Dry Hair Relief: Bumble & Bumble Super Rich

Everyone has her favorite conditioner. Here's mine - Bumble and Bumble Super Rich conditioner. I got addicted to this stuff when I was growing my hair out for a year in hopes of a big afro. It's really kinky/curly and REALLY dry, especially as it gets longer. This was the only thing I found that could keep it moisturized. Even since I abandoned my pursuit of the afro and cut my hair short again I still use this stuff. It gives my hair a soft feeling, helps define curls and reduce frizz, and smells really good. If you have naturally dry hair or dry hair because of processing and heat styling, this conditioner can probably do something for you. Highly recommended.

Crest Whitestrips Premium: Product Review

Okay, after literally years of scoffing at the tooth whitening craze that has swept the nation, lately I've looked at my own teeth and thought, hmm, not so white anymore. Charla Krupp's How Not to Look Old recommends Crest Whitestrips Premium as a dentist-approved and effective solution to my off-white problem. The kit contains a 7-day course of treatment with strips to wear twice a day for 30 minutes at a time. Alas, I can't seem to find two occasions in the day to do this, so I've been doing it once a day. I think I'll get the same results, only slower.

So what's the process like? Well, the Whitestrips are these ingenious little plastic strips like textured Saran Wrap. There's one strip for top teeth and one for bottom. You peel them off of their backing and they already have the bleaching gel on them. You place strips on the top and bottom front rows of teeth (each covers ~6 front teeth) and hang out for 30 minutes.

What does it feel like? It's a little like having gel on your teeth covered with plastic wrap. Not the most pleasant, but the strips really do stay put so you're not having to fish plastic out of the back of your mouth, which I feared. There is minimal taste. The gel is made slightly sweet with saccharin, but I really don't taste much of anything at all. You can feel the bleach working, especially when you first put them on; it feels very mildly irritating on your teeth and gums. I didn't experience anything I'd call discomfort, though. Just maybe mild unpleasantness. Very manageable.

At the end of 30 minutes you take them off and throw them away. This is actually the hardest part for me because then your teeth are left coated with gel and the feeling is slightly icky. Give your mouth a good rinse and it goes away.

I've done two treatments now, and I do notice a difference already! Subtle, but I'm optimistic that results will continue to build. I've experienced only the faintest bit of tooth sensitivity, but only once or twice. Otherwise I don't notice any difference.

Hope this helps in your tooth whitening adventures! If you have any other insight please post and share.

Ford Models Beauty Tips

I am obsessed with the Ford Models channel on YouTube. Each 3- or 4-minute video features a model, sometimes a hairstylist or makeup artist, and a fabulous quick beauty tip like how to do a smoky eye or style curly hair. All the models are so breezy and perky that it's easy to like them and you could easily spend hours browsing through all the videos. Here's my favorite today, from the beautiful and funny Tomiko.

Warm Weather Comfort

It was really, truly warm here this weekend! I am extremely grateful not to be chilly and am looking forward to more of the sun. Warm weather requires its own set of tools for comfort and beauty. Two of my favorite summer purse essentials are Boscia Fresh Blotting Linens and Caudalie Eau de Raisin spray. Whip out the blotting papers to minimize mid-afternoon shine, and follow with a mist of grape-extract-infused water to cool down your lovely face. Position yourself in front of a fan for a minute and zing! instant refreshment.

Really, you need...

...an eyeliner brush! How I lived without this tool for so long I have no idea. I've long been a fan of wetting an eyeshadow applicator (yes, the cheap foam ones, don't laugh) and using wet, dark eyeshadow to line my eyes. This gives a thick smudgy line that I am quite fond of.

However. I got an actual eyeliner brush this weekend just to see what all the fuss was about. I'll tell you, to my amazement, this brush gives the most crisp, beautiful, liquid-liner-like line I've ever seen. Wet the brush and use it with any eyeshadow and you have a virtually unlimited array of liner options.

