Ikea Furniture Extravaganza

I'm sure it's the one of the most common stories you've ever heard and it's about people moving into their first apartment and furnishing most of it with findings from Ikea. We are definitely no different. While a lot of their furniture can be cheap, poorly made, and downright yucky-looking, there are some modern diamonds in the rough. It also helps to have a handyman who is capable of putting it all together.

TOBIAS chair $79.99

MALM dressing table $129.99

We visited an Ikea this past Saturday and picked up a few things to 'finish off' our apartment, and most importantly, to 'finish off' my makeup nook. The current desk in the makeup haven is a dressing table with a drawer that slides out like a dream and consists of a wooden frame and glass top which is easy to clean and very beautiful on top of the white. The chair we recently bought is called the Tobias chair and retails for $79.99, we call it the 'ghost chair' because it's see-through. It gives an elegant upscale feel to the whole nook. I adorn it with a lime-green detailed pillow which matches our home. I definitely suggest looking into this chair for an affordable option to those designer chairs which have a similar appeal.

My makeup nook

I garnished the lovely cake that is my makeup corner with two floating shelves to hold my creams and perfumes, I bought a little wire rack from Daiso Japan to place my palettes on (far right corner) and used rubbermaid mini-storage drawers for the excessive amounts of makeup I have. I have a small oval mirror from Ikea in addition to the reversible lighted magnifying mirror which has 5 different light settings. This corner has everything I need to feel beautiful, luxurious, and comfortable. My morning routine here makes me feel as though I can do anything I set my mind to.

Across from my space in the bedroom we share, my hubby has his computer on a desk we just purchased on Saturday, accompanied by a comfortable computer desk-worthy chair. We wanted to get the chair in the white variety but it was unavailable at the time so we just picked up the black one that they had in stock rather than waiting and paying for delivery or going back later. The desk is a good size as it fits his 27-inch mammoth of a monitor and it is sleek enough not to over-encumber our bedroom. You can place the open-framework legs of the desk on either side, we placed ours on the opposite side than what you see in the photo to give the illusion of more space as you walk into our room. The Verner swivel chair is very comfortable, especially for the price, it has wheels that you can roll it around on and it leans backwards an adequate amount. It is a fairly ergonomic chair and does not take up as much room as most computer chairs do. The two drawers of the desk are fairly shallow and are not very capable of holding more than a few papers or assorted computer gadgets (we keep the latter here).

MICKE desk $69

VERNER swivel chair $59.99

 

Cyber Monday Sales

So as most of you know, today is the day the internet gives something back and gives us Cyber Monday in repayment for sucking the lives out of us the rest of the year. I've scooped out the best beauty deals for you and thoroughly researched the web for deals. You will want to take advantage of these sales because cosmetics products only go on sale when an item is being discontinued, is old, or a store will no longer be carrying that brand... it is very rare that they just have a great sale, usually the sales are fairly bogus. The best deals I can find thus far are:

- Stila's warehouse sale where things are up to 80% off can be found here. They make fabulous eyeshadow and lipgloss

- E.L.F. has a 50% off any purchase over $25 (code 50wide) offer or you can get free shipping over $25 (SHIP25) at their site here - it's unfortunate that you can't have both offers, though

- Cherryculture has 20% off your entire purchase on their website, they have great NYX products and most of their stock is inexpensive to begin with

-  Clinique gives you 3 deluxe sized samples (which means bigger than sample size but smaller than the full product) for any purchase on their website, this is a great deal because the items they have as samples can be amazing: such as blush, eye creams, lipsticks. So I suggest you pick up something you love by them and would use up even if there was no free offer (I get the De-Puffing Eye Massage Serum).

- Elizabeth Arden has 25% off any order and free shipping with code BF2 here and a free 9 piece deluxe gift set with any order over $40.

- Tarte has a pretty lame deal of 20% off up to $100 and then you get $30 off, the code is CYBER and you get a free full-sized gift here

- Shiseido (which almost never has a sale on anything) has a gift of deluxe samples including a primer, translucent powder and satin face color in a cosmetic pouch for purachases of over $50.

- Bath&BodyWorks has an amazing deal of 25% off your entire order with the code CYBER2011 and when you check out anything in the Holiday Traditions Body Care selection you get buy 1, get 1 free for double your order!

