Sephora: Brands that aren't tested on animals

I recently called Sephora's 800 number in consternation to see if they have any idea about which of their products are tested on animals and which aren't.  The lady was very helpful and said although they don't list it on the site she had a list she could email to me. Without further delay, here is the list of products Sephora says are NOT tested on animals:


Thank you for contacting Sephora.com regarding our animal testing practices.

Our private label Sephora Brand is cruelty free (meaning that the products have never been tested on animals). We carry over 200 other brands and we cannot guarantee that all the products from these brands are cruelty free.

Here is a list of some brands that we carry that do not test on animals:

Amazing Cosmetics
Anthony Logistics
Balmshell
Bare Escentuals
Benefit Cosmetics
Blinc
Bliss
Boscia
Bremenn Research Labs
Carol's Daughter
Caudalie
Clarins
Clean
Cosmedicine
DDF
Dermadoctor
Dr. Brandt Skincare
DuWop
Frederic Fekkai
Jack Black
Jonathan Products
Juice Beauty
Korres Natural Products
L'Occitane
Laura Mercier
LaVanila Laboratories
Murad
Mustela
NARS
Nude
Ojon
Ole Henriksen
Perfekt
Perricone MD
Peter Thomas Roth
Philosophy
Phyto
REN Clean Skincare
René Furterer
Rosebud Perfume Co.
Skyn Iceland
Smashbox
Stila Cosmetics
Tarina Tarantino
Tarte
TheBalm
Too Faced Cosmetics
Urban Decay
Zirh

We hope this helps. If we can assist you further please reply to this email or contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672).

Regards,

Laura
Sephora.com Client Services

Contact Us Again

CustomerService@Sephora.com
1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672)
Monday - Friday, 6AM - 9PM PST
Saturday & Sunday 8AM - 5PM PST

Sephora, your website is useless!

    

21 May, 2010

Dear Sephora,

We know you are touted, and tout yourself as the Alpha & Omega of Makeup, the one and only place toget the highest quality makeup with tips and tools to get the most out of your makeup. This is only partially true; its true of your stores, the brick and mortar shopping experience.

Anyone who's ventured in a Sephora for the first time is immediately inspired/overwhelmed/excited, especially if you live somewhere more rural than not. Music, lighting, rows and rows of makeup, it all is very fun.  You can try on makeup, wipe it away with a makeup remover and repeat all day. You can ignore or accept the help of the Sephora consultants.  They'll do your makeup too, of course.  The aisles and aisles of makeup let you try this or that shade without having to buy it first.  Mirrors and makeup applicators abound. They carry many brands, and you can browse them all.  They have a hair care section, a skin care section, and many 'best buys' and 'highest rated' products are displayed prominently at the store entrance and throughout the store. Almost always an enjoyable experience, Sephora has clearly invested a lot of time and research into developing these little makeup meccas.

This is... if you can find the store. Thus begins my tirade known as Sephora, your website is useless!  Let us go to Exhibit A. Sephora's "Store Locator."  Sephoras are now in many metropolitan areas. If you're in or near a city, you probably know where it is and can get there with ease.  But what if you're Mz. Smith of California traveling to New Jersey for the first time on business, and you have a free weekend. Well it is winter so Smith doesn't want to go to beach at Seaside Heights so she thinks about going to a Sephora. So she pulls up the internet, and goes to the Store Locator.

"What?" she says

"They don't just let me type in my current zip code? This is less than acceptable in today's society. Preferably I either enter the whole address (and then the subsequent results will map out all the locations nearby, then click one and it spits out directions) or I can enter my zip only for quicker results. This is the way of the internet."

But Ms. Smith is on Sephora's site in 2011, not a regular up to date site. She sees this inexplicable DROP DOWN MENU (UGH!!!) and then proceeds to gamely pick her state from this.

"Ok, New Jersey, fine."  Then what?

Exhibit A

"ANOTHER DROP DOWN MENU!!!  FUUUUUUU!!!!"

It lists the locations of Sephora stores in Jersey.  This is unhelpful. Mz. Smith looks but doesn't see the small NJ town she's currently in listed on the drop down menu. Of course at this point she could google map each of the 20 or so locations and then compare that to where she currently lives, but who has time for that??

