Product Review: Neutrogena Naturals Night Cream

One empty jar and one new jar still in it's box!

I've been meaning to post about this product for quite some time and am finally getting around to it now that I'm on my second jar. What product you ask? The Neutrogena Naturals Multi-Vitamin Nourishing Night Cream (wow! that's a mouthful). I use this every single night after I wash my face and I love it!

It took me a while to get around to using night creams, but after realizing I was putting on a daily moisturizer with SPF on my face before going to bed, I decided to re-think that decision. The first one I tried was Neutrogena's Light Night Cream. It was moisturizing and not too heavy, but didn't love it. I also tried out Clinique's Moisture Surge Extended Thirst Relief, which is technically for all skin types, but not specifically for night time. I found that it was just a bit too moisturizing for me to use all over my face every night. I have been using it in a pinch for the past week because I'd run out of my Neutrogena Naturals and couldn't get to the store, but I like using it best as an eye cream at night, not all over my face.

The Neutrogena Naturals Night Cream is the perfect balance of moisture for me. I have combination skin, so I'm constantly combating oiliness, but I also have to contend with dry skin in places. This night cream does an excellent job of making my face feel deeply moisturized but also feeling like it soaks in completely and doesn't leave an extra layer of greasiness on my face. Like all the Neutrogena Naturals line, there are no harsh chemical sulfates, parabens, petrolatum, dyes, or phthalates. And it is, of course, non-comedogenic (won't clog pores). So, if you have combination skin and have been searching for a night cream, I highly recommend this one.

Favorite Things: Sally Beauty Supply

Sally Beauty Supply is my new favorite store. They have professional grade beauty products, including the Manic Panic that I've been using to dye my hair recently. Today, I swung by to pick up some manicure supplies in preparation for the special Fourth of July manicure I'm going to do and because they were having a huge sale. I got all the following items for only $12.06!

So many fun goodies!

The Sally Girl polish in the skull bottle was only $0.50. I may keep it for myself, but more likely I'll give it as a give to someone. The two Nina Ultra Pro polishes were two for $4.19 so I got Anaconda Liked It in addition to the Super Dry Topcoat which is one of the things I specifically needed. The two Sally Girl Mini Nail Polishes I got seem to be discontinued colors. They were $0.20 each; the one on the left is U Glow Girl and the orange one has no name! The little green device in the back is a Mini Eyelash Curler I got that was only $0.40. I figured it would be great for my make-up bag when traveling.

I was super excited to find the Beautique liners at Sally's because I'd randomly ended up with one of the eyeliners in black from a show and fell in love with it but had no idea where to buy it. They're fairly soft pencils and glide on in a really lovely way. I find it's the pencil I have the best luck with when trying to freehand a winged liner quickly. They were each only $2.19 so I picked up a lip liner in Real Red and two eyeliners in Brown and White. I just couldn't pass up trying the lip liner since I like the eyeliner so much, and the brown and white liners seemed like great colors and very versatile.

Anyways, I was super excited about all my finds and wanted to share! One thing to note about Sally Beauty is that they have a "Beauty Club Card" you can buy ($5 normally but sometimes they do promos and discount it- I only had to pay $2.50 for mine). It's 100% worth getting as it means everything is discounted with your card. You also get a $5 coupon when you sign up and a guarantee that they'll refund your membership fee if you don't save it over the course of the year. It is well worth it- I've probably saved over $10 at this point and I've only been a member for two months.

First Summer Mani-Pedi!

I've been very busy lately, so unfortunately not much time for blogging. Figured I could throw up a quick post though about finally getting around to giving myself a manicure and pedicure. My toes were looking super shabby and now that I'm wearing sandals all the time, I decided it was time to do something about it.

On my fingers I'm wearing Fresh Paint in Honeydew. On my toes I'm wearing Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Blazed.

Also featured in this photo is one of the two new pairs of sandals that I got a couple weeks ago from Charlotte Russe. I'd been on the hunt for some sandals ever since my white gladiator sandals broke and I finally found some I really liked.

Fun white sandals to go with any outfit! Find them here.

My favorite color- how could I NOT get them? Find them here.

All their shoes were buy one get one for $10, so of course I got two pairs instead of just one. Anyways, I've been wearing one or the other almost every day. And now it's even better because my toes are cute to match!

Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

I've been on the hunt for a good breakfast bar for a while now. I like breakfast bars because they are a quick and easy thing to grab for breakfast or mid-morning snack. I made some pumpkin ones in the fall, but in the spring you just don't always feel like a pumpkin bar. Well, I had a banana that was too far gone for smoothies, so I found a recipe online for Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Bars. I altered it a bit so that it wouldn't make quite as huge a batch. I tasted them for the first time today and they were quite delicious! I'm not a huge fan of banana, but I really liked these.

Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp veg oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup banana
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x9 pan. [If you like, you can double the recipe and use a 10x15- that was the original recipe.]

2. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, combine oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and banana. [My one sad banana wasn't quite half a cup, so I supplemented with some applesauce.] Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Stir in the oats, nuts, and chocolate chips. [I was generous with the oats.]

3. Spread into the greased pan and smooth out flat. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

4. Leave in pan until it is cool enough to handle. Then remove it from the pan and cool on the rack completely. Cut into bars the size of your choosing.

I froze half of the bars, because I probably won't go through them super fast and I didn't want them to go bad before I finished them. And like I said, they're really tasty! Not too banana-y, but definitely super moist and delicious. I definitely recommend them!

DIY Dryer Balls

I could have sworn I'd posted about these already, but apparently I haven't! Quite some time ago, I made myself two dryer balls using instructions from this blog: DIY Dryer Balls. The idea behind dryer balls is that it cuts down dry time and also reduces static in the dryer. You can buy them commercially, but these were super easy and inexpensive to make. I bought a skein of Patons Classic Wool Yarn and it made two nicely sized dryer balls. All I had to do was wind the yarn into balls and felt them. The blog has a really great explination of how to felt them, the short version being you feed them into pantyhose and wash them before tossing them into the dryer to dry them. I was very happy with the two I'd made and used them all the time.

Then, just a couple months ago, I bought some more yarn to make two more. Problem was, I got a super wash wool which, by it's nature, won't felt! Of course, I didn't realize it was super wash until I'd put them in the dryer and they just started to fall apart. Luckily, I ended up with a bit over half a skein of worsted wool from another project, so I wound the super wash back up and used a bit of the worsted to make another layer on top. And I still had enough for another complete ball. So here are my newest dryer balls!

Three little balls of yarn all in a row.

I use them every week with the piggy laundry and it really helps get all the towels dry. Turns out there are actual knitting patterns for more fancy ones on Ravelry, but these are much easier and work just fine!

Somewhat related, I got this green basket from work and figured it would be great to put all my yarn in. I started filling it up from all the boxes my yarn was in until it looked like this:

Pretty yarn just waiting to be used.

And guess what? That's not all of it! A bunch of small partial balls and some more sock yarn are in my metal knitting tub with all my knitting accouterments and there's several skeins in my various project bags. I think my eventual plan is to make room on a shelf and do something like this:

From All About Ami

It's so pretty! And, more importantly, it's easy to find what you're looking for. Someday.

Product Review: Herbal Essences Naked Dry Shampoo

Selfie in the parking lot.

I both love the new Herbal Essences Naked Dry Shampoo and am very disappointed by it.

First, the good news: Like the rest of their naked line, the dry shampoo is free of heavy residues, parabens, and dyes. It also works fantastically as a dry shampoo. When you first spray it on, it's mostly colorless before quickly drying to a white-ish powder. I usually let that sit a couple minutes, then work it into my roots with my fingers. That not only makes sure to get the shampoo to all the oily roots that need it but also makes the white powder disappear. And then, poof! your hair no longer looks like you haven't washed it in forever. It is also amazing as a volumizer. Almost like you've teased your hair, but without having to take the time and then deal with the tangles afterwards. This morning, I put it in my hair (which hasn't been washed since Friday- two days ago). The greasiness was eliminated and it gave my hair some lovely body. I ended up doing a really cute style with my bangs, because after I sprayed them, they practically asked to do this. All it took was a tiny bit of shaping and a couple of bobby pins. My hair doesn't look freshly washed, but it looks good enough to go to work with and was fun to style.

And now the bad news. The dispenser is TERRIBLE. Go read the reviews. They almost all unanimously say that the product is wonderful, but the can fails. I had a full size one that I used two days before it stopped working. And it wasn't just a clogged nozzle, because that's something you can fix. No, the aerosol action ceased to function, making the whole rest of the can useless. What I used today was the travel sized one that I got free with it. I'm hoping I get more than two uses out of it.

The reason why I decided to use it today was because I'm trying to go as long as possible before washing my hair again, since that's supposed to be one of the ways to keep the dye in as long as possible. Yesterday, I used my DIY dry shampoo (arrowroot powder, ground oatmeal, cinnamon, and coco powder), but today needed something with a bit more oomph. My plan is to wait until Wednesday to wash it, since I'm off tomorrow and Tuesday. I really hope the dry shampoo will work again tomorrow!

