Archive for January, 2009:
I’ve reviewed and used so many sunless tanning products in the past that it’s easy to forget whether I’ve tried certain self tanners when I’m in a department store or drug store. I did however remember that I had not yet tried the Sally Hansen brand of self spray tanners for the face (nor for the body for that matter), so at a bargain price of eight bucks for a 1.8 oz. can of spray tanner for the face, I decided to give it a try, since I actually prefer the spray self tanners for the face in the winter since it’s less hassle and you don’t have cream going allover your clothes, which you tend to wear more of in the winter.
Even though the amount they give you in this bottle of Sally Hansen Airbrush Sun for the face seems small, you are treating such a small area that it actually lasts a lot longer than you might think, seeing the “one” in the amount of ounces. Usually for a drugstore product I wouldn’t pay that much, but this was just for the face, so I figured it would last me quite a while.
It’s in a gold cylinder can with a shiny gold top with a clean faced and tanned healthy looking woman on the front of the bottle. The formula says it contains Retinol and vitamins as well, which I’m not sure I really care about since this is strictly for tanning in my book, not for looking younger (although admittedly a tan does ironically make you look younger).
It also advertises that it lasts up to seven days. Let me stop you right there, although I’m going to give this self tanner a good review, I will tell you right now that almost no self tan on the market, at least that I’ve tried, lasts for seven days. Maybe if you never shower, but I don’t know many people who are willing to do that so their self tan lasts longer.
Now, what I really like about this product by Sally Hansen is that the sprayer is excellent and never clogs, like the products that are in a spray can from Neutrogena and L’Oreal tend to do. They really nailed it on the head with this since the reason self tanners in spray form work depends on their spray mechanism. If you don’t have a smooth sprayer, then you get an uneven looking “tan”. This one has a great spraying mechanism that never jams up.
It also has a more pleasant smell than the other airbrush style tans I’ve given myself. While the end smell is still the copper penny smell that many self tanners give off, the first smell is not totally unpleasant, but also not undetectable, so you still do smell a little bit of it unfortunately. Now, as a final point on this review of Sally Hansen Airbrush tan. You do not need to use a lot of this.
Maybe two circular motions of continuous spray in a clockwise motion around the face is all you need, any more and you may end up looking too dark or orange. That’s a good thing, it means it’s a concentrated formula, you just have to use caution when applying for the first time and be sure not to over do it. The color is great – it’s even and natural looking. As with all other self tanners for my face, I use a sponge to gently blend it in, and that seems to work like a charm with this stuff too.
My boyfriend got me a few of the Harajuku Lovers line of perfumes, which is a catchy, sort of trendy perfume line that is the brainchild of Gwen Stefani, who seems to have turned herself into somewhat of a brand over the last few years. She’s a musician, markets lots of beauty products, and even has her own clothing line. And she’s married to the super hot Gavin Rossdale and has two cute kids with him. How much better does life get?
Anyways, the Harajuku line of perfumes is somewhat geared toward younger girls, but I have to admit, there are two scents that I absolutely love. They are different from most other perfumes I’ve smelled to be honest, and I’m very picky about what perfumes I will wear. I don’t like anything that’s overbearing or too flowery, and none of these really fit that bill.
The perfumes come with their different “Harajuku” girls on the top, which was a trend Gwen started when she had Asian Harajuku girls (Harajuku is a style that is worn by girls in the Tokyo area, it’s a sassy, trendy young look) in her videos just a few short years ago.
The two that I really like are lighter scents that are very crisp and last forever. When I go into work at 7 in the morning, and leave at 5:45, I can still smell them on my clothes and on my pulse points where I applied them at night, so their lasting factor is excellent. The two scents I like are Harajuku Lovers “Music” which shows a girl with short hair and a yellow headband, and the other one is and called “Lil Angel” with a girl in blue.
My favorite of the two is “Lil Angel”. I don’t even know how to describe the scents other than the fact that their may be some lotus flower in them, but there is absolutely nothing flowery about them, they are just a light, sweet, yet sexy scent. Best of all, there are five to try – “G”, “Baby”, “Love”, “Music” and “Lil Angel”. I don’t care if they’re targeted toward a younger market, I’ll be wearing these for a while! The line is available at Nordstrom, and I also think I saw them at Macy’s.