"F it!" she says.

"I'll just go to Atlantic City, at least I can map that."

Mz. Smith goes on to spend her life savings, her parents retirement fund, and her kid's college fund all in that weekend, and she goes home a broken, bitter woman.

If only Sephora let you put in your zip code, this tragedy would not have occurred.

This concludes Exhibit A.

Exhibit B (the last exhibit) is the other half of the equation. Call it sorting, drilling down, browsing, or just plain old shopping; it is hard to do on Sephora.com. You'd think Sephora would want the purchasing of makeup, the deciding and browsing, a fun part of the experience.  Makeup shopping shouldn't be a chore, riddled with drop down menus from the late 90's.  Makeup shopping should know who you are, remember your preferences, and suggest things for you to try based on that. It should be a complete, customizable experience.

The closest thing I've seen in my browsing past is at Zappos, where you can choose exactly the kind of bag or shoe you want based on your criteria.

 

Exhibit B: Zappos sorting.  (A joy to navigate! I can even choose Polyester as a fabric!!!! :) :) :))

At its most basic, browsing/shopping on the internet can be a drill down type of event as seen with Zappos.  Pick among a whole bunch of criteria which matter to you, and end up with what you like.  Sephora's makeup site starts out that way:

Exhibit B Continued, the basic, uninspired drill down link navigation system.

You pick skincare: face: visible pores. So far so good. But from there the shopping experience deteriorates quickly. Once you've gone that far, common courtesy demands you have the path you have traveled thus far listed at the top. 

I'm clicking, I can highlight, but I can't navigate.

Sephora has this, but  the navigation isn't clickable. So if you just want to go back to face, well you're SOL and need to click the back button instead of what is clearly marked "Face.". See #1 in the image below.

 How simple is this? Common navigational courtesies like this should be law, like using a turn signal.

annoying complex setup

Then, #2, they have "Narrrow by Brand" and "Sort By".  Instead of keeping the same website structure they revert to terrible, awful drop down menus.

First, "Narrow By Brand" yes, very nice you let us do this. But why is it in a drop down menu instead of another drill down menu?  Why are you inconsistent Sephora?  Why?????

Then you have "Sort By."And there aren't even any compelling criteria. What if you don't know what brand you are looking for, you just want the highest customer rating makeup for eyes that is for oily skin, is oil free, and not tested on animals. Not going to happen.

Very impressive, we can narrow down by brand. 
But what if I like "gasp" two or more brands?

First I have to go to Drugstore.com to see the reviews and figure out if any are my skin type, then look on Drugstore.com and Amazon.com for reviews and ingredients, and last I have to go to LeapingBunny.com to see if it's tested on animals. Exhausting!


#3 if I click that I want to View All results, it will work for that page and all the other pages of the search I've just done.  However, if I make a new search all that data is lost and I'm looking at 12 results per page again until I go and select View All again. Unnecessarily evil!

This second 'search by brand' menu takes you off
your current search altogether, adding further aggravation and complexity.

And as if it weren't there already, you can choose by brand in the alternate, upper right drop down menu bar.  We understand that brands think they are important in the makeup world, but if I can get something with the same ingredients for 70% less, I'd rather get the cheaper one.  But how will we ever find out if you pigeon hole us into brands? 

So Sephora, how can you possibly place your name on a website like this? Is there any way to correct this?  What are the next steps?

I will make it easy on you.  First, go over to Zappos, Ebay, ebags, whoever, and hire their entire web development team.  Then make the browsing experience enjoyable for all of us, please!

Sephora's Great 8 Suggestions:

1. Your customers have accounts from orders, just use that to make it more customized. If we give you the info, store our skin type, age, gender, hair type (straight, or curly - and if curly, what type of curls from 2A - 4c?), natural hair color, if we dye our hair, etc, etc.  Keep all that info and you can use it to 'suggest' products to us on the margins, and to enhance our search experience.  If I am 60 and don't want to always see tiger striped eye makeup and the latest in glitter nail polish, let us "like" or "dislike" the little suggestions and you can learn about us (a la facebook ads). You get our free customer data! (just sayin) and we get a more relevant browsing experience.

