2020 Beauty Gift Guides? Yawn

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Does the beauty world really need another gift guide? You can only see the same palettes recommended so many times. Maybe its just 2020 in general, maybe its my own exhaustion and short fuse, but even bloggers and influencers who I like have shared gift guide content that I, personally, found exasperating this year. (I still like the content creators. They’re doing their jobs; in many cases, this sort of thing is their main income stream).

So many gift guides are just wish lists for the blogger, anyway – depending on their stature and time in the influencing trenches, they might share wildly out-of-touch picks.

2020 Beauty Gift Guides – Pfft

I’m trying to rein in my cynicism (lol right) and what I recognize to be a grinch-like attitude, but frankly, it is challenging:

  • On one hand the world is a mess; do we really need a $40 lip balm recommendation, Janet?
  • On the other, while I still agree that a $40 lip balm is fucking absurd and indeed borderline offensive, maybe we do need some frivolity to lift our spirits.

My opinion seems to change by the hour on that.

I’m not without empathy, though. If you are participating in some gift-giving this year and by some insanity you have yet to finish your holiday shopping for someone with an appetite for beauty frivolity, might I offer the following suggestions:

If your loved one:

  • is fond of a particular local salon or spa, get a gift card for them to use at that service provider once we can safely and responsibly return to consuming those services. This isn’t an impersonal cop-out; this does triple duty of 1) the obvious gift-giving, 2) giving your loved-one something nice to look forward to when we can reclaim a semblance of safety, and 3) provides that business much-needed cashflow. I haven’t felt comfortable visiting my salon during all this (service areas are a bit small), but I don’t want them to go out of business. You can probably pull this off in time, even.
  • is brave or adventurous enough to attempt (or has been attempting) home haircuts – consider a pair of shears. As I’ve learned from doing my own trims this year, decent pair of shears (scissors) makes the process go a lot nicer. Is it exciting? Not necessarily, but if you want to get all Marie Kondo about it, they spark joy because they make the job easier to execute well…ish. If not shears, there’s something for everyone: clippers, or, apparently George Clooney has been cutting his hair with a Flowbee for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Imagine a world where that was the strangest thing we’d heard this year.
  • likes having nice nails and hasn’t already taken the plunge into DIY gel land, oh, god, get them some nail supplies! Gel polish is user-friendly and more accessible than ever. If they like extensions/enhancements, dual-forms and polygel couldn’t be easier to use. Lamps, electric files, color, consumables (like gel cleanser?! lolol jk – but files, cleanup tools, etc).
  • is creative/crafty and might enjoy things like soap-making, that’s a really cool way to give them control over some aspect of their beauty/grooming products. Not only is it neat to play with, is it skill development! I’ve had good luck with Bramble Berry as a starting resource. Anything in this realm will be late, but in a year in which even things purchased, “in time,” will be late – it will be okay.

If you needed it, I hope this non-gift-guide was useful to you.

IT Cosmetics Star Foundation Brush

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On Sunday, I opened an Ulta email to find this IT Cosmetics Star Foundation brush.

IT Cosmetics Star Foundation Brush

First, let us deviate for a piece of personal trivia. Some people like hearts and heart motifs. Some people like polka dots. I, however, am partial to stars. I don’t necessarily want to wear them (okay, in pajamas I do), but I find them cute and enjoy looking at them.

80% of the time I am in a store (wait…what are stores? Do you remember stores? Pepperidge Farm remembers.), when I go, “Oh! That’s cute,” I’m reacting to something silly with stars on it. A mask? A lampshade? A throw blanket? 3-ring binder? As the trendier youth would say, “Fuck me up, fam.”

…so, all of that to say the IT Cosmetics Star Foundation Brush fully, unapologetically triggered my, “AHH, cute!” reflex. The bristles! The ferrule! the print on the handle!

–but, don’t worry; I didn’t hit my head. It also triggered my, “You guys serious?” one.

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All Set!

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Alright – all of my nerd tasks are done and Beauty Skeptic is cut over to the new host! Thanks for bearing with me through the technical transition.

Site Maintenance

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Things might be a little odd, stability-wise, around here for a little bit.

