Cheap and Lazy Beauty Advice part 2

Ok, so I thought of a couple more tips and tricks.

1) If you've just finished blow drying your hair and ironing it, chances are, it's still a little frizzy. Get a dryer sheet and run it through your hair. This doesn't work if your hair is extremely frizzy. If your hair is that frizzy, chances are it's dry and needs heavy duty conditioning. See my previous beauty post for curly hair care because you need that product.

2) Severely chapped lips.
Winter's coming up. If you live in cold climates (I don't know why you would willingly) you know how dry and chapped your lips get. Put petroleum jelly on your lips before you go to sleep and the next morning you will notice an improvement. If they are not too bad, by the next day you will have totally soft, kissable lips. Of course, if your lips aren't dry, you can still use it as a moisturizer. Your lips get wrinkled too by the way. This is especially true if you are a smoker.

3) Another acne cure
Dab toothpaste (any kind) on your pimples. This treatment isn't as effective for me, but if it works for you, awesome! Everybody's skin is different so one form of treatment doesn't work for everybody.

Cheap and Lazy Person's Beauty Advice

Hey girls,
I usually don't read fashion magazines but every once in a while I have one on hand and I look at it. After reading the sex advice sections, I flip over to the "385 new looks" section. One thing I've noticed about all of these looks is they are time consuming, hard, and expensive! (Or at least, for me they are because I'm cheap and lazy.) So, I've decided to share some tips with you, things that I've tried. I'm not getting paid for any of this by the way.

1) For acne/blackhead removal
Yeast. I swear it works. I know it sounds gross, and honestly it kind of is, but it works quite well. Buy dry yeast that you can find in a supermarket. They usually come in 6 little packages or so and they are not frightfully expensive. I don't recommend the rapid rise yeast though. It doesn't work as well and when I explain what you have to do, you'll understand. When you're brushing your teeth to get ready for bed, get a small bowl and empty only about 1/2 of one package of the yeast into the bowl. Add a couple drops of water and mix it until it's a thin paste. Not too watery though. Spread the yeast onto your face like you would a cream. The rapid rise yeast will dry too quickly and will render your face immovable. When you do move your face, it'll crack and leave you looking like some kind of warrior with war paint on. You want the yeast to be moist enough to soak into your skin I guess. It shouldn't feel like dried up face paint. You leave it on all night. Yes, you actually have to sleep with this gunk on. The next morning, simply wash it off with soap and water. I have noticeable blackheads on my nose and after I do this yeast treatment, they didn't reappear for a week or so. It also left my skin clear and even. The nice thing about the yeast treatment is that it's all natural and you don't have to do it for a long time to see results. You see results after the first time and you don't have to do it every night, or every week.

2) Curly hair care
I have curly hair. Natually. It really bothers me that those "75 new hair-dos" are for girls with straight hair. I can't cut my hair in layers, my hair has enough volume as it is! And I refuse to straighten my hair because that takes over 2 hours, it doesn't look good, and I'm lazy. So, thanks to my roommates last year I have discovered an amazing product! Really, it's like God's gift to my hair. Only problem is, I've only ever been able to find it at Wal-Mart. It's called Cantu, it sells for about $6 for 16 fl. oz. and it's in the ethnic section of the hair care aisle. It's a shea butter leave-in condition. It's now the only product I use. I wash and condition my hair and then when I get out of the shower and have squeezed all the water out of my hair, I separate my hair into sections and put the Cantu in starting at the roots and go all the way down to the tips. That's it. Because I have a lot of hair, it takes a while, but now that I have the hang of it, I can do it much faster. It takes about 20 minutes or so. The beauty of Cantu is that I can put it on, and go out with my hair still wet and it won't get frizzy. I used to use mousse. When I'd put it on and go out with my hair still wet, my hair would pouf up and shrink. Cantu also brings definition to my hair and holds it like a gel. I decided to change my curl pattern by twisting them with my fingers to get those doll curls and they I still have them a few days later. I told you, I swear by this product. Nothing has ever worked for my hair, so it's really nice to find something that works that won't break the bank.

3) Dark circles
Sometimes they are caused by allergies, other times genetics, or lack of sleep is to blame. I don't really have dark circles under my eyes, but at the inner corner of my eyes it's a little dark and it makes me look tired all the time. My 4th semester of college I took a theater make-up class; each session we learned a new technique. Old age, changing our features, wounds, etc. One of the first days was beauty. It wasn't pretty, going out to the club make-up- it was how to change our faces to achieve ideal beauty. Oval face, symmetry of the features, smooth skin. So to cover up darkness under the eyes they gave us this yellow concealer. I loved it so much I asked where I could get some. They told me Sally's sells it and I ran out to get some. It cost about $6. It comes in lipstick form so it's easy to handle. I know I should use a sponge or a brush or something, but I don't. I just apply it under my eye, spread it out with my finger and then apply my powder foundation on top of it. Besides making my eyes brighter, I also use it as a primer for my lids.

