Cosmetics Galore

I don’t use much hairspray.  I only use it when I want to hold the waves I’ve created in my hair with a curling iron, but generally if I’m just wearing my hair “natural” or straight, it’s totally unnecessary.  I also use it sparingly because I happen to hate the fumes it leaves in the air.

I think of how long that toxic suspension stays in the air and affects the air I breath, my husband breathes, and our two pets as well.  I even try to do it out away from everything, in a better ventilated area so that the toxic fumes don’t permeate the air. I also hold my nose for as long as I can until I’m “in the clear”.

So it got me thinking, if I feel something is this toxic (I mean, just smell most hairsprays, they even smell like chemicals), I wonder if there is a more natural, less toxic alternative to hair spray that holds styles?

As you know, there aren’t many substances in nature that have the plastic-like consistency that keeps hair stiff and in a holding pattern for hours (let’s face it, even the best chemical hairsprays can’t do that many times).  But there are some natural substances that can come close to at least holding a little by sticking the hairs together.

One recipe I read involved boiling orange rinds down until you come up with a sticky substance that works almost like a glue on the hair.  There are also some more “natural” options available on the market that at least are void of the phthalates and scents that often are found in hair sprays and a myriad of other hair products.

Another natural options involves another citrus fruit, which isn’t surprising since citrus juices are normally pretty sticky, they make a good basis for a sticky, holding substance.  This one involves lemon juice, mixed with water, and possible even some sugar. The sugar part is a bit scary to me. I picture bees flocking to my hair because of the sweet scent in the summer.

I’m going to try one of these recipes out and let you know if they work of it they’re a big flop!

I’ve tried a lot of foundations in my life time. Due to my complexion, and my past problems with acne, I really like to wear a real foundation – especially in the winter time. I will just wear a shear “glow” kind of lotion sometimes in the summer when a natural tan helps camouflage imperfections and makes my skin look better.

But in the winter, I resort to the full on, flaw-masking foundation of the liquid variety. I’ve used many foundations that just don’t seem to really camouflage anything. They are almost too sheer.

The whole point of foundation, to me, is to make your skin look more uniform and “even”, to help cover redness and uneven skin tone, and of course to help camouflage imperfections such as acne scarring and other blemishes.  I also like to use self tanner on my face to help make it look more uniform in the summer time.

I had always heard that MAC had a really great professional-grade foundation.  But then I read a couple of interesting tips from professional makeup artists, and some of them said that if the MAC price tag was too hefty, to check out Revlon Colorstay foundation.

Revlon Colorstay costs anywhere from eleven bucks to fifteen bucks, depending on where you’re shopping and what geographic locale you’re in.  It lasts a long time because a little bit of this foundation does go a long way.  I basically put a small dallop on my foundation application pad, and that blends in my entire face.

I combine it with Revlon Skinlights (since discontinued, much to my dismay, I’m actually thinking about making my own when my tubes run out, I love it that much), and together with this, it gives me a dewy, fresh look.  It also really evens my skin tone and blends things like my under eye discolorations or any other imperfections that I want to sort of blend away.

It is by far the best foundation I’ve tried. This foundation is definitely for people who want a real, professional grade foundation. It’s not for people who want minimal coverage or happen to have fabulous flawless skin naturally. If you know any of these people, I’d be surprised, I certainly don’t (well, maybe one).

I like it in the “Buff” color. This is the most universally flattering tone they carry it in. And a lot of other people like the Buff color too, because it is often sold out or on the very last one when I buy it. I only buy it about once every eight months to a year, that’s how far it goes, so it’s a very good investment.

And hey, I’m saving myself some serious coin from the higher priced department store brands, so I’m a happy camper.

Julia Roberts is really my hero of sorts. She seems to be one of the rare Hollywood beauties who has not taken to surgery or Botox, making her suspiciously frozen or plastic looking. And for that, she has aged extremely gracefully and kept her natural beauty intact.

