Hand Creams part two

On Monday I talked about what I think makes a good hand cream. Here are some of my winners:

Fastest Absorbing:

Fast Absorbing Keri Lotion. Definitely not super moisturizing, but for those moments where you really need some hand cream but still want to be able to grip a doorknob, superb. Lightly scented.

Best Day Moisture:

Avon Vita Moist. Commonly available in a purse-sized tube for under a dollar. Nicely moisturizing without being overly greasy. The scent is reminiscent of sunscreen and other chemicals though. :P

Best Intensive Repair/Night Moisture:

Avon Moisture Therapy Intensive. This stuff is ridiculously heavy and thick but is the only thing that kept my hands going during the winter at a job where my hands are in the water all the time. Don't even try to use this during the day though, you'll be incapacitated for several minutes following application.


Now, how about some losers?

Leaves your hands feeling drier than before:

OPI Avojuice Skin Quenchers. For some reason this stuff is so watery (probably it has to be since it's so watered down with colours and sparkles and fragrance) that it provides relief to hands, but cannot hold in moisture at all, so the light moisture it gives initially actually disappears.

Biggest waste of money:

Biosilk Silk Therapy 17 Miracle Leave-in Hair and Skin Conditioner. Spray some of this overpriced stuff on your hands (that's right, spray, because it's also a hair product, but this stuff is quite solid, like a hand lotion, and I wouldn't ever spray it directly on hair) and it seems to work really well. Then thirty seconds later you realize you need to apply more. And more. And your hands just get this really dry feeling all of a sudden. The only pro (because we have a bottle of this at work) is that because of the dry effect it's quite easy to put gloves on even right after application.

Reminiscent of applying white glue in your hands and rubbing until it rolls and peels off:

Avon Skin So Soft Soft&Sensual Replenishing Hand Cream. It smells like white glue and feels like it as well. I don't think I need to say any more.

Hand Creams part one

It's a lucky thing I decided to make hand creams a part one and part two, because I spent quite a while writing the previous two posts that I should have been able to do yesterday, except for those electrical storms. >.< So today's will be brief and I can extenuate tomorrow.

What should you look for in a hand cream?
Having been a shampoo person for the last year, I need extremely good hand cream and can settle for nothing less than the best. You should ideally have two, one heavier one to "regenerate" your hands overnight, and a lighter one to put on whenever possible during the day. They should be cheap (because there are inexpensive creams out there that work so why bother paying out the nose for something you'll go through like water). For the night one, you want something slightly greasy that will lock in as much moisture as possible. For your day cream, you need something that absorbs quickly and has minimal fragrance (so you don't bother anyone). You want a thick texture, because thinner textures really just make your hands feel "thirstier". Hand cream should not be shimmery, trust me, it gets all over the place.

Manic Panic

Something you don't see often is a review of hair colour products. Today I am reviewing
THE AMAZING MAGICAL VIVIDLY COLOURED
Manic Panic Semipermanent hair colour, original cream formula.

Despite the amazing colour selection and easy application this isn't that great a product. I'm guessing the amplified creams and gels are a lot better, but even just finding the original cream can get tricky in Canada. They have it at Shopper's Drug Mart, usually on a little tiny shelf on an endcap somewhere or on the top of one of the regular shelves so you can't see the colour names.

Application is decent, you apply to freshly shampooed and towel-dried hair, wait half an hour or so and rinse out, applying heat if you wish. You will need to buy at least a tint brush and a tint bowl is nice too because all you get for the $15 pricetag is a jar of colour. Oh yeah, you will also definitely need gloves. The main problem most people find with application is if they don't have a lot of experience with colour, especially runny colour like this, especially brush application, on yourself, it gets ALL OVER THE PLACE. Even me, who is on her way to a career in hair, who knows all the colouring techniques, who has the equipment, doing it on someone else...somehow managed to get a bit of pink on the kitchen chair. And it really doesn't come out. It comes out of your hair but not the furniture. Make sure you have a non-stainable cement laundry tub to rinse in like I do.

The colour, after rinsing will be noticably darker or more vivid (depending on the chosen colour) than expected. You will get the colour you wanted after you shampoo once, three hours minimum later. This stuff absolutely has to be applied on light or bleached hair.

