1) BEHOLD: The glass jar speaker enhancement system! I love my iPhone (fine, I want to french it but it isn't waterproof) but it sounds like shit when I listen to... ANYTHING on it. Tinny and hissy and just overall crappy. The louder I turn up the volume the shittier it sounds. The Glass Jar Speaker Enhancement System magnifies the sound and makes it a little fuller, and as long as you don't turn it up too loud it sounds 100x better than the phone on it's own. Perfect for listening to your Bryan Adams Pandora station, NPR news stories, or audio you took of your girlfriend talking in her sleep. You can also use a short drinking glass for the same result.
2) SUGAR! It's good for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and it makes a great snack, too. But beyond it's nutritional benefits it also makes a kickass facial scrub. Just gritty enough to work well, but not so gritty that it sands off the top layer of your skin. A fresh complexion = good. Top layer of facial skin missing = bad. Don't do this if you have severe acne or facial rashes of any kind because it will just irritate it and possibly leave open sores on your skin. NO GOOD.
3) "Homemade" foaming hand soap. It may not really be homemade but it's saved me assloads of money. Noa was using ridiculous amounts of hand soap and even buying the cheapest stuff they make-- and giant refills-- we were still going through it stupidly fast and then I read somewhere on the interwebs that mixing one part Dr Bronner's castile soap with three parts water in a foaming soap dispenser makes kickass hand soap. Just buy one bottle of the cheapest foaming soap you can find and when it runs out keep the bottle; feel free to jazz it up with stickers or Swarovski crystals or whatever. Put the water in first and add the Bronner's AFTER, otherwise it foams up and runs out of the dispenser. One 32 oz bottle of Dr Bronner's that I got for $14 on Amazon has lasted months. I expect to not run out until at least 2016, at which point I'll just take my flying car to Target to buy another bottle of the Doc B. I like the lavender kind the best, because lavender is like the little black dress of scent: always in style, perfect for any occasion, and verrrry sexy.
4) I'm scared of regular deodorant/antiperspirant ever since I learned that aluminum is very likely not good for our bodies. Plus, our bodies are made specifically TO perspire, so eliminating that process is just strange and also very likely not super good for us. I tried a few different alternatives to the Suave baby powder scented crap I'd been using since I was about twelve but wasn't too into any of them; the hops in the Tom's of Maine stuff stained my armpits yellow after a few weeks (oddly, I'm the only person I know of that has had this problem-- and I tried on multiple occasions to use it again after taking breaks, and continued to get Yellow Pit Syndrome), the lemongrass and baking powder "bar" I tried made my armpits sting and the smell was way too strong (and the "bar" crumbled and made a huge mess everywhere), and trying a deodorant powder wasn't strong enough. I was piss-pants happy when I discovered Lush's Aromaco deodorant bar, because a) IT WORKS! b) it doesn't leave any creepy residue or stains behind and c) it's cheap and lasts a long time. It's made with baking soda, witch hazel, chamomile vinegar, and patchouli oil. If you hate patchouli don't come within a mile of this stuff; I've been using it for months and I'm immune to the smell now but other people comment on it sometimes. I couldn't care less, but that's just me. If you've been using antiperspirant for a long time you might not be used to feeling a little damp under the arms, but that's easily remedied with a little powder slapped on that shit. Just make sure you use something that doesn't have talc in it, because (health alert!) that has also been shown not to be good for us, especially when breathed in. I might be a Lush fanatic, but I really like their Coconut powder; it smells sooooo good, has no talcum powder in it, and lasts a long time. Anyway. Sorry I want to make out with Lush.
5) TP facial blotting paper. Don't be one of those people who buys super expensive little sheets of fancy blotting tissue stuff, because TIP: toilet paper works just as well. Humidity at 95%? Skin squirting grease at a startling rate? Toilet paper that shit and move on.
6) OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, SUNBLOCK WIPES!!!!!!!!! Sorry about the yelling and the exclamation abuse, but I literally peed my pants when I discovered these (and by "literally" I actually mean "figuratively"). Noa was using like 3 cans a week of the spray stuff at camp (counselors aren't allowed to help the kids put it on because NO TOUCHING and I'm fairly certain Noa was just spraying it into the air all day for the hell of it), and she wasnt using the lotion stuff the right way (just kind of half-assedly slapping some onto, like, one arm and half of one leg). If there's one thing I hate more than how expensive sunblock is it's buying shitloads of it and seeing my kid STILL come home with a burn. Sunblock wipes are PERFECTION-- she can keep a couple in her pocket, it's super easy to use, and one wipe covers her whole body. I didn't even know such a miracle existed until a few weeks ago, but it has changed our lives. Well, it has changed the way we apply sunblock, which has changed .000256% of our lives
7a) Homemade fabric refresher! WHOA! Fuck Febreze; it's spendy and chemical ridden. Take a spray bottle and mix some water and a little lavender oil and hoooooly shit, spray everything in your home not made of plastic or wood and sit back and enjoy how fucking awesome everything smells. URGENT NOTE: there's nothing nice in our apartment and nothing I'm worried about "ruining" (it's all been ruined, there's just no ruining left to be done) but I can give you some warning advice. a) I wouldn't spray it on your computer. Sorry. That has to stay stinky. b) shake it well before using it. c) if you have fancy shit made of, like, satin or silk or rhino skin or whatever, I'd make sure the oil won't ruin it. This warning has been brought to you by Not Being Mad At Me Because You Sprayed Oil All Over Your New Suede Couch And Ruined It.
7b) Another kind of homemade fabric refresher! Tea tree oil has natural anti-bacterial properties, and bacteria is usually what made stuff like sports bras and sneakers smell kind of undesirable after a while. SOLUTION: Tea tree oil and water in a spray bottle. Spray that shit down when you take it off, and it won't smell like a camel when you wear it again because the laundromat is too far away to be bothered with. Please see warnings a, b, and c above.
"Mmmmm, your bra smells so good!"
(No, I know!)
8) Paper towels. They clean up messes, but more importantly: when you run out of coffee filters {for three months} paper towels work just as well! You can thank my boyfriend for this special tip. I didn't know Paper Towel Coffee Filters were a thing before I saw him do it a couple months ago. Maybe this is something everyone already knows; if so, I apologize for wasting your time with the obvious. ps- When you run out of paper towels {for three weeks} you can also use cheap shitty napkins as coffee filters! AMAZEMENT!
I think that's it for Top Secret Amy Mash life tips. If I think of any more I'll let you know. Otherwise, stop buying hand soap, fabric refresher, and coffee filters and send me a thank you card for being a good friend.
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