Beauty Routines

If you're like me, you love reading about other people's beauty routines (and you love the color yellow and are scared of shadow boxes) even if you don't consider yourself a fashionista or a regular Carmendy.

97 days ago I started the Curly Girl Method (you can read about my experiment HERE).
Today, I fell off the wagon. Well, a couple days ago I started to slip off the wagon, when I heated up my trusty old wide barrel curling iron. The soft waves instead of kinky curls! I could run my fingers through my hair without them getting stuck. Today, I fell off the rest of the way when I used shampoo for the first time in 97 days.

I had to.

I was turning into Aly Sheedy from The Breakfast Club.

Vinegar rinses were helping but not enough. No one wants to see a grown housewife scratching her head like she has lice.

All in all, my thoughts on The Curly Girl Method are as follows:

I actually love not using shampoo. I probably will continue NOT using shampoo nine out of ten times. My hair is much softer without it, less coarse, and I think it may even be growing better, cross my fingers and pray the rosary, amen.

I never followed the two conditioner rule. Seemed like a waste of time to me. I also never bothered with the don't-use-a-towel rule, for two reasons: I hate microfiber almost as much as I hate shadow boxes, and when I walked around the house with a tshirt (the other CG preferred method) wrapped around my locks, my husband started to referring to me as "Swami."

I was blow drying, upside down with a diffuser. I was also washing my hair upside down, which gave me a frightening view of Gloria, my muffin top, but also gave me a bit more volume and the curls up top formed better.

Although the curls looked pretty, my hair is not very thick and I was starting to notice scalp peeking through when my hair was "clumping" and curly. Not pretty.

But the main reason I'm only doing the CGM half-@$%ed is because I hate washing my hair everyday and I could not for the life of me get the curls to look decent on Day #2 or 3. If I straighten things out a bit with a wide barrel curling iron, I can go 4 days without washing. And that makes me a happy, happy camper.

Amen.

For cutting your own hair (yes, I do this. I hate getting my hair cut. I find the leaning over backwards while washing excruciatingly painful, hair stylists cannot be trusted with scissors, and I despise staring at myself in a mirror for that long), I recommend Miss CurliLocks video on youtube. I do NOT recommend my son's method:

Other beauty products and hints I've been loving lately:

Soap. I don't do froufrou body washes. I love, love, LOVE the smell of soap! It's probably bad for my skin but I love the smell of clean. Caress is what my mom has bought for years so it smells like her house, too. A bonus, although if they start making a Scone scent, that'd be an even bigger bonus.

Tights and boots. Gloria is more comfy in tights and a skirt than she is in jeans most of the time. My boots are black and not these pictured above. I forgot: I have a camera now. I can quit stealing other people's images. For other style ideas I love, try to copy, and drool over, visit my Pinterest style board.

Ulta lip crayon. Moisturizing and not too spendy (especially with a coupon). I've been loving red lately, but that may be due to my heroine, Lizzie, and her red lipstick.

The only deodorant that kept up with my Nutcracker schedule.

Olive oil for face wash. I know I've said it before, but if you aren't using the Oil Cleanse Method, why not? You should.

Also, I've heard good things about detoxing juices and smoothies, and even things like cayenne pepper/apple cider vinegar/honey tonics, for weight loss and such, but I really can't recommend enough my own personal coffee/half and half/sharp cheese/ice cream/merlot tonic. It'll make you live longer and put a glow in your cheeks.

You're welcome.

What are YOUR favorite beauty tricks/products/routines?