Before I start my actual blog entry, I would like to do a little blog dance and say that I am done with my sophomore year of college as of this morning (when I submitted my last paper, heh)! Hoooraaaay!
Okay. Now for bloggishness. I would like to give a big, big virtual hug to MakeupAlley, which is an amazing/splendiferous/sparkly/incredibly informative site that has captured my heart when it comes to cosmetics. It's a powerhouse for makeup reviews. Search for any product you can think of, and users will have submitted a review for it. And you can, of course, submit reviews of you own! I admit that I didn't use MakeupAlley much in the past because I'd only just, y'know, submit a review or two and then go and scan ingredient lists on cosmetics for scary ingredients and impulsively buy it if it didn't seem too toxic.
But! The best thing about MakeupAlley goes beyond the reviews. They're great. But there's a whole community stemming from MakeupAlley, and whatever cosmetic query you have, you can bet that MakeupAlley will have a thread on one of its many parent boards to help you out.
I think the main reason I'm gushing about MakeupAlley right now is my prancing through the site today. For the past couple of weeks, I have slowly come to the conclusion that my cleanser and shampoo are simply not the ones for me. Heartbreaking! I use Burt's Bees Deep Cleansing cream for a cleanser and Very Volumizing for shampoo, and I have for the past year or so. But my skin's broken out since then, and my hair's frankly a lot oilier than it used to be. (Remember-- this is only for my case; tons of people love these products, which is awesome!) I'm sure there are many factors involved, as always, but the menthol in the cleansing cream irritates my skin, and I think the shampoo causes a lot more buildup than it should (which my hairdresser remarked upon when I went in for a haircut last week). Distraught, I turned to makeupalley for advice, and posted on their boards. I got several helpful responses, some reminding me to cool my jets (which is useful-- must remember that every product, even an organic one, isn't for everyone), and others listing lots of good skincare ranges for sensitive combination skin like mine. (That's the official labelage of my skin. I think everyone secretly has combination skin though, and Julie Gabriel agrees with me. :D)
One user suggested that I check her notepad for advice, which brings me to another great feature-- little mini dissertations on makeup and skincare can be found in tons of users' individual notepads! I must recommend this one: http://www.makeupalley.com/account/vn.asp?u=gingerrama#manual. It encourages consumers not to, y'know, buy into hype! Any kind of hype. I frankly think the most dangerous hype that's out there right now is the organic hype. While I love organic brands and ingredients, too many companies take advantage of said hype and use it to market ingredients that are still loaded with toxic ingredients! Lots of other notepads, depending on the user, talk about specific skincare tips for their skin, but there's tons of information to be gleaned from those, too.
Get thee to makeupalley! They have swaps and sale markers, too... it's such a fantastic resource for anybody who wants to know a little bit more before they buy. I'm learning constantly from it!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Ways to Feel Productive...
..without actually being productive. I have a paper due in two days (actually, one day and 21 hours) that I have not started. This is certainly not the bleakest state I've ever been in. I'm not even stressed about it. But... butbutbut... shooould I be stressed? Why am I not stressing on this paper? Why do I not feel guilty about procrastinating! Alas! There's the rub, lassie and laddie! There's the rub! I feel guilty for not feeling guilty.
This paper will get done (Donne, haha. My paper involves John Donne) eventually. And by eventually, I mean within the next forty-five hours. :)
In the mean time, just to get myself in the zone for typing, here is a lovely little baby blog entry! And here's a virtual pacifier for my guilt.
This paper will get done (Donne, haha. My paper involves John Donne) eventually. And by eventually, I mean within the next forty-five hours. :)
In the mean time, just to get myself in the zone for typing, here is a lovely little baby blog entry! And here's a virtual pacifier for my guilt.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Four months later...
I told you, webverse! I told you I was horrible at keeping blogs! But I want to keep a blog, so here I am, four months later, after messing around with my layout several times (I like this one, but that's because I adore all things cute and purple! If a grape had a little face, I would cry over eating it).
What sort of things would a blogger post about? Ideally, I'd like this blog, or any blog that I write, to be a lovely little stew. And its ingredients would be all of my interests. Narcissist stew, maybe. I almost called it 'Holly Stew,' but I'm afraid that makes me think of several things: Stu Pickles from the Rugrats, a wreath of holly, and a person-stew (I didn't want to find an image for this one, unsurprisingly enough. Google images has it, I'm sure, but I have no desire to see it)!
