Free shipping at MAC!

Sorry for the lack of posts, I have midterms this week and next :( I will get back to my regularly scheduled babbling over extremely shallow things very soon.

In the meantime, I was taking a study break from late night cramming, and I somehow found myself on MAC’s website filling up my cart with things I want but don’t really need (typical).  I discovered they have free shipping with discount code GLITTER. I have no idea when it expires, so if you have to buy something, DO IT SOON! Between this, Sephora’s F&F, and their roulette sale, my makeup drawer is getting fuller & fuller.

Will post my hauls when they come in.

Stay tuned!

XOXO

Adventures in Eastern Medicine…

Two months ago, I got diagnosed with a chronic disease. It sucks, to put it lightly, but I am trucking along and just taking everything one day at a time. Upon the suggestion of several family members and friends, I decided to go for acupuncture. I got a recommendation for the practioner from one of my doctors and I went for it.

I’ve always been a skeptic of Eastern Medicine, as a child I always used to get yelled at for eating my mother’s homeopathy pills like candy. But I figured at this point, I’ve got nothing to lose. I had my first appointment this morning. I walked into the practioner’s office, I use the term “office” lightly, as it was an upstairs apartment in an old rickety building that was converted into a makeshift Chinese holistic clinic. As soon as I met the guy, I felt a little less nervous. Only a little. I spent the next 20 minutes answering all kinds of questions, him taking my pulses at different points and checking my tongue.

Then he brought me back into the room and I laid on the table, SO NERVOUS for what was to happen. He told me he was going to do some procedures to lower my toxins and get rid of the chronic neck pain that I have. First, he did a “cupping” technique which I had never heard of, but basically he took a glass cup, stuck a flame in it, blew it out, and then applied it to my neck. This created negative pressure and a suction formed. The cup stayed on for about 15 minutes. After this, he started Gua Sha or “scraping” my extremely tight neck. This involved putting a salve on my neck, then taking an instrument (A chinese soup spoon, how technical!) and applying pressured strokes on different parts of my neck. It felt odd, kind of like getting a really bad neck massage, yet at the same time it felt really good. He did this on both sides of my neck. Once finished, he warned me that I have a lot of toxins in my body (shocker!) and they come up to the surface and form temporary bruising. Hours later, and I am still bruised. Thank god I have long hair cos it looks like my husband beat the shit out of me!!

Do you see that hickey-like circle?! That’s the “bruise” from the cupping!!! I didn’t discover it until I took these pics. I’m so grossed out by it. Especially because I did a google image search of “cupping bruises”.. ughh it looks so freaky! (Warning: google this at your own risk!). While we always associate “bruises” to pain and injury, these are simply caused by the purging of your toxins. The darker the bruise, the more toxins you have. Gross. I so want to get rid of this off my body, as I don’t want to walk around and have people think I am the victim of physical abuse or some sexual torture device. Not to mention the areas where he did the “scraping” are tender to the touch.

After these procedures, the practitioner did the usual needle poking on me. I thought I would be the most freaked out by this procedure, but because of what I had just experienced, the acupuncture part felt the most normal! No pain or anything. He left the room and I had to “just relax” for 20 minutes. As soon as he shut the door behind him I started freaking out. Relax? How am I supposed to relax with bruises and a hickey on my neck? What just happened? Did I just pay someone to torture me for an hour? I had to talk myself out of a panic attack and I finally began to relax. I closed my eyes and envisioned my “happy place”, soon I entered a trance like state and it felt wonderful. My body felt… heavy. Yet I felt something flowing through me (and it wasn’t that time of the month), almost like I was floating. After my 20 minutes were up he had me do an exercise (similar to yoga) and I was on my way. On Wednesday, he is going to make up and give me some Chinese herbs (I’m a bit iffy on those too).

As skeptical and freaked out as I was, I walked out of there feeling 10000x better than I walked in. That good feeling has carried through the day. He wants me to come back once a week for acupuncture and every 2 weeks for the scraping. I am not sure how I feel about the latter, but I will definitely be back for the acupuncture. The way I see it, even if it is just placebo effect in the end, it makes me feel good and that’s all that matters. Plus, I’m only spending $20 per visit, and I blow more than that on a lot more useless crap. Spending $20 a week to possibly do something good for my body can’t hurt.

