DIY Friday: Sea Salt Spray

If you're like me, and I assume you are, you are always on the hunt for a good sea salt spray. And then when you find one, you are dismayed to see the exorbitant price tag attached. I mean, who wants to pay $40 to replicate the messy hair you get at the beach? And when I say "you" I definitely don't mean me. I never had good beach hair. I'd be the girl with braids in her hair to try to capture the salt water and then go home and spend a good hour just trying to untangle the mess. I'm still pretty jealous of the girls you see coming off the beach with their whimsical waves and sun kissed skin. But back to my point, a good sea salt spray is hard to come by. Until now. I've seen a lot of posts on Pinterest about making your own sea salt spray, but something was always missing for me. I'd follow the recipe and then end up with a spray that made my hair crunchy, sticky, or the worst, greasy. What I figured out is that while the ingredients are the same, there needs to be a level of customization.

Basic Ingredients:
Sea Salt
Coconut Oil
Leave in Conditioner
Hair Gel
water

I've created a few customized recipes that I believe will have the best result judging from my own experiences making these sprays. You know your hair better than I do, so if you know that leave in conditioner makes your look greasy, skip it! Use your own judgement with these guidelines and hopefully you'll end up with perfectly messy hair.

Fine hair/ very straight hair:
You might as well almost skip the coconut oil all together as it will weight your hair down and leave it greasy. Instead, focus on two parts water, one part salt, one part strong hold gel, and a TINY little half part light weight leave in conditioner. Shake it up in a spray bottle and then spray up towards the ends of your almost dry hair while you scrunch. When your hair dries, use a dry shampoo at the roots for volume.

Thick Hair/ Strong Curl:
Unlike fine hair, we need to weight yours down a tiny bit for the beachy waves look. You will be wanting 2 parts water, 1 part everything else with a little extra salt. Shake it up and spray at level with your hair while it is still damp, then scrunch the ends. Spray more when your hair dries to style and add control.

Weird hair (mine):
My hair never really decided what to be. It is curly on the bottom and does weird waves throughout with annoying kinks near my face. I made a very thick spray using 1 part water and 1 part leave in conditioner, 2 parts salt and gel, and then a tiny bit of coconut oil. I scrunch in my hair while it was damp, let it air dry, and then use my straightener to make some of the crazier pieces less crazy. Then I sprayed a little more and messed it up to give it a beachy vibe.

I hope you try to make your own sea salt spray so you can comment below and tell me how it worked for you. If you know of any other secrets to achieving beach hair, let me know. I live in Florida so it's a constant expectation.
Have a wonderful weekend!

Save or Splurge: Essie Gel Setter Review

I'm a big texture person. I can't take the feeling of lotion on my palms, hairspray making my hair sticky, or nails that are anything but smooth all over. For this reason, the second a nail chips or breaks, I have to redo all ten. I started getting gel manicures about a year ago because it seemed like a good idea. I mean, a manicure that doesn't chip for two whole weeks? Amazing! But at $30 a pop at least twice a month it comes out to $720 a year. For fingernails. And then you have to factor in additional costs, like when my nail tore from bowling too many games (maybe my thumb is a weird shape or something because this always happens to me), or when I tried a new salon that didn't do a great job but somehow charged more. It doesn't take a financial genius to figure out that there are better ways to use that much money.

Now, this is going to sound really crazy, so don't ridicule me, but I was scared to stop getting gel manicures. I was worried about what I'd find underneath the gel. Every time gel is removed at the salon they use a file to rough up the nails so that the next gel polish will stay on better. Naturally I was worried that after I removed the gel, I'd have to have bumpy nails until they grew out, which could take months! But I was determined to save money, so I went to Target to buy gel polish remover to start the process. Then, something in the aisle caught my eye. I hadn't shopped for polish in a year, so somehow I'd missed out on the latest, greatest Essie product: the Gel Setter Top Coat claiming to have the shine and durability of a gel polish. I figured I might as well try it, and at $10 it was still cheaper than a real manicure, so I bought it.

I'll spare you the details of removing gel polish at home, but suffice it to say that it is terrible, burns, and smells like a chemical spill. Once I had my nails as bare as I could get them, I buffed them with a simple four step buffer, shaped them, and then began the manicure process. One base coat, two layers of Essie polish, and then the top coat. I practically held my breath with anticipation while the top coat dried. I kept waiting for it to lose its sheen, or for the bumpy texture of my beat up nails to show through...but it didn't happen. Three days later, my nails are still super shiny and in perfect condition. It feels just like a gel manicure, but the removal process is easier (no soaking involved) and it didn't cost me $30. Essie, you're a dream come true!

Squeaky Clean

When it comes to makeup and beauty products, I believe less is more. The first time I wore primer and "full coverage" products was for my wedding. Since I had bought an expensive primer and a heavier foundation for the wedding, I continued to use them for the month after, but quickly realized that it was clogging my pores and making me break out. This sent me into a terrible cycle of breaking out from the heavy products, but wanting to use the heavy products to cover the breakouts. Not good. I realized that the only way to overcome this would be to suck it up, switch products, and figure out a way to help my skin clear up.
Up until a few months ago, I'd never met a cleansing product that I actually wanted to recommend. I had found okay facial soaps and decent moisturizers, but nothing that made me jump for joy. Then I met Mia.
As you may already know, the Clarisonic Mia is a facial cleansing brush that cleans deeply to remove all the sweat, grime, and make-up that gets stuck in your pores throughout the day. I was skeptical that the Mia could really be as good as some people claimed, but now that I've used the accessory for three months, I'm a believer. Immediately I felt my skin was smoother, brighter, and cleaner, but I kept waiting for the breakout everyone swore would happen from over-exfoliating your skin. It didn't happen. The brush is as amazing as the day I bought it, and I'm in love.
So that was all fine and dandy, but I still hadn't found a cleansing product to use with the brush. I was using eye make-up removing pads from Almay that felt rough and weakened my lashes, and a cleanser from Clinique which was great except that it ran into my eyes and burned whenever I used it with the Mia. A lady at Ulta told me that I should try something by Philosophy, but I said "no thanks" and figured I could just put up with the irritation. I did for a couple more weeks, but things did not get better. When I finally admitted to myself that it was time to find a new product, I walked in to Ulta and, low and behold, the Philosophy cleanser was front and center with a free gift! It was meant to be! So I bought Purity one-step cleanser, which is also approved for removing eye-makeup, and now I want to kick myself for waiting so long.
If you skipped over everything else, read this part. Get in your car and go buy this product. I am in disbelief about how well it works. Now all I have to do is wet my face and the Mia, put a dab of Purity on the brush and use it like normal, and then when the 60 second timer is up, I gently rub the Purity over my eyes and it removes ALL my eye makeup! I'm talking not even a trace of mascara left! This is better for so many reasons like saving time by reducing steps, and not having to scrub off mascara.

The quick version is this: Clarisonic Mia is as good as you've heard and Philosophy Purity is essential.

Philosophy Purity Cleanser / Clarisonic Mia