All posts in Maja is a Lady

I have been getting a bit experimental skin care lately. I have worn moisturizer since I was just a little girl and I have always made sure to cleanse my skin properly, but I have never really found The Perfect Products. They´re always a little itchy, a little drying, a little too greasy or just not doing what they are supposed to do. I was converted to the Clarisonic face brush in September last year and have fallen completely head over heels for it, which made me wonder – what other amazing products are there out there that I just haven´t discovered yet?

After frequenting a certain number of skin care websites you will after a while come across something called the Oil Cleansing Method, or OCM for short. I think first heard about it about a year ago, and thought it sounded waaay to Granola for me. Cooking oils? ..For your face? I have always thought that oils = acne, and acne I did not want. My skin has always been dry and sensitive so acne has never been my biggest worry, but there are areas that have a few too many black spots for my liking, and no store-bought cleanser that I have tried so far has made them budge. However, over the last year I have been hearing more and more rave reviews about the oil cleansing method, and one evening a few weeks ago I found myself browsing iHerb.com and thought, well, what the hell. So I ordered the products you can see in the photo, and a week later they arrived to my post office.

Now, the basic summary of the method goes like this – cleanse your face with a mix of castor oil and a carrier oil. The carrier oil could be olive, jojoba, avocado, sunflower or a few others. The ratio depends on your skin type – less castor oil for dry skin types, more for oily skin types. Rinse your face with water, massage your face with your oil mix for a few minutes, then let it sit for half a minute. Then you soak a wash cloth in hot water, let it sit on your face for 10-15 seconds, and slowly wipe of the oils. Rinse your washcloth and repeat until you’ve wiped all the oil off your skin. Simple enough – probably a little more time-consuming than your usual cleansing routine – but I´m curious enough to give it a try.

Now, my face wasn´t completely unaccustomed to oils, because I´ve been mixing extra virgin olive oil into my moisturizer for a while already to combat winter dryness. However, the oil cleansing method requires you to abandon all other kinds of cleansers completely so that your skin can adjust itself to your oily new regime, so all I´m keeping is my trusted Vichy Neutrologie 2 moisturizer. I´ve been on the oil cleansing method for about a week now, and so far it is going well. It is definitely is not as scary as it sounds, my makeup is removed just as thoroughly as with my old cleansers, and it feels good to know that I am steering clear of a lot of scary chemicals. But will it have a dramatic effect on my skin at all? That will remain to be seen.

If you want to read more about the oil cleansing method you could start by visiting theoilcleansingmethod.com or Crunchy Betty.

Have any of you tried anything like this before? Do you have any secret skin care weapons? Please share! :)

When it comes to my hair, I am both lazy and demanding. I don´t want to spend more than 5 minutes on it in the morning, but also I want it to look really really good. You´d think this would lead me on an eternal quest for the perfect hair grooming technique, but alas, this is where the lazy sets in. I can spend hours watching makeup tutorials on YouTube, but I just can´t with the hair guides. I tried curling my hair with a straightening iron a few times but got angry and gave up. Which also leads me to my second flaw – I just can´t deal with hair gadgets in the morning.

Luckily, Maria has taken it upon herself to educate me in all things hair. She forced me to get rid of my old hair dryer and buy a proper one (I got my old one for free when I bought a box of hair dye about 7 years ago, oops). She also taught me about mousse, and I can proudly say that I now mousse, heat-protect and blow-dry upside down. First hot air, then cold. Oh yeah. The difference is staggering.

However, my hair still felt a bit… blah. I have long and very straight hair, and it tends to look a bit heavy and boring if I don´t do anything with it. Cue a link Maria emailed me 5 days ago…

Everything about this is perfection, from the girl´s cute Austrian accent to how simple the curling method actually is. 5 minutes tops in the evening, 5 minutes tops in the morning, done. I had to try it out for myself right away, because honestly, I wasn´t totally convinced. If the Sock Bun Catastrophe of 2011 (expected lovely luscious curls, ended up with a frizzy mess and a hurt pride after everyone going on and on about how awesomely easy sock bun curls were) taught me anything it was that I´m way below averagely competent when it comes to hair. I´m not quite the old dog that can´t learn new tricks though – more like a lazy Pug. Keep it simple and make the treats tasty enough and I might sit. Maybe.