Ugh, I really must say that I love MAC cosmetics. Ever since a good friend of mine got me hooked on certain products, like their Lip Plush and Lip Glass lipgloss, which I swear is the longest lasting lip gloss I’ve ever worn, I feel like I’ve been converted. The only product I’m holding out on trying of theirs is the mascara since I still like my drugstore brand L’Oreal Lash Out, and feel that it does the best job on lengthening, darkening and enlarging my eyelashes, and I’ve tried a lot of other expensieve brands too.
My friend, the same one who started my MAC eye opening, got me a limited edition eyeshadow duo that consists of a light off white color ( a yellowish tan) and a deeper brown. Since I’m a brunette with a fair but not necessarily red complexion, browns are one my favorite colors for my eyes.
The eyeshadows also have a tad bit of sparkle to them, making them a bit more festive and reflective when you put them on. The only thing with sparkly eyeshadows that are powder is that you have to be careful to wipe underneath your eyes after application since the sparkles inevitably fall underneath the hollows of your eyes, but that’s minimal with the MAC ones since they don’t go crazy on the sparkle.
The eyeshadow, as with all their other products, goes on smoothly and effortlessly, and it’s deeply pigmented so you don’t find that you’re swiping over and over to get the desired depth to your color, which can be a pain with other eyeshadows that are chinsy on the pigmentation. MAC colors always seem to be a much richer tone as well, and more universally flattering, because I swear I could put this exact same color on made by someone else and it would not look as rich and flattering.
Wow, if this new deodorant that touts it’s effectiveness at not only inhibiting pesky body odor and perspiration, which normal deodorants are supposed to do, but also supposedly it’s effectiveness at inhibiting underarm hair growth, worked, I’d be pretty happy, it’d be like I didn’t have to use my normal permanent body hair removal product (which I love by the way) on my underarms, but I could just use this all in one product instead.
I’d have to admit, I’d be a little worried to allow something that supposefly inhibits hair growth to sit on my underarms all day though. I mean, wouldn’t it irritate my skin, like hair removal products usually do (depilatories) that just sit on the skin for the few minutes that you are supposed to leave them there? I’d be afraid I’d end up with raw, irritated underarms, and since I’ve had that before from using a dull razor and not enough lubricant like soap or shaving cream, I know it’s not pleasant to have your underarms feel like they’re on fire.
The product is supposedly only going to be available in England at first though, so we won’t even have access to it here in the US, who knows for how long, since we do tend to have more stringent approval standards for health and beauty products, which isn’t always a bad thing here in the US I suppose, although it is sometimes annoying that we are barred access from very effective products at times.
The product is actually made by a company we know well here in the US, Unilever, under the Dove brand name, and it’s called Sure Dove Hair Minimizing deodorant. Now I know for sure I wouldn’t use this actually come to think of it. I made the switch over to natural deodorants only, as well as my boyfriend, over a year ago since I believe aluminum is very dangerous, and we’re totally happy with them.
They may not be as good at being antiperspirants because of their lack of aluminim but they are good enough, especially when I consider that I’m not putting something on my underarms that contains a heavy metal – and right by some of the most important lymph nodes on my body no less! I won’t be trying this, but it is a novel concept, I must admit. By the way, I’ve tried epilators on the underarms, and they are a little tricky because the hair on the underarms is very coarse and short, but it can work, it’s just kind of painful.
I have to admit, I was intrigued when I saw the first informercial-style commercial for Wen hair products over a year ago. I mean, they got the perfect, most trustworthy woman to be their spokesperson, Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame, how could this grown woman from the most wholesome, iconic show of many thirty-something’s childhood back a product that would be bad – right? Well, there seem to be a whole lot of very mixed reviews on the line of Wen hair products, some people seem to love it and others think it ruined their hair.
I struggle with products like this because they do seem to work, and work very well for some people, and yet others feel totally ripped off after they buy them and expect to have totally transformed hair and instead are facing worse hair than they had before. I’m thinking perhaps Wen hair products work best on certain types of hair but maybe there are some types that should not use it, like fine hair.
At any rate, the price charged for the hair product line is pretty high, so one would expect salon quality results when using something that is priced this high. Some of their kits run about fifty bucks and can go up to one hundred dollars. One of the other complaints I read about Wen hair products is that the size of the containers is tiny for what you pay and they felt they didn’t really get their money’s worth. Others did not like the strong smell of the shampoo.
