Outfit Details:

Altuzzura Sweater & Skirt (love this darker version top & skirt), Jennifer Behr Headband

December is filled with styles that sparkle, from silks and satins to shimmering sequins in a rainbow of colors. It’s fun to add a touch of sparkle to a party look, whether it’s a piece of statement jewelry, a standout pair of heels, or a beautiful jacket and skirt. With NYE right around the corner, it is certainly not too early to think about adding some holiday sparkle to your look. I’ve been sharing holiday ready styles in several posts this week, including here and here, and continue with this glimmering list of pieces to wear to your next holiday celebrations!

Pleated Sequin Silk Crepe Skirt

A sequin skirt adds a touch of shimmer for upcoming holiday parties, especially when styled with this festive cardigan and these embellished heels.

Sparkle Eye Shadow Tint

This liquid powder eye shadow adds a touch of sparkle to any holiday beauty look. Best of all, it’s creaseless and stays put until you take it off!

Sequined Palazzo Trousers

Sequined pants feel elevated and timeless in classic black with a flared leg and long design. Wear with a cropped sweater and unique bag.

The post Touch Of Holiday Sparkle appeared first on Julia Berolzheimer.

Photo by Joseph Antigua on Unsplash

Can Heat Damaged Hair Be Repaired? Here Are 15 Awesome Tips

By Jacqueline Samaroo

Can heat damaged hair be repaired? Technically, no. Sorry. Once your hair has been damaged by heat, the damage is done and it can’t be reversed.

However, there are ways to strengthen your hair, make it shinier, restore its curl pattern, and nurture it while your new growth comes in to replace the damaged strands. That’s what we mean when we talk about repairing hair that’s been damaged by heat.

We’ll share some options on how to repair heat damaged hair without cutting it – if that drastic step is only a last resort or simply a no-no for you.

Here’s what’s covered in this article.

• What is heat damaged hair?
• What does heat damaged hair look like?
• How to fix heat damaged hair
• Ingredients you’ll find in the best products for heat damaged hair

What is heat damaged hair?

Each strand of hair is mostly made up of strands of protein that are bonded together. The protein gives the hair its structure and strength, as well as contributes to its elasticity and springiness.

Heat damaged hair is hair that has been exposed to very high heat, usually repeatedly. This causes the protein bonds in the hair to break. The hair becomes weaker, splits easily, and is more prone to breakage.

Plus, the excess or repeated heat also damages the cuticle (outer layer) of the hair. This exposes the inner layer or cortex to more damage.

What does heat damaged hair look like?

If you have heat damaged hair, here’s what you are likely to see instead of the beautiful springy coils and bouncy curls that you’re used to.

• Hair that is very dry and dull.
• An increase in split ends and hair breakage.
• More frequent knots and tangles.
• Frizziness that doesn’t respond to your usual frizz tamers.
• Hair that is harder to style.
• Hair that has taken on a rough or stringy texture.
• Lost curl pattern and limp, straighter hair.
• A change in hair color.
• Increased hair fall and hair loss.

How to fix heat damaged hair – 15 Tips

OK, so, we have already said you can’t repair heat damaged hair. So, what you need to do is get into damage-control mode. Here’s how to fix heat damaged hair so it looks better, feels better, and doesn’t’ get damaged further.

• Use moisturizing deep conditioners and hair masks. These will help add moisture to your strands and seal that moisture in. The overall effect will be hair that is plumper, thicker-looking, and restored to its natural curl pattern.
• Use leave-in conditioners, too, to keep your hair moisturized. Deep conditioners and hair masks are usually used weekly, at most. In between these times, you can keep your hair hydrated and moisturized with a good leave-in conditioner.
• Do a protein treatment. Or, use protein-based conditioners. These will help to temporarily restore the broken protein bonds and strengthen your hair against further damage.
• Do hot oil treatments. These nourish your hair and help to restore shine. Find out more about the benefits of a hot oil treatment and how to DIY your own. You can also check out our post on the benefits of oil rinsing and why it’s a good option for restoring healthy hair.
• Avoid shampooing too often. Shampoos don’t just remove dirt and grime. They also strip your scalp and hair of beneficial sebum (a natural oily/waxy substance). This leaves your hair drier and more brittle.
• When you do shampoo – Focus on your scalp and roots, not the length of your hair. Also, use cool or lukewarm water instead of hot or too-warm water on your hair.
• Choose your haircare products with care. Avoid drying ingredients, such as parabens, sulfates, alcohols, and peroxide, avoid silicones too as they build up on hair and may be hard to remove
• Avoid over manipulation of your hair. Your heat damaged hair is in a fragile state and the strands will break much more easily than normal. Excessive combing, brushing, and styling (even with your fingers) will rough up your weakened strands and lead to breakage.