Well, I gave it a shot…

Aaaand I´m hooked. This is honestly so quick and simple,  and I can see myself doing this at least a few times a week, if not more. Finally an easy, no-heat curling method for those of us that would rather sleep an extra ten minutes in the morning.

As I wrote in my Shopping ban: Redux post I am not allowed to do any more unnecessary shopping this year. None, zip, nada. You probably know by now that I am such a fan of bright, shiny, pretty and sparkly nail polishes, and this obsession put them right at the top of my own personal no-shopping list. Simply put: No more nail polishes for me until 2012. Sad trombone.

Really though, I was determined to keep my promise, so imagine my surprise when nail polishes started popping up out of nowhere!

First of all, the lovely Annabella of Skin Scrubs posted a comment and asked me if I would like her to send me some Barry M nail polishes. How incredibly nice of her! I jumped at the chance, and a little over a week later four beautiful polishes arrived in my mail box.

How pretty are they? I have no metallics in my collection so the silver and gold were very welcome, the raspberry red is a classic, and I have never tried brown before so that will be a fun first. Of course I had to try one of them out right away, and the first one down was the silver nail paint.

It is so shiny, it almost looks like it could be a metallic foil – so pretty. I can’t wait to try the other polishes that Annabella sent me.

But wait, there’s more! Another mystery polish popped up and ended up on my fingers a week or two ago:

Oh yes, it is my holy grail of sparkly polishes: Deborah Lippmann’s Bad Romance. I got my grabby paws on Across The Universe this summer and fell completely in love with it (yes, I am aware of how unhealthy this love for polish must sound to a normal human being), and now it has a sister!

This polish ended up in my collection thanks to my boyfriend. He bought it from parfymeri.no if you should feel a little grabby yourself. Don’t worry, I will take the blame if it will make you feel better ;)

Aaand that’s what it looks like on, over O.P.I’s Black Onyx! Tons of thanks to Annabella and my lovely boyfriend <3

A friend of mine picked up this little bottle of glittery goodness for me during her visit to the United States. It is a blue transparent polish with huge amounts of shimmer and sparkle – absolutely perfect for those times when a black or pale pink just won’t cut it. Be careful though, because you’ll catch yourself staring at your own fingers a lot.

Deborah Lippmann also has a purple version called Bad Romance, which is at the very top of my nail polish wish list. You can’t buy it in Norway as far as I know, but trust me when I say, that polish will be mine… You know, once I’m allowed to shop again ;)

When I was in Oslo this weekend Maria had arranged for us to get a private makeup lesson at Makeup Mekka – the store and brand was new to me, so of course I jumped at the opportunity. We showed up on Friday afternoon and were greeted by two lovely girls, Ingrid and Eleonor, who were to be our teachers/makeup artists. We could choose between a variety of classes, and Maria and I both decided that a master class in smokey eye makeup was needed – I can only speak for myself here, but when I try to do a smokey eye on myself I usually end up looking like some kind of raccoon-hobo hybrid. Not a good look.

Ingrid and Eleonor were not only good at applying makeup, but they were also great at teaching and explaining every step for us, something which I appreciated tremendously. In the end I realized that when I have previously tried to do a smokey eye I have quit about halfway through the process. Quite the eye-opener, if you will pardon my dorky pun!

In the end I had not only been taught valuable tips and tricks concerning eye makeup, but I also got a crash course in contouring, which is something I have been dying to try for a while. Bronzer is another one of those things that I have used only to end up looking dirty and/or ill, but Ingrid somehow managed to make me look – dare I say it – a little bit sun kissed? Not bad for someone whose makeup shade might as well have been called “anemic”!

Now, before I go any further I would like to say that I have not been given anything to write this, nor did I at any point feel obligated to buy anything after the class – but I did end up spending more money on makeup in one go than I ever have before. What can I say – the class made me feel all inspired. This is what I ended up bringing home:

A huge blush/powder palette, an eye shadow palette of cool-colored blues and greens, a liquid eye liner, and a brow powder kit. I wanted to get a blending brush for eye shadow as well, but sadly their brush had not gone into production yet, so I ran to MAC the next day and got a 217 brush instead. Great tools are invaluable, after all.

Needless to say I have been blending, shading and grooming myself to my heart’s desire ever since. What can I say – I’m as vain as they come.

P.S: Makeup Mekka are doing free mini classes for their Facebook fans this summer, so if you’re in Oslo and fancy taking a makeup class I would go for it!