With Any Luck, I’ll Break A Leg

Which means good luck in showbiz speak.  Hopefully, all my body parts will remain intact.

Tip Of The Day:  Over the next few days, I really REALLY need my hair and skin to look as good as they possibly can.  Therefore, I’m breaking out the big guns for hair styling, and a new, err, gun for my face.  By which I mean I’m using a new face wash – and it is AWESOME.

Tip For Tomorrow:  Found it!  The very best white T-shirt for summer, at the very best price.  Granted, you may have to either a. drive a ways to buy one or b. order it online.  But just knowing that perfect white T-shirts exist in the world should fill you with a sense of hope and renewal.  I know it does me.

Further Elucidation Of My Cheap Deal:  Guess what?  Oh, you’ll never guess – I’ll just tell you.  I have not one but two, count’em TWO auditions in the next week.  Auditions for what, you ask?  Infomercial-style huckstering, I answer.  Online infomercial-style huckstering, to be exact.

Just think, I could be an annoying pop-up on your computer screen… and get paid handsomely for it.  But let’s not count my audition eggs before they hatch.  I need to wow them first with my ability to babble coherently about any given product, and look my best doing it.

The babbling part I’ve got down (You’ve all met me right?  And understand my ability to use 20 words for something when 2 would suffice?), now I need to work on looking good.  And of course, whenever I need to be pretty, my hair goes on strike, bringing my skin along for the protest.

Lately, I’ve been sporting straw-like frizz – perfectly highlighted frizz perhaps, but frizz none the less.  Apparently, I over-style.  You know what I mean – too much blow-drying, too much shampooing, to much product.  I guess I need to downgrade my look to un-dried ponytails more often.  Give my hair a rest and all that.  Well, there’s no rest for the wicked, and my hair is definitely being naughty lately.

How can I soothe the savage beast on my head (sadly, the beast inside my head is a lost cause)?  By relying on two heavy-weight opponents of bad hair days:  TIGI’s Bed Head Ego Boost and John Frieda’s Secret Weapon, which, since I’m telling you all about it, isn’t so secret anymore.

Supposedly, Ego Boost is a split-end protectant, meant to stop your hairs’ ends from, well, splitting.  However, it is such a strong substance; it also doubles as a hair smoother/styler for fine, blown-out hair like mine.  I use a quarter-sized blob of the stuff all over before I blow-dry to help smooth down my hair and keep it straight (with slightly turned-under ends – my look of choice).

Ego Boost costs around $15 for a decent sized bottle, and will last you for months.  It smells pleasant and never gets flakey or tacky once it’s dry.  It can feel a bit sticky, though, when you’re blow-drying your hair.  Also?  It is the color and texture of a certain male bodily emission.  Not to be indelicate, but it’s sort of off-putting when you pump some into your palm for the first time.  And I’m so not even touching that last sentence…

Moving on.  John Frieda’s Secret Weapon is a heavily moisturizing styling cream that Chicks like me, with very fine hair, need to use SPARINGLY.  You’ve been warned.  However, if you frequently blow out (i.e. destroy with heat) your hair, your ends could start looking deep-fried.  Not cute.  Smooth on a wee dollop of Secret Weapon on the tips of your hair, blow dry as usual, and voila!  Instantly smoothed and frizz-free ends that will hold a style (slightly turned under for me) all day long.

Secret Weapon runs between $5 to $7 dollars, depending on where you buy it.  The cheapest I’ve found it has been at CVS Pharmacy.  Lucky Twin Citians, we now have CVS locations all across our fair metro.  If you live in a CVS-free zone, Target and Walgreens also carry Secret Weapon, and often have it on sale.

Now that my hair situation is under control, I can work on my face.  Sadly, I can’t change my skin color (blotchy with brown spots) or my features (big nose) without major and expensive surgery.  But I can make my skin as soft and zit-free as possible.  However, I’m forever vacillating between taking care of my adolescent-prone pores, and smoothing out dry patches.  If my skin is clear, it’s usually dry; if it’s soft, it’s guaranteed to break out at a moment’s notice.

Therefore, you can understand my glee when I discovered my new favorite cleanser: Skin Effects by Dr. Jeffrey Dover Purifying Effects Deep-Cleaning Enzyme Scrub.  Annoyingly long name aside, this stuff works.  It deep cleans my oily, nasty pores, yet softens my uber-sensitive skin.  No red spots, allergic reactions, zits, dry patches, flaking, nothing.  Finally, my skin is in decent shape – which means I can cake on the makeup for the camera.  Trust me, more is more when you’re being filmed.

Skin Effects costs just $7 for 5.5 oz at CVS Pharmacy.  I haven’t found it at any other store, but then, I haven’t looked, either.  You can also find it online at drugstore.com – your one-stop shop for hard-to-find beauty products.  Granted, you’ll have to pay for shipping, but you’ll save on gas.  How?  You won’t drive all over town trying to find that one product you can’t live without.

Open For Debate:  What new drugstore brand are you loving?  Also?  Go here  to read about Bionic Beauty’s latest find.