My Beauty Space : Product Reviews, Tips and Experiences

Did you ever get a free sample of a product that you thought about throwing away, but you tried it, and ended up loving it?  Well, that’s my story with  Frederic Fekkai’s Glossing Cream.  It’s a bit on the expensive side, but it is now my favorite hair finishing product, ever, I think.  It’s got a pretty natural base, advertising heavily that it contains olive oil.  And the consistency is that which feels a little like it does have a natural oil, but when you put it in your hair, it’s not greasy or oily, nor does it weigh my hair down like some other glossers and high shine hair finishers I’ve tried. 

What is it?  It is a creamy, but slightly more watery shining cream than I’ve used in the past, with an opalescent yellow coloring to it.  It’s costs about $26 for a 7 ounce bottle, and I believe there is also a smaller size available for about $19 as well (see Amazon above for pricing if you’d like, plus more reviews).  I did purchase the product from Amazon, and that is where I read more reviews on this great hair product that confirmed my thoughts that it wasn’t just me, this was an exceptional hair care product that I had to have.

I do tend to get frizz in the summer and if my hair is exposed to any type of moisture, so this product is ideal for me to carry around in my purse in a smaller bottle for any flyaways or frizziness, and since just a little goes a long way, I don’t have to worry about weighing my hair down or it looking like I dumped grease on it to get it calmer. 

Ingredients in Frederic Fekkai Glossing Cream : While all the ingredients are too numerous to list, I thought I’d highlight the more important ones that you and I can actually pronounce.

Oilive Oil - otherwise known as Olea Europea Fruit Oil

Castor Seed Oil

Good old fashioned water (aqua)

Panthenol

As you can see, it’s got some good stuff in it, but this is just the right combination.  I got my free sample of this at a Bath and Body Works store with a purchase, and just the little sample packet lasted me almost two weeks, although admittedly I used it sparingly.  In short, this is good stuff, and it will be in my hair product cabinet for a while!  I think the seven ounce bottle I purchased will last a while too, so I feel ok with paying the price tag.  Anything that works on MY HAIR is worth the extra bucks!  It can be unruly when it wants! 

Oh, one more note, I think this is also perfect whether you wear your hair curly, wavy or straight - I’ve used it with all three, and have a great turnout every time. 

OK guys, this is gonna be a real quick one, but I’m embarking on a little experiment soon that involves reducing and getting rid of cellulite with a topical cellulite treatment along with wrap bandages. 

This sounds weird, I know, but I got the idea to do my own home made body wrap after reading about compression and how compression can help to reduce cellulite (albeit temporarily), and wanted to do the experiment to see if I could just use an easily obtained, high quality cellulite cream like Revitol (one of my favorites) and simple, cheap ace bandages (they can be purchased for around ninety nine cents for five feet of bandage).  I will keep you posted on this silly experiment, and let you know if it gives any immediate results. 

I think this could be an excellent remedy to use before special events to reduce cellulite appearance if it works….

I happened upon this newer fat-dissolving technique somehow, I’m not even sure how, but I know I was surfing the net and voila this weird procedure was in front of me. I say weird, but really Lipodissolve, as it is called, is actually very similar to a procedure called messotherapy. Messotherapy is still a somewhat mysterious procedure to me, because it is clear that some substance is injected subcutaneously which dissolves or gets rid of fat, but it is never really disclosed exact what is contained in the formula, which is supposedly all natural and homeopathic.The Lipodissolve procedure is the same, except it says that is is fundamentally different because is actually dissolves the fat below the surface of the skin, but it is basically a series of injections into fatty areas of the body, below the surface. It supposedly works by “bursting” the fat cells, destroying them, and then flushing them through the liver.

Maintaining smooth supple skin is a goal for many women.  Unfortunately, due to the effects of time, UV light, stress and other elements, as we age, fine lines and wrinkles crop up on our face detracting from our appearance.  There are many products on the market to help to minimize the look of fine lines and wrinkles and help to restore a more youthful image to our skin.  On the more extreme end of antiaging solutions, there is cosmetic surgery, for example, a face lift.  There is also a laser treatment, collagen injections or Botox if you want medical intervention to erase lines and wrinkles.
 If you do not want such dramatic measures to control and minimize wrinkles, there are many lotions, creams and topical treatments for a more youthful glow.  Projuva has a full line of antiaging skin care products.  There is a night serum, pro collagen complex, an eye rejuvenating treatment, an exfoliating scrub, a clarifying mask and a renewal cream.  You can select just one product or use a combination of their products to achieve the desired results.  Projuva’s Dermaloxyn- CR Renewal Cream is a blend of antioxidants, vitamins, peptides and collagen.
 Roc is another company that has a full line of antiaging and wrinkle correction skin care products.  They have a deep wrinkle daily moisturizer, a night cream, an eye cream and a deep wrinkle serum.  Roc features a substance called Roc Retinol contained in their skin care products. Roc Retinol Correxion deep wrinkle daily moisturizer has SPF 15 added to protect your skin from the sun’s damaging rays.  The Roc’s eye cream reduces crow’s feet in 12 weeks and dark circles and puffiness in 4 weeks.
 Roc also has other products to lift and define your skin and facial peel treatments available for wrinkles and anti aging.  Oil of Olay has a full line of lotions, night serums and daily moisturizers with SPF and an exfoliating treatment.  There are many different products, certainly more than mentioned here to try both in the stores and via the internet.  If you don’t want medical intervention or injections for younger looking skin, there are still many options open to you to try out to attain a smoother, more youthful complexion.

