Skin Care

Live Clean Baby, an Eco-Friendly Cruelty-Free Line, Arrives at Walgreens Stores

November 23rd, 2011 by Karen 14 Comments

Anonymous sources on Sesame Street have confirmed that rubber ducky makes bath time lots of fun, and with the new Live Clean Baby line of cruelty-free drugstore baby products, the whole bath time experience is likely to improve. 🙂

Yup, for the moms and grandmothers among us — and for those of us who just like soothing, gentle drugstore products in adorable packaging — the six-piece Live Clean Baby collection has made its way from Canada to U.S. Walgreens stores.

The collection includes a Tearless Shampoo & Wash, Moisturizing Baby Bath, Moisturizing Bar Soap, Non-Petroleum Jelly, Diaper Ointment, and a Lotion, each one priced at $7.99.

I went through a phase in high school when I was obsessed with Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo and Lotion. They were just so uncomplicated and gentle, and that’s also how I feel about these.

Tabs, as the current “baby” of our family, approves of my use of this line, as the products don’t contain any animal ingredients and weren’t tested on animals. They’re mostly plant-derived and free of many of the harsher synthetic chemicals commonly found in drugstore bath products and lotions, like sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), diethanolamine (DEA), parabens and phthalates. The company claims that 98%-100 of the ingredients are plant-derived.

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What Are Your Weekend Beauty Rituals?

November 20th, 2011 by Karen 38 Comments

During the week, I’m usually too busy catering to my fussy tabby’s redonkulous demands (where, pray tell, does one find an XXL Gucci cat snuggie??) to catch up on my beauty maintenance tasks, like hair plucking and nail polishing (like, where I paint all 10 fingers in the same shade, as opposed to the single-finger technique I use a lot for swatching), etc., etc.

So it’s only on the weekends that I’m able to take care of many of my beauty rituals. Things like…

1. Hair masks

I’ve been wearing my wavy hair straight a lot lately, and if I’m not careful, the heat from all of the flat ironing and blow drying will do a number on my locks.

Doing a hair mask over the weekend seems to quench my coif’s thirst, and lately I’ve been turning to Lush’s $19.95 H’Suan Wen Hua Hair Treatment, which I like to use right after I finish my Saturday or Sunday run.

As soon as I’ve caught my breath, I’ll comb the treatment through my hair from roots to ends, put my hair up in a ponytail, and let the mask do its moisturizing thing while I do my stretching, eat a post-workout snack, and putter around the house.

When I finally jump into the shower, I keep the ponytail on while I lather and shave. Then, I’m finished with my body stuff, I take out my ponytail and rinse the mask away (it smells like pumpkin pie!), before shampooing and conditioning. After everything, my hair looks and feels about a million times better — soft and shiny.

2. Face Masks

Because of the moisture-sapping cold outside and the heater running almost non-stop inside, my face has been totally parched, so I’ve started to use a weekly June Jacobs Intensive Age Defying Hydrating Masque ($80), which hydrates the heck out of even the driest patches on my forehead and around the corners of my nose.

Like I do with hair masks, I like to apply face masks right after a run, when I know I can let it work for 30 minutes to an hour before I hop in the shower. Then once in the shower, I try to leave the mask on as long as I can to let the warmth and humidity in the air open up my pores, making it easier for the product to absorb into my skin.

3. Exfoliating scrubs

Ah… There’s nothing quite like a good scrubbing to get my skin baby soft, and I’ve been de-crusting lately with Borba’s $28 Firming Micro-Diamond Body Polish. Borba calls the tiny grains in it “prismatic micro-diamonds!” — which just sounds very cool to me. I’m sure there’s nothing diamond about them, but they scrub like the dickens without rubbing my skin raw.

The product contains glycolic acid, green tea, colloidal oatmeal, aloe and cucumber to scrub, soothe and firm. Teamed up with these $3 exfoliating gloves from EcoTools, it’s a skin-scrubbing dynamo!
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4 Fast Reviews of Pricey New Skincare Products from SK-II, LancÃ´me, EstÃ©e Lauder and Josie Maran

November 18th, 2011 by Karen 16 Comments

4 Skincare Product Reviews

Here are some of the skincare products I’ve put through the old testing ringer lately. Most of them are fairly new, like released within the past couple of months or so, but one of them, Josie’s Argan Cleansing Oil, came out back in summer.

The Cleansing Oil also happens to be the only one of these that sells for less than $80, so these are things up in the premium category, which, one would hope, means that they’re all incredibly awesome, right?

Let’s find out. 🙂

SK-II Skin Signature Eye Cream ($110 for a 0.5-oz. jar)

Luxury line SK-II is hooked on Pitera. It’s the brand’s signature ingredient, and it appears in everything across their entire line.

So what is Pitera?

In the company’s words, it’s a “…singular blend of vitamins, amino acids, minerals and organic acids that work together to help restore the appearance of your skin’s outer layers, by enabling the skin’s natural surface rejuvenation process to function at its prime.”

Ok, but what is it?

