And here is after 30 days of using Rimmel London Lash Accelerator mascara:

Please note that in the second picture I’m wearing some mascara still (though much has been rubbed off by this point), so the darkness of my lashes is not natural.

In my opinion my eyelashes do look a smidge longer, but not a ton. Also, I can’t help but notice that my left eye (so the eye on the right side of the picture) seems to have way more eyelashes in both pictures. What is that about?!

Have you tried LAsh Accelerator Mascara, or any other lash extending mascaras or even Latisse? What did you think? What is everyone’s thoughts on this sudden flurry in the marketplace to make products that extend our actual lashes?

Photo Courtesy of Rimmel London

Rimmel has a new covergirl, Zooey Deschanel! I love her, she is utterly adorable. Anyway she and her glorious lashes star in the new ads for Rimmel London’s Lash Accelerator Mascara, which I’m reviewing in this post. But seriously, she’s to die for, did you see “500 Days of Summer?” Great movie.

Rimmel’s newest mascara purportedly makes your lashes 80% longer instantly and your lashes appear longer by 117% (an odd percentage me thinks) after 30 days of continual use. It comes in black and brown and is in a spiffy black tube with a bright yellow-goldy cap.

I used my mascara for 30 days and while I liked it, I’m not sure it made my lashes a 117% longer. I think they did become some longer, but maybe not that much (also it’s hard to fairly judge, I mean I don’t normally try to measure my eyelashes so I don’t have the best sense of how long they normally are). I did take a picture of my eyelashes with and without mascara the first day of the 30 days of use, but since I need to post a new one for comparison, and I am ill and inconceivably ugly right now, I think that will have to wait until at least tomorrow.

Cut me some slack, I'm sick! Here's a pic of the Lash Accelerator and it's wand, ignore my sickly sweatshirt attire and chipped nails.

I love the brush on the Lash Accelerator mascara, it applied evenly and wasn’t clumpy, I used black which was very dramatic with my skin tone (personally I prefer to wear brown mascara but I’ll take whatever free mascara I’m given). It’s fairly short bristled and is slightly diamond-shaped, the bristles get longer at a little higher than the center of the brush.

It definitely made my lashes look longer instantly, which I loved, but on the down side at the end of the day I did find that it smudged beneath my eyes quite a bit. Maybe I put too much on? I like to put several coats of mascara no matter what kind/brand I’m wearing, I’m just a mascara-crazy kind of gal.

The real question here is would I recommend this mascara and I say yes. Tomorrow I’ll post my 1st day of use picture and a new picture of my lashes for comparison, but let me just say that I don’t think you should expect a huge crazy difference in eyelash length when buying this product. BUT, it will make your lashes *look* longer and goes on smoothly, just make sure you check for smudges periodically throughout the day.

So, I present to you my foundation review, split into to two test videos (one just wearing it for long amounts of time at work, the other wearing it through my very sweaty workout session) and a sort of summary of my feelings on the foundation video.

And you guys better appreciate the working out video especially, I sweat for you!

Summary of Foundation

Pros:

Nice creamy texture, very easy to blend in

Doesn’t cause dryness or breakout my skin

Medium coverage

Ivory matches my skin tone

Doesn’t transfer to my clothing when changing

Removed easily with my face wash

Stands up to my super sweaty workout!

Stands up well to my long, stressful work nights. Very little transfer when I dabbed my face with a napkin

Available at most stores and drugstores where you buy makeup

Cons:

Gushes out of bottle if stores upright

‘Window” on bottle makes color look darker than it is

Rubbed off onto my hot phone screen after talking on phone for an hour

Only 11 shades available

And now for a music video that is not only cute, but is one of my favorite songs and has an on theme title, “Foundations” by Kate Nash! Enjoy her adorableness and British accent, which is soooo Rimmel London appropriate.

J. Crew Fall Lookbook 2010

Whoever makes the J. Crew lookbooks is the DEVIL because they’re tempting me something awful. Seriously, I love every single look in their Fall  2010 Lookbook. And J. Crew is kind of out of my price range. Well, maybe I could buy one shirt or something on clearance, but everything else is pretty much out of my price range. Also, I’d probably need a stylist to help me dress in J. Crew to get the look right, I feel like I’m not very good at putting their pieces together. I guess I need to print out their lookbook as a map or something, but every time I go in there I feel a little boggled and poor. And also stared at by their predominantly older staff. Thus I own no J. Crew. I would like to, oh I would like to, it just hasn’t happened for me.  Anyway…

J. Crew Fall 2010 Lookbook

J Crew Fall 2010 Lookbook

As you can see, the styling in the lookbook is impeccable, not to mention the model’s hair is awesome! I love the pale, pale blonde with the one barely there pastel stripe (you can see it in her bangs in the top picture). I want pastel hair! So badly…but I’m trying to resist right now since my hair is already damaged enough from all the bad I put it through. Hush hair, hush. Go back to sleep, I wasn’t talking about you…yes there, there, tuck behind my ear, there’s a good hair…

Now that is dapper.

