Adwords and Chemicals

{via Pinterest}

Lately I’ve been learning a lot about two things: Adwords and toxins in cosmetics. They’re not exactly related. My Adwords reading is partly based on curiosity but mostly because of a project that I decided to take on at work. The toxins reading with a curiosity the food industry and has morphed into a slight obsession with everything we bring into our homes.

Not that long ago I remember talking about what a waste organic things were. I dated a guy in college whose father (uncle?–ok some relative) grew both organic and regular rice. At the end of the day we swore it all got mixed together. So as an organics skeptic, I rolled my eyes a little bit as I read yet another post about natural cleaning supplies.

It turns out the people who were really examining chemicals in every day products are really on to something. Lately I’ve turned into “that girl”– the one who is reading every label and asking a million questions about everything. I even started questioning my eye doctor about the chemicals in the contact solution that she was recommending to me. Luckily, I’m in California and people are used to dealing with my new kind of crazy. It turns out the contact solution that she was recommending had a bunch of conditioners in it and when she realized that I was concerned about this stuff, she recommended a completely different kind of cleaning method. If I hadn’t asked I would’ve continued exposing myself to the chemicals in contact solution. Does it really matter? I’m not sure yet, but while I’m figuring it out it doesn’t really seem worth the risk. It turns out there are a lot of really great natural products that work as well or better than all of the chemical stuff. When given the choice I think I’m going to err away from complex chemistry and toward nature.

Do you guys care about this stuff? I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people are looking for the same things. I’ve even found some great local businesses that seem to share my same concerns.

More Sock Curls

After last week’s sock curls didn’t go so well, I decided to give another hair tutorial a go! This time I tried YaYa Lifestyle’s Heat Free Dolly Curls. For some reason the embed code isn’t working, so if you’re curious you can watch the video here. Basically, I ended up looking like this.

I had a hard time sleeping with these socks next to my ears. I tossed and turned and wished for the bajillionth time that I was one of those people who slept on their backs. But when I woke up in the morning, the results were a lot more impressive than my original sock bun curls and the curl lasted all day.

Sock Bun Curl Fail

Saturday night I finally tried the famous sock bun tutorial. I had high hopes after watching the video and seeing the gorgeous results, but let me be honest: layered hair makes this really difficult!! I spent half of my Saturday night rolling and re-rolling my hair trying to get it right. In the end my bun wasn’t tight enough. I woke up in the morning with the sock mixed in with my covers. I think the combination of my restless sleep habits and the loose bun, didn’t make for ideal results. This is what it looked like right after I took it down.

Forgive the bad iphone photos.

By the time Peter got home to assist with a photo, I’d been awake for 45 min and this is what it looked like.

My hair is naturally curly so I was surprised that the curl fell so quickly. Regardless, I’d love to get better at making a sock bun. Does anyone have any tips for working with layered hair or making a tighter bun?

Sock Bun

This is a hair trick that I really want to try. I’m putting the video here so that I can close the tab on my computer. I know, I’m a genius!

Big life update coming soon!

Sephora Brand Nail Polish

I look like I should be auditioning for the Blue Man Group. I just spent fifteen minutes painting my nails and another hour trying to get the polish off of my hands. My hands still look like this:

I tried using the Sephora Brand nail polish. In theory this nail polish is great. You get a small amount of high quality nail polish that allows you to experiment with a color without having a ton of it.

Unfortunately, it seems like in trying to keep the cost down, they cut a few corners. The brush that comes with the polish is probably the worst one that I’ve ever used. Look for much thicker it is in comparison to a regular nail polish brush.

See the difference? The Sephora brush just leaves huge globs of nail polish all over your fingers. Before I started removing the nail polish, it looked like I’d let  four year-old paint my nails.

Now I just hope that I can get the remainder of this color off of my fingers before next weekend!!! I don’t want to look like a blue fingered freak, but I can’t handle another moment of smelling nail polish remover!