...Kind Of, Pinterest!

You guys know that periodically, I like to test what I read on Pinterest. I do it all the time, in fact. Pinterest is a great site, with a lot of interesting information, but it's never quite clear how much of it you can believe.

I'm back to test another!

Meet the cast of characters that swear that in a mere 5 minutes, they can clean my microwave:

2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, and your preferred essential oil? YES. Let's do this.

And for whatever it's worth - I went tea tree because I was thinking about the antibacterial properties. Whatever scent you go with, make sure it's a scent that you're going to like just as much hot, because now my house reeks of hot tea tree oil. And as much as I like the scent of tea tree oil, it's not great hot.

At any rate, this tip goes - combine. Microwave the combination for 5 minutes, and the gunk will practically wipe right off!

So I combine:

I didn't stir. Stir if you want to, it's your party. ;)

I walk it to my microwave, which is so gross, that it was embarrassed to pose for this picture.

And microwave for five minutes. I even let it sit a little extra long, to give the steam extra time to work.

So did it?

Hey! Way to go Pinterest! You kind of nailed one! Of course, for my war zone of a microwave, it actually took three tries to get a mostly clean microwave, but it's so greatly improved from where I started! Way to go, clean microwave!

See you next time, lovelies!

Interested in seeing tips from Pinterest? Me too! I've already supplied links to a few, but you could, you know, follow me and stuff. ;)

Hard Candy Does The Best They Can...

...with terrible ideas.

Actually, let me back up.

Meet "Cheeks and Balances", the combination cheek color and highlighter from Hard Candy:

This color is called "Cheeky Pink", and it's a nice pinky light highlighter, with a deeper pink complementing blush, with a little light shimmer running through it.

The formula is nice enough. Goes on smooth and easy. Not terribly long lasting, but not awful. Easy enough of a product to use - truth? My husband went as a woman for Halloween, and needed to be able to do his own makeup, which is how I ended up owning this. Swipe, and blend so there's no obvious lines. Easy. No strange scents or random discolorations to speak of.

If you can draw, you can do this. Swipe:

Blend until there's no obvious lines:

And get on with your day!

I've never been a super fan of this product - as you probably guessed from the title - for one simple reason.

Just by using it properly, you're gonna mess it up. You're either using this as a highlight and contour product, in which case, your contour is way to high and way to pink (or purple - yes really, or whatever other random colors this comes in). Or, you're using this as a blush, in which case, the highlighting portion of the festivities is completely lost on you, cause you end up blending it away.

That said, I think that this product is about the best they could do at this sort of thing. The intention - as far as I can tell anyway - was never to make a perfect highlighting and contour product, which is good because they didn't. Sometimes, when you want to multitask, functionality is sacrificed a little. So you get a nice blush. You could do worse.

I recommend this product, so long as you keep your expectations realistic about what you're dealing with - good cream blush at a nice price point, check. The perfect multi-tasking highlight and contour? Nope. Keep looking.

Later, my lovelies!

Amazingly, I don't seem to have ever talked about blush before (it's my first time!)! But in the meantime, here's another post you may enjoy!

I Gave Freeman Beauty Another Try...

If you remember from the last time I tried a Freeman Beauty mask, I walked away a bit of a hot mess. I'm pretty much always willing to give it another shot though, and so last night I tried a new Freeman Beauty mask. Yeah, I didn't go back to the coffee eye mask just yet.

As I was going through a box of stuff last night, I saw this:

Freeman Beauty's "Avocado and Oatmeal Clay Mask". An avocado green mask, made for normal to combination skin, that promises to deep clean and purify your pores. Smooth consistency, no notable scent to speak of. And as I was currently shiny, with some visible pores around my nose:

I figured I had nothing to lose. Last time, the ingredients were a little strong for how sensitive my skin was, but how strong could avocado possibly be?

I slathered up, and watched The Imitation Game (Which, sidebar: if you haven't, DO. Great movie. Even my husband, who typically falls asleep when his head hits the couch, stayed awake for the whole movie...). At any rate, I didn't want to stop the movie, so I ended up wearing the mask the whole time.

My best "How you doin'?" face. Haha...

This mask came off clean and easy, probably easier than any I've used in a while. Well, mostly clean and easy - I had to work it a little around my nose.

I didn't get a fantastic after, but this one was the best of the lot. The large pores on my forehead and nose are tighter, the redness is eased, and my skin even seems a little brighter. Yes! This is a big time improvement, not only over the before picture, but over the last time I tried Freeman products, that's for sure!

