*hey there, it's christa*

Intro to Beauty Boxes

My friend Kim Johnson is the coolest.

Not only was she the only person at the office (we worked together during my CCM days) who knew exactly what kind of perfume you're wearing with a single whiff (that's Marc Jacobs, isn't it?), but we'd spend way too many lunch hours talking about purses, shoes, home stuff, you name it.

And while I'd like to think I'm on top of all the current fashion trends, Kim is still the queen. After all, she introduced me to something I'd never, ever heard of before—beauty subscription boxes.

Yes, along In Style, Entertainment Weekly, Food Network magazine and my other monthly publications (yes, I'm singlehandly trying to keep the magazine business afloat), I'm now receiving new beauty products from Birchbox. 

I wasn't quite sure what to expect but was definitely pleased with my first box. In addition to some great skin care samples (I'm always a sucker for those), they sent a new spring lip gloss, leave-in conditioner for my frizzy mop and mini nail files from Tweezerman (and here I thought they only made tweezers).

Now that I've hopped on the bandwagon, how about you, fellow beauty product junkies, what subscription boxes are you loving and why? 

Who Knew You'd Need Anti-Aging Products For Your HAIR?

I was all out of conditioner the other day, so rather than making the trek to my salon, I opted for Target instead. And along with all the usual suspects, your Suave, Dove, John Frieda and the like, I stumbled across Pantene's new line of anti-aging products.

Their promise? Your locks will  look 10 years younger.

Maybe I'm a little clueless, and please enlighten me if I am, but I wasn't aware that HAIR could look old?

I mean, outdated, in desperate need of a cut or color or downright damaged from repeated use of a hair dryer? I can see that. But can our hair actually look "younger" by using different products?

Needless to say, I think it's a bit of a shameless cash grab. Has our world really become so youth-obsessed that we now must worry about our aging hair, too?

I sure hope not.

Kicking the Bags to the Curb

After being told "you're looking so refreshed, Christa" twice today at Starbucks (yes, it's probably a sign you go too much when every barista knows your name) and knowing it's not because I just returned from a two-week cruise to Tahiti or something, I couldn't help thinking what I must've looked like before.

Like everyone else on the planet, I try my best to gets lots of sleep and drink lots of water and take multi-vitamins and the like, but that pesky baggage under my eyes told another story entirely. Not even cold spoons or cucumbers helped.  And for whatever reason, concealer (yes, even my old favorite, Boi-ing from Benefit) has only made it worse lately. Instead of covering up the ol' luggage, it only accentuated it, which is definitely not what I was hoping for.

So when I saw that Benefit had a new brightening concealer that promised it wouldn't settle in all the wrong places, I had to give it a try. And boy, am I glad I did because Fake Up is fantastic. I think the secret is the hydrating elements which make it cinch to blend in. You don't even need a fancy brush, just your ring finger, and you're set.

So bags, consider yourself officially kicked to the curb—or at least covered up successfully for a change.

Just so you know, this isn't some sort of paid advertisement...I'm just a fan declaring my love for anything that leaves me looking "refreshed."

Celebrating the Many Joys of Chick Lit (And Yes, You're Invited For All the Fun)...

If it wasn't for the illustrious Tracie Banister, a fellow author with a pretty cool last name to boot, I wouldn't have known that May is International Chick Lit Month.

So to celebrate the many joys of this underappreciated genre, several authors (myself included) are banding together for a week-long celebration and guess what? We'd love for you to join in all the fun, too.

And have I mentioned that free books and a $150.00 Sephora gift card are up for grabs if you do?

Yeah, that's pretty sweet.

So here's the skinny on the festivities...

• Each of the 33 participating authors has written a special Chick Lit-centric piece and these posts will go live on Monday, May 14th.  At each blog hop stop, you will have the opportunity to enter to win a FREE Chick Lit e-book from that particular blog's owner/author.  All you have to do is leave a comment on the blog post, including your name and e-mail address, and you're automatically entered to win.  If you visit each blog hop stop, that means you have the chance to win 33 different e-books!
• The blog hop will start at Natalie Aaron & Marla Schwartz and end at Jen Tucker.  You will find a list of all the stops on the blog hop at each auther's blog.  Authors' blogs will be listed in alphabetical order according to last name.
• In each of the author's blog posts, there will be a "secret word."  This word will be italicized, so it will be easy to find.  All you have to do is make note of this secret word at each blog hop stop.  Collect all 33 secret words and submit your list to [email protected] before midnight on Sunday, May 20th and you will be entered into the Grand Prize Drawing!  The winner of this drawing will receive that $150 Sephora gift card!  This gift card can be redeemed online or at any Sephora store in the US.
• Winners of each of the participating author's e-books, as well as the Grand Prize winner of the $150 Sephora gift card will be announced on Monday, May 21st.
• Contests are open to citizens of the United States only.