Diane Lane is another who has seemed to avoid these typical pitfalls of being a woman in Hollywood, and she is still one of the sexiest, earthiest, most “real” beauties of Hollywood because of it.

Julia Roberts started off hitting the fast track to stardom in her huge sleeper hit “Pretty Woman” which hit big when I was still in highschool (but almost out).  She really resonated with the ladies because of her rags to riches story and her portrayal of the hooker with the heart of gold and the mind of a woman trapped in a profession that really wasn’t “her” at all, just a set of circumstances had forced her into it.

Not to mention those killer legs, raucous laugh and uber super star smile. She was tabloid fodder though, and the paparazzi followed her and her various flames around like Velcro attached to them.  Her love life made headlines over and over, but she still managed to keep her all American sweetheart image going because she was so goshdarn charismatic.

And the flowing, long reddish brown hair certainly didn’t hurt. She’s also always had that touching “doe” look to her with her big brown eyes. She also seems so earnest and humble in interviews that it’s even more endearing and makes her even more physically attractive.

Julia Robert’s personality, along with her fabulous beach-waved hair, beautiful smile and laugh, and doe eyed beauty will make her a celebrity beauty icon for years to come.  She’s not quite your “conventional” beauty, which makes her all the much more appealing to both men and women.

Also just the fact that she has refused to resort to plastic surgery or Botox yet has made her a real role model for women who want to be beautiful naturally, and just take care of their skin well by using great anti aging products and natural methods to reduce the appearance of wrinkles.

We CAN age gracefully without looking like a cookie cutter plastic surgeon’s palette, and Mrs. Roberts has proven that.

I asked myself this question a lot when I was younger. I was very flat chested – not even a AA cup, so I was very self conscious about how flat I was because not only did I have no breasts to speak of, but I also had a curvy body everywhere else.  I needed to have more “balance” up top to make me look somewhat proportioned.

Let’s just say I was very bottom heavy.  Back then (this was about twenty years ago), I really couldn’t find much but some information about various herbal pills which often times didn’t end up working, and a product called Bloussant, which I’m not even sure is still offered today.

I believe I found them in magazine ads. This was before the internet became so popular, so my options were really limited in my desperate quest for natural breast enhancement options.  I ended up trying two different kinds of pills and neither really worked.

They would start to make my breasts feel sore and enlarged, but it ended up being nothing more than a temporary PMS-like side effect of the pills and it would wear off in a few days.  Granted, I didn’t really take some of these pills long enough to get real results either, but let’s just say I was very skeptical.

Then a couple years ago I tried a product called Bountiful Breast.  It actually did work for me, and I got some real results with it.  My results took about a month to even start to see, so I was nervous at first, but sure enough my bras got much tighter after about three months on the product.

I had actually gotten implants before I found out about the product, but I didn’t like them as they always felt hard, so I tried the product to give me extra “padding” and an extra layer of fat over the implants and the Bountiful Breast product really did work, it made them bounce more naturally and feel a lot more natural as well instead of feeling like hard rocks all the time.

You have to be patient with this product as it can work slowly on some and faster on others. You also have to make sure you take it with the protein shakes they recommend and also with a supplement called L-Tyrosine which is supposed to help you get better results from the product.

I actually reviewed this product a while ago and you can see that review here : Bountiful Breast Review.

I’m a fan of going with reddish hair highlights occasionally. In fact, I just did mine about 6 weeks ago, and love them combined with my natural brunette hair color. I do a two step process. I first dye my hair with my natural darker brown hair color, wait a day or two, then do my red or caramel colored highlights after the base color has set in.

I’ve been doing it this way for a while, because I’m trying to avoid spending obscene amounts of money at the salon to get a process done that I can do myself in half the time and for a fraction of the price. Often times, when I got to a salon, I’m not happy with the way it turns out anyway, and I figure doing it myself gives me complete control over the outcome of the color and the highlights.

