Natural & Organic Shampoo & Conditioner
{My Natural Hair Series Part 1}

Posted in Hair

I once heard what sounded like some great advice: if you find a shampoo and conditioner you love, try the hair sprays, volumizers and other styling products in the same brand and you’ll probably end up liking them too.

The only problem is that really doesn’t hold true particularly when you hit organic and natural product lines. Worse is that many natural and organic companies that make shampoo and conditioner are very sparse when it comes to styling and finishing options.

And even worse than that, I have issues with anything rose scented and Tim can’t be around me if the rosemary or lavendar is too strong (and rosemary makes my hair look A-Maz-ing! Argh!) I would be using Shea Moisture Organic Raw Shea Butter Moisture Retention Shampoo and their Organic Raw Shea Butter Restorative Conditioner but the rosemary in them gave Tim a headache. :/

So what’s a girl to do when she she has allergies, her significant other has allergies AND she wants to go with a natural product? Research a LOT and try a LOT of products until one clicks.

For reference and for those familiar with the Naturally Curly hair types, I’m either a 2b or a 3a since most of the time the curls don’t go to the crown of my head, sometimes they coil but sometimes they just do a simple “s” and I can also straighten my hair (not pin straight) without too much trouble (unless I go out in the rain.)

So let’s start with the basics, Desert Essence Fragrance Free Shampoo & Conditioner:

Desert Essence Fragrance Free Shampoo | Desert Essence Fragrance Free Conditioner
The shampoo is a 2 with EWGEWG Environmental Working Group - an organization focused on research to make informed choices and live a healthy life in a healthy environment.’s Cosmetic’s Database, and the conditioner is a 3

This is not my be all end all perfect combo but it’s what I can use daily and my hair looks good without killing me or Tim. I do want to try some of the other Desert Essence Shampoos and Conditioners but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet and keep rebuying this one.

What I love about these Desert Essence Fragrance Free products :

It doesn’t weight down my hair.
It doesn’t build up in my hair.
You can use it week after week with the same results instead of feeling like it’s no longer doing it’s job after a few weeks.
I don’t have what I would call “hippy hair” like I have with some other natural shampoos & conditioners (Dr. Bronner’s, I’m sorry, but I’m looking at you.)
“Fragrance Free” is NOT a gimmick and scents are not masked by “light” added fragrances like some other products. There is a light light scent when sniffed directly in the bottle, but that’s really from the product ingredients AND it really does rinse out. I recommend reading over the ingredients to see if there’s anything you know you personally might have a problem with but this is one of the best fragrance free products I’ve found.
It’s a good base for everything else.
No: cones (dimethicone), parabens, phthalates, paraffin, gluten, propylene glycol, mineral oil, synthetic fragrance, animal testing, PABA, synthetic color, DEA, or sulfates

What I don’t like:

I have had better. Namely the St. Ives Hair Repair Conditioner that no longer exists and the Shu Uemura Art of Hair Cleansing Oil Shampoo which is neither natural (close but synthetic fragrance is added) nor cheap at $55 for 400ml (ouch.) Or as I mentioned above, the Shea Moisture Organic Raw Shea Butter Moisture Retention Shampoo and their Organic Raw Shea Butter Restorative Conditioner if you and your significant other isn’t allergic to it (sigh.)

Where I would suggest starting if you don’t already use a natural / organic shampoo, conditioner or other styling products – Shea Moisture kits:

Now that I’ve spent all of this time talking about the Desert Essences Fragrance Free line, I’m going to switch gears. If you are looking for somewhere to start in your journey for natural hair care products, I would highly recommend starting with the Shea Moisture kits. Particularly since I’m going to talk about some of their styling products from these kits that I DO use:

Shea Moisture Organic Curl & Shine Kit Coconut & Hibiscus | Shea Moisture Hair Repair & Transition Kit Raw Shea Butter & Argan Oil

I was able to pick both of these up at my local Walgreens. And don’t worry too much about the fact that they’re in the ethnic hair care section. Unless your hair is super thin and straight, I think at least a couple of products in these kits will work for many different types of hair.

