Dessange Paris Review

I'm a member of www.influenster.com, and they sent me Dessange Oleo Replenishing shampoo, conditioner, and oil serum to try out for testing and review purposes. I received these items for free, to try out and give my honest opinion.

My first thought was that I was excited to try a product from Paris, that is now being sold here in the United States, you can find these products at your local Target. I opened the bottles to smell it, because well, I like things that smell good, and smelling shampoo and conditioner is what most people do, right? First impression, it doesn't smell good to me. Now, others seem to like the smell, but I'm just not a fan of really strong, musky perfume products. This definitely has that smell, but I had other friends smell it and they didn't have a problem with the smell and liked it. So please smell for yourself to see if it's a smell you like or not.

I had just taken a shower that morning, so I waited until the next day to utilize the product. I washed my hair with the shampoo, then used the conditioner. Whenever I use conditioner, I wind up letting it sit in my hair while I wash my face and body, letting it do its magic. After rinsing out the conditioner, I noticed my hair instantly felt dry, the kind of dry that you feel after you totally fry your hair from bleaching it blonde. My hair never feels like this after using shampoo and conditioner, so I'm not sure if it was something in the formula or not. I used the oil serum as directed, blow dried and styled my hair and still wasn't too much of a fan of how my hair was left. It looked dry/brittle, frizzy, and more coarse than it typically is. I used it for a week longer to really give it a go, and it just wasn't working out for me.

I let a friend borrow the products to see if it was just my hair, and sure enough, it worked really well on her hair. It left her hair soft and beautiful. I've seen lots of great reviews from other people with this product, so please, give this product a go if you're interested! What doesn't work for some, might work for others! :)

***I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.***

Finals, finals, finals...

This week has been crazy busy. I'm currently taking college courses online, and it's broken up into spring 1 and spring 2. Well this week spring 1 finals were going on, and between my business law class and my political science class, I had more than enough work to do, along with being a stay at home mom to 3 kiddos. Mother nature also decided to take a dump for the 3rd week in a row, causing our kids schools to be closed for most of the week. My attention has not been anywhere near this blog. I have turned in my last final for the classes, and this is exactly how I feel...

Spring 2 starts Monday, my class load won't be as heavy was it was for spring 1. Yesterday I threw out my back, so I rushed to the chiropractor and had an adjustment made. Lucky me, I am only 31 and have arthritis in my spine, as well as degenerative disk disease. It was discovered in 2013, when i thought I had a herniated disk from weight lifting, the amount of pain this brings me sometimes brings me to tears. 

I do have a few posts that are brewing right now, such as a new discovery to helping our 4 year old who has Autism and a horrible time getting to sleep and staying to sleep at night, we've wound up ditching the melatonin and noticed he's sleeps a lot better than before. I'll work on that either Monday or Tuesday. Also, I got a box from Influenster that I'll review the contents of, so stay tuned. 

Until then, enjoy day light savings time that starts tomorrow, unless you're like me and you just re-set your clocks the next day. ;)

Conair 3q Infinity Pro hair dryer

Truth is, I have really thick hair. By thick I mean when I get my haircut, I ask to have it thinned out and within a month, it's super thick again. When we moved back to the states from Italy in 2011, I had to get an American hair dryer to fit the outlets, my mom took me to Ulta for the first time and I was able to test out hair dryers before purchasing a trusty ole Conair. Fast forward to February 1, 2015, I purchased the Conair Infinity Pro 3Q hair dryer. I had read reviews online about the speed of drying hair, the brushless technology, and quite frankly, I'm loyal to Conair. When I purchased it at Target, I was able to use my red card and save 5%, but still, at $119 for the dryer, I was still a bit in sticker shock. I told my husband that this better dry my hair like a champ or I'm going to be really irritated. Luckily on Amazon, the dryer is now $79, money saver!!

My daily hair routine typically consists of this: wash hair, wait 1 hour to let hair air dry, then blow dry my hair for 30-40 min all while getting a cramp in my hand. Yeah, not the most ideal way to spend part of my morning doing my hair, but if I don't it's not a pretty sight. I was in a rush and dreaded having to blow dry my hair right out of the shower the first time I used the 3Q, but I had no other choice. Y'all, my hair was FULLY dried in 15 minutes, yes, 15 minutes! I even had time to pull of the styling nozzle and blast my hair with COLD air to set it. No more frizzy mess after blow drying, just straight, sleek hair.

The blow dryer is a bit louder, but the force of air that comes out of it is absolutely amazing. I like to style my hair as I dry it, and it took a few tries to get it right to keep my hair from flying off the brush, but I got it to work for me and not only do I have a reduced drying/styling time, but my arms and hands thank me! It does come with a styling nozzle and diffuser to attach onto the dryer, which is VERY easy compared to the one I had before. The only complaint I have about it, is the switches for on/off, high/low, hot/med/cool are where you'd put your hand, and at times I wind up flicking a switch while I'm drying my hair, maybe a relocation of the switches to the top or side of the dryer would work best. I do have to say though, operating the switches are a lot better than the previous hair dryer I had, so I'll give it credit for having easier on/off switches.