2. If we want to see 5,000,000,000 results per page just remember that from one visit to the next, not just within one search.

3. Add these search criteria categories:

• Average Customer Review (can't believe you don't have that one.) 
• Skin type if applicable
• Coloring (warm, cool, neutral)
• Cruelty Free/Not Tested on Animals
• Ingredients (desired). If there is a new ingredient out there that we want to try in our makeup, let us search for it.
• Ingredients (undesired). If we have allergies or don't want something in our product, let us search for things that don't contain this ingredient.  The next few are ingredients that are common (infamous) enough to warrant their own categories. People can ignore them or sort by them. Or better yet choose this in their preferences for ALL FUTURE SEARCHES!
• Oil Free
• Paraben Free (haircare)
• Sulfate Free (haircare)

4.  Show us reviews or at least average ratings from other sites.  On a product detail page I should be able to see its rating on amazon, drugstore.com, makeupalley, as well as Sephora reviews.

5. A product comparison side by side would be nice.  Let us choose three different lipsticks and then compare them side by side.  Highlight the ingredient differences if we want. Let us, the consumer figure out what formulations work on our own skin. Let us educate ourselves and we will have a more democratic, equitable & progressive makeup industry at our beck and call, falling over themselves to do what the consumers want, not dictating to us what we need. You could change the industry instead of bowing to them.

6. Let us see the demographics (if shared) of other reviewers.  If I have dry skin I don't want to see the reviews of a moisturizing cream from oily-skinned individuals. Save other reviewers with similar classifications as myself (age, skin type) as Sephora Friends, and be alerted whenever they try something and write a review.

7. Please let us search by zip code for the nearest store, it's not that hard. Get with the times.

8. keep it FUN! It's MAKEUP!! If we want to spend 60 hours a week just browsing let us do it on your site. You'd rather be the website we all go to. We'd rather have a one-stop-browsing-shop.

There are many other things that you could do Sephora, to make your website better besides these  suggestions. But at least they are a start.  There are probably Sephora employees reading this and nodding, saying "I know, I know.." but somewhere, someone is holding up progress. Let's take it to the next level Sephora.  Turn your site intowhat it could and should be.  An online makeup mecca worthy of the Sephora brand.

This has been for your own good.

Sincerely,

this blogger

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Bissell: Fat, Bloated Back-Killers. You'd need one on every floor.

A quick few clicks and I have all I need to know.

If you're picking up a Bissell, expect it to be 22 lbs. Because that's how heavy almost all of them are.

The Heavy Duty Vacuum, the heavyweight champ weighs in at 35 lbs.!  Imagine toting that up and down the stairs.  These aren't the shampooers, these are just the plain old uprights.

To be fair, their PROLite is 'only' 16 lbs. Get me out of here!

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Dyson - let's get it over with already

Since we all want to compare every vacuum out there to a Dyson, let's look at their uprights.

DC28 Animal ($600.00): 21 lbs. - 245 watts
DC25 Animal ($550.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC25 All Floors ($500.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC24 Animal ($450.00): 12 lbs. - 115 watts
DC33 MultiFloor ($400.00): 18 lbs.  - 240 watts
DC35 MultiFloor Cordless ($300.00 - looks like an
overgrown leaf blower): 5 lbs. - Bingo! - 65 watts but can only run for 15 minutes. Darn.

The uprights pretty much all have wonderful telescoping hoses that can clean a whole flight of stairs, but that comes with added weight as we can see. They are gorgeous, they have a great website, fantastic reviews, and expensive photography, but they're heavy.

21 pounds?  You sure are gorgeous but you'll need to get rid of that extra weight.

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Dirt Devil

They offer 12 different varieties of upright vacs. Twelve!

I mean, you need three for a high, mid, and low range.  Then maybe some in-between.  Like Oreck, they had, what 6 which is plenty sufficient.  I hope I'm not going to compare everyone with Oreck now.