• Avoid heat styling tools. Keep the original culprits (your curling iron, blow dryer, hot hair rollers, flat iron, and curling wand) away from the victim (your heat damaged tresses). They have done enough damage – no need to subject your hair to more.
• Use heat protectant. If you simply can’t do without heat styling, then your best approach is to use heat protectant EVERY TIME you use heat styling tools.

• Avoid tight and sleek styles. There are hairstyles for heat damaged hair that will help to minimize further damage and protect your strands. Go for loose styling when possible and use low-tension protective styles such as twists and box braids.
• Avoid chemical treatments. Chemical processing of any kind weakens your hair. If you already have heat damaged hair, try to stay away from relaxers, perms, dyes, and bleach.

• Protect your hair. If you haven’t done so before, now is the time to invest in a silk pillowcase, silk hair bonnet, and silk hair accessories, such as scrunchies and headwraps. These are super soft and will not rough up or dry out your hair. While you are at it, switch out your terry cotton towel for a microfiber towel or turban that will soak excess water from your hair without the need for rubbing. Apart from wrapping your hair or wearing a bonnet while you sleep, you can also do up your curls in a pineapple or in loose twists before you hit the sack.

Read:

10 Best Silk Hair Scrunchies for Curly Hair

What’s the Best Silk Bonnet for Sleeping? Meet Our Top 15 Contenders!

10 Best Silk Pillowcases for Curly Hair + 2 Non-Silk Worth Considering

• Talk to your stylist. They’ve likely had other clients who had to deal with heat damage. They can assess the degree of damage to your hair and help you plan how to counter it.
• Get regular trims. If you want to avoid cutting your hair, at least consider getting your ends clipped about every 4-6 weeks. That said there are tapered and TWA hairstyles well worth considering. If you are up to starting over with a clean slate, then a total shave might be just the thing!

Be sure to also check out:

The New Big Chop- Taking Care of Your Short Natural Hair After Cutting It!

Ingredients you’ll find in the best products for heat damaged hair

Protein – Collagen, silk protein, keratin, and wheat protein are good examples.

Hair oils – Olive oil, coconut oil, argan oil, avocado oil, almond oil, and jojoba oil are great choices.

Hair butters – While shea butter and cocoa butter are the two most popular examples, there are plenty of other great-for-your-hair hair butters. Click here for some examples.

Aloe vera – It’s loaded with fatty acids, amino acids, and vitamins for healthy and strong hair.

Rice water – Its inositol helps to repair the strands on the inside. Find out how to do your own rice water rinse, here!

Have you had to deal with heat damaged hair? Share any tips you have!

Achieving a flawless manicure is often considered something only a professional can do, but innovative formulas and nail products are making it easier than ever to get a grade-A mani at home. As part of our Manicurated series, and in partnership with Dashing Diva, the premier DIY nail source, we teamed up with two influencers — an L.A.-based model, activist, and transgender prom queen and a New York-based fashion writer-slash-drag queen — who use nail art as tools of self-expression. We tasked them with trying out the brand’s GLAZE gel manicure strips, which are cured under LED light in just 45 seconds. With Dashing Diva, masterful manicures are finally achievable at home.

