Dear Satan

Sorry, misspelling "Santa" as "Satan" just tickles me.

Last week we talked about what to get for other people, and this week I am gonna talk about what I want, and y'all can talk about what you want.  I get fatigued during the holiday season, shopping for everyone, then I get to the point where I just want to buy stuff for myself and say fuck everybody.  I don't actually do that, though, I just fantasize about it.  Actually, not only do I not buy myself stuff, I don't even really get presents from the people who live in my house.  Everybody's birthday is in October, and mine is at the very end of October, so we usually just get Nona presents so her childhood isn't destroyed, and buy something for the house instead of Drew and me getting something in particular, since we all just got presents a month ago.  Not very fun.  Last year we got a chest freezer.  This year I think we are replacing our chipped up dishes.  Whoop-dee-dooooo!

So, this is my fantasy Christmas list, if I actually got Christmas presents and also was rich haha.

Let's Go Not Shopping!

Have you ever been walking down the stairs, and you slip and fall down a couple steps on your ass?  Then you whack your tailbone in just the right way that you knock the wind out of yourself and you can't breathe?  That's how I feel when I go shopping during the holiday season.  All the people all over the place, ugh.  I can't handle it.  It is doubly distressing because I enjoy going to the mall quite a bit, in an 80s mallrat kind of way.  I like going and chilling out and watching people, it's soothing.  Also, you can take a long walk in the AC.  Anyway, I just don't go to the mall during the holiday shopping season.  I just do all my shopping online, and even put some milage on my soap.com account so I don't even have to fuck around with people to get toilet paper.

SOOOOOOOO...

I've been laying low on here for a minute since I've been working on a new project.  Maybe you've seen it already the couple times I've linked it from Facebook, but I haven't linked it officially on any of my real-life websites.  BUT HERE WE ARE!!

Under-eye Business

I have some skin issues.  I mean, everyone has some kind of skin issue, or something they are not real crazy about that they like to cover up a little bit.

My skin was never that bad when I was younger, but then when I had a kid, my face flipped the fuck out and I turned into the Elephant Man or something.  I was always into doing eye makeup and lipstick, but when my skin got really bad was probably when I started taking make up very seriously.  Not being pregnant for a while and getting my hormones back in line and getting religious about using glycolic acid sorted my acne out, so now I only get a zit every couple months or something, but I have some red marks and scars left over that I use concealer on.  

Welp

I was going to post today about doing a french manicure with navy blue polish and black tips, since navy and black is my favorite color combo, but it didn't go as well as I hoped.  There wasn't enough difference between the two polishes.  Not only could you not tell in the pics I took, but you can't even tell looking up close in real life.

I'm not afraid to admit when shit goes bowl-shaped.  This post was dead in the water, but I can now tell you with authority that Chanel Blue Satin and Rimmel Black Satin are not different enough to do any kind of good combo with.  Learn from my wasted morning!

So, I'm gonna improvise here, and just talk about something else that doesn't require a bunch of set up like doing a special manicure.  

Let's talk about what we smell like!

Beauty Boxes or: That Time I Got Free Stuff

I've been hearing scuttlebutt about all these monthly subscription beauty sample things that have been popping up lately, and I've got a lot of emails from people asking what the deal is/are they worth it/is the stuff good/blah blah blah...

The thing is, I am cheap.  I don't really like spending money on stuff I don't 1000% want. I've heard that a lot of the box subscription things, like Birchbox or Glossybox or whatever, sometimes send crap like designer bandaids and hair ties and stuff that is not exciting, not makeup, and seems like filler.  Also, I've heard shipping is slow... basically, all I've heard is people complaining, and I just didn't want to spend my money on something I heard was sucky, when I could save my money, or spend it on something awesome that I want.

Then, I got an email offering me free stuff.

Oh no! Who Put 'Sad' and 'Guilt' In My Lotion?

Hello, everybody!!!

