Arbonne Giveaway and Review

I love Arbonne, as in LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. I was introduced to their products a few years ago when an old co-worker of mine hosted an Arbonne party at work. I was instantly hooked, as we got to try out everything, which was so much fun. What I loved most about Arbonne was that their products were made from high quality ingredients. In fact, Arbonne products are made from natural herbal and botanical ingredients. I hate putting anything harsh or artificial on my face, as I have an auto-immune skin disease called Rosacea, which causes extreme redness, and I have Blepheritis, which causes my eyelids to be chronically inflamed and causes my eyelashes to fall out. Plus, I have a connective tissue disease that causes a loss of collagen in my skin. My skin is very sensitive, and of all the products I’ve ever tested on it, Arbonne truly works the best. I’ve bought everything from their entire RE9 skin care line, various other lotions, sugar scrub, Intelligence exfoliating masque, and their plumping lip gloss. When I found out that an Arbonne consultant was willing to send me Arbonne’s Makeup Primer to review for this blog, I was thrilled. Not only have I not tried out this product yet, but I haven’t been able to purchase any Arboone products for the past since, since I am unemployed and feel guilty whenever I spend any money. So, needless to say, I was very grateful for the opportunity.

This primer is applied before you put on your make up, in order to smooth the appearance of your skin. It is supposed to create a flawless canvas that holds your makeup in place all day. After my first use, I instantly noticed that my skin felt like silk. Not only did it go on smooth, but it doesn’t have any scent, which I love, as I currently use another high-end primer and it stinks. I absolutely love how Arbonne’s primer glides on my skin. I don’t use liquid makeup, just powder, and I can honestly tell you that this primer really does diminish the appearance of wrinkles, fine lines, pores and other imperfections. I even took a picture of my bare face that first day, while wearing the primer (and no makeup, yikes!) on the right side only. If you look at my left side, where I’ve circled my wrinkles, you can tell an instant difference when you compare it to the right side of my face. Had I thought to take a picture in full makeup, you would have been amazed at the transformation of my skin.

At age 40, I need all the extra help I can get to stay looking younger than I am. For the past few weeks, I have been using this primer before I apply my makeup. This vitamin-rich makeup primer left my skin smooth, clean and blemish free. It didn’t irritate my eyes or skin one bit, as I knew it wouldn’t. Arbonne’s makeup primer is hands down the best primer I have ever used. I am throwing out my other stinky primer and will cry the day my Arbonne primer runs out. Hopefully, I will have a job by then, and can become a preferred client again.

About Arbonne:

Arbonne was born in 1980 and it began with a simple formula: Develop and distribute skin care products that are pure, safe, beneficial and effective. Now, 30 years later, Arbonne International has grown from a skin care line – to include color, aromatherapy, nutrition and weight loss products – and continues the tradition of producing products that are unparalleled in quality, safety, value, benefits and results. The wonderful thing about Arbonne is that it’s not just about great products; it’s also about great people.

Arbonne’s proprietary formulas are formulated in Switzerland, and made in the United States. All of Arbonne’s products are:

• Botanically Based
• pH Correct
• Hypoallergenic
• Dermatoligist Tested
• Never Tested on Animals
• Formulated without animal products or by products
• Formulated without mineral oil
• Formulated without dyes of chemical fragrances

Ashely also sent me a RE9 Advanced Sample pack. I’ve never used the RE9 Advanced products, just the old RE line, which I dearly loved using. I noticed a difference in the new and improved RE9 line, and saw visible effects in my skin as well. My skin has never looked more clear or brighter! I have good news if you are interested in this product, as she is offering her customers $100 off complete Arbonne RE9 Advanced Anti-Aging Skin Care Sets right now. This $100 off offer ends April 15th.

RE9 Advanced by Arbonne is the best anti-aging system on the market. It contains 9 Anti-Aging Elements and is clinically proven to start working in 24 hours to dramatically diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. The set retails for $323.00… that’s over $100 in savings. The set includes a wash, toner, day cream, serum, eye cream, night cream, and free neck cream. Ask Ashely to send you a free 5 day sample today.

To learn more about this special offer, or to place an order for Arbonne products, visit Ashely Stone’s website, or call in your orders at 502-494-9479, or you can even email Ashley directly at ashleystone@insightbb.com.

