Products that changed my life Pt. 3

Hair product edition. A girl born with ultra frizzy, coarse, curly, violently thick, plentiful and long hair that winds up damaging it to the point of no return with coloring and heating, yes, winds up trying a lot of hair products. Here are my super stars.

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Ah, my beautiful beloved GHD. I have waxed poetic about it many many times now, but let me say it once more. I LOVE this thing.

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I am the undisputed frizz queen. There are very very few who outfrizz me. So when I FINALLY after years of lust, dropped the sum on this, I found it to be even more than I expected. I did expect it to dry my hair quickly, which it does, to minimize damage, which it does and to cut down on frizz to some degree. Not only did it cut down, it cut down entirely. I can now go on a humid day, all day, just blowdryed (even without the assistance of GHD) and not have to carry serum with me. This thing is THAT amazing.
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A small detail that should never be overlook in the fight against split ends, is what we use ti tie our hair back. Now if you're like me, the vast majority of time, work, casual, whatever, you've got a ponytail in. In fact my hair is so violently thick, I can't use bobby pins when doing updos, etc, so I sub with these. These little buggers stretch to three times their size, without breaking, slide straight out of hair as if in a Pantene commercial and I have not noticed a single split end from them (I have become so sensitive to breakage I can actually feel and count when I get new split ends. It chills me to the bone).

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Frederic Fekkai glossing cream: Probably the ultimate styling multitasker. Leave-in when hair is airdrying. Check. Styling cream when heating. Check. Detangler for emergency 100 brush stroke sessions. Check. Post styling finishing cream. Check. Emergency de-frizzer. Check. One of modern beauty's greatest products, adds shine and softness without weighing hair down. MIRACLE!

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Aveda Damage remedy intensive reconstructor: This stuff made me a believer in protein. When I started blonding my hair (I would go from a level 2 to a level 9 ladies) my stylist would leave me under the bonnet with this for an hour each time afterward to help regain some health to the hair after such abuse. I would walk in with softer, bouncier more manageable locks than before, even if I had bleached and toned. And let's just say, that when I stopped using it, the split end count multiplied exponentially. If you chemically process your hair, protein is a must. I also love Kerastase's Ciment Theramique and Frederic Fekkai's proteinRX lines.

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Well, I am a sulfate free believer. When hair is not subjected to the ultra foamy shampoos of days of yore, it comes out feeling so much healthier, with much less frizz and it's so much easier to brush (in fact, I of the ultra damaged curly hair, can brush wet when I use this, hat is saying something). As the company says, it also makes a fabulous leave in. And yes, it REALLY does clean (but you must rinse like a maniac!).

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The shampoo of those in a hurry, those who love foaming shampoos but know it's bad so they have to cut down, the styling trick of the fine haired or ooily scalped, Pronto dry shampoo. A few spritzes of this and even the lankest locks spring back to life, bounch, movement volume all that good stuff. And nothing even approacing a powdery finish or dulled locks. This stuff is amazing. I use it even on clean hair when blowdrying in order to get amazing lift at the roots.

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All Kerastase products: It's too hard to pick a favorite from this ultra pricy ultra effective line. Masquintense, changed my life. It healed my hair from a bleach from black situation. MIRACLE! Same goes for Ciment Theramique, it's like a fake it for split ends. Plus there's nothing I love more than being bale to heat style my hair and calling it a treatment. Voile nuit cream is my hands down favorite deep moisture treatment and makes an AMAZING detangler. Nutri sculpt serum gave me hope when I had none. It had been years since my hair had felt elastic, bouncy and truly healthy upon heat styling (plus, BLINDING shine) until my stylist had used that stuff. It seems like every Kerastase product I try, I LOVE. If the pocketbook allows and you have truly hard to deal with hair, bolt for this line.

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Frederic fekkai shea butter hair mask: When hair just plain needs MOISTURE, not silicones, not proteins, not hot oil treatments, MOISTURE this is the stuff to go for. Many many products say they use shea butter but usually it's like a 5% concentration which is nothing. It is one of the first imgredients on the label in this potion, and the hair can tell. The softness and luxuriousness that happens afterward is immeasurable.

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Biolage detangling solution: This is my hands down, never has been beat favorite when air dyring my hair and letting it go curly. This lovely smelling blue gel says it's just to detangle hair without weighing it down, but it provides almost as much conditioning power as many masks, yet really does let curls go into Shirley Temple formation and BOUNCE. My hair feels incredibly soft when I use this.

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Biolage hydrating shampoo: The old standby in my books when just NEEDING the suds, but still wanting gentleness. This was one of the first shampoos I used where I could actually run my fingers through my hair when wet. It was my first salon shampoo too, so I think that may be a contributing factor in my ongoing love for it. One of my favorite products ever, for just plain straightforward gentle moisturizing washing.

Products that changed my life Pt. 2

The body edition. One of the thoughts I despise most is that of getting naked. My gym will is not exactly stellar, and I have been cursed with the kind of genetics that lead a 20 year old girl to have more sag, pooch, cellulite and stretch marks than her own mother. I can't WAIT for varicose veins. When it comes down to it, and it's a big night with a new boyfriend, these are all the stops I pull out.