Despite all this, you do come out with a really nice colour. But let me tell you about the aftermath. If you used a blue or green colour (like when we had Blue Week at school and student council bought our hairstyling class jars of Manic Panic to use on any student who came in), it does not come out easily. If you bleached your hair anyway to put the colour in, you won't care. But on natural hair? Let's just say Blue Week was in March and there were people desperately trying to get it out for the May semi-formal. However...I personally use the Ultra Violet colour for a few highlights and I used Hot Hot Pink on my sister. Three or four shampoos later, and it is gone. I prebleach my dark brown hair and my sister is a natural blonde. Doesn't seem to matter.

We did Pink Week last year instead, around Valentine's day and used Special FX colour instead. So I'm going to use up what's left of my Ultra Violet and then figure out where to buy Special Fx, it worked a lot better and no one was left with pink hair months later.

Are YOU Wasting Your Money?

Well, we've all been there. Sitting in the salon chair, your hair looks three hundred and twenty-six times better than you could ever make it look. Your stylist flashes her pearly whites and dangles a can of something in front of your face. All you can clearly see is the $25 pricetag because your eyeballs are way fried from the under-the-drier-with-bleach experience, and the unfortunate look you had at that issue of People with Michael Jackson sans nose. And your head is a little foggy after all the fumes, and how dazzled you are with your own beauty. So when your stylist concludes their speech with, "This will let you have this same exact look at home and your husband won't recognize you and it's the newest thing with nanoparticles and diamond dust!" you just vaguely nod your head and have it added to your bill and you walk out without shampoo which is what you really needed but you forgot in all that diamond-dust-prosthetic-nose-haze. Oops.


Actually, I haven't been there. I hope you haven't either. But it happens. To continue our hypothetical scenario:

Then you get your Shoppers Optimum VIP Mastercard bill a month later and your husband (who really did recognize you despite furtive use of Said Magical Product) waves it in your face and asks why exactly the salon bill was $25 extra, and you sadly recall that magical phial that is sitting at the back of the cupboard under the sink next to the Tilex, Lysol, and that at-home eyebrow waxing kit you were to scared to use. After going through mental anguish and feelings of low personal self-worth because no matter how hard you tried it just didn't turn out like at the salon, you turn to your questioner and reply...
"D@mn economy."

So back to the eternal question. Are salon products really better than the ones you get in the drugstore?

The reason that your hair looks so much better when your stylist does it is because they work with hair every day and understand the biology of hair and scalp. (Trust me, I'm going through that training as we speak.) They have professional tools and flattering lighting, and your hair is usually at its prime when they are finished: freshly cut and coloured. They have lots of practice with their tools and products and can very quickly give a stylistic blowdry versus the quick tousle you give it in the morning as your run out the door. You are the one who has to deal with consumer-grade tools, you are the one who must deal with the hair when it has split ends and your highlights are brassy, and most importantly, you cannot see the back of your head. I am all for doing your hair yourself, but it is quite difficult and time consuming to get your own hair picture-perfect. I can't, and I got 92 percent on my last hairdresser's exam.

Often your stylist will mention that the pricetag is based on all the extra research that the large companies do. However, the fact that a company like L'Oreal is gigantic and actually produces both salon and drugstore products easily dispels that myth.

It is also proposed that salon formulas are more concentrated, and thus the pricetag is justified because it will take you longer to use up the bottle. I can't back this statement up with research in either direction, but considering that even cheap laundry detergent comes in a concentrated formula now, there is no reason that drugstore products couldn't have that going for them as well.

From my perspective, every brand and price range has its good products and its bad products, and that is just what Paula Begoun states in "Don't Go Shopping For Hair-Care Products Without Me". I have found this to be extremely true. I've worked at a salon for over a year now, mainly in shampoo. I have tried out a ridiculous number of different shampoos on clients with all different hair types. And I still think that John Mitchell products should contain fewer irritants, and that Rusk Sensories is like trying to get Jello to lather, but the new Goldwell DualSenses line has been sent directly from heaven. I can give a similar statement about lower end products, for example Pantene is just terrible all-around and their formulas in today's world might as well have come from the stone age, Life Brand hair gel with supposedly wonderful fruit extracts burns your hands, and brands like Sunsilk and Herbal Essences have some quite ingenuitive products.