Since I'm on a tight grad student budget, I bought a cheap drugstore brush, Studio Basics brand, for $2.99. But my local Aveda makeup artist highly recommends Aveda's version, $19.00.

And P.S. - I was just on Aveda's website and they have free shipping on all orders today, 4.28.08.

Elle's Green Issue

Elle magazine is so fabulous, and this month's Green Issue is off-the-charts wonderful, jam-packed with green beauty, living, fashion - everything the eco-conscious girl could want to read about. A big highlight is the Elle "Green Stars," beauty pros' picks of a huge assortment of natural and organic skin and hair products and makeup.

I am dying to try: Uhma Nagri Rose Body Cream, which apparently smells intoxicatingly like roses and is ultra moisturizing.

The entire Stella McCartney CARE skincare line, which sounds fabulous. The cost has kept me away thus far, but I may have to splurge on one of the serums eventually.






And finally, as I hate the smell of nail polish remover, I'm so curious about this Priti Soy Polish Remover. Is it really an alternative to acetone? I must find out.




Has anyone used any of these products? If so, let me know what you think!

Sí o no?

Dear friends, I have been out of town and busy, and am behind on posting on this blog! My apologies. A recent trip to Vancouver, B.C. opened my eyes to some beauty trends that I love, and some that I don't love. Funny how a change of scenery heightens your senses and perception.

The context of this trip was the 2008 "Cuba Baila" Rueda de Casino congress, a sort of convention for Cuban salsa. There were workshops, performances, bands, dancing, partying of all sorts...altogether, an awesome weekend. Cuban salsa is also a very hot dance, where both guys and girls move with power and sensuality. Watching people dance, and watching fabulous Vancouverites on the street, made me think more about what I consider hot and what seems stiff. Without further ado, here's my list:

Sí:
Hair in its natural state. Curly, kinky, wavy, straight - well cared-for and shiny. Anything but the predictability of a stick-straight flat-ironed blowout, please!!

Bodies with some substance. Cuban salsa is all about the body movement. Having a little bit of booty and working it is oh-so-sexy, and plus you need muscle and stamina to do this dance. The substance of the body creates the power of the dance.

Men dressing awesomely. Vancouver guys were so fashionable. Where I live, alas, men tend to exhibit an all-time low in the maintenance department. I've never seen so many scraggly beards and baggy hoodies in my life. Vancouver was a breath of fresh air, with guys in great jeans, smart eyeglasses, creative layers, dashing haircuts, and, thankfully, a system of facial hair management. (I know, this is mean, I shouldn't be so hard on the guys, but C'MON with the scraggle. :)

No:
Blowouts and straightened hair, all the time. Will this trend go away? Naturally straight hair is pretty, the occasionally glossy blowout is pretty, but insisting on straight hair day in and day out is so dull! I want to see texture and movement. NaturallyCurly.com is great for ideas and products for styling curls and waves.

High heels for day. I have come around to thinking that teetering around in heels on city sidewalks, campuses, or any other place that you have to hoof it very far just says 'trying too hard.' The occasional woman can pull it off (I actually know someone who can), but most often it looks uncomfortable and stiff. Flats and even rubber-soled flats are breezy and youthful, and sooo much more comfy for getting around.

Expensive clothes and makeup all the time. Some women showed up to dance workshops in designer jeans and tops, perfect makeup, perfect hair. They looked beautiful but also like they couldn't relax. There's a time for uber-maintenance and a time for, well, casual fun. We have to remember how to be casual or we end up feeling (or looking) like dolls on a shelf, too afraid to get messed up.

What do you think? What are your personal style sí's and no's?

P.S. For the origin of 'sí o no,' watch this hilarious video clip.

Aveda Eyeshadow: Product Review

Remember Aveda? They were one of only a handful of socially conscious, natural cosmetics brands when they started way back in 1978. Now that the market is saturated with more natural and organic beauty brands than you can shake a stick at, it's easy to forget about the originals. But I love Aveda, for their amazing-smelling and effective haircare, skincare, and makeup, and because they use wind power in manufacturing, minimize product packaging, and consistently source fairly traded ingredients.