I agree with the basis behind Wen, which is that is supposedly does not contain any harsh detergents in it like most commercial (and salon) shampoos. This is a great concept, I’m just not sure how to get something to work without some sort of detergent so that the shampoos can lather, which to me seems to make the conditioner work a bit better. I do advocate staying away from shampoos that lather up a lot though, I’d suggest sticking to moisturizing formulas, which should only provide a bit of lather.
A higher lather (more bubbles) when you are putting the shampoo in and mushing it around in your hair, usually means that the shampoo contains more harsh detergent-like ingredients, and those types should also be avoided, however I think a moderate lather might be required to actually get the hair and scalp clean. See our hair care product reviews page for more info on what I have used that I feel works best.
Boy, when I think about it, this really is the age where anything you could possibly want to do to yourself, beauty and self improvement wise, is pretty much possible. Heck, some of it may be illegal in some parts of the country (I kid, sort of), but it is nonetheless available for the taking if you want it. You want to be taller? There’s a surgery that is offered for that!
You want to lose the fat off only certain parts of the body without dieting? Get liposuction. You want to get rid of cellulite? Provided you have a couple hundred bucks to spare on an ongoing upkeep basis, you can be virtually cellulite free with the array of advanced cellulite reduction treatments on the market today (or you can do them in your own home, which is what I like to do).
Do you want your eyes to be wider and more alert looking? There are eyelid jobs, nose jobs, lip plumping enhancements, cheekbone implants, chin implants, forehead smoother, face lifts, mini facelifts, treatments that help you look younger nonsurgically but that are still somewhat high tech. You get it, the list goes on and on for what you can do to yourself or have done to you for the cost of a couple grand or more, or less, depending on where you get it done.
It’s sometimes scary to think we can alter our appearance to the point where we are almost unrecognizable, but it’s also nice to know we can get tasteful, naturall looking professional work done to ourselves if we want it.
Along those lines is a relatively newer procedure that not many people know about, aside from maybe high paid models and celebrities, where you can actually get eyebrow hair transplanted into your eybrow area to make sparse or previously overplucked eyebrows look as full as the heart desires again.
This was popular when the fad was to overpluck the eybrows to a pencil thin consistency in the mid nineties – believe me, I was a victim of overplucking and unfortunately I still have to pencil in my “eyebrows” in a lot of areas where they are almost noexistent. I’ll keep pencilling though, I don’t foresee any eyebrow transplants in my future. I’ve got bigger fish to fry 
There is an exciting new anti frizz hair care product that I’m going to be trying soon. I’ve already read so much early buzz about it that it has to be one of the better frizz fighting hair care products, or perhaps the best one, created that topically works to counteract frizz, so I’m excited to try it out.
I’m actually waiting to buy it until February, because I heard that it’s sold out until mid January to early February, plus I’m trying to be smart and use up my current hair product before I buy it since this new one called No Frizz by Living Proof is kind of high priced – $24 for just 4 ounces. I’m hoping they may bring the price down eventually, especially if I get hooked on the darn stuff!
Review will be coming in February, maybe sooner if I get my hands on it earlier.
Botox is one of those cosmetic enhancers that I look at with some interest, but also with a lot of trepidation. I just don’t feel that we know the long term effects of this drug well enough for it to be considered “safe” for long term use, as many women have begun using it, especially when the toxin must be administered about three to four times a year just to keep the targeted facial muscles adequately relaxed or frozen to prevent wrinkles and reduce their appearance.
I like to advocate the natural alternatives such as anti wrinkle creams and devices for wrinkles and facial tone such as the handheld soft light lasers that I’ve become fond of myself instead of Botox or any other invasive procedures, but I will admit I’ve had one of them done on myself to test it out (lip injections of Juvederm, which I liked a lot, minus the pain and the bruising afterward and the obvious drawback of having my lips repeatedly stuck with a needle).
This is one of the reasons why I am leery of such injections. Apparently a Botox-type of drug which uses a similar botulinim toxin that is injected into the surface facial muscles to relax them, called Dysport, is being linked to birth defects after a woman who received the injection gave birth to a baby deaf and blind. She had recieved the Dysport injections when she was just one week pregnant with the baby, which explains why, they don’t even recommend any type of injections when you are expecting, and this woman may very well have not even known she was pregnant at the time.
