Hot Mamas Know
June 4, 2008 – 5:29 am
A long, long time ago, at the tender age of nineteen-almost-twenty, I skipped across the grass on my father’s arm to speak binding vows of lasting love and devotion, exchange rings, and enter the bonds of holy matrimony.
I had no idea what I was getting into.
Nearly eleven years later I am lying on my mother’s bed with my chin propped on my hands watching as mom pulls my wedding dress down from her closet where it has been hidden away, carefully wrapped up inside a sheet.
Ah the wedding dress.
What a BIG DEAL the wedding dress was. Miles upon miles of silk. The embroidery! The pearl buttons! The lace!
The cynical me… the me who’s been married for very many years and who has become practical in her aged wisdom… this version of me would tell you that wedding dresses aren’t worth it.
Spend the money on something else, I’d tell you.
And yet, as I gaze upon the dress now, I can’t help but be sucked into the romance of it. It’s so beautiful! So white! So elaborate! The buttons! The embroidery! The silk!
“It’s like a PRINCESS DRESS!” CJ announces in breathless wonder. And I have to agree.
I hold it against my cheek, breathing in the smell of it, reveling in the crisp glossiness of the silk.
“Try it on, mommy!” CJ orders. And, while I wish I could, there are some things that are not meant to be. Me wearing this wedding dress on this day (with these hips) is one of those things.
I can’t believe how fast time has gone by. That it’s been ten years since I wore this dress. How long will it be before I look at it again?
But the sad fact is that these trips done memory lane won’t be quite so lovely if the dress gets all yellowed and moth-eaten. And The Sheet, helpful (and cheap) though it may be, is probably NOT the optimal storage solution for a priceless artifact of love.
Here’s where you come in. Do you have advice for wedding dress storage? What’s the best approach?
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©2008 Absolutely Bananas. All Rights Reserved.
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Hot Mamas Know
May 1, 2008 – 7:40 am
Here’s my tip of the month…
But I don’t want to shower! (A product that keeps you from having to)
As I get older and busier and tireder I find myself without time or energy to wash my hair.
Plus there’s all those articles about how it’s better if you DON’T wash your hair every day. Something about natural oils or something or other.
The problem that I’ve always had is the oil factor. Skip a day (or two) of hair washing and the old head starts to look like a Shell station. Only I don’t get to charge $3.60 a gallon.
So what’s a girl to do?
Then I discovered dry shampoo. Such an innovative problem-solving notion, I’m sorry that I didn’t think of it first!
There are several varieties, but the one I like the most is Oscar Blandi pronto.
It’s a powdery substance that you squirt into you hairline, and then rub vigorously. And, miraculously, the oiliness disappears and your hair has texture! (in a good way)
But honestly I think I like it the most because it smells like froot loops.
Now I want to hear YOUR tips & tricks! Write your own Hot Mamas Know post on your blog, then come back and add a link to it here using the fields below. (get code for the graphic and more details on entering this event here)
IMPORTANT! Don’t type your name in the box where it says “name.” Instead, type a short summary of your post. (I did the first one as an example lest you be confused). And it should go without saying but links that do not go directly to a Hot Mamas Know post on your blog will be deleted, quickly and with feeling. There, you’ve been warned.
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©2008 Absolutely Bananas. All Rights Reserved.
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Hot Mamas Know- April
April 2, 2008 – 7:00 am
Here’s my tip of the month…
Hallelujah Wax
Let’s talk about hair. And no, I don’t mean the luscious, flowing, toss-over-your shoulder, Pantene kind of hair. No, I’m referring to the course, wiry, unsightly stuff that pops up everywhere from your armpits to your upper lip to… well… “france.”
(If there are any men that read this blog, this is your cue to STOP READING.)
As I grow older I seem to get MORE and MORE hair.
Is it punishment for living? do I really deserve one more thing to deal with?
I hate it. I abhor it. I wish it would just GO AWAY.
But making it GO AWAY turns out to be a bit of a nightmare, resulting in redness, swelling, rashes, pimples and every other unsightly skin flaw known to woman-kind.
Finally, in all my aged wisdom, I’ve found a product that works better than anything else I’ve tried (and believe me, I’ve tried a lot!)
The Sally Hansen All-Over Smart Wax hair Removal kit.
(I call it Hallelujah wax because the first time I tried it I cried out HALLELUJAH! Seriously… it works that well)
It smells good, it’s easy to use, and it WORKS.
Be warned, if you’ve never experimented with waxing before, it hurts. Like BAD. But you get used to it. (sort of) And I haven’t found anything else that works as well.
A couple key tips for waxing-
1) It hurts, so brace yourself. But, like with a band-aid, fast and hard is the only way to go.
2) Exfoliate before waxing to minimize ingrown hairs and pimples.
