Apparently my last post with the link to all the bad ingredients in sunscreen hit home with y’all. My friends have been calling and emailing about it, and I’ve been proselytizing chemical-free sunscreen like Heidi does her plastic surgery. So, because you didn’t asked I’m using Badger for my husband and I and California Baby for the kids (it made my husband’s face way too zinc-oxide white to use on me.) I’m happy I found sunscreen that doesn’t have the dreaded Oxybenzone in it, and to be honest, these brands work way better than the spray-on cancer crap that I used last year. I have this love-hate thing with chemicals in beauty products, you see.
Moving on, earlier today, my friend and I had a thrilling discussion about how far we are taking our chemical-free romances. You know I have green guilt. I’m never as green as I should be. Same goes for my love of chemical-free beauty products. Because you can’t take the paraben out of the concealer and still think it’s going to conceal.
So because again, you didn’t asked, I’ll tell you what I’m doing to ensure that my skin is as pure and sweet as the Diet Coke I had this afternoon.
- I stopped using soaps and body lotions with artificial ingredients and artificial fragrances. I switched to Burt’s Bees, but apparently that, too, has some question about the fragrances they use, but it says 99 gazillion percent natural and I’m pretty impressed with their voluminous FAQ pages. Plus, my husband thinks this whole thing is so crazy and if I spend any more money on body wash I’m a dead woman.
- I switched my lip gloss. I’m obsessed with lip balm and gloss, especially ones that have SPF. I was using Neutrogena MoistureShine Lip Soother which I loved almost as much as my Diet Coke and slathered on my lips 50 times a day, but then found out that it had the dreaded Oxybenzone, and I was basically eating it all day long and I decided that was probably not so great for my health. So I went to Whole Foods and found Hemp Organic Lip Tint which has sun protection in it. It also has something called carmine, which some people freak out about, but I was just glad I wasn’t ingesting the dreaded Oxybenzone. And, I actually like the consistency of it (but I do miss my Neutrogena poison.)
- As for my face, I really really am addicted to my Bobbi Brown foundation stick. Concealer is pretty much the one thing I don’t leave the house without. But, Alison told me all these great things about Jane Iredale makeup and how it’s all natural and they sell it at Pure Beauty so I thought I would try her concealer. But it really sucked, I’m sorry to say. It didn’t cover up jack sh**. I’m sure there are other amazing natural concealers out there, but I draw the line when it comes to zits.
- And, I draw the line when it comes to deodorant. I know aluminum may cause alzheimers and I’m probably spreading cancer around my body every day by using it, but I cannot go au natural with the deo for the B.O. Again, I tried. I really did. With Aubrey Organics. But people, I need an anti-perspirant like the Queen needs her tiara. Do you love me for trying?
(Btw, for more organic beauty tips, check out Robin’s great organic beauty blog.)
So that being said, I’ve happily made the switch to more natural lotions and creams, but I’m still going to be the lovely blemish-free, sweet-smelling friend you all know me as.
Oh, and if this hasn’t made you crazy enough already did you hear about the lead in our kid’s juice boxes? I may have to start growing grapes on my roofdeck and do the Lucy dance.
My least favorite part of post-pregnancy aftermath is definitely the loss of hair. You know, the clumps that gather in the shower drain, the strands that fall out like crazy when blow-drying and brushing. And, the worst culprits: those little bang thingys that grow in to replace the strands that have fallen out like crazy when blow-drying and brushing.
I knew things were getting bad for my hair, but I didn’t realize how bad until I visited my beloved hairdresser, Manolis (he’s so cool he goes by one name), and he was like, “OMG your hair looks really weird.” I took weird for looking like [insert expletive here], but was grateful he used the word “weird” instead.
I mean, I had to agree. My pregnancy ‘do of soft layers around the face with longer layers in back just looked stringy now that everything but the gray hairs had fallen out.
Yes, post-partum is that glamorous.