J. Crew is also one of the best choices for a modern fitting men’s suits. Sure, most of the suits are in the bridal section of the J. Crew site, but that shouldn’t stop guys from buying a sharp-looking suit from there whether they’re heading down the aisle or just down to the (slightly fancy) office.

Unlike Rent-A-Tux places, who measure men and then seem to plot how to make them look as unattractive as possible for whatever event they’re attending that requires copious picture-taking, J. Crew’s suits don’t billow around the body and legs like sails on a stormy sea. J. Crew suits have a fashion forward slim cut to the jackets, and oh-so-importantly, slim cut pants to match.

Notice the straight cut thigh and tapered leg. That, sir, is flattering. No fattening, hideous pleats here.

Actually, everything J. Crew makes for weddings is adorable and elegant. Especially the brides and bridesmaid dress. Honestly, if anyone is getting married they definitely should check out the wedding section of the Website. Your bridesmaids will thank you.

Note: In no way am I affiliated with J. Crew. This is just my own opinion, they didn’t give me money to gush over them. I wish they did though, because it would still be sincere and then maybe I could actually afford to shop there!

No offense to JT and his cronies, but I don’t have too high of hopes for this collection. It may be because I associate Justin too strongly with his *NSYNC days, my childhood best friend had three walls of her room devoted to pictures of the band (the fourth wall was “Dawson’s Creek”) and I found their staring eyes rather off-putting, as well as their taste questionable.

Do these look like men you want to take fashion advice from?

Hopefully we’ll get a look book released soon as well as some price points so we can all make a more informed decisions as to whether this will be a knocking-down-the-doors-of-Target kind of collection or a wait-till-it’s-all-on-clearance-in-a-month/never mind collection.

Worst.Tagline.EVER.

Before going to this movie I knew three things:
1. My friend wanted to see it
2. Someone died in it
And, most importantly, 3. Zac Efron, sweet, sweet, hottie pants Zac Efron, was in it.

Clearly the last factor is what they’re counting on to get people in the theater. The poster might as well just say “Hai guys! ZAC EFRON IS IN THIS! Oh and there’s also a dock and a sunset, and wouldn’t YOU like to see Zac Efron at sunset?”

So, what I’m getting at here is don’t go see “Charlie St. Cloud.” It is awful, unbelievably awful. Terrible acting (though Zac was probably the best of the whole bunch), terrible dialogue ( Zac’s character is constantly saying the name of whoever he’s speaking to in every sentence, which becomes hilarious in its absurdness after a while) and a really, really terrible story.

Gahhhhzing! You have officially been hottened and bothered. Picture courtesy of JustJared.com

Basically a hot teenager, Charlie, has an eleven-year-old brother who he’s really tight with named Sam. Oh and he has a little boat, there’s loads of sailing and sailing related stuff in this movie, Charlie even has a sailing scholarship to Stanford. To cut to the chase, Sam dies in a car accident and Charlie was the one driving, though it’s not really Charlie’s fault. Then Charlie starts to see the ghost of Sam. Charlie’s life then kind of goes to crap because he can’t leave town because he has to meet his dead brother every night at sundown (per an agreement from when he was alive), and for some reason Charlie decides to work at the graveyard. Because that certainly will cheer up a grieving boy.

Ah yes, quality time with your dead brother. Because that isn't kind of creepy at all. Picture courtesy of disneydreaming.com

I don’t even want to go into the rest of this awful movie, but suffice to say Charlie sees more ghosts than just his brother and starts to like a girl, which causes tension between him and the dead brother. This movie is insane in its complete disregard for a sensical plotline or any kind of believability and is unintentionally hilarious much of the time. But, most damning of all, it features far too little Zac Efron without a shirt! How dare they reel me in with that pretty boy face of his and give me so little shirtless time! But I’m not as cruel (or as stupid) as that movie dear reader, so here, my gift to you. May you enjoy it for many years to come.

