Lugging around a heavy purse just doesn’t feel right in summer. It’s time to lighten up.

I’ve tried to get rid of anything not essential. Although don’t you find that stuff just has a way of coming back? Like do I really need to carry around 5 pens? What’s up with the 3 lip glosses and 4 lipsticks? The cute little hardcover journal that’s supposed to house all my aha! moments is really becoming a bummer. A box of bandaids? (Am I planning on scraping my knee?)  And that clunky water bottle really ruins the lines of my bag—out, out, out, out!

So, I’m experimenting by carrying around one makeup item, Sally Hansen Volumizing Lip Shield SPF 15 ($7). It’s a lip plumper and gloss housed in elegant gold casing, and contains retinol, hyaluronic acid, soy extract, vitamins A,C & E, marine collagen microspheres and more “to reverse and prevent signs of aging on the delicate lip area.” How they manage to get all that into one skinny featherweight stick is beyond me, but I simply simply enjoy the sheer texture with the slight amount of shine. There are eight colours, and I’m sporting Va Va Voom (I just like the way it sounds).

However: Given what I know now about sun protection, if I were to be exposed for any considerable amount of time in the direct sun, I would wear a broad spectrum sunblock of at least 30 on my lips.

In the meantime, dashing from car to office, this takes the load off.

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