Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Top 10 Beauty Mistakes
I thought it was time for a new post!! :) Got this from
www.about.comTop 10 Beauty Mistakes Made By Women
1) Mascara
Wearing way too much mascara is one of the biggest makeup mistakes still being made. Long lashes good... clumps bad.
2) Eye Liner
Eye liner can make or break your efforts. If you are using liquid, you need lots of practice. Until you get it just right, use a pencil.
3) Eye Shadow
Have fun when you choose your colors, but at least give them a little thought before you apply them. Did you use too much, is it too bright, does it suit you at all?
4) Dashing Out of the House
Look into a mirror before you leave the house. A mirror never lies. It will tell you very quickly if what you have on, looks hideous. And then if need be, go and change. Don't think for a moment that you can sneak into the grocery store and out again without anyone seeing you. It never works. Someone you know will see you. Always happens.
5) Bad Brows
Unless you have very long bangs, someone will notice if they are over-plucked or have gone untouched for the past 10 years. If you have no idea where to start, consult a professional and then all you have to do is maintenance.
6) Lip Liner Fighting With Lipstick
I have no idea who started the trend of wearing one color of lip liner and another color for the lipstick. That has to be one of the BIGGEST mistakes. Consider what happens if the lipstick disappears, but the liner doesn't. Not a pretty picture.
7) Foundation Mistakes
Foundation is supposed to even out your skin tones, not cover everything up. If it looks like a mask, you have put on way too much. Wash it off and start again.
8) The Dreaded White Neck
When you apply foundation, be sure to apply a little to the neck area as well. There is nothing more noticeable than one color for your face and another for your neck.
9) Check It Twice
As much as we would like it to, makeup seldom lasts the entire day. Be sure to check to see if something has disappeared or worse... smeared.
10) What Are You Wearing?
An outfit MIGHT look good in a music video, but chances are, it won't on the street. If in doubt, as for an opinion. Believe me, someone will tell you if you are over the top.
Friday, January 26, 2007
skin tags
I am afflicted, as my parents are, with skin tags. Those are the skin color hanging moles that you can get in your armpits, neck, on your bikini line and rib cage (where your undergarments rub). I despise them with a passion and have had a few surgically removed along with some suspicious moles. I don't like being so molely but I like my freckles. I have enough to give Opie a run for his money.
Avalon Organics make the best stuff to remove skin tags. It's their
Vitamin C Serum that I used. I used it once a day, and once with a band aid at night for 14 days. Even hubby noticed the difference in my skin and I love having those nasty tags gone with little to no scaring.
I read this article on how to remove them called
Removing Moles, Warts, and Skin Tags. (NOTE: This article has pictures that are medically graphic) I think they also have a book on the subject on that same site, although I haven't purchased it myself.
If you are weird like me and want to know more about how Vitamin C renews your skin, read this excerpt below from
DermNetNZ. May you live skin tag free and prosper:
To understand how topical vitamin C works an understanding of the relationship between free radicals and antioxidants in the body is necessary.
- Free radicals are molecules created as a by-product of oxygen metabolism as our bodies create energy at the cellular level. Basically, the oxygen molecule loses one electron, turning it into a free radical.
- Free radical formation can also be augmented by external factors such as pollutants, sunlight, radiation, emotional stress, smoking, excessive alcohol, infection, and some drugs.
- Free radicals float around the body looking for electrons to rebalance themselves. If necessary, free radicals steal electrons from normal healthy cells, this being the cause of various conditions ranging from accelerated ageing to deadly cancers.
- Antioxidants protect healthy cells by donating an electron to the free radicals. The body produces antioxidants naturally and we can also get them from the foods we eat and from supplements.
