Silk'n Flash and Go Update: Did At Home Laser Hair Removal Work?

Product Sent for Review Affiliate Links

A few years ago I bought my first at home laser hair removal machine, the Silk'n Sens Epil. I used it for a while and was getting great results... and then I was pregnant and not able to continue using the machine. While I've yet to really find the time to pick the machine back up and treat everything, I really wanted to at least treat a few areas on my face. But, that big machine was a bit of a pain to drag out and even though treating my face would take only a few seconds, it was just a bit too much hassle.

So, recently I was sent the Flash and Go from Silk'n, which features the same technology at the Sens Epil machine, but with only 3 intensity settings instead of 5, and a much smaller and compact size. Yes, it is pretty much the size and set up of a phaser that Captain Kirk would use. It's also small enough that I've just left it in the corner of my makeup vanity area, quickly plug it in when I am going to use it, so it takes about 1-2 minutes at the most to do a treatment. Love that!

It does take a while to see results. I have treated myself about every 2 weeks since November, and I'm just now starting to see a decrease in hair. I think it did take longer to see results than with the Sens Epil, simply because I had that on setting 5 and this was setting 3. Also, I'm sure that my hair is all in very different phases of growth due to continual waxing/plucking, and things were just going in and out of phase. This is much more true on my face than on my legs (where I mostly used the Sens Epil, and which I typically just shave).

I'll definitely be continuing with the Flash and Go. I love how quick and easy it is to use, and I'm already seeing results. While not super cheap at $299, it is much less than the $500-750 that a friend was recently quoted for professional laser hair removal in the same area. (ote that neither pro or at home laser hair removal are completely permanent. You'll need touch ups no matter which way you go. My touch ups are just done at home with the same machine, no appointments needed!

If you're thinking about using an at home hair removal laser, you should definitely go and read my post about how at home laser hair removal works and figure out if you're a good candidate first!


Read more:
Silk'n Sens Epil Review and Overview of the science behind at home laser hair removal
Flash & Go and Sens Epil comparision



Silk'n
Product Sent for Review Affiliate Links

56

How to Curl Your Hair and Make It LAST!

Remember last week when I tried out the TRESemmé Live Styling? (which, again, I loved and am telling everyone to do it. Go to Walgreen's now). I had a few minutes left at the end of my session, so I asked Joey how to curl hair and make it last all night when you are going out. He had some quick and easy directions! I tried it out a few days ago, and my hair really did stay curled, looking much nicer than usual for hours. These curls could definitely last all night! Here's how to curl your hair to make it last all night!

Items I used:
• A brush
• TRESemmé Hair Spray
• Curling Iron: I used my Chi 1 1/4" Curling Iron, and I did wish I had used a smaller iron at times, but really you'll see that the actual size doesn't matter so much
• Alligator clips to separate hair: I couldn't find a pic showing what I have, mine are from Sally Beauty and have an angle partway down, this makes them better at holding a lot of hair
• Bobby Pins: The best ones ever are the MetaGrip ones from Sally Beauty. They hold everything and don't fail!

I started with blow dried hair. I had applied a basic smoothing serum and a hair oil, but that was it. If your hair is particularly hard to curl, you might want to add mousse. Given enough mousse (think one or handfuls, about an egg size), anyone's hair can hold a curl. If your hair isn't, then you need more mousse! (Don't believe me? Here's more info on Hair Dresser on Fire)

I started on the bottom and worked in a few big sections. I don't know why I started on the bottom, I should have started on top like usual. Strange. Anyways, I recommend working in smaller areas to make it a bit more manageable.

I used somewhat big sections of hair, think about 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2. You'll want to spray with hair spray first and then brush through. Be sure to look down at your hair strangely and give yourself a double chin while you do it...

Next, curl! I clamped down on my hair about 1/2 down and then wound the hair around the outside of the iron. I curled hair away from my face, so that wouldn't get in my face when I was done. Wait about 10 seconds.

I couldn't take pics of this (I am but one person with a camera remote...), but once your hair is curled, you need to spray it again with hair spray and quickly brush through that hair spray. The spray gives you the hold, but brushing it makes your hair much softer and more touchable. Do this fast, you need your hair to still be hot when you are done brushing.