However, because he is a hairdresser g-d and I’m a willing subject, we came up with a plan of attack. Chop it off. I’ve done this before, as some of you know. I’m not scared of a good haircut. So, we cut off what I thought was at least 6 inches, but what everyone else and their mother assured me was way less than that. The result?
Me, circa stringy hair day.
Me, in my post-partum glory.
I say, when in doubt, remove all evidence of your formerly luxurious pregnancy locks. What say you?
Cross-posted at Second City Baby
I’m not a hysteric about making my house an organic haven, or making sure my kid can speak Tibetan by age 4, or worrying about the effects of Dora the Explorer’s shrill voice on my son’s eardrums.
But lately, I have taken to trying to eradicate certain ingredients from our food, like high fructose corn syryp, and after talking to my new BFF, Dr. Harvey Karp, making an effort to rid our lives as best as possible of endocrine disrupting chemicals.
What are EDCs, you ask? Good question. I wrote all about it today on Babble in an interview with the doc.
And he put the fear of freaking g-d in me about all the toxins in all the products we use on our bodies and in our house. Like phthalates in beauty products, insulating agents, chemicals in carpets and flooring. It’s not just the chemicals alone that are scary. It’s the research being done about how these chemicals compound in our bodies and may cause autism in our children. (The Ecology Center published a report yesterday showing test results on various household items in a similar vein. You can find their database of tested products on their site, healthystuff.org).
We all know BPA is the devil, but that’s just the one that gets all the buzz.
Luckily, though, there are things we can do. We can use “green cleaners.” (For a good list go to: Healthy Child Healthy World.) We can use natural beauty products on ourselves and kids (I listed a smattering of recommended products on my article.) We can buy organic foods.
We can vigilant without draping ourselves in hemp all day and living in a tent. And best, we can talk about it, create more awareness and try to get companies to get the toxins out of their products. (And try to get Sigg to give us a freaking explanation for what’s going on with their BPA-laced bottles!)
If you guys have any tips about this topic, I’d love to hear it as well.
I have this thing about my hair. I always change my mind about what kind of style I want. Currently, I’m in the midst of wanting my hair to be super long.
I actually once had really long hair. With bangs! (collective gasp begin now)
I’m fully blaming “new mom brain” for this look.
A few cuts later and it was the Katie Holmes bob-o-rama of 2007
I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen.
Which brings me to 2009 or, Operation: Growing It Out. Otherwise known as a painful ordeal where I partially revist “The Rachel” cut. Not on purpose.
Had I known I was going to go back in time with my hairstyle I WOULD HAVE NEVER CUT MY HAIR!
Of course, when I found out this week that Katie went from bob to bombshell overnight with magical hair extensions I went loony. Now I only have one mission in mind: Must Look Like Holmes Again.
It’s just not fair that us frugal peons have to do the grow out the old-fashioned way.
I know PunditMom and ChickyChickyBaby are also leading the quest for long hair. Are you? Let’s all share photos of our progress. We can live in grow-out misery together.
Until then, I’m wearing my hair back and in headbands daily.
I hate being naked. I’m a very modest person, so I rarely let my bare-self show. (Unless I’m in the dressing room at Loehmann’s and I’m scoring a great deal.) Same way with my nails. I hate having bare nails.
I take that back. I LOATHE having bare nails. I’m a staunch advocate of the polished nail. Mademoiselle is my middle name, dontcha know?
So for the last few many years, I’ve indulged myself with weekly manicures. I remember looking forward to Friday, my self-proclaimed manicure day, where I could sit at the nail salon, gossip with the nail tech and read trashy magazines. The US Weekly mag I read always had the most oil stains on it, but I didn’t care. I was content perusing the “Just Like Us” section in a vibrating spa chair, even if Jennifer Garner was smudged out.
And my nails used to get compliments. Who knew I have “long nail beds”? Or nice white tips? I took pleasure in knowing that a little bit of dough got me a long way with that cashier at Starbucks or a colleague in a meeting where I was taking notes. I could be Wicked without anyone knowing just how innocent I really was. That’s the beauty of a nice manicure. It provides a good cover. My nails would shine even when I didn’t. And people notice.