I was reminded of all this when I pulled out an old Aveda eyeshadow compact with about half of a dark, glinty blue shadow and an almost new, smoky sparkly dark grey. The compact holds four shades, and since I'm on an eyeshadow kick I had to go and get some highlighting colors to round it out. I ended up with 'Illumination,' a sheer, shimmery yellow-beige, and 'Willow,' a sheer metallic grey. The darker shades I had already are 'Grey Cosmos' and 'Blue Smoke,' which I don't see on the website currently. It's possible that Aveda produces colors seasonally, with the darker shades coming out in fall. I'm not sure, but I will check back.

So I set about creating a smoky eye with this quad of beautiful colors. I swept Illumination from eyelid to browbone, then layered Willow only on the lid. I smudged the Grey Cosmos close to the upper lashline from inner to outer corners, with more color on the outer two-thirds of the eye. Finally, I wet a foam eyeshadow applicator and stirred it around in the Grey Cosmos and used the wet shadow to line my eyes. I finished by applying Illumination to the inner corners and along the bottom lashes.

The effect was lovely! These eyeshadows are such great quality. The powder is very fine, soft, blendable, and smudgeable, and the pigments are intense so you don't have to use a lot. The wet eyeshadow makes a great eyeliner. The colors are beautiful (though somewhat limited right now) and come in both matte and shimmer. Overall, I LOVE this eyeshadow and it may be my favorite. Go get some.

Overall Scores:
Texture: A
Pigment Strength: A
Color Selection: B
Price: $11 for single eye color, $15 for duo of complementary colors, refillable compact sold separately

Photo Retouching: Creating "Beauty"

You might recognize this gorgeous photo from the latest Sephora catalog. This being a beauty blog, it is helpful every once and a while to step back and examine what we think of as beautiful. What constitutes a pretty face or a beautiful body? Research on aesthetics and psychology can give us a general laundry list of "attractive" qualities - facial symmetry, a certain waist-hip ratio, skin clarity and tone, blah blah blah. You can guess how I feel about all of this.

True beauty is so much more varied than our narrow conceptualization allows for, and driven as much by our internal lives as our external features. Of course I'm not the first person to say this; just see the immensely popular Dove ads for an example of this idea driving a whole media campaign.

Even so, I don't think most of us realize how idealized most advertising images are. Take a look at these photo retouching websites and be amazed. The first one, Greg Apodaca's Digital Portfolio, has some of the most dramatic examples of retouching I found on the internet. The second, Glenn Feron - The Art of Retouching, has tons of additional examples.

I'm not saying that no one has perfect skin or an amazing body - of course there are lucky people out there who do, without retouching. But just remember that the flawless skin in the makeup ads, or the proportions of the gal on the cover of your magazine, are very likely digitally enhanced to look even more perfect than any real person could. Hopefully this helps us all go a little easier on ourselves in our quest for beauty.

Have fun with the photo retouching sites! Were you surprised?

Even Pimples Can Be Glamorous

If you ever have breakouts, you're probably familiar with any number of "spot treatment" potions to dab on zits to make them go away faster. In my opinion these all work about the same, and none really make my zits go away as fast as I want them to, but I feel that I need to do something besides just sit and wait it out.

So after reading that lavender essential oil is a natural anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial agent I started dabbing it on pimples. And you know what, it really does help them resolve more quickly than doing nothing. Like most pimple treatments it's much more effective on smaller zits than big ones, but it smells heavenly and soothing and makes treating pimples almost...pleasant. Or at least not bad. You float away from the bathroom mirror in a haze of lavender and feel glamorous. I know of no other pimple treatment that can do that.

My favorite essential oils are Young Living. Has anyone else tried this? Does it work for you?