3) Apply tea tree oil to waxed area immediately after waxing (I prefer this to the oil that you typically get with waxing kits). Its natural antiseptic quality helps minimize white heads and pimples, and it soothes your skin (and helps you rub off the excess wax).
4) It’s better to do small areas at a time, especially when you’re new to waxing. Cut up the cloth strips to smaller sizes that work for you.
5) Read and follow all directions, even the ones that seem silly (I learned this the hard way).
Now I want to hear YOUR tips & tricks! Write your own Hot Mamas Know post on your blog, then come back and add a link to it here using the fields below. (get code for the graphic and more details on entering this event here).
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Hot Mamas Know- February
February 1, 2008 – 8:00 am
Here’s my tip of the month…
My eye! My eye! (A dangerous tale of mascara gone wrong)
The other week I was in a cosmetics store where I spent SO MUCH MONEY that the woman behind the counter informed me I had earned my very own FREE SAMPLE.
WOOHOO! I love me some free samples!
The woman held out the three options that I could choose from. They were so tiny that all three fit neatly in the palm of her hand. A little-bitty bottle of lotion. A minuscule bottle of face cream. And a teeny-weeny tube of mascara. Since I’ve been feeling the need for some LUSCIOUSNESS in the lash arena and since the mascara was called lash plumper, I chose the 3rd option.
The next morning I couldn’t WAIT to get my lashes plumped. Eagerly I pulled out the wand o’ wonder and read the instructions, which said,
1) Passar la brosse Air Plump de la racine à la pointe des cils.
2) Volume intense: 15 à 30 passages de la brosse.
3) Volume spectaculaire: plus de 30 passages de la brosse.Riiiiiiiight.
Well, you know a beauty product is authentic if the directions are in french, right?
(that is French, right? Or maybe not. All I know is I CAN’T READ IT.)
With some guesswork and the assistance of the accompanying diagrams and schematics, I somehow figured out that I was supposed to “glide the brush from lash roots to lash ends.”
I could obtain intense volume if I did this 15 to 30 times.
And I could get SPECTACULAR volume by doing it 30 times or more.
30 times or more?!?!
PER EYE?!!?
Exactly how much time do these French people think I have to spend putting on mascara?
Maybe in France they have unlimited grooming time to spend ten minutes applying mascara. But here in the US of A we have like -2 minutes. At least at my house.
But the pursuit of great things often comes at great cost. Perseverance is key to success in most endeavors. And the tortoise BEAT the hare.
Because I know these things AND because I’d already dropped CJ off at preschool, I decided to give the LASH PLUMPER the good old college try.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14…
Somewhere around 15 I was thoroughly bored with the sweeping of the brush over my delicate but OH-SO-SLOWLY plumpening lashes.
(something you may or may not know about me is that I have VERY LITTLE patience. This is why I hate housecleaning. Well, that and the dirt.)
So anyhow I was BORED. So I decided to go FASTER. Faster, FASTER, FASTER!… how FAST can I do this exactly?
And JAB! I get a mascara wand right in the eye.
OUCH!
Somehow I don’t think I’m supposed to be plumping my PUPIL.
And so for now I’m going back to boring, clumpy old Neutrogena. It may be less PLUMP but so far I’ve kept my vision. And that’s important in a mascara.
Now I want to hear YOUR tips & tricks! Write your own Hot Mamas Know post on your blog, then come back and add a link to it here using the fields below. (get code for the graphic and more details on entering this event here)
IMPORTANT! Don’t type your name in the box where it says “name.” Instead, type a short summary of your post. (I did the first one as an example lest you be confused). And it should go without saying but links that do not go directly to a Hot Mamas Know post on your blog will be deleted, quickly and with feeling. There, you’ve been warned.
©2008 Absolutely Bananas. All Rights Reserved.
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Hot Mamas Know- January
January 7, 2008 – 8:00 am
Here’s my tip of the month…
Korres Wild Rose Moisturizer
I found this one day when I stopped into Sephora looking for something different. I was tired of my basic Oil of Olay moisturizer and wanted to splurge on something fantastic.
The sales woman directed me to Korres Wild Rose moisturizer, and I’ve been an addict ever since. It’s lightweight but luxurious with a slight rose scent that’s not overpowering but helps you feel pampered. I love the fact that it’s made with natural ingredients and that Korres is a company with roots in the oldest homeopathic pharmacy in Athens.
And maybe best of all, although it feels like a splurge, at $32.50 it’s actually almost affordable!
Now I want to hear YOUR tips & tricks! Write your own Hot Mamas Know post on your blog, then come back and add a link to it here using the fields below. (get code for the graphic and more details on entering this event here)
IMPORTANT! Don’t type your name in the box where it says “name.” Instead, type a short summary of your post. (I did the first one as an example lest you be confused). And it should go without saying but links that do not go directly to a Hot Mamas Know post on your blog will be deleted, quickly and with feeling. There, you’ve been warned.
Learn more about Hot Mamas Know here.
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