A Letter To My Ex Friend

I've thought about you a lot over the last 5+ years and how we never got the closure either of us needed (or so I assume). What better way to do that than to write you a letter. This isn't a letter to any of my old friends that had a definite ending. We both know why those friendships ended and somehow, in each of our heads the scenarios are probably askew. This is to my beloved friends that never truly had an ending or if we ended on some odd note, my 18-year-old self didn't have the maturity nor the capability to say the things I felt about you.

So without further or due, A Letter To My Ex;

Dear Ex, 

....How are you? I would say that I miss you but in reality, I don't know you anymore. It's hard for me to have come to that realization and some days I don't like to believe that it's true. I miss the people whom I assumed we would become together. There are days where something reminds me of the people we used to be and it takes all my might not to shoot you a call or a text to tell you. I wonder if things remind you of us too or if I imagined the depth of our friendship in the first place. Far and few between, I dream of you and it feels so real that it has my head fucked the entire day. Either way, you meant a lot to me and in some fucked up way, our "ending" helped me grow as a person but it is time for me to finally move on.

Adele really hit it on the nail when she wrote the song "Hello". Every time that song plays I think of you and wonder....Who are you now? Are you the person that I hoped you would become? Are you happy and fulfilled? Do you enjoy where you are at in life, or are you wishing something/someone would help push you along? Do you think of me too? I have so many questions about your current life that I know I'll never be apart of. 

Freshman year was a rough time in college for everyone. We have all this new found freedom, confused about who we are vs. who we want to be, and yet we are constantly pretending to have all of our shit together. It was a pretty screwed up year for the both of us. I needed you and yet for some reason I either didn't have the emotional maturity to tell you this, or you just didn't care. Things ended pretty abruptly in my opinion. We went from talking almost every single day since middle school until it slowed down and came to a complete stop. I suppose in any type of relationship that happens and you have to find a common ground to over come it and know that just because we weren't talking everyday doesn't mean we didn't love each other. One text from you was all it took to shatter the years of friendship we built up and essentially break my heart. We went our separate ways....tried to figure out who we were supposed to become without each other. I thought you were my true soulmate, through thick and thin. We still talked on rare occasion and even saw each other a few times before our breakup was permanent. Maybe we thought that would ease the pain, or maybe we didn't notice that our time together was coming to an end. Either way, it never made it hurt any less. 

To this day, I'm not really sure how things ended up this way. To be honest, I felt like I was always the one trying to find the work around to make our get togethers possible. When I stopped trying to make things work, you didn't even attempt to put forth effort. I guess for me that was enough to show me you didn't care as much as I hoped you did. There are days I drive myself crazy asking why you didn't care enough, begging for a definite answer. Was it something I said or didn't say or was the love I thought we had all in my head? Those are the worst days.... where I sit and look you up on every single social media site possible. I scroll through past tweets, or pictures and tell myself you're doing just fine. I'm tired of this sick game I play in my head and want it to come to an end. I guess that's where this letter comes in. 

I loved you in the hardest way I ever could have at 18-years-old. But I have to remember that, and so do you. LOVED not LOVE. I'm in love with the memories we shared, and I'm in love with who I thought you and I would become. It's okay for me to love the memories, and it's okay for me to be in love with who we were at 18, but I am not in love with you anymore. How can I be? I don't have the slightest clue of the person you've become. More importantly, I figured out who I want to be and who I am supposed to be without you. That was something I would have never excepted I'd have to do. Maybe our personalities would clash, maybe we could get along or maybe we would have absolutely nothing in common except for our past. We can't live our lives together now based off of reminiscing. 

I might still think of you from time-to-time and I will always wish you the best in life. I write this hoping one day it finds you and you will feel the same. I hope our chapter can finally come to a complete close instead of one page left with a bunny ear on it, begging to be opened up again. I know it sounds so cliche but I just hope that you are happy. I'm sad I'm not apart of your life anymore, and I'm sure no matter where you are at in life that I will always be proud of the person you've become. I hope when you think of me you think of all those summer nights we shared together pretending we were invincible and smile. Even though we are apart, our memories will be forever. Eighteen was good to us. 

Best Wishes, 

Stacey

LICE: How to get rid of it

Hello loves!

It's been over a year since I have posted, but I've been keeping up on my YouTube videos. (Go check them out!) I wanted to write a blog post about why I didn't post a video last week. And I am also hoping to start posting on here one to four times a month about things that are more DIY and life related instead of them directly corresponding with my YouTube channel. Today, I want to get down to the nitty [literally] gritty and talk about something we all think is fucking disgusting. That thing my friends is LICE. If you have children, or you're around children most of the day. You're probably going to come into contact with it at some point.

