Review: Joey Healy Eye Brow Collection

Eyebrows...I think you either have lovely full eyebrows, or you have what I have ..course & sparse. Well, they weren't always sparse, but always course. I never much paid attention to my brows, even when Brooke Shields came on the scene with those huge brows of hers! I never filled them in, hated the look of it. As I got older and had the time to read more fashion mags, I realized that eyebrows played a big roll when applying make-up. As I heard one make-up artist say "they frame the face".
I have posted before about my eyebrows and how I apply makeup to them. I use dark eye shadow and clear mascara and an angled brush.
I have "made do".
I received a sample of Joey Healy's Eye Brow Collection to review just a few days ago. Usually when I review a product , it takes longer than a few days to get results but I could have written this review after one application! I am using the Luxe Brow Powder in Tobacco and the Duo Brow Brush. They are like the one-two punch of a superhero. Wow ! Pow !
The powder is so rich and velvety and as soon as I applied it in feathery strokes with the Duo brush's stiff, slanted end, I HAD BROWS !!
Then I took the spiral brush end of the Duo and brushed through my brows and that did the trick to make my brows look natural. And last night after a long work day,  I was getting ready to take off all my make-up.. I took another look and there they were..still. Not faded, not gone on the outer tips..still giving my eyes that great frame..all day and into the night! So thrilled with this product.
I have not tried  Healy's Clear Set gel, but I will be ordering it. Because I do recommend a gel to keep the brows tamed and glossy.
No more "making do" for me !

***Please log on to www.joeyhealy.com for ordering information***

Review: With My Body by Nikki Gemmell

I finished this book days ago, and I have been trying to figure out what I might write about it ever since.
I had not read this author before, I had no idea what to expect. I saw that she had written a few books, so she is an established author and I saw quite a few mentions of another novel Gemmell wrote called The Bride Stripped Bare, which looks quite good and one that I will have to find.
The first few chapters in the book, we find that the main character is a woman headed toward forty, has a husband and 3 boys. She grew up in Australia and now lives in London with her husband & family. She can't find time for herself, hates the school mom who brags about  her children, has no really close friends to talk honestly with. Sex with her husband is now a memory, he falls asleep on the couch most nights..nothing surprises me here. I had four kids myself and your kids are your life when you decide to have them...so I wondered if this book was going to be anything that I would want to keep reading. The main character, who remains nameless ( the funny thing is, I didn't realize it until I started to write my review and couldn't recall it) keeps remembering in bits and pieces , a former lover. Ah ha !
Her mom dies when she is young and she is alone with her dad. They are close, but he is not a talker or anyone who shows her a lot of affection. She gleans from him what she can...he teaches her to change a tire, work with tools, fix things that get broken...a real tomboy. He finally remarries and the new wife wants to erase all memory of her mother from the house. She gets sent off to boarding school and becomes an exemplary student. She also gets involved with a young artist who ends up near raping her. Welcome to your first sexual experience.
On one summer school vacation, she was about seventeen, she is out riding her bike and comes upon on old , run down mansion.The gate is open and in she goes. She is looking through the windows and sees someone, a man working at a desk. She takes off but comes back the next day...and the next day...finally getting discovered. She & and the stranger, Tol, begin a kind of friendship..she strikes  a bargain with him. She will do some repairs to his house, if he will educate her. Teach her about the world, outside of the Australian bush. Tol is older than she is, although you never know how much. He is an author trying to write his second book. He is a loner and eccentric....and he is fascinated by her youth, her naivety and her boldness. She is fascinated by his knowledge of a world different from her own. She eventually asks him to teach her about sex, she didn't want her bad first experience to lead to more bad experiences, or no experiences at all.
Well, I can not even begin to tell you what happens that summer. The sex and the teaching of it, is like daydreaming some erotic fantasies. She falls in love with him, thinking constantly of him and being close to him. And then he goes away.....and she is left heartbroken and confused for years. Until she meets her husband and "settles" down. Eventually, she comes to terms with her old relationship with Tol, which helps her re-new the ailing  relationship with her husband.
I must mention here, that every woman I know is trying to get their hands on Fifty Shades. I read a sample few chapters, and the book was so poorly written that I knew I would never read it. I can now say that I had my cake & ate it too, with Gemmell's book. Well written, erotic, and recommended.

