It’s an old fashion rule that you can’t wear white after labor day — but I say, “says who?” I think white’s perfectly fine for winter… it’s the color of snow, after all!

The difference from summer whites is that winter whites are richer, warmer shades of white, like ivory, cream, and ecru. These colors look especially lush paired with other winter colors. Here are some great winter white pieces for less than $20!

[Click on any image to start the winter (white) wonderland!]

Because there is nothing more annoying than having to run to the grocery store and leave your raw cookie batter sitting on the counter, I took the liberty of putting together a handy-dandy substitution cheat sheet of things you can use when you find yourself without the genuine article.

For self-rising flour, substitute flour with baking powder and salt. Self-rising flour is really just a fancy name for flour that already has baking powder and salt added, so you can cheat the system by adding those things yourself. For each cup of flour, just throw in 1 ½ tsp baking powder and about ½ tsp salt.

For cream/half-and-half, substitute milk. Keep in mind that this will only work sometimes. Milk is a lot thinner than cream and has a lot less fat (added health bonus), but that also means that it doesn’t behave the same way. For a recipe in which you’re mixing everything together anyway (quiche), it will work fine, but it’s not going to get you anywhere if you pour it in a bowl and try to whip it into real fluffy cream. If you don’t have regular milk, try using buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream.

For eggs, substitute bananas, yogurt, or applesauce. Mmmmm… you won’t even realize the eggs aren’t there, and you’ll get a nice bit of extra flavor and texture with any of these substitutions. If you’re making something savory rather than sweet, try substituting some oil mixed with a little bit of flour.

For a thickener like cornstarch, substitute flour or tapioca. Tapioca might give kind of a funky texture to whatever you’re brewing up, but it will be great in something like a pie or a cobbler. For a casserole or another non-sweet dish, flour will work like a charm.

If you’re searching for a specific ingredient and you really don’t want to go to the store, try Googling it. There are a lot of cooks and bakers out there, and chances are, somebody has already done the work for you so that you can enjoy your delicious dish without ever having to leave the kitchen.

[Image courtesy of chickspeak.com.]

I have never liked blueberry pie. In fact, I would even go beyond that—I’ve always thought it was disgusting. I am not the biggest fan of fresh blueberries, either, but lately I have started to like them more and more.

Despite all of this, last week I could not stop thinking about how I really wanted to make a blueberry pie. Why did I think this… why? I have no idea. I am still unable to explain it. But I suspect it was divine intervention, because the resulting blueberry pie was THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN.

The recipe is dunce-free (not that CC readers are dunces, of course) and uses fresh berries, which I suspect is the real reason for my enthusiasm behind this pie. All previous blueberry pies that were set in front of me were either a) made from cans of blueberry pie filling or b) things that I refused to eat because I was under the impression that I hated blueberry pie.

This recipe is different. Different! It is wonderful and fantastic, and it is beautifully photographed in an appealing step-by-step fashion. You cannot mess up this pie. It tastes delicious either warm or cold. It is nice to have with cream, ice cream, or Cool Whip. And it does not become a disgusting, gelatinous mess (although it would be okay if you cut down the amount of cornstarch a little). The best part is that you can really pack the pie with fresh berries (I even threw in a few sliced strawberries):

You can even reduce the recipe with no problems. To make a four-serving mini-pie, I used 1/3 of all the ingredients and it turned out great. Delicious. Fantastic, even. The only word of caution I have is this: Please, I beg you, put your pie pan on top of a baking sheet coated with wax paper or parchment paper. My pie bubbled over in the oven, and I was on my hands and knees for a half-hour scraping fresh blueberry juice off the bottom of the oven.

Really, though, it was still worth it.

And despite the fact that my collection is so massive that I actually hide half the stuff when my new boyfriend comes over (seriously, it makes me look disturbed)—I couldn’t help but check out the new Botanical collections from the healing garden.