Overall, it's an amazing hair dryer and well worth the purchase! I'm going to use this thing until it just can't work anymore.

*Note, I was not asked to review this product. Conair did not send me this product or compensate me for my review. This is my own personal review on a product I bought with my own money.

Peace and Calming

Three weeks ago, I took the jump and purchased a Young Living Essential Oils Premium Kit after having an excellent experience with an oil blend that I was given to help my back pain. I signed up as a wholesale member so that I could receive a 24% discount on any purchases without a requirement to have monthly quotas to reach in order to get the discount.

After playing around with a few oils, I decided to buy a few more, one of them being Peace and Calming. A back story, my youngest has Autism, and with that he has a terrible time going to sleep. Nighttime routines would take 2-3 hours just to get him to go to sleep, and then he'd wake up several times throughout the night and it would take from 30 min to an hour to get him to settle down and go back to sleep. Our pediatrician recommended we give him melatonin to help with his sleep, so we decided to give it a go. When he takes the melatonin he's usually out within an hour, but still wakes up throughout the night.

Two nights ago, I diffused Peace and Calming for the first time and the whole house was very mellow and relaxed, seriously this stuff is golden! Last night we decided to ditch the melatonin to see if it would have an effect on my youngest, sure enough, he mellowed out and bedtime was a breeze, and he didn't wake up during the night! I'd love to kick the melatonin for good with him, so with the success we've had with Peace and Calming, I'm positive this is our permanent solution to a more natural way of helping my youngest go to sleep. This is one oil I will always have in stock on my oil rack.

Sarasota Half Marathon 2015

Last year my oldest brotherJason called to tell me that he was inspired by me and decided to take up running. I was real proud of him, because we could share a love of running together, and I didn't feel like to much of a black sheep in our family with myself being the only runner. He signed up for his first 5k, when he finished he called me and I could just hear the excitement in his voice. I remember telling him to watch out, he'd wind up running a half marathon before he knew it, but he was quick to say "I'm not quite there yet, not that crazy."

Come the end of September, he called me to tell me that he had just signed up for his first half marathon and asked me to join him. How could I say no to joining my oldest brother in his first half marathon?! This would mark my 3rd half marathon, and the first one I'd actually properly train for. The Sarasota Half Marathon is 13.1 miles of pure party city! A band at every mile, girl scout cookies around mile 9, beer just before mile 13, and the most amazing spectators I've ever been around during a race. We made the drive from Virginia all the way down to Sarasota, Florida, a very long drive with 3 kids! My parents flew in the Friday before the race to watch us, and I have to say, having family there to cheer you on is very humbling and motivating at the same time.

My brother runs a much faster pace than I do, so he went further up in the corral than I did. I had a technical issue with my music, I created a playlist on Spotify and didn't realize I had to download the playlist in order to listen to it during my run. About mile 1, my music stopped and while there were bands along the course, I had a pumped up playlist to push me through. Around mile 4, my brother and I passed each other and I got an awesome high 5 which pushed me to run a bit longer than I was being told to run through my RunKeeper application.

Around mile 6, I was looking at my watch and trying to figure out how my pace was going, and surprisingly I was doing a lot better than I thought. I looked up to see my dad and my sister-in-law on the side of the road cheering me on. After I had passed them I wound up getting choked up and shedding a few tears because it was just an amazing feeling to see my family there on the course cheering for me. Usually when I do races, it's super early in the morning and I leave my husband and kids at home so I'm not having to wake up the kids at 5am to make it to the race destination just to stand there and wait on me.

Around mile 10, my back started giving me problems and so my run/walk cycle became more of a walk/walk/run/walk cycle. I do have to say it's a HUGE improvement from years past where I'd be in complete pain come mile 7-8 and ready to give up. We ran through the botanical gardens, and oh was the sight absolutely amazing. When I came up on mile 13, I made it a point to start running again until I crossed the finish line. As I got closer, I saw my youngest sitting on the barrier gate with my husband and gave him a high five, shortly after I crossed the finish line, there was my dad, mom, nieces, sister-in-law, my other son and daughter, and my brother all waiting for me and cheering me on. Having family there at the end to greet you after a long run just gives you a very emotional and loving feeling.

I have to say, this is by far one of the best races I've ever participated in, I loved it so much that I wound up signing up for the race in 2016. I'm looking forward to running this again, and this time with my brother, sister-in-law, and possibly my oldest son who has expressed his interest in wanting to run a half marathon with me one day.