Beauty Top Down: Skin…And More On My Hair

OK, the beauty quest continues apace, folks.  I took all the comments from last week into consideration and set my mind to making my curls work for me since so many people thought they looked good. But I did not go so far as to start showering in the mornings so that I could manage the curling process because that would have resulted in being late to work. One of the main goals of this whole process is figuring out how I can get my mojo working within the parameters of my real, actual life.  Because I’m not moving into a dreamworld where I have all the time, space, and privacy in the world to get glammed up very day.  I’m just trying to do a little better with the raw material I have, including my time allotment.

So, back to my hair. The best way for me to get pretty, soft curls it to wash it and twist it into fat ringlets while is drys then gently tousle them apart when they’re dry. This is not possible when I’m letting it dry at night. Instead, I did all the twisting, went to bed on the fat, damp, ringlets and hoped for the best.

I didn’t get the best.  But I did get a good start. The longer, under-layers came out softly curled with minimal frizz.  The top, shortest, and lightest layers looked like Carrot Top only with grey roots.  Enter my two new secret weapons: my flat iron and a small spritzer bottle of water. I used the iron to smooth out most of the length of my terrifying Krusty the Klown peaks of hair on the top of my head and the water to re-animate the slightly flattened curls on the rest of my head.  By leaving the ends of my top layers still curled so they blended into the rest of my hair, I would up looking like this.

I know! It’s adorable right? And it only took about 3 minutes to do, not including all the overnight drying time. It’s my new go-to hair do for this summer.  And once I get my roots touched up I’ll feel really good about the whole thing.

Now, let’s get down to talking about skin.  I have one infallible secret to skin success: sunscreen. Seriously, I wear sunscreen even on days that I know I’ll be in a windowless conference room for all of the daylight hours.  I have no desire to burn (which I do, quickly, in the sun) or for my skin to look like Snooki’s. So, I wear sunscreen.  It’s part of my routine much like brushing my teeth is part of my routine and I highly recommend it to everyone.

But apart from my good sunscreen habit, I had gotten lazy about my skin.  I used to use the Philosophy line of products: I like the whole Make-Up Optional kit. But that was before I spent all my extra money on Thomas the Train books so I could afford to buy fancier products. I’m not biter though. I’m just mentioning it here in the hopes that the Philosophy people read my blog and want to send me truckloads of my favorite products for free. Hey, it’s worth a try, right?

Anyway, I’ve been through a series of drugstore brand products that have left me underwhelmed.  The Aveeno Positively Radiant moisturizer with sunscreen is great for day but the Olay night cream I was using was meh. I was using no eye treatments whatsoever and counting on glasses to mask the circles under my eyes (the fact that the pollen count has rendered contacts impossible is another story for another day).  The Cetaphil cleanser I’ve been using is fine and not harming my skin but not adding anything to it either. So change was in the offing but I wasn’t sure which direction to go.

In a weird stroke of timing, I got a package of the Mirra line of skin care products that I won in a giveaway just as I started this series. I started using them because the price was right (free!) and I am in love with these products.  In. Love. My skin is softer, clearer, and less oily, even in the heat.  I wish the day cream had sunscreen but adding sunscreen over the cream hasn’t been a problem. Love, love, love. Sadly, Mirra is only available at Kroger and there isn’t a Kroger in the entire state of Maryland. I’m going to have to road trip to Kroger when I run out.  (Unless Philosophy makes me their spokes-blogger or something)

The other thing I’ve tired is the Olay Regenerist Eye treatment in the funny wand package that you roll on under you eyes. Or, as I call it, my Magic Wand.

Before

After

These pictures don’t really do justice to the smoothing effect of this cream because it’s really hard to take pictures of your own eyes in the mirror while you can hear your husband fighting with your son about whether or not he needs a non-poopy diaper for the commute in to daycare. (Husband won that argument). It also doesn’t help that I took the two pictures from different angles. Just trust me when I say there’s improvement and adding concealer on top only makes it better.

Anyway, here’s what my un-made-up skin looks like these days (sorry I don’t have a before picture.)

This chick needs some mascara, stat!

Not too shabby. Especially for a woman who can see her 37th birthday just around the corner. Now all I need to do is stay vigilant.  My own laziness is my worst enemy when it comes to skin care.  It’s easier to go to bed without waving my Magic Wand over my eyes an smoothing night cream all the way down my neck but that leads to the dull, clearly aging skin I had two weeks ago before I committed to my own (superficial) betterment. I need to take those few second to do things right.

Next week: Make-up or Why Do I Have 40 Different Red Lipsticks But Leave The House With Bare Lips.