As I have access as an apprentice to licenced-professional-only beauty supply stores and shows, I use both salon and drugstore products on myself. I've found no difference except that certain specialty products (like violet toning shampoo) are significantly easier to find in professional lines.

And to conclude our opening scenario...don't give up on the ridiculous miracle product you bought in a haze. Figure out what it's for (it's probably just a shine spray or something) and look up reviews of how other people used it. However your hairstylist used it won't work all that well at home, and too often products are recommended for their novelty rather than their effectiveness for your hair type. You can always take it back and explain why you didn't like it. Just watch out for the same baloney at the drugstore. ;)

:(

Salon vs. Drugstore products is postponed until tomorrow due to electrical storms and limited computer usage.

California Dreamin'

As per my usual, I have an annual summer stuff post. Problem is, summer isn't here yet. For me. I live in Canada and Canada has been having an extraordinarily chill and rainy summer, coming only second to the summer of 1992 during which there was a volcanic eruption and there was volcanic ash in the atmosphere which record-breakingly cooled things down. Note: there was no sarcasm in the previous statement. I am not making that up!

But what the heck, with makeup we can totally pretend it's summer. Here is everything you need:

First and foremost
THE SUNSCREEN

I've already talked about a great sunscreen for the face. But for your body you don't want a tiny jar like that and you also want something that stays on very well. This summer I upgraded to Coppertone Sport Continous Spray SPF 60. I really have found no cons to this product. It is matte, non-greasy, almost instantly sets, low odour, high SPF, super-easy application (you don't even have to rub it in), low price. My boss's husband shaves his head and enjoys using this product on his head because of the matte finish. I like it because there is no cap to lose, you just twist and click. Immense thumbs up.

Bring Out the GhostBusters
THE SELF TANNER

St. Ives, Banana Boat, and even Rexall gradual tanners have been previously reviewed on this blog. This year I decided my pasty legs (I wear jeans most of the time, the rest of me gets some amount of tan because I forget sunscreen a good deal) needed a kickstart. Enter Life Brand's version of the Tan Towel, coincidentally manufactured by Tan Towel. For some reason you can't buy them under the Tan Towel name in Canada. Whatever. It had decent reviews on MakeupAlley and the convenience of a towelette really jumped out at me in a world of foams and sprays and other things that make a mess all over your house. But this was a terrible product. I exfoliated in multiple ways (including the exfoliating/moisturising towelette you can purchase in the same line which I incidentally loved) beforehand however it still clung to drier areas, but not horribly noticeably. What was quite noticeable was how one leg was at least three shades darker than the other. Despite my following the specific instruction on the package to gradually unfold it as I worked, the towelette was almost completely bereft of self tanner by the time I finished one leg. And finally, what colour there was (which wasn't much more than I have had with gradual tanner, although quicker...even on the tanner leg) was orange. Not crazy-horrible orange. Just "I did a home self tan" orange. I tan naturally brown, so my arms and leg(s) didn't match. Plus, nobody naturally tans orange.
So I'm still looking for a good single application tanner. I will update if I find something.

Since you religiously use facial sunscreen daily
YOU MAY WANT A BRONZER

Regular Canadian price is around six dollars, and it was on sale for $1.99. Do you really get what you pay for? This is New York Color's Sun 2 Sun bronzer and despite my pale skin I liked the colour combination of the darkest one and with a light hand it was not too dark. The two colours work very well together and the texture is excellent. I love it!!

Finish your look with a spritz of
SUMMER FRAGRANCE

Last year it was Pure and this year, also by mark., is Instant Vacation Costa Rica. This is my new summer favourite. The notes are iced watermelon, guava, and warm sand accord. You must try this!!

This Week's Menu

Well, this week I will be more or less here, with the exception of a Tuesday/Wednesday sleepover that probably will not affect how much I post since it will include a trip to The Big Mall and I am sure there will be lots to discuss.

So to keep myself and my readers on their toes, here is some semblance of what you can look forward to (major-posting-wise, there will be lesser stuff) in the next few days:

Tonight: Summer Roundup
Sunday: Salon vs. Drugstore Hair-Care
Monday: Hand Creams
Tuesday: Hand Creams part deux
Wednesday: Beauty for the Young and Inhuman (yes, you read that right!)
Thursday: Randomness, TBA (I'm working Thursday so there won't be much)
Friday: Beauty Research
Saturday: A Peek in My Makeup Bag :)

I know I am terribly negligent of my readers, but I am *hoping* to follow this up with a few themed weeks, ie. "A Week of Fragrance".

