bottle, for the same price as one full-price bottle of ORLY), and two food items that i’ve only gotten in previous Vegan Cuts snack boxes. Shitty instagram photo:

If you aren’t wise to TJ Maxx outside of their stupid Maxxinista commercials, they have marked down items that rotate in and out. Mostly they push the ‘designer brands for less’ angle, but you can really score in the beauty aisle and what food they do carry is usually supposed to be ‘fancy’ so it’s actually pretty easy to find vegan things there. In addition to the brands above i’ve found derma-e, Pacifica, DermOrganic, and I think Avalon Organics. They also had ELF makeup, but it cost the same amount as it does on the website and people were being gross and opening all of it and then leaving the palettes on the table. GROSS.

And finally, the best thing I have put in my face all summer are these peanut butter brownies with Dandies. I can no longer buy Dandies because I moved, but I picked up a bag on a whim while visiting my father-in-law and tried out this recipe and they are. The best. I think this was from before they changed the marshmallow sized, so be sure to chop your dandies in 1/4ths or at least half if you try it.

…because I will not be buying much in the near future! See previous post about Chester and his money-eating, multi-vet-trip hip. He is doing fantastic and his ability to get around on three legs is kind of scary, he just had some swollen foot issues and then his bandage needed to be re-wrapped. We’ve all gotten used to the routine of carrying/being carried up and down the stairs. We moved all of our stuff back upstairs because I was unhappy sleeping on the couch, neither of the dogs were eating right, and Chester seriously spends most of his day upstairs sleeping anyway. I’d rather carry him up and down the stairs than have all of us be miserable. Moving on!

P.S.  This wasn’t all supposed to be beauty products but I kind of went on for so long about zit cream that I decided to cap it at three things.

I’m sure i’ve mentioned it before, but my hormones started going apeshit a few years back and I had to start dealing with seriously itchy, oily, cystic acne (I also now cry off and on for three days before I get my period, it’s lovely).  I had acne in junior high, and the occasional zit thereafter from passing out in my makeup and such.  But cystic acne is AWFUL.  It starts with an itch.  Then the grease comes.  Then a painful bump slowly appears.  And you couldn’t even pop it if you wanted to, because it’s so deep under the skin.  There’s no turning back, no washing your face or using some zap-zit product to beat that little bastard back.  We’re talking a good week, and that’s if you manage to keep your dirty hands off of it (if so, you’re a better person than I am).  Then there’s acne scars which take weeks to fade!

At first, I would just get a single zit on my chin around period time.  I bought some face scrub from Lush, used it 1-2 times a week, and had no problems.  Then it slowly got worse, until I was using half a dozen things to try and help my skin.  Tea tree oil pads, vitamins, jojoba oil as a nighttime moisturizer, eating yogurt like it’s going out of style (and yes I drank plenty of water and all that).  That also worked for awhile, and then about two months ago I realized that despite my best efforts, it…wasn’t working.  I always had a zit.  And again, not a tiny whitehead, but a painful, deep zit that hung around forever.  I was really tired of spackling my face every morning to cover up the redness that takes forever to fade, so I gave in and bought the acne.org treatment (which is benzoyl peroxide, and vegan).  I have had exactly three zits in the last month, all regular small ones, all were from skipping cleaning or forgetting to put this gel on.

Even though I love this stuff and it’s only 2.5% BP, I should note that there are some possible side effects from using it, so if you want to give it a whirl and you’ve never used a BP product, order the travel size first!  The regular tube is eight ounces, which is a loooooot of product to be stuck with if it makes your skin dry or itchy.  I don’t have that problem, but your mileage may vary.  I’ve read that using BP can make your skin ‘age’ faster, but i’d rather have wrinkles than feel like clawing my face off nearly every day.

I do like to try and use as many natural, good-for-me-good-for-the-earth products as possible, and that’s why I love Pumpkin & Poppy Cosmetics.  I’ve mentioned Kristy’s youtube channel before, but this past year she started her own vegan mineral makeup company, and it’s amazing how much she’s grown in such a short amount of time.  She’s gone from just a few mineral foundations to doing themed collections with lipglosses and now eyeliners.  If you’re wary of buying homemade ‘vegan’ cosmetics (thanks, Glittersniffer), Kristy is vegan herself so she won’t be selling you pinks with carmine in them.  But I think my favorite part is that she themes her collections after movies and literature, so instead of trying to pick some random brown out of a product lineup, you can be like, “zomg, I love Labyrinth and I totally want a Bluto inspired eyeshadow!”  Her holiday collection was called Christmas In Gotham, people.  Kristy is also super friendly, interactive, and is very transparent about her ingredients and why she uses each one.

If you buy anything I suggest the Moth Wing eyeshadow, which is a really cool but work-friendly color, or her foundation sample pack so you can figure out which color works for you.  Thanks to the above zit gel, I can now get away with wearing just my mineral foundation without having to polka-dot my face with concealer.  And look at that crazy gorgeous vegan red blush up there!  Hot shit, dudes.

And finally, I give you…my nail polish collection, as it will stand for quite awhile.  After the holidays were over, Ulta and Sally’s both started clearing out the old nail polish collections to make room for the coming spring collections.  And…I went a little crazy.  And maybe doubled the size of my collection.  But i’m a bargain hunter and i’m pretty sure that all of maybe five bottles were bought full price.  Most of my Zoyas I got through some kind of promotion on their site, all of my Sinful Colors polishes were $1 at Walgreens…and most of the holiday colors I got (almost all of the China Glaze and a lot of the ORLY) were $4-2.

P.S.  I found out after my spree that while China Glaze polishes (not counting treatments and some top/base coats) are vegan and they don’t test on animals, they currently can’t confirm that their ingredient suppliers don’t test (but they’re in the process of getting that info to comply with the animal testing ban that’s coming up in the UK).  I think this is a personal comfort thing, on one hand it’s kind of like ‘no one is vegan because mice get killed by the threshers that harvest fields’, but on the other hand, it is just nail polish and not food or what have you. I don’t buy from Essie or OPI because they are owned by parent companies who definitely test, some people think that’s okay because Essie and OPI don’t test themselves.  I don’t think any of their polishes are so amazeballs that I need to buy them over 100% vegan or 95% vegan brands.  Once you get outside of food, veganism can be tricky, just do the best you can.

I tried to arrange them by color (the top is all glitters) for the people who are like, “How many colors do you need?”  ALL OF THEM, FOOLS.  But I am pretty happy with my color selection right now and it will take a long time before I get bored.

And here are some random close-ups of polishes that you really need to get all up in to appreciate, plus my fancy storage system: