spontaneous sunday

so it's been awhile...

i wish i had something wonderful and gorgeous to show you.  best i can come up with today is that i matchy-matched my fingernails and lipstick today.  that's not really earth-shattering, though.

so i'll give you these two money saving tidbits instead:

1 - ideeli - ho. ly. cow. this place is amazing!  they've got FABULOUS clothes - name brands, y'all, like betsey johnson, d&g, marc jacobs, true religion - for A. MAZE. ING prices.  i have seen wool coats for $24, dresses for $8, d&g denim for $99 (it's all relative, keep that in mind).  the sales vary, and once they're gone, they're gone.  but the deals are absolutely spectacular.  i have not ordered anything yet, because my funds do not allow shopping for fun right now.  however, they have a huge following, and a secure website.  the site is by invitation only, but i'm a nice person, and i'm going to give each of my readers an INVITE!!!  sign up here, and tell friends.  when you tell a friend and they purchase from ideeli, you get rewards!  it does not get any better than that!

2 - Kiss nails - y'all.  keep in mind that i went to cosmetology school (for a while) and that means i had to take nail classes.  i used to spend TONS of money getting my nails did at the salons for a long time - $45 for a full pink and white set, $25 every other week to fill.  and then there's the nail polish addiction.  i love my nails.  i love french tips, moon tips, solid colors, designs, you name it.  last weekend, we were planning a girls' night and i wanted something new and different with my nails.  luckily, i have an amazing friend, and L bought me the Sally Hansen Salon Effects in houndstooth (yay!) for christmas.  i considered doing this for girls' night, but since my outfit was black and gold, the black and white really didn't work.  so i went to the wally world, looking for french tip guides in a chevron shape.  i didn't find any :(  but i DID find these nails.  y'all.  these are NOT your Lee Press Ons.  the ones i got came with a pink acrylic gel glue, and after i glued my fingers together (ouch) and finally got them on my fingernails - not the easiest task in the world, but still SOOOOO much easier than painting tips - they looked FAB. U. LOUS.  and better still, they lasted for a week, just like the box said.  the color tips didn't chip or anything.  after a few days, though, i got bored, so i painted them.  no biggie there, either.  when it was time to take them off, i had some trouble, though.  the polish came off and the nails still looked great.  it took me almost an hour of soaking in acetone nail polish remover and lots of prying and peeling, but i finally got them off.  my nails were in ROUGH shape afterwards, though.  there is, supposedly, a Kiss nail remover, but i have yet to find it here in stores.  so it's not something i'd do all the time, like going to the salon, but it's something i know i can and will do in the future.  and if i ever find the remover and it works better than the acetone, i'll totally be doing the nails more often.  people had NO IDEA they were from walmart.  you couldn't tell.  they look just like salon nails!!!  best five bucks EVER.  oh, yeah, did you get that?  five bucks.  beat THAT.

so there's your spontaneous sunday.  what amazing beauty deals have you found lately?

Acne Victim update

well, happy new year, dear readers!

since my last post, a lot has happened!  my parents and i took my kids to disney for Christmas and had a wonderful, wonderful time.  i've also changed concealers and what a difference!!!  see for yourselves:

i know my numbers are backwards :)  this was on December 15, just two days after my last post.  

this side, thankfully, looks better...

...but my forehead still looks bad...

so i didn't get to take DAILY pictures, like i promised, what with disney and Christmas and New Years. however, i did start noticing a HUGE difference.  i bought a concealer that i know for a fact - ingredient list! - does not contain any wheat derivatives.  combined with serious acne therapy - benzoyl peroxide face wash (which WILL bleach your towels, fyi) and salicylic acid emergency gel (be sure you still use some sort of a moisturizer - oil free, acne, whatever - at night), my face is looking MUCH better.

this is today (excuse the bored look) - january 1, 2011

i know the pictures are not as close up, but you can still tell...it's not as angry red, there are fewer itty bitty bumps and the break outs are NOT (yay!) cystic!!!

it's amazing.  truly amazing.  unfortunately, while i was in disney, i started using a hotel shampoo (not from WDW) that turned out to have wheat or some derivative in it.  my scalp has been flaking for two and a half weeks now.  soon as i can, i'll be getting a T-Sal shampoo by Neutrogena to pull all the dry flakes off the scalp and hopefully start a repair on that.

in doing all this, i've come to learn that with food products, the FDA requires an ingredient label that includes an allergen warning.  you can read about it here.  however, in my research, i can't find ANYTHING requiring companies to include that MAY CONTAIN warning on other products.  products like cosmetics (FDA's labeling manual can be found here).  i know i'm not the only person in the world who has had this problem.  and i think it's time that the FDA recognized that allergens are not only contained in food products.  and by allergens, i don't mean fragrances and things like that.  i know people have allergic reactions to those type things.  being a Clinique master consultant for quite sometime, i learned a few things.  but what i'm talking about are products that contain one of the top 8 major allergens (provided to my by Mayo Clinic):

*milk

*eggs

*tree nuts

*peanuts

*fish

*shellfish

*soy

*wheat

i do realize that very few, if any, cosmetic products contain shrimp or dairy.  but you would be really surprised at the number of products containing wheat, soy, and nuts or nut oil.  if you have an allergy to one of these major allergens, you need to be carefully checking the labels on your cosmetic products - everything from make up to hair care to body wash, shaving cream, and lotion.  wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to learn what products to look for?  i carry this list in my purse everyday to check against ingredient labels:

cosmetic ingredients containing gluten:

hyrolyzed malt extract

hydrolyzed wheat protein

hydrolyzed vegetable protein

wheat germ

vitamin e

cyclodextrin

barley extract

fermented grain extract

oat (avena sativa)

stearyldimoniumhydroxypropyl

samino peptide complex

phytosphingosine extract

triticum vulgare

dextrin

dextrin palmitate

maltodextrin

Secale Cereale

Sodium C8-16 Isoalkylsuccinyl Wheat Protein Sulfonate

yeast extract

anything with wheat in the name

seriously.  shouldn't it be easier?  just as with food, i believe that those of us with major allergies should be able to look at ANY label and see the words "MAY CONTAIN" followed by an allergen.  and likewise, if the product does not contain any gluten, it should have the GF label on it.  so what can we do about it?  we can band together.  i'm starting a campaign, Cosmetic Allergen Alert, which you can read further about at my gluten free blog Gluten Free Adventures.  if you have a major allergy, please consider joining the campaign to contact the FDA and require allergy labels on cosmetic and drug products!!!  from here, we can all go be gorgeous!