As a little back story, two weeks ago my step-daughter and I were in the car. She was wearing a hat and said her head was itchy. My response was, "Okay... so scratch it?" End of story. Later that night I started to really think about it. Here is essentially the conversation I had in my head...

"Evee said her head was itchy... maybe I should check for lice?" "You don't need to check for lice. The school would notify us if lice was going around." "Yeah.. when you were in elementary school the nurse came around to all the classes and checked every single kid for lice." "You're good... nothing to worry about people."

Call it mother's instinct or what-have-you.. but when her mom called a week later and said she had something to tell us, I knew what she was about to say and I was pissed that I didn't check her when the thought crossed my mind. PISSED. Obviously hubby and I immediately checked each other and lo and behold... I fucking had it. DOUBLE PISSED.  Apparently it had been going around school. Evee's classroom was ground zero...the place where it all started. Apparently this is something they were talking about in class once the news came out that someone had it. The school office had letters printed out ready for each class to tell them it was going around. OUR TEACHER DID NOT SEND OUT THE LETTER TO THE STUDENTS' PARENTS BECAUSE SHE DID NOT WANT THE INITIAL STUDENT THAT INITIALLY HAD IT TO BE EMBARRASSED. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! There was a call the next day to the principal about how this situation was not handled in a tactful manner. 

LICE: any small, wingless insect of the order Anoplura (sucking louse)parasitic on humans and other mammals and having mouth parts adapted for sucking, as Pediculus humanus (body louse or headlouse) and Phthirius pubis (crab louse or pubic louse)

AKA hard as fuck to see because they are teeny tiny and brown. 

NITS: the egg of a parasitic insect, especially of a louse, often attached to a hair or a fiber of clothing.

AKA the biggest assholes because lice shampoo does NOT work on them. 

I have bugs in my hair. Fucking great..

Hubby kindly went to the store to get two lice kits. One for me, and one for him just to be safe. This man is a goddamn warrior. I sat there and cried about it while he washed my hair with the dreadful shampoo. Then we sat in the empty bathtub while he went through my hair strand by strand for 2 hours pulling the nits out of my hair. Then we swapped. He didn't have any nits but when in doubt, pull it out. But be warned, these fuckers are fierce. They can hold their breath for up to 8 hours and some are resistant to lice shampoo.

 1 week later and I am 100% lice free. 


Without further or due, here are my 9 commandments for what to do if you and/or your child has lice.

1.  Lice shampoo, and a nice friend, family member, or S.O. to pick the damn things out of your hair.
2.  Blow dry and straighten your hair EVERY DAY. Terrible for your hair? Yes, but the lice and lice eggs cannot live in extreme heat or cold. Thank you 410 degree CHI straightener for being a boss ass bitch. 
3. WASH EVERYTHING. Strip your bedding, your clothes, your pillows, and spray your bed with lice spray, your car seats, fucking EVERYTHING. My washer and dryer both have a "sanitize" setting so I put everything I thought I could have touched on that cycle. Then we slept on the bare necessities and everything else that was officially clean and lice free went into the guest bedroom where no one was allowed to enter.
4.  Wear your hair up. Please. This is mainly to protect other people and things from coming into contact with your hair. Don't be dumb here people. Wearing your hair down with lice is just a little reckless. Someone goes in for a hug, what do you do? Tell them you can't because you have lice and now you're embarrassed or do you just hug them and hope for the best? You're probably going to hug that person and not think twice about it. Now your hair is touching someone else's hair and you've just exposed that person to the little shits sucking on your scalp. Sharing is isn't always caring.
5.  Anything you can't put in the dryer, freeze it for 12 hours. If you're questioning it, throw it out. It's just stuff. You can always get another one (Shout out to 5 Below for all the cheap hair accessories. You are a life and money saver).
6. Comb through your hair with one of those tiny metal combs EVERY DAMN DAY and also have someone else look through your hair for any nits that were left behind. For me, hubby checked the go-to zones for lice and nits to hide because these were the only places that I really had it. [behind the ears, and from the crown of your head down to your neck]
7. When it doubt, pull it out (this saying could go for a few other things as well...ha). This lice shampoo can really damage your scalp. The amount of dry skin I have on my scalp currently is outrageous, so don't be alarmed if your head is still itching after the lice is gone. The bottle literally says "may make head itchy" (isn't this what we are trying to stop...). If you're questioning something you see in your hair, get it out... Just in case. 
8. Always do the second recommended treatment. I read a couple of posts saying not to do this but a nit takes 7-10 days to turn into lice. If you missed a nit, you're fucked. It might hurt your scalp a bit putting another round of these harsh chemicals on it, but do you really want to wake up a week from now realizing you missed one and have to do it all over again? Probably not. 
9.  If you're really paranoid like me... schedule a hair appointment and ask your hair dresser to scope out your hair for one last look through.