Although I really love the way a warm red looks in highlights, I could never go completely red because the color simply washes out too quickly.  I’ve heard this as a common complaint for women and men who dye their hair red.  It’s especially frustrating if you’re dying your hair red to cover up the greys, and you see them peeping through a little too early.

Plus, hair coloring can be rough on the hair, even if you’re using a natural product, it’s still a process.  So here are some tips for getting your red hair color to last longer :

1.)  This may be hard for some to swallow, but try your hardest to NOT wash your hair at least 48 hours after you color your hair.  This allows the color to set into the shaft of the hair better, and absorb into instead of simply coat the hair.

2.)  Use a natural shampoo that is 100% sulfate free. Sulfates are the enemy when it comes to “washing your color out”.  They are too harsh and strip even non-colored hair, so of course they will easily strip color out of your hair from a bottle as well.  They also may inhibit healthy hair growth.

3.)  Go more days in between washes.

4.)  Use a chemical free, alcohol free conditioner. This is a tall order since most conditioners on the market have alcohol in them. But you can find them that are alcohol free.

5.)  Protect your head from the sun. UV rays wash out color very quickly. Protect your hair with either a spray in UV protectant or a hat for a longer lasting, virbrant and shiny red hair color.

It’s the eve of the big V-Day.  For all of you who have a special someone, I thought it would be fun to talk about some cute looks and naturally pretty makeup hints to give you that extra edge if you’re going somewhere with your main squeeze and want to look hot, cute or sexy.

Pinks are one of the best ways to look feminine.  You may not like pinks per se, but pink, peach and light blush or mineral makeup colors are one of the most universally flattering colors on every woman. It doesn’t necessarily matter what your complexion, bone structure, skin or hair color is – there is usually a pink or peach tone that will suit you.

For people like me, who have naturally cooler skin tones, pinks that are more on the mauve or purple end of the spectrum are more flattering. For those that have deeper or warmer skin undertones, a warmer peach or yellow undertoned pink would do the trick.

One of my favorite ways to add an instant hint of pretty color and a flushed look of femininity is to use a lightly colored lip balm (preferably a chemical free lip balm) with a hint of stain in it.  This is my favorite way to make my lips stand out. I don’t have the fullest lips. They’re rather on the thin side, so I don’t like bright, garrish colors that just bring even more attention to this.

A great way to enliven your face is to take a blush – with the same coloring rules you would use for any other pinks or peach tones, and swipe just a little across your forehead, the bridge of your nose, and the apples of your cheeks, which is the area where your cheek is at its highest by the eye.

This adds some color and life to your skin and makes you appear much flirtier and “ready to mingle”.  Remember, go light on pink and that’s the way it looks best.  Guys usually don’t like a ton of makeup – just a hint in all the right places will make you look naturally sexy and appealing.  Save the sex kitten look for his birthday

We are a nation of lip balm addicts.  I myself shamelessly swipe the emollient stick of stuff over my lips at least once every hour to once every half hour. That boils down to about twenty times a day, at least!  But I can be a bit of an extremist with things -  I also swig water constantly throughout the day. I guess I just like staying hydrated, both inside and out, and I require a lot of lip-enhancing moisture!

While some natural lip balms contain nothing but the good, natural soothing stuff, there are others that contain chemicals and petroleums that are suspected carcinogens or suspiciously “fake” ingredients that really have no business going on your lips, where it is very likely you will ingest a bit of the stuff into your body on top of already absorbing it via the skin.

There are also artificial flavors and colors in a lot of typical commercial lip balms that you may want to look at. Many scents, flavors and colors are of a proprietary nature, which means the company that makes the product doesn’t necessarily have to disclose the potential myriad of chemicals that go into that flavor or scent.

What I would suggest, and what I actually use, is all natural lip balm that is formulated with only natural sweeteners, natural flavored essential oils, bees wax and other oils like grapeseed, jojoba, coconut, or even something like hempseed oil or avocado oil.