Like the Desert Essence shampoo and conditioner, the Shea Moisture products are also free of: cones (dimethicone), parabens, phthalates, paraffin, gluten, propylene glycol, mineral oil, synthetic fragrance, animal testing, PABA, synthetic color, DEA, or sulfates

If these don’t work for you or you have allergies or scent sensitivities I would move on to the Desert Essence Fragrance Free line.

Some other brands of natural / organic shampoo and conditioner that I’ve tried and thought were ok:

Avalon Organics: The Lavender OR Rosemary shampoos and conditioners I’ve tried and are good. And after I shower they aren’t intense enough to bother Tim. However when compared to the Desert Essence, my hair looks better with the Desert Essence. I haven’t tried the rest of the Avalon Organics line. Rosemary Shampoo is an EWG 4 and Conditioner is an EWG 3
Aubrey Organics: This line is very hit or miss. From my recollection one of my main problems with these was that there was product buildup. I needed to switch back and forth between two shampoos and conditioners to keep certain ones from weighing down my hair and others from stripping too much oil out. Some of these however would be excellent options for the more curly girls out there which is why I’m mentioning it. One of my favorites from their line is actually the Swimmer’s Normalizing Conditioner for Active Lifestyles – it’s a really thick and luxurious conditioner and I didn’t seem to have the same buildup problem with it. I used it for awhile with the Avalon Rosemary Shampoo.

I tried the following were “meh” or didn’t like them:

Burt’s Bees: I wanted so much to love these shampoos and conditioners but they just did not cut it for me. I tried at least two of their shampoos and conditioners and they did nothing good for my hair. I did so just after they came out (mentioning in case they adjusted the formula.)
Nature’s Gate: just meh. Not good, not bad for the hair just … nothing special. A little harsher on the hair than some of the others I’ve mentioned. Also some have parabens and some other ingredients I’m trying to reduce.
Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap: Serious Hippy Hair … ugh. I love this company but I just can’t bring myself to use the castile soap for anything. I tried the castile soap for my hair over a period of three days once and it just never felt clean and wasn’t looking good either. Tangly, ratty, hard to work with and dirty feeling. I really hate having to say this because they do make some good products and I know some people who can and do use the castile soap instead of shampoo but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Do NOT start here and judge natural hair care based on this alone.

Others I haven’t tried but would / should:

Jason Naturals
Alba Botanica / Alba Hawaiian – I’ve tried practically their whole line but not the shampoo and conditioner yet
Say Yes to Carrots

Do YOU have a favorite natural / organic shampoo & conditioner that I haven’t mentioned here that I should try? Have you tried any of the products I mentioned and want to share your thoughts? Feel free to post in the comments below! 🙂

Up Next in { My Natural Hair Series } : Natural / Organic Styling Products I’m currently using

March 29, 2013

Michael Antonio “Jaxine-MET” Silver heel Review

Posted by By Hilary Baumann

Posted in Shoes

Well I did in fact say in my previous post that I have bought the silver Michael Antonio “Jaxine-MET” for $19.99 from 6pm.com.

I think I made a mistake when I purchased these. :/

Starting at the point where I wasn’t even standing up in them and they were already really uncomfortable. And yes, I did also stand up in them. Same problem. They just really don’t fit my foot shape whatsoever. The strap at the toes pinch and just don’t seem to be a position that works well. It looks like maybe if you have longer toes this might not be the case. You can see in the pictures below just home much extra shoe there is beyond my toes. You don’t want toes hanging off the edge but this seems a little too much and my foot is following the other curves of the shoe.