Hopefully you never find yourself in this situation but if you do, you can always come back to this post for all my tips on how to kill the little fuckers. 

Comment down below if you've ever had to deal with this and what worked for you. 

XO - Stacey

Pur Big Blink Mascara Review

Hello Beauties!

I have a super awesome mascara that I'm really loving lately! It's more of a combination, but the new mascara that I am using is the Pur Big Blink by Pur Minerals has argan oil in it, which if you haven't seen my last blogpost, I SWEAR by argan oil on eyelashes.

I believe you can get this mascara at Ulta or at the pur minerals website(Here). I really enjoy the brush on it and the formula of it. It is more on the wet side when it comes to formula. The brush is a thicker rubber brush. It is around $20 and worth it in my opinion.

About Pur Minerals: Basically they are free of parabens, SLS, Lanolin, mineral oil, Petroleum, DEA, Formaldehyde, or hydroquinone. The make up is supposed to be known for having good ingredients in it and it's supposed to be good for your skin... blah blah blah... however,  I really just wanted to try some new mascara.

Here's the combo I've been doing...

Step 1: Curl Eyelashes with Tweezerman Eyelash Curler
Step 2. Use a THIN coat of Maybeliene Great Lash in Waterproof (this makes it so that super straight eyelashes will curl)
Step 3: Use Pur Big Blink.

That's it! I am loving this mascara. I am loving the combination. And I am LOVING the fact that it going into my routine of argan oil. It's a serious must have in my books.

However, we all know mascara is one of those things that are extremely objective.. So if you have eyelashes like mine. Try this bad boy out!

XO-Stacey

Eyelash Growth that REALLY WORKS.

Hi loves! I am here to show you some freaking amazing news.

I FINALLY FOUND THE HOLY GRAIL PRODUCT TO MAKE MY EYELASHES GROW.

Seriously.. The proof is in the pictures and the compliments I receive on my eyelashes.

I know we are told that there is no sure way to make our eyelashes grow. I understand that. However, I have a way that keeps them conditioned and nice looking, which in turn makes your eyelashes grow. Now I can't tell you this will work for everyone, this is the only product that has ever worked on my eyelashes without going the route of Latisse. I thought about getting prescribed to latisse, but decided the side effects were too extreme for me and wanted to find a more natural route. I ended up finding a 100% all natural route.

I have tried so many different products and haven't found one that worked well until now. I've tried the rapid lash, the Tarte eyelash growth, the peter thomas roth one, the loreal one, and even tried the Vaseline trick. None of it worked very well. The thing with those products that people don't understand is that they don't have any natural oils that will help your eyelashes grow/nourish them. They state on the packaging that it helps keep your eyelashes from falling out as quickly. Your eyelashes have a 3 month cycle. A growing period, a falling out period, and a stand-still period. The falling out period, is a natural state of your eyelashes. Regrowth is pushing it's way through forcing old eyelashes out. This stage of our eyelashes sucks.. It kind of makes them look a bit thinner than usual. Our eyelashes look best during the stand still period. There is no way to change this cycle. It happens.

Now, every single night, and sometimes in the morning too, I put 100% pure argan oil on a clean, disposable mascara wand and I run it through my eyelashes just like I would a mascara. Top and bottom. I also do both sides of my top eyelashes so that way I get more product on them. I like the Josie Maran Argan Oil. She also has a light version of it too. I just get the BTG size from Sephora. It's $14 and should last a LONG time. I have been using a sample of the oil for a month and decided I had to buy it.

Here's the pictures to prove it. This is my eyelashes before I started using it. You can tell I have a lot of bald spots from my very annoying habit of pulling my eyelashes out when I am stressed out...

And these bad boys are my eyelashes now. WITH NO MASCARA on them. Isn't that awesome?! They are so much fuller and nicer and I have not been happier. I spent almost three months trying to get these bad boys to grow back from pulling them out, and had no luck except for the teeny short sparse eyelashes that you can see growing in the picture above. I used the argan oil for 1 month and my eyelashes are greater than they have ever been.

