Before you know it, spring will be here! Gosh, we’re already on the cusp on march, which is when everything starts to thaw, hopefully things start to warm up a little (although in Ohio, the weather’s always slow to warm in the spring), and you’ll start thinking about donning a pair of shorts and your favorite tank top again, along with those adorable sandles you can’t wait to put on again.
What does all this mean? Well, most likely, you’ll start thinking about how much you’d like to have a tan again! Nothing looks healthier than a nice, natural, warm looking tan, and it can all be done in the comfort of your own home thanks to new cosmetic technology. I should know, I’m probably the biggest experimenter with self tanners that I know! I’ve tried it all, the Mystic tan, the drug store self tanners, the super high end self tanners from Clinique, Estee Lauder and other retail high end brands, and some off brands I’ve found online.
Heck, once I even experimented with giving myself my own spray tan from an actual professional air brush! And it actually didn’t turn out half bad either. The conclusion I’ve come to is that while the spray on tanners may be a little easier and seem a little less messy, I always come back to self tanning cremes, because of their versatility and their ability to wear better and longer, in my humble opinion.
My current self tanner of choice is a higher end brand that is sold online and also I believe at either Macy’s, Nordstrom’s or Bloomingdales. It’s called Xen-Tan, and I like it becuase it give an instant warm glow and genuinely lasts longer than other self tanners I’ve used in the past. I’ve reviewed this product before, and given it high marks as one of the best self tanners out there. In the coming weeks, as you get your tan on, I’ll talk a little more about self tanning.
I’m thinking this may be my next lip gloss to try. As I’ve stated before, I’m in love with Lip Fusion as a lip plumper and gloss, but still would like something that I can apply as a gloss that also doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to wear as just a simple gloss without the plumping, which I’m not in need of 24/7. I’ve read some good reviews online about BeneFit’s “The Gloss”, which is a lip gloss that is supposed to stay put pretty well, like my beloved Lip Fusion, and also stay shiny and not break up or look caky after it wears for a while.
The Gloss comes in several different, mostly light, shades that are pinkinsh and purple in hue. It also comes in a sheer, clear formula as well. The shades that it comes in are named : Crystal (clear), Rave Reviews (a deeper purple tone - I like it), Streakin, No Peeking, Corsage, Chaperone, Annette’s Flip, and Kiss Me. Looks like these names are all inspired by a high school/50’s theme as a lot of stuff BeneFit’s kitchy marketing does. Using a light reflective lip gloss is one of the best ways to naturally plump the lips.
The Gloss is very reasonably priced also, it’s $14 for a reasonably sized tube. It looks like it comes with a sponge applicator, which has it’s pros and cons vs a brush applicator, but for lip gloss vs. lip stick, this is fine! Some of these new lip glosses which say they stay put longer usually use some sort of silicone technology that bonds better to the lip, this process can sometimes dry the lips out more, but I’ve found with newer formulas they seem to have eliminated the drying factor.
I just read two conflicting reviews on a very expensive cellulite reduction cream called Cellulean, which I believe we discussed before. As we all know, cellulite can be somewhat controlled by exercise and diet, but not completely, and sometimes even the skinniest of women are afflicted with the cottage cheese on their thighs, buttocks and belly simply because it’s a feminine trait due to hormonal causes and estrogen links.
Cellulean is actually a blue gel that comes in an eight ouce bottle and sells for a whopping $50 a bottle, so when women buy something like this, they either expect free refills or that stuff to really blow them out of the water results-wise! Well, Cellulean sounds like it has a good premise, but I reported to you last time that one thing that bugged me about their website was that they only had a few testimonials, and that was it, yet they claimed they were the most effective, pharmaceutical-grade cellulite treatments on the market. So there was a slight disconnect there for me already.
Cellulean’s big claim to fame is that it has tapped into the efficient transdermal delivery that other cellulite creams have not been able to. Now, let’s cut to the chase. The bad review I read was on Amazon, from a customer who apparently purchased Cellulean, used it, and actually said she thinks she GAINED WEIGHT from using it. Now, I’m not sure how this could happen, but perhaps either she was eating too much anyways, or maybe the chemicals in the cellulite treatment used just affected her that way. To be fair, she could also have some sort of bias against the product.
You just never know……The other review on Amazon however, gave it a rave review. Again to be fair, that review could have also been from a biased person. It’s only ever really good when products have several reviews listed there, that way you know you’re getting several different viewpoints, and the likelihood they are biased becomes less of an issue.
