I highly recommend more girls getting involved in the sport. It’s fun and it’s good for you!

This has been a blur of a summer for me… I’ve been traveling, going through major work changes and working on some new project, it’s been a lot of work and a lot of fun!

I certainly don’t mean to leave this blog high and dry and hopefully with the arrival of August will come a little breathing room.

Until I can get around to full review…

Anyone who’s read much of this blog should know that I adore Make Up Forever Face and Body foundation… this will go down in the history of my life as my all time favorite foundation. However, lately I’ve had the opportunity to try some new foundations and there’s at least one worth mentioning. Many have not, in my opinion, added up… simply because I cannot stand the way they feel on my face, I don’t like the feeling of having smeared pancake batter all over myself.

If you are like me and have issues with the texture of liquid foundations, while you are shopping (and after you have tried Make Up Forever Face and Body) (I swear I am NOT getting paid to pimp Face and Body) check out YSL’s Teint Resist.  This foundation is lightweight, water-based, doesn’t necessarily have to be set with powder and an extraordinary amount of coverage using very little product. Also, it lasts all day, and I really do mean all day.

I don’t think I’ve given YSL’s cosmetic line enough credit… Often I find myself seeing fashion houses with cosmetic lines a bit fluffy. The products tend to be fancier than they are effective, so you’re paying mostly for the name. However this YSL product lives up to its price tag. Check it out! =)

I don’t know if it has something to do with the heat making me a little less enthusiastic about wearing complexion products, or my recent transition to blonde hair that has me preoccupied for the time being with hairstyling products, but for the first time in my entire life, I’m excited about the products I’m using in my hair.

Today I’m going to talk a little bit of what I’m nicknaming the Dynamic Duo; Keratin Perfect Blowout Booster and Living Proof Straight spray.

I don’t have curly or wavy hair at all, however, these two products on their own, or together, are great for all different types of hair. For me they give body and structure to my style, the blowout booster makes it easier to blow my hair out, my hair feels soft when I’m finished, and doesn’t tangle. The straight helps my hair fall perfectly into place.

Both products are weightless… and when I say something is weightless I really mean it. One of the reasons it’s taken me so long to get excited about hair products is that just about everything I’ve tried I can feel in my hair. They would make my hair feel greasy or heavy, or gooey, or sticky, or crunchy, all of which I can’t stand. Neither of these products will do any of those things! After I’ve used these guys my hair feels like my hair, only better. I feel as though I’ve just come out of the salon every day and I love that feeling!

For those of you who have curly hair, both products are also great for getting that smooth soft, frizz-free look. I know of several people with curly hair who these products work exceptionally well for.

As an added bonus, they both smell great!

Some technical things worth knowing-

• Keratin is a natural protein found in healthy hair. We break down this protein with heat styling, chemically processing, and color treating our hair. Using a Keratin treatment or product with strengthen the hair and help replenish the protein. That said, it is possible to over proteinize hair (causing it to be brittle and break off) this isn’t something that should cause you too much concern, especially in a styling product, just don’t go hog wild with the keratin/protein products! I like to switch it up and use my Bumble and Bumble Mending Tonic in between using the Keratin Blowout Booster.
• Living Proof is known for their extremely scientific approach to hair styling, don’t be fooled by the boring (c’mon someone had to say it) packaging, their products speak for themselves, they don’t need a fancy dress! Straight spray (and all of their anti-frizz products) are made without the use of silicon! What else are they made without? Parabens, Sulfates, Synthetic Dyes, Petrochemicals, GMO’s, and Triclosan!

I know this to be one of my flaws, so don’t judge me too harshly.

I’m a natural dark, ashy, blonde, but that color has never seemed to suit me and so I agreed to go much lighter. Fortunately for me my stylist, Analysa, wasn’t scared of going all in and felt that she could manage to take me from brunette to blonde without frying my hair, something I hadn’t even paused to consider in all of my rushing.

Analysa did a magnificent job with minimal damage and it has been unanimously agreed upon that this color blonde is much better for my coloring than the brunette ever was, so I plan to stick to it!

That said, whenever you take on this kind of processing, even when done with extreme care as to cause as little damage as possible, it’s inevitable that there will be some damage, and it becomes important to take very good care of your hair.  Now I’ve never been one to do too much heat styling outside of blow-drying and I do fully support the use of quality blow dryers, but with hair that’s as processed as mine, all the nice heat styling tools in the world wont really help.

It becomes necessary to use treatments to help maintain the structure of your hair and this is where Bumble and Bumble Mending Complex comes in.

I absolutely adore this product, let me tell you why…

First, this isn’t a conditioning mask, or a mask of any kind for that matter, it’s not something that you have to remember to use once or twice a week, or leave on and hang out for 20 or so minutes waiting for it to do it’s thing. Mending is a product you put on damp hair before you style and leave it on.  Any PrettySmart girl who’s had to try to make time for a hair mask of any kind during a busy week will know exactly why this makes the top of my “why I love it” list. You get all of the perks of having used a mask and still manage to leave the house on time in the morning!

Another reason I love it? You can’t feel it in your hair. Processed though my hair may be, for having a lot of it, it’s still rather fine and for that reason I’ve often found myself avoiding most leave-in styling products because they make my hair look greasy/heavy/stringy, you name it.  With Mending the only thing that is evidence that it’s in my hair is that my hair is staying pretty longer between shampoos, which means I get to shampoo less and preserve my color!

Last on my list is the smell… I’m a smell girl and while I like my hair to smell good, I don’t want it to smell like coconuts or cotton candy. Mending has a really lovely clean scent to it that stays in the hair but isn’t over powering.

I definitely recommend giving Bumble and Bumble Mending complex a try if your hair is damaged or processed. As an addition tip, if you have extremely dry hair, give Mending’s sister product, Quench, a try!

I’m short but I’m healthy, yeah…

I’ve spoken ranted here many a time about the frustrations of shopping for pants when you’re only 5ft and I’ve just about given up finding pants off the rack in the right length. This means that I have to either accept having to pay to have all of my pants hemmed… or do it myself, something I’ve shied away from in the past.

I got to thinking that if I have to have all of my pants hemmed, the it wouldn’t be so unreasonable to find a good seamstress, but I was curious about seeing just how hard it would be on my own before I shell out the extra cash.

As I don’t own a sewing machine (and my encounters with them in the past have been less than favorable) I would have to do them by hand. For this instruction I turn to my sister, Kristin, who is my researching magician. I can always count on Kristin to have posted a youtube video on how to achieve something on my facebook page after I’ve mentioned in passing that I’m curious about something.

Thus I give you:

I found this video extremely helpful and my attempt at a hem came out quite successful! The only thing I didn’t do was finish edge of my pants (because as mentioned I don’t own a sewing machine and to finish it you have to have one), but it worked fine without finishing the edge first.

I have to say that while I don’t know that at some point in the future I might go ahead and find a seamstress anyway, I feel a great sense of satisfaction in knowing I can do it myself if I need/want to. =)

I would just like to preface this post by saying that I don’t mean for these photos to give you a real sense of what I purchased on this trip, they’re more for decoration of the post than anything else. My plan is to capture the actual outfits while I’m wearing them later on. This post is specifically to mention that at long last I have had a thoroughly successful shopping trip! Hooray!

Dallas is a great place to bargain shop if you know where to go. Having spent the first 28 years of my life in one small metroplex, to say that I still don’t know my way around DFW would be a huge understatement. For this trip I decided to be PrettySmart and enlist the help of a tour guide.  I cannot emphasize enough, this makes a world of difference!

The friend/co-worker I took along with me knew all of the best places to find what I was looking for and that would work for my budget, I was both thrilled and amazed!

We visited Grapevine Mills Mall (an interesting sort of indoor outlet mall) and The Parks Mall. Over the years I’ve learned not to judge a garment based solely on the way it looks on the hanger, but to try things on before I decide on them. Some of the best looking clothes on a curvy body look absurd on a hanger. This same rule can apply to stores as well.

I’m an aesthetics kind of person, in many cases I base where I shop on things like the look of the store, the way it’s organized, the lighting (I’m not kidding, lighting should honestly be the first thing on this list). I have found myself deciding in the first 30 seconds of walking into a store whether or not it has anything to offer me and in most cases turn and walk immediately out. This is detrimental to budget shopping. It would be awesome if all stores made lighting and visual appeal to suit my personal tastes a priority, but this isn’t realistic. And especially not in outlets or discount stores. In an environment where the objective is to get rid of as much product as possible as quickly as possible, ambiance is simply not going to play a major role in the shopping experience.

To successfully shop on a budget a person like myself must determine to move past that initial urge to turn around and walk out, and instead roll up your sleeves and dig. It helped me to think of it as being on a hunt for diamonds. =)

The majority of my time and money was spent in the JC Penny outlet store. Now, JC Penny’s doesn’t even make my list of go-to department stores to begin with and at first glance the outlet would have definitely been a turn-around-and-walk-out situation if it had not been for the gentle prodding of my tour guide. Fortunately, her guidance proved wise and after some hunting I found exactly what I was looking for and for much less than I had been prepared to spend! This method of forgoing the urge to cringe and walk out based on first impressions also has its rewards, I spent so little money on the list I came with that at the end of the day I could afford a splurge item!

In the end I spent right around $150 and got:

• 2 pair of slacks
• 1 pair of jeans
• a blazer
• 3 blouses
• a cotton jacket
• a sweater
• 2 bras
• slim wear
• a necklace
• a watch
• and my splurge item- Marc Jacobs sunglasses from Nordstrom Rack

What have I learned, you ask? I have learned that heels that are uncomfortable from the moment you put them on are NOT going to feel any better after any length of time and forcing yourself to grin and bear it.

What this means is that when you’re shopping for heels, no matter how cute the shoe is, if it isn’t tolerable when you first put them on, don’t buy them.

I’m not saying that breaking in is completely impossible, it’s absolutely possible for shoes that fit reasonably well to begin with (these are the ones that feel alright when you put your foot into them and might rub the wrong way in one spot after several hours of wear).

The greatest lesson I learned through this practice was a simple one- in order to break any pair of shoes in, you must, in fact, wear them. If the shoe is so uncomfortable that you can’t wear it for any length of time, then there’s zero hope of ever breaking them in.

Buy the right size ladies, even when it means forgoing a -really- cute pair, because at the end of the day cute wont matter when it’s sitting in a shoe box in your closet.

It’s better to have a broken heart than one that’s trapped.

I know I can’t take one more step towards you
‘Cause all that’s waiting is regret
And don’t you know I’m not your ghost anymore?
You lost the love I loved the most

And I learned to live, half-alive
And now you want me one more time

And who do you think you are?
Runnin’ ’round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart

You’re gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don’t come back for me
Who do you think you are?

I hear you’re asking all around
If I am anywhere to be found
But I have grown too strong
To ever fall back in your arms

And I learned to live, half-alive
And now you want me one more time

And who do you think you are?
Runnin’ ’round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart

You’re gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don’t come back for me

Who do you think you are?

Dear, it took so long just to feel alright
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed
Cause you broke all your promises

And now you’re back
You don’t get to get me back

And who do you think you are?
Runnin’ ’round leaving scars
Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart

You’re gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul
So don’t come back for me
Don’t come back at all

-Christina Perri