Topical vitamin C has shown to protect the skin from UV damage caused by prolonged sun exposure by reducing the amount of free radical formation and/or sunburn cells. Exposure to UV light has also shown to decrease the naturally occurring vitamin C levels in the skin, thus topical application of vitamin C restores these photoprotectant levels. Other studies also suggest that vitamin C may play a part in the collagen biosynthetic pathway by activating collagen metabolism and dermal synthesis of elastic fibres.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Gobulous Hottie Apparel
So you think you want some apparel? Well, it would seem Emmasometimes has already made a wonderful suggestion, please check down two posts for her ideas, then scratch out your retina's.
Seriously how many of you would actually buy a t-shirt off cafe press that said Gobulous Hottie Blogger in pink sparkles?
Because if enough of you say yes, I'll do it.
You know, I'm just really t.o'd and I think I've been sabotaged. When I was visiting a friend in oregone recently I went with her to the place she gets waxed..the upper lip that is. So they are trying to convince me how great it is, and I'm really not wanting to do it, but I consent when the girl offers it free.
First of all it does hurt, they lied. And today I look in the dad burned mirror, and I have huge long hair on my lip now! WTH. Now what do I do. That was just a month ago, do I have to endure this every month? Someone advise please.
Oh, and I found a shampoo that smells divine, and makes my hair slinky. Everyone needs slinky hair. It's Samy..That's the brand name, I like the red flavor.
If you don't know, I will be celebrating my 40th birthday within the next week. I am not very happy about this, because as you may or may not know I'm sugardaddyless. And when a woman approacheth 40, and has a mustache to boot, well let's just say, It ain't no fun.
To celebrate and award myself for the milestone that is 40, I got a pedicure today, bought 4 tops at the Buckle, and Vanity, and bought 3 pairs of sunglasses from Ross. Name brand for $6.99 I might add. See, out of all my stupid pairs in my car, two were broke, and I lost the other's. So I figured I'd stock up. I hate wearing the same old pair of sunglasses day after day. Variety is the spice of life...you know?
ok that's my nonsense post for the day
PS
I'm so gonna kick 40's ASS
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Timing is everything
So just about the time I decide I'm up to a good ol' hottie blog, it seems that Blogger is deciding to have server issues. I'm gonna save my little tidbits of hotness for a bit to be sure that they aren't lost forever in the ether.
Monday, January 22, 2007
give up the goods
So, when are we going to be able to buy Gobhole Hottie apparel, like
Rumba Panties?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Idiot Spa
Right smack in the middle of winter, here's a look at an afternoon with some girlfriends this summer.....We’re four friends in a bistro on a gorgeous June day. The wine is poured. The bisque is ordered. The conversation turns towards….dermatology.
You would think I was Quasimoto the way I describe myself sometimes. I’m complaining about the freckles on my upper lip and the spot on my forehead as well as my skin tags.
Heidi shares how her dermatologist always tells her she has the driest skin she’s ever seen. “I see 80-year-olds in the waiting room,” Heidi laments, “but
I’ve got the driest skin.” The dermatologist told Heidi, “Oh yeah, skin tags, those little red dots, moles that appear and then disappear. That’s normal when you’re older.” Heidi is 32.
The dermatologist also described Heidi’s voice as “interesting” which we are all sure is not a compliment
Anne tells us how she knew someone who would tie a string around a skin tag or a mole and it would shrivel up and fall off. I second that this is a proven method for skin tag removal. I heard about this years ago from my friend Fabian. He’s got new technology for skin tag removal now. I tell the story:
One evening over coffe, Fabian's wife Patricia told me that she woke up one morning and found a blow torch on the kitchen counter, “No!” he said indignant, “It was a soldering iron. I used a soldering iron to burn the skin tags on my neck. ” As if a soldering iron is normal. As if everybody knows a blow torch is for hemorrhoids.
It’s interesting to note that we don’t miss a beat when it comes to eating our lunch.
Heidi knows a guy who razors off his warts. “I told him that they will just grow back and he said that he would just razor them off again.”
“That’s not a treatment, that’s a hobby.” I say.