Freeman Beauty has a bounty of masks (and other products!) available for purchase. The last couple that I've gotten, I've purchased in individual portions for around $2 each. And a quick scan of their website shows me that the full sized masks are between $4 and $8 each.

See you later, lovelies!

Fresh Food Friday - "Cheese wad" Edition

We're back this week, on another recipe walk through! Still trucking through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen", working on her Ranch Dressing Cheeseball this week, or as the header notes affectionatly describe it, the "cheese wad". Story goes, her sister made this recipe once, but didn't get the quantities exactly right, which made it more like a "wad" than a spread, and "cheese wad" was what their dad always called it afterwards.

Aaah, dads. Am I right?!

As always, as this recipe isn't legally mine, I can't reproduce it, but Food Network can!

So, these are the usual suspects:

Cheese, cream cheese, and mayo. The holy trinity. Or something.

At any rate, the gist is room temperature cream cheese and cheese, mix them up. So this recipe starts out, as almost all the recipes we've been through together so far have, looking like this:

Cream cheese. Shredded cheese, you know the drill. Now, for this one, I didn't make the entire recipe. Or, I didn't set out to. I basically ended up doing it. At any rate, I didn't use the whole envelope of ranch dressing, I just took a table spoon out of it, and it was still a TON of ranch flavor. Like, a ton.

I didn't show buttermilk in the picture (because pro tip? Use regular milk, whatever you've got in the house, and a splash of vinegar. Performs just like buttermilk in cooking), but after you get the entire mixture put together:

And you mix it:

You wrap in plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer to set. Or, if you're like me, you put it in the freezer to set, eat dinner, watch the entirety of the Bruce Jenner Interview on ABC, and then go "Aww, man! Cheese ball!" In which case, you remove the now frozen cheese mixture from your freezer, allow it to thaw until it's pliable, and then form into balls.

Decorate with the pecans, and serve!

Ta-daaaaah! Cheese ball!

The cheese mixture is actually very good, for as strange as it sounded like it was (I know when I think "cream cheese", my second thought is not typically "Ooh, I could go for mayo!"). But I halved the ranch seasoning, and still ended up with way too much ranch dressing flavoring in this. You need much, much less ranch dressing flavoring than this recipe calls for!

As for the picky eater test, my son had already gone to bed by the time I was done, but I got my husband to try it. He went "Hey, that's pretty good, for all the ranch dressing flavor..." Since it is fresh, I'm hoping that flavor mellows some, but yowza. That's some serious ranch, y'all.

Like these recipe walk throughs? Me too! I've done others!

Did you find me here:

 

Welcome!

Radha Beauty Knows What's Up, You Guys...

I've been on a battery of dermatologist treatments for a few months, and I've got probably the best complexion I've ever had. Amazing.

I'd recently tried a different product (that shall remain nameless) for another company (ditto), and was dismayed to find out that pretty much all my dermatologists hardwork had been undone. In all of about 48 hours.

I panicked a little - if you've ever had bad skin, and then had it clear up, you know the feeling - and I didn't know what to do.

Enter my good friends at Radha Beauty!

Their skin clearing serum is that ever so rare combination of an anti-aging and anti-acne product. It's formulated with Vitamin C, retinol, hyaluronic acid, salicylic acid and niacinamide, to both clear your face up, and help with wrinkles.

Fortunately, the wrinkles part hasn't hit me that hard yet. But, I did have break outs across my forehead, and I needed help!

A sleek, masculine product that anyone would pick up. Clearly labeled, easy to understand. The product comes out to the thinner side, and you put it on under your other face products. It has a distinct medicinal property - it's got several essential oils, including tea tree oil in it. Tea Tree oil is pretty far down in the ingredients list, and I can even still plainly make out the scent of it. I mean, I secretly like the scent of tea tree oil, but even still.

I did actually find it a bit drying - which was fine by me. I'd actually broken out from increased oil production from the last product I'd tried, so drying out a little was fine.

I did drop the ball a little bit, and forgot to take shots for before and after pictures. Oops.

At any rate, my forgetting to take pictures aside... the breakouts I'd experienced are long a thing of the past. This serum layers well, and plays nicely with my other skin care products. It is scented - and fairly heavily - but I actually enjoy the scent, so it doesn't bother me. A possible packaging concern is that I don't think this would travel all that well, there doesn't seem to be any way to close or lock the pump. Other than that, even the packaging is great. If you need that rare combination of anti-acne and anti-aging skin care, Radha Beauty has the ticket!