I decided to cover all my bases: CALM: Tender Lavender whipped body lotion on my desk at work to soothe deadline stress, INSPIRE: Uplifting Jasmine rainwater body mist by my laptop at home to cure writer’s block, and DESIRE: Wild Ginger whipped body lotion and rainwater body mist at my boyfriend’s apartment. Alleviating work stress and writer’s block is nice and all, but I won’t lie—I was most looking forward to trying out the DESIRE lotion and body mist.

Verdict: delicious! The lavender lotion, with lavender, Valerian, and chamomile, reminded me of clean laundry (minus the detergent-overload smell I get whenever I do laundry myself), and gave me baby-soft hands without leaving a grease residue on my keyboard.

Next up was the jasmine body mist, a super-subtle mix of jasmine, Ylang Ylang, and passion flower. I’m pretty sure “body mist” comes with the connotation that it’s to be used on the body, but try spraying it around your room. You’ll never need another bottle of Febreze again.

Last up was the wild ginger lotion and body mist. I was going to try it out on a tough critic—my boyfriend, an indie hipster who never wears cologne because he doesn’t want to smell the way “they” think he should smell. Since we started dating, I’ve cut back on my perfume use, which, admittedly, was probably a bit on the overwhelming side (I just don’t know when to stop!)

So one night, before our regular ritual of lazing about on the couch, I slathered on some lotion and gave a few quick sprays of body mist post-shower. Cuddling up next to him, I held my breath waiting for a nose scrunch of disapproval—and, nothing! The orange blossom and white ginger made for a soft, feminine scent with a hint of spice, not a heavy cloud of fragrance.

I can’t wait to try the rest of the scents in the Botanical collections: Sensual Plum, Soothing White Tea, Revitalizing Green Tea, Passionate Rose, and Relaxing Chamomile. Try ‘em and tell me what you think!

According to ABC News, hypoactive sexual desire disorder, which sounds very clinical but for the most part I’m pretty sure refers to a lowered sex drive caused by life (hormones, supplements, exhaustion), affects about one-third of American women. That’s a lot of headaches.

Deciding that it just isn’t fair women still get the short end of the stick (ha ha) when it comes to sexual desire later on in life, scientists have been busy developing a Viagra-like product called LibiGel. Although it’s still in the testing stage, LibiGel had a reportedly “283 percent increase of satisfying sexual encounters for the women taking the drug” in trials at 17 different institutions.

The gel comes in a pump bottle, and a small amount is rubbed into the skin of a woman’s upper arm. Over a period of 24 hours, “the gel’s testosterone seeps into her bloodstream, boosting her energy and libido.”

It’s not clear if LibiGel makes a gal want to go all night long, or only for a few hours after it’s seeped into her bloodstream, but either way, as long as the ads on TV are less stupid than those Viagra-Guy-Throws-A-Football-Through-a-Tire-Swing, I don’t think LibiGel will have much of a problem finding an audience.

Finding a man to try it out on, well, that’s a different story.

I’m down for poonany preservation, but this is something else.

Virgin Cream, a $60 cream that acts as a vajajay time-machine of sorts that (supposedly) tightens up a woman’s womanhood back to its more “youthful” days. The website boasts claims such as this:

If You Would Like To:

Be a woman that nearly all men… just can’t resist, this is going to be the most important message you will ever read.

Here Is Why:

Let’s face it… almost any woman can get a man to have sex with her. You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t have to be sexy. You don’t have to have a great body. Basically, you just have to be a woman who will say “yes” and thousands of men will have sex with you…

Once!

But, what if you want that same man to call you for another date? Well, that might NOT be so easy. But, what if there was a way to make sure… almost every man… wanted to go out with you again? Better yet, what if there was a way to make having sex with you… so fantastic… the man you are interested in… couldn’t even think about another woman? What if there was a way to make having sex with you… so good… a man would do anything… even marry you… to keep you in his bed?

Whoa! Talk about demoralizing! I love it.

