My Experience With... Beauty Tricks for Cool Chix by Caroline Naylor

Many of us in America are starting to turn back to more natural alternatives to living, from food to beauty and beyond, joining the many people who have been doing it for years and are now blogging about it.

I am one of those many people looking at websites and YouTube videos in attempts of finding that wonderfully magic combination that turns my hair into silk. Or, at least, that’s my basest imagination in the back of my mind. The part of me with common sense that there is no magic combination.

A lady of my calibre can dream, right?

Like most behaviors of mine, this one has a history. I suppose my desire for easy, fun natural beauty treatments started with this book. I saw it in a bookstore while shopping with my mother. I believe I bought the book myself, a small personal victory for me at the time.

I was an unemployed teen, okay?!

Anywho, I wanted to try literally everything listed in the book that looked like it would work for me. My mother, forseeing that I was not necessarily the most vigilant individual, suggested that I do not do the ones where you need food to complete the project.

As I got older, I lost this beautiful book, and managed to buy it again in college, this time ordering online. As I looked over the book again, I felt the nostalgia return, and put it away in my library. Re-reading it recently, I realized this book was written in 2003. Definitely not a curl-friendly era, and natural and DIY beauty treatments certainly weren’t as widespread as they are now.

Beauty Trix for Cool Chix contains step-by-step instructions for body creams, manicures and pedicures, perfumes, bath essentials, and of course, TONS of hair care. There are also tips for beauty emergencies and ideas for storing your creations and tools. It even has a section on what to do with glitter! This book may have also contributed to my soon-to-be-not-so-secret obsession with all things sparkly.

I have been able to use some of these projects in real life, however. My mother has used black tea and coffee in my hair to give it a color boost. Once. I think we may have neglected to reinforce my hair with proper moisturizer. I’ve even made, using the book as a source of inspiration, an herbal brew that has saved my hair once. I went swimming at a lake recently, and while I did a good job of rinsing and washing my hair, it still ended up puffy, and not in a good way. I brewed green tea, parsley, and sage in a pot, and used it as a rinse and shampoo / conditioner additive. After a curling session with my trusty Gold moisturizer and some pipe cleaners (that isn’t in the book, I just improvised on a YouTube video I saw), my hair was pretty much back to normal. I just went swimming again in chlorine, and I’m hoping this will work again, only this time I’m using straws. Brewed herbs for me are kind of like oils for most people. They give me the nourishment without giving me the stiffness of oils.

Once I did try using a tiny smidge of avacado on a test spot on my hair, rinsing with warm/hot water to give it the deep conditioning effect. I’ll tell you, that curl burst forth with new life without hardening up. While I’m not brave enough to give myself a full avacado mask at this time, it’s definitely something to consider in the future. A word of caution: avacado contains a latex-like substance, so people with a latex allergy should probably not use this.

My verdict on Beauty Trix for Cool Chix: definitely give it a read, no matter how old you are. Some of these are actually pretty useful to use, just update the look to match your mood or age level. As for me, I hope to share it with my daughters, should I have any.

Who’s your favorite beauty icon? (This can be real or fictional.)

My Experience With... Liberty’s Kids.

A fact about myself: I loved school.

I mean, it was almost an obsession. I especially enjoyed mathematics and the arts. Those do seem to go hand-in-hand with each other, don’t they? Science and Language Arts weren’t too far behind, though I will admit that my high school Anatomy and British Literature classes did give me a bit of a run for my money. And of course, my Bible classes were always as informative as they were enjoyable. I also preferred homeschooling, even though I did spend several years in “regular” schools. I was a straight-A student all through High School... And then College kicked me around like I was a rag doll. It was still all too enjoyable for me to fully stress over my grades. (I didn’t have a low GPA, by the way. Just saying.)

Another fact about myself: I hated history and social studies classes. Could. Not. STAND them. Not that I hated learning about it. Shoot, I actually liked learning about the Medieval Feudal System, among other things. What I didn’t enjoy was the tests. I could barely remember American facts outside of what SchoolHouse Rock songs I knew by rote. I complained very frequently to my mother / teacher, who reassured me that it was important to at least learn about history and to try my best, even when it was tough.