On to Dirt Devil. For a quick test of the water I usually will check out the reviews on Amazon. and D.D. has some low reviews out there:

Extreme Quick: 2/5
Featherlite Bagless: 2.5/5
Ultra Swivel Glide & Reaction: 3.5/5
Breeze Bagless, Optima Lightweight, Featherlite Bagged: 4/5

I'll look at the three that had 4 stars. The two, Optima isn't on their website.
"Featherlite" is 11lbs, "Breeze" is 13.15 (at least they're accurate). No Hepa filtration (the Featherlite has "Micro Fresh" Filtration, but they do have on-board tools (maybe that is the extra weight)). Not that impressed, let's find their best.

Sorting by price, their most expensive upright is the $90 Ultra Vision Turbo Vacuum. It has all the bells and whistles, including actual Hepa filters, and weighs in at a whopping 19 lbs! Do they expect people to carry that up and down the stairs?

Think of all the Chiropractor visits!

Sorry, but your lackluster reviews and lack of any attempt to make vacuums lighter in the world we live in gives you a big Thumbs Down. Dirt Devil seems like the cheap vacuum you get that will last a good 3 years.

Maybe if you cared as much about product development as social media your uprights would be under 10 lbs.

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Oreck

Oh Oreck.

You almost had me.

Shopping the other day and happened by an Oreck shop.  Since I am fastidiously researching for this Vac Series, I stopped in to see what they had to offer.  The saleswoman was just wonderful.  The showroom had all their models out and waiting for you to try on wood, carpet, dirt, and their own heaps of "pet hair".  The vacs were lightweight, and if you bring in your old clunker vac you get $50 off a new one!  The problem here is that none of them had a hose, so you need another vac to do that part. But, as the saleswoman explained, that is why they can make their powerful vacs so lightweight. This changes everything.

Oreck's Pros:

• Actual stores
• Once you buy, you can bring it back once a year for 10 years and they'll replace whatever it needs and keep it running for you.
• Uses bags so cleanup is easy (see image on direct suction below)
• $$$ when you trade in your old vac
• Relatively inexpensive, you can get a really good one for around $200 (I mean $150 if you have a trade in)
• Hepa Filtration
• Looooong 35ft cords
• Eco friendly Bright LED lights
• Most models between 7 - 9 lbs!
• Last for years

 Oreck's Cons:

• They're getting better, but they still look like every vacuum you've seen in a hotel 
• No hose, need a separate vac for that
• Oreck sounds like Ogre and Shrek and is awkward to say.  "Yes, I have an Oreck Vacuum. I live in Britain, now lets go have some tea, shall we?"  
• Um...

As weird as it sounds, I might be less suspicious if it cost $800. Why is it so good and so cheap?  How can they make money when they last that long and are $200-$300 and Dysons cost $600? I know there is a marketing theory that applies here.

At this point it comes to do you want a hose or not, and do you mind having to change a bag (although it's touted as quick and easy, it still needs to be done bagless or not). But I think we have a contender here. They come in lots of different color combinations, some more modern than others.

If I would have had my old vac in the car I would have been sorely tempted to trade it in right then and there.  Not sure what I would have done.

Pieces

The Iceberg killed Titanic
Strewn 'cross the ocean floor
But what happened to bunny
That turned her into gore?

A polished feat of marvel
For wealth and the well-heeled
England, Ireland, New York bound
Is now a debris field

Her maiden voyage started
And cut short by the smack
In 70 years they found her front
Days later found her back

A bunny borne but weeks ago
Nestled in mother's womb
Life all ahead but now is dead
A trash can now her tomb

Bun's first peek out the burrow
Met Kittens unrestrained
And hours later I found her
In pieces more than twain

One leg, one leg, one body
Here lies the bunny dead
One leg, one leg, one body
I cannot find the head

~ RIP little bunny

Vacuum Cleaner Series: Kirby

C'mon, let me in your house to try and convince you to buy.

Kirby. I'm starting with Kirby because my mom got one in the 70's. I grew up with Kirby. In fact, she only replaced it around 2008 with the Dyson Animal, the purple one.  Let's say it cost $700 back then, pretty good investment, what $30 a year for the thing.  Kirby thinks themselves as the high end of vacs, the Tiffany in a sea of Kmarts.  And while they may be all they're cracked up to be, you and I will never know because none of their models are sold online. You must contact a dealer who will then schedule an appointment for them to come to your house.  They will let you try it, they might even shampoo a room for you while you watch. Yes, they last a long time, but I can't possibly recommend them above others due to no specs being online. How a company can operate like this I do not know.

