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Just For Fun

Best/Worst Hair Styling Tools?

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ghd soft curl
This thing is practically an extension of my arm —> the ghd Soft Curl.

So, I try to let my hair air dry as much as possible. I usually wash it at night before bed and go to sleep with it a little damp, but then it’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates when I wake up… I never know what I’m gonna get, ha ha ha!

I usually need help wrangling it into a semi-respectable state with some styling tools, like these that I love:

  • The T3 hair dryer. I still have my first-gen one from a billion years ago (OMG, here’s the review from 2007. Have a laugh at my brows.), and it’s still going strong. It’s unbelievably lightweight, and I’m constantly surprised by how quickly it dries hair. I use it every day to help straighten my bangs so they fall the way I like.
  • The ghd Curve Soft Curl Curling Iron. This iron is CRAZY expensive ($245!), but hear me out. It LEGIT heats up ? in less than a minute, but it never gets so hot that I burn my hair (which happened when I was into the T3 curling irons for a spell). The curls last all day, too.
  • A round boar’s hair brush. I can’t remember where or when I bought the one I have. It’s so old that the label’s worn off… It may have been around 1999? Whatever the case, it smooths out my bangs and wayward pieces better than anything.

As for hair styling tools I don’t love…I’ve haven’t had much success with inexpensive curling irons and hair dryers. The very affordable ones I’ve gotten from drugstores or Target never got hot enough to actually do anything to my hair. I used to have a hairdryer by Revlon that literally did nothing when it came to actual, ya know, hair drying.

Oh, and you know those hairdryers that are attached to the wall in some hotel rooms? Really, so dumb. What’s the point? They just end up blowing the water around and not really drying my hair at all.

Also, again about the T3 curling iron… Was. Not. My. Favorite. A few years ago, I accidentally fried a big chunk of hair with it, and it’s been buried at the bottom of a drawer ever since.

How about you? What are the hair styling tools you love/loathe the most? Which hairdryers, curlers, flat irons, brushes? And what do you like, or don’t like, about them?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

How Young Is Too Young for Manicures and Pedicures?

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Out of the blue the other night as I was getting Connor Claire ready for bed, she pointed at her fingers and said, “Mama, paint my hands. You paint my hands and my feet, mama, okay?”

LOL! I’m pretty sure she was asking for a mani/pedi from me. ?

I’m not exactly sure where she got the idea, because I usually do my nails when she’s asleep, since it’s the only time I have to sit still long enough for my polish to dry. She doesn’t ever see me actually doing the nail painting part. I guess she must’ve seen it on TV or heard about it in preschool.

It was both endearing and a little shocking at the same time, because the first time I ever got a manicure was in college.

COLLEGE.

I was 19, and I remember picking out a soft, creamy pink for my nails, and when the nail tech was done, I pulled a twenty out of my wallet (which was the bulk of my paycheck at the time) and said to please keep the change.

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to questions like this, because every child and every family’s different (plus, I’ve been dressing up my cat and calling him a kitty supermodel for more than a decade, so I’m not one to judge), but I am curious. How commonplace are mani/pedis among toddlers and kids these days?

I’ve overheard a few moms at the playground talking about how they like to take their two-year-olds to get manicures and pedicures at the salon, and now I’m suddenly recalling having seen many, many pictures of toddlers and slightly older children on Instagram and social media getting their fingers and toes done with their moms.

I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t go to my first nail salon until I was older, but I’ve always thought of it as a grownup thing. Am I alone in this?

Not to say that I don’t plan to paint Connor’s nails before she’s out of high school. I’m sure I will, but she seems to have forgotten about it for now. If/when she asks me again, I’m going to tell her that we can do it for special occasions, like her birthday, and we’ll do it at home.

And when she’s older, like maybe in middle school or high school, if she expresses an interest, I might take her to the nail salon… Or she can just get a job and pay for it herself like I did. LOL!

What do you think? How young is too young for manicures and pedicures?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Makeup and Beauty Blog Monday Poll, Vol. 547

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So…what is the Monday Poll?

Good question! It isn’t, contrary to its name, an actual poll. It’s just a list of five more or less random questions I’ve been posting on this blog every Monday morning for the past gazillion years (more than 10!). I love reading your answers, and it helps me get my week off to a great start. ?

1. Orange blush: yea or nay?

Yea! (Or YAY!). Particularly if there’s a a wee bit of tasteful warm golden shimmer up in the mix. I’m into it.

2. Orange nail polish: yea or nay?

Nay…unless we’re talking about something for Halloween. Basically, though, I’m just not an orange nail polish person.

3. What’s one of your childhood Halloween memories?

I was in third grade at the time, and my friend and I went trick-or-treating ? by ourselves in our neighborhood… We came upon a house with a porch light on, but there were no kids waiting at the door.

We thought, “Cool, we won’t have to elbow anybody for candy!” We strolled up the walkway, la-dee-da, thinking business as usual, and rang the doorbell.

After about a minute of waiting for someone to come to the door, BAM! — the lights suddenly started flashing really fast. Seemingly out of nowhere came a loud “MWAH-AH-AH-AH-AH-AH!” Then somebody screaming bloody murder as REALLY LOUD scary Halloween music started playing!

Man, we ran back to the sidewalk and all the way to our houses so fast you would’ve thought we were Junior Olympic sprinters. We were also screaming the entire time, LOL! I bet we gave whoever set up that house a good laugh. ?

4. Your holiday pie of choice?

Pecan, baby!