I also don’t like that the gold (which can be seen on the website) is more of a rose gold / copper and wraps around the edge of the shoe. It distracts from the silver and makes them look a bit cheaper in person. If it had been on the footbed only of the Michael Antonio “Jaxine-MET” it would have been better. Then again, that doesn’t really matter as much as the fact that they hurt my feet. the gold really isn’t that bad … probably just me being picky now because the shoe isn’t going to work. :/

The heel of the shoe IS silver (from the photos on 6pm.com I thought there was a chance that the heel was white.) Just thought I should also mention that since it was something I was wondering about when I made my purchase.

And a reminder, if you buy from 6pm.com the shipping to you might be free (and great if you’re sure about the shoe) but you have to pay the return shipping (not great if the shoe doesn’t work out.) Debating at this moment if I spend the money and ship them back or take them to the consignment store and hope someone buys them. Probably pay the shipping and send them back… blah.

Update: It was going to cost me $9 in shipping at it’s cheapest so I’m going to take them to the consignment store. :/

March 24, 2013

Letoile Peep Toe Sling in “Tan” from Payless -Review & Pics

Posted by By Hilary Baumann

Posted in Shoes

The Nude Heel – a wardrobe staple:

The Letoile Peep Toe Sling from Payless are a classic patent leather peeptoe heel. They are a great basic heel to add to your collection. And as far as heels go they’re relatively comfortable. They have enough structure that they aren’t wobbly but they it’s nice that they aren’t platform stripper heels so appropriate for more occasions. The color shown is called “tan” and is a very neutral nude shade.

Nude shoes elongate and flatter almost any woman.

Now don’t shoot me … but the dress and shoe combo shown below is what I expect to wear this summer as a bridesmaid to a wedding. Yes the dress is black. Yes this wedding is near New York. Yes one of the other bridesmaids said she was wearing black. YES! I’m bringing another dress with me just in case. In the “South” (yes, Kentucky sometimes counts) we don’t wear black to weddings. It’s a “black is for funerals” sort of thing so I will NOT risk being the only bridesmaid wearing black. There WILL be a backup dress in case they change their minds.

This is where I also have to admit that since I bought them for an event I have only worn them around the house. They won’t get their first full (or half) day wearing until June. The silver pumps in the last post are actually being bought for the same event. Both shoes I expect to get a lot of use out of afterwards though. At least as far as heels go since I really spend most of my time wearing flats. 🙂

Originally $29.99 they’re on sale for $24.99. If you have one of the 20% Payless coupons (either in an email or from one of their mailers) that brings them to about $20 which is what I picked these up for.

Direct link to the “Letoile Peep Toe Sling” from Payless.com:

http://www.payless.com/store/product/detail.jsp?catId=cat10088&subCatId=cat10270&skuId=129720060&productId=72711&lotId=129720&category=&catdisplayName=Womens

March 23, 2013

High & Low Roundup – Silver Sandals with 4″ heels

Posted by By Hilary Baumann

Posted in Shoes

So we’re going to play a little game called “High & Low Roundup.” This round will be Silver Sandals with 4″ heels. From the photo below can you tell which pair is the $298 pair? And which pair is the look-alike for $19.99 pair? (I photoshopped the logo off the footbeds.) Scroll down for the answer.

Keep scrolling

.
We have the:
Michael Antonio “Jaxine-MET” $19.99 (top shoe with the gold footbed)
&
Elizabeth and James “Toni Slim Sandals” $298.00 (bottom shoe)

I actually ordered the cheaper pair from 6pm.com tonight and will review them when they get in. There are subtle differences in the styles and I actually like a couple of little details on the cheaper pair. The stitching on the more expensive pair probably means they’ll last a little longer though.

