The New Love of My Life

I found my day cream! Yay! This is a highly moisturizing cream with pure and simple ingredients that aren't complicated and don't try to do too much. The simplicity of the ingredients is what convinced me that I should go for it.

Lately I've decided that the best thing I can do for my skin is to clean well and moisturize well using products that encourage the skin's natural anti-aging properties. I don't have wrinkles yet - yeah, hate me, if you want - so I really don't need to be putting stem cells or caviar on my face just yet. If my skin is luminous, smooth, and awesome, that's enough for me. Well, that's enough for anyone, really.

The main ingredients are Emollient oil and natural active ingredients: shea butter, beeswax, aloe vera and soy protein. Symdiol 68T paraben-free preservative complex.

It's developed for people with sensitive skin too - which is good for me because my eye area is pretty sensitive. It's a medium consistency cream but it spreads well and soaks right up into the skin. This product is also commonly used as a makeup primer. It's one of those multi-fantastic products that works to remove makeup, under makeup, as a moisturizer and furniture polish (not really, but maybe, I wouldn't know). I used it today as a makeup primer and my skin was so grateful. It's going to be the perfect winter primer. It'll keep my skin smooth and moisturized and super, super beautiful.

Here's the best part - it's not expensive. Don't you just love genius people who can make awesome things with ingredients that are readily accessible therefore less costly? There is limited distribution outside of France, but it can be found on Amazon and ebay quite easily.

Read more about it here.

Love It!

Their performance at the Grammy's was awesome - I.Love.Them.

Baby Soft Skin

Baby Soft - seriously

I recently started using a new brand called Sejaa - Gisele's all natural, organic, anti-aging super moisturizer and mud treatment - and I love it. You all know how much I like to moisturize, massage and pamper my skin, so I'm pretty pleased with myself for having discovered this line.

I was drawn to the brand because of the overall proposal. I don't usually use all-natural brands, unless you could L'Occitane, and I don't particularly seek out brands that are organic or "no animal testing". In general I like to use the tried and proven mega brands that spend gagillions on research and development. This brand however is low key, really eco-friendly, non-pretentious and focuses on giving your skin love - natural love.

Since I've been currently shopping around for my new true love and the price was attractive, I didn't think I had anything to lose.


I bought the mud treatment - I love, love, love doing weekly mud treatments, it keeps my skin so tight and bright - and the night cream. I did the mud treatment first and followed the instructions - not rocket science - wash and spread, when it dries remove with warm water and a washcloth. It left my skin fresh and squeaky clean. I spritzed with Avène Thermal Water and it was perfect. Next, I applied the night cream. The smell was almost like play-doh, but not at all unpleasant. When I woke up in the morning, my skin was baby soft - I mean, really baby soft. The night cream was not at all greasy, super easy to spread, spread like a dream, and best of all - my skin was baby soft.

Bottom line: if you're looking for something that won't irritate your skin, natural, highly moisturizing and within your budget, I recommend this line. There are three products: Day Cream, Night Cream, Mud Treatment.

Pretty Orange Lippies

I am fascinated by orange lipstick lately. Because of the nuclear heat south of the Equator right now, it only seems fitting that this should be one of the colors of the moment. Like the surface of the sun.

MAC makes a really beautiful orange, Lady Danger. It's very bright and intense. There is a way to tone it down though by mixing a bit with clear gloss first. It makes the color translucent and more wearable for every day life - especially if you're just a normal person and not Rihanna.

There are many ways to wear bright colors, but the most sensible way is to tone down everything else to a bare minimum - the way Kirsten Dunst and Grace Kelly are wearing it in these pictures.

There are millions of oranges out there from drugstore to high end department store brands. You just have to try on different ones until you find your ticket - the perfect one for you.

The Loss of a Teadrop Diamond

Lately I have been really hard to please in the movie department. I just watched Tennessee Williams' The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond - a screenplay only found after he died. People, there's a reason Tennessee kept this a secret - it's really no good. Although, since I have not read the screenplay myself, I don't know if I should pin the blame on him (technically he's blameless, as he chose not to reveal this particular work), or on the director who to me grossly misinterpreted the characters to the extent that it felt amateurish and green - two things Tennessee Williams is not.