Well, it’s derived from yeast fermentation, and its history traces back about 30 years to a Japanese sakÃ© brewery…

No, fo’ reals! That’s when a scientist noticed that the hands of workers at the brewery looked surprisingly beautiful and young. A bunch of research later, a team of scientists that had been trying to get to the bottom of it think they figured out why, and they packaged up the secret formula and called it Pitera.

SK-II touts it as a “miracle water” used to regenerate, hydrate and restore balance to skin, and it’s in their new Signature Eye Cream, which hit counters last month.

It costs an arm and a leg, but it’s probably one of the most hydrating high-end eye creams I’ve ever tried. I’m serious — it’s crazy moisturizing! And it layers well beneath makeup, too.

I’m still waiting to see proof of its purported power to eliminate under-eye circles and firm the skin, but my normally parched eye area feels hella hydrated when I’m using this and looks fresh and dewy all day long.

For straight up moisture, this stuff is tops. Of course, it’s also brutally expensive.
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: A-

EstÃ©e Lauder Resilience Lift Night Firming/Sculpting Face and Neck Creme ($80 for a 1.7-oz. jar)

The actual application of EstÃ©e Lauder Resilience Lift Night brings me great joy. There’s something so sweet, soothing and comforting about the rosy apple scent that reminds me of hugging my mom.

Part of the line’s new Lift Firming/Sculpt Collection of moisturizers and treatments, it’s not the most moisturizing cream I’ve ever used, but I sure do like the fluffy texture and the scent.

It’s supposed to tighten and firm aging skin; that’s the big selling point, but I haven’t really noticed much in either respect. I do like slathering it on at night, though, as part of my bedtime ritual, on account of the scent, the texture, how quickly it absorbs and because it doesn’t leave behind a sticky layer of goo.
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: B
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Skincare for the Changing Seasons: 5 Home Remedies for Puffy Eyes

November 17th, 2011 by Karen 23 Comments

This post is part of a series sponsored by Dove.

’round these parts, the holidays are all about the four F’s — food, fun, friends and family — but there’s a fifth F, a special holiday F, and it’s rarely talked about in polite company.

F-R-E-A-K-I-N-G OUT!

The holidays — gotta love ’em. Don’t get me wrong: I cherish this time of year, but it does place demands on us that can leave us feeling stressed.

I always look forward to the family get-togethers. For the most part, everyone gets along, but every family has its moments. Having so many people with so much history all under the same roof can start to feel like a pressure cooker, and if someone ends up crying, it’s usually me.

I’ve sobbed before, during and after many family feasts. Ah, the joys of being an overly sensitive soul…

There’s always a silver lining, though, even to tears. Now, I have a pretty decent arsenal of tips and tricks to deal with puffy eyes, and most of them can be done for little to no money using products you may already have around the house. 🙂

1. An oldie but a goodie

Ah, the time-honored cold compress… Simple, effective and soothing, and one of my favorite fast ways to reduce swelling around the eyes.

I wet a washcloth or a small towel, wring it out, and place it in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes to get it nice and cold. Then, I close my eyes, place the cloth across my lids, and chill out somewhere comfy for a while. The cool compress constricts the blood vessels in the area to diminish the puffiness right away (within a few minutes).

2. Spoon, man

Tabs loves cold spoons
I picked up this trick from my granny, one of the most stylish ladies at senior bingo night, and a pre-World War II beauty pageant queen. Chill four teaspoons in the fridge (I feel that the freezer makes the spoons too cold); when they’re nice and cold, remove two of them, and place them curved side down on your eyes. When the spoons don’t feel cold anymore, put those two back in the fridge, and replace them with the second pair. Repeat until you’re de-puffed!

3. Make time for tea

El Hub once told me that if he ever becomes a rap megastar, as unlikely as that is, he would like to be called “Old Dirty Tea Bag,” but I digress…

Black tea bags (with caffeine) contain tannins which can be helpful for puffy eyes, while the caffeine constricts dilated capillaries to whisk the puff away. I usually squeeze most of the liquid from the bags so that it doesn’t drip down my neck, and then I chill them in the fridge, and place one on each eye.

Sometimes I also use herbal tea bags (without caffeine), and I think they also work pretty well.
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EcoTools Extends a Helping Hand to the Planet and Gets You Squeaky Clean with Their $3 Bath & Shower Gloves

November 16th, 2011 by Karen 38 Comments

5 Things That Give Me a Strange Sense of Satisfaction

Taking off my bra after a really long day
Flossing the HECK out of my teeth
Cleaning my belly button with a Q-tip
Clipping my toe nails (it’s even better if they’re really long)
Vigorously exfoliating with these shower gloves

I just picked up this cute new pair by EcoTools ($3). It’s made from 65% recycled materials, which I thought was pretty cool. Probably puts a lot of old plastic soda bottles, yogurt cups and tubs of margarine to good use.

The gloves feel soft and pliable, yet they’re still coarse and dense enough to give my bod a good scrubbing.