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Lorac tantalizer: Never in my life did I ever expect to find a body bronzer that looks realistic, slims, provides some foundation like coverage and LASTS! A friend introduced me to this as we were about to go to a bar one night, and I was more than pleasantly surprised to find it still looked perfect at the end of a sweaty, humid night. Not a touch on my clothes, not a single streak. As if I were born with those legs. I've been a devotee ever since.

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Biotherm Cellulichoc: Though I've tried dozens of instant firming potions, nothing does the job quite like this lovely chocolatey smelling gel. If I were to go into percentages, after about an hour's wear, I notice my dimples looking about 60% less noticeable. Alas, the effects are only temporary. I'm sad that they've now discontinued it for their Cellulilaser line, but am curious to try that. Will report back ladies.

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Prescription retinoids: I consider myself the pioneer of using this on the body (pat on back). My doctor thought I was insane when I said I wanted to see what it would do for my cellulite and stretch marks (it all comes back to collagen, and what is better at rebuilding it than tretinoin...NOTHING! though I do want to try Prevage's body serum...). A few months later, I am proven right. Just check out my before and afters (combined with a supplement regimen too).

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Neutrogena Body clear scrub: Nothing does the job quite as efficiently when it comes to my backne. I take a synthetic dry brush, scrub myself down with this in the shower, and come out with half of what I had going in. Continued use has at times ALMOST gotten me entirely clear. In a pinch it's even worked on my face, though I don't recomend this to everyone, I am a lizard, I can handle anything.

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Lush buffy the backside slayer: Though this does a fairly decent job on the area that it's designed to (bottom) the real magic is in it's effects on KP. After one use my arms get almost smooth. Big caveat, one big bar of this lasts me like two weeks, and at 25 bucks a pop, it ain't cheap. However, I have never been one to put a price on beauty. Those of you who do, check out online merchants of cosmetic ingredients, get some aduki beans and cocoa butter. Make it at home. On the cheap.

The beauty products that changed my life Pt. 1

I go on and on about about great products, bla bla blabbity bla. Sometimes I allude to the greatest, but have never before compiled them all. Now a true beauty addict has more than a handful of must haves, so I decided to split them up for you. I present my absolute hands down love 'em love 'em products for the face:

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Prescription Clindamycin: this stuff comes in different forms, and it is your pimple's worst enemy! It is twice as potent an antibacterial as Benzoyl Peroxide, yet has none of the drying, bleaching or makeup caking effects.
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Neutrogena At home microdermabrasion: Ah, my first and to this day favorite foray into the world of ultra harsh microdermabrasion. For a scrubphile like myself, the tool is a joke. No I want the full hardness of the crystals, and I want to rub hard. I loveddddd the effects of this from the first day and never did stop. Does amazing things for instant smoothing, but is really for the toughest skins.


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Creme de La Mer: You may be asking yourself, what in the world is a crazy oily girl, with ridiculous horrible cystic acne, doing putting on CDLM?!?
Ahh, you underestimate me and my willingness to experiment. And boy was I happy I did this one. After the initial shock to my skin (I could just imagine my oil glands having a heart attack at the confusion, what did she put on? Creme de La Mer???? HALT PRODUCTION!!! And the foreman just says, sorry boss, we already put out a months worth of oil just last night. It's too late. There will be zits.) After the initial "shipment" as I like to call it, my oil glands got the hint. They needed to cut down. They could afford to lay off a few workers. I wanted them to concentrate on downsizing (not just production, but also their plants, as in, my pores). One thing my poor empty wallet always misses.


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My new boyfriend, the Clarisonic. Let me put it this way, this thing gives me the glow of a 100 orgasms (not counting the blush, the blush is my entire existence). Plus it makes pores look smaller, lines look blurred, skin feel softer and smoother, and is making an unprecedented difference in my #1 enemy. The zit. Clarisonic, how do I love thee.


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Can I just say, the formulator of this deserves some sort of skin Nobel Prize. Not only is the SPF equator high (55, and 3 broad spectrum pluses), but it blends into skin without creating a white cast, moisturizes and was the only block that didn't irritate my skin when I was on Renova. My only caveat, very very oily within an hour (is this not what blotting papers are for though). To this day I have not found anything better.

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Jonathan's shower purifier was my very first gadget purchase, and one of my favorites to this day. The effects on hair are immeasurable, I always wish it had a universal nozzle so I could use it in Europe too, because the purified water leaves my hair so much softer, bouncier and shinier than without. Truly a must-have.

So this is my shoutout to Dr. Murad

Would you like to know what these pictures are?


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Before and afters....OF ME!

Ladies I kid you not, this is a few months work. The more yellow toned pictures were taken at the beginning of August, and the more bluish, today.
You may have noticed a measurable difference in say CELLULITE!!!
I know, I amazed myself. Yes it still looks like more in natural light then it does in these pictures (believe me, plenty noticeable) but just to look how far I've come in the course of a few months is incredibly encouraging.