Narcissist stew it is, then. I don't think of bloggers as narcissists, though, which is why this is (SAT word time, forgive me) an inherently paradoxical exercise. But it's fun, and I'll hopefully not have to whip out those SAT words too much. I can hear my English professors saying them in my head now. "But John Donne/John Steinbeck/other writers named John focus on themes that are inherently paradoxical! Why would that happen to Lenny, John Steinbeck? Why would John Donne write both creepy love poetry and religious poetry?!"
I really got off topic. Anyway, here are my bloggish interests, in a straightforward (though not in any particular order) fashion.
1) Style Blogging. I love style blogs like Already Pretty and because they make style so wonderfully accessible, both financially (no Gucci lovin' on these blogs) and emotionally. Style bloggers remix their wardrobes, reflect on their lives through their wardrobes, and show readers like me ways to break the rules. Would I have considered wearing a dress above my knees before I started reading style blogs? Probably not, because boy am I weird about my knees sometimes. Since reading, though, I've felt so empowered to use my own wardrobe as a tool for self-expression-- and that's styling, man!
2) Gaming. I looove reading about video games and how they work. I am, as you might've guessed, a WoW player, so reading about updates and how WoW resonates outside its own severs continually fascinates me. I guess a part of that stems from the fact that I'm (partly) a Media Studies major, so I pay the big bucks to analyze stuff like this! Also, it's fun!
3) Organic products, particuarly on the cosmetics front. How hypocritical is it for an industry to peddle products that can hurt consumers with advertisements that aren't real (because they're airbrushed)? I may or may not lecture people on their shampoo choices sometimes. :)
4) Academia in general. Mostly because I want to (maybe) be a professor when I Grow Up. Aaaaack! I also work for admissions for my college, so I'm surrounded by questions about academics all the time. And I love it! (My only problem with admissions is that I want to accept EVERY prospective that I meet... this is why the staff is probably glad to have me as a tour guide and not actually as a dean.)
There are probably more, but this post is really so long already, and if I'm keeping this blog, that means I can write about the 'more' bits later! Yippee.
What sort of things would a blogger post about? Ideally, I'd like this blog, or any blog that I write, to be a lovely little stew. And its ingredients would be all of my interests. Narcissist stew, maybe. I almost called it 'Holly Stew,' but I'm afraid that makes me think of several things: Stu Pickles from the Rugrats, a wreath of holly, and a person-stew (I didn't want to find an image for this one, unsurprisingly enough. Google images has it, I'm sure, but I have no desire to see it)!
Narcissist stew it is, then. I don't think of bloggers as narcissists, though, which is why this is (SAT word time, forgive me) an inherently paradoxical exercise. But it's fun, and I'll hopefully not have to whip out those SAT words too much. I can hear my English professors saying them in my head now. "But John Donne/John Steinbeck/other writers named John focus on themes that are inherently paradoxical! Why would that happen to Lenny, John Steinbeck? Why would John Donne write both creepy love poetry and religious poetry?!"
I really got off topic. Anyway, here are my bloggish interests, in a straightforward (though not in any particular order) fashion.
1) Style Blogging. I love style blogs like Already Pretty and because they make style so wonderfully accessible, both financially (no Gucci lovin' on these blogs) and emotionally. Style bloggers remix their wardrobes, reflect on their lives through their wardrobes, and show readers like me ways to break the rules. Would I have considered wearing a dress above my knees before I started reading style blogs? Probably not, because boy am I weird about my knees sometimes. Since reading, though, I've felt so empowered to use my own wardrobe as a tool for self-expression-- and that's styling, man!
2) Gaming. I looove reading about video games and how they work. I am, as you might've guessed, a WoW player, so reading about updates and how WoW resonates outside its own severs continually fascinates me. I guess a part of that stems from the fact that I'm (partly) a Media Studies major, so I pay the big bucks to analyze stuff like this! Also, it's fun!
3) Organic products, particuarly on the cosmetics front. How hypocritical is it for an industry to peddle products that can hurt consumers with advertisements that aren't real (because they're airbrushed)? I may or may not lecture people on their shampoo choices sometimes. :)
4) Academia in general. Mostly because I want to (maybe) be a professor when I Grow Up. Aaaaack! I also work for admissions for my college, so I'm surrounded by questions about academics all the time. And I love it! (My only problem with admissions is that I want to accept EVERY prospective that I meet... this is why the staff is probably glad to have me as a tour guide and not actually as a dean.)
There are probably more, but this post is really so long already, and if I'm keeping this blog, that means I can write about the 'more' bits later! Yippee.
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