Corey Rae was 5 years old when she got her very first manicure. What started out as a routine visit to the nail salon with her mother ended up becoming a memorable — and deeply transformative — experience for Rae, a 28-year-old transgender model, activist, writer, and actress. “I remember trying to occupy myself while my mom got her nails done, but I was just so excited that I went over and asked the nail technicians to do mine, too,” remembers Rae, whose mother was extremely supportive. “My mom affirmed that I could do as I pleased, and nothing was weird about that. It was a very cool moment.”

But a cross-country move from her native L.A. to New Jersey several years later put an end to their salon visits. “I’ve always loved using vibrant colors, like pinks, growing up, but when I moved, I started noticing other people’s judgment toward me,” says Rae, who then stopped doing her nails for nearly 10 years. “And if I did get a manicure, I just got them shaped and had very natural nails. Maybe, if I was daring, I’d get a clear coat of polish.”

Her transition at 16 years old reignited her love for nail art. “When I started [the journey], I saw an opportunity to do things I was naturally drawn to do again, like my nails,” she explains. “Over time, I started to get bold again and instead of clear polish, I went with pinks and blues and greens — really experimenting with colors I thought matched my skin tone, my vibe, and also the season.” 

Speaking of seasons, Rae says holiday-friendly shades on nails in particular excite her. “I’m very big on being festive. A lot of my nail choices are based on whether it’s Hanukkah or Christmas or Halloween.” But her favorite nail look of all time was the rainbow-colored French tips she sported during Pride this summer. “That was a big proud moment for me,” she says, “to have what I felt were long enough nails for that [kind of look].”

For most of her manicures, Rae visits the salon (like mother, like daughter), preferring gel polish due to its long-lasting nature. But she admits that seeing a professional regularly isn’t the most economical. An alternative she loves? Dashing Diva’s GLAZE, a collection of DIY gel manicure strips that can be cured under LED light for 45 seconds.

“They’re so cute,” Rae says. “I’m always a little reserved when it comes to putting any kind of nails or tips on, but [they have] a remover that makes me feel more comfortable and [I love] that they’re all evenly shaped.” She added that GLAZE is easy to apply — and remove — without doing any damage to her nails. She opted for Pink Wave, a soft iridescent pink, in trying them out for the first time, but says she plans to wear Saffron Flower — a shimmery burgundy — for the holidays.

Ultimately, Rae sees nail art as a way to express herself. “Showing yourself authentically to the world is the best thing you can do,” she says. “Although some people might not notice them, I always notice nails. I love nails. I love seeing cool manicures. It’s like an extension of you — quite literally.” 

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A post shared by Corey Rae (@imcoreyrae)

Watch the video, above, to learn more about Corey Rae’s approach to nails and how she channeled her inner diva with Dashing Diva’s GLAZE. 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Achieving a flawless manicure is often considered something only a professional can do, but innovative formulas and nail products are making it easier than ever to get a grade-A mani at home. As part of our Manicurated series, and in partnership with Dashing Diva, the premier DIY nail source, we teamed up with two influencers — a New York-based fashion writer-slash-drag queen and an L.A.-based model, activist, and transgender prom queen — who use nail art as tools of self-expression. We tasked them with trying out the brand’s GLAZE gel manicure strips, which are cured under LED light in just 45 seconds. With Dashing Diva, masterful manicures are finally achievable at home.

For Andrew Nguyen, manicures are a form of self-expression — powerful symbols of freedom, beauty, and creativity — but it wasn’t always that way. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but spent his summers in Florida working at his father’s nail salon at the age of 12. “I hated nails when I was a kid because I associated it with my dad forcing me to work there,” he remembers. “Of course, being a bratty kid, I was like, Absolutely not.” 

What’s more, prior to working in the nail salon, Nguyen, who’s Vietnamese American, recalls the humiliation he felt in second grade, when his cousins dressed him up, put makeup on him, and painted his nails sparkly. “At the time, it was so embarrassing,” he says. “I was like, Oh my god, this is so shameful.” 

And then there was pre-school, when his aunt, who used to watch him at times, painted his nails black (much to the chagrin of his mother). “I thought it was so cool, but my mom picked me up and she was so upset,” he recalls. “I mean, my family’s supportive now, but she was so mad that my aunt painted my fingernails because I was ‘a boy.’” 

