Green Chandeliers

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My sources tell me that chandelier earrings are on their way out. The question is, do any of us really want to give them up? These delightfully jeweled trinkets make us feel like the princess at her debut ball. Yet we will, in time, give up something we love in the name of fashion. Of course knowing that if we tuck it away in a safe place it will, at some point, resurface. Fashion after all does recycle and it is once in a blue moon that we see a truly original statement not known previously to the world.

So having this all in mind, after my daily reading of Musings On Urban Life, I was feeling very bohemian. I think it was reading articles on theater in different cities that gave me that sort of world traveler “throw all plans to the wind” feeling. It was in this state that I came across my green chandeliers. I like these earrings so much that I was, at one point, wearing them every day. As I slid them into my ear lobes all of the articles from Vogue, Bazaar, and Elle flashed in front of my eyes. Things like, “put your chandeliers away for now” and “chandeliers are on their way out”, etc. And I thought, “Damn them all”! This is what I feel like doing today. Tomorrow I’ll where the chic H&M sideways hoops with the chain oh so delicately hung down the middle, but today is my day and I’ll be wearing my green chandeliers.

Repairing My Damaged Hair

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About two years ago I bleached my hair blond and ever since then my hair has felt like straw. To make matters worse, before I did this people would actually stop me on the sidewalk to ask me what I did to make my hair so beautiful. Now my friends were actually asking me how I damaged my hair so badly and I was embarrassed any time someone tried to touch it. I even let the blond grow out and went back to my favorite red, but still my hair felt brittle, broke every day, and was always falling out. So one day I said, “enough!” I don’t know how, but I am going to get my gorgeous hair back! So I set about to make my hair beautiful once again.

I started by using one of my favorite conditioners, Biogenol Reconditioner. This product is great for damaged hair and it will not fade your color. I had good results with this product in the past and this time I definitely noticed a difference in the texture of my hair, but I wasn’t anywhere near satisfied. Next I decided to get a really good haircut by a salon I trust implicitly. My theory? Cut off all the split ends, get a cut with a great shape and my hair will be back on its way to beautiful. The cut was amazing and I was very happy with the results. I would no longer be embarrassed for my boyfriend to run his fingers through my hair and it was starting to look genuinely pretty. But as I walked out of the salon I noticed that there were still a few split ends and my hair was not quite as smooth as I had wished it would be. The split ends were infuriating! I had three inches cut off and I still had a few split ends. What the heck was I going to do now?

That night I was watching TV when a hair commercial came on. The woman slung her model gorgeous hair over her shoulder as the announcer told me that “Pantene Pro-V Restoratives will undo up to 2 years of damage in 1 month”. I sat there as I realized I had become a little resigned. That’s a big promise, I thought. I thought a little more. Maybe I should try it. Yes, I should definitely test them on their promise. The worst it could do was nothing, maybe it would even help a little.

The next day I went down to the store to buy the shampoo and conditioner. $5.99 each for a miracle in a shampoo bottle? I was very curious to see what this would do. Thus began my testing of Pantene Pro-V Restoratives. I’ll be writing about my experience and my results with this product over the next thirty days or so. Stay tuned….

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Loving Your Body and Yourself

Filed Under Blog, Well Being | 1 Comment

First of all, knock the coffee habit. I know this is a bold statement but pouring caffeine and acid down your throat just isn’t treating your body well. I love coffee too, but I save it as a special treat for weekends or after a nice dinner. Your body needs pampering and love. Imagine a life where your body feels so cared for that no matter what you have to do that day your body knows it can count on you to be taken care of.

To create love and pampering for your body begin by thinking of things that feed your emotional and physical well being. It’s different for every person, but one key thing is to create something where your body gets loving treats throughout moments of your day. Start by creating something in your morning that will ease you into your day. To often our bodies are jolted into the day without the opportunity to pleasantly wake up. Just as daybreak gradually melds into daylight our bodies will benefit by having something that lets us ease into our day.