The movie would have been vastly improved if he had just looked like this the whole time. And no one spoke. Yeah, it would've been way better. Picture courtesy of GossipBeast.com

Blonde hair tends to get brassy the longer you go between dye jobs/refreshing your color, which is really annoying when you’re fair-skinned like me and look horrible in brassy tones or just happen to want icy, platinum blonde hair. So here’s my tip on staying brassless on the cheap and easy:

Born Blonde Semi-Permanent Toner by Clairol. It’s available at Sally’s Beauty Supply, costs $10.99 and will last you quite a long time. It’s available in eight different shades, so you can choose what subtle shade of blonde you would like. I personally use Innocent Ivory, for very light cool toned blonde hair and if you are close to a white blonde color I would recommend you use that shade as well.

The first thing I like about this toner is that it actually works! I see definite results in my hair whenever I use it and I like those results. I looks less brassy every time I use it. My hair has been put through torture by all my dyeing and bleaching at this point, and for it to look as nice as it does is largely due to the toner.

Draco most definitely is using a toner on the regular. I mean, look at that hair, it is icy perfection!

Secondly, I just combine some of the toner, which has a nice slightly creamy consistency, with my conditioner whenever I wash my hair, leave it and the conditioner on for a few minutes, and rinse it out. This makes for an incredibly easy process as well as I can combine it with which ever conditioner I happen to be using that day. And, if you feel you need a more intense tone up, than you can put it in your hair all by itself and leave it on up to about 30 minutes. Be careful how long you leave the toner on though, do spot checks to see how it’s turning out after it’s been on longer than ten minutes because depending on your hair condition and color if you leave the toner on too long your hair can take a little too much of the toner’s color and you might get a slightly violet cast to your hair until you’ve washed it out a few times.

Ad for John Frieda's Color Renew shampoo and conditioner. Picture courtesy of John Frieda.

Now, you could of course buy a shampoo and conditioner that will keep the brass away, John Frieda offers a drug store version of this called Color Renew and there are a few brands at Sally’s Beauty Supply that do this as well, but from my experience I’ve found just using the toner itself works better. Not to mention I don’t have to ditch my favorite shampoos and conditioners just because it wasn’t made specifically for blondes every time I go back to the hair color Motherland.

Do you have any tips on keeping your blonde hair looking fresh?

HAIR!

I just liked how vibrant these wigs look, thus I'm including this mildly related photo. But I might get to style wigs someday, I mean someone has to do that!

That’s right, I’m going to be a hair stylist. I love changing my hair color and style, as well as just discussing hair with people. I always have.

“But Lana,” you might say, “you have a journalism degree!” I’m glad you brought that up dear friend. When I got my journalism degree (just for reference I graduated in May of 2009) I had an emphasis on magazine writing. Sadly in the last couple of years my favorite magazines, the magazines I named when asked who I would like to write for (Jane and Domino), have closed down. But, all the hair magazines I love are still around, and I think they would be so much fun to write for!

So, what I’m saying is if I get training in hair I will have even better credentials for someday writing for a hair magazine or hair-centric Websites such as ModernSalon.com or BehindTheChair.com. Thus I will still be using my degree, I still get to write and my parents won’t be angry they paid for all those years of college.

I prefer the UK hair magazines like this one, the aptly named HAIR. Image courtesy of ukmagz.co.uk

Not to mention I would love to become talented enough to do hair for magazine shoots as well, which would  be just another way for me staying in touch with my magazine side.

Also, working in hair can get me working on film sets and TV shows and theater productions as well! How much fun would that be?! Not only would you get to do some extra awesome hair, you’d get to be on-set and visit the costume department and collaborate on looks with them as well as just get to watch the general production stuff. It’d be super sweet.

Basically, all of the things I enjoy can be connected through doing hair! I just have to learn how to do hair, which is why I want to go to the Vidal Sassoon Academy. Vidal Sassoon Academies are considered the Harvard of hair schools, tip-top of the line. I was always a little disappointed with myself that I chickened out and never applied to any Ivy League colleges for my degree, I was too scared of not getting accepted. I was a wuss and should have had more faith in myself and tried. I’m not saying I would’ve gotten in anywhere, but I should have at least tried. So here’s my chance to go Ivy League, but for hair instead of my Bachelors!

Vidal Sassoon working on Mia Farrow's famous Sassoon cut. I always thought this was such a cute look!