I'm hoping you can also tell the difference. In one month, my bald spots have finally started to grow in! there;s still a little bit of thinness to them, but it's better than in the very first eyelash picture.
I have never been more excited and I don't think I will ever use anything else on my eyelashes. My sister, and customers at my job are always asking what mascara I am using. I tell them it's the argan oil and they want to try it too! I'm hoping my sister has just as much luck with it as I did. If you have tried this method, let me know what you think? I really do hope you test it out. The proof is in the pictures. It's wonderful.

XO-Stacey

Heatless Hair Hunt... Failure

Hi loves! I am again on the hunt for some heatless hairstyles. Mostly curls. I love curling my hair. I watched a great tutorial the other night and did what it said. I failed... But I am determined to make it work! I watched this tutorial and figured I could easily do the same.

Here is where I went wrong..
1. I have much thicker hair then this lovely lady... so I needed more curlers.
2. I'm pretty sure I curled too tight
3. I'm also sure I curled too close to the root.

If you didn't check out StilaBabe09's hair tutorial, it's a heatless hair style using the conair spiral rollers. I got mine from target for... $14 however you can get there online here for $10.

Here is what the rollers look like.

I did as the tutorial said... I washed my hair, put my favorite hair products in and began to wrap.
I think it might be a little bit more helpful for me if I dry my hair halfway/let it air dry halfway before wrapping my hair. That's the new step that I will try out tonight.

If you watched the tutorial followed, then you'll see that mine are much more tightly wrapped as well.

Lastly... here is the unfortunate event that we call my hairstyle for work today.

Thankfully, I just threw it in a bun on top of my head and hoped for the best in that scenario. Clearly, my face in these pictures show that this is NOT how I hoped my hair would turn out. I'm pretty sure I look like I came straight out of the 80's with the horrific perms they used to do. I'm pretty sure if I put a pictures of my mom from the 80's and this picture above right next to each other you would think we had our hair done in the same era.

Womp Womp. If any of you heatless hair lovers can tell me a different way to wrap my hair to make these work... I WOULD LOVE YOU FOREVER. Seriously. I want these to work so bad. I never straighten my hair because it is just way too damaging. But I ALWAYS curl it or it's in some wild bun on the top of my head. Which isn't exactly the most professional look for my job. So I need to cut that out.

HELP!

XO-Stacey

Clarisonic Mia 2 Review

Hello loves, I know what you're thinking, another review and so soon?! YES! It is! I've been working on this one for awhile, even though I know that there are tons a videos and blog posts about the Clarisonic Mia 2. I still wanted to tell you what I think about it.

Let us back track a bit. So I got the Mia 2 as a gift.. sort of... from my boyfriend. Actually, I was thinking about buying one, but they are so gosh darn expensive. I found one on Ebay up for bid starting at like $40 and gave myself a limit for $75. I know what you're thinking... Ew off of Ebay was it used?! And no it wasn't. It was still in it's originally packaging never opened, never charged, nothing. (Even if you can find a cheap used one that works... GET IT. Just go out and get yourself a new brush head. Good as new) Anyways.. I started bidding... and ended up getting it for $70. Which is a great deal considering that it is more than 50% off. Once I told my boyfriend about it he said... well then... that can be my anniversary present to you. (we decided on no presents this year) Thanks babe...?

Anyways, I received it like 3 days later. Let me tell you how awesome my skin is now. I have a lot of redness on my chin from acne scarring, and acne in general. It seems that because I am so fair skinned, if I get a pimple the redness stays on my skin for what seems like forever. Now, I feel 100% confident going out without any makeup on my face. I don't wear a ton of face makeup as it is, but it is seriously amazing. With anything skin care, you are supposed to give it approximately 2 weeks to a month, to be able to see any benefits. The first time I used my Mia 2, my skin felt so much cleaner. It was such an odd feeling for the first couple days. My skin broke out a little bit from it not being used to the brush, but cleared up fairly quickly. I notice that I'm having less breakouts than usual. I only get hormonal break outs on my chin, but it used to be when I did, they were big and angry and red and there would be 3-5 zits that would pop up randomly one day (oh the joys of PMS). Now I'm down to like 1 - 2 a month so that's pretty awesome! The redness in my skin is dulling down a bit too which I'm loving.