I love starting my day with yoga. Yoga gets your blood circulating, it lets your muscles stretch and it clears your mind of any fogginess left from sleep. A.M. Yoga is a wonderful DVD for waking up, it’s filmed on a beach with the sun rising and gently walks you through waking up. This program is simple but effective at moving your body from sleep to waking.

Creating a morning practice for loving your body does not have to mean a lot of time. It can be as simple as drinking a cup of aromatic tea. Tea has antioxients that your body can use all day long and if you live in a city the more antioxidants you have the more you will be protected from pollutants. Drinking a cup of aromatic tea can also lift your mood and create a habit for your mind; every time it smells that tea it knows it’s time to feel good. Some wonderful ones are brown rice green tea, scented white tea, and lemon tea.

Next create something for your mid morning. This might be five minutes of meditation, or a healthy snack that nourishes your body. Something I love is almond butter on kamut bread with a cup of brown rice green tea. After eating this I feel like I’ve taken such good care of my body that I’m ready for what ever I’m doing next in my day. Another thing that is amazing is giving myself a five-minute facial massage, this is both relaxing and can be a great anti-wrinkle treatment as it boosts circulation and encourages proper energy flow.

Continue to find things that you can easily incorporate into your day, things that work for you and your lifestyle. If you try to incorporate things that are to difficult or time consuming for the way you live it will not work. This is not about forcing a result in you life, but rather about treating yourself well and feeling pampered and cared for throughout your day.

Having a practice for pampering before you go to bed is just as important as loving yourself when you wake up. Find out what this is for you. It might be taking a bath, or putting a frozen eye pack over your lids for a few minutes before you drift off (The Body Shop has a great one). What ever it is for you it is important that your body has a signal that says, “it’s time to go to sleep now”. This will ease you from waking into sleep and let your body move gracefully from cycle to cycle.

By pampering yourself, eating well, and gracefully moving your body from sleeping to waking and waking to sleeping you will find yourself with more energy for focusing on the other things in your life. When you and your body have an amazing relationship you are free to concentrate on the other things in your life that need attention and you know that you are never going to ignore yourself.

The Sweetest Breath

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He’s moving in and all you can think is, does my breath smell ok? Can he smell that garlic bread I had at lunch? Is this gum going to work? Since feeling good about yourself is a vital part of confidence and being beautiful, and your breath can be your first impression, I started taking on practices that give me good breath. Here’s what you might not know about having sweet breath:

The first step to having sweet breath is to brush your tongue. This may sound strange, but most people don’t realize that most bad breath germs live on your tongue. You can do this with your regular toothpaste or with tongue gel with zinc. The zinc effectively kills the germs on your tongue thereby neutralizes bad breath. I find the tongue gel to be the most effective; it’s also really refreshing.

Bad breath can also show up as a side effect of digestion problems. What’s the best way to treat this? Focus on your digestion and you will probably see your bad breath disappear. Peppermint is great for digestion, peppermint pills or peppermint tea. Fennel and rosemary are also wonderful for both breath and digestion, chewing on a fennel leaf works wonders for a digestion aid and will make your breath sweet. There is also a great product that combines all of these into an herbal pill, Breath Assure. You can find this or similar products at health food stores. I found these pills to be the most effective at giving me consistent good breath.

Another natural product for good breath is adding seaweed or a green algae supplement to your daily routine. Green algae contains chlorophyll which not only helps with breath but also eliminates body odors and seaweed has a cleansing effect which balances your digestion. If you are an “O” blood type try bladderwrack, you will see a difference not only in your breath but also in your skin and general well being. Bladderwrack has not been noted to have an effect on blood types other than “O”, so if you are any other blood type try Spirulina, high in chlorophyll and very cleansing.

The next time you are out on a date and worried for the rest of your dinner about the garlic bread you had as an appetizer, I have the answer for you! The best-kept secret about breath is that dark chocolate will actually neutralize garlic breath! It works, I swear. Also, beware that while natural peppermint will aid your digestion, candy peppermints will make your breath worse after the initial effect wears off.

Finally, if you have no dark chocolate and a fennel plant is nowhere to be seen, Listerine citrus breath strips are great. They kill germs and it won’t leave you with the Listerine mint smell either.

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