Looking back on the whole experience, it was WEIRD. While getting those procedures done, I felt like I was joining some kind of cult with strange initiation rituals or something. I’ve always been the “Oh no I’m sick better get some medicine from the doctor” not the “Oh I have a cough, let me get some herbs and get hot cups suctioned all over my body” kind of girl. This whole alternative medicine thing is quite new to me still. My DH was waiting for me at the practitioner’s office and he told me a woman had come in who apparently had cancer, refused chemo, and was getting acupuncture done instead. What do I say to that? Godspeed.

Have you ever tried acupuncture? Were you as freaked out as I was? Share your stories!

Product Review: Healthy Sexy Hair Soy Tri-Wheat Leave In Conditioner

It’s very seldom that I use a beauty product and it does everything that it promises to do. Recently, I discovered

Healthy Sexy Hair’s Soy Tri-Wheat Leave In Conditioner

I was searching for the perfect leave-in conditioner at Target 2 weeks ago. I have very thick, highlighted hair that is nearly waist-length. It is very difficult finding a product with the perfect balance of moisturizing without making it look greasy and dull. I’ve always been intrigued by “Big sexy hair” products, and saw these healthy sexy ones on the shelf right next to them. The bottle claims a “New and Improved Formula” that contains soy and cocoa. The price was decent ($9.99), so I figured I’d give it a go. I was quite impressed with the results…

First off, this is the BEST. DETANGLER.EVER. When I get out of the shower, I dread the task of brushing my hair, which after shampooing and rinsing turns into a series of bird’s nest knots on my head. Lord knows how much hair I have lost, because it is so thick and long, I have no patience for a wide-tooth comb and just harshly run a brush through it. Well after the shower I towel dry my hair and spray this stuff in. Not even 10 seconds later, I run the brush through it and VOILA! My bird’s nest becomes tame and I can smoothly run a brush through with no snagging. I was absolutely floored by this, considering how much money I’ve wasted in the past on so-called “great” detanglers from Sephora. Under $10, and this one does the trick, even on super thick hair. I swear it’s magical.

It also does the trick as a leave-in. I find that it doesn’t weigh my hair down and I still have that “post wash” bounce even with the product in there. Not sure if it’s my imagination, but I feel as though I am losing a lot less hair in the shower drain lately too. The Soy in this product is supposed to strengthen and rebuild your hair, without coating it with some crap. Seems like it’s doing just that! The product also claims to prevent static electricity (from the moisturizing, I presume), but the weather here isn’t that cold and dry yet so we will see how that goes in the upcoming weeks…

After 2 weeks of consistent use, I am impressed with how soft and healthy my hair looks. With highlights, your hair has the tendency to always look drier and I know bleach isn’t good for me. But honestly I haven’t seen it look this healthy in months! I give this stuff a 5/5, and I would’ve spent the $10 on it if it were just a detangler alone, because it does such a great job at that!

Product: Health Sexy Hair Soy Tri-Wheat Leave In Conditioner

Where to Purchase: Target, Amazon.com, or any hair products retailer

Pros: It does what it’s supposed to do. Period.

Cons: None yet!

Much props to GirlProps

In my “current obsessions” post, I mentioned a jewelry store in New York that I had been absolutely obsessed with for over 10 years, that store is GirlProps.

My sister and I discovered it, back in 1999 and 2000 on a family trip to NYC. Since then, no trip was complete until I made everyone trek down to SoHo. It was this tiny hole-in-the wall basement store. It stuck out like a sore thumb from all the other stores because its building was painted in zebra stripes! Once you were in… AHHH it was glittery, sparkly, girly girl heaven!!! They had EVERYTHING necklaces, earrings, rings, feather boas, sunglasses, unique purses, belts.. you name it. The best part of it was that everything was so cheap and unique. I remember being the envy of every 9th grade girl, draping myself in gawdy (but trendy!) jeweled chokers and 5″ dangly earrings. Sometime in the mid 2000’s they launched a website (linked above) where you could buy most of the stuff they had in store. A lot of their items have become popular with celebrities such as Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.

My most prized purchases from there… a sparkly word necklace that read “CUNT”. Sadly, I have misplaced this necklace but I highly suspect it was my mother, who I had caught throwing the necklace into the garbage 3 or 4 times since I bought it.