4) Red spots
Another thing I learned in the aforementioned class was the magic of green concealer. This one I also bought at Sally's for the same price as the yellow concealer. Do not use it over a large area, it's only meant for spots. After you apply it, dab at it to blend it and remove the excess. A couple taps of your finger ought to do it. Apply your foundation/powder as usual.
The reason yellow and green concealers work is because of the color wheel. Dark circles are purplish and yellow is the color opposite purple on the color wheel. When combined, the colors cancel out. The same is true of red and green.

5) Cleaning braces/appliances
I went through treatment for a long time. I almost feel like an expert in orthodontics because, I swear, I went through just about everything. You name it, I probably had it. At one point, I had a retainer that I couldn't remove because it was glued to the roof of my mouth. So, to keep my mouth clean, I would rinse with one part hydrogen peroxide and one part water. When I finally finished with my entire treatment, I didn't have the stain of the braces on my teeth. The hydrogen peroxide mixture is a good way to whiten teeth.

6) Getting rid of bug bites
A few years ago I went to Mexico and got stung by fire coral. OUCH! When I went and asked what I should do about it, I was told to put vinegar on it. It took a while to heal, and I smelled like a salad, but it worked. The acid that's in the vinegar neutralizes the baseness of the bite. Vinegar also works on bug bites. It takes away the itch and bump in about a day. The area might still be a little red, but it won't itch and it'll be completely healed the day after. Ok, I know this isn't really a 'beauty tip' but who likes itchy, bumpy, red legs or arms?

7) My personal beauty advice
Lucky seven because I can't think of anything else right now. Your best way to look and feel beautiful on the cheap is to smile. Smile from your face, your mind, and your liver as Ketut from the movie "Eat Pray Love" said. Seriously, a smile is the most dangerous weapon in your arsenal ladies. Guys, you too. I never leave home without my smile.

Inception- My Reaction

Before my 3 week vacation, I heard the DJs on the Paul and Young Ron show discussing the movie "Inception". One of them said that he didn't get it, but he liked it. They also were discussing how it's one of those movies that you have to see a couple of times to "get it". Honestly, I really had no desire to see the movie- I'm just not a sci-fi girl. But when my friends asked me to go see it- we are all former IB students, mind you- I agreed.
Sitting in the movie theater, munching on my free small popcorn I said to myself
"Pay attention to every little detail because that's where the answers lie." The first 20 minutes or so did jump around a lot, but I accepted it and stored as much information as I could. The rest was fairly simple to understand. The scriptwriters did a lovely job of explaining 'inception' and 'extraction' and how the dream-world works through DiCaprio's character. He has a number of monologues that give the audience the necessary information they will need to understand the whole movie. Without giving away too much of the movie, I will say this- "Inception" is one of those movies that if you don't pay attention to the dialogue and the exposition you will be lost. After that, it's a matter of keeping track of all the layers of the dream and following Cobb's (DiCaprio's character) past as it haunts him and continually pops up.
Us three IB students at one point looked at each other and the same thought went through our heads. "Damn! Why didn't this movie come out when we were doing our TOK journals?" TOK is a branch of philosophy known as epistemology or the study of how we know things. I swear we took a class in high school that questioned how we know what we know. This is one of the many themes present; what is real and what isn't real. It goes even further by making us question what reality is. Is it possible to have multiple realities? The movie is very philosophical-but there is more to it than that. It was a great action film. It wasn't over-the-top ridiculous if you accepted the world the director has created. There were times of action and times of rest when the characters went about their daily lives. Although CG was used, it didn't stink of it. The limbo dream world of Cobb was very artistic. I felt like I had stepped into a Dali painting.
Another element to the movie dips into the realm of philosophy but has some very practical aspects. Think of inception as subliminal messages. You know the theory- imperceptible messages flashed over and over again supposedly make you think of the message as if it were your own idea. "Inception" goes further than that and takes it from a simple advertising scheme to life-changing decisions in a person's life. Planting ideas in someone's head so deeply that they believe they came up with the idea on their own and they are not conscious of how the idea came to be. Imagine what kind of world we would live in if corporations, the military, hell even individuals had that kind of power...scary.
Anyways, a 'real life' inception is discussed in Weaponized Culture. The post is entitled "Inception and the Fantasies of ‘Top Secret America'" . No worries, the author of this blog actually has qualifications, unlike me.
The movie ends ambiguously. Personally, I thought that made the movie stronger and opens up the field for philosophical discussions with your friends afterwards. Can we ever really know?
As a side note, Leonardo DiCaprio has come out with two movies in one year that were fantastic and had me glued to my seat. This other really good movie was "Shutter Island". Secondly, does anyone know if 'Inception' is supposed to be a franchise or not? I thought I heard that it was intended that way, that it might be, but I don't know. I don't think there needs to be a sequel, prequel, or anything. This is a stand-alone flick that comes back to where it started. All the questions that needed to be answered were answered. If they weren't, that was Nolan's choice and added to the movie's theme.