Thank you all for all your kind comments and messages regarding my last post on depression.

I am doing better, but I believe that we are still a long ways to go to start feeling like my normal self again.

My therapist is encouraging me to partake in activities I once enjoyed, and to take up old (and perhaps some new) hobbies again. To carve out some time for myself each day, even if it’s just a few minutes, to do something that will be beneficial for my own well-being. And as we started to create a list of things I can do, I realized something:

I’ve missed blogging.

So I’m back. I can’t promise that I’ll blog every day like I used to, but I want to try. Because as I once told a good friend, even when things got so hectic and life seemed so chaotic, blogging was an activity I looked forward to because I had full control over it, and I knew that I was doing at least an okay job of it.

And to celebrate my return, I’ve decided to host a small giveaway —

One lucky winner will receive a Too Faced “The Naked Look” makeup palette!

I received this palette after trading in 500 Sephora Beauty Insider points. I always save up my points forever, waiting for something good to come along, and when I saw this palette as an available perk, I was immediately reminded of my Smashbox Perfectly Polished Lids Giveaway and decided to snatch it up for my readers.

According to the product description:

For a soft, sultry look, treat yourself to this universally flattering collection of Too Faced’s most popular makeup essentials. This five-piece set includes two luscious lip glosses, two shimmery eye shadows, and a luminous highlighter for a lit-within glow.

• Eyeshadow in Pink Cheeks (.03 oz) 
• Eyeshadow in Lap Dance (0.03 oz) 
• Lip Gloss in Pink Swan (0.04 oz) 
• Lip Gloss in Air Kiss (0.04 oz) 
• Shimmer Veil Highlighter (0.11 oz) 

This palette was created especially for Sephora and is a limited edition, so it is a must-have for makeup enthusiasts everywhere!

If you would like to see photos and swatches of each product in the palette, please visit I Know all the Words.

Now, for the giveaway…

To enter this giveaway, simply use the Rafflecopter widget below. Not sure how to use Rafflecopter? Watch this 52 second video for a tutorial on how to enter a giveaway using Rafflecopter. There are 4 methods of entry, with the first method (commenting on this blog post) being mandatory while the third method (Tweeting about the giveaway) can be used once per day:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway will end on Saturday, May 26th, 2012, at 12:01am, at which point a winner will be randomly chosen and announced here.

Please use a valid email address and/or Twitter handle so that I can contact you if you win!

Sorry, this giveaway is open only to residents of the United States.

Good luck, and thank you for entering!

Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

I have always read that you should not shampoo your hair every day because daily washing strips your hair of beneficial oils and damages your locks. However, whenever I tried this trick, I ended up with greasy, lifeless hair that made me feel dirty and gross.

That’s when I heard about dry shampoo. And today, I will be highlighting my favorite dry shampoo: the Oscar Blandi Pronto Invisible Volumizing Dry Shampoo Spray.

Dry shampoo is exactly what it sounds like: a product that helps keep you hair clean (or at least feeling clean) without the use of water. Dry shampoo technically does not cleanse; it uses powders which help absorb the oils in your hair.

I have tried several brands of dry shampoo in my quest to go shampoo-free every other day. Okay, fine — the real reason I sought a good dry shampoo was my desire for lazy hair.

The different types of dry shampoo I have tried over the years are:

• Suave Professionals Dry Shampoo Spray
• Bumble and Bumble Black Hair Powder
• Ojon Full Detox Rub-Out Dry Cleansing Spray
• Oscar Blandi Pronto Dry Shampoo
• Oscar Blandi Pronto Invisible Dry Shampoo Spray

I hated the strong scent of the Suave. The Bumble and Bumble left black splotches on my scalp, as well as my clothes and floor. The Ojon weighed my hair down. And while I loved the Oscar Blandi Pronto Dry Shampoo for the way it soaked up oil, I hated its messy powder application.

The Oscar Blandi Pronto Dry Shampoo has a spray version available, but I caught myself reaching for the Pronto Invisible Dry Shampoo Spray instead — the difference between the two is that the Invisible Dry Shampoo Spray is invisible, not white, and it is designed to boost your hair’s volume.

The results? I now look forward to my in-between shampoo days because my hair looks, and performs better with the Oscar Blandi Pronto Invisible Dry Shampoo Spray. My hair has so much volume, and is much easier to style with the help of this dry shampoo…sometimes, I will even use it on clean hair when my hair is misbehaving because it helps texturize my hair just enough to help a style set!

The Oscar Blandi Pronto Invisible Dry Shampoo Spray is a bit on the expensive side at $23. But Sephora sells a travel-size version for $11, and you can always try it at a store before you choose to buy.

One…

Last week, I got a haircut. I hadn’t gotten a cut in over six months, and with the post-partum hair loss I have been experiencing (it’s not as bad as last time, but it’s still pretty disgusting), my hair was in dire need of some servicing.

I was about to go make an appointment with my usual stylist but then I forced myself to reconsider. Do I really need to spend $100 on a haircut? The answer was no. So I decided to take a chance on a little, hole-in-the wall salon just 10 minutes away in Secaucus, NJ…

Dark hair is difficult to photograph when you’re looking to highlight its layers. (Also, webcam
pictures aren’t that great.) I tried to fluff my hair out a bit to make the layers stand out, but
it ended up looking messy instead. Oh, well.

