It's ironic that SG can't think of a title for this post because lately, SG can think of lots of titles but no posts.

It's the world's oldest story. Girl meets girl. Girl loses girl. Girl finds girl. Second girl tells first girl about the world's most awesome conditioner that she'd never find on her own because it's actually marketed to women of color. You've heard it a million times, if you've heard it once. (1)

See when Jake was two, we belonged to this playgroup. (2) Not the playgroup that lead to her yearly bay weekend, but the playgroup that sprang from her La Leche League meeting and led to her book club. (3) (Like most mothers, SG uses her kids as a magnet to make new friends.)

Once day, my friend Paula brought her friend Ellen to the playgroup. Ellen was the mother of twin girls and a quiet talker.

Ellen only came to one playgroup, but I ran into her all the time, mostly at Target. And every time say "Hi Ellen" and she'd look at me funny. "I'm Paula's friend" I'd explain. And Ellen would smile politely . Then I'd call Paula and say "I just ran into your friend Ellen" and she'd whisper "the quiet talker?" and I'd whisper back "want to wear my ruffled shirt?" and we'd both laugh. Paula is a very patient friend.

In 2004, SG stopped going to Target. (4) and thus didn't see Ellen for four years. Then last year, SG ran into Ellen at the ice rink, and OMG, she looked fabulous. Everything. Her hair. Her make-up. Her clothes. Her hair. Especially her hair.

I asked her what her secret was. "Pantene," she said quietly. "The relaxed & natural conditioner, for Women of Color."

And the rest is history.

A million times, you've heard this story. But here's your reward for listening to it again:

ShallowGal has three bottles of Pantene to give away.

And SG has some scoop: Pantene is going to be at BlogHer 2009 . And celebrity hair stylist Hallie Bowman will be there too! You've seen her magic on stars like Keri Russell, Emmy Rossum, Isla Fisher, Liv Tyler and Lucy Liu. She'll be doing a few hair makeovers on bloggers too ~ stay tuned for details on that!

To win a bottle of conditioner ~ leave a comment on this post. It can be about anything: BlogHer, Pantene, hair, ruffled shirts, anything. SG will then employ the old school method of writing everyone's name on a tiny piece if paper and having each kid pick one. (5) Contest ends May 22nd, 2009 at midnight.



1) But I'll only tell you once. Today. (Meaning I'll tell you once today and then possibly again tomorrow. Not I'll only tell you once and that time will be today. Punctuation matters (6), kids! Stay in school!
2) It's entirely possible all ShallowGal's stories start circa 1999.
3) It is SO a book club. We've read over 100 books. Shaheen kept a list.
4) Another story for another time.
5) That's why SG is giving away three bottles. If every kid didn't have a chance to pick a tiny piece of paper out of a tupperware container, SG would never hear the end of it.

6) A panda walks into a bar, sits down and orders a sandwich. He eats the sandwich, pulls out a gun and shoots the waiter dead.

As the panda stands up to go, the bartender shouts, "Hey! Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and you didn't pay for your sandwich!"

The panda yells back at the bartender, "Hey, I'm a PANDA! Look it up!" The bartender opens his dictionary and sees the following definition for panda:

"A tree dwelling marsupial of Asian orgin, characterized by distinct black and white coloring. Eats shoots and leaves.