Hey Kirby, if you're trying to keep your secrets from their competitors, it's also keeping it a secret from me, a potential 2nd generation customer.  At least list the current models on your website, and some basic features of them. I don't buy anything over $100 without researching the crap out of it online first. So you're not even a contender.

While we're at it, want some Encyclopedias?

Vacuum Cleaner Series: The problem with Vacuums

Clunky, heavy, loud, annoying.  If anything can make cleaning less appealing it is the common household vacuum cleaner. Dusting is easy, just spray and wipe.  Sweeping and then mopping the kitchen floor? I have no problem there. But when it is time to go into the closet and dig out the prehistoric behemoths that inhabit each floor of my house (yes I have two, more on that later), it fills my soul with dread.

Why the inescapable feeling of being lead to my doom?  The answer is poor design. Today marks a day where I will add a new keyword to my blog: awful. Vacuums are awful, everyone knows it, but I'm going to try and quantify why in my Vacuum Cleaner Series.  The ambition here is to examine a Vac company until most of them are exhausted, and then at the end proclaim that either yes, advances have been made, or that no, there is no hope despite all the industry hype.

Hey, that looks familiar.Did it even change at all?
Who could guess that 103 years later it would still suck?

Maybe I'll look in-depth at features such as the inner workings of Hepa filtration and retractable cords, but for the most part this will merely examine the modern vacuums of today through layman's eyes.  I intend to determine if any vacs are worthy per my criteria as follows:

THE LIST - is it too much to ask?

• Weight. This oft overlooked aspect of the vac is, in my opinion the most important aspect.  So what if it can suck your pets into it from the other room if it can't perform this basic of requirements.  Be Light.  Be transportable. If I want to vacuum my entire house in 20 minutes because company is on its way, I should be able to do that without back pain the next day from a 20 lb vacuum. 
• Falling over. This happens all the time. Today might be the day I spend a good solid 30 minutes just on one room with the vac.  I have my upright with its hose attachment, so I get out the hose and do my baseboards, pulling the rest of the vac with me as I go. But the upright portion falls over. Again, and again.  Why isn't it stable, especially since it weighs so much? This has happened with any upright I've ever used with a hose. 
• The cord situation. Vacuuming itself is drudgery. But ad to that the wrapping and unwrapping of the cord before and after every episode and it makes me want to live in a hut with dirt floors. At least you don't have to wrap and unwrap a cord with a broom. Retractable cords end up breaking and you have to wrap it anyway. And the entire time you vacuum, while your one hand is torqued to push and pull & your back is bent over, your other hand is the designated cord corraller. Woe to those who run over the cord with the vac, it usually chews it up. And once you reach the end of your cord leash, you need to walk the whole way back to unplug it, then plug it in somewhere closer to finish the job. 
• Emptying. Some people prefer bags, some bagless. Whatever it is, make it simple and not messy. 
• Hepa Filters. Shouldn't they be in all vacuums by now?
• Profile. It should be low so you can go under the furniture.
• Loudness.  Can it be toned down a bit?
• Suction. It should suck well, not badly.  It should pick up that piece of lint on the floor without me going over it 100 times.

Ballet Stretching

There was a young dancer from Surrey
Who tried to improve in a hurry
Leaned on her kneecap
Pushed hard till it snapped
And now she's trussed up in a gurney

Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten

Frugal yet voracious readers will scour books and magazines for any hint of a Books to Read list so they can add it to their ever revolving que.  Such readers may want a Kindle, but books are all $10 on a Kindle and free at the library. Kindlelessness aside, I  found Peter Whiffle (book) by Carl Van Vechten (author) in one such recommended list somewhere within the last 3 years. I therefore thought it would be a typically enjoyable read.  Not so.  It was to be so entertaining I reread parts of it which I never do, and have found myself thinking of it often since.

