skinny on skincare

Now that I've hit the four month mark, I'm starting to get more serious about my skin.

Allow me to give you the background on my skin: I started breaking out after I graduated from college last summer and it got pretty ugly. My over the counter products were failing miserably.

Of course, this was all happening when I was unemployed for six months (thank you, recession). I had no idea if I still had health insurance (I did) and we couldn't afford the expense of going to a dermatologist. So I trudged around DC, poor and zitty.

After becoming gainfully employed though, I made a dermatologist appointment. The doctor described my acne as "mild" (going to disagree there a bit) and prescribed me a retinol  and a benzoyl peroxide. Those two things are the paladins of the zit crusade, healing and exorcising my face.

Things have definitely improved in the year I've been using the prescriptions, but I still deal with hormonal and stres-related break-outs. So even if you have mild or occasional acne, get thee to a dermatologist and then perhaps try some of these products too!

Philosophy Purity - Gentle and removes make-up. I found it was way too drying to use an acne-specific cleanser plus topical treatments, so I use this instead. Morning and night.

Neutrogena Deep Clean Gentle Scrub - This is my once-a-day scrub but during the winter, every other day. It has Beta Hydroxy, which prevents pores from clogging and promotes skin shedding. Not too shabby.

Mario Badescu Drying Lotion - If you get a white head once in a while, this is probably the only product you need for acne. You apply it at night and the zit will be poofed by morning.

Philosophy Hope in a Jar - It's a super light moisturizer, absorbs quickly, and leaves my skin feeling smoooth.

Mario Badescu Wihitening Mask - It sounds a little sketch, right? I use it to gradually fade old acne scars.

Those are my basics. When I'm feeling fancy (read: not being lazy), I include these:

Clinique Clarifying Lotion - Toner. I'm prone to an oily T-zone, so I should really use this. But it's one extra step at 7 am I don't want to take regularly.

Mario Badescu Hyaluronic Eye Cream - I remember to use this about twice a week. Perhaps in 30 years I will regret my eye cream nonchalance.

If I'm leaving the house, I add Clinque Super City Block SPF 40, because I might enjoy being pale.

So if you're dealing with acne, the best thing I did was visit my doctor. But all of these products have worked really well with my prescriptions. What are your favorite skin care products, particularly for acne?

if this were socially acceptable...

I would totally have a dance with my mom.

For as much as I complain about her, I love her to pieces. We're very much alike, which is why we clash so much. We have a lot of opinions. We're both beyond stubborn. But we also get along famously when we're not planning a wedding.

Anyways, I did a diabolical thing and got her into Lily Allen. I burned her a disc a few years ago and she has taken quite a liking to Lily's mostly anti-male tunes. So whenever I hear the following song, I definitely think of my mom.

p.s. it's sung by an adorable children's choir here.


If you even entertained the thought of dancing with your mom, what would the song be?

non-lame first dance

I don't know how universal this experience is, but I once dated someone who read Pitchfork frequently. This is a site you read if you want to know about every obscure up and coming band and belittle others for their crappy musical choices. Basically.

The benefit of all of that is I have a decent music library now, filled with both standards and some indie stuff. And it's time to start thinking about first dance songs!

My fiance and I don't really have a song. There's a lot of songs we both like, but the closest thing to our song is probably Bitches Aint Shit. Oops.

So without further ado, a bunch of songs from our collections.







Here's one we found because of our DJ's monthly music lists.


And finally, a standard, with probably the best arrangement of this song.


We still haven't decided. I guess we should try dancing to some...

How are you choosing the first dance song?

revisiting the invitations

I sent a piece of my invitations to the printers this week, so I figured it was time to go into more detail about the design process.

I started fiddling with invitations in June of last year.  The style has stayed more or less the same, with minor tweaks over the months. The style of the invites was dictated by my chosen print method: letterpress. To keep costs down, I knew I had to keep it limited to one to two colors because each additional color means the invite needs to be run through the press another time, which equals more money. Since I designed the invite myself, I also knew I had to take stock of my talent -- which does not include illustrations!

So I needed a simple design with minimal colors. To spice things up, I bought a font set and got to work.

The first attempt was a mix of calligraphy and typography.

I liked it enough and let that design sit for several months. Returning to it in December, though, I realized it wasn't really capturing the high fashion look I wanted. I had to give up the calligraphy.

Back to InDesign I went and I experimented with things like all caps, small caps, and the leading (spacing between lines). I also toyed with bold colors.

I really liked the all caps for our names because it reminded me of Vogue. Vogue is the mother ship. Respect.

For the reception card, I wanted to depart from the formality of the invite and play with typography more.

Here I just used all three Leitura font styles and adjusted the kerning (space between characters) and font size to make all of the lines the same width. Kerning is best used for display type like this, while you'd typically use tracking for body text, like a long passage.

That wraps up the beginning of my design process. The final design will be revealed later!

Did anything dictate your invitation design process?

giveaway alert: elsewhere

 

There's a pretty fantastic giveaway happening over at Random Reflections of a Perfectionist. She's giving away a Florrie Mitton garter! I've been drooling over these for a good while now (along with everyone else), so go on and enter!

linens are pretty boring

For about a month my mom has been hounding me on a near-daily basis about linens. What colors, what fabric, how can we make that room pop more, how can we make it less ugly, blah blah, linens this, linens that. I told her over and over, let's just do white because we have pink crap everywhere (okay beautiful pink flowers, geez) and I don't want it to look like a giant threw up all of his Pepto.

Naturally, I changed my mind after seeing these.

(source)

Why helloooo, raspberry linens! I am intrigued by your hue and wish to subscribe to your e-newsletter.

Are you getting on the linen bandwagon?

wedding waking and sleeping

 

(source) 

Over the weekend, I had my first wedding dream. It was actually really pleasant -- the ceremony was in some sort of lush outdoor amphitheater, large pink lanterns were hanging everywhere by gleaming gold chains (real gold! In this economy!). The flowers were blooming and I was even a two-dress bride! I woke up thinking that went surprisingly well, since of course I've been silently dreading the wedding mishaps that are surely awaiting me. And then I remembered: I don't have two dresses. That was not at all real. Blast.

I've had plenty of waking nightmares about the wedding. I think that some of my vendors will hate my wedding. That half the things I make will be forgotten in DC or misplaced by the staff. That we just won't finish...planning.

Part of my anxiety stems from the way I approach important events/deadlines/anything: with procrastination. I know I put things off as much as possible. So far I've put off buying our wedding bands, helping my fiance with the rest of his wedding day outfit, researching activities for our honeymoon, setting the reception menu, getting sheet music for the ceremony, buying various decorations, finishing DIY projects, and generally making progress on the wedding.

I'm definitely starting to see the appeal of wedding planners. I'm getting more and more anxious as each week passes and I feel like I've accomplished less and less. I know that we can get married in June without all of the above mentioned things, but that's not the point, now is it? We want the frivolity, the pointless tactile extras that make us feel more connected to the day, because really, we know the day doesn't last and what's left are some pictures and unused swizzle sticks. And maybe half a candy buffet, if you're lucky. You get rings and you get married. And then you're the same as everyone else.

So I'm anxious and procrastinating but having lovely dreams about my fake wedding. I don't know what it all means. I want the day to come and I want it to be as far away as possible.

I have a pack of tissue paper on my desk, waiting to be turned into poms that will perch atop swizzle sticks. I've already noted the absurdity of that. But I will make them, if only to have a few left over to remind me of the wedding. Or maybe I want to be reminded of wedding planning. I don't really know.

Do you have mixed feelings sometimes about this grand process called wedding planning?