It feels like an unfinished story. It's like he started it and finished some of the characters, but hadn't gotten around to fine tuning and perfecting all of them. The whole story is so full of holes, gaps, craters, character flaws and what-have-you that it was impossible for me to really get behind.

In fact, it kind of made me mad because I really wanted to like it. It stars two of my favorite actors, Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Evans - be still my heart. It's well cast in my opinion, the costumes, hair and makeup are excellent, not to mention that it's set in the roaring 20's - very attractive. It promises but does not deliver.

While Chris Evans is a super hot hunk of burning Southern love in the story (although, he didn't take off his shirt the whole movie long - I don't get that), and is able to portray what he was given to work with to the best of his ability, his is the worst written character. It's contradictory, lacking depth and reason, there are no explanations, just strange. Unlike his character, Bryce Dallas Howard's is very well rounded, excentric, endearing, passionate and well written. The contrast is severe and gives the viewer the feeling that they don't connect - square peg, round whole. There are two other significant characters in the film, one of which stands out to me particularly, and that is the role played by Ellen Burstyn - the dying aunt of a friend. Spactacular and award winning.

That being said, the movie is very attractive because of the glamor, colors, actors, etc. If you can put up with a "hero" who to me is a terrible person with no redeeming qualities but his looks, no background story that would explain his lack of character, coldness and lack of empathy and understanding, or anything that would help endear him, then you will enjoy it immensely. The hair, makeup and spectacular wardrobe were the only redeeming factors for me.

I know I may be alone in this sentiment and that there must be a plethora of glowing reviews out there, but this is what I think. You should probably watch it and decide for yourself.

Movie Review: Black Swan

After being presented with a wave of mediocre to downright ridiculous offerings such as: Eat Pray Love, I Hate Valentine's Day, The Backup Plan and several Nicholas Cage contributions - just to name a few - the movie Black Swan literally blew me away.

It is an emotional thriller and psychodrama of the most intense kind. One review said it was "Fantastically deranged at all times............ a glittering, crackling, outrageously pickable scab of a film". The film grips you from the very first scene with its hideously close photography and never lets you go.

It takes you on a journey through the twisted and fragile ill mind of a young girl who is picked for the role of a lifetime - the Queen Swan in the ballet Swan Lake. Faced with the monumental task of playing the Black Swan - the dark side of role - and being such as vulnerable, naive little ninny who lets her overbearing and controlling mother dictate every aspect of her life, the task seems almost too much for her. As she breaks down emotional and mental barriers in her life, she begins making progress during rehearsals but at the cost of her sanity.

Her relationship with her mother is twisted and wrong and it seems to only get worse as she does better - and worse (in her mind). That whole business with her mother is confusing and leaves a lasting impression, unfortunately. Her stupid bedroom filled with cute stuffies is in itself bordering on child abuse - since Nina the ballerina is in her 20's. You can tell from the way her mother treats her that she not only hangs all her hopes and unaccomplished dreams on her little girl, but also works double duty to try to infantilise her in a severly creapy way.

The dancing, while vital to the story and an interpretation of everything you see, is unbelievably beautiful but almost secondary to the storyline. When you finally get to see her dance the White and Black Swan it's amazing. A take your breath away, give you goosebumps, awestruck moment in the film.

A good movie, to be sure, and worth every penny. It gave me a whole new respect for Natalie Portman as an actor and a person. The kind of commitment it takes to play the role the way she did is beyond my scope of understanding. I hope she wins the Oscar. In my opinion, she's the only one in the running. Watching Natalie Portman transform and morph into what is essentially a "creature" is terrifying and downright scary - which is fascinating and thrilling.

Romantic Hair and Makeup

This is an awesome slideshow with the most romantic looks from film. Really great ideas for a romantic night out like Valentine's Day, or just for any time. Go to BellaSugar and have fun!

I'll be blogging properly soon. Ta ta!

What Have You Been Up To Lately?

Books

I'm big into the thriller/romance genre right now - they're the kind of page-turners that keep you up until the crack of dawn - I love it when that happens.