“It’s a spa day for him!” says Robin.
"Honey, it's a Spa Day," says Heidi,"I'll be in the garage!"
“Welcome to Idiot Spa!” says Anne.
Now the jokes come rapid fire. Where’s the belt sander? Sweetie, hand me the awl.
Now we are laughing our heads off.
We finish off the wine (big surprise there!).
We’re four friends in a bistro on a gorgeous June day.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Hair's the Thing
When it comes to my hair, I've done it all.
In my teenage pursuit to be Molly Ringwald, I made my hair strawberry blonde and cut it into "a bob."
My twenty-something attempts at becoming Meg Ryan led me to the mall for a spiral perm and "highlights" that were more than a little over processed. My hair glowed. I melted an ice cap.
Motherhood and my early thirties brought a "wash and wear" short haircut. I told myself that it looked like Faith Hill's hair. (The 90's Faith Hill.) I didn't.
Somewhere along the line I realized that Molly, Meg and Faith were using their hair and I'd better find what looked best on me instead of what looked good on them.
I think I finally found what suits me, although it is quite an undertaking. It is the color and style you have been seeing on this site. The non-descript mousey brown hair and gray hair gets touched up down to the roots. Highlights are then foiled in. It is blown straight. It is shoulder length.
Somehow, I managed to balance my hair's Qi (Chi). Forget just the Wind and Water of Feng Shui, I had the full 5 elements going on.
Water: I wash my hair with the finest shampoo $24 can buy (I should be ashamed!)
Wood: (represents growth) I keep my hair longish and "pony-tail-able"
Fire: That would be my hair dryer
Earth: That's all the crap (3 different products) I put in my hair. The first is the stuff that makes my hair straight, the second is the root lifter so it's not too flat, and the third helps restore shine taken out by my hair dryer.
Metal: Oh, how I LOVE my flat iron. The brand name? Chi. It's a sign.
So, when Nicole, my stylist, brought up the idea of going a little darker with my hair color for the fall and winter, I think I heard one of my Chakras close. Or maybe one opened, I'm not sure. But I agreed to try it. It's only hair right?
Nicole laid out the plan. My roots would be touched up with my "natural" color. (What the hell color is that? I wondered. I haven't seen that color in like 15 years.) That brown color would also be foiled through the rest of my hair, along with some blonde.
Here is the result:
Notice my left eyebrow in this photo? Yeah, half of it is missing. I accidentally waxed it off. Anyway, back to the hair....
I thought my husband would hate it, but he likes it. Go figure. I thought he liked his blonde wife. I think he might like it because he feels like he's sleeping with another woman, and yet, I am not offended.
I am still getting used to it. Everyone is saying it's a good look for the winter. So if I look at my hair as an accessory instead of a body part, it's a little more OK with me. After all, I don't wear my flip flops in February.
But it's hard for a woman to get behind this rationale. Our hair defines us in so many ways. It's how we describe ourselves and others. She's a brunette. She has long hair. She has short hair. Everything has its implications.
Especially when we are making obvious choices about our appearance.
I wanted to be Molly Ringwald, so I mimicked her. I thought Meg Ryan was as cute as the day was long, so I tried to emulate her. I wanted to focus on my new baby, so I cut my hair and took the focus off me.
It seemed that I'd finally come into my own and now I've gone and changed myself.
Who am I if I'm not the blonde that I've been?
I'm really not as insecure as I sound. The fact that I make changes and take chances says more about me than my hair color does. And right now, when I put my hair up, I become my own evil twin. That's an interesting concept and it could come in handy.
And thanks to Nicole and the miracle of modern chemistry, I can change it all back again.
Still feeling a little unsettled and insecure about the whole thing (Am I blonde? Am I a brunette?), I asked my husband, "If you had to describe me, to point me out at a party to someone who didn't know me, what would you say?"
"I'd tell them to look for the most beautiful woman in the room."
