No Makeup!

Women, you know who you are, go around a lot with a lot of makeup on. A lot of make-ups have SPF in them, which I hate. That can make your face look shinny.

But, not the point of this article.

Have you ever met anyone a woman who didn't wear makeup? Sometimes it's a shock and sometimes. . not so much. Now, I like wearing my makeup for both accessorizing and for insecurity reasons. I have dark circles around my eyes, a little Bell's Palsy and now wrinkles around my eyes and across my forehead.

Light makeup Maddy

So, what all do I do to myself almost every morning?

• Proactiv - cleanser, toner and moisturizer.
• Olay eye serum for wrinkles
• Stila Perfecting Concealer
• Smudge Proof Eye Shadow Base
• L'Oreal - Extra-Intense Liquid Pencil Eyeliner
• Metallic Shadow Duo
• Great Lash Black Mascara.

What's Makeup?
There is some concern among those who wear makeup about what is in it - it use to be blood and ashes and wax back in the day. Things might have gotten either better or worse depending. Organic makeup, pure makeup and products with those types of words attached are a booming business.

Here is a list of ingredients from L'Oreal Double Extend Lash Extension Effect Mascara, Blackest Black

Water - Aqua, Paraffin, Potassium Cetyl Phosphate, Acrylates Copolymer, Beeswax - Cera Alba, Carnauba Wax - Cera Carnauba, Steareth-2, Cetyl Alcohol, Phenoxyethanol, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Acacia Senegal Gum - Acacia Senegal, Rayon, Panthenol, Ethylenediamine/Stearyldimer Dilinoleate Copolymer, Methylparaben, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Hydrogenated Jojoba Oil, Hydrogenated Palm Oil, 2-Oleamido-1,3-Octadecanediol, Disodium EDTA, Ethylparaben, Simethicone, Rosa Canina Fruit Oil, Isopropylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Butylparaben, Titanium - CI 77891 - May Contain, Water - Aqua, Styrene/Acrylates/Ammonium Methacrylate Copolymer, Butylene Glycol, Alcohol Denat.,  Sodium Laureth-12 Sulfate, Acrylamide/Sodium Acryloyldimethyltaurate Copolyme, Isohexadecane, Phenoxyethanol, Rayon, Polysorbate 80, Methylparaben, Imidazolidinyl Urea, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Disodium EDTA, Silica, Ethylparaben, Isopropylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Butylparaben, Iron Oxides - CI 77499 - CI 77491 - CI 77492 - May Contain, Ultramarines - CI 77007 - May Contain, Mica - May Contain, Carmine - CI 75470 - May Contain, Chromium Oxide Greens - CI 77288 - May Contain, Chromium Hydroxide Green - CI 77289 - May Contain, Titanium Dioxide - CI 77891 - May Contain, Ferric Ferrocyanide - CI 77510

That's a lot - and that's one product.

Noticing the World
There is a fear about being caught without makeup or not being perfect. I see my coworkers who have two or three mirrors at their desks to make sure they are "perfect" from every angle. How about we drop this need for perfection in how we look and be honest and open with what we have going on.

I know some celebrities have been Tweeting or otherwise sending out photos of their faces without makeup - but they are sort of the mutants of the world. I never grew up around people with Hollywood's resources and abundant looks so I sort of decided I would side with what I saw everyday in the people I lived and not to put much faith in these attractive, polished pictures of strangers.

Without Makeup
As I stated, I like wearing makeup. I don't see it as a need to be perfect but I do like how I look and feel when I wear it.

I wonder how people would respond, think or react if I stopped. There would be some reaction - well, if I am any good at putting on makeup. I think this is normal and natural, like when someone dyes his/her hair and you notice. At least, I notice and just file it away in my brain.

So - what would life be like without makeup after living for at least 10 years with makeup (that's right, I probably started wearing makeup in college).

Let's cut to the chase - here is me without makeup, hair back and just sitting on my couch.

All makeup off

Are you willing to be part of this adventure? Take off your makeup and post a photo of yourself for the world to see. Try going a week without makeup, figure out how it feels or if there is anything to feel.

Winners never lie, by the way - let's show the generations below us and in front of us what's really going on.

