Monday. Wait, Tuesday.

I know, I know, I missed a day in there- but I had to escape the city for a weekend in MPLS. Lucky for me, I not only got to sleep, but I practically made money by visiting. Not only do things cost less when you stay with Mom and Dad, who want to make you food and pay for things, but things in Minneapolis cost WAY less than in New York.

As you saw from one of our previous posts, NP girls like fake eyelashes. Here in NY, they can be found for $5, but it’s more likely that the drugstore amps them up to around $7.50 per pair, just because they’re greedy. In MN, a pair is $3.50, no matter where you go. Not tough math to see that it would greatly benefit me to buy 10 (or 20) pairs at home and seriously save! Shampoo and lotion fall into the same category. I got a $16 shampoo for $5 at home.

Ok, full disclosure; I even bought 4 boxes of cereal. I had extra space in my suitcase, and again, they cost half as much as in NYC. May seem silly but it added up to about a $12 savings. That can buy me a shot or a cab ride in the city Gotta love going home.

Bat Your Lashes

Samantha and I Get Ready for Girls Night Out

Bootstrapping Yourself

Rockin my Members Only boots with the bootstraps

Here in America, we have the ability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and be whatever we want to be. What I want to be is a hardcore stylista. Lucky me, I can be! My latest DIY fashion project was making some great new studded bootstraps. These can be wrapped around any pair of boots to add automatic motorcycle-gang street cred to your outfit. I had searched online for the straps I wanted, but most involved chains, the wrong sort of studs, and a high price tag (think $50 and up) for the leather goods and shipping. I came up with the idea of fashioning my own from some pyramid-studded belts.

Hey There, Stud

I found two similar to this at forever21 for around $5 each. Check discount stores and cheap accessory shops for yours. I did surgery with scissors and a hot glue gun to move the buckle down so there was no “blank” space between it and the studs, and then wrapped it in an X around a couple of my pairs of boots. I figured out where I’d need a few new holes punched, and then cut off the excess leather. Et Voila! New, badass bootstraps for $10 and 10 minutes of work.

Now, cut up a men’s t-shirt, throw on some shorts and tights, and you’re off!

Clean Up Your Act

Clean It Up

I hate scents. I don’t like anything to smell like anything. So, I have a very hard time choosing beauty products. No perfume for me, sorry Kim K, I’m sure your new eau de you is lovely, but scents give me headaches. Candles, cleaning products, lotions, almost anything that smells like anything other than clean human is just not going to work for me.

Also, my hair is mad at me because it’s winter. I understand that I could go get some Kerestase and be happy again, but my wallet would never forgive me. So, I went on a drugstore shampoo hunt. I do like the John Frieda line of products by hair color (and it is perhaps telling that I have the blonde, brunette, and redhead lines in my shower currently, since we all know I can’t keep one hair color for more than a few months!). The only problem is, anytime you get into a routine with hair products, you hit a plateau. Your hair gets used to it, or it builds up, and you need a new set of ingredients to clean out whatever muck has been left behind and restore you to life. So, starting at square one, I checked out everything the drugstore had to offer.

I came upon some unattractive, brown, squat and squarish bottles labeled as belonging to the North American Hemp Company. Upon further investigation I found that their product was natural, and free of almost all of the scary environment-killing and cancer causing ingredients found in salon shampoos. I took a sniff, and although it was lightly scented, I did not die, so I bought it. I chose the smoothing shampoo and conditioner, as I have no interest in volume, and I find that “moisturizing” is code for greasy and heavy. Each bottle was priced at about $10, although the conditioner was inexplicably on sale for %50 off.

I took them both home and experimented, and thus far, I am quite pleased. My hair came out light and clean, not frizzy or static-y, and after myself and Alexandra both doing a sniff-test, we feel it pretty much just smells like hair. My suggestion would be to go try it out, and save yourself a dose of chemicals- we already get more than enough of those through food and walking around outdoors.

Bargains Abound

Practicing for "back to school"

Little is more exciting than finding an incredible bargain.  The best ones are usually anomalous, the random thing from a season ago, the late return in just your size that went straight to double markdown.  This requires perusing the little hidden sale racks in the corners, not just the promotional sale events.  Recent finds include a great pair of black DKNY black cigarette slacks for $18 and a fabulous gold linen trench for $50!  It’s always worth checking store’s websites before you head out to see if there is a certificate for an additional percent off.  Macy’s is well known for running 50% off, then another 15%, then if you have a certificate, another 20%- so it’s pretty much free by the time you’re done. 