If you are interested in ordering Arbonne products at a discount, click here to “Join Arbonne” and for $29 you will get 20% off every product in the catalogue by becoming a “Preferred Client.” If your first order is over $150 retail, you will be able to choose any product in Arbonne’s catalogue for free!

ARBONNE GIVEAWAY – 1 WINNERS WILL RECEIVE A BOTTLE OF MAKEUP PRIMER

RULES:

**Open to U.S., Canadian, U.K. and Australian residents only.

**No P.O. boxes, please.

**Must include your email in your comment, unless you signed in to leave a comment with your “real” email.

**All comments must be separate to count as separate entries. For example, if you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, leave 2 comments, one with your Facebook name, and one with your Twitter name. Or, if you posted about the giveaway on your blog, leave 5 comments, all with the link to your giveaway.

**Please read the additional rules here.

HOW TO ENTER:

**Mandatory Entry: Visit AshleyStone.MyArbonne.com or Ashely’s blog, 2ManyPronouns.blogspot.com, and leave me a comment telling me telling me something fun or interesting about her or the products she sells.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Becoming a fan of Ashley Stone, Independent Consultant with Arbonne International on Facebook.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Facebook. Make sure to leave your Facebook name in your comment.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Facebook and share a link on your wall with the following comment I entered The Girl from the Ghetto’s Arbonne giveaway here http://bit.ly/eHHTxx. Make sure to leave a comment below with a link to your Facebook profile or with your Facebook name.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow @AshleyBStone on Twitter. Make sure to leave your @Twitter name in your comment.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter. Make sure to leave your @Twitter name in your comment.

+1  MORE ENTRY: Follow me on Twitter and tweet the following RT @NerdGirlBlogger I entered the @AshelyBStone Arbonne #giveaway here http://bit.ly/eHHTxx. You can tweet 4x a day (Once every 6 hours) for even more chances to win. Make sure to leave a link to your tweet in a comment below.

+1 MORE ENTRY: Subscribe to my blog via email or Feedburner.

+1 MORE ENTRY: Enter one of my other giveaways and tell me which one you entered.

+1 MORE ENTRY: Comment here and tell me why you need to win this giveaway! Do you love Arbonne products, have the need for a make up primer? Or, do you just love winning free stuff?

+5 MORE ENTRIES: Write about this giveaway on your own blog as a separate blog post. Make sure to post a link to this giveaway, as well as a link to my main page, http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com. And, don’t forget to leave me 5 copies of your link via comment here.

Contest ends Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at midnight. Good luck to you all!

It’s The End Of The World As I Know It (And I Feel Fine)

First, let me put you in the mood with this song that inspired this blog post.

Does anyone else out there wish that life could be a little bit more easier?  I know I do.  I’m trying to be positive in my life.  I can’t manage it every day, but I try.  At least last night I got home from a very nice charity event that I volunteered to work to help sick kids, which always puts my own problems into perspective.  I just keep telling myself hey, at least you lost some weight girl, be happy about that!

I’ve had the busiest month I’ve had in a long, long time.  I’ve been dealing with all sorts of problems and issues, such as spending over six hours writing letters and making phone calls to Mayo Clinic, my insurance company, a national patient advocate group, and my old employer  in the hopes that SOMEONE will correct the large bill Mayo sent to me in error.  Even though I have the proof my insurance paid for my tests, they won’t stop billing me and is has been going on since May.  I’m so tired of going back and forth with them, so please keep your fingers crossed for me.

At least I also got something fun, a new king bedroom set.  I haven’t ever slept this good, and hubby and I couldn’t be happier.  I got the best deal in the world, and I should hope so, as I had been looking for a new king bed for over two years.  The only unhappy person is Beatrice, who is having a hard time jumping up on the bed due to her extra-large size and short legs.  Poor Bea.

Then, there was the three hours I spent contacting various individuals in government and media because we unemployed citizens of Michigan have to put resumes online at a certain website, and all of a sudden I am getting spammed like crazy for job adds, training, etc.  So, people are accessing my personal information that I’m forced to give out, and it pisses me off.  I haven’t heard back from anyone yet, but when I do I’ll let you know.  I really don’t want people doing this to me,  as I already get over fifty spam emails a day from this blog email account.  I get hundreds of emails a day and now all these extra spam emails have put me over the edge.