According to the experts over at Virgin Cream Inc., a woman’s status is judged solely on her ability to please her man, as it has been for the past 2,000 years. Adding insult to insult is the statement below, on the subject of women who have used this ancient cooter cream:

And these women became the most powerful on earth. They married the richest and the most powerful men. If their husband was a king, it was the woman who controlled the king. You see, a woman who is old enough to know how to give a man extremely good sex plus has a tight, moist, young-looking vagina, has an enormous advantage over every other woman.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful the other woman is. It doesn’t matter how sexy her body is. It doesn’t matter if she has big or small breasts. It doesn’t matter how interesting she is or if she has a high I.Q. The truth is, a woman with a young, tight, “velvet glove” vagina will get the man every time.

Hahahaha! Yes! These statements are so outlandish that I’m positive some dude is behind this. No woman on Planet Earth has ever muttered the phrase “velvet glove.”

Still, I’m wondering if this product really does work. Outside of moms in their mid-40s giving testimonials about their neo-retro vaginas, I’ve never heard of anybody using this stuff.

Is it like cement? Do girls have to spackle it on? Do the men feel a bit awkward performing after a bunch of unknown magic gloop has been slathered all over their lady’s no-no place?

So many questions…

That smelly white cream you put on your face for 3 minutes every couple of weeks to keep the girlstache away? That stuff that can burn your face off if you don’t wipe it in time? That stuff you hate?

Well, they’re coming after your little sisters.

In an all-new advertising campaign, Nair is targeting “first-time hair removers”—girls ages 10-15.

With a sparkly new bottle and two new scents, kiwi and peach (which, I’m assuming, smells exactly like every other Nair scent: sh*tty), “Nair Pretty” is all about enticing girls without much hair to take off every spare stub.

“I am a citizen of the world,” the bottle proudly states. “I am a dreamer. I am fresh. I am so not going to have stubs sticking out of my legs.”

While I’m not convinced there’s a direct correlation between hairy legs and having no dreams, the marketers behind “Nair Pretty” seem pretty sure that they’re doing a monumental good in the lives of little girls everywhere.

“When a girl removes hair for the first time, it’s a life-changing moment” claims the Vice President of marketing for the company that purchased the Nair franchise in 2001.

If she means life-changing as in realizing that society hates hairy girls and she’ll be chained to her razor for the rest of her life…than sure.

Jumping on the organic bandwagon a little late, I just discovered Kaia House, the foremost source for organic skin and beauty care. Kaia House focuses on banishing the use over of harmful petrochemicals, parabens and other skin offenders, and offers 20 lines of premium organic and natural products including celeb-trendy Osea, Perfect Organics, Red Flower, and Biotique.

But when it comes to beauty products, is going out of your way to buy organic really worth it? Absolutely, according to Kaia House. And after reading their extensive list of un-safe (and common) chemicals that should be avoided when purchasing beauty products, I think I’m a convert.

Read up on the dangers lurking in your makeup bag and then head to KaiaHouse.com for a more comprehensive list. Your skin will thank you!

In your facial cleanser: Petrochemicals

Check the ingredients for: Comidopropyl Betaine, Coco Betaine, PVP/VA Copolymer, and Propylene Glycol, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

Possible effects: eye impairment, intestinal damage, kidney and liver problems, breathing problems, cysts, skin spots, rashes and hair loss.

In your face cream: Polyethylene Glycol

Check the ingredients for: PEG-8, PEG-80 Glyceryl, Cocoate, Peroleate and PEG 15 Soyamide/IPDI Copolymer.

Possible effects: increased likelihood of leukemia, uterine, breast, and brain cancer.

In your hair spray: Phthalates

Check the ingredients for: Dimethylphthalate, Diethylphthalate, and Dibutylphthalate

Possible effects: premature sexual development in girls and increased child asthma rates. Phthalates have been linked to breast cancer since 1997.

In your foundation: Butylated Hydroxyanisole

Check the ingredients for: Butylated Hydroxyanisole and preservatives.

Possible effects: Used as an anti-oxidant preservative, Butylated Hydroxyanisole has been known to cause breast cancer tumors to multiply.