There are schools of thought, ways of looking at life, etc. Karl Marx has Marxism. Ayn Rand has Objectivism.  Karl Van Vechten, surely then should have some -ism associated with his work Peter Whiffle, but upon a terse search I came up with nothing from the internet. Except Gay Writers. Which doesn't exactly help to categorize him, but perhaps he transcends categorization. Vechtenism is the belief in the power of the individual. Not as a means to anything, but as a reason to exist as an individual, living the life one desires to live. His story of Peter documents Peter from a younger man who dressed fastidiously, living paycheck to paycheck in consequence, to a middle aged man flush with a large inheritance but living in rags and consorting with the lowest wretches in NYC. Peter does not ask anything from anyone except to live life as he wants to. He travels, falls in and out of love, and always, the point is to satisfy his craving for new experiences and life.  Just to follow where his human desires go, (and for him) always collecting information for a potential book to write later on.  Peter never writes the book, but Carl writes it, and through his narrative and relatively typical life (somewhere between 'normal' and how Peter lives) we find out about Peter's journey.  It seems like Siddhartha, the quest of ultimate peace and Seinfeld, a story about nothing combined. It is a delight to read, and Peter extends our literary pleasure by mentioning many books people ought to read.

Before returning Peter to the library I flipped through all the pages with a pad of paper because and I wanted to add those books also to my Books to Read list.

Two full notebook pages, 6 photocopies, and extensive follow up searching via google later (sometimes he mentions authors, sometimes titles), I find myself able to make this list but I feel the need to also post it online. Authors and a brief description are listed unless the fictional Peter Whiffle sought fit to mention specific works.

• Théophile Gautier (French poet & writer)
• Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (French novelist & short story writer)
• Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (French novelist)
• Oscar Wilde (Irish poet & writer)
• Henry James (American writer)
• Thomas Hardy (English poet & writer)
• Sir Henry Rider Haggard (English writer)
• Lavengro by George Borrow
• Roderick Hudson by Henry James
• Dickens (c'mon, you know him)
• Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian author/existentialism)
• The Way of all Flesh by Samuel Butler: A unique and ultimately optimistic turn on the Great Expectations theme.
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (American writer/Naturalism)
• The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen 
• David Belasco (American playwright)
•  more to come? If i can find the other papers and photocopies?
  

He also mentions many artists, actors, and other influencial people within the book. I will not attempt to list these as well, but two of these are:

• Jan Baptist van Helmont, a Flemish chemist
• Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune specifically by Claude-Achille Debussy, the French composer  

He also goes into the merits of cats at length. I will endeavor to post it but suffice it to say it almost, almost comes close to doing cats full justice.

Bass Bamboo Body Brush

Soft skin can now be yours by adding an enjoyable and guiltless item to your shower.  No, you do not have to buy those overpriced plutonium glowing plastic balls of netting that fall apart within months.  No, you don't have to buy expensive exfoliating scrub for your face and body. The first is dyed and biodegrades, like, never.  The second comes in a plastic dispenser you might be able to recycle, at the expense of making it, shipping it, marketing it, and probably testing it on animals before all that. You can get plastic back scrubbing brushes from Walmart as I have done (after trying and becoming annoyed with the first two) but after their Made in China grandeur renders them broken and useless, you begin to look elsewhere. Moisturizing body creams are all well and good, but they don't exfoliate. Loofah sponges are eco-friendly but disintegrate faster than the plastic colored ones, leaving little oatmeal-like pellets all over the shower.

I happened on it by chance, but it is one of those encounters I must document. It is a bamboo body brush by Bass. These images are horrible but the brush is good. Perhaps I will even take pictures of mine, it is really a beaut.

Ok so it was something like $18 but it is LONG, you can wash your whole back with it without twisting about. Made entirely of bamboo it is eco friendly (no boars were harmed in the making) and yes it's gorgeous.  Mine has contrasting shades of light and darker bamboo (stained perhaps? care to think not) and it of course has a nice loop of rope at the end you can hang from whatever hook or protrusion you have.




Bass Brush No. 81

Bass Brush Logo

terrible image from Bass' website.

http://www.thehairdoccompany.com

http://www.webvitamins.com/product.aspx?id=21861

As of this posting, the above links worked.

If you're looking for a good quality brush this is it.  Plush, easy to handle, and with daily use you'll have smooth soft hands, feet and elbows.