Once your hair is brushed again, you need to rewrap around your fingers and pin it. I wrap using 2 or 3 fingers, I vary it a little for some variety and a more organic look. I don't wrap all the way up to my scalp, I go up to a little above where I started with the curling iron, and then pin it with 1 or 2 pins.

Keep going all the way around your head. Here's my head when I'm done, you can see that they look a bit wonky because they aren't pinned right up against my scalp. Wait about 10-15 minutes until you know your hair is cooled off completely. I just ran my fingers through my hair and snapped a pic, which means that yes, I'm wishing I was wearing a darker lippie (I think I just have some lip balm on here).

My curls stayed all night long, looking perfect the whole time!


TRESemmé

6

Goody's QuikStyle Brush: This Brush Will Change Your Morning Routine!

Have you seen this magical brush? I know it looks a bit silly with the blue stuff in there, but trust me, it really is what they use on Unicorns. Truly.

I heard about this brush from the people over at Goody (though my free one apparently got lost on its way to Michigan), and I knew I had to try it! And then... I couldn't find one near me. I saw it one day and then *poof!* there were empty spots with tags instead of brushes all over town. They were sold out everywhere. I was pretty close to buying it on Amazon, but it was going for 2x the actual price (this baby should cost in the $12 range, not $25), so I held off. A few weeks ago I finally snagged one at a local big box store.

According to the Goody site, here's what it does:

The Goody QuikStyle Half-Round Styler Brush offers the same water-removing benefits of the QuikStyle Paddle Brush in a new styling shape. Super absorbent microfiber bristles interact with wet hair like a towel removing 30% of water, while the half-round shape makes it the perfect blow-out brush. Use it out of the shower to detangle, remove excess water, and style with or without a blowdryer. The convex half-round shape allows hair to curl around the microfiber base, removing water while adding lift and body as you blowdry. The Comfort-flex grip and slim profile offer ease and control during your styling routine. Go from wet to beautifully styled hair faster than ever!

That's a lot of info!

What I've found is that the microfiber doesn't really seem to work if you just brush wet hair. I found no difference, the brush barely felt wet.

The magic happens when you combine this with your blow dryer! I roughly dry my hair using my fingers, and when my hair is about 1/3 dry, I start to use the brush. I just use it like a regular drying brush.

The result is that my hair definitely dries faster, but the best part is how soft and straight it is. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I've been struggling with super damaged hair, which is my own fault. To not look like a brillo pad, I do need to something straighten the most damaged parts. But with this brush, my hair is already much better looking. To the point that it looks like it has already been flat ironed. I don't need to straighten it at all, saving my damaged hair from that heat! And, saving myself quite a bit of time.

Because this seems to rely on the microfiber, you do need to keep the brush fairly clean. The effect just isn't there if the microfiber is all pushed down because of hair!

I've also been using this brush at the end of styling my hair. It's perfect for smoothing out my hair, especially after a last application of Argan Oil (I've been loving this DermOrganic Leave In Treatment). I light brushing spreads it out evenly, makes sure there aren't any spots with too much product and it is definitely more shiny!


Goody

9

the Balm's Makeup Brushes: More Powder to the People? Marcia Investigates

The Balm is one of my favorite cosmetic companies. I think it’s one of those underrated companies. I’ve got a nice little collection of items from them so when HauteLook had the brand for sale one day I was excited to see that they had the new line of brushes. These brushes are only available on the Balm’s website normally. Whenever HauteLook carries the Balm the products are 51% off. You can’t lose with that.

There are 5 brushes available from the Balm in a collection called Powder to the People and I purchased 4 of those 5. Everything about the Balm is cute and the brushes are no exception. The handles are colorful and fun with their graphics. Plus the Balm comes up with the best names. I love the cleverness of the company. The brushes are also cruelty free which is an asset.

My favorite of the brushes I bought is the powder brush aptly named Powder to the People. It’s soft yet just firm enough. I swirl it in pressed powder and highlighters for application.