I got them in green because they matched my bath towels (nerd!), but they also come in brown and blue. 🙂

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$28 Works Out to Half Off Pacifica’s Magic Carpet Ride

November 14th, 2011 by Karen 39 Comments

pacifica magic carpet ride (9)

There’s no doubt about it: I’m slowly turning into my mother, and there are moments when it hits me, like after I’ve clipped a great coupon (score!) or cleaned the oven and felt an overwhelming sense of joy.

Magic carpet ride? I had one of those moments the other day when I spotted the new Pacifica Magic Carpet Ride body butter set ($28).

Limited edition for the holidays, it comes with three of my favorite Pacifica scents. The first one, Island Vanilla, has a hint of tea and a grown-up twist. The second one, Indian Coconut Nectar, makes me hungry for warm vanilla cake with coconut frosting and dulce de leche drizzled on top (OH, GAWD!). And sniffing the third one, Tuscan Blood Orange, with its fresh, sparkling notes of blood orange, mandarin, strawberry and raspberry, causes my taste buds to tingle.

pacifica magic carpet ride (7)

I’ve been a fan of Pacifica’s Body Butters for years! Not just the three scents that come in this set, but also others in the line; I’ve lost track of how many of the tubes I’ve gone through in that time.

At their regular price, which is $18 each these days, they’re kind of pricey, but I’m such a big fan that I’ll usually overlook the price. They contain a long list of great botanical ingredients that serve to keep the skin on my shins (and elsewhere) from reverting to a scaly reptilian state.

And it’s not just the ol’ marketing trick where the company squirts in a few drops of honeydew so they can call it “natural.” I also like these for what they lack, like parabens, phthalates and propylene glycol, to name just a few of the undesirable frequent fliers we see a lot in products like these.

Tabs would love to see Pacifica release one of these in a seafood scent, but I told him not to hold his breath for that. 🙂 He is happy, though, that the current lineup doesn’t contain any animal ingredients and wasn’t tested on animals.

Considering that this set contains three of Pacifica’s full-size 8-oz. tubes, $28 is a pretty great deal (that is, if you like the scents). They work out to $9.30 each, for a savings of just about 50%. When I did the math in the body care section, I actually pumped my fist Jersey Shore-style, “UH!”

Take that and rewind it back.

pacifica magic carpet ride (2)
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Skincare for the Changing Seasons: 5 Ways to Winterize Your Skin

November 10th, 2011 by Karen 30 Comments

This post is part of a series sponsored by Dove.

I ticked off the tabby the other day when I had to cut short our regular morning walk. There was a chill in the air that I just couldn’t shake — certainly not in the sweatshirt, jeans and flip-flops I’d gotten used to wearing on our little jaunts — and even though the first official day of winter doesn’t arrive for more than a month, Jack Frost was already nipping at my toes.

From here on out, at least for the next few months, it’s cold weather season, and that means dry air, dry skin and cold, cold, cold.

For me it also seems to mean scaly shins and crusty cuticles that get worse and worse every year. Thankfully, I’ve figured out a few ways to keep my skin from staging a revolt as the temperature drops. Here are five ways to winterize your skin care routine.

1. Some like it lukewarm

When it’s cold out, I like it hot! My showers, that is. Unfortunately, hot water can strip away skin’s natural oils, leaving it far worse off.

The solution? — to turn the temperature down, and take shorter lukewarm showers and baths.

Now, I have a really tough time with this one because I think hot showers just feel so dang good when there’s a chill in the air. Coupled with my tendency to daydream in the shower (it’s where I do my best brainstorming), and I can easily spend 30 minutes dillydallying while the hot water dries out my skin.

That’s where a waterproof watch with an alarm and timer can help. I’ll set mine right before I step in the shower, and then I have no excuse…

2. Mighty mittens!

Regularly exfoliating removes the layers of dead skin (eww!) and other gunk that soap doesn’t or can’t. It also restores skin’s natural ability to absorb moisture, and sure, I love the way it makes my skin glow.

Anything that encourages me to exfoliate and makes it easier and fun gets a big thumbs up from me, which is why I like exfoliating gloves. They have a rough texture and can even be worn in the shower. Most drugstores sell ’em for about $3.

Whenever I feel the need to exfoliate — and sometimes it is a need — but don’t want the aggressive abrasiveness of a scrub, I squirt a small amount of a moisturizing body wash onto the gloves and massage my arms, legs, shoulders, back and tummy using gentle circular motions. Then, I’ll got to town on my rougher parts, like my hands, elbows and feet.
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Lush’s Latest Shower Jelly Shows That Jilted Elves Don’t Always Make the Best Shower Buddies

November 2nd, 2011 by Karen 23 Comments

Lush Jilted Elf

Well, Jell-O there! I’ll be right with you… I’m just taking a shower with Lush’s new Jilted Elf.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to wash with (and wiggle) Lush’s latest shower jelly. As a chronic new product junkie, especially when it comes to bath stuff, I knew I had to give this bright green blob a try.

lush the jilted elf

I’ve never used anything quite like it before…at least not as an adult! 🙂 It has a gelatinous consistency, and to use it, you can either jiggle the entire green glob out of the jar (weird!), or dig out goopy globules with your fingers. I chose the later, scooping out a small amount.
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