TV

I am loving the new season of Top Chef. All of the stars from past seasons who didn't win come together to battle it out for a second chance to win the grand prize. Awesome! I'm also really into Off the Map. Hubba, hubba, hubba

Drink

Tea, like always. I'm also big on iced coffee right now too.

Makeup

I've been sticking to the basics - mascara and gloss. I've been alternating between two glosses from Clarins, Eclat Minute in a light baby pink, color 001, and Baume Couleur in a bright pink, color 05. They're perfect for the summer because they're super glossy but lightweight at the same time. The colors are fresh and youthful.

Buenos Tiempos

Dinner parties with my friends. I love setting a perfect table and receiving guests in my home. I just had some of my silver items refinished and there is nothing classier than serving water from a silver water pitcher. Our last theme was Italian feast - it was super buenos tiempos!

Looking forward to...

School holidays ending so the kids can get back to their normal schedule. I can't take everyone all up in my business all day long. I long for the days when I'm the only one in the house all morning long.

Wish List

Right now I want a perfume I just read Guerlain is launching Muguet. They've launched it before, but this year there's a precious bottle to go with that is hand painted and has one of those old fashioned poofy squeezy things from classic old perfumes.

I also want one of those super TVs.

Most Awaited Movies of the Year

I am so impressed with the list of movies coming out this year. I sense it will be a great movie theater year. I love going to the movies and I'm going to make a serious effort to watch all of the movies on my list at the theater. I know there may be some good ones accidentally left off my list, and I'm not sure if I found the list with movie releases for the whole year, or only for half, but here goes anyway.

Season of the Witch
The Green Hornet
The Dilemma
Black Swan
The Eagle
Hall Pass
The Mechanic
Limitless
The Adjustment Bureau
Take Me Home Tonight
Jane Eyre
Red Riding Hood
Paul
Your Highness
Arthur
Water for Elephants
Fast 5
Thor
Priest
Something borrowed
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The Hangover 2
X-Men: first Class
Green Lantern
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2
Captain America
Cowboys and Aliens
Monte Carlo
Conan the Barbarian
The Three Musketeers
Footloose
Breaking Dawn

Most of these already have trailers available for viewing, but I'm too lazy to put them all up but I'll leave you with one delicious morsel:

Paging Dr. House

As a wife and mother I not only have to be a chef, maid, teacher, handyman, therapist, stock and inventory person, miracle worker and superhero - I also have to be a doctor.

For some inexplicable reason I have to look at suspicious moles, rashes, non-existent injuries and the likes and give a preliminary diagnosis on a daily basis. I don't know if they know that not only do I have no idea what I'm talking about, but my degree from the university of ER, House and Grey's Anatomy is not real. I don't go to med school, or hook up with nurses in the on-call room. I don't even own a stethoscope. As an observer of TV medicine I am not qualified to give any kind of opinion, fictitious or otherwise, regarding the state of anyone's health.

There is also a very important element everyone keeps forgetting - I don't want to look at anyone's ailments, injuries, rashes, moles, infections, yucky eyes or ingrown toenails. The reason why we have health insurance is not because of emergencies. In cases of emergencies the public hospitals look after you pretty well and you can usually come out of there with mediocre medical treatment, which when compared to other countries is not that bad at all. No, the reason we have med is so that if there is anything suspicious on anyone's person at any time, instead of coming to me - a medically ignorant person at best - for an invented diagnosis with memorized lines such as: "subdural hematoma", "blunt force trauma", "hypertensive myocardial fibrosis", they can just schedule an appointment with a professional.

Isn't that the best solution for everyone?

In some rare cases I have been known to give sound advise. I once told HRH that his shoulder was not hurting because 2 days earlier he may or may not have eaten some bad chicken. I also told another friend that her hives were not from eating ramen noodles the night before, that if she had a stomach ache or nausea it would have been an indication that something was wrong with what she ate, but otherwise she could probably relax.

Somehow, for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I keep getting stopped in the hallway to diagnose - what in my opinion is usually nothing - and when I give an unsatisfactory diagnosis, which I most certainly will nearly every time, I get screamed at. So uncool.