Blend & Hand is a tapered foundation brush. Personally I like a softer, fuller foundation brush and this is very firm at the end but where this shines for me is as a concealer brush. It sure doesn’t look like a concealer brush but there’s something about the tip that helps blend concealer around my nose area and under my eyes to make this very useful for me. This brush is so soft too that you want to pet it.

I also bought 2 of the 3 eye brushes. The only negative about these is that they are double ended which doesn’t work for the way I store brushes. Since the powder brush came in a plastic tube though I store them in that tube and they haven’t flattened out.

Give Crease a Chance has a loose fluffy blending brush on one end with a larger flatter all over eye brush on the opposite end.

Crease, Love & Happiness is the crease brush with one end being fluffy and the other more stiff. They call it their “smudger/tapered crease” brush. The one I didn’t buy is Eye Believe, an eyeliner/eyebrow brush.

While I like all of these brushes and do fit them into my routine on occasion, I would only recommend them as extras. The brushes range in price from $24.50 to $29.50 but the brand is regularly featured on HauteLook. At 51% off I’m glad I have them, at full price I’d have been a little disappointed.


Today's post was brought to us by my friend Marcia over at Beauty Info Zone. Marcia is a long time beauty junkie and a fellow Wolverine, who I've been lucky enough to meet in person (she's a sweetie!) I'm hoping to be able to spend more time makeup shopping with her in the near future, especially since we live very close to each other.

the Balm

2

Steam For A Great Hair Day: Q-Redew Review

What exactly is that thing?? I fully admit that I thought it might be a hair dryer with a built in diffuser. Or some sort of torture device. I wasn't quite sure.

What is it really? MAGIC. My friends, it really is. This is the answer to flat hair, day to night, helping curls, and extending your hair for days. How does it work? It's basically a steamer.


While it's tempting to describe the Q-Redew as a steamer, it really is a warmed up version of a cool mist humidifier. It is hot enough that if you held it close to your scalp and left it there for a bit you could burn yourself, but it's easy to avoid by holding about an inch away and by moving it around a bit.

Don't worry that the mist will cause crazy frizz. Instead it has just enough humidity to help reboot your hair style. It won't make your head wet, but it will make it seem like you've just finished styling your hair from start to finish.

When you plug in the unit, it does take a few minutes to warm up. The light (next to the water reservoir) blinks while it is warming up. Once it is ready the light will glow continuously. Hit the button and a warm mist will come out of the end of each finger. You can see it, but despite (many) attempts, I couldn't capture it with my camera. The unit will make some water bubbling noises. (It sounds like a steam iron, really, when it gurgles? Yes, that.)

When the mist comes out, just put the "fingers" into your hair and style your hair. I've used the Q-Redew to add volume to the crown of my head on day 2 of a shampoo, help my wavy hair get a bit wavier with scrunching, and to help set curls.

When adding volume at my roots, I just used my fingers to lift my hair a bit, swooshing them around. I moved the Q-Redew around fairly quickly, I didn't really need much help. When I was done my hair had the same volume as I do on a hair washing day, but without the feeling of dry shampoo that I usually have to use on day #2 or 3.

I've also used the Q-Redew to set curls. I've done this only with big pin curls, but I want to get a set of big velcro rollers and maybe try this with braids as well. I just set my hair, then apply the Q-Redew to each area. It takes only about 5 minutes or so to cool down completely, then I take out the curls. I did fairly big curls (my hair was wrapped around 3 fingers), so I had really pretty and soft waves afterwards. I was surprised as well how the Q-Redew had taken my hair that was frizzy when I started and it looked like it had been flat ironed and then curled. The frizz was gone, my hair was super shiny and the waves lasted almost all day.

If your hair is curly, this is a great way to reset (or just style) those curls as well. I've used the Q-Redew on my curly hair days to help clump my curls together a bit more and to defrizz them. It didn't make my bad 80's home perm curls amazing big bouncy curls (ok, that may have been hoping for too much). The Q-Redew did help make the curls come together a bit more and calmed down the frizz.


I've been loving my Q-Redew, and I swear I'm just getting started with it! If you have curly hair you definitely need one. (It would also be a great holiday gift. I'm just saying.)