It was years before she finally felt safe to tell me that she hated history classes, too.

Now, not all history and social studies classes were too unpalatable. I had SchoolHouse Rock (as afore mentioned), the Carmen Sandiego CD games series (especially Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?, which I maintain is way better than the original TV show), the Eyes on the Prize VHS series, courtesy of the library, Our Friend Martin, and of course, Liberty’s Kids.

Still, even with all those cool things,

not even my Switched-On Schoolhouse

system made learning history fun.

  

This show first memorably came into my life when I was a young teen. It was during a time when my mother was perming my hair. Some of you may or may not know, but any perm requires lots of rinsing and a time of neutralizing, to restore the hair’s pH balance. To relieve neck strain and to keep me from becoming too uncomfortable, my mother would take kitchen chairs and line them up next to the tub in such a way that I could lie down on them, with my head and (at that time, quite long) hair hanging over the side and above the tub. With the removable showerhead, my mother was an unstoppable force, a wizard with my often unpredictable mane. And with a TV in the adjacent kitchen, the process wasn’t too boring.

I guess you could say that my first encounter was more of a radio experience. I heard the audio, but the way I was positioned, I couldn’t quite see it. Also, because this was on PBS, the frequent changes to the Liberty News Network made things a little harder for me to follow. I asked my mother what was going on, and she didn’t quite know, except that it was a history show that looked really good. She then told me it was called Liberty’s Kids. Then I found out from Radio Disney that Aaron Carter was one of the singers for the theme song. Considering I was one of the many female human beings who had a crush on him at that time, I was more than elated.

It didn’t take long for me to track the show down, and I would watch it live and record it to VHS to watch after classes and school, depending on my schooling status. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, seeing Sarah grow and become an American, and of course watching Henri’s antics. I also enjoyed James’s maturity during the series, and Moses was just plain awesome! Ben Franklin would have to be my favorite character, though.

Years passed, and naturally I stopped watching it bit by bit. I found out that it came out years later pretty early in the morning on a digital channel that played 80s, 90s, and 00s cartoons. I would set up my VHS player to record it, along with Gomer Pyle, USMC on a different channel.

Yeah, yeah, I know some of you are scratching

your heads, but if you think my broad taste in

TV shows is weird, you should see my music library.

At this point, they had taken out the oh-so-cool mini segments from between scenes, which left me a touch disappointed, but I was still grateful to watch an old favorite show again. It did not last long, however, as they changed the lineup. I figured I’d never see Liberty’s Kids again.

Thank God I was wrong. I happened to be in a Wal-Mart, and by chance as I was browsing DVDs, lo and behold the four-disc set was there. Unfortunately, once again, the extra clips weren’t there, but I wasn’t upset about it this time. There was too much for me to truly enjoy about this series, as well as why I enjoyed it. It showed diversity, passion, charm, grit, truth, emotions, and heart. Sure, we all knew that America would turn out all right at the end. But did we, at times. And who can actually hum the little bit of music at the end of every scene?

In short, it got me, if nothing else, excited to learn about American History. If you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest you do. It’s an eye opener into America in the 1770s to the 1780s. Plus it’s more than just about America vs England, and who comes out as the victor. It shows life, which rarely shows a true winner. And of course, new solutions bring about new problems, as shown in this show. If you’re hoping that the physical quality of this show is on par with Disney, I would respectfully ask that you clear your mind of such criticisms. True, it’s not of the highest quality, but the intensity of this show outshines it all.

As for the shorts, well, may I recommend the still-functioning Libertyskids.com, which I’ve just recently found out about?

I’ve just finished watching the DVD set. I kinda lost it shortly after I bought it. Found it right after I just recently organized my life (mostly, anyway). It took quite of few nights that would put Netflix binge-watchers to shame, but it was soooo worth it. 100%, A+, etc., etc., and the proper emjois to go with it. Just watch it, even if you watch it at least once.

So, what’s your favorite Carmen Sandiego video game?

My Experience With... A Goofy Movie

You know you’re starting to get old when movies that came out around your childhood hit the 20- or 25-year mark.

I first noticed this with Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Lion King, but continued to notice when this hit me:

A Goofy Movie is now 21 years old. That’s insane.

