Super Sunday is Over, Here Comes Hangover Monday

MelBivDevoe

How about that major sporting event yesterday, huh?  Both, that one team had such an amazing play!  Ok, fine, I only watched the Super Bowl for the halftime show and the commercials.  I spent most of Sunday lying on the couch and watching a "Bring It On" marathon instead.  Try to contain your jealousy.

The biggest news of the night, according to Twitter, was the power outage that derailed the third quarter of the game.  Here are the best tweets of the night - my faves are from Neil deGrasse Tyson.  (BuzzFeed)

Lenny Kravitz was in New Orleans recently (for the big game, perhaps?) when he heard a choir performing one of his biggest hits.  What he did next definitely made their day.  (Entertainment.ie)

Forget flamingos and gnomes - dinosaurs are the cool new lawn ornaments.  Check out Dug the T-Rex - he even likes to dress up for the holidays.  (HuffPo)

Level-Up Your Workout: Fitocracy

Rusty

It’s January, so I’m sure we've all got some resolutions we’re working on, or just some promises to ourselves that we’d like to keep for longer than a couple weeks. A lot of those sorts of things seem to center around working out, working up to running a 5K, taking better care of your body, or just gaining the ability to go up two flights of stairs without getting winded. But it’s hard to keep your motivation up for that first month or so when you’re not seeing any immediate improvement, and the gym is crowded, and it’s really cold to go outside. Determination can help. But so can points, leveling up, quests, achievements, and taunting your own competitive nature. This is why I’m a member of Fitocracy. 

Time to Break Out your Winter Topcoats: Nails Inc. The Donmar Topcoat

Rusty

Nail polish is probably one of my more frivolous hobbies. I’m not especially good at it, I don’t wear it that often, and I’m terrible at not chipping it within two or three days. But I love nail polish, I’m too poor for manicures, and having a row of little candy-colored bottles lined up on my dresser makes me happy. So I look for deals, and recently I found a great one.

Sephora was selling off some nail kits and I found one for The Donmar Collection featuring the Donmar topcoat and Chelsea polish for $10. The topcoat features clear, iridescent bits that color shift in the light. The polish was a deep plum that looks almost black with two coats. Application was pretty standard, two coats of Chelsea, wait for it to dry, and then another two layers of the Donmar top coat. Right away it began to look good, with the iridescent bits shifting in the light. The effect was completed with a clear top coat and about ten minutes of walking around being very careful about touching things. 

Halloween Tutorial Part 2: Dude Looks Like A Lady

Rusty

My brother agrees to submit himself to my makeup skills to help teach people how to make a man look like a lady for Halloween.

Halloween Tutorial: Lady Looks Like A Dude

Rusty

With the assistance of common drug store makeup items, I turn my delicate feminine features into a paragon of masculinity. Featuring a special appearance by a cat.

So Clean It's Scary: Bioré Steam Activated Cleanser

Rusty

I went through a weird period this summer where my forehead rebelled and decided to start sending me messages in braille. Given that I don’t read braille, this was a confusing decision and I wasn’t thrilled with having a forehead suddenly full of clogged up pores where once there had just been (mostly) smooth skin. I tried a lot of things to get through it, but what finally worked was Bioré Steam Activated Cleanser. 

A Jack Black That Doesn't Pull Faces: Jack Black's Double Duty Face Moisturizer

Rusty

I ask very little of facial moisturizers. Mostly, that they absorb well and actually impart enough moisture to my skin so that it doesn’t feel like someone grabbed the back of my skull and pulled it tight. Sunscreen protection is a bonus. Jack Black’s Double Duty Face Moisturizer hits all the right notes*. 

Venus and Olay Razors: If You Were Really a Goddess, You Probably Wouldn't Need to Shave At All

Rusty

The vast number of options that confront women when they’re trying to decide the best way to remove hair from their legs can be staggering when you think about it. It’s a fairly straightforward procedure, but you have chemicals that will dissolve the hair off, waxing to rip it out, electrolysis to kill the hair at the root, and finally shaving where there’s a truly dizzying array of number of blades, style of razors, and creams to assist you in your goal. 

Curl Up and Dye: L'Oreal's Excellence Creme

Rusty

After a several months long break from dying my hair, I decided to give it a shot again because I had some stuff coming up for which having distinctly two tone hair seemed like a poor choice. (Although that’s sort of “in” now, isn’t it? Well, whatever.) I decided to try a new hair dye this time around and so instead of the Feria dye that I’d been using, I picked up L’Oreal’s Excellence Creme in 8RB.

The first thing I noticed as I was reading through the instructions was that the box included some things I’d never seen before in my years of home hair dying; a comb tip for the dye bottle and a pre-treatment for dry or damaged hair that you were supposed to apply to your hair before you put the dye on. I put the pre-treatment on the ends of my hair, which are prone to dryness and set about mixing up the dye. 

Sample Roulette: Korres Quercetin Oak Anti-Aging Night Cream

Rusty

I order from Sephora kind of a lot. Because of this I have a giant box of samples just hanging out, waiting to be used. This… is… SAMPLE ROULETTE. Due to the brief nature of the use, I will assign ratings as 0 (stay away) 4 (I liked it, but didn’t love it) or 8 (love it and will probably be dropping my own money on it in short order). Enjoy!

Anti-Aging products must be huge money makers for the companies that make them, because at least half the samples I’ve ever gotten have been anti-aging products. Aside from the problem that I’m testing these at the great age of 25 is the larger question of whether there’s enough of any of these products in a sample pack that you can use them long enough to see any genuine results. But, I’m here to evaluate my experience with the sample, not muse about what it all means so onward!

