My Daily Sunscreen Moisturizer, Kiehl's Ultra Facial Moisturizer SPF 15

I keep mentioning this product over and over and over. In fact, it was one of the first reviews I did for this blog.

I started using Kiehl's when I was a senior in college. I remember being frustrated with skin that seemed totally out of control. My combination skin was very oily and dry at the same time. I was having breakouts. I had tried a lot of different mass market products and nothing was helping. I read about Kiehl's in an issue of Allure, and hightailed it to my nearby Neiman Marcus (ok, maybe not so nearby, it's about a 45 minute drive to that mall), where I spent about 10% of my savings account at the Kiehl's counter. I bought cleaners, toners, lip balms, masks and of course this moisturizer. My skin loved the change. There was a marked decrease in breakouts and while my skin was still combination, it was at least no longer a study in extremes. I've been an avid Kiehl's fan ever since.

Sunscreen 101: How to Pick The Right One for You and Use it Properly!

With so many sunscreens on the market, it is really hard to select one from all the masses to be "your" sunscreen. There are a lot of factors to take into account such as chemical vs physical ingredients, SPF, UVA protection, formulation, the list goes on and on. Once you've finally decided which product you'll buy, you need to make sure that you are getting your money's worth. Which means correctly applying the product so it can actually do its job.

Anti-Aging 101: Where to Start?

So, now that you know a little bit more about anti-aging, where does one start? There's a huge number of products out there. Do you need 10 treatment products? Should you include stick to the basics? The answers to those questions really should be determined by you. But, here's what a few little birdies (aka- the 2 cosmetic dermatology textbooks I own) say you should be doing to start off your anti-aging skin care routine. If you're interested in doing more than this or you want to be much more in depth it is likely worth your time and money to head off to a dermatologist.

Length and Volume in 1 Step: CoverGirl Lash Blast Fusion Mascara Review

I've been doing mascara reviews with my before, after and after a day of wear photos. You've seen my admittedly average lashes look long, volumized and curled. Sometimes things smudge like crazy or refuse to come off even with a great makeup remover.

You likely know that I want it all- easy to apply mascara that gives me that amazing look, maintains the curl all day long, won't smudge or flake off and is easy to remove. The mascaras that can do this go into my "Holy Grail" category. If you take a peek there you'll see that very few have met all of these criteria. In fact, it's been 2 years since I've tagged a mascara as Holy Grail (that was Max Factor's Volume Couture- You can't buy it in the US any more). 2 years of pretty good, but not amazing mascara. I was forced to layer lengthening and volumizing mascaras. Until today.

Somehow, I was not surprised that CoverGirl managed to create another Holy Grail mascara for me. With their Lash Blast line, they have created an amazing volume mascara, an even better lengthening mascara, and now they've saved me the trouble of layering the 2 together by creating LashBlast Fusion.

I use 2 coats of this mascara, and the results are amazing. My lashes are noticeably longer, and much, much thicker. There can be a little bit of clumping if I'm not careful, but with the rubberized applicator brush I do think it's easier to avoid this than with a "normal" nylon mascara brush. (I'm just now realizing that the pic above was likely one of my "clumpier" days.) At the end of the day I lose a little curl, but the volume and especially the length are still there.

How does it compare to the Original LashBlast and LashBlast Length formulas? It's a little less volume than the original formula, but I do find that this is more lengthening than the Length formula. (Maybe it's me, but I didn't get a lot more length from that formula) Fusion really is the best of both worlds.

CoverGirl LashBlast Fusion

Living Proof Hold Hairspray: Hairspray to Survive Seattle

Lately I've been curling my hair quite a bit. Big bouncy curls, ones that seem to last all day with the aid of volumizing products and hair spray. But, once it starts raining the curls have deflated, turning my hair into flat, sad looking waves with the gross feel of too much product.

So, when Living Proof came out with a new hairspray, I knew I had to try it. Their anti-frizz technology has definitely made styling my hair into straight styles faster and easier (not to mention made the results much better). Their new hairspray boasts flexible hold and a "humidity-blocking technology PolyfluoroEster" which they say allows hair to move, feel soft and last all day.

It arrived on my doorstep about a week before I had the perfect testing opportunity for a product like this. That's right, I went to the unofficial capital of rainy weather, and I took my Living Proof Hold Hairspray with me. I went to Seattle.

First off, Seattle is an amazing town. I loved it there. The people are super nice, the city is very clean (minus the large numbers of homeless there), tons of shopping, great food and I haven't even started to mention how pretty it is there. Despite its reputation, Seattle does actually have more sunny days each year than the town I currently live in, though there is more humidity and rain. During my trip it wasn't raining non-stop, but I did have to break out my umbrella a few times and it was humid between downpours.

I used it on my entire head one day, and only half the next day in order to test it against no hair spray (though, I admit I had used Shu Uemura Essence Absolue before drying my hair). Both days were a bit rainy and it was definitely a tad humid when it wasn't raining. I've also been using the product here at home for both straight and curly styles.

So, how did it work? Overall I thought it definitely stood up to the humidity (there was a marked difference in the 2 sides of my hair in the Seattle humidity, I had to re-flat iron my head and use the hair spray to go out to dinner!). My hair was not the dreaded "helmet head" and my hair was touchable, but did feel like I had product in it. I didn't notice that it added any shine to my hair, and it does smell like chemicals. The smell fades, but it takes about 10 minutes. Hair styles definitely lasted all day.

I thought this hair spray lived up to the hype. It definitely didn't matter that I was in the rain and humidity. My hair was flexible and natural looking, and styles lasted all day. Check it out if you're in a high humidity area.





Living Proof

Smell-free Sunless Tanning: It Is Available!

Updated 4/28/2010: I'm republishing this post as an update! Antidote has changed their name to Beautisol and I have a new discount code to share with everyone. The product itself has not been changed, thank goodness! Just some pretty new packaging and a great new website! Check out the packages under weddings, they have amazing deals to get your whole wedding party tan, I was amazed.


I have to admit that I'm afraid of sunless tanning. As a pale, Irish girl, I tend to turn orange or an unnaturally dark color that just doesn't look right. I'm not patient enough to apply sunless tanner correctly and I usually don't wait long enough before I get dressed. Yes, most of these issues are my fault, but you can still see why it took about 6 weeks before I tried out this new sunless tanner that had been sent to me.

Beautisol was created by Sinead, the Self Tanning Queen (check out her site). She's a licensed aesthetician and had a big on-line presence already in Self Tanners before she decided to create her own line. They started with what most of use see as the worst part of self-tanners: the smell! They worked with a fragrance house in Europe who created a special ingredient to counteract the smell of DHA (the active ingredient in all self tanners). This special technology is called Smell Right, which you have to admit really gets the point across. They also created an amazing body scrub to go with it!

How did they do? Find out more after the jump.

Carmindy's Tip of the Day: Perfect Blush

Apply blush almost at the end of your full makeup application. Chances are you will see you only need a light sheer sweep of color to bring life to your cheeks.

Use the two-finger rule to find the best place to apply blush. Lay your index and middle finger side by side vertically next to your nose. You want to leave that much skin free of blush when approaching the nose. Place the same fingers horizontally under your eye. Keep that area clear as well.

Don't forget to enter to win Carmindy's new book!