So, whatcha waiting for? Mark this on your calendar, and don't forget to tell all of your Chick Lit-loving friends!  After all, the more, the merrier, right?

A Few of My Favorite Things: Spring Edition

I don't know about you, but I've been ready for Spring since, well, February. Now that everything's back in full bloom (and don't my allergies know it—maybe Zyrtec should be on the list) and the birds are singing away, it's done wonders for my mood—even when I'm inside writing away.

Now in celebration of the season before the sweltering heat wave in Texas officially kicks off, here are a few of my favorite things during this oh-so-sunshiney season.

Bossypants by Tina Fey-Just the cover alone makes me laugh. I mean, c'mon, those big ol' arms are hilarious. Thankfully, what's inside certainly doesn't disappoint either. I've laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Once my chuckling even startled the ladies I was sitting to at Starbucks—bonus!

"America's Next Great Restaurant"-Yeah, I'm a sucker for foodie shows, and I gotta say this one has been really fun to watch as the contestants are competing for their own fast-casual chain in the three cities (Minneapolis, L.A. and NYC). Not only are the judges (Bobby Flay, Curtis Stone, restaurant owner Lorena Garcia and Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle) brutally honest with their critiques in such a constructive way, but I love the stories of the people competing for the title—especially Jamawn Woods, who I'm hoping will win with his soul food concept. Considering how tough the job market is right now, it's great to see people who are already doing well investing in the career of someone who might not have the opportunity otherwise.

Salads!!!! I love that tomatoes, basil, arugula and avocados are tasting downright summer-like, so I've been eating salads like nobody's business. Now I can't wait for some great corn on the cob...mmmm.

Benefit's Foamingly Clean Facial Wash-I'm always on the lookout for a great cleanser that's hydrating and won't irritate my dry skin. Well friends, I've finally found my new favorite. Not only does it smell great (I know, it shouldn't matter, but I can't help it) and really live up to its name in the foamy department, but my face feels squeaky clean and moisturized when I'm done. Plus, the bottle is pure cuteness, which is just another bonus.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain-I read this while I was in Europe and still find myself thinking about it from time to time. It's basically Ernest Hemingway's story from the perspective of his first wife, Hadley, and my, my, my is it a page-turner! Loved the beautiful descriptions of Paris and getting the behind-the-scenes scoop on not only what motivated Hemingway as a writer but what shaped him as a person as well. In the beginning, he was a romantic and then...

Water for Elephants (the movie)-I don't know about you, but I've seen basically one dud after another at the cineplex in 2011. So after sitting through everything from Arthur to Madea's Big Happy Family, I kept my expectations very, very low for Water for Elephants and ended up just loving it. Not only is Rosie the freckled eared-elephant downright adorable, but I loved the movie's decidedly old-timey feel. Plus for anyone who wondered if Robert Pattinson could do anything but brood, I'm happy to report that he can.

Rosemary Clooney-I don't know why, maybe it's because Lauren Graham mentioned her on an episode of "Gilmore Girls" I was watching. But whatever the reason, Rosemary, along with Ella, Billie and Frank, have basically been my soundtrack to Spring.

Now how about you? What's been rockin' your world this Spring, dear readers?

Saying Goodbye to Dullsville

I don't know about you, but winter seriously does a number on my hair and skin, and I don't like it one bit.

See, I have fairly dry, easily irritated skin to begin with and coarse, wavy hair, so basically, I need all the moisture I can get. But lately, I haven't had much luck in that department. In fact, it seems that no matter how much cream I slather on my face and conditioner I leave in my hair, nothing seemed to help transform that decidedly sallow look of winterness.