I'm Loving Angels Instead: Lush Angels on Bare Skin

Rusty

While I am dedicated to the Hot Ink goal of trying new products and reporting experiences to all of you lovely people out there, there are products that I find myself returning to again and again. One of those products is Lush’s Angels on Bare Skin facial cleanser. While I’ve used other cleansers that I found work well, none have ever worked as well for me as this one. 

Sample Roulette: Stila Illuminating Tinted Moisturizer

Rusty

I order from Sephora kind of a lot. Because of this I have a giant box of samples just hanging out, waiting to be used. This… is… SAMPLE ROULETTE. Due to the brief nature of the use, I will assign ratings as 0 (stay away) 4 (I liked it, but didn’t love it) or 8 (love it and will probably be dropping my own money on it in short order). Enjoy!

Tinted moisturizers, particularly those with SPF, are a godsend for women who enjoy a morning beauty routine that lasts under ten minutes. That’s me, except for the days my morning beauty routine lasts no minutes because once I get my teeth and hair brushed I call it “good enough” and sail out to the living room, because I am drastically under-employed at this time. But I digress. Stila’s Illuminating Tinted Moisturizer seemed like just the thing for the days I would actually have to interact with other people. 

Sizing You Up: Me- Ality Body Scanner

Rusty

Most women are familiar with the fact that none of us are ever just one size. Your size is different depending on what store you’re shopping in and what the cut of the garment is. There are at least three different popular sizing formats (S, M, L; 4, 6, 8, 12; 32, 34, 36, 38), none of which mean the same thing from one store to the next. It’s a bad scene, and any help is appreciated. 


That’s what Me-Ality tries to provide. 

Sample Roulette: Murad Oil-Free Sunscreen

Rusty

I order from Sephora kind of a lot. Because of this I have a giant box of samples just hanging out, waiting to be used. This… is… SAMPLE ROULETTE. Due to the brief nature of the use, I will assign ratings as 0 (stay away) 4 (I liked it, but didn’t love it) or 8 (love it and will probably be dropping my own money on it in short order). Enjoy!

Falling somewhere between “printer paper” and “Casper the Friendly Ghost” on the skin tone scale, sunblock should be my best friend. But it isn’t, because I have a weird thing about textures and a lot of sunblock seems to feel oily, or gritty, or otherwise unpleasant. I still wear it, because it’s less unpleasant than a sunburn. When I got the sample of Murad Oil-Free Sunscreen I threw it in my purse just in case I found myself outside unexpectedly on a sunny day. 

In the Mood for… Lip Gloss: NYX Cosmetics Mood Lip Gloss

Rusty

You remember mood rings? I remember a period in the 90s when they were everywhere; in goody bags at birthday parties, as prizes at cheap carnivals, as things you could exchange tickets for at Chuck E. Cheese. They reigned supreme. I probably had like seven of them floating around in my bedroom at one point and all of them stayed firmly somewhere between green and blue (causing all my friends to go “ooooooo, you’re in LOVE!” but we were in elementary school and dumb).


Anyway, I haven’t see them in a while which may be because I’m sort of an adult now or maybe they’re just less popular. But my fond memories of them are probably what attracted me to NYX Cosmetics Mood Lip Gloss. 

The Inner Lives of Swimsuit Models

Rusty

A while ago the lovely and talented Park helped to decipher what was going on in the minds of lingerie models. While I can’t hope to entirely recapture her wit, I wanted to play tribute to her piece in season appropriate fashion with one on the thoughts of some swim suit models. 

“Look, guys, I found these neat little pockets to stick my tits in! Good thing I have tiny little boobs and they’re not trying to sell suits like this to larger chested women, that would be a disaster! Wait, what?”

Reynolds Wrap Slow Cooker Liners: Slow Cooking Just Got Lazier

Rusty

Every year my family has a big party over Memorial day weekend that involves a ton of cooking. This year in particular there were a solid 36 hours in which our slow cooker was going to be on and with three different recipes to be completed. Cleaning out the giant ceramic insert three times was not something I was looking forward to so when I saw Reynold’s Slow Cooker Liners I grabbed the box on impulse. 

Every Body is a Bikini Body

Rusty

I’d like to tell all of you a secret. Are you ready? Can you move in a little closer, maybe shade your screen so no one peeks from the side? Ok, good. Here it is:

There is no perfect bikini body. It doesn’t exist. It’s a lie designed to sell you weight loss products and food with the caloric content (and taste and texture) of styrofoam.

There is no way for any human woman to achieve the perfect combination of curvy, yet skinny, toned but not too muscley, with that exact ephemeral shade of skin that’s somehow just dark enough but not too dark and perfectly even, and absolutely no cellulite whatsoever. It can’t be done.

Foolproof Eye Color: NYX Cosmetics Jumbo Eye Pencil

Rusty

Hey there! Do you like the much vaunted smokey eye look? Have you purchased brushes and kits that claim to be designed to achieve it? How long have you stared at pictorials that claim to be fool proof? Have you sat around staring at your bathroom mirror with products spread before you trying to perfect the balance between light and dark that would make you look mysterious and alluring? Well, I have good news! I’ve found a product that eliminates most of those steps and is easily used by anyone who is familiar with crayons.

A Little Bit Louder Now: Pump It Up Lip Gloss

Rusty

Lip plumping glosses and I have a long and tortured history. While my lips aren’t exactly thin, my upper lip has a tendency to get lost in pictures if my face is angled down and I’ve always been a fan of big pillow lips like those of Angelina Jolie or Kerry Washington.  While I know that no topical products are ever going to get me there, a little help would be nice. Alas, my search for magically puffy lips is destined to continue.