Botox is not without it’s potential side effects either. Some users have reported partial facial paralysis, difficulty swallowing, and even respiratory failure and death in it’s most severe cases, and this has been issued as a potential side effect on that drug. I guess my concern is that supposedly the toxin is not supposed to leak into your body, but it has to if it causes these other problems.
Not only that, how do we know for sure how long the toxin stays in our body, or if it can perhaps be built up to lethal amounts in the brain, or even cause permanent damage to the organs or brain after repeated treatments. I think that Botox-types of drugs are something I will still resist for as long as I can, until there are more studies. Crow’s feet will have to be a burden I’ll bear
I just read and watched a video about a new nonsurgical technique that plastic surgeons are using that is supposed to spot reduce fatty areas on the body, like love handles and excess fat on the thighs, belly, and other spots that are common for problems to emerge for women and men. The video I watched was featured as a news spot about a woman who had the treatments done to help spot reduce her “muffin top”, which is the sides of the belly the overflow from your pants, creating that dreaded muffin top effect that is now such a buzzword.
It’s really an interesting procedure because it doesn’t look like it would really do much of anything. When they showed the woman getting the lipolaser treatment done to her midsection, she was fully clothed, and a laser that took the shape of windmills on her dress in her abdominal area kind of rotated up and down and back and forth, over her clothes.
It was a red laser light, and it’s supposedly a cool laser technique that is newly being used for spot fat reduction after it was discovered that a laser can not only help melt fat internally (smart lipo), but it can also help the body melt (destroy) fat cells when utilized from the outside, and nonsurgically, and then the body’s own lymphatic system is supposed to rid the body of the destroyed fat cells.
While I admit that such a simple procedure looks intriguing for those that want to spot reduce fat on their body, it is pricey, and it does require about five sessions, which usually run anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 dollars total. Also, it does not work for everyone, so there is a chance that either it may not work for you or that you may not get the results you want to get. They did studies to see if this had any effect on the cholesterol levels of those who had the treatments, since it does release fat cells from the body, and so far it looks like it may in fact help cholesterol in some way as well, but those results are not yet totally conclusive. At any rate, it had me intrigued!
It’s called lipolaser, and you can read about it online if you just google lipolaser. The company, Meridian, who manufactures this laser has some good information on the web about it.
Ugh, it’s that ugly, spongy looking stuff that plagues even the thinnest of women. You’ve probably seen one too many gossip magazines with well known, famous, and beautiful women and even models, on the covers of these “expose” types of magazines, saying “ooh look who else has cellulite” as if to mock their perfect images and bask in their revelation that these gorgeous women also get cellulite, not just us poor shmucks who can’t afford the latest and greatest cellulite treatments and lymphatic drainage massages several times a week.
Well, I must say that sometimes seeing even the most beautiful and successful women get cellulite may sometimes make me feel a tad bit better about my own struggles with the spongy stuff, it still makes me mad that we have to deal with this on top of everything else a woman is made to feel insecure about by looking at all the fashion magazines and dealing with the increasing onslaught of near nudity in films, showing unrealistic figures and little to no real body fat.
However, we “regular women” do have several weapons against cellulite that we can use, and we can use them very successfully in our own homes, with dramatic results if we just use the right tecniques and the most effective products we can get our hands on. Most cellulite creams contain ingredients that help to reduce puffiness on the surface of the skin, by doing this, they tighten the skin and make any dimples that appear in the skin’s surface much less noticeable.
But you can add to the effectiveness of even the best cellulite treatments by using your own elbow grease to help smooth the lumps out. When you apply your cellulite treatment, make sure you apply it with plenty of pressure and also make sure that you apply the pressure going up toward your heart, instead of down toward your feet. We are trying to work against gravity – not with it, and you are trying to bring your skin and lumps up, not down.
Also, it may be slightly more effective if you use a cellulite massage, which is very inexpensive and can be found in even drugstores today, in the shower, when your tissue is heated and you can actually get better results since your tissue is more malleable and when it is heated it may be more conducive to smoothing out, at least temporarily.