Q-Redew

1

At Home Laser Hair Removal Part Dos: Silk'n Flash&Go Review

Product Sent for Review Affiliate Links


A few years ago, I became fed up with shaving. I decided to try out at home laser hair removal. Luckily, my husband was on board with this, and let me go and spend a ton of money on a Silk'n SensEpil. (Read my original at home laser hair removal post) While I had good results with the SensEpil, I was pregnant a few months later, and since it is a no-no to use it while pregnant, I stopped. Pregnancy hormones lost all the ground I had made with my laser (meaning, while I had been down to shaving once a week, I was now super hairy again. Thanks hormones), and after having my baby I had no time to restart with the laser due to blog, job, and new tiny human.

Recently, I decided that I needed to start using my machine again, though I wouldn't have time to do everything, like I want to. I'd start with my facial hair. However, that SensEpil is a bit big and cumbersome to drag out. Then the at home laser hair removal fairy came to visit me (meaning, Silk'n emailed me to see if I'd review a product), and I now have an amazing new at home laser! Luckily, this one is way easier to pull out and spend 2 or 3 minutes zapping away.

And yes, it definitely looks like a Star Trek phaser. Just don't try making me wear the red shirt. Nope.

I'm just starting to use it this week, so it will be a while before I can tell you if this one works as well as the SensEpil did for me. (FYI, that SensEpil Review reviews the SensEpil and goes over how it works.) The Flash&Go works exactly the same way, except it is a little smaller.

I thought I'd go over the differences between the machines. Since they're both available on the market, hopefully this will help a few people decide which machine to buy.



Yes, I'm a nerd and still store my SensEpil over 2 years later in the original box (those boxes are the exact same size, by the way). My Flash&Go came with an extra bulb insert, I don't remember if my SensEpil did as well.


When you pull them out, you can immediately see how much smaller and more simple the Flash&Go is than the SensEpil.

I didn't include the pictures, but the Flash&Go actually came with 2 different plugs. It's the same power cord, but there are 2 inserts, 1 for US plugs and 1 for... somewhere else. It is 2 long and skinny round pegs. I'm not sure where it works. It's likely most of Western Europe, because I'm pretty sure my friends the Canadians use the same plugs as us, though I haven't been there for a long time so maybe I'm remembering something wrong.

The controls are much easier to use than they look. Turn it on, then hit + or - to go up and down between the 5 levels of intensity. The other lights are warnings about your skin being too dark (which it sometimes tells me even though I'm super pale), or to warn you that you're getting towards the end of your bulb life.

In addition to being smaller and easier to set up, the light bulb area on the Flash&Go is smaller than the SensEpil (4 cm vs 6 cm). The life of the bulb is also different, the Flash&Go has 1000 charges and SensEpil has only 750. So, while there are more charges, and that Flash&Go window is bigger than other at home laser hair removal devices on the market.... If you're looking to do a lot of hair removal in larger areas such as your legs, the SensEpil is probably a better choice for you. When I have time to start treating my legs again I'll definitely be breaking that one out. In the meantime, I want to treat my face, so the Flash&Go is perfect!


I'll update in a few weeks to let you know how it is going with the Flash&Go.

Read more:
Silk'n Sens Epil Review and Overview of the science behind at home laser hair removal
Flash & Go Update!




Silk'n
Product Sent for Review Affiliate Links
I purchased the SensEpil and Silk'N sent me the Flash&Go

5

How to add volume to Curly Hair: It's All in the Drying

Due to that whole Paul Mitchell campaign I've been participating in, I've been wearing my hair curly quite a bit more. My biggest problem now (other than making my waves, which I usually describe as "bad 80's home perm" waves, rather than pretty curls), is getting volume at the top. I can get a little with flipping my head upside down and using a diffuser, but the result is the curls aren't as pretty and I get a lot more frizz.

Luckily, Morgan Willhite, Creative Director at the Ouidad Salon Santa Monica, has some great tips on how to add lift and volume to curls and waves. “Curly girls must always remember that how hair looks, when it's dry, depends on how it appears when wet,” says Willhite. The hair's shape and style can be influenced or encouraged by the positioning of the roots at the moment the hair begins to dry.