Truth

If I get some good response, I will engage in a stellar new adventure - not wearing a scrap of makeup for a whole week - that means not during work, not at play, not out to eat, nada. But, since I am also chicken, I'm not going to be doing this alone.

Anyone else in?

Be Part of the Adventure
Do you have a suggestion or want to see me attempt something? Drop me an email at AdventuringAmanda@gmail.com with your suggestion.

Hair Care: Finishing Spray

I have been looking for a finishing spray for my hair. To back up a moment, I find the reason I struggle the most with finding products I want is that I do not know the proper term to call them. Oftentimes, I have to ask people what something is called or describe it to a bunch of people before I get other terms to use to search.

Really, half the battle in this world is agreeing on a vocabulary.

I ended up going shopping with my insanely amazing boyfriend and after spending about 30 minutes in the vitamin aisle, I moved over to the hair care aisle to see what I could find. I have no desire to change my hair routine. 

This is my routine:

• Shampoo with Brilliant Brunette.
• Condition with Brilliant Brunette.
• Smooth on some L'Oreal stuff – I think it’s this, but, my bottle looks different. Advanced Haircare Smooth Intense Frizz Taming Serum.
• Blow-dry.
• Get on with my life.

Unless it's the weekend, then it's anyone's game.

What I Want

I never had a complicated hair routine because when your hair gets really long, it just takes too long. When my hair is short, I just shampoo, condition and blow-dry. Remember, I donate chronically to Locks forLove (check out my Donate to Locks for Love post!), so, I’m really just a hair farmer.

Anyhow, I wanted a finishing spray I could use to help tame my frizz and give my hair some smoothness. I have pretty nice hair, I think. I don’t dye it or anything or overload it with stuff. I don’t know if I just lucked out or because I don’t do a lot with it, it remains healthy. However, I have wavy hair (use to be curly, after treatment it got less curly) and it tends to frizz out as it gets longer.

I don’t have nice, long hair. I have tangled, frizzy weird long hair. I even use a straightening iron on it without too much luck. In fact, I could spend an hour or more on my hair and it looks like I did nothing. I had an old co-worker ask me why I never did anything with my hair.

I died a little on the inside.

I use to use John Frieda Brilliant Brunette Satin Shine Finishing Creme (it's been discontinued) but I am not really that great with hair and makeup stuff, so, I would sort of get a couple clumps. I could never “work product through hair” so I gave up. I figured if I had a spray, I had a better chance of having some type of even control.

So, I purchased this Organix Ever-Straight Brazilian KeratinTherapy Flat Iron Spray.

The spray

Behold

I actually have been enjoying this product. It has actually tamed my frizz and I don’t have tons of fly-away or softly levitating hair locks.

What I do not like is the fact that my hair feels a little more weighed down. I am so not used to having anything in my hair (never used hairspray  gel, etc) so when something is in there, I feel weird. I does smell like coconut, and I like coconut, but I am not sure I enjoy smelling like coconut. It’s a small price to pay.

Be Part of the Adventure
Do you have a suggestion or want to see me attempt something? Drop me an email at AdventuringAmanda@gmail.com with your suggestion.

Image Credit
Spray from organixhair.com/

Try Proactiv

Mission Level
Success

My Skin
I have bad skin. Some people do not believe me. I will post this charming picture of how my skin would look at least 2 weeks out of the month - the rest of the time, it was in a state of repair, smaller pimples or me trying to pop everything.

I do love popping pimples and blackheads.

True story

I have bad skin. Really. Some is due to just who I am - my brother was on prescription stuff so some is my genes. I also struggled with issues from the toxins, sickness and medication.

Your skin is a great teller of what is happening inside of you. It's good to know the pattern of your skin and hair.

The last set of awesome break-outs I had was due to too much B vitamins.

Public: But, Manda, you tell people they should get B vitamins  Are you trying to ruin their skin?!

Look, I was on a lot of Bs. I was on shots of it for my neuropathy and then some extra for metabolism. After a few weeks of my regiment  I would give myself an injection and without about 10 minutes, I would be breaking out in painful, cystic type acne.

I figured if the Proactiv could maybe help with my skin issues. I didn't have a ton of hope, though. I know enough about the world that when people claim there is some awesome treatment that can easily fix all your problems, it's probably a lie.