Molly, Meg and Faith can keep their hair. I'll keep Frank.
flippin sweet
*click picture to enlarge*
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Hey Nikki you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind....HEY NIKKI
(clarification)
I am introducing our newest member, she had emailed me her photo and intro due to blogger problems, so the following are her words zactly! I took the liberties (heehee) of adding the title :) YEAH
badoozer
Hi
The person hiding behind the nickname Heart of Darkness is really the 20-something financial consultant Nikki.That would be me. With a nack for driving people crazy and suffering from oral diarrhea at the least appropriate occasions, I figured conquering the blog world would be the ideal - captive audience. Then I realized, people can just surf on by... :(
I work in the business world, weaving my web in the automotive industry (that's 18-wheelers for you, people!), and during my spare time, I sit at the local city council. Yep, that is
just as boring as it sounds. I wish I could say I moonlight as a super hero instead, but all I do to get rid of my frustrations is to write. No,
actual novels! That nobody reads.
My favorites include traveling
(if somebody could pay me to do this, I'd do it for free - logical huh?), music
(Think Train, Dishwalla) and sports. If you don't find me at the computer
(at home or at the office) I'm either sitting with a charcoal stub in my hand, drawing somewhere, or I'm chasing my ass off at the tennis court.
But when I am here, it's either this hottie's blog, or my regular
Life on the Far Side where you can find me.
Monday, January 08, 2007
My Breast Friends
Hi everyone and thanks to Badoozie and Emma Sometimes for inviting me to contribute here. My regular blog is called
The Girl Out of BrooklynI am an Italian Girl from Brooklyn living in the Midwest - and I'm not even in the witness protection program! I hope you will visit my site and learn more. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you.
After many attempts to post a picture, I'm giving up as the Blogger is acting glitchy and is making me something that rhymes with glitchy!
As you may have guesed from the title, my first post here is about my boobs. I hope you all like it!
As I like to say...Log On. Read On. Laugh On. Pass It On.
And Now "My Breast Friends".....
I'm not really sure how this happened or if I started it or what, but lately it seems I cannot get together with a group of my friends without breasts becoming the topic of conversation. Specifically
my breasts. Sometimes they are talked about. Sometimes they are spoken to directly. At the very least, their presence is acknowledged.
Perhaps it started when I was pregnant. That is when they really took on a life of their own. Very early on in my pregnancy with my daughter Lindsey, my doctor asked me if I was experiencing any tenderness in my breasts. "Tenderness? They are having conversations. They are having meetings and they don't invite me." Seriously, they were enormous.
I needed more out of a bra than any department store had to offer. I headed downtown to Isabella's Big Gals Bra-tique. Yes, that's right, it's a Bra-tique. "I'm goin where the Big Gals go!" I announced to my mother. The lady at Isabella's is really quite fantastic. She measured me and handled me and put me into a Double H. You heard me. I even went up to J and K later on. What she gave me was not so much an undergarment as it was an infrastructure.
I nursed my children and wasn't
that a sight to behold! My sister looked at me in the hospital with my son and was afraid I would literally smother him with my breast. I was so nervous about nursing correctly that I asked my friend Christine if I was doing it right. Wasn't I supposed to get half my nipple in the baby's mouth? She replied, "If you think you're going to get half of
that nipple into
that baby's mouth......."
Speaking of nipples... I was asked once if women get embarrassed when their nipples get "perky" in public. Not really. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that there are nipples at the end of my breasts. I do get embarrassed if my nipples are askew though. I have to make sure that they are both pointing the way they should when I get dressed in the morning. I remember one morning I forgot and there was a little cold snap in the park and I asked my friend Julie, "Are my nipples walleyed?"
The girls are back to normal, which for me is a DD. (OK I have one DDD bra, but that's for those special water-retention days.) Why are they the topic of conversation now? Well, besides the fact that they have knocked over wines bottles, I've sworn off big, baggy clothes. I guess I'm just not one to hide my light(s) under a bushel. Come on, a little cleavage never hurt anyone. (Although I can't really say that for sure.)