Basically, here's what she says in the video:
• Open clip no more than a half inch to inch wide and hold clip on its side (not flat) and gently slide clip along scalp and keep it as close to root as possible
• Position clip to lift the hair evenly across the crown, working from front to back
• Dry hair with a diffuser or allow to air dry

While Morgan was using Ouidad’s Curl Clips ($5 per clip at Ulta, Sephora and Ouidad.com), you could use pretty much any clips. They're long and thin, so pretty easy to find.

Do you do this? I haven't tried it yet, though I will the next time I style my hair curly!


Ouidad

2

Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation and Optical Blur brush

UD's Naked Skin Foundation has been everywhere since its release. With good reason. It really is a great foundation. I waited a bit before purchasing (I posted a picture on Facebook when I did), mostly because I wanted to see what everyone else thought of the foundation first.

When I finally purchased it, I was at ULTA with my toddler (note to self: do not buy foundation with a toddler in tow). Obviously things were a tad rushed, so rather than actually applying the foundation to my jawline as I should have, I held up the transparent plastic thing that UD claims will give you your shade number. I bought 1.0, which I expected because my friend Phyrra was 0.5, and generally I'm just a tad darker than her. Luckily the ULTA SA put in a little sample shade pack from UD. Because that 1.0? Waaaay off. I was a lot closer to the 2.5 in the shade pack. I returned it a little later when it was obviously much too light. Later, Urban Decay sent me the foundation (and the brush here), and it turns out that 3.0 is the best match for me.

Naked Skin is definitely more liquidy than most foundations. You can see it is just barely not watery, and the 2.0 and 3.0 shades are actually very close. The coverage is in the light-medium range, and very easily builds for more coverage. It doesn't need much blending, I can get nearly flawless coverage with just my fingers. I didn't have any issues with the foundation changing colors later (that oxidation is one of my biggest pet peeves) and everything still looked perfect at the end of the day.

Any foundation that gives me such great looking skin (you can't even see that foundation) and lasts for well over 12 hours is definitely one I can recommend.

Urban Decay also recommends their Optical Blurring brush for use with the foundation. I'm not usually a foundation brush girl (I prefer to apply with fingers and then complete my blending with my Beauty Blender sponge).

While this is a pretty big brush, it's still smaller than my big kabuki brushes. It's slightly domed and the bristles are a bit stiff, but do bend easily and are fairly soft.

I've been using the Optical Blending Brush to slightly stipple and blend my foundation, and the results have been much better than my Beauty Blender. I have noticed that there are some foundations that the brush is better for, and some that the Beauty Blender is better for. In general, the brush works better with more liquid foundations, the thicker the foundation (such as the new Stila Stay All Day foundation, which I'm reviewing tomorrow) are better off with the Beauty Blender.

Do you use a brush or a sponge with your foundation? Do you have a great blending trick that you can share?


Urban Decay

3

Fried Hair Update: What's Working?

Remember a few months ago when I confessed that I fried my hair with my curling iron? And I was in serious need of moisture for my hair? I luckily wasn't so bad off that I needed to cut all of my hair off (thank goodness, because it was the very top layer of my hair and the entire hair shaft. I would have had to basically shave my head!) Instead, I was able to get a haircut and super moisturizing treatment at my salon and things felt much better. Which gave me hope for saving my hair with products.

Since posting my admission, I've had my hair cut twice, both with intensive moisturizing treatments (which made my hair feel like butter, buttttaaah). I've gone a bit crazy with intensive treatments, different shampoos and conditioners, etc. I will fix my fried hair!

There was a lot of stuff that worked for the majority of my hair (which is a bit damaged from highlights and heat styling, but isn't completely fried to a brillo pad consistency), but some of that didn't help those really bad areas on the very top of my head. So, after much searching, trial and error, I have managed to find a few things that have helped. I thought I'd share them here, let me know if you've had a similar experience or found something that works for you (and not all of them are in that picture above). In this post I am only referencing my super damaged areas. I have been trying out some other products as well, and I'll be writing up reviews, but these are all the products that worked the best for my super fried, dried out and frizzy areas.

Just a few comments on my general strategies. I don't wash, dry and style every day. I typically go every other day or every 3 days for washing my hair. Day #2 is usually fine, if I need to squeeze in a day #3 that's when I will go for a bit of dry shampoo.