- The Body Shop has any 3 single items in the online store for $30... that's right, even if the one item you chose was over the total price, it will still only be charged as 3 for $30. You also get free shipping with any purchase. If you add the code JOY10, you also get 10% off your order. So 3 items end up being $27, when usually just one would run you higher than that. Plus you get the free shipping... this is an amazing deal for night-cream and moisturizers.

Happy hunting everybody!!!!

Black Friday madness

So, after am enormous Thanksgiving meal, those of us dedicated to shopping, haul our fat butts out the door and waddle on to our store destinations. We do this, hoping against hope that we'll be amongst the first ones there. This is almost never the case, as people have been camping outside of the most popular stores (like Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy) for days in advance even in suburban localities outside of Seattle. So without any hope of ever reaching a cash-register within the next 12 hours at any of these stores, my husband and I moved onto ULTA. This store was the complete opposite, it had cutesy deals, very few ladies inside, no pushing or shoving, and we could easily reach the cash register. To me, the decision was simple, I'm a much larger fan of cosmetics than I am of technology anyway, so I picked up a few things.

They had this collection of items which were all just $1, so I grabbed 5 CHI Silk-infusions bottles for $5 because I love the way these make my hair feel (a small bottle usually retails for $14). Then, I purchased a mint lip-balm, swirl lipgloss and 3 ULTA nail polishes for another $5. Most of the items are $3 each, so the savings is of 66%. I purchased two Stila eyeliners in a pack, one being gold (named Koi) and one being silver (named Silver Dollar) as this was on special for $10 when the regular value is around $40, you can still get this deal here. I thought it was a great deal and Stila's smudge stick eyeliners are absolutely fabulous. The pigmentation is strong and they glide on very smooth and easily, they are absolutely perfect for the holiday season. I spent $20 in total on these items and ULTA gave me $5 Bonus Cash, which can be redeemed on the next $25+ purchase at their store. I was very happy with the overall experience.

Colors: The Jungle Look, Alter Ego, Scene Steel-er

I was drawn to the nail polish because the color was very pigmented and festive, also the price was right and I was looking for more colors to perform my 'water-marbled nails' look! This is a fun and funky way to set yourself apart from everyone else.

The next day, armed with new ambition and rigor, we headed out to Southcenter Mall in Renton, Washington. This place was controlled chaos. The parking lot was chock full of cars, there were tons of security guards throughout the mall, but if you can stand feeling claustrophobic, it was a fine shopping experience. The lines to cash out were not that long, especially at MAC. I went to use their BACK2MAC program where I recycled 12 containers and got 2 eyeshadows of my choice, in the colors Brown Script (matte2 finish) and Swish (frost finish). These colors are both very beautiful, and best of all, they were free! The color pay-off is great, as with all MAC eyeshadows and you can de-pot them (which I did) and then recycle these containers as well when you have 6. I only purchased a 15-color palette to house my colors.

MAC's Brown Script (Matte2)

MAC's Swish (Frost)

I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving and I would love to hear about your Black Friday deals! Stay tuned for our IKEA haul in an upcoming post!

The Foundations of Foundation: The Basics of a Healthy-looking face

Want to know how to make your complexion perfect? Let's delve into the world of foundation to even out your skin-tone and cover up any blemishes or unevenness that we all suffer from. Nobody is blessed with absolutely flawless skin, so don't feel bad about having to use one product or another to enhance your appearance because most women, and many men, do.

Remember when testing products out on your skin, do not apply them to the back of your hand because the skin there is a different saturation level altogether than the skin on your face, so look in a mirror and apply the tester-color to your neck. This is also a good way to see if your skin will have any allergic reaction to the product since the skin on your neck is very sensitive. A great makeup application is one that looks as natural as your own skin, so when looking for your ideal foundation or concealer, purchase something that best resembles your own skin.

When it comes to price-point, I'm not one to encourage the purchasing of expensive foundation products because, let's face it, they all contain harmful chemicals in similar amounts. So, if you're going to burn through a lot of product, you should opt for the drugstore brands rather than the expensive designer stuff. I personally have been very satisfied with the performance of L'Oreal's liquid foundation in the 'Visible Lift' and 'Infallible' line, as well as Maybelline's 'Match Perfection'. The positive note about these drugstore brands is that they are also at least SPF 15 so you get that little bit of protection that your skin needs from the sun's harmful rays (yes, even in the winter). If you have a choice of which kind of bottle to buy your liquid foundation in, go for the one with a handy pump because it keeps bacteria out of your product and is the most hygienic of the bunch. 