In Exciting Nerd News

Beauty Skeptic is in the process of migrating web hosting providers! This is largely an exercise in tedium, but I am really happy to be breaking up with BlueHost. It’s been a long time coming.

BUT

It might be a little bumpy because ye olde day job is hectic at the moment, as is school. Ergo, whereas I would normally run this migration like any other project, I can’t give it that level of priority right now.

Thanks for bearing with me through this change.

Worth it? Noom

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Worth it? Noom

Last November, I had the opportunity to check out Noom to see if it was a good fit for me. This opportunity was extended to me gratis with the idea that I might like it enough to promote, so I have not paid for a membership. I am in fact able to use affiliate links for Noom to monetize conversions (sign-ups) but I am not for reasons that will become evident.

Starting over a year before that, I had decided to stop assuming that I could ride the coattails of my metabolism forever and made some lifestyle changes to better suit my health and my sedentary career.

People who know me are going to read that and have a stroke. STOP! Breathe.
I work 50+ hours a week and I sit for practically all of it. This, for me, is not about weight loss. This is about making healthier choices so my body does the thing better, for a longer time. I can binge 1500 calories of Reese’s cups in a sitting or I can try to consider my nutritional needs.

I don’t diet. I don’t believe in, “dieting,” because they imply a temporary adjustment is going to cultivate lasting change. This is not reason; it is folly. I’d been managing by my own reason using an if-it-fits-your-macros or IIFYM approach based on my activity level, goals, and needs. When I encountered Noom and found that they are not about that, ‘diet,’ life, I figured – oh, what the hell.

So I took them up on it and tried Noom to see if it was worth it.

What is Noom?

Let’s start with their mission statement:

Help people everywhere lead healthier lives through behavior change.

Okay, this resonates. But what IS it? Realistically, Noom is an accountability tool that helps establish and promote healthier behaviors through a series of positive reinforcement. It IS NOT a diet or fitness program, though they do now offer meal and workout plans for an additional fee over their base cost.

tl;dr?

It isn’t for me. BUT that doesn’t mean its bad.

Why Noom isn’t a Good Fit for Me

There are two big reasons and two small reasons; read more to see why.

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Dyson Supersonic: Luxury Meets Performance

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Dyson Supersonic
Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer, $399 new / $275ish refurb

This post’s title should be Beauty Skeptic or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dyson Supersonic.

At the end of 2018, I shared that I had purchased a refurbished Dyson Supersonic hairdryer. This is now the single most expensive beauty tool I own. In the time between the time I placed the order and delivery I vacillated between whether or not I was losing my damn mind.

Answer: Maybe?

If you’ve been reading for a long time, you’ll know that when I like to use pricier tools for a long while while before writing about it. This enables me to evaluate its performance long term and make a confident recommendation. We’ve all gotten a product (beauty or otherwise) that was great at first and then maybe not so much as time passes. Frankly, I find the gushing, “I’ve used it for 3 days and it is TOTES WORTH IT,” reviews grating beyond belief.

The dryer arrived on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, I have no alluring unboxing photos; since it is a refurb, it doesn’t come in fabulous retail packaging that’s worth showing you. It came in a very utilitarian, nondescript, white cardboard box with white inner packaging that was effective but not luxurious. As much as I can appreciate nice packaging and presentation, I also appreciate not paying a huge premium for it.

First Impressions

  • “Wow this thing’s weight is distributed sooo nicely.”
  • “Diffuser? Ugh, space consumption.” (Great for the curly girls, though).
  • “Concentrators – omg, there are two of them? NEAT.”
  • “Omg the magnetic bit for the tools is amazing. This is so nice, so much better than something that snaps on that can wear with time and become less secure.”
  • “OH! It sounds so smooth. And – this thing is powerful.”

Review

Time-to-Dry

My hair, which is long (and longer than usual at the moment thanks to CoVid-19), goes from, “I got out of the shower five minutes ago,” to dry in less than ten minutes. This varies depending on what products I’m using and how diligent I’m being about sectioning – but it is great. Thanks to a girlfriend, I started wearing wireless earbuds when I blowdry (genius), and I usually go through about two songs. That’s like 6-8 minutes.

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