Sorry I've been scarce!  October is always my craziest, busiest month.  There's my husband's birthday, my birthday, my daughter's birthday, two of my sisters' birthdays, my brother-in-law's birthday, and family always visiting for all the birthdays, and the getting ready for Halloween, and trying to get out and enjoy October since it's the best month in Ohio, weather-wise, and and and...  I can't breathe.  Phew.  Luckily, it's just a month and I will be back to being a depressed, hermit shut-in before you can say Dia de los Muertos.

Anyway, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk to y'all about something y'all super-wanna talk about...

A Love Letter

I'm gonna go off the chain here.

I know that I am pretty skeptical.  I am SUPER good at finding flaws in stuff, and I never believe that any product is going to save the world and make everybody happy forever.  

BUT!  BUT!  Like, what if I found something and, like, completely fell in love?  What then?  Well, I would write a post like this where I spit a bunch of poems and flowers about it.  

BB Creams: They're OK

BB CREAM, RIGHT?

This is the new crud on the scene.  Kinda.  I mean, it's been around for awhile, but the pedestrian makeup brands have recently started cranking them out, and people write me about them all the time.  I mentioned them once before, then wrote a little mini thing about them, but still people wanted me to talk about them, so I thought I would do a post about them today.  

Fix That Nail

My nail issues are well-documented.  I'm basically a recovering cannibal.  I've had a pretty good handle on it for the past couple years, but the million years I spent eating myself resulted in some pretty funky ridges in a couple of my nails.  Most of them are just minor, and polish will cover them.  My ring finger on my left hand, though, was apparently my favorite one to eat, because it has a pretty terrible ridge, and my nail will always break down the ridge.  

Recently, I cut my nails down and grew them back so I could get rid of some of the staining and a couple spots where I picked polish and shit was a little peel-y.  I finally have enough nail to paint, and I noticed that my ridge broke.  Usually, I will just cut my nail and file it down, but this one ripped to the quick, and I wanted to paint them and be glamorous instead of having farmer hands for another week or two.  So, I'm going to show y'all how I fix my broken nails.  It's pretty easy, and it's a good trick to be able to pull out of your hat.

Snacktime

Let's talk about snacks!

Like everybody else on the entire planet, I like to eat food when I am hungry.  Unfortunately,  when you are trying to become more fit (fitten up?  be more fitter??), sometimes it is hard to come up with something to snack on that is good, and also won't totally blow your calories for the day so you have to have miso soup and an old hunk of celery for dinner.

Obviously, the best, healthiest, and lowest calorie option would probably be some vegetables or a piece of fruit or something, but that suuuuuuucks.  You want something a little snackier than that sometimes, right?  So, today I am going to show y'all some of my favorite light snacks!  Then, in the comments (or by email), you can tell me what you like.  I'm not the final word on stuff, I want some low-cal food ideas, too.

My Stash

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Magic Isn't Real.

It's finally starting to cool down a little bit in Good Ol' Ohio, and my skin is already starting to get a little dry, like it usually does when it gets cooler outside.  

So, the other day I was looking for some eye cream to use at night, since I usually use a glycolic acid skin cream at night, and you can't really rub that shit on your eyes.  That would be Bad News.  I was looking for something plain, that was just like heavy moisturizer, that is maybe not totally greasy so it wouldn't melt and get on my glasses when I am trying to read before bed.  That's it.  That's what I wanted.

Let's Do Eyeliner

HELLO, EVERYBODY!!

It's FRIDAY!  So, TGIF to everyone who has some kind of schedule that means anything!  Yeah!!  

I thought I would post today about eyeliner.  Not about liquid eyeliner or whatever, like people ask for all time time...  I am going to write today about the very very easiest eyeliner method, that has the best payoff for the amount of work you have to put into it.

Let's do some push liner, people.

Natalie Dee, Private Pinvestigator/T Shirt Experiment

I have a bit of a Love/Hatehatehatehate relationship with Pinterest.  On the one hand, I like to see the stuff people I know post on their boards.  On the other hand, it is a pretty janky piece of crap.  