I have been busy with shopping and can proudly say that I am officially done with my Christmas shopping and every present has been wrapped since Monday afternoon.  I have been doing most of my shopping online for years now, and I’ll never be one of those Black Friday lady shoppers who goes out to Kohl’s at 5 am.  The online deals rock, and my best deal was 65% off of my entire Arbonne order … I just had to order at 2 am to get her Black Friday deal.  I’m not usually a fancy face product person, heck, I still use Cover Girl powder, but because of my evil Rosacea I have to use the RE9 product line which is expensive, so 65% off was a miracle and I’m so appreciative of her doing that for her customers.

I’ve also been doing a lot of volunteer work and just this week I went shopping for toys for needy kids, worked the charity event last night, as well as stuffed about a thousand envelopes for ten hours at home within twenty-four hours.   Next Saturday I get to be the photographer (For free, but still, it is one step closer to my dream of having my own photography business) for a charity Christmas Party.  I also worked at the school library today, and the librarian let me decorate for Christmas, which is always fun.

And, moving on to the crappy health stuff:

My right eye is getting smaller.  I’ve noticed it since Christmas of last year, but I just wrote it off to me being paranoid about one more heath thing.  I went to the eye doctor about five weeks ago because my floaters were getting worse, and all of a sudden I can’t see things from the right side, which causes me to get into near car accidents and near cart crashes at the grocery store.  My eye doctor noticed it, sent me to an eye surgeon, who thought it was probably due to Graves Disease.  My Endocrinologist redid all of my tests, and it isn’t Graves, which means it is either eye nerve damage due to my connective tissue disease and/or Dysautonomia, or it is a brain tumor.  I’m leaning towards the Dysautonomia related nerve damage.  Good times.

On top of all of this new and weird little things are happening, such as a ton of hair fell out as well as a lot of my eyelashes.  The worse thing is that my toes, feet and hands are numb all of the time and they are freezing cold all of the time, too.  It is so painful and I have been wearing buddies on my hands and feet, warming them up in the microwave every hour.  I had been dreading to go back to doctors because it is so darn costly and draining.  Just look at these bald pictures.  My mom is honestly BALD, so when this started happening, I freaked out.  I’m almost 39, way too young to be wearing a darn weave.

I thought this was from stress, but now I am not so sure.

I went to four doctors in two weeks, all referred from the first doctor I saw.  I had failed my field of vision tests IN BOTH EYES last week, so now I have to go back to the eye doctor Wednesday and god knows what is going to happen.  I have no idea if I’m going to lose my license or what.  All I know is that since last March every few weeks or so I have periods that span for two or three weeks where I suddenly can’t read or write, everything gets very blurry, and I get bad headaches that my migraine medicine can’t cure.

Notice the difference with and without makeup.  If I ever was on Survivor, mascara would be my one luxury item.

The worst of it is that my Endocrinologist TOLD me to go back to see a Neurologist, and she refered me to a new Neurologist because my old one’s secretary cried when she was asked to send my medical records to my Cardiologist.  Seriously.  I can’t deal with their drama, so I am done with that office.  So, I go to the new one.  This new idiot Neurologist read my records after dicking around with her drug rep for twenty minutes, and then comes into the exam room, asks me two questions, and tells me I have Bipolar Disorder within three minutes of walking in the door.  SERIOUSLY.  She thinks it is because I can’t sleep and have headaches.  I’d usually laugh something like this off but I was furious, and when I get mad, I cry.  I argued with her for another half hour, and she refused to listen, because she saw in my medical history that my mom has it.  She did admit by the end of my appointment that I may not have it because I wasn’t talking fast like a normal bipolar does.  She refused to prescribe me the only drug that ever helped me with nerve pain, Lyrica.  She didn’t give me a script for my new weird headaches and chalked them up to migraines, even though I told her my migraine medication hasn’t worked, and that I rarely have migraines anymore since I don’t have a uterus anymore (Even though, yes, I still have a period WITHOUT HAVING A UTERUS.  Did you know 20% of woman without one still can have periods?  I am pissed about this, too.)  She completely ignored my new nerve symptoms even though Mayo and another local doctor proved and provided proof that I already have Dsyautonomia, Polyneuropathy and Small Distal Neuropathy.  She only gave me a five minute mini neuro exam and didn’t even bother to look or touch my cold and numb feet, and simply sent me on my way w/Cymbalta.  Since her drug rep for it was just there and I had overheard their entire conversation, I can only assume she was more concerned about helping him out over helping me.  I am beyond pissed off and wonder how does my supposed “bipolar”give me numb feet and shrink my eye and cause me to lose my vision?  I am so pissed off, not only because this visit will cost me like $70, but because she was so overwhelmed by my medical chart that she chose to write me off as crazy rather than help me.  Never has anyone told me that I had this, and my mental health professional bff who has known me for eighteen years and lived with me told me in no way is she right or could she even possibly make that diagnosis so quickly.  WTF is wrong with this doctor?