Continuing the dye adventure: Manic Panic!

If you follow my blog at all, you will know that I love to dye my hair red. It started way back in high school. Nearly all my forays into dye had been the semi-permanent box dyes (we won't talk about the one time I got permanent red highlights, it just wasn't a great look). Sometimes I go for a more natural looking auburn, and sometimes I got for the very red or purple reds. I then experimented with henna from Henna Color Lab (I LOVE their wine red henna). Recently, though, I've been itching to do something a bit more extreme. Something that looks even less like my real hair color. I'm still shying away from lightening my hair to make any color I put over it really pop, so I decided to try Manic Panic over my natural hair as a first step. Similarly to the henna I buy, Manic Panic is vegan, contains no harsh chemicals, and is not tested on animals. Unlike the henna, it comes in all sorts of wacky colors. For this first go around, I didn't go too far out of the box and picked up some Pillarbox Red. I decided to document the adventure. No judging because I'm not wearing make-up for most of this since dying is a messy process. I'm also wearing my fabulous dye clothes (yes, I dye my hair enough that I actually have clothes I wear only when I'm dying my hair, though in a former life they were paint clothes).

First step is to wash and dry your hair (but no conditioner!). It's funny because the box dyes always caution you to dye over unwashed hair so that the oils can help protect the hair from damage. The good dyes (henna, Manic Panic) always have you wash your hair w/o conditioner because the dye formula will actually condition your hair as it dyes it.

Next I had to set up my station:

Not pictures: gloves!

I've gotten pretty good at not being messy, but I still do occasionally drip, so it's better to be safe than sorry and cover the counter and floor with newspaper. I also always wrap a towel around my shoulders, held on by the ever glamorous clothespin. Then I have to have a comb to make sure the dye gets spread evenly, clips to hold up the hair as I go and when I'm done, the dye, a mirror to check the pesky back of the head, gloves, and dye brushes (a recent purchase). Also very important, is the Alba Un Petroleum jelly to put around my hairline and ears to help keep my skin dye-free. You can use Vaseline or conditioner, but I find the un petroleum jelly is far kinder to my skin.

Looks like ketchup, smells like...well, not much actually.

The Pillarbox Red out of the jar looked A LOT like ketchup. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that the dye had little to no odor. The box dyes always smell rather chemically and henna has a particularly strong herbal scent (Lily claims it smells fishy, but it's really just a wet herb smell in my opinion), but the Manic Panic is pretty darn close to odorless.

Applying it was a bit tricky, as at first I tried to apply it as directed: starting at the nape of the neck, 1/2 inch from the root, a section at a time. I found this rather difficult, however, and switched to the way I apply all the other dyes I do: starting with a center part, I put dye from the roots about 2 inches over on either side of the part, then move the part and repeat. Once all the roots are done, you slather dye onto the tips of the hair. I suspect I will end up with a red scalp for a few days as a result of this, but I was much more confident that I'd actually gotten the dye everywhere. After a few comb throughs and much mirror checking, I was satisfied that I'd gotten the dye everywhere.

Rachel Red-Scalp

The recommended time to leave it in is 30 minutes, or 5-7 under intense heat. However, because it is not a chemical dye and actually conditions, it is safe to leave in as long as you want (there are lots of people on the internet who leave it in overnight). I have work later, so I'm actually typing this up as I let is sit. I'm shooting for an hour and a half for this first time. One great thing is, I only used about half of the jar, so I can dye again with this color whenever I want (aka if I really botched this, or just when it starts to fade). Depending on how it shows up, I may switch to a more drastic color next time. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm wearing a poor-man's shower cap?

Thumbs up for plastic bags!

Yeah, I'm wearing a plastic bag on my head. Woot. Okay, off to make dinner while I wait some more.

[TIME LAPSE]

So I'm all rinsed out! I actually tend to find rinsing out the dye one of the hardest steps. Trying to do it in the sink and getting it all out always proves impossible, so when I'm nearly done I usually just switch to the shower, as it is the only way I'm able to actually get the water to run clear. Anyways, here's the not-so-dramatic reveal. (Keep in mind this photo is inside, on a cloudy day, with wet hair, so it will look more red later. I'll try and take a picture the next sunny day we have.)

Red head, but not Ariel.

I was really hoping that the color would pop more than it does, but I knew it was a long shot given how dark my hair started. And I totally did wind up with a red scalp. The result on my hair is definitely a nice all-over red, but really not much different than the box dyes or the henna. I'm glad to have covered up my sad brown roots, but I'm thinking this may mean I have to foray into lightening my hair first...