One day, I'd like to have a site focused solely on skin care and beauty tips for extreme weather conditions, like living on the First Coast as I do, because those tips in magazines really don't work here. As a start, here are the products I love in the summer:

• Fresh Sugar Face Polish - brown sugar and wild strawberries, warms as it scrubs
• Fresh Rose Marigold Tonic Water - light rosy pick-me-up for the morning or night
• Bourjois nail polish in Or Rose - the perfect copper shade
• Bloom Skin + Tonic - the face mask comes in a little tablet and pops open to soak in the flowery tonic
• Philosophy Seniorita Margarita shower gel - literally mouth watering
• Burt's Bees Pore Refining Mask - comes powdered, so it's fresh every time you use it
• Crabtree & Evelyn Sonoma Valley Hand Therapy - thick, lightly scented, and not just for hands
• L'Occitane Mint Shampoo - with lava clay and peppermint oil
• Kiss My Face Tinted Moisturizer - my favorite shade is Beach, so they'll probably discontinue it ;)
• Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer in Nutmeg

Perrier has a new product... plastic liter bottles. These are great for carrying around in the summer and putting in the office refrigerator or cooler. The fizzy water (plain, lemon, or lime, my favorite) encourages you to drink more and stay hydrated, and if the bottle's empty at the end of the day, you've had your recommended amount of water. Handy!

Have in mind a perfect design for that armoire but can't seem to find it anywhere? This site offers personal customer service to help you design it and they'll build it overseas.

Gifts Online:

Try Cheryl & Co for the most unbelievable cookies and cute ways to send them. You MUST include the White Chocolate Chip, which is arguably the greatest cookie in the country. Period. You can also go to Red Envelope, find a great idea, then try to put something similar together for a whole lot cheaper. Just take my word on that one. Amazon, now an incredibly expanded base of categories, is fantastic for timely, unusual, and appropriate gifts--it even includes a place for wish lists, which your friend may have already on there. I know I do, along with my usual smart remarks about the books I have actually attempted to read and music I have bought. Finally, Drugstore.com is fantastic for health/spa gifts (see "a whole lot cheaper" above) and carries every name brand, department store and otherwise, is convenient, and extremely timely. 

Buying Flowers Online:

Buying flowers has always been a bit of a trick, knowing where to go, contacting the right florist in the right city, knowing what flower to order, coughing up extra delivery charges. What you usually get is, standard flowers, extraordinary prices. And I don't mean extraordinarily good. My first groovy piece of advice is this-- ATTENTION: Flowers are TWICE as expensive at holidays for HALF the quality. Why? So many flowers are ordered, they get munged up and usually die fairly fast. So, it would be better to go with something less perishable at those times. Secondly, red is not always the best choice, ferns dirty the water, and mums are the official flower for funerals in France. 

During other events like birthdays and anniversaries (unless we're talking about Valentine's Day), there are fantastic flowers available online. Don't bother with FTD, which is severely overpriced and under-optioned. My favorite to use is Martha's Flowers. Yes, Martha Stewart's site provides an incredible range of roses, lilies, carnations and others at amazing prices and ships overnight at roughly the same price as a normal delivery. You do have to pay extra for a vase, but most women have a collection already. The only time I've run into problems there is when I've ordered them for men and had them end up placed in a bucket or large beer cup. Ah well.

You can also check out the flower and gift deals at Red Envelope, which is kind of a portal for other businesses. The prices aren't as fabulous, but the choice of other unique flowers like orchids is quite nice. Finally, Calyx and Corolla has some exotic looking choices with interesting vases. It is the only site I've found that offers a wide array of bouquet size choices, so that if you like the idea, but can't afford the big kahuna, you can send a nice little bunch of the same kind for reasonable prices. They also offer a selection of plants and preserved designs.

Coffee/Tea

Some people love the smell of coffee, but not the taste, so they drink tea. A French Press is hands-down the best way to make coffee or tea. In a coffee maker, the water shoots through one area of the beans; in a tea ball, the leaves are all clumped up and don't get that much water. A French press, on the other hand, lets the water soak all the flavor out. Yum! I would recommend Starbucks' Tazo Travel Tea Press, which is only 10 dollars and can be used for coffee or tea. It has two tops, one a mug top, the other a French press; it is also insulated, so you just use it as a mug. You can also get a regular-sized press, the Bodum Tea Press. Don't forget to pick up a can of Mambo
tea--it has no caffeine, and doesn't even taste like conventional tea. It has "hibiscus flowers, rose hips, papaya and mango fruits, apple pieces, zesty citrus peel and a bit of lemongrass," a reddish color, and is just darned tasty. 

For the coffee lovers, or even the taste-haters, Godiva now makes coffee, and if nothing else, just open the bag and smell it. NOT in the store! haha. Try Vanilla
Hazelnut, Crème Brulee, or Chocolate Crème. 

My favorite teas of all time, though, come from The Republic of Tea. Ordering online from them used to be a big fat pain in the derrière and the extensive metaphoric use of "The Republic" may make you want to scream, but at least they now have a shopping cart. Vanilla Almond smells divine and is smooth, but really needs cream. For those of you who want to drink green tea, but think it tastes nasty, try one of their Daily
Green Teas, which includes flavors like Orange Spice, Pineapple Ginger, and Honey Ginseng. Their best mint tea is Lemon Wintergreen and the ultimate healthy tea is Ginseng Peppermint, including Echinacea and licorice in its super smooth, comforting brew. Always buy loose tea from them, or from anyone, because the taste is destroyed when the leaves are mashed into tea bags. Finally, don't forget Jean
Luc Picard's favorite, Earl Grey. It would just be a sin.

For something really exotic, go for one of a few "white" teas: Republic's Silver
Rain White Tea or Dean & Deluca's White Peony Tea. Then add in a little White
Hawaiian Honey. Yum! Just to be correct, though, one of my site visitors reminded me that true white tea is actually freshly picked tea--the leaves are green, not brown, so the tannins don't dye the tea. So if you want REAL white tea, do what I do and grow Chocolate Mint in your herb garden for your own fabulous brew.

Finally, if you INSIST on using a tea ball, and not a French press, look at Starbucks' really nifty Tazo Tea Infuser. It's like a tea wand...