Say goodbye to those poufs!  [And good riddance.]

Last Night (actually last August on one of those frigid nights)

Things to know:

1. Kittens loves Alley

2. Alley loves her Soccer Ball

3. Sophie is scared of Alley

4. Alley doesn't like Sophie either

5. But Sophie loves to cuddle

The goal here for myself as a human is to enjoy the comfort/warmth of cats in the winter. And of course to sleep. Hubby was on a trip so I had the bed and cats to myself.  The cats have different goals however, far beyond human comprehension.

 (10pm)
 A little reading before bed.

(10:15pm)
Kittens sat between me and the book,
forcing me to hold the book high in order to read it.

 (11pm)
 Alley and Sophie both attempt to come into
the bedroom, high alert, both abort.

 
(11:30)
 Kittens finally gets off, allowing me
to stretch out and enjoy the bed.

 (midnight)
 Sophie makes a second attempt to jump on the bed.
Succeeds and begins to cuddle.

 
(12:30am)
Alley jumps on bed with pink soccer ball.
 Sophie flees.

 

(12:30 – 12:45)
Alley enjoys playing soccer. 

 

(12:46)

Alley passes out.

(1am)
 Kittens decide they are cold;

commence deep snuggle mode.

 (4am)
 Sophie gets on bed a third time,
and she begins to cuddle.

Oh Sophie!
Epic snuggling, purrs, licks, drooling, cannot ignore.

(4:30)
 Sophie falls asleep in my arms.
Kittens take the other pillow.

 (4:45am)
Sophie gets up and leaves,
Alley decides to snuggle, Kittens use this
to their advantage to force me further off the pillow.

(7am)
Alarm wakes me up. I have a soccer ball.

Jimmy's Cookies, Fairlawn NJ. The Alpha & Omega of Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone goes through milestones. Some can alter your view of the world, affecting your thoughts and actions from that moment on. 
This is not one of these.

Jimmy's Gourmet Cookies.

This milestone is baked, round, and contains delicious chocolate chunks.  But it is a milestone never the less.  B.C. became Before Cookies & every day since then has been a little bit brighter and lighter (unless you are my bathroom scale).

I have never blogged, but these cookies have compelled me to do so. I have never bought tubs of cookies in quantities over 3 before, but these cookies have the power. They're great with milk, great without milk. Perfect for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a late-night snack. But mostly, they're good in great, heaping quantities. 

Had to buy 4 at once. 
No, I don't have a problem.

Not bad for you!  An
excuse to eat more!

 Here are the ingredients in case you can't see:  Unbleached wheat flour, Semi-Sweet Chocolate, Sugar, Brown Sugar, Liquid Soybean Oil, Palm Oil, Egg Whites, Water, Soybean Lecithin, Baking Soda, Vegetable Mono and Diglycerides, Natural Flavor, Pure Vanilla Extract, Salt, Anatto. May contain traces of nuts or peanuts.  Contains: Wheat, Eggs, Milk, Soy.

Wait! Who ate my cookies? 
Oh, right, I did. 

So come on, they're even good for you?  Maybe I'll have another one.  Whole Wheat flour is much healthier than the bleached kind.  But somehow it is smooth and delicious like cookies you'd only expect from grandma's kitchen.  They are soft and chewy, but they don't fold in half when you pick them up. The chocolate is not too sweet or bitter (I love dark, dark chocolate, hubby likes milk chocolate) but we both agree the chocolate chips are amazing.  And soybean oil is so healthy and good for you.

Unless of course you eat 5-10 per day.  Which I did for quite a while, utterly abandoning any moderation in favor of experiencing the deliciousness at home, at work and in the car. 5 lbs later, I've decided it's time to try and cut back.  So now three a day is my max.

I did also try their oatmeal raisin, and while I wish i could also give it 5 stars, those were kind of dry.I do like oatmeal raisin cookies, so this was disappointing, but not enough that i couldn't finish that carton in less than a week.

Their website was not hard to find <http://www.jimmyscookies.net/> but it is very modest, unassuming, and fits perfectly in every way with the way I imagined the company to be.  They do offer wholesale inquiries, so I might take advantage of that. In conclusion, try these cookies.