Then I had a child. I know it sounds so cliche, but I think those folks are right. Having a baby changes everything. I swore up and down that when I had my son I would let nothing get in the way of my nail upkeep. But something’s happened over the past few months. I’m going naked. It’s impossible to stay properly clothed as the mother of a 16-month-old.
At one point, I pretended that I could keep up my polished exterior. When my son was a bit younger, I tried haplessly to wear trendy dark colors. This resulted in numerous expletives flowing from my mouth every time I saw a chip. There’s one thing I hate more than bare nails. Feeling like you’ve thrown $15 down the drain because you’ve smudged your nail giving your son a bath.
I’ve found that going around bare does have its benefits. You can wash the dishes without gloves on, garden freely, and pull apart sippy cup parts like a bat out of hell. You can open up toys without pretending to your child that those twisty tie thingy-s are really a part of the toy. (I mean, those twisty tie thingy-s are KILLER on a fresh manicure.) You can type on your keyboard recklessly. You can open up cans and bottles. You can pry open the seal of that fresh tube of Aquaphor. It’s quite liberating, really.
Then again, there are disadvantages to a non-manicured nail. There’s the hanging cuticle problem, which typically requires the unsanitary, but necessary extracting of, which draws blood in the office, which results in you running screaming to your group assistant to find you some freaking Band-Aids (!!) so you don’t have to try to type on your keyboard with paper towel over your finger.
Needing to get nailed.
Also, unmanicured nails give off this terrible impression that you actually care about housework. I think there’s a direct correlation between how dirty your house is with how bad your nails look. Meaning, if you care about keeping your nails polished, you’ll let the dust build up a little. I hate dusting too.
The good news is that for the next week, I’ll be away from reality, “working from home” (more on that later) with no business people to see and no in-person meetings to be had. I can let myself go for a little. But believe you me, as soon as I get back I’ll be calling up the nail salon. I can only walk around naked for so long.
I’ve often complained to my coworkers about the dim lighting in our communal bathroom at the office. The flourescent bulbs seem to be from an era past, casting my beautiful spring whites in nasty shades of yellow. My skin, which is already sallow to begin with, seemed ever more orange in the atmosphere of the bathroom. Which is why I was shocked to walk into work this morning and find that these tawny bulbs have been replaced with brighter alternatives.
Unfortunately, this means now I can see how bad I look by the end of the day.
I’ve ranted before about how difficult it is to get ready in the morning for work when you have a baby to contend with. But now, I fear, my new foe is the brilliant bulb giving off its ray of fake sunshine in the loo. It’s bringing out the very worst in my appearance.
See, 8 months into this working mom thing, I’ve got my morning routine down pat. As long as I can distract my son with an episode of Noddy or whatever is on at the early hour I get ready, I can apply my foundation semi-evenly and smear concealer onto my chin, where it seems I am reliving my adolescent youth. A stroke of blush, some mascara, (permanent eyeliner if I am lucky), finishing powder and I am typically good to go. Fixing up my face is the last step of my morning routine and when I am finished, I usually do not take another look in the mirror. There’s no time for hiding that one last freckle or wrinkle. I’ve got to get to work.
And when I’m at work, I’m usually too busy or too lazy to check on my appearance.
But by the time 3 p.m rolls around and I leisurely stroll to the bathroom to stretch my legs I am horrified at what I see. My mascara is smudged, the pubescent acne spot (ok, zit!) is erupting and I have a sheen about me that reminds me why I never opted for the “dewy” look in the ’90s. Yes, I could bring my powder compact to work. Yes, I could reapply concealer at the end of the day. But somehow, I always forget to do this.
At least there’s a bright side. My son. Thankfully, he doesn’t care how shiny, or matte or smudged I look at the end of day. As long as I’m home in time to put him to bed, he glows like the brightest bulb there ever was. And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?
Tags: working mom, office rants, getting ready for work