I've noticed that I can't let my hair air dry. (Which would be nice, wouldn't it? To avoid the heat?) Air drying seems to make it frizzy, frizzy, frizzy and nothing will take that away. So, I need to blow dry.

After my last hair cut, my hair is much easier to style straight rather than curling or leaving my waves in place. So, I dry it straight and then use a flat iron on the frizzy areas. I know that sounds bad, I damaged with heat, and I'm just using more, right? However, I can't get those super frizzy areas to look remotely decent without a little bit of heat. I'm using the HSI 1" Flat Iron, which has a heat selector and can go as low as 140 F. I don't go quite that low, but I use it at a very low setting, go over the area only enough to smooth things out a little, I certainly am not going for perfection. Once slightly flat ironed, my hair then seems to defrizz itself over time (this only happens with the small amount of flat ironing), and day #2 is always the smoothest and softest day for me.


Shampoos & Regular Conditioners
I was a bit surprised at how much different shampoos would affect my hair. I kind of knew it would, but really, I thought the biggest difference would be in which conditioners.

My hair likes gentle shampoos, sulfate free seems to help, and if there is a lot of hydration involved, that is also good. Laid Brand Shady Girl was a good option, as is Pureology Hydrate. Pureology also sent me their new Precious Oil products to try out (pictured here) and I did even better with this line than with Hydrate.


Intensive Treatments
I've found that my super dry area needs to be deeply conditioned at least twice a week. If I'm only washing ever 2-3 days, this means that I'm usually using an intensive hydrating treatment with each washing. I can not take the time to do this the "right"/super hydrating way. Which is to put it on your hair, put on a shower cap or towel or something, and give it a loooong time to sink in and really do the job. Instead, I only have time for the quick and dirty way, to apply it to the damaged areas. I do this after washing, while I'm washing my body and shaving. The steam from the shower does help it sink in and work a bit better, and I probably let it have about 5 minutes to do its job while I'm multitasking.

I do need to clarify that I don't apply the intensive mask treatments to all of my hair each time. About once a week I do all of my hair, but in general I'm applying the intensive treatment to the damaged area and regular conditioner to the rest of my hair.

My favorite Intensive Treatments so far are: Pureology Precious Oil Softening Hair Masque, Agadir Moisture Masque and Bracato Cloud 9 Miracle Repair Treatment. The Pureology was obviously sent to me by Pureology, and is basically just a thick conditioner that works pretty well. The Agadir is more like an almost solid oil masque (it has a lot of Argan Oil in it), but it does not make my hair greasy. Finally, the Bracato has the consistency of a regular conditioner, but is much more moisturizing. It's the same product my stylist used in the salon for my hydrating treatments, so I ordered a giant bottle through Amazon.

I've been rotating through the 3 intensive treatments, which seems to give me the best results. Somehow if I repeat a treatment a few times in a row, it seems to not be as effective, and my hair is more frizzy/dry on those days. If I'm rotating through and use an intensive treatment for every washing, my hair feels much better though not quite normal.

I should mention that there are a few intensive treatments that I mentioned previously which seemed to actually make my damaged area worse. These were all great for the rest of my (just typically) damaged hair, just not good for the very damaged areas.

The first is the infamous Coconut Oil mask. I tried this when I was out of town right after really messing up my hair. I left it in for hours. (I did this in the hotel because my hubby really hates coconut, and really, I didn't have anything else to do.) I was pretty disappointed, my damaged areas were actually worse. They were more frizzy and dry. They were more apparent because the rest of my hair was super hydrated, shiny and looked really healthy without being weighed down. I'm sure I'll try this again when the damaged areas are gone, it really seemed like it was great for my hair otherwise. Just sometime when my hubby is out of town.

The second one was the Paul Mitchell Keratin Intensive Treatment recommended by my stylist. Just like the other treatments, this was great for the rest of my damaged hair, but it truly made the really damaged area feel like straw. I've hoarded my tube away for use after my hair has recovered.