If you're looking for a bit of a sun-kissed look, then opt for a foundation that has a little bit of a tint or go a shade darker than your skin naturally is. Always apply your foundation with either a sponge (which you should replace weekly at the latest) or a foundation brush (which should be washed regularly). All foundation brushes have the same bristle shape because it is ideal for applying your foundation to your skin. You will want a synthetic brush so the bristles do not get ruined from oil-based foundations and they are also easier to clean because the product will not penetrate the bristles, it will stay on top of them. If the brush does not absorb your product, you will also be using less product overall, thus creating less waste.

Coverage

There are various finishes and types of coverage when it comes to foundation products. Usually the terms refer to the opacity of the product, or basically how much it will cover up your own skin. Sheer coverage is very transparent and will not hide your pimples and problem-areas but it will do a fairly decent job of evening out your skin-tone if that is all you're looking for (though, I would say that most of us need more coverage). Light coverage is basically the same except that it will cover very small colored-spots on your skin, such as freckles. Medium coverage is higher up on the scale and can cover blotchiness, discolorations, freckles, and some scarring (something that falls into this category would be a tinted moisturizer). Full coverage foundation, the kind most people probably are using at the moment, is very opaque and will cover anything you need it to camouflage. It is important that when you apply full coverage foundation, you do so very carefully, making sure to use a brush or sponge to blend the color all the way up into your hairline and under your chin, down to your neck. Otherwise, others will be able to see a visible difference in color and consistency between your skin and the foundation (even if you've chosen the perfect shade for you).

Choosing a shade

Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what skin-tone we are, because much of it depends on which light we're looking at ourselves under. It is also important to realize that it is a complete misconception which says fair skin is cool-toned and dark skin is equivalent to warm-tones. This is not always the case as you will come to realize. Your shade can either be cool or warm, and within each of those categories there are sub-categories of light, medium, and dark. 

Cool-toned light and medium skin has a pinkish cast and the inner wrist of the person contains more blue than dark veins. These individuals are highly likely to burn in the sun very easily. The darker shades in the cool-tone range have a blueish cast to their skin, have more blue than green veins, and can also burn easily. Warm-toned skin that falls in the range of fair to medium has a greenish cast and these people have more green veins than blue veins on their inner wrist (the exact opposite of those with cool-shade skin). This group is more likely to tan in the sun rather than burn easily. Dark warm-toned skin has a chocolate tone and shares all the same qualities with their fairer skinned group. 

Make sure you know which category your skin fits into when you are purchasing your cosmetics. If you see 'NC' or 'NW' on cosmetic-codes (MAC uses these codes religiously in their concealers and foundations) know that it refers to 'neutral cool' and 'neutral warm' skin tones. You should stick to the one which best represents your skin tone for a flawless match. Some people can fall right in between, and in this case either of the shades will work for you.

Types of foundation

The types of foundation are classified according to their chemical base. Oil-based foundation is probably the oldest of the bunch, it has been around for a very long time, and the base is usually a waxy consistency or similar to petroleum. It provides the most coverage of all but easily smears and is really not practical to be using on a daily basis. 

Alcohol-based foundation is a specialty product because it is made for people with problem-skin. It reduces the chance for the makeup to clog your pores, it is a difficult application using cotton pads and usually has 'pore minimizer' in the name, providing only very sheer coverage. 

Powder or talc-based foundations are usually brushed on from a compact and they are 'stickier' than their loose-powder counterparts. Powder foundation is often used on top of other kinds of foundation for a fuller more-polished finish. One must be careful though, when applying this type of makeup, because it can look cakey and will probably need re-touching in warmer weather. 

Mineral foundation is slightly different because it tends not to use talc as a base, being more 'healthy' for you in general. The coverage of these solutions is medium at best because they are in loose powder format and do not have so many skin adhesives or chemicals, they are mostly made out of minerals mined from the earth. They usually give a nice shiny appearance which gives the illusion of healthy, dewy skin. 

Finally last but not least, my favorite all time foundation, water-based products! This is probably the most popular of the bunch and is a creamy liquid that can give you medium to full coverage, depending on your application (if you use it lightly, you will cover some of your problems, but if you use it heavily, you will cover everything up). I suggest using this product with a brush as it blends out much more successfully than with a sponge (definitely do not use your hands to apply this). 