Since I use argan oil on my skin at night, I’ve even used argan oil on my lips as I’m putting it on the rest of my face to add lip moisture – what the heck, it’s all natural, and my lips are “skin” too.  All of these are not only all natural, but they also are superior, long lasting and therapeutic moisturizers.

They add emollience, moisture and shine to the lips which helps to make the lips look larger naturally without adding all the other questionable stuff that can go into those commercial brands you see so often at the stores. Of course, there are some all natural brands available at stores, but not too many since “all natural” tends to not have long shelf lives where they can afford to sit on store shelves and warehouse shelves for months or years before being purchased.

I’ve been using natural hair color for a while now. I have read too many deeply disturbing things about all the harsh chemicals that are found in most commercial haircolors.  Ammonia, peroxide, parabens, resorcinol, and a variety of other cancer-causing toxic chemicals are just a few of the reasons to avoid many haircolors.

Not only that, I noticed that these typical hair dyes were really starting to burn my scalp, and started to affect the health of both my hair and my scalp. My head was often itchy and dry, and my hair seemed like a dry haystack after coloring my hair with these chemical-loaded colors that I was buying off the shelves.

My first foray into the natural hair color world was a disaster.  I tried a henna hair color and ended up with hair that looked almost grey.  I decided never again was I even going to attempt a henna hair color. It left my hair looking worse.  Not that henna is a bad thing – it is contained in some natural hair dyes today, but I tried using just straight powdered henna and it was awful.

I also tried a couple other brands of “natural hair color” only to find that they burned my scalp and dried my hair just as badly as the other stuff.  This was because they still had several harsh chemicals in them.

I finally found Tints of Nature hair colors online about a year and a half ago, and I’ve never looked back – it was one of my favorite hair care products of all time. I’ve actually tried several of their colors and landed on the medium brown as my favorite because it matches my natural color best and gives the best finish.

While the formula does have a pungent smell, it does not burn my head when I apply it. Nor does my hair look dry, dull and lifeless after I use it.  It actually looks healthy, bouncy and shiny, and it never did with the L’Oreals, the Revlons and the Garniers that dominate the store shelves.

I’ve never found Tints of Nature on store shelves, I’ve always purchased mine online at Amazon, where I’ve found the most competitive price for this product.

I think that just about every woman I know has a little mini crush/admiration for Jennifer Aniston. I think it’s because not only does she have great, easy taste when it comes to fashion and manages to make a plain black dress look downright adorable yet sexy at the same time, but she seems like she’s the woman who you could have a conversation with. She’s “obtainable” that way, even though she is a huge mega star and has had her life repeatedly invaded by the paparazzi and her love life scrutinized, written about and speculated on for over a decade.

Let’s talk first about her fabulous hair. She has always had really beautiful hair, one of the most admired heads of celebrity hair there is. It always seems to lay right, and she wears it in the most gorgeous yet simple updos and side swept looks.  She can wear it wavy or pin straight and look really pretty doing it.

Her makeup is simple.  That’s why she looks somewhat like the girl next door – even though she’d be the girl next door that every guy wants to date.  She uses simple nudes, what looks like a small amount of natural foundation and shades of brown a lot and pink, which fits her naturally tan, fit look best.  She wouldn’t look good with caked on makeup, and she seems to know that and chooses the most elegant and simple, casual looks for her makeup, yet manages to look young, fresh and vibrant every time.

She has a look of “fun” about her. Like she’s the girl that every man and woman wants to be friends with. And that my friend, is probably more attractive than anything else – hair, makeup, clothes or any other physical attribute.  And she looks to have no cellulite in those photos of her in bikinis, which makes her the envy of most women.

I’m kind of liking her hair when she doens’t flat iron it.  It looks so pretty with the multiple layers of highlights that seem darn natural if they aren’t.  The waviness and texture really looks fantastic with her chocie of clothes and makeup too.