I have ugly feet. I waited tables for years in college and afterwards and it really shows - they are misshapen and plain old worn out!  Well, a lot of shoes now are made for people who are always on their feet, so not only can you have comfort, but you can have pretty feet, worthy of that $40 pedicure that you want to go get once in while!Many of us work on our feet all day long with only a lunch time to sit down and give our feet a break for a half an hour or so.  When it comes to what shoes we select, we look at, first and foremost,  comfort for our poor tired feet.
When I’m shopping for shoes, I look for extra wide sizing, try them on and walk around a little bit in them in the store.  If the shoes are not as comfortable as bedroom slippers right away without having to break them in, I’ll put them back and try to find another pair.  I almost always find a pair of shoes that’s comfortable, but often have to give up a fashionable, stylish look.
 The good news is the traditional company lines for comfort shoes are now focusing in on making their shoes still with ease of wear in mind but more stylish than they were in the past.  The brands Naturalizer, Easy Spirit and Aerosoles are tailoring the shoes they are marketing now to successfully blend both comfort and style.  They are responding to this demand on the market today.
 Many of us women will give up comfort so we can look stylish.  I, personally, have always put comfort first, because if your feet hurt, all the rest of you hurts too.  I was glad to read about this trend of more style to the traditional comfort shoes.  Now, I can’t wait to go shoe shopping and find a newer foot image that will still keep my feet happy. 
 

In the quest for the perfect self tan, it may prove true that less is more in the end if you’re looking to achieve a long lasting, naturally fading and natural looking sunless tan.  My sister actually has practiced this way of applying self tanner for a while, and she swears that it is the reason no one can guess that she got the tan from a lotion, not from the real sun or a tanning booth (although I do believe she occasionally still visits a tanning booth -she has not had the same problems as me - yet!)

She says that she applies self tanner nearly every day, except she combines a little bit with her regular daily lotion instead of using the pure concentrated lotion that comes in the tubes or bottles by itself.  While she says that it does not give her instant deep color, the color builds slowly, and therefore, since it goes on essentially in layers, like a real tan would, it wears much better, fades more like a real tan instead of the sometimes freckly looking fading that pure self tanner can give, and looks much more realistic because it’s not dosing you with the high amounts of the self tanning agent all at once, so there’s less instance of getting that “orange” color everyone finds such a turnoff in the self tanning world.

I’ll admit, I don’t have the patience she does to lather it in with my lotion all the time, but I do try to use a lighter concentraion self tanner now, and use it more often, to get the layering effect.  I find the smell to be annoying, and sometimes I don’t like the feeling of having self tanner on my skin, so I guess that’s my way of making it less time I have to deal with the smell and feel.  Self tanners are not all alike either, so some do help build that tan eventually. 

Most people think that liposuction might also help them with that other stubborn thing that nearly all of us women have on our thighs, abdomen and even upper legs (like me) on our quadricep muscles.  Is this true though, or is lipo really only a simple fat suction procedure?  The thing is, liposuction could potentially help with the appearance of cellulite for the simple reason that it is the fat that is pushing up against the outer dermis and creating surface tension, creating the puckered look that is called cellulite, and simply reducing the fat below the surface may help with this “pushing” that helps the collagen bands tighten around the fat and creates the spongy effect. 

However, you may be disappointed if getting rid of the cellulite is the primary reason you want liposuction, because it is not created with this in mind.  Lipo really is more of a surgery (and a pretty serious one at that) which is more concerned about actually reducing the circumference and size of the area it is targeting.  So with lipo, you may actually be reduced a size, but with cellulite reduction treatments, you are really just tightening the appearance of the area and making it look a lot smoother. 

Many women even say that they wouldnt’ mind their weight and their thigh circumference if they just had little to no cellulite, because excess weight does tend to make cellulite look ten times worse.  Cellulite treatments that can be purchased online and at the local drug store can help to smooth out the appearance, and there are also more serious, costly ways to deal with cellulite, ranging from messotherapy, where needles of a certain undisclosed but all natural substance are inserted into the cellulite areas, to endermology, where machines massage the cellulite right out, quite literally. 

There’s also Lypossage, which I told about my experience with, where a licensed massotherapist uses her hands to essentially perform the same thing as endermology machines, at about the same cost though (unfortunately).  I got results, but honestly they were not as dramatic as I had hoped for the price, but I’m reading now that return visits often yield desired results. 

For now, I just use my trusty old cellulite treatments at home and try to watch that I don’t eat a lot of salt, which tends to make it look worse due to bloating, as well as watch my fat intake, since all of this combined with exercise can help to greatly smooth things out.  Smart Lipo is another option I found intriguing, but that again is more for getting rid of the subcutaneous fat, not the cellulite. 