The whole story behind A Goofy Movie is that Max is in high school and his dad is... Well... Goofy. I would SERIOUSLY like to know what happened with Max’s mother, and how on EARTH she and Goofy got together. I mean, really think hard.

I’ll give you a minute to gather your brains.

It’s the last day of school, and the last chance for Max to get the lovely classmate Roxanne -- who we don’t even see after the movie until House of Mouse -- to go out with him even notice his existence. So he puts on a big show for her in the middle of assembly, which eventually epically fails, but it does get him to go with her to an end-of-the year party, where a live performance by rock star Powerline will be broadcast. Now, about that failed show, it does get him in trouble with the principal, who takes it way too far on when he calls overly sympathetic father Goofy at his job (presumably, K-mart?).

Fearing his son’s “inevitable” juvenile delinquency and the electric chair, he decides to take Max on a fishing trip for summer break in Lake Destiny, Idaho, where his dad used to take him, and he announces it to pretty much everyone he encounters on the way home, including his co-worker, neighbor, and rival, Pete. Did I mention that they’re supposed to be on the east coast? Max comes home and Goofy is packing for the trip. At first, Max thinks Goofy is going with Donald Duck, but is told that Max is supposed to be going with him that very day.

Max ends up going to Roxanne’s house to tell her the bad news that he can’t go to the party with her because of the trip. Roxanne suggests that she probably can find someone else to go to the part with, and that gets him nervous, so he ends up lying to her saying that he’s going with his Dad to the Powerline concert in LA and that Goofy knew Powerline from being in a high school band. I did meniton that they live on the east coast, right? Amazingly, she believes it and becomes excited about it. Max and Goofy then head off on a crazy adventure, where they both learn more about each other, and Max, in the end, somehow ends up appreciating his father more.

Yeah. I’ll admit... I am not crazy about this movie at all, even when I was younger. I didn’t like Max, considering he was such a stick in the mud the whole time, plus I’d like to know what happened between the years of Goof Troop and A Goofy Movie. How’d he get so mean, rude, and surly? Yeah, his dad’s embarassing, but isn’t everyone’s dad, at least from time to time? I love my Daddy, but there are still times when he’s singing along with the old school station that make me want to crawl under the car. Same thing with my Mom when she sings some old school songs or says something rather funny yet embarassing about my life. Still love them, but I’ve never been all angst-y about it. I watched it again in college, and pretty much everyone agreed this was a terrible movie morally.

But we all agree that two things were AWESOME about A Goofy Movie.

Stand Out and I 2 I.

Both are songs by Powerline, a Michael Jackson / Prince / Devo powerhouse combo voiced by Tevin Campbell, and was reincarnated into live action years later by Bruno Mars.

No, seriously, look at this BuzzFeed article. If you don’t have time, look at the pictures below.

The resemblince is stinking amazing.

Anyway, these songs are beyond age-defining, but they are timeless classics that were attached to an, at best, very mediocre movie. And really, those are the only songs that are worth remembering from the movie.

Overall, I call this a dud. The only reason I would ever watch this again is for those two songs and those two songs only. I also admit it was cool that they had a cameo role go to Pat Buttram, who was a Disney voice acting legend.

Would I let my child watch it? Erm... jury’s still out on that one. That child would have to be really grounded in good values before seeing this movie. However, I would totally have my child listen to those two songs, mainly because they are just so good! Plus, the fact that they have practically nothing to do with the movie itself and can hold their own as regular songs really helps! It’s kinda like The Prayer from (shocker-of-all-shockers) Quest for Camelot, which I believe might have been a better movie.

Ehh, jury’s still out on that one, too.

Now because I’m such a nice, caring, lovely person to you guys, I’ll attach Stand Out and I 2 I to this blog post, both in video and audio form for your personal enjoyment.

   

I did watch An Extremely Goofy Movie for the first time a few years ago, which was... Meh. Really, really, meh. No Roxanne, no Powerline, Max and Goofy are in college, and Max is all angst-y again. That’s it. Oh yeah, and something about a skateboarding challenge. Really nothing to write home about.

What’s your favorite movie soundtrack? (Note: the movie itself doesn’t have to be good.)