Haagen-Dasz Five, Coffee Flavor, About $5 in Grocery Stores

I have wanted to buy this product forever.

Finally I had the perfect excuse when my friends invited us over for a festive Christmas dinner. I decided to pick this up to bring over for dessert (we don't normally do dessert, but since it's the holidays, we indulged). I picked the coffee flavor somewhat at random, hoping everyone in the group liked coffee ice cream.

Specific reasons why I chose this ice cream:

1. The more natural a food product is, the more likely I am to buy it. HD Five contains only 5 ingredients - milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and whatever the 5th flavor is (in this case, coffee). How can something that pure be bad?

2. Haagen-Dasz has never let me down. They are one of my top favorite ice cream brands. I knew they'd deliver on deliciousness.

3. My boss has raved about this product line, and I trust her judgment, as we have similar culinary preferences.

Haagen-Dasz Five didn't disappoint. The flavors were just as crisp, clean, and pure as I thought they would be. The texture was creamier - more like gelato than regular pre-packaged ice cream. Sarah happened to make pumpkin bread, and the combination of fresh pumpkin bread and coffee ice cream was downright magical.

The irony of a purchase like this one is that, despite how much I enjoyed it - in fact, because of how much I enjoyed it - I am going to attempt to never buy it again.

Meyer's Clean Day (Geranium Scent) and Dish Liquid (Lemon Verbena Scent), $4.99 each at Treasure Island

Buying decisions aren't always made alone.

Sometimes, they start fights in grocery store aisles. FIghts between co-habitating adults about (hypothetically speaking, here) the comparative merits of natural, nice-smelling cleaning products and chemical-laden, sick-ward-scented products.

Forgive my sweeping generalization, but these fights are more often than not won by the person who shoulders the bulk of the household cleaning duties; often, that is the female head of the household.

Point being: the harsh Lysol was left on the shelf while the beautifully packaged and pleasantly scented (and more expensive) Meyer's Clean Day products made it back to our humble abode.

The specific reasons for purchase were:

1. Even before it was "cool" to hate harsh chemical cleaners, I hated harsh chemical cleaners. If killing every last microbe was my first priority, I'd just clean my house with straight bleach. I do my very best to not let raw meat drip all over my countertop, and when it does, I immediately disinfect. But for day-to-day cleaning of a variety of surfaces that in all likelihood are NOT populated with deadly bacteria, I prefer gentler, more fragrant products.

2. The packaging. It's adorable! So adorable, in fact, that I left both items out on my countertop - easy to access and fun to look at.

3. The scent. The geranium scent is intoxicating! It made me WANT to clean the countertops! And the coffee table! And the dining room table! And...the nightstand! Sure, why not? The Lemon Verbena scent is also wonderful, and the dish liquid itself also lathers a bit more than other "natural" cleaners (such as the Seventh Generation stuff I've been using for awhile now).

4. Although these products are a little more expensive than traditional products, they're not THAT much more expensive. And buying something that makes me WANT to clean? That's priceless.

CoverGirl Lash Blast Mascara - About $8 in drugstores

I want to discuss this product for a very specific reason: I actually went out and bought this product in direct response to a TV commercial I saw for it.

As advertising creatives, we are presumed to be immune to the siren's song of slogans and onslaught of shimmering celebrity spokespeople. But we are consumers, too. And we often pay closer attention to ads (especially television ads) - not to mention scrutinize them more intensely - then your average Jane Schmoe on the street. As such, we're keenly aware of our response to ads, and often, we find ourselves wondering if somewhere out there, someone is enjoying an ad we made, and has jotted down our client's product on their to-buy list.

We are also quite hard on our peers - we jeer at "bad" ads, and most of us are much too cynical to appreciate a cute baby, puppy, or child who may appear in a so-called "sappy" ad. On the other hand, there are ads I love that are selling products I'll never buy (for instance, every Nike ad ever made - I am the least athletic person alive and thus have no need for quality athletic apparel, yet Nike ads have made me drool for as long as I can remember, and were a major impetus for me to get into the biz in the first place).

That's why I wanted to share my CoverGirl Lash Blast experience. The particular ad I saw claimed that the Lash Blast launch was the most successful mascara launch in history (or something like that). I consciously thought to myself, Wow, if it's that successful, it must be pretty special.

And that was the moment that (a) receptivity to a specific message, (b) emotion, and (c) a physical need converged in the much-sought-after Big Bang moment. That ad reached the right person, at the right time, with the right message. I happened to be in the market for a new mascara; in fact, I wanted a mascara that delivered more dramatic results, with the intention of wearing it out during the holiday party season.

Enter Drew Barrymore, batting her gorgeous, impossibly luxe lashes while saying that, in her opinion, "the bigger, the better." Frankly, when it comes to lashes, I could not agree more.

