Clever Ways to Use Your FSA Funds

Use your FSA funds for sunscreen & these other items before year end!
photo from http://www.oralabs.com/blog/wear-sunscreen/

For those of you with HSA or FSA funds, December 31 marks the, “use it or lose it,” deadline. If you don’t need an eye exam or new glasses, what do you spend those funds on?

DID YOU KNOW…

…that HSA and FSA dollars can, in most cases, be spent on sunscreen?

You’ll want to verify with your plan provider, of course, but yes – this is a viable option. If you have an FSA card, you can order FSA-eligible items directly with it; Walgreens has a whole section of their site dedicated to FSA-eligible items; otherwise you will have to check for your reimbursement process.

What better way to stock up on sunscreen for 2016? Most varieties are covered – sprays, traditional lotions, sticks, what-have-you. You may not be able to convince them to cover Coola or Supergoop (but I don’t know for sure that you can’t, either), but still. Stock up for 2018!

Other FSA Funds Neat-to-Knows

Read more

Sunscreen Dispensers

When I was a kid, my grandparents had a boat that they docked in Rhode Island. My family would visit and we’d hang out on the docked boat or go on little boating adventures on the Narragansett Bay. I marveled at the novelty of being, “entrusted,” with a moment of, “control,” over the helm. When docked at the marina, I took great joy in feeding the resident (jerk) swan flock fistfuls of Cheerios. I can’t recall ever visiting the area’s beaches, though.

Last weekend, languishing with a mouthful of gauze while flicking through Google Now cards on my phone, I was presented a headline about the town of Narragansett. Initially confused, I realized it was due to my interest in sun safety. Apparently, the small town has installed sunscreen dispensers. Even better, they are free for beach-goers to use!

What?! This is a thing?! (I don’t get out much – my area doesn’t have these.)

Sunscreen DispensersSunscreen Dispensers in Narragansett, RI.

How cool is that?! The sunscreen dispensers are paired with signage that features application instructions, sponsorship information of a local business that helped fund the installation and maintenance of the dispensers, as well as a mirror.

As it happens, they aren’t the pioneers. Some hasty Googling lead me to find that New York City has placed 100 dispensers across 27 locations including beaches and even a fishing pier. Miami Beach did it a couple years ago! In 2015, they installed 50 dispensers at beaches, pools, and parks. Other areas have, too.

It’s an awesome public service. I love the example Narragansett, NYC, and Miami Beach are setting in regards to sun safety. Even if you didn’t use what was provided, simply seeing the dispensers is a good enough reminder to apply and reapply at the beach. I hope that more areas (not just beaches) follow suit to help encourage good sun protection habits; I’d love to see them paired with water fountains.

Melanoma Monday 2017 – For the Desk Jockeys

Protecting your skin is a recurring theme on this blog. Before my mom’s initial melanoma diagnosis my dumbass was a tanning salon client. That abruptly stopped, and I’ve been slathering on sunscreen ever since.

A sunscreen-related question I used to ask was raised in the comments recently that I think warrants its own post. What better a time than Melanoma Monday? In essence, it was:

If most sunscreens must be reapplied every two hours or so, how does one reconcile reapplication with makeup usage? Do you need to remove your makeup, reapply sunscreen, then reapply makeup? How does that work for people who, you know, work?

Sunscreen for Desk Jockeys

Rejoice! You don’t need to literally reapply every two hours unless perhaps you work next to a window (through which UVA rays can penetrate). For those of you with cubicles or windowless offices, this means you can apply in the morning, commute, work, and not need to reapply for a lunch our or your commute home.

Chemical sunscreens aren’t time-released; they don’t have an expiration timer that starts from when they get massaged into your skin. The two-hour estimate is based on the photostability of the chemical components that protect your skin; subject to sun exposure, they gradually break down and become ineffective.

So, the TWO HOUR sunscreen reapplication guideline is two hours of EXPOSURE, not on a stopwatch.

Read more

Skincare Arsenal Update – June 2016

I needed to take my own advice and get back to basics. My skincare routine became too complicated and had too many moving parts. I was vacillating between Cetaphil Gentle, philosophy Purity, Noxzema Triple Clean, and random cleanser samples I had received from Sephora and Ulta (because that’s what you do when you’re a beauty blogger who reviews things). I was inconsistently using this toner, that moisturizer. Exfoliant roulette. Masque roulette. You get it. I was all over the place.

All that combined with a stressful eight months and my skin just wasn’t my biggest fan. It was making me crazy, and it was preventing me from having as much fun with my makeup. So I revamped my skincare arsenal and process to get back to consistency, and I’ll just need to go longer between trying new skin products for science. Tomorrow, I turn 25 – and I’m doing so with skin that is behaving.

Makeup Removal & Cleansing

Skincare Arsenal Update - Cleansing

Micellar Water – I am really impressed by how well the Garnier one I reviewed is treating me. As I don’t use waterproof mascara or go hardcore, full-face every day, I’m delighted with the way this stuff has been (oh-so-gently!) treating my skin. A lot of people have eschewed their other face products in favor of this minimalist product; I can see why. I’ve picked up the one by Simple (I liked their Micellar wipes, after all) to try, but I’m not remotely unhappy with the Garnier one. I still have Kirkland Makeup Wipes; they’re effective, inexpensive, and convenient – but I’m growing tired of the fragrance. They’re still a good product and a great value, but I am scaling back my usage in favor of micellar products. Personally, I’m also not in love with something so disposable for everyday use.

Cetaphil Gentle – Tried and true. Just as good without water as with. Plays nicely with both my Clarisonic and my Luna Mini.

philosophy Purity – For when I need a deeper clean. This is about as ‘hardcore’ of a clean as I want, these days. Also plays nicely with both aforementioned tools.

Keep reading for more on my Skincare Arsenal Update…

Read more

May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that sun safety and skin cancer awareness are important topics to me. I remind multiple times a year to practice sun safety and to take measures to protect your skin, but I take advantage of may being Melanoma and Skin Cancer Awareness month to ascend my soapbox. It’s a little deranged, really, to name today Melanoma Monday – but so it is.

Month before last, my father had to have yet another area removed. Squamous Cell Carcinoma. That’s at least his second procedure. That’s not even getting into about what my mother has gone through.

I was an idiot and used to tan in tanning beds.

Read more

TSA Approved Quart Bag

Tomorrow, I board a plane to the other side of the country for a business trip. Being as that I have not been on a plane for something like eight years and I’ve never traveled for business, I’m left a bit reeling. The trip is short, so everything’s coming as a carry-on.

And having a carry-on means analyzing what liquids you need and stuffing the most important ones into a TSA approved quart bag to follow their 3-1-1 rule.

TSA Approved Quart Bag Contents

Read more