Beauty product reviews, makeup tips and news from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict.
November 6th, 2009 | Karen | Filed in: Beauty Tips, Just For Fun
Thanks to Sesame Street, I learned that C is for Cookie. Years later, I learned that it’s also for Chanel, but that’s a different story. 
This November 10 marks the 40th anniversary of the show, and I felt compelled to salute it today with 10 simple Sesame Street-inspired beauty tips.
Take it from the Count, “One, ha ha ha! Two, ha ha ha!” — by focussing on preventative measures, like the regular use of broad-spectrum sunscreens, we can all age a little more gracefully.
Grab your drink of choice (mine is coffee), sit beneath a shady tree and listen to the leaves move in the wind. Take a picture of yourself after a really fantastic workout. Limit your prepping — comb your hair and wipe away the perspiration from your face. Capture a shot that conveys how strong and proud you feel at that moment. Later, on days when you don’t feel like exercising, look at the photo you took of yourself and try to remember how good you felt at the time it was taken.
Cleansers strip away moisture as part of the job of removing makeup, and dry winter air tends to magnify the problem. Gel cleansers can be very drying, but creamy ones like Dove deep moisture creamy facial cleanser and Neutrogena deep clean cream cleanser should help.
Moisturize throughout the day, and don’t forget to drink extra water when it’s cold and windy. Your hands, feet, knees and elbows may need a little more help, too. I like rich products containing shea butter, petrolatum, mineral oil, tea tree oil, linoleic acid or glycerin. For intense relief, moisturize hands and feet at night, and then slip on gloves or socks to lock in moisture.
A workout partner can be a great motivator, especially when you’re trying to get back into exercising on a regular basis after a long hiatus. If none of your friends or family are in the mood for fitness, try to make new friends at the gym, and keep your eyes peeled for any open team activities like intramural soccer leagues or basketball.
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November 3rd, 2009 | Karen | Filed in: Beauty Tips
In committing more than a million blog words to digital paper, I’ve battled struggled through some SERIOUS bouts of writer’s block.
No matter how many times I beat it back, writer’s block always returns! It’s funny that way, but I’ve learned a thing or two about writer’s block over the years, and if you’ve faced it too, here are some things that might help.
Most of the time, if/when I can summarize an idea in about one sentence, it’s fully baked.
That’s my theme, and I treat it like my hypothesis. Basically, it’s what I plan to prove in the blog post/e-mail/memo I’m writing, and everything I put on the page should help to back up my point.
Before I start to write, I’ll post my theme at the top of a blank page to remind myself to stay on topic.
A few of the themes I’ve written over the past few weeks…
Even harder than figuring out what to talk about is figuring out what not to say.
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October 30th, 2009 | Karen | Filed in: Beauty Tips, Hair
Today the fantabulous Christina Olson of Too Pretty For This (a great blog!) shares the ins and outs of hair donation.
I have been having a series of amazing hair days.
This is big news, because curly-haired me got a haircut last week – just in time for Virginia’s wet weather to begin.
If you’re a curly girl, too, you might be wondering why I’m thrilled with my “amazing” huge, frizzy hair. It’s not a look I normally attempt or embrace.
What makes it different is the reason: I cut off 10 inches last week for Pantene Beautiful Lengths, a non-profit organization that provides custom-made wigs to women fighting cancer. If you’re anything like me, hair can make or break your attitude toward the day and really affect your self-image. So while I might have a few rough run-ins with the mirror, I’m honored by the opportunity to help provide some good hair days to a brave woman I’ll never meet.
According to the American Cancer Society, nearly 1.5 million Americans will be diagnosed with some form of cancer by the end of the year, and more than 500,000 people will die of it before New Year’s Day. I’m not smart enough to figure out a way to prevent, cure, or better treat cancer… though I wish I could. So while other people are working on that, I cut off some hair.
October 27th, 2009 | Karen | Filed in: Beauty Tips, Just For Fun
Happy Tuesday, ladies. I’ve been thinking a lot today about goal setting and some of the things that people do to motivate/trick/inspire themselves to get stuff done, whether it be for small tasks (tidying up the house), or big projects (figuring out what to do as a career).
Few things are as empowering as a sense of accomplishment, but a lot has to happen between setting and achieving a goal. Sometimes it can be overwhelming.
Like plants, goals thrive when they’re tended to and cared for, so let’s pay some attention to our goals today. Here are seven things that may help.
Does your brain ever feels like it’s bursting at the seams? Like you have just too many things to think about? To organize my thoughts, I use a brainstorming technique called mind mapping.
A mind map from last Saturday!
They’re a fun way to quickly dump ideas on paper, getting them out of your head.
I feel like once I get ideas down on paper (or up on the screen), they seem easier to process and sort.
Are you ready?
When I’m finished with a map, I usually feel better about things, like I’m one big step closer to achieving my goals.
With your mind map in hand, it’s time to prioritize.
I’ll ask myself…
To get the ball rolling (aka to build momentum), I’ll start with the easiest tasks. Crossing some of them off my list makes the more complicated ones feel a lot easier.
Big goals are essentially just batches of little tasks all strung together, right? First thing in the morning, I like to write down three things (just three) that I want to achieve that day. I put them on a Post-It stuck someplace visible, like at the bottom of my computer screen.
October 24th, 2009 | Karen | Filed in: Beauty Tips, Just For Fun, News
Even though Blog World wrapped up last weekend, I wanted to talk a little about traffic building because it was one of the most discussed topics at the event.
Assuming it’s one of your goals (it doesn’t have to be), the experts had a lot to say about building readership/viewership to websites and blogs. Today I’m going to gloss over the jargon and give you some tips you can implement on your own.
Previously in The Beauty of Blog World…
This one’s the most important tip but also the hardest to define. “Content is King,” the traffic experts say, but what do they really mean? Answer: If you think about it, what draws you to your favorite makeup counters, stores, websites and blogs? In my case, I visit MAC counters because I’m *obsessed* with their makeup; I read Zen Habits because it helps me relax. Ultimately, we visit the places that give us what we want.
As a practical matter, I think it’s harder (although not impossible) to attract readers to personal journal blogs because, let’s face it, our lives usually aren’t as interesting as we think they are. But when we blog with passion about specific topics (keeping in mind that no one owes us their time), we tend to attract people with similar interests.
What words would someone use on Google to find your blog?
Whatever they are, those are some of your key words, and you want to use your key words in as many places as you can — in your domain name (i.e. lipstickeyeshadowandgloss.com, catsinuniform.com), in your URLs (i.e. catsinuniform.com/cat/uniforms/catuniforms.php — the parts between the / slashes), in your post titles (Cat Uniforms Under $10, My 5 Favorite Lipsticks of 2009, Don’t Gloss Over These Lipsticks, etc.), within the text of your posts and also within the text using HTML header tags (h1, h2, h3, h4). The more you use your key words, the more credit your blog will get from Google and the other search engines for searches using those terms.
Not only do links translate into direct traffic to your blog, as they get clicked wherever they appear, but they also contribute to your placement in the search rankings on Google.
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Btw for what you keep the tuna... .-= Livia’s last blog...