Unfortunately my visit in 2009 was my last, as the store closed its doors in March 2010. But they still have a website (www.girlprops.com) and shipping is pretty fast.  If you spend more than $25, shipping is free! They also launched a new site called Fabuless, where every item is $1.99 or less! How can you say no to that?!

I just did a mini haul from GirlProps yesterday, told myself I could only spend $25 (for free shipping of course). I was surprised by how much stuff I was able to buy. Here are some of the items I was eyeing up..

Store: GirlProps

Website: http://www.girlprops.com

Pros: Cute cheap jewelry, great alternative to Forever 21, jewelry I bought 10 years ago is still intact!

Cons: Brick & mortar store closed :-( Website doesn’t have as much merchandise as the store

‘Something Blue’ Martini

Since this blog is called glitter and vodka, I figured I’d post something a little refreshing every now and then.

At our wedding last month, our bartender made a “signature cocktail” for us and our guests. It was a blue martini we dubbed– “The Turks”, because its color reminded us of the color of the water in Turks & Caicos, where we had just vacationed a few months earlier. I am not a big fan of sweet and fruity drinks but my god.. this was the best martini I’ve had in a very long time! Someone recently asked me for the recipe, and I had to scour my e-mail searching through so much correspondence between me and my wedding coordinator until I found it. Of course after I retrieved it, I googled and found the recipe on theknot.com. I learned it’s also called the “Something Blue” martini. So here I give you the ingredients for the best and most simply refreshing martini, ever!

What You Need

• 1 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1/2 oz. Blue Curacao
• Splash of white cranberry juice (Make sure it’s white! If you use the red, it ends up tasting like crap!)
• Lime wedge, for garnish

How to Make It

• Add ice to shaker.
• Stir or shake and strain all ingredients except lime wedge into a martini glass.
• Garnish with lime wedge… and enjoy

I recommend that you make a pitcher’s worth, because one is not enough!

Current Obsessions

Every week (or every other day, depending on how much I shop!) I plan on posting things that I am currently obsessed with — both trends and tangible items. I am not the type to follow trends all the time, as I’m the girl who loves wearing white after labor day, and bright fun nail colors during the winter, but I can’t help myself with these hot items.

My current obsessions (clockwise from the top left):

TOMS – Ok these shoes are like crocs for hippies (or uggs for trendies), and I have always found them to be absolutely unflattering and hideous. One day, I was at Nordstrom and just for the hell of it I decided to try on a pair of black sparkly ones (I can never resist things that shine). Lo and behold I fell in love. I blame it on the glitter! I ended up with a pair of the silver glitter ones, as they are the perfect way to jazz up any casual outfit, and metallics have become the “new nude”. I am so over the ballet flat trend that has been around forever now, and these are comfy, practical, and the perfect alternative!

LEOPARD PRINT EVERYTHING– As much as I deny it, I’m a Jersey girl at heart, and have been rockin the leopard print for as long as I can remember. It has always been my favorite pattern. I remember as a kid, I told my mom that I wanted to wear a leopard print sari to my wedding. That opportunity may have come & gone, but now that the print is so popular, I can’t wait to get my hands on one!! Animal print became all the rage in 2011, and I hope the trend never goes away. I’ve spent the year snatching up all sorts of items — from bags to leggings to even stranger things like a leopard print toilet seat (See here)!!!!

VAMPY NAILS- This fall, say bye bye to your brights and hellooo to the dark side. Vampy shades of nail polish are what’s hot right now. I am currently sporting my very first vampy mani (as seen in the photo above). I have always loved brights and nudes for my nails, and this is the first time I ever went this dark! It was quite a big change at first, but now I love it. It matches the weather and gets me excited for my most favorite holiday, Halloween :-) (Color: Essie’s “Carry On”)

STATEMENT BRACELETS– I recently purchased the above from my most favorite jewelry store in SoHo (the store deserves a blog post all of it’s own!). In the photo it looks like a bunch of bangles stacked next to each other but it’s actually a pleather bracelet with snaps! It is big and sparkly and the perfect statement piece to dress up an outfit, or to match with my new TOMS. I have so many sets of Indian bangles at home that I wear with American clothes. It’s funny how Amrita Singh and other designers sell these for over $50, when you can buy them off the streets of India for less than $3! While I love desi bangles, they make an awful lot of noise, and some can get caught in the fabric of your clothes. This bracelet is the perfect alternative, it still glitters, and you can wear it all fancied up, or with jeans and a simple blouse. The best part about it is that it costs less than $15!!!

