Best Of

 After my dental hygienist begged me to tell her what I use on my skin, I decided I should put together a “Best of” list for the blog. I write about a lot of things, and I try a lot of things, but there are some things I buy again and again. (Or would buy again if they broke.)

April Showers

So, it’s Earth Day! Let’s get all eco-friendly. I am not any kind of a crunchy granola hippie, but I try to do what I can. We all should. I use a Brita and a SodaStream instead of buying plastic bottles of flat and seltzer water. I bring my own bags when I go to the store. I recycle. I live in an apartment, and take public transportation or walk almost exclusively. I support local and organic farming when I can. I use cloth napkins, cloth lunch bags, and special reusable sandwich wrappers. I buy mostly natural cleaning products. I even buy toilet paper and paper towels made from recycled paper. But not the tissues, those tissues are awful! I also have a weakness for real light bulbs. I only have three CFLs in my whole apartment, and I hate one of them every time. And they’re so efficient it’s going to take FOREVER for that one to burn out! So I deal with that, but in general, I think my carbon footprint is small enough that I don’t really feel guilty about having soft tissues and nice lighting.

Tinted Moisturizer Showdown

I’m fairly certain you all haven’t gone out and bought yourselves airbrush makeup systems, though I continue to be obsessed with mine. One of the things I was researching before getting addicted to the airbrush was tinted moisturizer, and I still needed to find one to use for low-maintenance days and summer travel.

It sounds French, so it MUST BE fancy!

Yesterday I explained how investing in a good quality flat iron changed my life. Today, a smaller investment, but no less life changing: Seche Vite Dry Fast Topcoat. If you’re like me, or my mom, or most of my fellow New Yorkers, you’re impatient and have ruined quite a few manicures by not waiting long enough for them to dry. But they seemed dry! But they weren’t dry, were they? And now your manicure has dents/ fingerprints/a piece of lint stuck in it or is totally scraped off in one spot and you just wasted a bunch of time, and possibly $10-20.

Jesus Built My Flat Iron

I have what could be called “combination” hair. It’s a mix of straight, curly, wavy, and… wiggly. Unless I have it short enough to really boost the waves, I need to do more than just let this shit air dry. I have to pick a direction and actively pursue it, and most of the time, if I’m not fighting late summer humidity, I go with straight.

At one point in my life, I had a Japanese straightening treatment, which gave me fantastic hair for nearly 10 months. But I missed being able to have curls if I wanted. Plus, it was EXPENSIVE. Not wanting to commit to that again, and before the popularity of keratin treatments, I resorted to straightening my hair myself with a drugstore flat iron, and going to a salon for a blowout if I had a special event. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize “Hey, if I buy a better flat iron, I will get better results” but it did.

The Impossible Dream: My Quest for The Best Mascara

 

I had been searching for the perfect mascara for somewhere between two years and my entire life. Sure, I’d spent some time with Covergirl Lash Exact and L’Oreal Voluminous, but it wasn't anything serious. Looking for more excitement, I had an expensive one-tube fling with DiorShow, who’s fluffy brush was dramatic, luxurious, and unwieldy. Eventually, and without actually deciding, it became my quest to find the best mascara.