Image via Walgreens

I tend to judge a line overall on the strength of its cleanser and, so far, it's a rule of thumb that has served me well. After all, if you can't get something as basic as the cleanser right, why should I trust you with my zit zapping or to combat the immortal foe (The Crevice) that lives in the middle of my forehead? I had such amazing results with Walgreen's Yes To Carrots that I couldn't resist sampling some of their European Beauty Collection, specifically Ocean Biotechnologie's Spa Aquatique Regenerating Cleansing Milk.

There's nothing like the canned environment of an airplane to do a wallop on your complexion, but I just came off of a ten day bi-coastal tour, jumping from super-humid Southern Florida and ultra-dry Las Vegas and man, my skin is a wreck. I still haven't entirely unpacked but the worst luggage is the dark bags I'm carting around under my eyes! Time to do a little Drugstore Cowgirl showdown!

First up: I've been seeing Olay's Definity Eye Illuminator everywhere and hells yes, I'm not one to back down from a trend. The product has a pearly, light-reflecting lotion that's swirled in with a silicone gel and looks super Star Trekky in the package. I hooked into the vortex of potential gorgeousness and hit a black hole. Sadly, after a week, the product was starting to sting when I applied, but the killing blow was when I noticed that my fine lines were worse. What's more, it seems that something in the product was clogging those super small pores near my eyes, giving me the pebbly skin that I've worked so hard to avoid. Eeesh. I'm really surprised, because this is the first clunker I've tested in the usually reliable and affordable Olay Definity line, although at the $26 price point, one has to wonder if it's really a Drugstore Cowgirl choice anyway, considering that you could get Clinique's All About Eyes for about the same price (although, granted, half as much product).

I don't know what I was expecting when I saddled up the Olay Regenerist 14 Day Skin Intervention. Teary-eyed relatives telling me that they know I've been going into the bathroom to secretly extract blackheads from my pores? My aesthetician reminding me that I swore I'd come in monthly for facials and yet...more broken promises. The girl at Sephora talking about the time that I rattled off 18 different e-mail addresses to make sure that I got my Beauty Insider points for my ridiculously large purchase (sorry, when you have to stock up on Fekkai and Urban Decay, some bonus freebies lessen the sticker shock). Instead, I got a very demure little box filled with 14 little tubes all standing at attention. The first seven were supposed to ignite my cellular regeneration (ooooh!) while the second seven tubes were to polish away my wrinkles. Sadly, Dr. Drew was not on the box.

Each little tube contains plenty of goop for your face and neck, and I managed to squeeze out an extra dollop to apply to the back of my right hand for comparison purposes. Both phases contain ingredients that Product Fiends love: niacinamide, vitamin E, and green tea, and at the end of Day 14, I looked down at the back of both of my hands and can definitively say that Ms. Righty had traveled back in time by at least 25 months, give or take a few weeks. Great, right?

You know how you fall in love with a product and then it does you wrong and you feel all sorts of betrayed? I'll never forget the time that Perricone's expensive eye goop gave me an eyelid zit. Up until that time, whenever I said the name "Dr. Perricone" it was almost like saying a prayer, but post- eyelid zit, I lost all of my reverence for the man. And so it is with the Olay Quench situation. I've been using it regularly, but on the first sunny day of spring, I was sitting in the drive-through line at Starbucks and suddenly noticed that my arm was lit up like a mofo disco ball. Fellow Fiends, please understand that I feel the only folks who should be donning any kind of visible illumination like body glitter on a daily basis are the cage dancers at the Rum Jungle. Unless you work at a rave, obvious sparkles in the office set the totally wrong image. Maybe I have a stick up my butt? Whatever, but I'm taken very seriously at work.

Image via Olay

I'm so jaded, y'all, that anything new and fancy and sparkly just makes me roll my eyes and sigh, which is exactly what I did when I got the Olay Body Quench Mousse in my hot little hands. Seriously, sometimes Olay tries a little too hard, you know? Plus, the fact that they're buying into the green tea thing doesn't make me trust that the mousse isn't a gimmick. But I gave it a whirl. I have a problem with the stuff you put in your hair (or your mouth), where I tend to go a little apeshit, so naturally, I didn't heed the warning on the label that states "a little goes a long way". Hells to the yes it does. I blooped out several dots on my forearm and had more than enough to cover, well, my entire body.  Did I mention I have a problem following directions?

Image via Drugstore.com

It has been so long since my legs have been exposed to light that they now glow in the dark from their winter white pallor. I wouldn't be caught dead in a cancer-o-rama (a.k.a. tanning bed), which means like Obi-Wan Kenobi, self-tanners are my only hope.

Erin had such brave face despite having to walk around with noticeable self-tanning streakage so I was super nervous to test anything on my freshly-waxed and exfoliated calves. Just like Erin, I've been in love with Jergens Natural Glow because it's such a gradual layering of passable color that I just simply don't screw anything up. However, with the onset of capri season upon me, I grabbed the Natural Glow Express by accident. This stuff speeds up the process, giving you the color you crave in a mere three days rather than a whole week.