Despite the negative feelings he had toward nails in his early years, Nguyen, 26, now embraces all things manicure-related. A fashion writer by day and a drag artist called Dynasty by night — “a classic New York multihyphenate,” he laughs — Nguyen considers nails akin to art. “When I started doing drag, I began appreciating [nail art] more,” he says. “I met this entire beautiful community of queens who loved nails and I met queens who had such cool, intricate nail art. That’s when I started to appreciate it as an art form and a mode of self-expression.”

His nail color of choice? A fierce gunmetal. “I love when my fingernails look like they’re metal claws,” he says. “I feel like a bad bitch.” Nguyen adds that although he may occasionally change up his ring finger “if I’m feeling spicy,” he typically opts for the same shade across the board. “I’m a uniform kind of girl. I like it cohesive.” 

To achieve such a look, Nguyen prefers to leave it to the pros, admitting that he’s “so bad at painting my nails.” That’s why, when tasked to try out Dashing Diva’s innovative GLAZE DIY gel manicure strips, he was elated. “I watched the video tutorial on how to apply them and I was like, Oh my god, this is so freaking cool and convenient.” Of the dozens of color options and patterns available in the collection, Nguyen reached for red and black French tips, teal and purple metallic shades, and metallic silver. The results? Flawless.

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A post shared by DYNASTY ⊙⌒ ⊙✿ (@reignofdynasty)

Watch the video, above, to learn more about Andrew Nguyen’s approach to nails and how he channeled his inner diva with Dashing Diva’s GLAZE. 

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

A few weeks ago I went for my first mammogram. You can tell it was my first because I made the rookie error of wearing a dress to attend it, which is why I am stood there in my trainers and pants with a dressing gown tied around my waist.

This wasn’t a routine checkup for me. I was still 40 (I turned 41 a couple of weeks ago, just after the appointment) and NHS generally screen women between the ages of 50 and 70. But I had been to the doctor with a strange pain – or more of a pressure – in my armpit and down the side of my breast. She wasn’t worried but I really was, it was out of the ordinary for me, so she referred me to a consultant at the hospital who also wasn’t worried but thought there might be a Fibroadenoma (non-cancerous breast tumour that’s apparently quite common) and wanted to schedule a mammogram and a scan to check it out.

Now in one of the biggest coincidences to happen to me this decade, about two hours after I left the hospital the lovely PR for One Welbeck (a private healthcare centre in London) emailed asking whether I would be interested, in a journalistic sense, in visiting their breast screening centre for a mammogram. How mad is that? I’m told by one person that I’ll be booked in for a mammogram in Somerset and a couple of hours later a totally different, completely unrelated person invites me to write about a breast screening service in London! I thought that I was on Candid Camera.

But it was a genuine offer; One Welbeck’s breast screening centre has the most advanced technology in the UK and they had some spaces available for press to visit the centre and write about the facilities and services on offer. It costs £259 for the main option there which is the “3D Breast Screening Mammogram with Radiologist Report” and I thought that this sounded like a very useful service for women who might not be offered screening on the NHS or who wanted or needed a faster appointment.

And so off I went to London. I have to say, I went a lot less fearfully than I would have done, because I had already watched Nadine Baggott’s Instagram video on her mammogram appointment and it had completely put my mind at rest about it. The strange thing was, when I watched Nadine document her mammogram I had no idea I’d be needing one so soon! It was one of those things that I watched, processed and sort of mentally shelved for later, thinking I’m glad it’s not that bad, I’ll remember that for when the time comes.

And that’s  partly the reason I’m giving so much detail here, because I do think that if you can help out a few people by sharing your own thoughts then that’s no bad thing. I think it’s so important not to bury your head in the sand when it comes to your health; I’ve been known to do this in the past because I am quite scared of anything test or hospital-related and so if this post resonates with someone like me then I think it’ll be worth me having written it!

