"Do one eye at a time, in case you go blind." "Yeah, I could rock a bejeweled eyepatch."

     I endeavored on a kind of stupid pursuit a few days ago: eyelash tinting. You're never ever ever supposed to do it because allegedly you can go blind, but after doing a little reading my conclusion (just mine! Don't ever follow my example, it will only lead you to sorrow) was that it's one of those things where it may have happened once or twice a long time ago but it probably won't happen now, the FDA just has to warn you because they don't want you chemically burning your eyeballs out thinking they said it was ok. So anyway, I did it. I did a bunch of research and picked the brand that I felt was safest (something called Refectocil, in case you're wondering -- I also used their brand of oxidant, just to make things easy). It was pretty easy; I decided to slap some tape on the back of my hand a few times to take the stickiness down, then put it under my eyes to prevent too much staining, then just mixed up the dye and brushed it on with the brush from the kit. I was pretty careful not to get it in my eyes (I wore contacts for like ten years before I got my eyeballs lasered, so I'm pretty good about not flinching or twitching my eyes too much, so I only felt the tiniest bit of stinging when a bit of the dye got in. I kept some saline ready just in case I experienced any horrific searing pain and decided to abort the mission before the ten minute setting time was up, but I didn't end up needing it. And I'm not blind! But enough about that, let's talk about the before and after.

After lashes are just dyed, no mascara or anything at all. And so shiiiiny. 

     You might be able to tell in the after picture that there are a few stubborn eyelashes that just really wanted to stay white, but I ain't even mad. That's a damn fine improvement, I think. I'm super pleased with it because having just that little bit of extra definition means I feel like I don't have to wear mascara every day since my lashes are naturally so blonde they're kind of invisible from a distance without mascara, which is...odd looking, to say the least, on me. I have recently developed a visceral hatred for mascara. I mean, I still love what it does. It's so strangely satisfying to put on a good mascara and then feel like you could shoo a butterfly away with your lashes. But I despise taking it off at night. It's just too messy, and I have never been able to find a good remover that doesn't get it all over my face or sting my eyes or irritate my sensitive baby princess skin or break my lashes or make my eyesight all bleary. So being able to wash my face without temporarily looking like a large raccoon has been a delight, not to mention that it's nice to wake up feeling just a little bit prettier without having to do anything daily.

     So I'm not going to tell anybody "Oh yeah it's totally fine, do it!" but I'll just say "Eh, it didn't turn my eyeballs into jam" and shrug noncommittally. And probably bat my shiny dark eyelashes.

Melted Popsicle Project: Part I

     So the time has come once again: the time when Amanda wants to do something different with her hair. This time she started off with slightly faded dyed black hair and was shooting for something like this; a sort of ombre fade into turquoise. Here's the before.

     And here's all the supplies she picked up at Sally's, in case you're interested in such things.

 

The Wella Colorcharm is for toning the hair once it's been bleached nice and pale to give you a good non-orangey starting point. She didn't use it this go-round because her hair only lifted about three levels and she was fine with a more green-y blue anyway. 

     I warned her that because her hair was starting off so dark there was pretty much no way she was going to get it light enough to be as vibrant as her inspiration picture in one go. So she just bleached the tips until they were light enough to at least take some color, then put the blue overtop, reasoning that once it fades (and her hair has had some time to recover; obviously avoiding damage is always a priority) she can do another round of bleach to take it lighter, then add blue on top again. So! Now that we've got all that out of the way, here's an after for you!

     As the title gives away, I hope to bring you an update as it progresses so you can see how this hair experiment turns out. Right now it's pretty subtle except in sunlight. But hopefully we can get it to her goal: looking like a melted blue popsicle (hey, follow your dreams everybody).

