Archive | June, 2012

Doin’ It for Yourself: 6-Step At-Home Summer Facial

27 Jun

Like I’ve said before, I’m a kitchen beautician. I usually don’t pay professionals for services that I can do myself. Don’t get me wrong though, being pampered by a stranger is very therapeutic, but there’s a certain bliss that comes from DIY’n it. I try to do an at-home facial at least twice a month. Here’s how:

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1. Clean your face. Use your favorite cleanser and a deep cleaning brush. Olay has a motorized one for about $30 (you can often find coupons and get it on sale), but you can also use a baby hair brush. Earth Therapeutics sells a facial brush that looks like a baby hair brush for about $3.

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2. Scrub your face. I like to mix my scrub with baking soda, but in the absence of a scrub, you can just use the baking soda mixed with water. You can also make a scrub out of oil and table sugar (my favorite oil is sweet almond, of course). Massage your face with the mixture or scrub for about 30-60 seconds, you don’t want to overdo it.

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3. Apply a mask. Use a mask that’s geared towards your skin type. I LOVE the Bellaboo chocolate mask, but I’ve gotten pretty great results from the Queen Helene Mint Julep masque and the Yes To Cucumbers mask. You can also make your own mask. Find a recipe you like by doing a lil’ google search.

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4. Steam your face. Fill the sink with scalding hot water and add a few drops of essential oil. I like peppermint oil for the summer. It also has antibacterial properties (ahem, acne-prone skin). If you’re lazy, like me, you can just run hot water on a wash cloth and hold it to your face until it cools a few times. If you’re fancy, you can invest in a genuine facial steamer.

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5. Tone your face. Swipe (don’t douse) your face with an alcohol free toner. Thayer’s witch hazel toner with cucumber and aloe is perfect for the summer and doesn’t dry your face out. You can also mix apple cider vinegar with water (1 TBS vinegar to 1 cup of water) and use that as a toner. You can make your own rosewater toner, too.

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6. Moisturize your face. Use your favorite moisturizer and go to town.

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My Face: This Week

26 Jun

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The week after the wedding my skin pretty much went crazy. Usually, when I leave from my grandmother’s house I barely even have to wash my face. She has soft water and usually it works magic on my skin. I love it. I think I’ve found the culprit of this unusual behavior to be the sunscreen I was wearing. I decided I needed to start wearing sunscreen, but my face decided otherwise. So to reverse the effects, I’ve been very deliberate in dealing with my face. As far as regimens go this has been my counterattack:

Morning

  1. Wash with Bellaboo Buff Skin
  2. Aloe Vera gel
  3. Thayer’s Witch Hazel or Clinique Emergency Gel-Lotion
  4. Bellaboo Mosturise Dew

Night

  1. Wash with Bellaboo All That Clean Skin wash + Clarisonic Mia
  2. Aloe Vera gel
  3. Clinique Acne Solutions Moisturizer
  4. Sweet Almond Oil

I think I’m gonna chill on the Emergency Gel-Lotion during the day. The key to this has really seemed to be the night regimen. The aloe vera gel really helped to clear up what I like to call “allergy bumps” which are those little fine bumps that appear when my skin has a bad reaction to something. The Clinique acne moisturizer smells horrible, but for whatever reason, this 2.5% benzoyl peroxide treatment is literally shrinking these bumps overnight. As for the sweet almond oil, I don’t even know what to say about it. It doesn’t make my skin oily, it makes my skin baby effing smooth. It also absorbs easily and

 

I haven’t had any adverse reactions from using it like I’ve had with oils in the past. I can’t say that I’m surprised though, because it’s the first ingredient after water in the Bellaboo moisturizer. So hopefully after a few more days of this I can go back to my basic wash and go skin regimen.

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The Princess and The Flat Iron

12 Jun

I washed my hair last night for the first time in two weeks. It was beyond dirty! But I have to admit that it was a pleasant experience. I was also pretty stoked that my ODing on heat protection wasn’t in vain because my hair reverted right back.