Movies, On Demand

Nouveau Movie Night

Welcome back to the city, NP’s! Last weekend was probably a blowout, which might mean that this week you just want to take it easy. How better to do so than by watching a movie on the couch with some popcorn (and a cute crush by your side.) Movie theaters are anything but relaxing, by the time you get there, pay out the nose for tickets and snacks, and fight for your seat with some kid who is definitely out past their bedtime. While digital cable and sattelite providers do offer movies On Demand, they are still around $5 apeice, and can’t exactly be brought over to your honey’s house with you.

This week, try Red Box. These nifty vending machines can be found in various NYC locations- mostly in Walgreens at this point. In the rest of the country, they’re also in McDonalds locations, which I would personally be a fan of because it would give me an excuse to go sneak some of their deadly-good fries. Red Box movies can be rented ahead of time online at their website, and then picked up from a machine for $1/night. This saves the annoyance of browsing through the video store while some kid screams at their mom for gummy bears, and a gang of teenage boys ponders how to rent an R-rated movie. Though the choices are obviously more limited than at Blockbuster, for example, they’re changed out often, and aim for convenience and cost effectiveness. What about Netflix, you ask? Red Box has them beat if you ask me, because planning days or weeks ahead of time for what I want to watch tonight just isn’t going to happen. Give the Box a shot this weekend and let us know what you think- even if you don’t like it, you’re only out $1.

Do Try This at Home

I am that girl

Clothing manufacturers pretty much label everything as dry clean only to avoid liability for shrinkage, color bleeding and the like.  The reality is there is very little that cannot be laundered or otherwise cleaned at home. 

One exception is a fiber content including viscose.  Viscose does not like water. 

Washing doesn’t necessarily have to mean the whole garment.  A linen dress was needing freshening around the neck and under arm areas, but the rest of it was looking good.  Using a good hand wash detergent I soaked a white cloth and heavily blotted these areas, blotting again with another cloth soaked in water.  I hung it to dry and starched and pressed the whole dress.  It smells much better than dry cleaning fluid! 

For an extra shot of freshness try Febreeze sprayed at the underarms of a jacket lining or dress if smells stale but isn’t really soiled.  I also took a chance with a pair of Chaiken linen blend pants that are unlined and threw them into the washer on gentle.  I dryed them a little on tumble and then pressed them with starch.  They look great!

How to Avoid Looking Like a Cougar

NP Girls of all ages can be overwhelmed by the prospect of putting together age and location appropriate outfits that reflect the current fashions.

The lines are blurred and we are as terrified of looking like our mothers as they are of being mistaken for us from behind.

Herewith a few tips for all ages:

1.         Create a personal profile in your mind of who you are and what you stand for and always stay true to that image.  Ask a good friend to describe your style and see if you’re projecting what you intend.

2.         Envision the occasion at which an outfit will be worn.  Run through the demographic of other attendees and decide whether your clothing would blend in or stand out- in a bad way.

3.         Stay away from the most attention getting get-ups.  Avoid loud patterns and colors that can easily strike the wrong chord and will be remembered vividly impairing your ability to wear again with the same group. 

4.         No matter how toned and fit your body, don’t overexpose it other than when you are seriously clubbing, or lounging poolside in Martinique.

5.         Consider even perhaps appropriately bare areas and ask yourself honestly if anyone else wants to look at them.  Even if skin is twenty and taut large expanses of it may not be the most appealing at the dinner table. 

6.         At some level ask yourself if you look your age.  Today that should mean look REALLY good for your age, but not as though you’re trying to look a decade younger, or older and more sophisticated.  It’s just as much of a turn off to see a fifty year old woman wearing Uggs as it is to see a twenty year old wearing St. John.

7.         Research the prevailing color palette and style of a given area when traveling.  While this is no time to buy a completely new wardrobe for a weekend if you’re lucky enough to be going away, you do want to look like you belong.  Is it Pucci or Pulitzer- wouldn’t want to get that one wrong. 

8.         Seasonless is safest.  A quick turn of weather could make white linen disastrous whereas taupe will go with the flow. 

9.         Look at your rear view and decide whether someone looking at you from behind would be surprised by what they see when you turn around.  A great term for this is the 16/60.  You may have a great body and look like a young woman from behind but you don’t want to dress in such a way that seeing a sixty year old face attached to the great butt is a shock.

10.       Never look like you’re trying- at anything.  If you don’t look like you’re trying to dress your hippest, sexiest, richest, chicest- and you will be 10 times hotter!