3 Ways to Fake Shorter Hair, for all your Incognito-ing Purposes

    

     I love having my hair super long because it makes me feel like a magical mermaid princess (grab your happiness where you can get it, people), but sometimes I want a change. Not badly enough to actually cut my hair, because I know myself well enough to know I'd regret that enormously at this point in my life. But still, sometimes I get tired of my hair creeping into the neckline of my shirt and tickling me, or whipping around in the wind and getting tangled in my eyelashes (never underestimate the gripping powers of my hair). Other days I just want to look a little different so I can slip by my nemeses unnoticed. What, you don't have nemeses? How droll. Anyway, I've learned a couple different tricks for making my hair look like someone else's hair, ranging from "so easy it's almost like cheating" to "kind of tricky but worth it for the shock value." Here's how! For the record, I'm starting all of these with my hair already roughly curled from the half-assed pincurls I had in the night before, and I do recommend starting with curled hair if you decide to try any of them! 

METHOD ONE: CRAM IT INTO A HEADBAND SO YOU LOOK ALL DOWNTON ABBEY AND JUNK

     Difficulty: Stupidly easy. 

     For this one, all you're going to do is take a headband/bandanna of your choosing and slide it onto your head, on top of your hair, pinning it at the back to keep that bump of hair above it under control, if that's a thing that bothers you...

     Then gather your hair at the bottom, bring it up and tuck it into the back of the headband, like so...

This photo guest-stars my ridiculous cow-lick that makes it look like I have a bald spot. I think a cow actually sneaks into my room every night and does that. Maybe it's Lexie. 

    

     Then all you have to do is squish it around and rearrange it until you like it and it covers most of the headband in the back, then stick a few bobby pins in for security. Mind you, this won't hold up in a wind-storm or anything (tested that theory the other day; it ended solidly in hot-mess territory). But with a good number of pins and some hairspray, it'll see you through an average day. 

     

     I think this one looks best with very curly hair, and in the past when I've done this I've hit the front pieces with a 3/4 inch curling iron, but I'm on a heat-styling ban right now, so I couldn't do that this time. That's also why my bangs look nuts like 98% of the time these days (no flat-ironing to force them to bend to my will), but whatever, my hair needs a break. 

     The end result is very 1920s socialite who doesn't care what society says ladies can and can't do, wearing a sassy pants ensemble to an afternoon of golf, which I happen to think is a fabulous look. 

METHOD TWO: MAKE LIKE IT'S THE '90s AND GRAB A BEANIE 

Difficulty: Can be done while half-asleep (tested and confirmed).

     This one's also so easy I almost feel like I'm insulting you by including step-by-step pictures, but it is a blog after all, and that's kind of what I'm supposed to do. It's in the manual, you see. So onward we press. For this do, all you have to do is pull your hair up into a high ponytail, fanning it out around your head so it's pretty evenly spread all over...

     Then slap a beanie on top. If you don't like the look of hats that stand up too much, you can always pin the top of your ponytail so it lies flatter, then wear any number of other hat styles, but if you want to do it the easiest way possible, beanie it up. 

     This seriously could not get any easier, and it's a lot more convincing than the headband method, if you want to see genuine panic flicker across your loved ones' faces when they see you and think you've chopped all your hair off. But if you REALLY want to freak people out, try method three...

METHOD THREE: THE "HOLY SHIT WHAT DID YOU DO"

Difficulty: Kind of tedious and takes a little practice, but really not that hard.

     For this one, you'll need to start by sectioning off your hair into just the top-most layer, starting at the ears and going up toward the back. You want to get those front sections in there so you can use them to cover all the dirty trickery you're going to be pulling elsewhere. Here, have a hopefully-helpful picture to show what I mean:

     Clip that outta the way and forget about it for a while. Now for the sneakiness. Taking one-inch sections, you're going to wrap up a little loop near your head to take in the length of your hair, then pin it down. Like a-dis:

     See how I just coiled it up and pinned the little hair-pretzel (barf, I'm so sorry for even bringing that mental image to life) to my scalp so that the end hangs much shorter? Easy-peasy. Continue doing that with all the hair that isn't clipped up. It doesn't have to be neat or pretty,  but you'll probably want it to be somewhat flat, unless you have a small head and want it to look bigger. No judgment. I have the opposite problem. My head has its own gravitational pull. 