Oils/Styling Products
Finally, I've noticed that there are a few styling products that I need to sneak in to my routine. I am not one of those people that uses the same item each time, I'll randomly grab a mousse and throw it in if I think that I *might* possibly consider curling my hair the next day. I'll use a leave in conditioner randomly (it doesn't really help much, so I feel like it is a stupid extra step, but then I sometimes feel guilty and thrown some in to the mix). But, there are 2 things that I'm always adding in now.

While I'd used hair oils previously, I've switched from Shu Uemura's Essence Absolue to a L'Oreal. While I've loved the Shu for years (I'm still using that same bottle from my review over 2 years ago, and I use it at least 4-5x/week), for some strange reason the L'Oreal EverSleek Precious Oil Treatment does a much better job on those damaged areas. It smooths and softens like no other. I just use a little in my palm and rub it over wet hair, then use a wide tooth comb to evenly distribute it.

Next, I grab about a nickel size of Garnier Frucis Sleek and Shine Anti-Humidity Smoothing Milk, which I also comb through my hair. I used this a lot years ago, and I randomly grabbed a bottle (it was on an end cap when I was at the grocery store), and I've found that it really helps to keep all the hard work I've put into my hair lasting longer. Without it, things do get frizzy and dry looking again. This really allows me to go 2-3 days without feeling too straw-like or frizzy.


So, after all of that rambling, I'm sure there are only about 2 or 3 people still reading. If you've had this same problem, please let me know! I'd love to know what intensive treatments have worked for you.




Some of these products were provided, some I purchased myself.

19

Makeup Wars: Favorite Makeup Brush

This week for Makeup Wars we've decided to tackle a topic that you might not think about too often, but definitely can make a big difference in your makeup application. We're showing of our favorite makeup brushes!

My favorite brush is one that I've talked about a lot, though I have to admit that there were 2 close runner ups brushes that you should know about. The first is my blush brush, which was a freebie in a Clinique gift with purchase well over 10 years ago. I should probably go and pick up a new one (with nicer bristles), it looks like this blush brush is the same size and shape as the brush that fits my cheeks so perfectly. I'm also a huge fan of that $1 ELF eye shadow brush, it's a great size for apply all over the lid, the bristles are soft and hold just the right amount of product. I have 3 of them and I have to restrain myself from picking up more when I see it in stock at the store!

The brush I've chosen to feature is one that changed how I do my eye makeup for my regular, every day looks. For years I'd been trying to perfect a darker crease, and it turned out that I really needed a brush that fit my eye a bit better. For me, that was the crease brush that came in my Laura Mercier Luxe Eye Portfolio, but I pulled out the brushes that were a similar shape so you could check them out.

1. Buxom Smoky Eye Brush, $17: A slightly larger version of the pencil brush that I think every company makes, this is great for targeted application of colors. It tends to pick up a lot of color very easily, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. It also tends to pop up in special smoky eye sets (this is from one at Sephora), which can be a great deal.

2. ELF Contour Brush, $3: This is a bit flatter than the other brushes and rather than using it in my crease I've found it works great for adding definition to my outer lid.

3. Coastal Scents Classic Detail Pointed Brush, $2.49: Really, this is a cheaper alternative to #4.

4. MAC 219 Pencil Brush, $25: This brush is a classic, and a lot of people do use it for their crease. I've definitely found that it is too small to work in my crease. It's great for adding a little extra color under my eye or if I want to add a little highlight to my inner eye corner.

5. MAC 226 Small Tapered Blending Brush, not currently available: Many people really, really love the 226 for their crease. It is a slightly smaller, thinner and more pointed version of the 224. For me it is a tad too big for my crease, instead I like to use it for blending that area.

My friend Karen over at Makeup and Beauty Blog has a great post on why you should covet it. It is not part of the permanent collection, it comes and goes as a specially available brush with different collections. Mine is from a holiday eye set, so watch for it in those sets as well.

6. Laura Mercier Eye Crease Travel Brush: For all the reasons that Karen loves the 226, I love the LM Crease brush. It is a little bit shorter and the tip isn't quite as pointed, which fits into my crease a bit better. It's about... 90% the size of the 226, which is just a touch too big for apply makeup into my crease, and the tip is a little more blunted.


What do you use to apply shadow to your crease?

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