DISCLOSURE: The good people at Radha Beauty supplied me with this product in exchange for my opinions on it. All opinions are my own.

Intrigued by Radha Beauty products? I've talked about them before!

Ipsy, Ipsy, Ipsy!

I got my monthly Ipsy bag!

Ipsy, for those not in the know, is a subscription based makeup service. For $10 a month, they send out a makeup bag, filled with five makeup products. The products vary based on the survey you take when you sign up, and your favorable or unfavorable reviews of the products that you received each month.

This month, I'm quite pleased! The theme of this months bag was "Beautifully Bohemian". I'm much more a fan of some bags than others, but I love this one!

The gold tube that you see is Elizabeth Arden lipstick in "Red Door Red", which I tweeted was so pretty, that I practically want to pet it. Elizabeth Arden is famous for their Red Door to their spa in NYC, which is obviously what that packaging is a takeoff on.

The door is even engraved in to the lipstick. And I know I'm weird for saying I want to pet a lipstick, but would you look at it?! So pretty!

And then there was another product, that I'm more confused by than anything;

Mullein & Sparrow's Tinted Lip and Cheek balm, which everyone on Ipsy's Facebook page seemed to be really excited by. And I don't understand. Mine didn't seem to have any color what so ever, which is fine for my lips, but I own an awful lot of highlighters already. I'm pretty good there.

And the last product I'll give a shout out to is my "Fit" Nude Dude, from TheBalm:

Now, I think I misunderstood when it was advertised that these are full size. Because they're not. But the big deal about my Fit dude is that he's not available as a single. Anywhere other than last month's Ipsy bag. TheBalm has a eyeshadow palette that they produce, called Nude Dudes, and Fit is only available in that. So that's pretty cool. The light dimmed his sparkle a little bit, he's the color of a fresh penny.

And he's also magnetic, which means that he and the lip and cheek tint are stuck to each other, every time I open the bag. Hah!

Ipsy often negotiates discounts with the companies, so if you get something in your bag that you fall in love with, you can buy an extra at a good deal!

If you think you'd be interested in subscribing to Ipsy, please use my referral code! You can do certain things through Ipsy (like reviewing your products that you're sent), and you can later use the points to purchase full sizes of your favorites as well. If you use my referral code, I get 250 points! :)

Interested in Ipsy? Me too! I've talked about it before! I've also done more in depth reviews of a couple of the products that I've gotten!

Fresh Food Friday - This Time, With Black Eyed Peas!

This week, we're plugging on through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen", with her Black Eyed Pea Dip. I can't legally print the recipe for you here, but I can't actually find it online either, so we're gonna talk about it. All abstract like.

The police line up:

I jiggered with the quantities a little bit, and in at least one case, the ingredients. The recipe called pickled jalapeno, but knowing that I intended to third the recipe, I didn't want to fuss with procuring pickled jalapeno just to use one, so I went fresh.

The gist is, as the gist typically is...mix together. And at this point, I couldn't help but think that if you just stopped right here, you'd have a great chance at selling black eyed peas to your picky eaters who might not otherwise try them. Cheese. Cheese!

Once you've got the mixture otherwise together, add butter (which I'll spare you pictures of, cause that is not cute). And then for serving, the recipe notes say that she'll commonly serve this like during football parties and that sort of thing, so she'll often just put it in a crock pot, and leave it out with some chips. Or, simplified; heat and eat.

Which I did:

It doesn't come out quite so yellow, the lights in my kitchen are really warm, I guess. :)

I honestly can't make up my mind what I think about this dip! I think I liked it better as a little cold salad! Warm...it's like you lose all the flavors a little bit. It just becomes a buttery, cheesey...thing. Cold, all the ingredients retain their own flavor, and it felt kind of bright and summery. 

I think, if I were to make this again, it'd probably get made as a black eyed pea side dish - I do believe this is a crafty way to sell black eyed peas to people who might not otherwise try them, but if I had to pick one of those special, "I'm only making this cause it's your birthday" type of recipes...this wouldn't be it.

So I don't love it, I don't hate it. It just is what it is. Black eyed peas and cheese.

Like these recipe walk throughs? Me too! I've done more - like this one!