5. How’s your line dancing?

I can’t do any fancy footwork or anything, so I’m not a professional, but I can hang. 🙂

What the heck they do with those XXL pumpkins?

You know, the ginormous ones you see at pumpkin patches and fall displays? They always have at least a couple at the Honor System Pumpkin Patch in Larkspur, which is a town in southern Marin County. We were there yesterday and I couldn’t help but wonder about their fate after Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Does somebody gut the pumpkins, then roast all the pumpkin seeds? Are the pumpkin seeds XXL, too? What happens to the actual pumpkin? Is it turned into lots and lots of pumpkin soup? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

I’m dying to know, so if you have any insight please spill the beans.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Question time! Here they are to copy/paste with your answers in a comment. Talk to you soon.

1. Orange blush: yea or nay?
2. Orange nail polish: yea or nay?
3. What’s one of your childhood Halloween memories?
4. Your holiday pie of choice?
5. How’s your line dancing?

Sundays With Tabs the Cat, Makeup and Beauty Blog Mascot, Vol. 524

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If this isn’t what the kittens are wearing, they will be soon.

Tabs looked dazzling today on his morning walk in his new cat couture sequinned red vest. He’d heard a rumor that he wasn’t pushing the envelope anymore when it came to feline fashion, so he set out to prove that he’s still the top meow-llennial style icon in Southern Novato.

It doesn’t matter how long he’s been a kitty supermodel. He’s incapable of being out of touch because feline fashion sense is in his blood. He was born with it. Just like he was born knowing how to strike poses and seduce the camera.

[Continue reading…]

Saturday Surfing, October 20th, 2018

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Morning, kitty cat!

Short-ish Saturday Surfing today because I’m about to get Connor ready for a Halloween party at her school, and we need to work out her face painting situation, as evident by the somewhat funky monarchs there in the pic (that one on the bottom tho, ha ha!). It was a test run I did on my swatching arm with Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils. Now let’s see if I can pull off something “Tabs approved” because you know how picky he is about body art.

Your reading (beauty and otherwise) for this weekend…

Watcha up to this weekend? If you’re looking for something terrifying to marathon on Netflix, may I suggest The Haunting of Hill House? I started it a couple days ago, and I’m already hooked AND traumatized. ?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Stitch Fix or Trunk Club?

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Just a fraction of the clothes in my closet that I can no longer fit into.

Asking about these clothing subscription services for a friend (that friend being me, myself and I, LOL). It dawned on me the other day that I really should get help with my wardrobe situation, because it’s been in dire straights for, oh, about two years?

Basically, my pre-baby clothes don’t fit anymore, and I haven’t been wanting to spend the time or money to update my wardrobe to fit my post-Connor body.

Not to say that I’m walking around in the daylight hours in pajama pants or tees covered in spaghetti sauce and with holes in the armpits (at least not all the time), but I realized that I definitely have a tendency to dress like a college student who’s woken up late and just threw on whatever tee shirt and jeans were on top of the clean pile.

Anyway, I have some friends who love Stitch Fix and others who love Trunk Club, so I’m having a hard time deciding which one to go with. Have you tried either one? do you have another recommendation? Which one do you love and why? I could use the help.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S.

This Is What Happens When Your Older Brother Is a Cat

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meow

You beg your mom to put purple sequined cat ears on you, and then you wear them 24/7. ?

And here is what happens when you watch your mom painting her face all the time and find out that there’s a face painting booth at the preschool BBQ, LOL!

This was last weekend. Connor didn’t want anything to do with it at first, but then El Hub said, “Do you want to wear makeup just like mommy?” and her eyes widened with amazement and she sprinted at full speed over to the booth. Then she refused to leave the BBQ until it was her turn to get her face done.

See the subtle blue gradient around the butterfly wings? I peeked inside the face painter’s kit, and she had a cool-looking box of colorful striped blocks called the Paradise Makeup AQ Prisma BlendSet Palette. It’s by a pro makeup line called Mehron. They do a lot of colorful makeup for body painting and performers.

The striped blocks look like bars of soap, and each one has a different combination of colors. You can wet a brush with water, run it along one of the blocks, and brush it on your skin for an instant gradient.

After these dry, they stay put, but they’re easy to wash off with water.

You can also get the blocks separately for $16.95 each… I think I’m gonna order one or two for Halloween so I can paint Connor’s face to match her butterfly costume.

I’ve never painted a butterfly on a human being before, but it can’t be any harder than walking a cat on a leash. 🙂

Have you ever done any theatrical face painting or body art?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Does Keeping Your Summer Tan Through Fall and Winter Matter to You?

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guerlain sun tonic brunettes and orange peps
Me trying to avoid the sun!

I’m just curious. I read about this bronzing face mist from St. Tropez that you can get at Sephora for $30. You spray it on your face and neck, and apparently it’s like a misting self-tanner spray that gives you some color without making a mess on your clothes or hands.

I’m intrigued.

It made me think about fading summer tans. Like, this is not a big issue for me (obvi), but I do put on a little color during the summer. I’m usually an NC42 in MAC, but I’ll move up into NC44 territory. (I try to wear hats and sunscreen when I can, just because my face starts to hurt when I get too much sun.)

Anyway, I do have friends, though, who like to keep their summer color into winter, so I passed this bronzing mist info on to them (and you!).

Inquiring minds want to know. Is this a concern for you? For me, not so much. But let me know if it’s one for you in the comments.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

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