So, while I’m trying to feel fine and be positive and undergo more eye tests, I may be a little MIA in blog world again.  As soon as I can I’ll be visiting your blogs, and I hope you all are doing ok.

What Are Your Secret Indulgences?

I was driving home from my Physical Therapy appointment last night, basically in tears from getting a massage on my impinged shoulder.  I have tendonitis in both shoulders, and now my right shoulder, breast and bicep hurt like a mother f–ker.  It got me thinking …

What are your secret indulgences?  Here are mine, although you may think some of my choices are lame, but hell, that is just how I roll.

• Massages.  I love them.  Even though most of the time they hurt because of my many joint and muscle issues, I can’t live without them.  I have a girl who even comes to my house every couple of months.  I wish I could do them monthly, hell, DAILY, but now that I’m getting a free massage paid by insurance each week I’m THRILLED TO DEATH! 
• Arbonne.  It’s expensive as heck, but nothing makes my rosacea skin less red and perky than the RE line, not even the prescription antibiotics that my other doctors are now making me quit.  Thank god I have a consultant who gives me my order 45% off twice a year.  Thanks Tracey!
• Fleece pj’s.  They are not the sexiest thing to wear in bed, but they sure feel good.  Since I’m in pain constantly due to Arthritis and Fibromyalgia (I don’t take pain pills) I need to feel good.  Thus, fleece comes in.  I have like fifteen pairs of fleece pjs.   I’m not sexy, but I don’t care.  I feel good.   
• Baths.  I cherish baths.  I heart them, I love them, and I used to take one daily until I hit my 30s and couldn’t wake up early anymore to take one.  Now I’m a Sunday bather.  Nothing beats an hour-long bath with salts and bubbles.  My dream is to one day have one of those jet double tubs in my bathroom, and if I’m lucky, a jacuzzi in my backyard.  A girl from the ghetto can dream, can’t she?  After going to Bath, England and seeing what those ancient baths are like, I totally get why people would travel miles just to take a public bath.  I wish I was in the tub now.  Sadly, my bathtub is the perfect size for a midget, and being a tall chick I have a fun time scrunching up to fit into mine.
• Snapple Lemon Iced Tea.  Normally I’d not put down a beverage, but since going cold turkey off caffeine while hospitalized last week, I’m in love with my new drink of choice.  Even though I’m dying without my morning Coke, Snapple really is coming through for me.  So darn tasty, and I love the true facts under the cap.  Today I learned kids grow faster in the spring.  How interesting,  right? 
• Fancy winter hats.  I spent years as a child avoiding wearing hats.  I think by the end I was just down to a hood that I never wore.  As an adult with Thyroid and multiple other health issues, I need to be warm.  So I have the CUTEST wool winter hats.   See for yourself.  Stylish and warm. 
• Free stuff.  Ok, you can laugh at this.  Permission granted.  But I was thrifty for most of my life, being broke and poor for years.  So free stuff still makes me really happy.  For instance, I just got a new cell phone and got a free airline ticket with my purchase.  Who wouldn’t want a free airline ticket?  Plus I love to get coupons & gift certificates.  Got a coupon last week from one of my favorite restaurants–”Buy a dinner, get one free.”  That is like $25 worth of Filet Mignon.  Hello, who wouldn’t want that?  Plus I love mypoints.com, a service that send you about five emails a day.  You earn points for doing surveys or just opening up your email.  So far just from opening email I’ve gotten a gift card to Starbuck’s with my points.  I am saving up for my Outback Steakhouse gift certificate, because I love steak so much it’s not a secret indulgence to anyone who reads this blog.  If you go to the Mypoints website, and start buying stuff from one of their partners, you earn even more points.  Any free stuff lover needs to go there!
• Down comforters.  I have two on my bed, and a throw downstairs on the couch.  Even though those damn down feathers are on all my clothes and lint brushes can’t get them, the feeling of down on my face is fantastic.  So soft.  I feel like a queen wrapped up in my blanket.  Ha ha ha …