Cut to me in CVS the very next day, unmistakeable orange packaging in hand.

Luck for me and my lashes, the product really delivers on its "bigger, better" promise. I even went so far as to tell my girlfriends that this product is "CoverGirl's gift to womankind."

And that kind of consumer-to-consumer advertising is something not even CoverGirl's budget could buy.

Amazon Prime: Free for One Month, $9.99/mo After That

I signed up for Amazon Prime for the same reason anyone signs up for Amazon Prime: free 2-day shipping. I needed a birthday present for dear old Dad, and I needed it fast. Amazon didn't let me down. I wrote myself a note to cancel it at the one-month mark, but of course I forgot.

Then the holidays arrived.

And that's when Amazon Prime turned out to be worth its weight in gold - or at least well worth the $9.99 a month.

The thing about shopping on Amazon (which I do fairly frequently) is that when you buy from multiple sellers, you pay multiple, and varying, shipping rates. But when you buy Amazon Prime-approved products (which is about 75% of their inventory), all your shipping is free (for 2-day shipping). Just from the shipping savings on the items I've bought as Christmas gifts, this month's AP has already paid for itself.

What does this tell us about free trial leading to purchase?

It tells us, for one, that the free trial works in a consumer's moment of desperation (for me, my need for speed). It also tells us that, if the product is a good one, the free trial is well worth the company's investment, because people will continue to pay for things that provide them a service they need or enjoy. It also tells us as consumers that "falling for" the free trial doesn't always end in heartache and mystery credit card charges.

Sometimes, it ends in birthday presents being delivered - on time - to the ones we love. For a very reasonable price.

Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush Soothing Lip Balm in Pretty Buff, about $7 at VS

There is one major reason I bought this lip gloss:

VS was doing one of those spend-$60-and-get-a-free-tote-bag deals, and my pre-tax total came to $59.50. I needed something inexpensive to put me over the edge.

However, there were other factors that played into this decision:

1. I really like almost all the cosmetics I've bought from VS. They spend a lot of time and money on the supermodels, as they are the literal faces (and bodies) of the brand, but I personally think they'd benefit from more PR around their make-up and body lines, which are legitimately good products, and can arguably make a woman feel just as sexy on a day-to-day basis as a negligee can make her feel after dark.

2. I am a lip gloss junkie. Seriously, it's like crack to me.

3. I really, really liked the packaging. Unlike some of VS's more overwrought, boudoir-style package designs, the Beauty Rush gloss comes in an understated and elegantly retro tin. The color I bought comes in an apropos nude hue. The actual "Beauty Rush" logo is nice as well, in a handwritten, but not cheesy, typeface.

4. I have a similar lip gloss from VS that comes in a tube, but it's more of a traditional gloss as opposed to a soothing lip balm. But I like it, and I have been wanting to invest in something similar for awhile.

I rate this lip product a 10 out of 10! And that's saying a lot considering, as I mentioned, I have a pretty intense lip product habit. This one's worth a trip to Vickie's - you might even say it's lingerie for your lips.

Nivea Touch of Harmony Body Wash - $6.99 at CVS

I never fail to be astounded at the price of personal care products - and more specifically, how much more they cost at a downtown drugstore than they would at, say, a Target in the suburbs.

When I was unemployed this summer, I bought exclusively the $1 Suave "moisturizing" bodywash, but soon my legs grew so dry that I had to invest in something that was actually moisturizing.

However, I forked over a hefty $7 for this Nivea product for a few reasons:

1. It was payday, and I was feeling rich.

2. I have used other Nivea products (such as their hand cream), and have found them to be indeed very moisturizing (I have very dry skin, so this is a top factor for me).

3. It had a travel size bodywash shrink-wrapped to it, and since I'll be traveling in a few days for the holidays, and my mom NEVER has anything but bar soap, I thought I could really use it for the trip.

4. The name, "Touch of Harmony," though completely devoid of meaning, struck some sort of New-Age hippie chord in me.

5. Despite not usually liking any fake-vanilla-scented bath products, this has a pleasantly mild vanilla essence to it that still manages to smell clean.

6. I wanted to try something new; I've been using St. Ives bodywash in a few different varieties for a couple months now, mostly because that's what they sell at my weird corner grocery store.

One thing that I noticed only after bringing it home was that the packaging boasts, "With a touch of Diamonds, made with real diamond powder." Or something very close to that. Real diamond powder?! There are children going hungry all over the world, yet the Nivea company is pulverizing precious gemstones so spoiled Americans like myself can bathe in them. Geez, I hope they weren't conflict diamonds.

As far as bodywashes go, I'd rate this one a 7 out of 10 - nice lather, good scent, moisturizing without being too heavy or oily. One might say all its attributes are in perfect harmony.

*NOTE: the above photo is actually of the "Touch of Happiness" scent in this same body wash line.