SUNSCREEN ON A SNOWY DAY

Today is a depressing snowy day. At least it is for me, since I hate snow and winter. What can I do since I’m stuck inside? 

Howard and I can watch a movie or catch up on old Perry Mason episodes. They sort of hold up, and it’s a bit of a hoot to look at the acting credits and see actors whom we know from later work in their early roles. Or, I can do something productive, like clean out the Tupperware cabinet. No, I’m not going to do that. It would only aggravate my already bad mood, as lids and bottoms come flying out as soon as I open the cabinet door. I can clean out my makeup museum. The process involves looking for the little symbols that tell you how long the product lasts after it’s opened. My near eyesight is pretty good, but some of those symbols are so tiny that they require reading glasses. I rarely use reading glasses, so it annoys me when the symbols are that small. (Though I’m not as bad as Howard—he needs reading glasses even for the more readable ones. But his distance vision is in the Superman range. I guess that you could say that for eyesight, between the two of us, we’re one person.) If I really want to do the cosmetics cleanup correctly, I also have to smell every product, especially lipstick. After a while, and sniffing at so many tubes, I start to get dizzy. And since I’m stuck in the house, I made a brisket. The whole house smells like brisket, so that could be a problem when I try to smell lipstick.  I did throw out 7 lipsticks earlier this week, so that was productive. It would have been 8, but I have a 15 year old lipstick from Paris, and can’t bear to part with it, so have left it there until it will become an antique. Okay—I’m getting a little batty here. So, I’ll focus on sunscreen.

I’ve been using my favorite brand of facial sunscreen for years. I love it, but the last two bottles smelled very funky. I went online and read reviews, quite a few of which mentioned the smell. I had never had that problem in the past. I took one bottle back to CVS. And I called the manufacturer about the other one. CVS treats you like a criminal if you have an old receipt or no receipt. Although I shop there often and had the receipt, they wanted a driver’s license for this return and they stared at me and the product for quite a while before doing the return. (CVS is a topic for another day—their prices are too high, but it is possible to save money with promotions and coupons.) When I called the manufacturer about the other bottle, they were very willing to send me a full refund, despite the fact that I had thrown the bottle away. Quick tip—if possible, it’s best to take a bad product back to the store or send it to the manufacturer so that they can address quality control.

When I looked at the sunscreen online reviews, one person talked about the smell, but also said that she felt bad that she had spent so much on this product, but couldn’t return it because she had already opened it. Wrong! There is almost always a way to return a faulty item, regardless of condition, if you have a legitimate issue. Sometimes it seems impossible, but it’s usually not. For example, I had purchased a cake that we really hadn’t liked. At $10 for this small cake, the store should know about our dissatisfaction. But I had to throw the cake away, since I wouldn’t get back to that market for a couple of weeks. Since I had just bought it, I kept the receipt, brought it to the store a few weeks later, and they gave me a credit, even without the product. Or, take the case of the toilet bowl brush that rusted the floor. I had bought a name brand brush that had a metal holder. After a few weeks, I noticed a red stain on the floor. Rust! I scrubbed the area, and fortunately, the rust came off. But, the brush had to go. Dilemma—I couldn’t take a used toilet brush into a store. That would be disgusting! So I went to the store with the receipt and explained the problem. They asked me for the brush. Really! I explained that I had thrown it away, since I didn’t think that they’d want me to hand a contaminated toilet brush to the cashier, or to put it on a supposedly clean counter. No, they needed the brush. EEEEEW! No refund? Of course that didn’t work for me. I contacted the manufacturer, who told me to choose several items on their website, and they would send them to me as compensation. 

HAVE A FAULTY PRODUCT? ARE YOU JUST STUCK WITH THE COST AND NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT? NOT REALLY—JUST SPEAK UP AND YOU’LL GENERALLY FIND A RESOLUTION

AND ALWAYS WEAR SUNSCREEN, EVEN ON A SNOWY DAY