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Korean V-Line Product

Lately my mother has been obsessed with my appearance. She is a firm believer that having a baby ages a woman like no other, and constantly harangues me to continue to have a beauty routine despite my being a SAHM with practically no social life. A couple of weeks ago she gifted me a lotion and an eyelash lengthening serum. Both products, she explained, were being advertised everywhere in the Korean-American media as being tremendously effective (the former for moisturizing and anti-aging properties, and the latter as a RevitaLash-type product that is especially formulated for short and sparse East Asian eyelashes). Along with these two products came a third box. My mother wasn't sure what it was, but informed me that it...

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Model-Morphosis

I don't follow fashion, so the only reason I was even aware that New York Fashion Week is currently underway is due to the Facebook feeds of my fashion-forward friends. That being said, I stumbled upon a series of posts from the NYTimes Magazine Blog called Model-Morphosis and I couldn't help but be intrigued. Because who doesn't like looking at before-and-after pictures? Because who doesn't like looking at before-and-after pictures of models, hoping that their "before" versions will at least resemble us mere mortals? (They don't. They're still gorgeous.) Because what geek doesn't like playing with sliders??? Perhaps it's due to the fact that high fashion style is not always street-friendly, but in the majority of these photos, I much preferred the "before," makeup-less looks. This...

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Post-Partum Hair Loss

A couple of weeks ago I noticed an unusual amount of hair lying around the house. Note that I am always "shedding" a lot of hair — one of my ex-boyfriends used to say that he could always tell which rooms I have been in just by looking at the hair on the ground — so imagine just how much more hair there must be for me to become concerned. My post-partum hair loss had started. I had read that some women's hair can fall out in clumps, and that's exactly what has been happening to me. Chunks of matted hair on my pillow. A mangled mess in the bathroom drain. And hair everywhere on the floor. I keep my hair up in a...

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Perfume That Smells Like a Library

Once again I am forced to wonder why anyone hasn't thought of this before. Brooklyn perfumery I Hate Perfume has released a scent called "In the Library" that is inspired by the smells of libraries and books. According to perfumer Christopher Brosius, "these scents mean Excitement, Adventure, Discovery, Enlightenment and Knowledge." Brosius further explains on the product page: Whenever I read, the start of the journey is always opening the book and breathing deeply. There are few things more wonderful than the smell of a much-loved book. Newly printed books certainly smell very different from older ones. Their ink is so crisp though the odor of their paper is so faint. Older books smell riper and often sweeter. Illustrated books have a very different odor from...

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