I must say that the experience at One Welbeck was really great: everyone working there seemed geared to make the experience as relaxing and reassuring as possible. And not just for me, in case you’re wondering whether there was some sort of special treatment; all of the women in the waiting area seemed very calm and one even started chatting to me about how amazing the service was there. She raved so much about it that I started to suspect she was a plant, but actually I think it was because she was just so relieved that the experience wasn’t what she had feared it would be. Obviously there are going to be people attending the clinic who are there for routine appointments, but there would also be people who were there to check something urgently and who would – understandably – be incredibly anxious. I think that this woman was in the latter group; she’d already had a mammogram and a scan and a biopsy and was awaiting results on that. But she said that the care and compassion with which she had been treated had really taken her aback.

And I can agree with her sentiments; I felt completely at ease, unrushed and above all, cared for. The mammogram was quick, absolutely 100% painless (the pressure from the scanning machine is weird but it didn’t hurt at all, one bit*) and the ultrasound I subsequently needed was arranged immediately. I was in and out with the all-clear within half an hour. More importantly I was in and out with the all-clear and armed with some very important information: I have very dense breast tissue. I had been told this by my doctor and the consultant but neither had really explained the implications of this so I’d done my mental shelving again and stored the info for a later date. In actual fact it’s info that I need right now because apparently denser breast tissue makes it more difficult to feel small lumps or spot tumours on a Mammogram. (There’s more info at cancer.org on this. It’s why I then had to have the ultrasound follow-up. Dense tissue shows as white on a mammogram but then so do tumours, so it makes it more difficult to see an issue.)

I would never had known this had I not grabbed the bull by its proverbial horns and seen my doctor, asked to see the consultant and then gone for my breast scan. Thankfully all was clear, but it was recommended by the radiologist that I be scanned yearly because of the difficulty with spotting smaller tumours in denser breast tissue and it’s something that I will most definitely now do. I feel armed with relevant, important information about my own body and that is highly motivating; the fear of developing an awful disease is really high up on my list of worries in life, but I feel that there is a small, comforting element of control I can take back by keeping up with things like smear tests and breast checks and any other screening I might be offered.

So the aim of this post is to jog along anyone reading who might have a nagging concern with a lump or visual abnormality to go and get it checked. I tend to have this overriding fear of “bothering” doctors unnecessarily with my ailments, but more often than not when I finally go and see them my gut instinct was correct. (See: massive sinus infection that I lived with for about fifty thousand weeks.)

*A bit more info on the mammogram process itself, which I’m putting down at the end in case people don’t want to read about my boobs being essentially flattened into pancakes and then released. I’m being completely honest when I say that for me there was no pain. But it was uncomfortable. You basically have to drop your boobs (one at a time) onto a plate of glass and have them pressed until they’re essentially flat.

Re the plate of glass thing, if you’ve ever photocopied your breasts (to be frank if you had an office job in the nineties and didn’t photocopy some part of your anatomy then I’m highly disappointed in you) then it’s just like that but without the searing heat of the photocopier light going over an intimate area of your body.

You have to completely relax, which is obviously easy when you’re semi-naked and a lady you’ve only just met is placing your breast onto a piece of machinery, and you have to sort of slump yourself over it so that your shoulders aren’t tense. Then the other part of the scanner comes down to flatten the breast out and you start to feel a pressure which builds up and up and feels incredibly weird and then comes to a sort of climax (not that kind) where you think your boob couldn’t possibly squash more and then poof! It releases.

If I felt any pain at all it was actually where my ribcage was pressed against the machine. But it was fleeting, like the sort of pain you might get when you turn around in your car seat and lean into the back and you awkwardly press against the central console. (Bizarre comparison, don’t know where that came from!) And my radiographer, Miss Johanna Kelsey, was very calming and reassuring and talked everything through in very simple terms so that I didn’t feel scared or worried, just sort of…bemused.

My default state these days. Ha.

(I was very lucky to be invited to One Welbeck without charge because they are raising awareness of their services but I am absolutely going to return every year as a fully paid-up client as I am not eligible for NHS checks at this age. You don’t need private healthcare or insurance to book with One Welbeck, it’s a one-time fee of £259 for the 3D mammogram. Fees differ for other services such as ultrasound or biopsy.)

The post Life Update: My First Mammogram appeared first on Ruth Crilly.