Here’s the technique I used to flat iron my hair:
– Wash
– Clear rinse
– Deep Condition w/moisture and protein
– Leave in/detangle: It’s a 10 is a heat protectant, too
– Air Dry
– Heat protectant spray
– Blow dry
– Heat protectant serum applied to each section
– Flat iron on 410 degrees
– Apply serum for smoothness
– Wrap + Satin Scarf

It seems like I added a lot of product to my hair, but my hair was not weighed down at all, so in the future I will continue to put all that crap on my hair to protect it. I noticed right after I flat ironed my hair that my ends looked thin. So I was sad. I still am, actually. I’m sure the thinness is a result of the detangling battles I’ve had in the past, but it’s only a minor setback (still repeating this to myself) and a reminder not to slack off. I think imma chill on the heat after my cousin’s wedding though.

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Young, Broke, and Fabulous

5 Jun

I just combed through my bank statement from last month and discovered that I spent a whopping $200+ on miscellaneous bullshit. I spent another $75 in Ulta. On what you might ask? I have no effing clue. But I do know one thing, it stops here. I’m putting myself on a strict budget (I thought I had already, but obviously that didn’t work). I have all this stuff on my Summer Want list, but I nibbled away at the dollars I should’ve been using for that. NO MORE, I SAY! From now on, I will not be buying stuff that I don’t need unless:

  1. It’s something I use over and over and is at a rock-bottom, once-a-year price i.e. when I bought 2 razor cartridge refills b/c they were on sale at 60% off + two $2 coupons
  2. To replace a product I currently have but isn’t working
  3. A limited edition nail color

That seems like a lot of exceptions, but I can count the instances on my hand that those issues have been the case (and coincidentally, none of them were the case last month).

 

Also, I will allow myself a slight budget for stuff I don’t need, but I’ll only purchase those items based on priority (how bad/long I’ve wanted it). So. I’ll start with a budget of $150/month to be broken down as such:

 

$40 skin/makeup

$30 hair

$80 clothes (I NEVER buy clothes, so my wardrobe consists of an ass of shit that I only kinda like, but bought for a dirt cheap price)

 

So wish me luck. Join me. Whatever floats your boat.

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Miss Kitchen Beautician

4 Jun

Because I am growing out my relaxer, it took me a while to figure out the best way to detangle and style my hair. I lost a lot of hair and got a lot of knots on most of my detangling sessions (until very recently). To add insult to injury, I wore a lot of ponytails in which my hair was tangled underneath; meaning I would pull and brush my hair over the tangled part. Bad Idea. To get my hair back on track I have decided to get kinky twists for the summer and a sew-in for the winter. The last time I had any kind of weave in my hair was the summer of ’94 when my cousin put box braids in my hair. Since my hair is broken in certain areas (particularly the nape) and I’m dealing with a whole lotta new growth, I think keeping my hair braided up is the best solution for me. I’ve read a lot of information about taking care of your hair while in braids or sew-ins so that it actually helps your hair instead of harming it. I don’t have a set in stone regimen for when I have my hair braided, but it will probably include cleansing my scalp with ORS Creamy Aloe Shampoo/Abba Pure Moisture Shampoo, oiling my scalp with some kind of oil that promotes growth and controls itchiness, and spraying on a moisturizing spray. I’m excited about the braids, but It won’t be until mid June when I’m able to get them because my cousin is getting married and I’m a bridesmaid!

Being the kitchen beautician that I am, I have decided to try do the kinky twists myself. I’ve watched more YouTube tutorials than I care to announce on the matter, and I honestly think I can do it myself. I think that if I can wax myself I can put in a few kinky twists, right? Right. An added bonus is that I would only have to purchase the hair, so that would save me about $150.  If When this goes well, my next feat will be conquering the self-installed sew-in. Wish me luck!

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