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!
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