Also to look forward to sometime in the near future: I plan to visit The Really Big Mall (with multiple floors) with a friend and there will be lots to discuss!

And finally...I have a SURPRISE planned! Your only hint is that the title of this post vaguely alludes to it. As I become more sure of the date I will give advance notice.

Forgo Fitting Rooms

Something I'd forgotten about but am now starting to use again is My Virtual Model. This unique web site allows you to enter your height and weight and creates a 3D mannequin that you can try clothing on from a few retailers. You can even upload a picture of your face.

This is my model above, however I selected a face that looks somewhat like mine rather than uploading one.

The upside to this is of course getting to see precisely whether or not those jeans do indeed make you look fat without twisting around into uncomfortable positions under harsh fitting room lights. Just click the "rotate" button!

The downside is that there is a very slim choice as to the make of the clothing. This program, unless you only shop at Land's End, H&M and Levi's (and a select few other) is better for seeing what style of clothing looks good on you rather than the actual piece itself. They do have a "generic" option for each style of clothing available as well as items from a few different brands. It would also be really nice if they could then reccommend a size!

Tube It

They told her, "Don't you ever come around here
Can't see your lashes, they just disappear"
The flakes are in their eyes and their discomfort's really clear
So tube it, just tube it

Your mascara better not run, you better do what you can
Don't wanna see no streaks, don't be a raccoon woman
You wanna be tough, better do what you can
So tube it, but you wanna be bad

Just tube it, tube it, tube it, tube it
No one wants to be defeated
Taking off mascara shouldn't be a fight
It doesn't matter, it can't stay on all night

Just tube it, tube it

That is probably the only mention you will hear of M.J. on here...I was actually sadder about Farrah, maybe I'll post a tutorial for her hair. I just thought the song was fitting.

What I am talking about is L'Oreal's Double Extend Beauty Tubes mascara. This product is L'Oreal's version of Blinc's Kiss Me mascara that has been raved about by the beauty community for years but is basically impossible to find and ridiculously expensive. The basis here is that the mascara forms little tubes around your lashes rather than coating them, which are removed with warm water and friction. This essentially makes the product waterproof until you are ready to remove it (although, say you are in the pool and you get splashed, you will need to PAT your eyes with the towel versus rubbing your eyes). This mascara is more expensive than what I am used to, around $12 Canadian. This really is the going rate for a lot of drugstore products now but I typically pick up the latest Maybelline on sale for under $10. However, I replace my mascara every six months so it's not a huge deal.

Does it work? Yes. Yes, it does. It does not come off until you take it off, and removal is fairly easy, with no eye-stinging makeup remover or anything like that. I actually have no fault to find aside from the price tag, and the fact that I bought black by accident and I usually get whatever is darkest (very black, blackest black, midnight black, glamour black, you get the idea). You put a white fiber primer on first and I think a darker shade would have been more effective in covering the primer since I tend to be light handed in application. This mascara does not flake, is shiny, does not clump (as long as you don't try to put another coat on after it's dry), has easy removal, does not run, and you can get two different looks depending on whether you use the primer or not. I know you can get the more dramatic look with multiple coats, but I find the primer very nice to have around to use with coloured mascaras. Prelightening with the white base helps them to show up on my naturally dark lashes, and we all know that coloured mascaras don't do much at all besides colour, so it gives that extra oomph. This is the best performing mascara I have ever used.

There is a slight downside that isn't a fault per se. The original Kiss Me mascara was a very definite daytime mascara, my-lashes-but-better look. L'Oreal has tried to make up for this formulation issue by including the primer. But it doesn't quite cut it. The primer helps add length, but that's it. There is no volume to be seen from this product. I have been blessed with decent lashes, but anyone with sparse hairs should look elsewhere. You will also never get a dramatic evening look. The last mascara I reviewed, Maybelline Collossal, was great for this but flaked, as is to be expected when you are gooking that much product on your lashes.

Final verdict: outstanding mascara, but drama must be found elsewhere.