More about the product: If you have ever looked into a Clarisonic, then you know they always show a picture of skin that has been cleaned with hands, and skin that has been cleaned with a clarisonic. To me, the picture was never convincing. Not until I actually purchased one, did I believe it. A really good way to look at it though, is in terms of money. When cleaning your face with your hands, and then putting your serums, eye creams, and moisturizers on afterwards, you are only getting about 40% of the benefits of those products. So it dollar form... if you purchase an eye cream that is $100.. you are only receiving about $40 of that product. With the Clarisonic in conjunction with your other face products, you will get the full benefit. I honestly think that this is very true.

When I'm working on clients, a lot of them say that they own a Clarisonic. I have never had a client tell me that they didn't like it. Every person I have talked to has given me the same exact speech. "I haven't used mine in awhile, but I need to because I can already tell my skin isn't looking how it generally does when I use it" or something along those lines. And I can 100% agree with this statement. If I skip a day using my Clarisonic.. which happens from time-to-time (I'm lazy..), I will immediately break out. And the moment I use it again, it will clear up within a couple days. That's crazy right?!

I have the white Mia 2. But there are tons of colors. You can purchase them at dermatologists, Sephora, Ulta, and I'm sure a few others. The Mia is $125. The Mia 2is $150 and The Aria is $200. My district manager says that if someone is just starting out in the world of clarisonic to get a Mia. It has one speed. Then as time goes on, you can upgrade. Honestly, I would have been okay with just the Mia, but you can get some really cool bonus packs at Sephora with the Mia 2. I think right now for Giftopia they are doing a Mia 2 that comes with a bunch of other face products(cleansers, masks, moisturizers) for $150. Or you could just go to Ebay, and take a look.

If you have a Clarisonic -- comment below to tell others what you think about it? If you don't have one, do you think it is all a gimmick?

XO-Stacey

Buxom Eyeliner Review

Beauties! It has been quite awhile since I have posted and I am extremely sorry for my absence. I've been in this crazy process of moving and trying to get my new house set up and it's been a stressful mess. Long story short, we were supposed to get new carpet and hardwood installed the day before we moved, but we didn't get it until the same day that we moved in, and of course it rained all day long while we moved. Then the wood for our kitchen/dining room and entry way didn't come in on time (and we are still waiting for it) so the house looks a bit a mess. We also haven't had a day off together in forever so we still have to paint basically every single room. We only have one room in the house completely finished but I've been taking lots of pictures so that way I can post some painting ideas and the before and afters of the rooms, and DIY's for the rooms. It's coming along slowly. Unfortunately, we are kind of at a stand still until we get the hard wood put in, and make it past the Holiday's before any major renovations being taking place.

On to what I actually want to talk about. It seems that the posts I am getting the most feedback from are the ones where I review products. Because of my job, I get and purchase a lot of new products/products I haven't heard much about so I can try them before trying them out on customers.

I've been testing out the Buxom Hold the Line Waterproof Eyeliner(s)for about a month or two, and let me tell you, I have found my new favorite black eyeliner. It is a pencil eyeliner that comes in 8 different shades. I only own the one in Jet Black, however, I have tried about 5 of the other colors and it seems to me that they all perform the same.

The eyeliner is $17 at Sephora and it comes with a pencil sharpener which is always nice. It is paraban free, sulfate free, and phthalate free. It comes in matte, metallic, and sparkling shades. (I have only used the matte and metallic shades) The texture of this eyeliner is so creamy and the pigmentation is awesome. I have no trouble with it staying on my eyes all day long. The product claims "14-hour wear" but I think the wear of a product really depends on the person. It stays in my waterline all day long. I generally only put eyeliner on my upper water line, and I do occasionally see some product transfer onto my lower waterline. This isn't a huge deal to me because that's a hard thing for an eyeliner to accomplish, but it could be a deal breaker for you?

I think that this product is definitely worth a try. Reading the reviews on sephora.com -- it got a 4 out of 5 star rating which is pretty darn good for an eyeliner in my opinion. It looks like many of the people are saying the sparkling eyeliners are giving them troubles, I am also seeing a lot of people complaining about the staying power of any of the eyeliners. I use a primer and have no problems with it smudging. It could be that people aren't using a primer with it, or that these people have oily eyelids. I don't have oily eyelids, so I cannot attest to this issue. If you have oily eyelids and have tried this product let us know in the comments if it worked for you or not?

Here is the eyeliner, and a swatch of the eyeliner... Great pigmentation right?

Here is the eyeliner on my top eyelid and all the way around my waterline.

I love you all much! I hope you liked this review. If you have any requests or specific products you want me to review, just comment or email me or DM me on twitter and I'll do it for you!

XO-Stacey