It's already been totally wrecked by spammy sites that flood the search results with dumb crap.  Theoretically, I should be able to search "Prada" and have a bunch of new Prada stuff pop up, and some people pinning sales, and I should be able to just click around and look at stuff.  Instead, when I search "Prada," the search result is the same picture over and over and over, and the text beneath all the pics is like "Prada Prada Prada Prada Prada."  I'm not clicking any of that.  Half the pics are even that stupid thinspiration stuff and stuff that looks like Etsy projects.  When you accidentally click something like that, it sends you to one of those trap websites, where it is some kind of scam and when you try to leave the page, it pops up some window that is all like ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO LEAVE THIS PAGE AND MISS OUT ON THE MIRACLE ACAI BERRY PROBIOTIC WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION AND ANAL BLEACH?!?!  Yes, I am sure.

The Pig/Nail Garbage

So, I have this theory, right?


I think that, when people buy shit that is overpriced or overhyped, they have a tendency to be a little dishonest about how they feel about it.  Or maybe not dishonest, per se, maybe more like ultra-hyperbolic about the couple things that are good, and just ignore the bad stuff.  I think maybe people feel a little bad or guilty or stupid about buying stuff, then they wax poetic about it so they don't feel like they got taken, or at least so other people don't think they go around blowing money on garbage.


Anyway, I hate that shit.  If it sucks, say it sucks.  If you gambled with your money and it didn't work out, then maybe say something about it so maybe someone else won't do the same thing??  I don't know.  All I know is that I have bought my own fair share of stuff that people just go on and on about, and had it suck so bad I wanted to die.


This might be an unpopular post, people, but today I am going to feed Seche Vite and Butter London nail polish to The Pig.  I am gonna feed 'em both, cause they aren't expensive enough to be satisfying Pig posts on their own haha.

Cheap Stuff

I thought I would do a quick post for y'all today, and feature some of my very very favorite CHEAP STUFF FROM THE DRUGSTORE!!!  Here is a video for you to watch!!

CLICK THROUGH TO SEE A LIST OF THE THINGS I'M TALKING ABOUT!!  Maybe you prefer reading, or hate watching me talk.  I got you, baby.  Click click click.

THE EYEBROW POST

OKAY, GUYS!!  I've been promising to do an eyebrow post since y'all started requesting them after my first post on this blog...  I had to grow my eyebrows out, though, so I could have something to show you, and actually give you an eyebrow shaping/grooming post instead of a post about how I take three seconds to rip my stray fuzz out every few days.  Now I am complete ungroomed mess, so TODAY IS THE DAY!!!


I actually almost caved and did my eyebrows over the weekend, because I had a party to go to, but I didn't have time to do a blog post before going to the party, so I just made sure my bangs were down and went with my eyebrows all over the place.  That's commitment!!  That's love!!

Maybe It's Tomorrow, but Maybe It's Not.

I will be the first to admit that I never know what day it is.  Basically, the only difference between my days is that 4 days a week, the sitter comes to take my kid while I work, and 3 days a week, she doesn't.  So, instead of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I have "Must be a day during the week" and "I guess it's the weekend."  It's simple, but it makes it hard to write checks and remember what day I have to get my yearly pap smear.


This is  my yearly calendar:  "Must be a day during the week," "I guess it's the weekend,"(repeat those two 52 times) and "I better shower cause it's Pap Smear Day."


Anyway, I got caught up in not knowing what the fuck was going on, so I just realized it was Friday and I hadn't blogged yet.  Y'all don't get to bitch about it, though, cause I double blogged last week.


I thought we were due for a MISCELLANEOUS BLOG POST OF VARIOUS TOPICS, DICTATED BY EMAILS I GEEEEEEETTTTTTTT........

WHAT'S UP? CHICKEN BUTT.

I thought I would do a short video blog today.  In this video blog, I mumble about stuff, then talk about my new favorite lip stuff, and show you my new sunglasses.  I made a video to keep things fresh/keep our relationship exciting (making a video on my blog is the equivalent of surprising your boring old boyfriend with a blowjob), and also because I have logorrhea, which resulted in me wrecking my thumb after writing a note to somebody that ended up being a novel.  YOU KNOW HOW I DO!  I CARRY ON ABOUT BULLSHIT UNTIL I PINCH MY THUMB OFF AND I CAN'T FEEL IT FOR DAYS!!!