**UPDATE** – Related posts

Here’s my review of the Michael Antonio “Jaxine-MET”

And BudgetBabe did a post on similar silver shoes after my post and it can be found here if you’re looking for some more options: http://www.thebudgetbabe.com/archives/5633-The-Look-for-Less-Manolo-Blahnik-Chaos-Sandal.html

March 20, 2013

Easy Easter Nails – 3 options

Posted by By Hilary Baumann

Posted in Nail Polish

I meant to post last year several looks for easy Easter nails but never got around to it. But Easter comes around each year so you could also look at it as well planned for this year. 🙂

Start with a couple of good matte / cream pastel shades:

Your choice of colors can really affect whether these look Easter-y or not so I’ve put together a few options from different nail polish brands. Shown above left to right (what I used): Essie Turquoise & Caicos, Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth, Sinful Colors Orange Cream, Sinful Colors Unicorn, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Wet N’ Wild 210C Tropicalia

Possible Pastel Color Sets:

Sinful Colors pastels set “Sugar Rush” display:

Mint Apple (pastel green, not shown)
Unicorn (pastel yellow)
Orange Cream (pastel orange)
Sweet Tooth (pastel purple)
Sugar Rush (light turquoise)
Cotton Candy (pastel pink)
Sweet Nothing (pastel blue)
Candy Coated (another pastel purple with a hint more blue)
Sugar & Spice (another pastel pink but darker than Cotton Candy)

Essie pastels set:

(I’ll try and go back and take a few more photos of possible Essie colors soon)

Lapiz of luxury (periwinkle / blue purple)
Neo Whimsical (lilac / pinky purple)
Turquoise & Caicos (pastel turquoise)
Tart Deco (pastel orange with a hint of pink)
Check-up (though there are tons of pinks that are possible)

Wet N’ Wild pastels set:

201C Wet Cement
218A I Need a Refresh-Mint
213C On a Trip
208B Through the Grapevine
209C Candy-licious
210C Tropicalia
211B Club Havana

Additional polishes:

Base Coat
Any pure white nail polish (optional – used Sinful Colors “Snow Me White”)
Essie’s “matte about you” top coat (optional)
Your favorite glossy top coat (if no matte coat used)

Keep in mind that if you have trouble combining colors, want a simpler look OR simply want to spend less money on polishes, choose one pastel color and white for your pattern accent.

Option #1 – Your easiest option – Multi-color pastels (Least skill needed):

Just paint each nail a different pastel color. Base coat, multiple colors of nail polish, top coat, done. And if you have it available, I like matte like Essie’s “Matte About You” for the top coat. 🙂

Option #2 – Polka Dots (your second easiest option):

Additional tools needed: Something to make dots with. This can be any of the following:

a hairpin – you’ll need to straighten it some
toothpick – you may have to draw with this if the end is smaller than the dot you want
straight pin (sewing) – inserted in a pencil eraser for better control and so you don’t poke yourself

If you’re expecting perfection you either need a steady hand or maybe try out a stamping tool instead like Konad.

Option #3 – Zig Zag / Chevron (a little bit harder but still easy):

Additional tools needed:

Scotch tape
Zig Zag scissors / Pinking Shears (easily found at most craft or sewing stores)
Regular scissors (small is better in my opinion)
Glossy top coat required

Chevron-Stripes-nail-polish-easy-easter-nails

I have in fact tried the method shown by Birchbox here. When I tried directly on my own nails though, I must not have pressed down on the tape enough because I had nail polish leak under it in places. The only place I had good success with this method the few times I tried it was not on my own hand (on plastic nail trays.)

But I found an even simpler method – we’re going to create our own chevron nail striping tape which is easier to get right as well as creating crisper edges. We want easy Easter nails right?

Chevron Striping Tape Steps:

Paint your scotch tape with several coats of nail polish. Paint a little more tape than you think you will need. Paint and let dry, paint and let dry. Be sure to really let this dry before you move on to the next step. (For informational purposes – mine sat overnight on the tape dispenser because I thought I was going to do my nails yesterday but didn’t.)
.
Cut your tape with the zig zag scissors. This may take a couple of tries to get lined up the way you want so don’t worry if the first piece isn’t what you want on your nails. I used the mug in the photos to hold my tape parts temporarily.
.
Apply the chevron strips to your nails. Use as many or as few as you want (also depending on your nail size.) I didn’t use tweezers but they may help place the tape if you’re having trouble.
.
Trim the excess tape using your small regular scissors. Shown are sewing thread scissors. Cuticle scissors are also small.
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Add a clear top coat or two to seal the tape in place and you’re done!

