They never listen. Even when I say there are a galactically high percentage of posts on my blog about killing my husband, eating random non-USDA animals, or how to put together an awesome outfit for when an asteroid hits the planet, people keep seeing my blog and thinking, “Hey, you have a blog! Would you like to try out our product?”

Let me be the first to say, I love free stuff. I will try out your product no matter what it does, even if it’s a marinade kit for making jerky out of your own family members. But I don’t think the person making the offer has always thought through the ramifications of sending me stuff and giving me free rein to tell the world what I think of it. Like the time Vicks sent me a thermometer and I became convinced it was a tiny vibrator, and therefore had to convince others that it looked like a tiny vibrator… through this blog.

What’s really great is when I’m offered free products but they’re things that I would never otherwise use and so I have to put on my imagination hat and pretend that people who really do care about these things might like them or dislike them. Case in point: the box of beauty products that showed up at my house.

Now, when most people think of beauty products, they’re thinking of frou-frou things like eyebrow dye or face creams that contain microscopic shards of actual diamonds to make your face glow. No, for me, beauty products involve anything with two steps, a flowery smell, or a tiny jar. And I’m positively allergic to them (not really, I’m just allergic to the thought of using them).

But the fine folks at Somaluxe sent me some stuff to try, and I have to admit that not all of it sucked. Let’s get the sucky stuff out of the way first:

One product called Lip Rescue actually had me excited for a minute. Not only is it NOT in a jar small enough to hold exactly one baby tooth (a typical problem with lip products… there’s never enough of it, and you lose it when you drop it down in the pocket of your cargo shorts), I love any product that tells you right there in the name that this is going to pull you back from the brink like some kind of search party, lowering themselves in a human chain off the cliff face to get to you. Basically, my personal concept of beauty needs “rescuing” at all times, so it’s like it was made for me.

Unfortunately, I’ve figured out that this product is unadulterated, pharmaceutical-grade cocoa butter. It took me a minute to figure out what that horrible smell was that seemed to be following me from room to room, and by the time I realized it was the Lip Rescue I’d just tried, it was too late to make it go away. It smelled and tasted like I’d just done body shots off a Hawaiian Tropic bikini model.

I never did get to try the Redness Repair because a) I’m not red and b) I already got burned by the Lip Rescue aroma, there was no way I was putting anything that smelled like this on my body and walking around with it. Remember, I’m weird… you might actually enjoy smelling like an entire bouquet of wildflowers, but I just keep thinking I’ve left a household chemical lying around with the top off.

The Skin & Nail treatment also seemed like it was made for me, and not just because I own both skin and nails. It smells like Play Doh, and who wouldn’t love to walk around making other people think you’d just spent a solid hour playing with Play Doh? It’s like a constant “in your face” to the rest of your co-workers: “Oh, you were filing last year’s taxes and writing up the report for the shareholders? Yeah, I’ve been playing with the Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop and cutting the little people’s Play Doh hair with plastic scissors.”

Now, before you think I’m just cracking on this company, some of the products were fun. The shampoo and conditioner are lime flavored and coconut flavored, respectively. The only drawback there is that I shouldn’t have any products in my hands at 5am that make me think I need some rum. Nine AM is gonna be ugly if I latch onto that thought and run with it.

(WAIT! BRAIN FART! I TAKE IT BACK! As I’m sitting here typing this, I kept having to stop because I got bitten by bugs last night all over my feet. I tried the Redness Repair on my bug bites, and it seems to be working. It could be placebo effect brought on by the fact that I have yet to say anything really supportive of these products–like beauty product survivor guilt–but I don’t think placebo effect is supposed to make your skin tingle. I’ll keep you posted.)

Finally, the last product is actually pretty awesome, even for a best-face-forward underachiever like me. It’s a mud mask type deal made by Citrus Clear, but it does incredible things to blackheads. It’s so great at its job, in fact, that I sneak up on family members who don’t want to wear mud mask and swipe it on their noses, promising them that it’s life changing. So far, I’ve managed to nab my husband and both kids with it, but I have plans to get the UPS lady the next time she’s unloading something heavy in our driveway. Despite my family’s initial protests, there’s a suspiciously high amount of the product missing, which leads me to believe I’ve managed to convert them through skin care Stockholm Syndrome. They’ve figured out that they can just shut up and use the product, or I can leap over the banister like a cosmetics ninja and attack them with it.

(BRAIN FART THE SECOND! The Redness Repair actually really worked on the bug bites. I still feel them and they’re kind of annoying, but I no longer want to dig at them with a cheese grater. I’m putting this jar in the camping stuff right now!)