I know you may be pooping yourself and asking what I did. It's called pills, and prescription retinoids. This summer, frustrated with being unable to hit the beach (yet again) I finally broke down and got Dr. Murad's "The cellulite solution". I read it, and well....monumental at the very least. Dr. Murad got down to the very root causes of cellulite, and began to tell us how to relieve them. One of his ways is inside out. That means either eating, or supplementing, the nutrients that skin lacks in order to be able to behave how it should. The other component was treating the skin from the outside, with the correct topicals.

Now I am definitely not the most ardent follower. I stuck to the diet for about 2 weeks (though that IS when I saw the most difference, what we eat ladies, makes a HUGE difference). You cannot get my butt out of bed in time to be able to dry brush myself every morning. I certainly haven't done any healing yoga, or been hitting the gym (um yeah, max 10 times in the last few months). Massage...PFFT! What I did do, was somewhat consistently take the supplements and apply a prescription retinoid cream to the area. This was supposed to alleviate my stretch marks, and it certainly has been helping, but the effects on the celly are much much better.

Dr. Murad, you are my hero. And those of you who haven't read this book, get your hands on it. It may change your butt forever.

I Gotta give you more Linda

Ann Taylor WISHES! This is Linda in a campaign for the brand in '04. Yes, she looks like that at 40. Yes it's Botox, but I would wager to say, this time it was done right!

Image courtesy of levangelista.net

All of my best hair growth tips

Sigh, hair. Is it not the bane of all our existences.

If like me you have colored and heat styled your strands into oblivion, your obsession with growing new hair (to ruin fresh strands) is constant and some of us even measure our hair growth (I am at 19").

Now my hair naturally grows fairly quickly, about an inch a month, but alas, we always want more don't we? So through my years of obsessive coloring, I've also worked on a definitive guide for encouraging fast healthy growth. Wanna hear it? Here goes:

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Get your vitamins: Making sure you have enough iron, zinc, biotin, and silica will encourage your hair to grow, and grow strong enough to withstand whatever tortures you may inflict. I have noticed a great difference since I started taking these supplements in the quality of hair growth. It's less coarse, frizzy and dry. Embrace your food groups ladies!

Embrace the 100 brush strokes. And make sure you get a brush that mixes boar and plastic bristles (or like Frederic Fekkai's, the base is boar and the tip is plastic, AMAZING for detangling and upshining). There's nothing quite like good old fashioned manual stimulation to get the blood flowing and the hair growing (have you ever wondered why the hair on the legs grows so fast, we're always SCRUBBING it). This also goes for the scalp massages at the salon (I tip the shampoo girl big so that next time she feels extra generous with me) and the kind that you can easily do at home. Heck I do them at my desk, so refreshing!

Essential oils can be a miracle. Stimulating ones like rosemary, cedarwood, lavender et al are also known for increasing hair growth (Neal's yard makes a serum based on them that some people worship like a religion). I am also a big fan of tea tree oil, not only does it control my dandruff (I will never, not for anything use a dandruff shampoo) but again, it's toning and stimulating for the scalp. For those with very little sensitivity, it's ok (and expensive) to apply them straight, however, those who are sensitive, better embrace the watering down (combine it with your hot oil treatment!) because essential oils are POTENT!

Maintain the hair you do have: Do your protein and your hot oil treatments. Be gentle with the brushing and heat styling and make sure you're using heat protectants and detanglers. For god's sakes, dye you hair back to your natural color and give it a break for a while (yes dyeing, especially bleaching and dyes, does stimulate and irritate the scalp into more hair growth, but what does it matter when the hair isn't good quality). Remember, the gentler and more split end proactive you are now, the happier you'll be in the end.

Don't believe the gimmicks, all those hair growth pills, or that cutting the hair makes it grow faster (it makes it break less because you remove split ends, but hair is dead, what you do to it at the end is in no way communicated to the scalp).

When I've implemented all these methods on a regular basis I've noticed my hair grows measurably faster (like twice as fast, literally, in the month of september it increased 2"). So guve them a try. Any methods you know of that I haven't covered? Comment away!



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Fabulous money saving tip

Oh, I think of you all folks in the States during "these economic times". If you haven't yet gotten the latest issue of Allure (get on it, there's an amaaaazing article about the latest anti-agers....isn't there always though?:P) you probably haven't heard about their new program Allure Experts.

It's their consumer review group and it's how they plan to partner with beuaty companies to help them produce, study and release products that are relevant to the beauty addict consumer (sigh, isn't every beauty product relevant to us). If you sign up, live in the States (those of us in Canada are less fortunate) meet their qualifications (there are already lot's of panelists of my age group which is 18-24, so I didn't get in) and participate in the activities, you get free pre-released products to try.

I sooo wish I could participate, what better way to placate my addiction to trying new products while making my wallet happy. You lucky ducks down south, go sign up before your age group fills up! And send them a stern letter that they should allow voracious 20 year old Canadian beauty consumers to participate.

Kiss!
Join up!

Image courtesy of allure magazine