Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Dr. Oz Three Day Detox Cleanse Review

Before Spring Break, my best friend/housemate and I decided to go on a cleanse. We didn't want to do anything too absurd, but we had both been eating poorly and thought right before Spring Break might be a good time to flush all those toxins out. I have read and watched documentaries about cleanses (juice cleanses, mostly) and thought it wouldn't be too difficult, especially if it was only a couple of days. I have also been using my juicer frequently since I got it for Christmas, and honestly, the juices I've made have been quite yummy (well...most of the time). Thus, I thought a cleanse would be healthy, not too icky, and a little bit of a challenge.

OH BOY. 

Naturally, my friend and I searched Pinterest first for cleanses. I came across "Dr. Oz's Three Day Cleanse" a lot along with a cute little graphic shown here. It even came with a shopping list, so we headed to Meijer that very night to gather our supplies.

Seems easy enough, right?

DAY ONE. I got up early to make sure I had time to make the tea and morning beverage. For some reason I thought the drink recipes would be somehow similar to the juicing recipes I've used with similar ingredients, but I was very, very wrong. First, the texture. Not just the morning drink, but all of them. It's like drinking sludge. Bitter, icky, kinda-fruity-but-still-leafy tasting sludge. The worst by far was the lunch drink, as it is extremely large (double the size of the breakfast and dinner), and the worst tasting. The texture is also the worst here because it contains four stalks of celery, and because it's just in a blender (not juicer), you get to slurp down all of that lovely celery pulp. The dinner drink was probably the best, and my friend even said "I actually like this one!" when she tasted it.

So, after the first day, I was far from satisfied but still ready to give it all three days. My friend was ready to quit as well, offering me $20 to quit with her. But we decided to give it another day.

DAY TWO. Woke up grouchy and hungry and stayed that way all day. The lunch drink was even harder to finish (I don't think I even finished it...) than the previous day.

Time to get a little personal. So cleanses...are supposed to cleanse you out. But I did not feel that way at all, even halfway through day two. I was taking a probiotic and everything, but was every bit as bloated and bleh as I had been before. So needless to say, about 3/4 through day two I was about ready to give up.

I still made my dinner drink and headed to work that night, though, in hopes that my will power would outweigh the growling in my stomach.

But, in a wavering moment, I asked my best friend if she wanted to quit. She replied that she was about to make the dinner drink but would way rather have some crackers, so yes, she was down to quit. Of course, once I heard that, I thought. "All right, I'm out."

And I was. I came home from work that night and my friend made me pancakes. And those were the best pancakes I have ever had. Honestly, I don't regret it at all.

Of course, part of me wanted to just stick it through one more day, but I just couldn't. Le sigh.

OVERVIEW

Morning Drink- fruity and the peanut butter is nice, however the copious amounts of raspberry seeds might be one of the most frustrating things...ever.

Lunch Drink- A really leafy green taste. Tastes healthy, which is nice, but the texture is awful. It's like drinking 24 ounces of cold celery cucumber kale sludge. I like that it included coconut oil, but I can incorporate that into my diet in much tastier ways.

Dinner Drink- Definitely the best. The cayenne made it more interesting and satisfied cravings for other foods, but still sludgey.

I understand that, generally, cleanses take time, and that the first couple days are always the hardest. Unfortunately, on this cleanse, all you have is a couple of days, and if you don't see results then, you might just not in general. If I had the funds I would way rather try a ten day juice cleanse than this three day one, as for me the main issue was the texture.

All in all, this cleanse was a fail. I do not suggest it, although it may work for some people, as people's bodies react differently to different things. I just don't think it was working how a cleanse is supposed to. I could deal with the hunger and grouchy-ness if I was seeing results, but I was not, and was having severe doubts I would within the last 24 hours.

So, basically, if you are going to try a cleanse, research it, and make sure it's something you think you can do! Also make sure it's healthy, because some cleanses are not. It's important to still get all the nutrients your body needs when you're on a cleanse, because a lot of times you are flushing a lot out of your system and need to rebuild.

If any of you know of a good and effective cleanse, I'd love to hear about it! Thanks for reading!

~Beth

Seaside Nails

Hey all! So, unfortunately, the weather where I'm at is not so Spring/Summery yet. But I wish it was! Here's a nail tutorial that symbolizes my longing for summer (sigh). Enjoy!


 What You Need:
cosmetic sponges
palette
neutral sand colored polish (Revlon Colorstay in Trade Winds)
various shades of blue (Sinful Colors Cinderella, Essie Bikini Teeny, and Revlon Indigo Night)
sheer sparkly polish (Essence Space Queen and Nailtini Millionaire) 



1) Paint your nails the sandy color.
2) Rip apart a cosmetic sponge. Place a couple dots of your lightest blue polish on your palette.
3) Dip the ripped portion on the sponge into the polish and start lightly dotting the color about 3/4 down the nail, leaving a portion just the neutral base. You can build up the intensity with more layers however you prefer. 
4) Repeat using a slightly darker shade of blue, this time starting to sponge the polish on about 1/2 way down the nail.
5) Repeat with your darkest shade, this time only 1/4 down the nail, to create this ombre effect.
**the first shade I used was very sheer and sparkly, so to fuse all of the shades together more seamlessly I went over the entire blue portion of the nail again using just the lightest shade**
6) Go over the tip of the nail with a sparkly polish (I didn't have blue, so I used a very sheer pink shade with reflective glitters that reflect blue.)
7) Go over the base of the nail (the part that is only the neutral color) with a gold glitter. I am honestly not sure if I like this with or without the gold glitter, but I do enjoy the difference in texture it gives.
8) Top Coat that sucker!





Thanks for viewing!
~Beth

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Marina and the Diamonds Makeup Tutorial

Hey there! So I've seen lots of Marina and the Diamonds makeup tutorials floating around, however it seemed like such a fun tutorial to do that I just had to give it a go. Here's my version:



 Products Used
Face:
Foundation- Covergirl Outlast Stay Fabulous
Blush- Urban Decay in Quickie (Bubble gum pink)
Contour- Couldn't find my Hula Bronzer :( so I used a matte medium brown eyeshadow
Highlight- Wet N' Wild Color Icon in Reserve Your Cabana

Eyes:
Eyebrows- matte medium shadow from Coastal Scents Warm Palette
Base- POP Beauty Eye Magnet base
Crease/Lower Lash Line- MAC in Omega
Lid/Brow/Inner Corner- matte slightly pink cream color from Coastal Scents Warm Palette
Lower Lash Line- Creep from Naked palette
Top Eyeliner & Heart- Maybelline Lash Stiletto liquid liner in very black
Waterline Liner- Stila Kajal eyeliner in Topaz
Lashes- top: Ardell (can't remember the number, sorry!) bottom: e.l.f. natural lashes (cut up into segments and trimmed to shorter length)
Mascara: Almay Get Up and Grow

Lips:
NYX round lipstick in Harmonica





Thanks for viewing!!
~Beth