Well, I’ve been talking a lot about beauty bargains I’ve been getting lately, and this just continues the beauty bargain trend!  On a recent trip to North Carolina, we stopped at a big outlet that specilized in cigars, cowboy hats and tacky clothes, but also happened to have some pretty cool beauty closeout items, ranging from Rusk Hair care products to cheaper hair care products and a whole range of cosmetics that had most likely been closeouts or slightly imperfect, purchased from retail stores. 

Among the beauty bargain closeouts, I found some Maybelline Wet Shine lipsticks and lip balms, in quite a few colors, that looked like the packaging was slightly imperfect, for a dollar ninety nine each.  I bought a few of them, figuring I had tried Maybelline Wet Shine lipsticks and balms before and was pretty surprised at how well I liked them.  Don’t get me wrong, they do not stay very well, but they’re really not designed to. Wet Shine by Maybelline is designed more as a lip gloss, and a high shine lip product that can help your lips to look plumper, more voloptuous, and add just a hint of color.

I purchased one in a Berry color, and the other in a translucent gloss.  I usually slick the gloss on first and them the Berry colored gloss and get a nice, light tint to my lips that stays for about an hour, unless I’m eating or drinking.  I like the fact that it’s subtle color, because I’ve never been a fan of the way I look in actual lipstick, since my lips just don’t carry off bold color right, and the shape of my face tends to not be so flattered by heavy lip stain. 

I think if you’re interested in lip plumping, you may want to check out products like the Wet Shine line by Maybelline, in addition to using an actual lip plumping agent (see lip plump reviews), since high shine agents can help your lips to look fuller simply by bending the light in your favor and reflecting off of it to create a seemingly larger surface area.  I always feel my lips look more pronounced and “sexy” with a little gloss on! 

I was out of acne cream or gel that I usually keep around in case I have any blemishes that come up.  My skin happens to be extremely prone to stress-induced breakouts, so I almost always keep a handy tube of zit cream available for these emergencies.  I will usually put the cream or gel on the affected area before I got to bed at night, and hope for the best when I wake up in the morning, although many times I awake and it’s still there. 

I happened upon a great deal at GNC.  When I was purchasing some vitamins, up at the counter they had some clearance items for a buck, and among them was an acne treatment gel from what I believe is a whole skin care product line called Clinical Solutions which had a purple and white label, and was about 2 ounces in weight.  I figured for a buck, who cares if it didn’t work at all, it wouldn’t be much of a loss if it didn’t.  Well, turns out, it didn’t work all that great on me. 

I had a few small zits, or acne bumps, crop up around my right temple for some reason recently, and although I used the acne gel from GNC on my templed several times at night, I didn’t notice that it had cleared the acne or even taken any of the redness out.  So, I ended up putting it on and combining it with some leftover Murad acne mask, which helps to at least dry them out and prevent them from spreading.  I guess it’s only a buck, but I was hoping I stumbled on one of those rare finds that you happen across that’s cheap and works!

I do like the Murad acne spot treament that I got with the cleanser a while ago, but ran out a few weeks ago.  I’m probably going to end up ordering more of the Murad stuff, which is on the expensive side, but it really does help and many times will dry up zits that have just cropped up virtually overnight - it also takes the redness out.  Also, Zenmed has a herbal skin care products line that includes an acne serum which works very well, so maybe I’ll end up going with that too.  I like that one because it’s all natural, and even has a pleasant, woodsy smell to it. 

The makers of popular fillers such as Restylene, which fills or plumps wrinkles from underneath the skin via needle injection by a professional, want every woman in America in that coveted 40-60 year old market that many wrinkles creams and other anti aging products target, want restylene and other such professionally administered wrinkle fillers to become the new wrinkle treatment of choice for women who are now buying wrinkle creams and other high end topical products to try to beat aging.

They say that topical products just don’t do the job as well, and while I disagree that wrinkle creams simply don’t work, they may have a point with the fact that wrinkle fillers produce an immediate, dramatic effect in taking away lines like crows feet, smile and lip lines and forehead lines  simply because they have the advantage of being a subdermally injected product. 

Wrinkle creams are still necessary though, in my opinion, if not to soften lines, but to also help deliver anti aging ingredients and protective agents to the upper most layers of the skin, helping to prevent further free radical damage and other environmental damaging factors, that, together, cause the signs of aging on a woman’s or a man’s face and other areas of the body. 

Restylene is said to cost a woman, at an average administering facility, about $1500 to $3000 per year to keep up the results.  This usually means one initial visit to fill in the wrinkles and lines the person wants filled, and then about six months later, another visit to get the same thing done, since Restylene and other cosmetic wrinkle fillers tend to dissipate out of the body and absorb into the blood stream (supposedly harmlessly), in about this period of time.  I wonder what that means?  Can you just suddenly see all the wrinkles and advanced signs of aging again after about six months or what?  Talk about weird - it would be like aging over night!