I just won a $50 DSW gift card, and have a bunch of $5 ones laying around, so next on my shopping list is a pair of flat boots. Still deciding between riding or combat!

Stay tuned…

Breaking up is hard to do…

The other day a friend asked me what stylist had recently colored my hair. When I told her that I started seeing someone new, she seemed shocked… and wanted to know what happened. As soon as the barrage of questions began, I became extremely embarrassed and self-conscious. I explained to my dear girlfriend that although I was with her for a great number of years, things just weren’t working out anymore. That’s when I realized breaking up with your hair stylist can just be just as awkward and depressing as breaking up with a significant other!

Just as in failed romantic relationships, I should’ve seen this one coming from a mile away. My ex stylist, (we shall call her TT) was is an amazingly talented woman. I began seeing her back in 2003, where she was the proverbial “little guy”, giving hair cuts for $20 (pretty damn cheap if you ask me!) out of a snooty salon. From there, I followed her for the next several years as she bounced around from salon to salon. What I loved about TT was that I could say to her “do what you want to do”, in terms of my cut AND color, and my hair would always turn out amazing. We were quite the adventurous couple experimenting from blonde highlights (in my jet black hair :-x omg never again), to the “Rihanna bob” to so many different types of bangs — fringe, sideswept, choppy — you name it, we did it!

Even though she’s my ex, I can’t take away from the fact that this woman was so incredibly talented when it came to hair. Others finally caught on, and her following got bigger. I didn’t even mind the price increase because I knew I was still getting an amazing cut and color for less than half of what you pay in the big cities. A few years went by, and she finally bit the bullet and opened her own salon. Even though I had moved out of state at this time, I would still make trips home just to get my hair done. I refused to trust anyone else with my hair.

As time went on in the past 2 years, I noticed how our once lengthy conversations at the salon had shortened to polite pleasantries. While doing my hair, she would be too busy talking to other clients. In the past, she had always thrown in free stuff like deep conditioning treatments or shampoos from the salon… This was no more. She always took her time doing my hair, now I would feel rushed in and out the door so she could cater to her “new” clients.

It all came to a head when I was living 3.5 hours away, and I needed to get my hair cut a week before my wedding. Thanks to ridiculous traffic on the George Washington Bridge, I was running late, so being the non-asshole customer I am, I called to explain that I was driving from Connecticut and I would be 10 minutes late. The ditzy receptionist passed the message on to TT, only to come back on the phone and say “Sorry you’re going to have to reschedule.” ARE YOU SERIOUS BITCH? I just drove 3.5 hours, and I’ve been your client for over 7 years. To me, that’s just bad business. It was obvious what happened here was that her head just got too big. You’re a big shot salon owner now, but don’t forget your roots, and who was with you since the beginning.

Obviously I took the breakup harder than she did. I was more upset about how I was going to ever find a stylist to replace her…It took some time, and a few mistakes, but what they say is true… THE ONE is out there, and I finally found her. Though I miss TT and what we had, I am perfectly content in this new relationship. I guess everything does happen for a reason.

While breaking up with your stylist can be a difficult decision, don’t wait until it’s too late (ie: a week before your wedding), to acknowledge and accept the signs. If s/he is consistently late, doesn’t give you the same quality of service, or you’re just not feeling it anymore, it’s time to move on. There are plenty of other stylists out there who would love to WOW you with their talent. And if you want to break up with your stylist for another stylist at the same salon… THAT’S OKAY TOO! To avoid the awkward conversation with Stylist #1 just tell them that you want to try something different. S/he’d appreciate your honesty a lot more than if you just show up at the salon to see someone else.

Remember, no matter how long you’ve been with your stylist or how close you are, you are still paying for a service (and usually, you’re paying a lot!). If you went to a restaurant and ordered lobster but received catfish, you would obviously tell the waiter that you want what you ordered! Same goes for your hair. Don’t just settle for the status quo. There are plenty of fish in the sea. *Insert cliché phrase about breakups here*

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