Here is my video:

Click through for links to the things I am talking about!!  And to read about other stuff!!

Washin' Hair + Keeping It Washed

I thought I would write about haircare today.  I don't mean to keep mentioning that I am writing stuff because I got requests for posts about certain topics, but sometimes that's why, and so I mention it haha.  I LIVE TO SERVE!  LET'S TALK ABOUT WASHING OUR HAIR!!

Stuff I Put In Myself: Stinky Pasta

I've been sick for the last couple weeks.  A fun thing they never mention to you before you have kids is that, when you have kids, they get sick all the time.  The important detail they leave out is how they always give the sickness to YOU, then you stay sick forever because you have to take care of them and take them to the doctor and keep running the house and feeding them and all that bullshit, so you never get any time to recuperate.  Last time I got a cold, I was sick for weeks until I got a sinus infection.  The sinus infection moved into my eyeballs and I had green snot sticking my eyelids shut every morning, and I had to pry them open before starting my day.  Nothing that gross happened this time, but I have had a cold for longer than I would have liked.

Glitter Nails/Makeup Blogging/Redesign

I. LOVE. GLITTER. NAIL. POLISH.


It is so cheerful!  When you are stuck sitting at a desk all day, seeing your glittery fingers clicking around improves morale.  Let's talk about it!

The Pig/Sunscreen

After my last post about the caviar manicure, I had a lot of people saying I should have fed that Ciaté kit to The Pig.  I understand the sentiment, but I decided against it because I couldn't really offer you an alternative to the kit that A) worked and B) costs less.  I will feed mad stuff to The Pig, but I want to kinda be fair about it, maybe?  I don't know, I just didn't feel like it was fair for whatever reason...


ANYWAY, today I am gonna feed something to The Pig, and it's gonna be awesome.

Ciaté Caviar Manicure Battle Royale

A while ago, I saw the Ciaté Caviar Manicure linked from somewhere (I can't remember where, sorry.)  I was intrigued but put off by the price... I saw it linked on some European site, so the slight priciness of the kit + the cost of international shipping was a bit much.


When I started this blog, one of the first requests I got was from a lady asking that I try it out.  I was still a little apprehensive about it, though, because the cost of shipping made it too much for a nail polish.


BUT!!  On Mother's Day, I made my family take me to Sephora (it's MY DAY, dammit, we're going browsing!!!)  While we were there, I saw they started stocking it, so I picked one up.  It was very much an impulse buy.  I like doing my nails, but I am not much of a "nail art" person.  It seemed fun, though, so I got it thinking it would look weird and gross, but it would be comedic and we'd all LOL our brains out before I took it off.

Miscellaneous Miscellany

Last night I was doing Nona's hair after I gave her a bath.  Her hair is half wavy/half straight, so I was spraying some texturizer through it, and scrunching it up to get it to look more uniform.  I was using this stuff in particular:

GUESS WHAT?  THIS ACTUALLY IS YOUR MOTHER'S BEACH BABE TEXTURIZING SEA SALT SPRAY.  WHAT NOW?  HUH?  WHAT NOW?!?  Now you look dumb.

I've been getting some emails from cats asking shit, so I'm gonna post about a bunch of different stuff in this post.  I hope you can keep up...

Fingers & Not Eatin' Them

One of my first memories as a kid was biting my nails.


No, that's a lie.  I don't remember the first time biting my nails.  By time I had memories, it was a firmly-entrenched lifestyle.  Pro-level, cannibalistic nail biter.


I tried many times to stop.  Many, many, many.  Until I got to college, none of my attempts lasted longer than a day.  When I had my first successful (not actually successful) attempt, my nails were weird and bad.  I guess gnawing on my fingers for 17 years damaged my nail beds, and the nails that grew out were THIN.  They were so thin, they were like razor blades and I would slice the heck out of myself with them.  They were also so soft that they would bend all the way back, then flop right back into place.  VERY VERY GROSS.  Yuck.  Luckily, I went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning to find that I had chewed all of my nails off in my sleep, and put them in a little pile at the corner of my mattress like a complete nutcase.