So being the beauty product junkie that I am, I decided to finally try a few things that seem to be working for other people with the same maladies, and I gotta say it's made a world of difference. In addition to getting reacquainted with the gym and regular hydration (i.e. water, not Diet Coke, lemonade, etc.), I've finally managed to say goodbye to Dullsville.

For my skin, I've been loving Aveda's tourmaline-charged exfoliating cleanser. Now this isn't the face wash you use every day (although it's way more gentle than your standard-issue exfoliater, that's for sure), but incorporating it in a couple of times a week has successfully eliminated the dead, flaky skin and revealed some actual (gasp!) radiance.

Turns out, regular exfoliation has also helped my lips, too. For the longest time, lip gloss wouldn't go on very well because of all that nasty dryness. And while I'm practically addicted to Burt Bee's lip balm and have one in every purse I own, even poor Burt couldn't make my pucker soft again. So I kicked him to the curb (temporarily) and gave the Lip Scrub a try.

Can I just say that it's a revelation? And it's not even because it comes in seven yummy flavors like the brown sugar one I have. For whatever reason, it gets rid of the stuff that Burt (and my toothbrush) never could, and it smells really good to boot. Success.

Last but not least, my long hair has also gotten a whole lot more shiny and nourished, thanks to Frederic Fekkai's Brilliant Glossing Cream. Now I know that it's way, way more expensive than anything you can get at Target. But trust me, it's totally worth it. Not only does it restore shine and keep all those flyaways in place (a tricky task when you've got this much hair), but you don't even need very much to get big results. So unlike my favorite Garnier product that I was buying every other week, it lasts a really long time, which means that's one less thing I've got to add to my regular shopping list.

Now I'd love to hear from you, fellow beauty junkies. What are some of your favorite tried-and-true products for keeping Dullsville at bay?

 

Finally, the Perfect Mascara!

Confession time: Back when I was a major makeup novice (which included the bulk of my high school years, sadly), mascara probably scared me most of all. In fact, a shrink probably would've diagnosed me with mascaraphobia because I was too afraid to actually try the stuff, let alone figure out which was my favorite. So I'd wear eye shadow, foundation and blush, but not a single swipe of mascara. Sad, huh?

Given that I'm a bit of a klutz, I was irrationally convinced I was going to stab my eye with the wand or end up looking like Tammy Faye Bakker with those scary thick spider lashes.

And when a friend of mine said it's best to curl your lashes before applying mascara, that didn't exactly help the cause. After all, I was convinced the eyelash curler was a medieval torture device, and I was its next victim.

Given my love of beauty products these days, (and trust me, my makeup trunk overfloweth) it's hard to believe that I was ever afraid of an eyelash curler, let alone mascara. In fact, if stranded on the proverbial desert island, I'd definitely include both in my survival makeup bag's must haves because it does so much for your overall look. Whether you're sick, tired or just need a little perking up, everyone looks 900% better with curled lashes and mascara in my opinion.

But I must say, finding the perfect mascara has been something of a 16-year quest. Talk to any of your  girlfriends, and chances are, they have major mascara convictions. While some swear by Great Lash (you know the ubiquitous pink and green tube from your favorite drugstore), others strongly prefer Clinique, Lancome (and those free gifts with purchase certainly don't hurt their cause) or the Estee Lauder variety with the crazy vibrating brush.

But after trying a gazillion different kinds over the years, (yes, even the ones with the funky, funky brushes) I thought I'd finally found my mascara soulmate with DiorShow's very black. But after a few weeks, I started noticing some major skid marks under my eyes by the end of the day, so I decided we weren't meant to be after all. Sigh.

Funny enough, I wasn't even really looking for a new mascara when I came across Sephora's Atomic Volume. See, I'd ordered some Smashbox Primer and a new lip gloss, and it just happened to be one of the free samples. So naturally,  I couldn't resist giving it a whirl.

And I'm so glad I did. Not only does the clever little brush separate each and every lash and make them super, super long without being Lady GaGa-esque, but you can even use it on your bottom lashes and not see a single clump. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either.

Before I decided it was absolutely perfect, however, I gave it a three-week test run. And each and every day, after a quick curl with my trusty Shu Uemura, it looks absolutely perfect—all day long—whether your day includes a workout, Texas humidity, rain, whatever. And while it's certainly more spendy than Maybelline ($15), it's not Dior expensive, so that makes it a winner in my book, too.