     Once you're done, you can let down that top layer. If you wanted to pick a time to have doubts and start to panic a little, now's a great one, cause it'll look bat-crap insane at this point. But don't panic for too long, it'll all come together shortly. When you're emotionally ready, take the top/front piece and pull it back over all the pinning you've done underneath. What we're gonna do here is approximate the look of a half-up style as a ruse to cover our tricksty hobbit dealings. 

Totes gonna be my new profile picture because what is even happening here? This is some Effie Trinket sculptural weirdness, and I sort of love it. 

     Do the same on the other side, then, as ever, squish it around and pin wherever you don't like things until you do like them (I instructions goodly). If you've got any oddness showing or pins that you don't feel like endeavoring to conceal, slap a bow or other accessory on there and roll with it. 

     

     This one is easily my favorite because if you pin it right it's super secure, so it feels like you actually cut it. If you're having a sick-of-long-hair day, this style will make you feel like you got a cute new bob without having to commit to anything. And it's so, so fun to startle people with it. Just go around letting people think you cut your hair, then show up the next day with it long again. Act like you don't know what anyone's talking about when they ask you how you did it. This is how witch-hunts are started. 

     I hope if you're feeling the hair malaise this gave you some ideas to shake things up, or if you don't have long hair in the first place, then I hope you... enjoyed a post full of pictures of me doing weird stuff with all the dead protein filaments growing out of my head? I dunno man, only you know why you stuck around this long, but I thank you for it. 

Look what I got in the maaail!

     Yeah, I couldn't even think of a pun or something for this post's title, I'm that excited. See, back on Black Friday I had ordered the 252 color eyeshadow palette from Coastal Scents for $12. Twelve dollars! For every color you could imagine! The downside was that since it was Black Friday, they had super high volumes of traffic, and warned that orders could take a while to process. Well, process it did (for about a week before it finally went through), but now it's finally here! Let's have a look. 

     First off, it comes in this nice little black case, which is decently weighty and feels nice to hold, like you have the power of the rainbow in your hands. 

     Then when you open it up, you get these colors...

     And, underneath that, all THESE colors...

     And underneath THAT, all THEEEESE colors! 

     So, essentially, every shade of every color of the rainbow, in both matte and shimmery finishes. I'm in heaven. I didn't even know where to start when I did my makeup this morning. I kind of just sat there staring at all the colors, imagining all the possibilities, for a good five minutes before I could make a decision. I ended up going with three tones of rusty red blended across my lids, just because how often do you see people wearing red eyeshadow? So I carpe'd the shit outta this diem and went for it. Here's how it turned out, in case you're curious. 

     If those pictures look slightly strange, it's because I snapped the pictures on my phone by a window, and I have apparently hit a point of paleness so severe that I actually glow blue in natural lighting. So I had to color correct them a smidge to take the worst of the edge off my unearthly corpse-like glow. Never say I'm not honest with you! 



     A note: this isn't an ad for Coastal Scents or anything, I was just really excited to get this and wanted to show you guys because I think it's fun. 

Wait, don't freak out.

     That's how I prefaced my entrance into any room yesterday. See, I had decided it would be fun to do a faux bob for the day. Just for a change of pace; I'm not thinking about cutting it or anything. I just like to play around with different options. But it may have been a little too realistic -- several people greeted me with a panicked look on their faces. 

     Honestly, this one is like difficulty level: witchcraft. But I'll sit here and make it sound all simple, just to annoy everybody. First I sectioned my hair off into a top section and a section underneath, clipping the top section out of the way. Then I curled pieces of random sizes, and after each piece, I'd coil it up like a pin curl, but starting about halfway up my hair, leaving the bottom half out. A couple of bobby pins crossed over one another held the curl in place, and I continued the process around the rest of the bottom layer. Once it was all pinned up, I let down the top half and curled and pinned it the same way; the only difference is that I pulled a few of the front pieces on each side back before pinning them to cover the curls of the bottom layer. I didn't really worry about covering the pins in the back, just kind of pinned one piece so that it covered another, so on and so on, until you couldn't really see them (to my knowledge. What do I care, it's the back of my head. I don't have to look at it). I threw on a clip just for kicks and giggles and called it a day.