Review: When We Argued All Night by Alice Mattison

I love, love, love reading a book that keeps me wishing there were 1,000 chapters in it. Alice Mattison has written such a book. I have read  many books about female friendships, seems I always pick up a few for summer reading. But this book is very different, it about a seventy-five year friendship between two men.
And it is kind of an off/on again relationship. They argue about all of life's big questions and  even some of the minor ones, don't see each other for lengths of time, and when they finally bump into each other they just pick up where they left off.
Artie & Harold are children of Jewish immigrant parents. They live in NY and in their twenties are trying to carve out a place to live their lives. Harold is  thoughtful about things, Artie is kind of an obnoxious guy. They both get into teaching and are relatively happy. Then, Harold decides to join the Communist Party, more I think to impress  his friends than anything else. Artie argues constantly with him over his decision, all through the night at one point. As Harold starts to realize he has made the wrong choice, he leaves the party. McCarthyism takes over the US and Artie tells Harold that if he is called forward to testify, that he will turn Harold in, because he loves his teaching job and wants to keep it. Harold wishes Artie would lie, because Harold is no longer a "Red", but Artie insists he will save his own skin. Harold tells Artie that he will understand, hopes it doesn't come to that. But the time does come and Artie is called upon, ....before he goes he talks to a lawyer about his options. He pleads the fifth and loses his job. A jealous coworker of Artie's turns Harold in anyway. Harold loses his job, too.
And what happens to both these men in the insueing years is what the book is about. How they each handled this big change. Their attitudes and actions. They both married and had children. They both got other jobs. One was more successful than the other ( I am not giving this away) We get to meet their wives, lovers and children. How they maintained their friendship over 75 years, ups & downs, arguments and absences. I can tell you in the last couple of chapters, I can see the death of one of the two coming and I could feel the loss.
When I first started reading the book, I wasn't sure I could get used to the author's very casual style of writing. Sometimes it is conversation, sometimes it is a thought......But as you read along, and start to know your characters, it is very smooth and easy reading. Such a good book. I recommend you add this to your reading  list.

Great Summer Giveaway !!

Keranique’s The Hair You Deserve Summer Giveaway

Keranique just launched their Hair You Deserve giveaway. Simply “like” the Keranique Facebook page for a chance to win a 6-month supply of either the Fuller Looking Hair Kit or the Hair Re-Growth Kit. Refer a friend for three additional entries into the giveaway!

Specially targeted to a woman’s biochemistry, Keranique’s innovative and breakthrough product line is designed not only to treat female hair thinning and hair loss, but to prevent the root cause of issues associated with the aging of hair and build back its beautiful richness, texture and fullness. Each product in the Keranique line is enriched with a complex of keratin, amino acids and proteins to help strengthen and fortify thinning hair, along with vegetable-derived humectants that help to hydrate, nourish and stimulate micro-circulation around the hair follicles.

The winner will be announced in September.

Tolstoy & the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

I may have mentioned that I love to read, always have at least one or two books going at any given time. So when the opportunity came up to read and review this book by an author who read a book a day for a whole year, I had to do it.
As I read the first few chapters, I am thinking..this lady is crazy. She has a husband and four kids, how will she find the extra time to read a book a day?
I had a husband and four kids and I was lucky to get to the bathroom when I needed to go, let alone time to read.
Sankovitch lost her sister, Anne Marie, to cancer, and was unable to get back into living. She was constantly running at full speed, all the while grief was dogging every step. Three years later she was still stuck in painful grief, unable to look back , unable to figure out how to move forward.
Her family was a reading family, their home full of books growing up. She & her sister, Anne Marie shared that love of books and Sankovitch came up with the idea that books could teach her to live again in a world that was now without her sister.
I will admit, I continued to think that this was crazy right up until the last couple of chapters. I have suffered grief and I admit, I had to turn to some books on grief to help me through. But, maybe two books that took me a couple of weeks to read. The book is filled with the author's memories of her sisters and also some tragic family history in both her immigrant parent's childhoods. It is a personal diary, as each book that she read either reminded her of a memory or gave her strength to go forward.
In the last chapter she mentions that her father was diagnosed with TB as a young man. He ended up in a sanatorium to recuperate for two years, two months and 2 days. It was a time spent recuperating from TB and the atrocities of war. Sankovitch says that her one year of reading a book a day,  was like taking a year's  recuperation in a sanatorium. A time out from her present life, so that she could look back and then move forward.
I still don't know how she managed to do it, but if it worked for her, then more power to her. Grief is such a personal thing, whatever gets you through it, is the right path. I can recommend this book to anyone who believes that good books and reading can change your life.

Review: How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

I am sure you  have  "heard" me say  that I love British sitcoms, Masterpiece Theater, Downtown Abbey, all of it. Are You Being Served and As Time Goes By are two of my very fave TV shows on PBS. My decorating style is Shabby Chic, English Cottage...I could go on. So I was very excited to read Caitlin Moran's new book, How to Be a Woman.
Let me say right up front , it is not for the faint of heart! She is a gutsy British girl and  her language can be quite raw. There are several well written books out there for women who are over forty, over fifty, the old fifty is now the new thirty....but Moran's book is for all women, whatever age. She reminds us that we all need to be feminists, for our own survival. Does a  good job explaining what a feminist is and isn't, too.
Each chapter is filled with life as she has known it and it is quite funny and very direct. Starts off with a  chapter on what to call our vaginas. I was LOL-ing when I saw the term our family used for it right there on one of the pages ! Next what to call our breasts, other than BOOBS. "My Girls" was coined by Scarlett Johannson evidently, so we all can't use Scar's nickname for our own boobs. (I have always fancied the "ta-tas" term from the movie Top Gun) Let me also mention that these discussions are not short & obscure..they take up pages in this handbook ! From pubic hair & the 'Brazilian" to her own baby's  delivery, Moran keeps you thinking and laughing and maybe a bit flushed around the face. And speaking of faces, a discussion of Botox is in the mix, too.
So please get yourself a copy of Moran's How to Be a Woman. It's Brilliant !!