Cleaning lint off your Hair Brush

Do you look at your brush and notice those pesky white buggers clinging on for dear life at the base of the bristles? Do you wonder if it's dandruff and, if so, what you should do about it? If you don't have a history of dandruff and it's not flaking all over your clothing, then don't worry, you don't have a severe case of dandruff. In reality, this is probably just some of your dead skin cells off your scalp, but mostly random lint that was stuck in your hair from your pillow or dust that has accumulated and gotten condensed and stuck down on your brush. This doesn't mean you have to throw away your brush either.

Some brushes we purchase can be extremely expensive, and if we were to throw them out every few weeks we got debris on them, we would be out a lot of money. So I'm going to give you a simple, yet effective, method for cleaning off your brushes completely; it involves a little bit of elbow grease and a basic solution.

- First, to get rid of the bulk of the debris, you should use a comb to take out any of the lint and hair from the bristles of the brush, all the way from the bottom to the top of the teeth. There are special combs designed for this purpose (such as the Scalpmaster Brush/Comb Cleaner) if you wish to purchase one.

- Then, you can either use a large bowl for this, or just simply the sink to fill about 3/4 of the way up and fill it with the hottest water you can get out of your tap. Pour some of your shampoo inside, about as much as you could fit in your palm and swish it around to make a lather, and do the same with about half a cup of distilled white vinegar (this is the regular, inexpensive vinegar).

- Place your hairbrush in the sink or bowl and let it sit there for about 15 minutes to soak so that your debris becomes moistened, softer, and easier to get rid of. After taking the brush out, use the comb again to remove what is left of the lint by pulling it the opposite way (pull it towards the base of the brush this time) because it will be on the top of the bristles.

You should do this every few weeks if you can, it will help get rid of all that stuff that makes your hair oily when you brush it, namely old gel residue, hair spray residue, flaked off skin cells and the oils from your hair that have accumulated on the brush. Try not to use the brush until it is fully dry because brushing your hair with a wet brush may cause it to cling to your hair and pull out pieces that should not have otherwise come out.

Remember to throw out your brush once the bristles start to break off or the protective covering fades away. You would be doing your scalp a favor because it would get irritated, red and the scratching could cause dandruff. If you maintain your brush by cleaning it and are not very aggressive, if it is of good quality, it could last for years. If you use a round brush while blow-drying your hair, you may want to keep in mind that the heat could degrade the quality of the plastic and you may have to replace it more often (as often as once a year).

Q-Tips: a double-edged fuzzy sword of eardrum doom

Q-tips are useful for so many things: cleaning in between your keyboard keys, touching up your eyeliner, cleaning excess nail polish off your fingers, and for most of us, and most importantly, cleaning inside our ears. If this sounds about right to you, you should be alarmed. Here's a little Q-tip history for everyone, in 1926, these 'Quality-tips' were named 'Baby Gays' according to their website. Obviously, as time went on, people realized what a ridiculous name that was and changed it to just 'Q-tips'. Imagine what a marketing nightmare it would have been to leave the original name in our present-day society. Would cotton swabs, by any other name, have been as popular? Apparently not, because we use the name-brand as the genericized trademark for an entire category of cotton swabs now.




Did you know that Q-tips were never intended to be used inside the ear? Many ear, nose and throat doctors (also known as otolaryngologists) are furious at their patients because the majority of people do use Q-tips inside the ear as unintended. There is a big warning label on every package of cotton swabs that says not to insert the tip into your ear. If you must use it on your ears, only use it on your outer ear, or the external cartilage. Why is it that we've never been told this by our parents or grandparents? That's because, apparently, we've been doing this wrong for almost a century and what's worse is that we have been passing on this terrible habit to our offspring. We use it to get all that yellow gunk, also known as earwax, out of our ears and to get water out after we shower, and we tell ourselves it's so that we don't become ill when we go outside in the cold after a hot shower. This solution is doing us more harm than good. If you want to use something to clean out your ear, use the corner of a washcloth or your towel.

You may be asking yourself what all the fuss is about, what's the harm in using these little cotton buds in your ear? Well, the problem arises when you blindly start to push it into your ear, and we all do this because we can't see what's going on inside our ear canal. Oftentimes, people rupture their eardrum by pushing the swab inside too deeply. Our earwax is an important part of our physiology because it is the protection provided for our inner ear to keep water out and keep bacterial infections at bay. Removing all of our earwax can prove very detrimental to our health in the long-run. When using cotton swabs, you are actually technically pushing much of the wax deeper into your ear canal, helping to create a painful plug. If you find that your ears are itchy and you need to relieve yourself by pushing something in there, try and control yourself and abstain from doing so because the more you scratch, the more you will itch and eventually just break the skin.