     It was pretty fun for a day, and I do so enjoy leaving panic in my wake everywhere I go. I know I've been talking about hair a lot lately, but I promise this isn't turning into a hair blog (although I do have one more hair post coming up -- but after that, I'll cool it for a while, I promise. Wait, no I don't. No promises. Hair is fun). I just really enjoy messing around with my appearance so that I never look the same from one day to the next. It just tickles me. Being pretty much unrecognizable from one day to the next: it's kind of my superpower. 

A Little Change

     Sometimes you just need to shake things up a little. It keeps things interesting! Keeps people guessing! And in my case, allows me to exert control over small factors in an otherwise chaotic and uncontrollable world! Whoa, sorry, that got dark fast. But so did my hair, is the point I'm trying to make. I've been bored with my hair for a while and wanted a change, but I also didn't want to do anything that would ruin all the hard work I've been doing trying to keep it healthy while I grow it out. So that means: no bleach, no harsh dyes, no cutting. The solution? A nice gentle semi-permanent dye!

Obviously if I were more committed to proper documentation I would have straightened my hair again for comparison after. But that's a lot of work, so here we are.

     I'm really enjoying the results. It's nothing too dramatic or crazy-different, just enough to make me appreciate my hair again. Before it was just "Oh, hey hair. You again. Still hanging in there?" Now it's "Hi, hair! You look shiny and mysterious this morning! What's on the agenda for today, a bun? Half-updo? Mohawk? No, you're right, no mohawk. Good call."

     It's amazing how a little change can perk you right up! And get you having conversations with your hair, apparently, but that may just be me. The best part of this little hair change-up is that it literally took 10 minutes, which is about as close to being a witch who can change her hair color instantly with a spell as I'll ever get (though one can dream).

Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

     ...My collection of mermaid-inspired accessories, that is. It's never complete. I must press forth ever vigilant in the quest to look like some sort of sea creature (I leave that purposefully vague because what most people identify this trend with is mermaids, but honestly I'm shooting more for Sea Witch. You can't tell me Ursula wasn't fab). So today I'm bringing you another quick and easy way to bring a little aquatic flare to your hair (I didn't mean for that to rhyme, please forgive me). 

     All you'll need is some bobby pins (again, I really recommend using the higher quality ones. They last so much longer and will bring you so much less disappointment), good strong glue or epoxy, and some bubble-esque beads -- mine came from the floral arrangement section of the store, where they keep all kinds of pretty glass gobs that speak to the magpie in me.

     Then all you need to do is grab a little bubbly bead, stick a good-sized gob of glue on it, and glue it onto the side of the bobby pin. The reason I glued them to the side instead of the top is because it allows it to sit there like it's in a little cup-holder, so you don't have to worry about it rolling off while it's drying, and there's more surface area shared between the pin, the bead, and the glue this way, so you're less likely to have one pop off later on. Let the glue dry overnight -- it's always best to allow for a nice long dry time when industrial strength glue and your hair are involved. 

     Once you've let them dry, they're ready to wear! I like to stick them into the messiest updo possible, in keeping with my personal theory that mermaids ain't got time to be worrying about things like "Does my hair look messy" or "Do I look like Bellatrix Lestrange going to the prom." 

     I really like this style for days when you want your hair up off your neck and out of your face, but also want to look like maybe you came here by accident when you stumbled out of a Jane Austen novel. I won't lie -- I also like this hairstyle a lot because the less you try, the better it looks, and trying is so much EFFORT. I used to wear my hair like this all the time and got compliments on it constantly, because it looks like it takes longer than it does. If you're one of those people who struggles with the whole "artfully disheveled" thing though, fear not! Click through to the full post and I'll show you how I like to do my messy updos.

From Candle Wax to Coconut Scrub!

     If you're a potential-craft-supply hoarder like me, you probably have one or two (or more. You don't have to lie, it's ok if you have like seven. I shan't judge you) of these sitting around.

