Bi-Weekly WTF :: Vol 9 – Mole Removal Pen

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Mole Removal PenA Mole Removal Pen on Amazon

I was checking out the Lightning Deals section of Amazon when I came across something marketed as a mole removal pen.

Immediately, I was horrified. There are some beauty treatments that are generally performed by professionals that can be done at home. Some things, though, should just be done by a pro. I’ve had moles that I did not care for in fairly prominent places (face). The idea of attempting DIY removal sent a shiver down my spine and a knot to my stomach.

In the past five years, I have had a pair of moles removed via shave excision by a dermatologist and his nurse practitioner in the past.

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The KonMari Method Komono – Makeup – Part 2: Spark Joy

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I got around to executing the KonMari method on my makeup. This category did not include any skincare or tools. As I went, I realized that the process isn’t hyper conducive to photography, but I did manage to catch a few photos.

(Almost) Everything (that Isn’t a Palette)

Editing My Collection - before KonMari

My initial pass included everything that wasn’t a palette. I realized after capturing this photo that I had missed a few pieces. They were still subject to the same joy-sparking scrutiny, I just didn’t get them in the picture. I had:

  • 2 BB Creams (both Missha Perfect Cover)
  • 6 Concealers
  • 1 Highlighter
  • 5 Face Primers (one not pictured)
  • 8 Single Shadows (one not pictured)
  • 5 Eye Primers/Bases (including a MAC Paint Pot & a NYX Milk pencil)
  • 15 Eyeliners (duplicates not pictured)
  • 8 Blushes (one not pictured)
  • 2 Bronzers (one is packaged with one of the blushes)
  • 2 Face Powders (both Hourglass ALPs)
  • 14 Lipsticks
  • 4 Lip pencils
  • 6 Mascaras
  • 5 Brow Products (Ulta & the dregs of my Gimme Brow not pictured)

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Monday Musings & Priority Shifts

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Monday Musings

It’s been a while since I shared a chatty post with no major, overarching theme. Maybe Monday Musings should be a thing.

How many people, in real life, put highlighter on their shoulders, anyway? I mean even people going clubbing. Is this a thing? What if you need a jacket outside? Why?!

Consider for a moment that there are folks out there who execute DIY brazilian waxes. Bravery or insanity?

Wet Brush owners – have you used one of these? Both my mom and I have been eying them up. It’s easy enough to clean our own hair out of our respective brushes, but occasionally fuzz and whatnot makes its way onto the damn that is nigh-impossible to extricate without infinite patience and…tweezers.

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Beauty Hacks & Tips

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This legacy post has been given a facelift. Content has been edited for flow and some updates have been added, but the essence is the same!

After comparing my list to so many top hits from Google from silly magazines, I’m confident that MOST of these are not cookie-cutter tips. So many of these, “beauty hacks,” are old hat to me just because I’ve been doing them so long – but it’s come to my attention that some of them are apparently, “sneaky beauty hacks.” I figured, “Why not share?” We’re all trying to streamline our life and make time for other things – even as someone who enjoys beauty, that doesn’t mean I have an hour or two to throw at it on a daily basis – in fact, writing that made me laugh.

Let’s get on with it!

Before I had highlights!

Hair Hacks

  • Maximize efficacy of your dry shampoo. It will absorb oils as you sleep so you aren’t in such a rush in the morning. As much as I love dry shampoo, sometimes I want it to do what it does faster than it does. Solution? Use your dry shampoo at night before you go to sleep. I like Batiste and Psssst!  [2022 update: Skip conventional dry shampoos; many of them are being found to contain cancer-causing benzene. Use tapioca starch instead!]
  • If you buy large bottles of shampoo and conditioner (such as Tresemme’s 39oz monstrosities [2022 update: Screw Tresemme, they repeatedly sell and resell formulas that lead to hair loss]) and transfer them to smaller bottles, you will be pleased to learn that the caps for Dawn dish soap fit on a lot of bottles that take pumps. Pumps aren’t the best for transferring thick product to other containers, but swapping one of those caps makes life a LOT easier. (2018 Update: These bottle couplers are nice too if you need to combine contents a lot – but I still use Dawn caps for all sorts of things. Reduce, reuse, recycle, save money etc.)

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Unpopular Opinion – It’s a 10 Miracle Leave‑In Product

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It's a 10 Miracle Leave‑In ProductIt’s a 10 Miracle Leave‑In Product

At some point, leave-in conditioners stopped being quite as cool and therefore stopped being marketed quite as heavily (until recently-ish). For me, although argan oil is lovely for my hair, I don’t achieve the same results with it as I did the leave-ins of yore. My lightened ends are a bit drier than the rest of my hair, so I like to help them out.

In January, having stalked sales and armed with a gift card, I purchased a small bottle of It’s a 10 Miracle Leave‑In Product. Stylists I respect rave about it. Regular ol’ non-beauty-educated folks I know in, “real life,” rave about it. Bloggers I trust that fall on either end of that spectrum rave about it. Can that many people be wrong?

In a Word? Yep

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PSA: Palette

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This is a legacy post that has been given a facelift. Content remains the same with a little added flavor. ;)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:

There’s an epidemic, you see. I’ve kept my response contained as best I can, but I’m fighting the urge to go all Katie Holmes-in-The Giver, being a shrieking harpy about

precisionoflanguagePRECISION. OF. LANGUAGE.

But I’m not Jonah’s mom, and we aren’t in some dystopian, baby-murdering (spoilers, not sorry, the book is old) society, and I prefer to teach than scold.

This:

This is a pallet.

is a pallet.

For the sake of argument, here’s a definition.

a portable platform on which goods can be moved, stacked, and stored, especially with the aid of a forklift.

You’ve probably seen one, right? Maybe you’ve (ever) been in a Lowes. Maybe you were at Wal-Mart late at night. Perhaps you, yourself, have worked in a retail outfit and had to stock stuff. The only time this has anything to do with cosmetics is perhaps when Sephora receives a shipment; when there is a pallet of palettes.

Moving on,

This

Naked2 Basics Palette - More than one of these would be palettes, not pallets.

is a palette.

When people say things like, “that’s a really nice pallet,” when talking about, say, Lorac PRO or a Viseart palette, the image that fills my mind silly: it is an expertly crafted, robust shipping platform. Maybe it’s even sanded, stained, and lacquered in gold. I deeply regret being a crappy artist because I would love to illustrate the image that fills my mind like Hyperbole and a Half brought us the Alot…but alas.

Extra Credit (2018)

These items are also not to be confused with palate which refers to the roof of your mouth or to the discerning appreciation of flavors.

Anyway, I digress. This has been a Public Service Announcement. You now have the vocabulary tools to stop being that guy.