Peonies

Do you see how gorgeous these flowers are? They are peonies. Beautiful! My mother-in-law, she has some beautiful peonies. All different colors. And she inspired me to try to grow some.

In the Spring, I planted some of these beautiful flowers. Not the plants. I bought bulbs. For 4 or 5 different colors. I planted them outside. Near our patio. And I hoped that they'd grow into gorgeous bushes. Because I wanted to cut off some of these blooms. I wanted to be able to put them around our home.

But like my lilies, my peonies didn't grow. They didn't come out. Not a crack out of the ground. What is going on? Maybe I should have just bought the plants. But they're so expensive! I'm not a gardener. But I'm also not a failure. I'm going to try again next Spring.

~Manders

Carbon Mess

I really wanted to love this mascara. I heard and read such good things about it. I bought 2 tubes. One for me to try. And one to try on Lola for the gigs.

My first impressions of this product were really good. I was excited. The brush is a good shape. Allowing you to get into the corner lashes. I like the way it's tapered. The brush is also a nice shape to prevent clumping. I initially purchased the waterproof formula. It's the formula I use for all mascaras.

The color was a deep and highly pigmented black. Much darker than most drugstore mascaras. The formula was also nice. Not watery or runny. But also not thick and clumpy. It applied easily. Didn't leave my lashes clumpy or weighed down. Things were looking good. My lashes had length, volume, and a deep black color.

But as the day wore on, I noticed the transfer of the product. Roughly 2 hours after I applied the mascara, I had raccoon eyes. I hadn't cried, had water splashed on me, or even gone outside. But the mascara was definitely running. I cleaned up my under eye area, and waited to see what would happen.

All day, every time I looked in the mirror, I had mascara transfer. Quite a bit of it. I don't have oily skin. And I've never experienced this before. I was honestly shocked at the mess on my face.

By dinner time, I couldn't take it anymore, I removed the mascara from my lashes. It came off very easily with a baby wipe. And this is the waterproof formula! For the following month, I let the product "dry." I thought that a drier product might result in a better product. But I got the same result when I tried to wear Carbon Black again.

I also tried this product on Lola. During a photo shoot. Again, it applied magically. This mascara has a way of making your eyelashes look amazing. Now Lola does have oily skin, and eyelids. So this was going to be a real test.

Sure enough, the product began running. This was an early morning shoot, outside. Meaning that it was cold. But the mascara transfer was horrible! You would have thought Lola was in a swimming pool. Or crying. After an hour, I removed it and went back to our reliable mascara.

But I wasn't done with this product. I gave Lola the tube, that I'd used at the photo shoot. I figured she could play around with it, and tell me what happened. After trying it out for a few weeks, she really hated it. She tried everything. Including layering it with another waterproof mascara. Nothing helped! I also went out and bought the regular formula. You know what, it was worse. I had horrible transfer.

I'm not sure if it was just Lola and I that had this problem. But it was horrible! The mascara seemed to melt off of our eyelashes and down our faces. This is a product that I would not recommend. Which saddens my heart. Because L'Oreal happens to be one of my favorite drugstore brands.

~Manders

*FTC: All items have been purchased by me. All my opinions are honest, and I'm not being paid to review these products.

My Lilies

Do you see these beautiful flowers? They're Oriental Lilies. And I planted at least 3 dozen of them, in the Spring. Before the twins were born. Do you see how beautiful they are?

Well, it's now September. And I haven't seen a single one of these flowers. Not one! Not even a tiny stem! I watered. All my other bulbs have turned into gorgeous flowers. Including other lilies. But these gorgeous creatures, they have just refused to crack through our soil. It makes me incredibly sad.

I'm going to chalk this up to a gardening failure. What else can I say? There wasn't anything else that I could do. My flowers just didn't want to grow. I'm going to try them again next year. Not as many. But I'm definitely going to try again.

~Manders