One of the eye colors I’ve really been getting into lately are greens. I have medium brown eyes, and I think that green eyeliners and eyeshadows with hints of green are very complementary to those with brown eyes, especially the lighter and darker shades of brown and hazel. Greens can also actually be worn by most complexion types, but some people with very, very fair skin may want to stay away from lighter greens, especially if their skin has any ruddy undertones, as it can actually tend to bring these out more, and warmer shades of green and brown would usually be recommended.
My favorite new eyeliner is one by Lord & Berry, and it’s called “Forest”. It’s basically a deep forest green that is earthy in tone and is pretty dark. It’s actually hard to tell that it’s green unless you get right up on it, but the results do bring out the eyes more than say a typical brown or black eyeliner might do.
Greens actually look really good on redheads too, and look exceptional on those with greenish hues in their eyes, even if they have generally brown eyes, but are one of the lucky ones who have exotic flecks of color in them, bringing out more than one color depending on the lighting, their mood, and other factors that can influence the way the eyecolor looks that day.
Deeper, warmer greens are best. I’d definitely say to stay away from the brighter, more flourescent-types of greens, as those would obviously just look cheap and too overpowering. We’re going for subtle here! I really like some of the earthy tones that Bare Minerals puts out in their eyeshadows, so you may want to look into one of their earthy greens in eyeshadow, and I also believe they have eyeliners out now too.
It’s looking like there’s a new product on the market that works as a fat binder, and actually has clinical backing to prove it works, without being sold as a prescription drug. What is a fat binder?
Well, it’s when a product that is taken orally helps our body to expel (get rid of as waste) excess fat intake from our body. Excess fat and excess calorie consumption is the #1 reason we have what many term as an “obesity epidemic” here in the United States right now.
Not only that, excess fat in the diet, especially the type consumed so readily in the American diet, accounts for a variety of health problems, including heart problems, obesity, related obesity ailments like diabetes, depression, bad vascular health and a generally poor state of health.
This is a big reason that so many natural and medical companies are working to find products that actually help to get rid of excess fat from the body as well as calories, and it looks like one has made the grade so far.
This new product, called Proactol, actually is a fat binding agent which binds to the fat in our foods and carries it out of the body, before it is absorbed and can do harm in the body and before it can be absorbed and stored as excess body fat and even cellulite. For more information, see Proactol reviews for clinical information, testimonials, and more information on the theory behind this interesting concept.
After all the recent negative publicity for the modeling industry, and all that positive changes that were on their way to being made, it appears the US is in no hurry to institute what other countries like Spain have already started : The minimum BMI for runway models. This meant that all runway models would not even be considered for coveted jobs unless they met a certain BMI, or body mass index, which means they have to have a certain amount of body fat to be considered for modeling jobs.
This change occurred in the wake of some high profile model deaths that were linked to anorexia or bulimia, or both. Models, especially the models who were younger and more impressionable, were starving themselves (and still are) to ensure that they would stay deathly thin and fit into the ridiculously small runway clothes to strut their stuff for designers.
Not only that, young women looking to these high fashion models as role models were thinking that being waif thin, as in size zero or smaller, and having no body fat was in style, and many young women look to emulate this look by starving themselves. I was just looking at pictures from New York’s famous Fashion Week fashion shows, and every single model I looked at did not look healthy. They all look like mannequins. Their hip bones are jutting out, their arms and legs are pencil thin, and a stomach? Forget about it - it’s concave!
I’m all for staying health and trim, but there is a point where dieting becomes obsessive and intrudes on a normal, happy and fun life. Beauty is fun, fashion is fun, but we should not be so obsessed with this outrageous beauty ideal of size zero or smaller. I say we ban pictures of Nicole Richie and Kate Bosworth too, while we’re at it. These women are hardly role models for young women to be looking up to.
In recent sad developments, as I’m sure all of us know by now, the life of Anna Nicole Smith, the always controversial, tabloid-friendly life, has come to an early end after what appears to be a drug related death. This comes just months after the death of Anna’s son, also believed to be drug related, so it has come to a shock to many.
Anna’s life has been quite a wild ride, and while all may not agree with how she lived it, or question her intentions, one thing can be said about Anna. Her sex kitten image from the nineties until now has definitely spawned some fashion and makeup looks that are basically aimed at the smokey eyed, buxom look that is so fun, and that she fostered and made popular with her smokin’ Guess Jeans ads back in the nineties.