And there you have it, 3 options for easy Easter Nails!

Update: The chevron tape lasted about 3-4 days before the thinner chevrons started coming off. I’m not sure if it might last longer with an extra top coat or without the matte polish underneath.

March 16, 2013

RSS subscribers – please switch

Posted by By Hilary Baumann

Posted in Clothing

As many of you may already know, Google has decided that they are going to retire Google Reader on July 1, 2013. I am VERY upset about this. It’s been one of my core services since 2007. Something I use daily like email. It has helped me keep up with over 500 websites in a manner that is much simpler than visiting each and every one of them to try and figure out what’s new and what’s not. That said, I suspect that Feedburner will be on the chopping block sooner rather than later.

For those of you who are subscribed via rss (either using Google Reader or another service.) Could you please update your subscription to:

http://clothingcult.com/feed/rss/

If you are one of the 4 subscribers who appear to getting this via email, I’m sorry but I don’t have a replacement for that option at this time. Let me know if you desperately want this and I will see if I can make it happen asap.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you can ignore this post! 🙂
If you are curious why I was using feedburner in the first place:

Years and years ago the best way to handle rss was via feedburner because formatting was tricky and not completely standardized. Feedburner did a good job of correcting minor mistakes and adding in correct code. Years later, google bought feedburner and all was still good and they even added in some features. However since they came out with Google+, Google seems to have gotten it into their heads that rss is dead even though it isn’t (it’s just not as fast growing as it once was.) In September Google removed adsense integration from feedburner and people started to worry that Google is secretly planning on killing feedburner. WordPress has come a long way since then and I have to say, although I like some of the feedburner features, I don’t want to be left high and dry. SO I’m going ahead and switching things back to the WordPress rss feed.

Since I did the initial switcheroo back in 2002 or so, I did not use htaccess to simply redirect to the feedburner link. This means you will need to make this update manually in your rss reader to continue to be subscribed.

If you are looking for another RSS Reader to replace Google Reader:

I’m most likely going to switch to Feedly. If you only read fashion blogs or other picture dense topics, it’s not my cup of tea, but I know many people who love BlogLovin and they also have instructions on moving your feeds: http://blog.bloglovin.com/2013/03/moving-from-google-reader-to-bloglovin/

There are also dozens of articles at this point listing tons of options and alternatives for people to try out, some better than others. None a precise match to Google Reader (though supposedly Digg is working on one.)

I want to publicly say:

Google, you lost some of my trust with this decision to retire a product thousands upon thousands of people were using as a core service. You even said yourself that Google Reader has a loyally following. And it’s a following of many, not just a few. So many that Reader out-trended the Pope on both G+ and Twitter the day it was announced. So many users that it took down many of the competition’s websites when people started frantically looking at their alternatives. I’ve even seen some Google employees mention that they are upset with this decision.

I want to thank the Google Reader team that brought us this wonderful product – a product so good that year later people are still using it and angry that it’s being taken away from them. I know that most of the orignal team no longer works for Google. I also want to thank any Google Reader project manager who has fought to keep Google Reader around because apparently Google has wanted to pull that team off to work on other projects for YEARS.

If you still think we have a shot at keeping Google Reader alive, please go sign the petition here:
https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running

At the time of this post it has over 100,000 signers.

With no peep from Google since the web exploded with the news of Google Reader’s demise, my hopes are not high but I my e-signature is there just in case it does make a difference… Google, your informal corporate moto of “Don’t be evil” isn’t ringing true for me at this moment in time.

And with that, we’ll go back to our regularly scheduled program. Back to fashion, clothes, makeup and skincare.

Don’t worry, I will NOT be turning this into a tech blog!!! This blog has the widest audience and largest subscriber base of all the blogs I run so I thought it was appropriate to post it here. (And sorry for all of this negativity associated with this!)