     Yep, that's an old candle that I just couldn't get any more life out of. This is one of the medium sized candles from Bath and Body Works (the scent was Leaves, if you're curious) that I managed to make a right mess out of. What can I say, making a mess is one of my most finely honed skills. Since it was burned down to the point of uselessness, I figured it was time to do something with the jar. And obviously I wasn't just going to throw it away. No man, that ain't my style. I wanted to turn it into something shiny and pretty and fill it with something useful! I stared at the little jar for a bit, mulling over my options: too small for a pickled brain, too big for a collection of unwished-upon eyelashes. What's a girl to do? Then I remembered, "Wait, I'm not a witch and I don't have those things. Maybe I'll make a lip scrub!" Since fighting dry, chapped lips is far less labor-intensive than sorcery anyway, I did just that. Follow me, and I shall teach you how to re-vamp your old candles and turn your sad memories of nice-smelling things past into memories of nice-smelling things currently happening!
 

     Step one is to clean the wax out of the jar. There are lots of different methods for this: some people suggest putting the jar in the freezer, others suggest boiling or microwaving the jar. I started by using a butter knife to pry the wax away from the edges. That got the majority of it out, but left behind the small metal plate that holds the wick in place and all the messy wax around the upper walls of the jar. After a little soak in some soapy water, the glue holding the wick in place dissolved easily enough, and it could be lifted out with the butter knife. To get the last of the wax out, I used two simple ingredients: hot water and elbow grease. I just ran very hot water inside the jar and scrubbed the wax out with a steel wool pad once it had softened. The clear label on the front of the candle came off without a hassle, and the paper label on the bottom came off with soap and water. Leaving me with a nice clean slate!

     Now the fun begins! I decided to revisit the gold spray paint that I used to bring those bright orange sunglasses back from the land of Unwearables. Here's everything else you'll need.

     The tributes from District Garage were:  newly cleaned jar (I already painted the lid gold in this picture. Woops!), a scrap of lace long enough to wrap around the jar, stencil adhesive spray from approximately 1994 (a fine vintage, the age makes it extra sticky! Not really, you should probably use a newer can), spray paint in the color of your choosing, and optional clear coat for a protective finish. I always opt for a protective finish because I destroy the things I love.

     Painting the lid is really entirely optional. I painted mine because I knew I was going to use gold and didn't want the original silver of the lid to clash.

     I picked a piece of lace out of ye olde sewing supply stash and cut it to fit around the jar. If lace isn't really your jam, you could use any number of other masking/stenciling techniques: tape on some stripes, use star stickers, cut hole punch reinforcements in half and use them to make a scalloped edge! There are tons of possibilities. If you're using lace, or something that isn't already sticky, use stencil adhesive to adhere it to the jar. You really want stencil adhesive, not just spray adhesive, because stencil adhesive is designed to be repositionable, meaning you can pull it off when you're done. Spray adhesive? Not so much.

     Once you've got your lace -- or whatever design you choose! -- stuck on, you're ready to go! Spray the jar in quick, light strokes so you don't get any runs. You can always do a second coat if you're not getting the opacity you want; the stencil adhesive won't turn permanent on you or anything if you have to wait between coats.

     When it's good and dry, peel off your makeshift stencil to reveal your design!

     Woo, so pretty! I actually see little lion faces in the lace pattern, but then again I spend a lot of my time in clouds of spray paint fumes. 

     Now for the lip scrub to fill it with! You'll need...

     A container, coconut oil, brown sugar, honey, and flavorings of your choice. I opted for coconut extract (well, imitation coconut extract. My life is a lie!) to really take the coconut theme and run with it. It's a lip scrub, after all, you may as well be able to eat it. I like for my beauty products to also taste good on toast.

     Now the recipe for this is highly advanced, very skill-oriented complex chemistry type stuff. Not for the faint of heart. You ready? Can you handle it?

     Take some of each thing, and mix them together until it's a consistency and flavor you like. That's it. I can tell you you'll probably want the coconut oil and brown sugar to be about equal parts, and the honey is just to bind everything together. But mostly this comes down to spooning and stirring and cackling like a mad scientist while you experiment with the ratio. When you're happy with it, put it in the jar and refrigerate between uses. To use: slather all over you lips and rub them together like you're a cartoon old person missing their dentures.

     And you're done!