Five Awesome Gifts For Mom

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and if your mother or wife is anything like me, she wants to feel special and appreciated. Seriously, giving birth is kind of a big deal. And even if she didn’t actually give birth to you/your children, she still has to put up with you people. An awesome gift will tell her just how special you think she is. Here are some suggestions:

1. Spa Finder Gift Certificate – Pampering is always a good gift. Always. A Spa Finder gift certificate is good at over 5,000 spas across the country. One tip: Make sure you check that there are participating spas in your area, just to be sure.

2. Sephora Fragrance Sampler – I love a good perfume, but what I think is good is not necessarily what the sales associate at Perfumania thinks is good. Take the guesswork out by getting her one of Sephora’s excellent fragrance samplers. It comes with sample sizes of 12 favorite or 10 deluxe fragrances for her to try. Once she chooses her favorite, she can turn in her voucher for a full-sized bottle. Genius.

3. Maid Service – Forgive me if I’m being sexist, but I find housework usually falls to the woman (if that’s not the case in your life, bravo, buddy, you win at husbanding), so a respite would totally be in order. Major maid service companies like Molly Maid, Merry Maids and Maids.com offer gift certificates, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find one near you.

4. Personal Stylist Appointment – Make a woman feel beautiful and you’re in. Gift her with an appointment for a personal stylist to help her pick one outfit that makes her feel amazing. Stores like Banana Republic, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales and Macy’s offer this service for free. Just make the appointment and give her an AMEX or Visa gift card (make it generous) so she can buy the outfit. Don’t have these stores near you? Google “personal stylists” to find one in your area. They will charge a fee for their services, however, so keep that in mind.

5. A Porsche Convertible – Is there a car she’s always wanted to drive? Give it to her – if only for the day. Many larger areas have at least one exotic car rental place where you can get a Porsche, a Ferrari or Rolls Royce for the day. Send her out for an afternoon of shopping with her BFF or to great date night for just the two of you – in style. Weekday rates won’t cost you much more than a nice piece of jewelry, and it’s really a cool and original idea. You don’t even have to give me credit.

Featured photo by betsyweber

My Philosophy on (the scent) Falling in Love

I am a beauty products junkie.  Seriously, I think it may be a sickness.  If it is, I certainly hope it’s not treatable because I love me some pretty smelling lotions and some mineral make-up.   If hoarding beauty products is wrong…  I don’t wanna be right.   My latest fave and I mean, crying because I’m almost out of it and don’t know when I’ll be able to buy more, FAVE is the 3-in-1 shower gel and the body lotion scented with Philosophy’s Falling in Love fragrance.

This fragrance is like morning in a flower garden.  You know those old Garden Botanicals commercials where the women are instantly transported away to some beautiful countryside villa brimming with thousands of flowers and no stress?  Yeah, it’s like that, but in a wholly uncheesy way that easily makes my morning shower my single most favorite part of the day.

The scent isn’t heavy.  It’s heavenly.  And men?  LOVE. IT.  Like seriously.  I’ve taken more than one shower in a 60 minute time span, so let’s just leave it at that.  And my husband is not the only account I’ve seen of this sort of reaction.  His is the only one I’ve PERSONALLY seen, but I’ve read dozens of reviews that say the same thing.

The shower gel is a shampoo – body gel – bubble bath all in one.  I was completely skeptical about the shampoo part, but ya’ll, my hair is soft and shiny and smells amazing.  The body lotion is perfect for daily use.  Not too heavy feeling and not too light.  You don’t put it on and either wonder where it went or feel ready for some good old fashioned oil wresting.  It’s right there in that “OMG PERFECT” zone that we look for.

I highly recommend this set to anyone who wants to feel confidently, powerfully feminine.  This product is available here at the best price I’ve seen. Philosophy makes 2 or 3 other fragrances. I haven’t tried them yet, but if Falling in Love is any indication, I’ll be writing positive reviews on them, eventually, as well. Once you select the product you will be asked to select the fragrance. At $62 for the set, it’s a great buy. I’ve had mine for probably 6 months and the gel is just now emptying and I’ve got a third of the lotion left. The 32oz size make the cost an excellent value.

Try Philosophy’s Falling in Love.   Feel pretty – smell amazing.

Smells Like Gift-Giving Success

Finn here again. I’ve got a lot to say. Apparently.

I’m not hard to buy for—if you pay attention. But so many people just don’t. Or at least that don’t pay enough attention. Maybe they realize that I am a perfume whore (The more the merrier, I say and I’m not ashamed). What they don’t get is that just because I like fragrance it doesn’t mean I will like their favorite, which they will invariably assume, even if I didn’t say I liked it or even notice they were wearing any. And invariably that scent will be something sweet and delicate, which is NOT me at all and should be obvious to anyone who’s ever been in my presence.

But enough about me.

What I’m getting at is this: Unless you know for sure what your giftee likes perfume-wise, it really has been better just to refrain from giving that particular item.

Until now.

Sephora has the perfect solution:  Sephora Scent Samplers. It’s ingenious really. You buy the sampler, which includes a handful (7, 10 or 12 depending on the collection) of sample bottles of their bestselling fragrances. Once you’ve tried them all and decided on a favorite, you bring the enclosed voucher to your nearest Sephora store and redeem it for a full-sized bottle of your pick.

Easy-breezy and oh-so-cool. Plus, they have samplers for men, too.

A few caveats: You must redeem the voucher at a Sephora store; you can’t use it online. And it’s not valid for our Canadian friends unless they cross the border. Finally, there is always the chance that the recipient won’t like any of the available scents. But the included selection is diverse enough that the chance would be slim. Two of the collections have one scent that I’ve recently fallen in love with and I’m picky as hell.

Pricing on these are $50 for the Best Sellers or Deluxe samplers and $75 for the Collector’s Edition, which features seven miniature versions of the regular perfume bottles rather than the little sample packages. For men there are two versions, the Deluxe for $50 and the Collector’s Edition for $75.

I gave one these to both my brother and my dad for Christmas (they like cologne almost as much as do) and they loved it. Gift-giving WIN I tell you. Even my mother liked the idea and she’s a pain in the ass when it comes to gifts. Trust me, you’ll be a hero. Try it.

P.S. These are a great way to sample several fragrances and even save a few bucks on new scent if you’re in the market for yourself.

Maybe, just maybe, someone in my life will get the hint (anyone?) and buy me one of these babies. But they’re probably not paying attention.