Proactiv

Magic

Proactiv contains a large dose of benzoyl peroxide. It will take care of mild to bad acne. However, it will do nothing for cystic acne or nodulocystic acne. These are the worst kind of acne - cysts are painful fluid filled sacs that can be huge and nodules are hard and deep under the skin. I did have both  but it was temporary for me.

There are other products with benzoyl peroxide - like Acne Free which I did try back in the day. I actually did not like the smell of it - it had a watery, fake lavender smell. I also saw no results which is why I assumed Proactiv wouldn't work either.

For Me
Proactiv did work for me. And some of my friends used it (who did not have issues) and their skin got a lot clearer and more glow-y.

The whole system is simple:

• Cleanser: It smells light to good to nothing. Proactive calls them "micro beads" but the cleanser comes with some light exfoliation stuff. It will not suds up or anything. I like to wet down my skin with warm water just to open everything up, then gently scrub.
• Toner: You are suppose to apply this with a cotton ball  I squirt a bit on my hand and rub it on my face. I know, incorrect. But, whatever. It tastes salty. Don't eat it.
• Lotion: This still contains the benzoyl peroxide - but, it does help repair acne issues. I sometimes put a rub on after work. It will soften your skin.

Here's the low-down. First, you use the product twice a day - although I currently use it once a day because I am lazy. When I think I am going to be breaking out, I use it twice a day for a few days. I like conserving the product.

You do have to be a little patient. My skin felt softer after a few treatments, but, I was trying to come to terms with having bad skin after I was still breaking out after a week or so. I wanted instant results and when I didn't see them, I figured I was stuck with bad skin.

My Mom did note my skin looked better (between my blemishes) about a week later. A good four weeks later, I was amazed at how my skin responded and how much better it looked.

Clear! (in the non-dead way)

True story, you might find your skin drying out a bit. I had some dry skin that was a little painful around my eyes. I do use an eye moisturizer and I was careful to avoid the area while it re-hydrated. After a little, my body seemed to have adjusted well and I never got dry patches. A friend of mine had such dry skin it peeled - in these cases, it is best to take a day off or reduce what you are doing.

Also - be careful about other products you use. I don't use anything else with Acne fighting stuff in it.but, you will want to run through your normal skin care to make sure you don't combine anything wierd. You won't need another cleaner or anything, by the way. You can use just the three steps.

You might want to make sure you get some SPF on you if you are using Proactiv.

The Industry
Proactive will send you about two or three freebies with your first orders. Then they will send you a lot of catalogs with products and stuff for  problems you never knew you had.

Good news, bad news for Proactiv - I think the basic product works great and I felt no need to get anything else from some weird brush to the 100 million products they seem to have. You might want to invest in body cleanser if you have body acne - that might be about it that I would buy. I did enjoy using my free sample of the refining mask. When I want a "mask" I just use the normal cleanser and keep it on. Again, the basic product and regiment worked great for me.

If you sign up for the auto-shipping you can set it to be delivered from 1-22 weeks or something. They will also bill you accordingly. They say they discount you a lot, which they might, but, when I say that my going rate for an article is $500 but I discounted you to $100 - did I really discount you or did I just make you feel better about spending $100?

After being on the auto-thing for about a year, I stopped it. I have a stockpile of the stuff and I can buy it elsewhere these days. I have well over a year worth of the stuff in my bathroom. No need to be greedy. Plus, I don't like the work that goes into tracking when everything ships, arrives and I get billed. It's annoying and I normally noticed my account being billed and a week or so later the product arriving when I didn't need it. I don't like that. I stopped it.

The Weird
The stuff will stain your towels. Either use a towel you don't care about or get one that you don't mind looking as if it was bleached.

Be Part of the Adventure
Do you have a suggestion or want to see me attempt something? Drop me an email at AdventuringAmanda@gmail.com with your suggestion.

Image Credit
Product shot from amazon.com

Get a Gel Manicure

I love me a good manicure. Due to poor nutrition and sickness, my nails were never that great until I started on a good vitamin routine and was able to get better food into me. Manicures started off as a thing my Mom and I would do – get our nails done and go to lunch.

Really, what’s more perfect? My Mom is pretty awesome.