Cold Coffee/Glasses

STUFF TO PUT IN YOURSELF, brought to you by Stuff I Put On Myself

It is getting warm, people, and you know what that means....  your hot coffee is gonna make you want to die.  

I am not much of a coffee person.  I don't trip out if I can't have it every day.  Cold brewed coffee, though...  cold brewed coffee is the dog's balls.

Skin Stuff/THE PIG

I had a kid a few years ago, and it was basically the worst pregnancy ever, and I was in the hospital for weeks and almost died.  Obviously, I am gonna be a one-kid kinda lady, since the odds are that the same thing would happen again, and I'm not a fucking dumbass.  You know, the organ failure and potential blindness and the edema so bad it felt like I was wearing a snowsuit and DEATH just convinced me it's probably not a good idea.

The worst part of being pregnant, though, aside from all the near death, was that it completely destroyed my skin.  When I first got pregnant, I read all kinds of ladies being like OHHHHH IT IS SO GREAT MY SKIN IS WONDERFUL AND IT JUST GLOOOOOOWS!  My skin shit the bed.  Before I had a kid, my skin was awesome.  No pores, no marks, it looked like vanilla ice cream.  No problems at all.  When I got pregnant, I got the worst, painful, deforming cystic acne.  Oh my lord, just thinking about it is bugging me out.  It was terrible.  RED!  BUMPY!  Not like acne-bumpy, like Sloth-bumpy.  The biggest cysts that would never come to a head, and if they ever did, they'd be full of a half cup of gross zit stuff.  Not trying to be nasty, just trying to paint a picture for y'all.  This was beyond what I had ever seen on myself, of course, but I'd never seen a person out in the wild who had skin as completely fucked up as mine.  I just couldn't deal with it.

How Much to Plaster On

I got a few emails from people in the last week asking about make up (duh.)  Specifically, they have been asking how much to put on.  Like, when do you stop putting it on?!?

I thought I would take a few pictures of different levels of made-upness, and tell you what I had on, and where I would go if I had that much makeup on!  Let's do this!

LEVEL ONE:  Little to no makeup.  I know, I'm so brave, right?  I'm not going to get into how dumb it is that women get so worked up about showing their faces, when it's totally 100% fine for dudes all the time, but that's neither here nor there, and this is a makeup blog.  This is my regular human face.  The only thing that is making me feel weird about these pics is that I don't have glasses on, it makes me feel like I have little teeny eyes in a big old face like a cartoon character.

WHAT I HAVE ON/WHERE I'M GOING:  When I get done up to this level, I put on some tinted moisturizer or bb cream, and Vaseline or some other kind of lip balm so I don't look dried out.  Here I have Cerave moisturizer, Skin 79 Oriental Gold BB Cream on my problem areas, and some Vaseline on my lips.  This is what I would have on if I was walking to the corner to buy mustard or Arctic Zero or a Diet Coke, or if I was going to get drive thru pho or something.  If I was going to the gym, I wouldn't even do the bb cream, because I get paranoid thinking about tinted stuff going in my pores when I am sweaty.

SHOES

My taste is a little plain when it comes to a lot of clothing.  I like weird, statement items, but you kind of need to pair wacky stuff with more understated stuff so you don't look like a mental patient (not saying I'm not a mental patient, just saying I like to be low key about it....)

That's why I have had a long term love affair with these shoes.  THESE SHOES!  They are basically as plain as possible, go with everything, and are so comfortable I wear them almost every day.

Question/Makeup Remover and Nails

Hey, Everyone!  Thanks for checking out my new site!  I've been getting a lot of feedback from y'all, and that is making it a lot easier for me to keep trucking along.  That being said....


Q: As a fellow pale chick, I am having the experience that finding foundation that matches my skin and is not just poorly made, hardly covers anything.  Makeup is a pain in the ass. I would love it if you suggested some brands or general tips for pale skin foundation matching.


A:  Lookit us, back on that Q and A stuff.  Meeeeeemoriessssssss............

