Michelle Heart’s Favorite Things; A 2016 Gift Guide

I cannot stop telling my friends about this facial cleanser! My running group meets at The Village, so I walk past Lush at least once a week but I never went inside until my mom was in town a few weeks ago.  One of their team members showed us a demo of how to use their clay based cleansers and I fell in love with the Buche de Noel one!

Named after a traditional French Christmas desert, this cleanser is made with all natural fair trade ingredients like ground almonds, fruits, cocoa butter and the featured ingredient, holiday Brandy! It doesn't dry your skin out the way traditional soaps do and it still exfoliates without causing micro tears on your face like most exfoliators with those little beads in it do!

I've been using Buche De Noel for a few weeks and my skin has never felt so soft! Plus it's helped control my acne as well.

I remember seeing my friend Kimberly tagged in a photo where it looked like she was coloring her own Scentsy warmer and I just had to know more!  Turns out Scentsy is now making an "adult coloring" type of warmer! The Reimagine warmer features beautiful black and white outlines of butterflies and flowers for you to make your own.  It's laid out exactly like one of the adult coloring books you see at Barnes and Nobel.

You use Sharpie markers to color it in and if you want to change up the colors for a different season or accidentally color outside the lines, it comes clean with a little bit of rubbing alcohol.

It's no secret that I like to run.  It's also no secret that after a brief medical incident during one of my runs in early January, my boyfriend really hates that I normally don't take my ID or phone with me when I run.  I've always been a minimalist runner and even though I had a small personal item belt that I could stuff my phone, keys and ID in, I didn't like wearing it because it would flip over and bounce up and down on my hips when I run. The band also seemed to never hold the position I adjusted it to.

Then I found Flip Belt! This belt lays completely flat around your waist and even though it doesn't look use, can stretch to fit everything from your wallet to an iPhone 7+ without feeling bulky.  The fabric is really light and when I'm wearing it, I don't even know it's there!

Even if you're not a runner, this item is awesome for events like The Boise Music Festival! Just slip it on before you leave the house and you won't have to worry about dragging around a purse all day.  It's easy to hide it underneath a long flow shirt too!

Do you spend a lot of time outdoors in the winter?  I'm a weirdo and the cold is my favorite weather to run in, but it's brutal on my lips.  They get so flaky and gross.  You may have the same problem if you love to ski or snowboard.  If you have a love of matte color lipsticks like me, you know that this is no bueno!

That's why I'm so happy I stumbled across the lip scrubs at Lush while I was shopping with my mom.  You just  rub on a little of this sugar based scrub and it'll make your lips a fresh canvas for that Kylie Lip Kit you won during KISSmas.  Put on too much? The way to deal with excess scrub is to lick it off! It tastes like candy!

Ok, I'll be honest, I haven't used this product myself yet.  I'm just really hoping that someone gets it for me for Christmas.  I have an old Vera Bradley backpack that I bought about seven years ago that's finally on it's last legs. It's survived final college semester, move to Boise, being my carry on for every flight I've taken in the last seven years and still comes to work with me daily.  Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to last must longer.  The fabric on the straps started to rip this year and the plastic used to shape it started poking out as a result.

That's why I can't wait to get my hands on my new Vera backpack! Vera Bradley's done a ton of upgrades to their backpack since I bought mine.  It now has a separate laptop compartment, two front pockets, two side pockets and a huge inside compartment for everything you could possibly need.  And if it gets dirty? The cotton fabric cleans up like brand new after a cold gentle cycle in your washer.