A traditional manicure would last me a few days before it would start to chip. For $10 at our local salon, it wasn't a bad deal but I don’t like the look of cracked, chipping polish. I don’t need to have manicured nails, I just don’t like chipped nails. I would prefer to have unpolished, wild nails than manicured chipped nails.

I knew some friends who got tips and fake nails – I never wanted to damage my nails and I also don’t like the fake look. Also, that box-cut French thing looks weird. Really, your fingers look chunky when you cut you nail right across and then add some white lines

What is it?
A gel manicure is basically a normal manicure but the polish is some type of chemical that dries under UV light to create a super-hard shell on your nail.

Manicure
After leaving my original nail salon due to poor service, I decided it was time to give the gel manicure a try. Here’s what I can tell you:

• Do your research. 
• Know your nails.
• Find the right place to go. 
• Check the manufactures website. 
• Read the horror stories.

Cost
Critical – what is the cost? Where I am, a simple manicure costs $10. The gel manicure costs $30. However, I only have to get one every 2-3 weeks. Doing the math for a month, it would be $40 for a normal manicure and $45 for a gel (at most). The gel also looks better longer where I always have a few days of crappy nails with the simple manicure.

Sold!

My Experience

At about 3.5 weeks

Basically, addicted. I am lucky, I live really close to a great nail salon where they do everything right.

• Getting it done: Painless. Normal manicure process, but, you put your hands under UV lights rather than a dryer. It was so hard to convince myself they were dry since I am use to drying for 15 minutes and then doing the dainty I-can’t-touch-anything hand dance for an hour after.
• First impressions: I did feel as if my nails were a little thicker or heavier. Stronger, even. The polish makes it possible to open a can of cat food without batting an eye – normally, this would break or weaken a nail.
• Love: A week later, my nails still look salon perfect. I can get 2-3 weeks out of my nails. Granted, toward the end they might chip a little and you do see new nail growth. If your nails grow really fast, you’ll know it. I never had to get my nails clipped until I started doing gel manicures.

Testing
I did tests – I took the polish off myself, I ripped off the polish, I tried two different manufactures of the polish and stopped using the gel.

Polish off: I have pure acetone and I soaked my nails. I learned I am not a professional and I thought my nails were totally damaged. Ended up, I just didn’t get all the polish off right. At the salon, they lightly file the polish and gently scrap it off rather than having you soak for 10 minutes unattended. This is the right way. I did it the wrong way. However, my nails were not damaged, just had all this stuff on them that made them look scratched.

I used both OPI and Shellac polishes. I like the Shellac better which is made by a company called CND. This might be more personal – I liked the colors better and when the OPI was removed, my nails looked a little more chipped than with the Shellac.

I took a break – first when I removed the polish on my own and later when I got a normal manicure. I really wanted to take more breaks because I think it’s supposed to be a good thing, but, I can’t. I love the gel look and nail strength.

Plus, I go to one of those places that will tell you if you need to take a break from something.

Do not rip off the gel no matter how tempting it is. It’s not good for your nails. For the sake of science, I did, though. I found it comes off a lot harder yet more as one piece than normal polish. I did note my nails were just fine under it.

Negatives
I do think that getting the gel makes me not relies how my nails are suppose to be. When I took a break, I thought my nails had become weaker – actually, it was just how they normally are. They aren't actually weak, but, the gel adds a lot of strength. It’s annoying to stop dong it.

If you have thin nails, this could be bad. They will scuff up your nails a bit to help the polish really stick. They are really good at it where I go, but, it is something that is done.

Hand models always hold stuff - this is my coffee mug

You can’t have your hands in water or doing a lot of stuff all the time. My Mom, for example, got a gel manicure and then cleaned the house and cooked Thanksgiving dinner – her nails did NOT hold up for Thanksgiving Day and she had to get her nails re-done.

You are stuck with a single polish color for three weeks. I mean, you could go get the polish off if you were unhappy. However, in general, you need to make sure you like the color. If you decided to do a bright orange and then you have a funeral to go to – that might bother you. Or not. I don’t know you and I don’t know your emotions. I normally do soft pinks and more natural tones, I was a little iffy about going dark and I can’t say I am 100% in love with my current nail color. For the next three-ish weeks, this is what I got.

Be Part of the Adventure
Do you have a suggestion or want to see me attempt something? Drop me an email at AdventuringAmanda@gmail.com with your suggestion.