My stylist was a soft-spoken Japanese immigrant who was absolutely meticulous with a pair of scissors. She really listened to what I requested (a rarity among Asian stylists), and did such a fantastic job with the blow-out that I actually considered going back to her in the future for blow-outs before special occasions, when I have never gone to a salon just for a blow-out before!

The price for the cut was $50 — pretty high in other parts of the country, I’m sure, but very reasonable in my neck of the woods. I will definitely be returning to this salon and stylist for my next cut!

Two…

I have never been the mom to carry around JUST a diaper bag when going out with my baby. I see diaper bags as just that: a bag to carry around essentials for the baby, not for myself. Besides, I never liked the idea of my stuff getting mixed up with the baby’s.

So I have always carried around a separate bag. I know, it’s very impractical. At first, I was able to get by with my usual medium-sized shoulder bags but they soon became too bulky and oftentimes heavy. (There must exist some law of physics that state that the larger a woman’s bag, the more stuff she feels she must carry with her at all times.) So I downsized to clutches/wristlets, but those became annoying because they usually require one hand devoted to them.

That is when I had my epiphany. The kind that only sleep-deprived parents get during a middle-of-the-night feeding, the type that makes you feel like you just discovered gravity, only to later realize that the rest of the population already knows about this and YOU’re the idiot for not having caught on earlier.

The cross-body clutch.

J was very gracious to insist on getting me something nice with his hard-earned bonus money. I chose the above bag, which can be used with gym clothes as well as a night on the town. Better yet, the color is a discontinued one so I got it for $100 off. Score!

Three…

Remember how I had lost all 50 lbs of my pregnancy weight with Claire within just three months of giving birth to her?

And remember how I had also gained 50 lbs with Aerin, but I wasn’t worried because I thought the weight would just melt off magically again?

Well, I was wrong.

After losing 30 lbs in the first month, my weight loss slowed considerably. As in, I have only lost an additional 5 lbs since then.

So now, at 4 months post-partum, I have only lost 35 lbs, and I still have a good 15 more to go.

It’s time to step up the weight-loss plan. Or, in my case, start a weight-loss plan because I didn’t actually have one before. It’s getting a bit depressing to look at a closet full of clothes, knowing that you can’t fit into 95% of your own inventory. It’s not only my vanity talking either — it’s economical as well, because buying a new wardrobe a size up can be expensive, y’all!

In her Venus project, Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano asks the question “What would have happened if the aesthetic standard of our society had belonged to the collective unconscious of the great artists of the past?”, digitally altering great classic works of art to better fit today’s waif-like standards.

I will be completely honest; some of the subjects of the paintings do look better after their waists have been tucked in and their breasts made fuller, like Richard Westall’s The Power of Venus. However, others — like Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus — just look plain wrong.

What are your thoughts on Ms. Giordano’s work?

Via Flavorwire.

Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

As I looked around my room to find inspiration for today’s Cool Tool Tuesdays, my eyes rested on a pair of products I have never written about before — and I couldn’t believe I haven’t, because I have been using it diligently for the past five years!

This products are La Mer’s The Powder loose powder and The Powder Brush.

I think that the reason I had failed to mention them in the past is because I do not consider it an essential part of my beauty routine. In other words, I — like most women — can certainly live without loose powder.

However, I believe that they deserve a post because they are the only beauty products, aside from  my beloved MAC Liquidlast liner, that I truly consider HG (“Holy Grail” in makeup talk) because I honestly have never found any product that even comes close.

La Mer’s The Powder is one of the most finely-milled loose powders I have ever seen. It comes in four shades, including translucent (I use Crème), and it leaves a soft, luminous finish that is unparalleled: not too matte with just the teeniest amount of dewiness to make it look natural. In fact, many reviewers use the word “angelic” to describe the finish that The Powder gives you — and they’re right!

The Powder Brush is a retractable brush that is designed for both pressed and loose powder application, and just like The Powder, many users seem to become smitten with it after just one use.

Now I’m not sure if The Powder would work just as well with another brush (I’ve never tried it with other brushes because I got them together and I don’t own another powder brush), but I do know that The Powder Brush must at least play a small part in delivering the phenomenal result.

I like to use The Powder to set my makeup and add a finished look to my face. These days I’ll use it over BB Cream and that works just fine — while The Brush is still retracted, I’ll take the compacted, half-an-inch or so end of the brush that sticks out of the tube to dip into The Powder and pat under my eyes to ensure that my eye makeup stays in place. Then I will fully extend The Brush, apply more of The Powder and fluff it over my entire face.

The Powder is pretty expensive at $65 and The Powder Brush even more so at $75.   But you know what? I am still using the same powder and brush I bought over five years ago. The Powder seriously seems to last forever, because even if I only used it once a week (and I know I’ve used it much more often than that), that’s over 260 applications!

What’s more, I still have 1/3 of a bottle left! 

The only complaint I have about either of the products is that The Brush’s casing is not scratch resistant, and mine is covered in ugly scratches from the times I have traveled with it. But it still works fine, and that’s what’s important.

I highly recommend that everyone reading this go visit their closest La Mer counter and try these for themselves!