Currently I have been holding off on a specific diagnosis. Someone came to me with their hurt finger. There is no sign of anything, it doesn't really hurt when it's moved, only when it's pressed, there is no bruising, swelling, redness and barely any soreness at all. Contrary to what "someone" had concluded it is not broken. This leaves me with one possible alternative - it's nothing and they should just wait for it to go away and stop whining about it. This particular bit of advice will not be well received, so I'm stalling. People, particularly men, want to be babied when they're sick and "hurting" so I'm thinking of telling said person that I've seen this injury before and that while serious and oh-so-very painful, there is no treatment and that in most cases the body will heal itself and that they just have to wait for that to happen, but in the meantime, try icing it 2 times a day, drinking lots of fluids and taking a good nap.

You think they'll buy it?

Looking Forward To...

I feel like this is going to be a really great year. There are so many movies coming out that I want to see - tons of Marvel superhero movies, new series, travel, tons of awesome stuff.

I just started watching a new series, Off the Map, which stars the love of my life, Bride and Prejudice's Martin Henderson - mi corazón. I have no idea if the plot will hold, but I will be a huge fan regardless. The story centers around a podunk clinic out in the middle of nowhere we know - I don't think - kind of Central America looking, actually. There are a handful of young American doctors who want a new start so they head out to God forsaken territory. What we're hoping for is lots of drama and story that is not related to anything medical, promiscuity - tons of it, all the doctors doing everyone, interesting adventures and medical cases - and last but not least, to see Dr. Keeton every single week.

I am really looking forward to Thor and Captain America. When both of the actors materialized on stage at the Golden Globes I almost went into cardiac arrest. Jesús Luz, I didn't know where to look. Both movies promise to be more than fantastic, so I'm counting the days.

Top Chef: All Stars is awesome! I love this season. It's the best of the best in one tremendous challenge after another. I love it!

In completely non-viewing related news:

Picnic season is upon us and if you know anything about me you know I love to picnic. I only hope the rain stays away this weekend so we can have our first picnic of the year.

My brother and sister are getting married to their respective finacées this year. For the longest time I was the only one married in my family, so this is very exciting news, indeed.

My Kindle arrived and I'll tell you what, it was love at first sight. When I held that tiny gadget in my hands and turned it on for the first time, I couldn't help but marvel at the beauty of life. I looked at that little reflection of me and it just made it all worth it. All the months of waiting, the weight gain, the sleepless nights, the expense, none of it mattered anymore because here I had the most beautiful reflection of my husband's love for me - the Kindle.

Rested and Ready to Go!

I just came back from holidays and thought I'd give you the rundown on what we did. We couldn't go very far because HRH had to stay close in case things went to the Devil with his company and he had to come racing back to Rio. We ended up spending some time in Saquarema. It's a quaint little beach town that is neither pretentious nor crowded and this makes it peaceful and affordable.

One of the coolest things we did was go crab fishing. What a rush! We used these McGyver style nets that looked like basketball hoops with a fish dangling in the middle as bait. Once the net thingy was lowered into the water it took literally 1 minute for it to fill up with yummy delicious crabbies - for the most part they were small soup crabs, but we did get some larger ones too. We actually did better than a lot of the old timers out there with us that night on the bridge and I think we owe it all to some funky fish bait. My brother-in-law walked into a restaurant nearby to see if we could buy some bait and he said he had nothing and then he remembered that there were some groty old fhish in the back of his freezer that we could use - stinky fishy magic, I'll tell you what.

With our catch we made a creamy crab soup with half of the bucket and an intense crab broth with the other half which later became the world's best risotto. I'm not joking, overstating or in any way, shape or form exaggerating. It was the very best anything we've ever eaten, or will ever eat - ever.

We went to the beach every day at around 4pm because it wasn't so hot at that time - watched the sun go down, ate ice-cream at dusk, checked out the bimbo cops who watched the main square every day - they were SNL hilarious complete with mirrored aviator glasses, matching pink watches, long blond extensions, bimbo poses and all. Buenos tiempos. I tried to take a couple of pictures without them knowing but I'm not a very good spy and was unable to capture just how ridiculous they were.

All in all it was super restful and very fun. Thing 1 and Thing 2 had a blast so we hope to do it again soon. I will say one thing for being back: there is nothing - and I mean nothing - as wonderful as coming home to your own bed!

Ta ta!

Can't Wait for This One