Thus, my next step in life is to visit the Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica and take a tour, maybe tour a few other hair schools like Paul Mitchell and Toni & Guy while I’m there, and just continue to save up money for going to school. Much like Harvard, Sassoon is very expensive. Like $20,000+ expensive. And I’m not that rich (yet). Not to mention I need to stockpile money for rent and to live off of since I won’t have time to work. I’m probably going to have to get a loan. *Sad face* Got to spend money to make money/go to school where you want, I guess?

THIS IS HILARIOUS. You will die laughing.

Pizza day was the best wasn’t it? This is a really fun, energetic cover of “Pizza Day” by The Aquabats, a song all about celebrating the one good day of school lunches. Also, there’s a melodica (the keyboard/flute-esque instrument)!

Baby Sea Otters: they will overdose you with their radiating waves of cute.

A very, very funny short. I want a future house!

This song will stick with you, it’s infectious!

These capes are awesome, wintertime or not. We should make tons of them, and we could call our gathering while making them “The Great Caper!” I’m just throwing that out there, I mean I could make one all by my lonesome too, but why would you want that when you could get a cape, quality time with me, as well as getting to say the awesome name for the event if you participate?

Today I want to talk about things I like, because I know allllllll about that subject.

Picture courtesy of Nordstroms

I like Harajuku Lovers jewelry! I only found out they even made jewelry last week, but let me tell you, this stuff is awesome and crazy. It’s crawesome! The stuff is seriously over the top and really wild and I have to have it! I love Gwen Stefani, I love her music, I love her high-end clothing line L.A.M.B., and I love her style, so it’s no wonder I love this stuff too!

The best part is I found quite a bit of it on sale at Dillard’s and Macy’s. I bought a bracelet and a pair of earrings at Dillard’s. You just have to dig around in all the clearance to find the good stuff.

You can also find some pretty good deals on eBay and Zappos.com has some of the pieces on sale as well.

I like that Macy’s is having a sale starting on July 21st and going through July 25th! You either need a coupon or a Macy’s card to get the discounts which is a whopping 20% off apparel, jewelry and some discounts on other stuff as well.

Obviously there are some restrictions, but the best part is this sale INCLUDES items already on sale and clearance! Which means I am gonna be buying some awesome Harajuku Lovers jewelry on clearance and then getting an extra discount as well!

I also found out that you can buy stuff now with your coupon/card on “pre-sale,” but you have to leave it at the store until Wednesday when the sale actually starts. So if you’re worried something is going to sell out you can buy it today and just pick it up Wednesday! I live only about ten minutes from Macy’s so that’s not a big deal for me, so I will be popping in tomorrow to secure my Harajuku baubles.

Netflix. There really isn’t anything better. If you aren’t subscribed already you should be. I pay $9.95 a month for one disc out at a time and get as much of their streaming content as I want. And while just the disc with no due date would probably be worth it all on its own, the fact you can watch tons of shows and movies instantly on Netflix streaming makes it an incredible deal.

I have my Netflix account hooked up through my Wii (which is hooked up to my WiFi) and watch stuff whenever I feel like it on my big screen TV in the living room. It is the best $10 a month I spend! You can also watch the streaming stuff on your computer if you don’t have a Wii or Xbox with a WiFi connection to hook it up through.

I just started watching “Dr. Who” from it’s 2005 reboot (on Netflix streaming I might add). It’s pretty silly but I enjoy it, it’s not high brow stuff or anything but it has a high entertainment factor. I’ve never watched any of the old “Dr. Who” seasons (I’m not old or British for heavens sake!), so I don’t really have a sense of nostalgia or tradition about the show, but yeah, it’s pretty sweet. Also, good news is it doesn’t expect you to already know anything about it, it slips the background information into the show for all the noobs.

Ok, I know I just told you about a show, but this one is HILARIOUS. Sadly there’s only one season of it, but it’s all on YouTube! The clip above is the beginning of the first episode, so just go from there (all of the show is uploaded by the same user who uploaded the clip embedded above) and thank me later.

Also, how kick ass is that theme song? I can’t get it out of my head since I started watching this show last week!

“Time to watch Cloooonnneee Hiiiiiiggggghhhhh!”

I’m adding this here at the end partly because of the perfectitude of the title for this post and partly because I kind of like it. Listen! It’s not *that* bad! DON’T JUDGE ME!

(Side note, Enrique is still looking pretty foxy, no? The video to this though is pointless, unless you want to see girls in their underwear hitting each other with pillows, then this video has oh so much point for you)

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