Introducing The Pig/Photo Finish

You know what cheeses me off?  Blowing money on makeup stuff, and having it be really cruddy.  It's always a treat to buy some fancy thing, and when you spend decent scratch and the thing you bought is basically worthless, it is pretty insulting.

Enter The Pig!

The Pig wants you to have nice things.  The Pig does not want you to waste your money.  A lot of times there will be a product that seems to have a lot of buzz, or seems to be pushed pretty heavily by retailers or by other makeup blogs, and they just aren't that good.  That's when I will step in to give you a brutally honest take on things (brutally honest is just something I do), then we'll take whatever money you might have paid for that overhyped product and feed it to The Pig.  As this site progresses, we'll be able to see exactly how much money we've saved by not buying things that don't live up to their promises, or have cheaper alternatives.  

***This is about treating yourself to nice stuff, but being savvy enough to recognize when you should save your money for something else.  DON'T BE A MARK.  Being a mark never looks good.***

The Blackening

I am an unrepentant hair-dyer.

My hair is naturally a very cool-toned, ashy blonde.  So cool-toned it is almost grey looking.  Now, saying that, I need to point out that I have not seen my natural hair color since I was in 7th grade.  When my roots come in, they seem to still be that ashy blonde color, but who knows.  I started dying my hair when I was about 12.  I stayed home alone while my family went to a football party (hello, Ohio), and walked to Revco and bought some of that orangey, penny colored hair dye that everyone loved in the 90s, and dyed my hair before everyone got home.

I dyed my hair various red tones until I was 15.  I got a hair up my ass that I was gonna switch it up and try that purpley, cherry cola color that was also the jam in the 90s.  I got my dye and slapped it on, and it seemed WRONG.  It was not processing in any way that looked purple, or even dark purple.  It looked like tar.  Somebody in the factory (or, more likely, somebody bored in Revco) had put black dye in the burgundy-purple hair dye box.  I felt sick to my stomach for a little bit, then I rinsed out my hair and checked out the damage...

Red Lipstick/Messed Up Teeth

Look at my crooked teeth!

I actually had braces when I was in middle school/high school.  Being a poor hillbilly, I ran into some issues when it came to the monthly payments.  When the orthodontist put my appointments on hold while they sorted it out, I just went ahead and yanked them off with a little pair of mini pliers.  POP POP POP POP!  That's what it sounded like when I was popping those brackets off.  Up yours, Dr. Walters.  Fix some other sucker's teeth, I like my crooked teeth just fine.

Actually, I like people more if they have messed up teeth.  It's probably just me trying to have positive self-image or something, but I think it makes people look honest or more charming or something.  Rock out with your snaggletooth out, etc etc.

Anyway, for my first really real post here, I thought I would talk about lipstick!  I've received a lot of emails over the years from ladies asking how I do my red, and so I figured I would start by talking about that...

Hello Hello

Hello!

This is my new thing.  Scary!  I am going to put a makeup/product/clothes/purse blog here.  You might know me already, because I have had a site and blog at nataliedee.com for the past 9 or 10 years, and my fingers in other sites like marriedtothesea.com.  I guess that's why this is a little intimidating... it's just been a really really long time since I started a new online project from scratch.  The possibilities!  So overwhelming!

If we've not crossed paths before, then HEY.  My name is Natalie Dee.  Here I am:

What's crackin'?

I live in Columbus, Ohio with my husband and my 3 year old daughter.  I do comics and freelance illustration, and run an online store.  When I am not doing art stuff, or making sure a 3 year old doesn't accidentally kill or maim herself, I like to groom myself and look for sales and other superficial activities.  I like some fancy stuff, but I like cheapy stuff and drugstore stuff just as much.  I like my personal space, so, aside from haircuts, I am very much on the DIY tip.  Dye jobs, eyebrow waxing, manicures and pedicures, and anything else I can do on my own, I always will, because STRANGERS TOUCHING ME >:(

So, yeah.  We're acquainted, so now we can get down to the business of blogging this ish.

See you soon!
ND