I remember when I was 25 and at my fighting weight, a C-cup at best. I was working the morning show in New York at WNEW-AM when my friends Bob and Al (co-hosts of the show) remarked on how nice my outfit looked. "Are you sure?" I asked, "Because I'm behind on my laundry and I'm wearing my sports bra. Frank says it makes me look like a boy."
"No offense", Al said, "But Frank's a friggin idiot."
About 20 years ago my Aunt Eleanor decided that she was through with bras. My mother told her, "El, they say if you can put a quarter underneath it and it stays you should be wearing a bra." Geez. What do they say about a roll of quarters?
Last year when I went for my first mammogram I joked with the nurse about going in there a 34 DD and going out a 42 Long. She said, "Everyone says that their breasts get smashed. Don't worry. You'll be perky when you walk out of here."
"That's great!" I say, "I wasn't perky when I came in!"
That's OK. I accept them. They fed my babies, they fill out my sweaters, and if they weren't so big, my butt would really look huge. They're my breast friends.
Monday, January 01, 2007
My hunger buster! My craving crusher!
I have been sitting here not posting about this for at least an hour; the page has been up since 9 pm!
Anyway, let's talk about eating. I love to eat. I do it all the time, day or night, indiscriminately. I would eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to and didn't care a toot about the consequences. I don't know what was wrong with me- the depression, holidays, or the move, but I have put on almost 20 pounds since having a baby in May!
Something happened in me yesterday. I stepped on the scale and saw a number I didn't like, but would have accepted if I had gotten there gradually. My weight jumped by around 5 pounds, and that is not acceptable. This is not the first time my weight did this; a few months ago I got my first postpartum period and the weight did not just go away like before I had the baby!
I went to the store, grabbed me some slim-fast powder, banana nut snack bars, and
my secret weight buster! I also picked up some sliced turkey breast, a couple of tomatoes, bananas and cranberry orange juice. I got on my computer, joined the slim-fast website and am on my way.
I still don't care what I look like, or any of that other stuff. I am concerned for my health. I don't want to lose a lot of weight, just the 20 or so pounds I put on recently. I know I will never be skinny, or slender, slim, thin or "sexy". But I have got to stop shoveling junk food down my maw! No birthday cake! No turtle cheesecake! No sugar cookies, banana nut icecream, cookie dough, Christmas candy, or pumpkin pie!
How does someone who eats frosting as a side dish, as a compulsion to curb that insatiable sugar craving- beat the need? How do I do it? You'll never guess! In the last 24 hours I have lost a pound and a half, have eaten healthier than I have in months, and even cheated twice! I take my prenatals and calcium and flax seed oil supplements that have been wasting shelf space, collecting dust. I drink water and more water, and carefully measure out pretzels and tortilla chips into sandwich baggies. I plan what I eat, 6 small meals a day, and if I am still hungry- I pick something I have "approved"; I keep it simple, and a bit repetitive.
I once lost 10 pounds alone by simply cutting out the junk food- but that was due to morning sickness. How do I kill those chocolaty, fatty, sugary cravings that haunt me like a shadow? My secret weight busting, sugar craving killer is... drum roll please... a huge glass of GRAPEFRUIT JUICE. Not ruby red, but white, 100% juice. No sugar added, or flavors- nothing, nada. I tell you what, after having that sour liquid scour my lips, tongue and throat, I really have no desire to eat anything sugary or fattening. I take the cup with me, and sip it while I blog, or watch TV. I also have a glass with breakfast, to start out my day. I have done this before, and after a while I just get used to it, and even start to think it is yummy. Try finding the stuff in a name brand or in a gas station. Impossible! But I find it, I drink it, and it works for me.
Now tell me please, what do you do to beat the cravings?