Then, when Anna resurfaced in the new millenium, she resurfaced as a subject for a reality show about her own life, and became somewhat of a topic of discussion because of her drastic weight gain. Her face was still beautiful though, and TrimSpa saw an idea in her, making her their spokeswoman after Anna Nicole supposedly lost half of her body weight (or what looked like that) through taking the diet supplement, and skyrocketing the diet aid into international success practically overnight.
Anna looked great, but her behavior was still somewhat odd, and many speculated that the buxom beauty was on drugs. Anna Nicole Smith certainly has led an interesting life, but it is sad that she will go down as one of the blonde beauties, almost like Marilyn Monroe, who looked like she had so much, and yet led such a tragic life. We hope Anna’s daughter Dannielynn is given to a person who raises her well, and shelters her from the public eye.
Numbing creams that are topical and are meant to numb fairly local areas in many cosmetic procedures have recently been linked to deaths related to irregular heartbeat and possibly other life threatening conditions (not mentioned in depth though). Numbing creams often contain things like lidocaine, which everyone thinks of as a safe topical product, right? Well, apparently there can be too much applied, and on certain individuals, if too much is applied, a toxic amount of chemicals is able to build up in the blood stream and the person can go into a coma and die, or have seizures.
The article I read on the topic used an example of two women who used a numbing cream on their legs after laser hair removal was performed on their legs. They slathered their legs with the cream as instructed, wrapped them in plastic, and proceeded to fall into a coma and both died. The women reportedly were only in their early twenties.
Apparently the more surface area covered can mean the larger risk, and individuals with pre-exisiting conditions of the heart and other organs may be at a higher risk for potential life threatening side effects. This is definitely some knowledge you want to arm yourself with if you are getting any sort of cosmetic procedure done, including laser hair removal, so that you can ask your doctor about it and express your concerns.
It certainly looks that way. The former Guess? model and current TrimSpa spokeswoman, and constant train wreck, looks as though she may have gone under the knife, maybe even several times over the past few years. We saw Anna Nicole gain a lot of weight, and yet somehow she does not appear to have any of the excess or loose skin that many women have when they lose a lot of weight pretty fast.
This could have been one of her surgeries, to tighten her belly and maybe even remove excess fat elsewhere on her body. But lately it’s more Anna’s face that’s looking a little tampered with. She is going on 40 years old, and yet somehow does not have a single wrinkle around her eye, and also her recent appearances reveal a face that looks different.
And not just “better”, but she almost looks like a different person. Her cheek bones look more sculpted, her eyes look as if they’ve been pulled up and back, and her lips look like they’ve had some surgical lip plumping or injections done to them as well. They are much fuller lips than they were before. Is it possible she’s gone under the knife and had several cosmetic surgeries?
From what I see, yes. I don’t know if any wrinkle creams or topical products, or even Botox injections alone, could achieve the look that Anna seems to have morphed into lately. I do have to say though, her face looks good still, but she is on the border of overdoing it and getting that unnatural “plastic” look, so she’d better be careful.
I was in a local high end grocer (privately owned) the other day, and I wasn’t sure what body moisturizer to buy. Since I love switching products a lot when it comes to body moisturizer, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used the same kind of body lotion twice. I’ve alternated between Suave, Keri, Lubriderm, St. Ives, Vaseling Intensive Care, Neutrogena, and various other mroe obscure brand names like natural brands from natural food stores quite a bit over the past few years.
This time, my body lotion of choice was one from the high end grocer in the “natural” lotion section, called Beyond Belief with Aloe and vitamin E. It came in a very generously sized pump bottle, which I think will last me a few months if I’m not so generous with it, and it smells almost like you would expect a Vaseline body care product to smell (that’s the part I don’t like, I’m not a fan of that smell).
I usually twist them open to make sure the smell is not offensive in the store, but I was in a rush and I thought well how offensive can the smell of vitamin e and aloe be, right? So, needless to say I’m not a fan of the scent, and the lotion itself is not as emollient or thick as I’d like it to be. Sure, it serves its purpose as a lightweight all-over body moisturizer, but it really doesn’t feel as though it’s creating a protective layer like some other lotions do that are thicker and more intensive.
Bottom line on “Beyond Belief” - not a huge fan, but then again, it could just be the formulation, their other stuff might work better…