So keep your Q-tips around for cleaning your computer, video game cartridges, fans, or anything other than your poor ears. If you find that you have an ear blockage that is bothering you, gently pour warm water into your ear slowly but constantly with something like a Nettie pot and this will soften up the wax and allow it to slosh out. If you want to dry out your ears, use a towel or your hair dryer and hold it a safe distance away (your ear should not become overbearingly hot).

Screen printing our own shirts!

Screen for flat one-color shirts

I happened to be in the Superfad office in Seattle on Saturday and, to my surprise, one of my friends and an employee of Superfad, was there getting ready to screen print the company t-shirts. I found the idea utterly phenomenal because how amazing is it to make your own shirts? Armed with his amazing design, 60 blank shirts, the printed screens and buckets of paint, we began. I had no idea what the foundations of screen printing even were, but I trusted Sean because he said "it's easy" in a completely non-chalant way, as if he'd done it a million times before (he hadn't). I was just eager to help because it's just about the most awesome thing I can think of to make your own shirts. It combines very technical and precise principles of how-to with the fun and creativity involved in making the design and choosing the colors.

A. ink. B. squeegee. C. image. D. photo-emulsion.
E. screen. F. printed image.

The basic principles of screen printing are as follows: you push the squeegee across the screen and it draws your chosen color of ink over the photo-emulsion (housed inside the screen) and a printed image is transferred onto your shirt. That means if your shirt has multiple colors in different places on the shirt, you have to use multiple screens. We used as many as four, which is overwhelming because the base of the screen-printing machine has to be rotated each time and the registration (or calibration) of the position must be precise. The machine used to screen-print is extremely primitive and only consists of nuts, bolts and knobs that can be tightened to stay in place. Needless to say, it took hours just to get the screens in the right place but the good news is that once it is done, you can mass-produce shirts in that one pattern. So much problem-solving is involved in the entire production of shirts that it really is a wise idea to send away for your shirts to be screen-printed professionally because those companies will have a team of specialized individuals doing this. That being said, you will miss out on the opportunity to gain the fulfillment that we will get that everyone at the company's going to be wearing shirts we made!

The pile of 60 American Apparel blank shirts in all different sizes that we had to begin with

Colors for 4-shades of green/blue shirts

Before we could print, we had to spend time doing labor-intensive color-mixing, we began with flat one-colored shirts in black, white, and cyan. The colors are very specific and we had to match a pre-approved template mock-up off the computer and let me tell you, it is much more difficult to get colors to match than you would think without causing waste or making too little of each. We were also starting out from just base colors of green, blue, yellow, white, black and red (the latter color gave us tons of problems because it was old and cakey and would clog up our screen).

The maestro perfecting the process

Then when we finished these shirts, we dove straight into the most complex design: the 3D shirt. This design was by far the hardest for us to accomplish because the red paint was tripping us up to the point where we had to clean the red-screen each time we did a shirt on both sides with a screen opener solution. Then we had to be careful that the screen was completely dry each time so that it did not smear the shirts. The placement of the colors in this design is absolutely crucial because the red and blue dye slightly overlap and this overlap is made up of a dark grayish tone, to simulate a faux 3D effect. After each color pass, it is vital to 'cook' the shirt or place it under an industrial heater for a few seconds (but not too much because it would burn the shirt) to let the color set before going onto the next one so you do not create a mess on the under-side of each screen. This hiccup would then be transferred on each subsequent shirt, rendering it messy and useless.

Completed 3D design Superfad shirt

Completed four-shade design in green

The next day, we braved another tough design, this one included four-shades of cyan or green, creating two different tones of the pattern. By now, we had become pros, a well-oiled machine making beautiful and memorable t-shirts. I'm extremely happy with the way they all turned out, and with t-shirts we found lying around in a box around the office from previous passes at t-shirt making, we created so many different options of shirts that nobody in the office will be dressed the same. These shirts have a real authenticity to them, you can feel the logo and it makes a lasting impression like beautiful graffiti designed by one of my favorite artists. I had so much fun doing this, I think if you have the opportunity to do it, everyone should experience it at least once, so you know what you're paying for every time you buy a screen-printed t-shirt.

Piles of varied styles when we finished

Piles of one-color t-shirts