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If you check out my post from yesterday where I shared an eyeshadow “how-to” tutorial thanks to the awesomeness that is YouTube and FilthyWhore, you’ll see a most excellent video of what I call the “Rainbow Brite” eyeshadow look. It’s seriously glamtastic.

I went ahead and gave it a go myself last night, and here are the results (pictured left). I just love this 5-color eyeshadow look. You know, it seems over the past year that my love of bright, glammy makeup has grown exponentially(!), much to the chagrin of my conservative family members (“Too much eyeliner!” they moan).

But whatever. I don’t care. I may not be able to change the fact that I can’t walk, but I can change how my face looks on a day-to-day basis, and it’s a hellava nice change and very theraputic. And believe me when I say this: Getting used to putting on makeup with paralyzed fingers is NO easy task.

If you can at least move your wrists, you’re golden. I’ve perfected the art of “holding” long handled brushes (MAC highly preferred) between my thumb and first finger. Long handles are a MUST ladies. Other quaddy-quad tips:

– Q-Tips are your best friend. Keep plenty on hand (and nearby) to clean-up any eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow mistakes.

– CoverGirl’s Perfect Point Plus Eyeliners go on super easy and with minimal pressure. A great thing if your arms aren’t that strong or stable.

– Ok, this is a “multi-tip” tip (grin). Here are some of my must-have products: Maybelline Great Lash Mascara (just an overall great product and there’s essentially never any clumps after you apply), MAC’s Prep + Prime Skin makeup primer (this goes on before your foundation and makes your foundation look much more natural and less cakey), MAC’s Pigment Eyeshadows (these colors totally pop and the container lasts forever), MAC’s 219 Pencil Brush (this smudger has helped cleaned up many an eyeliner nightmare and can make the crookedest line look spectacular).

I leave you with my most important tip: Don’t be afraid to experient and go, well, a bit crazy. Makeup is seriously fun stuff if you just give it a chance. I liken it to finger-painting for adults :)~

– Tiff

Stop buying worthless skin products girls! I don’t know about you, but on top of my toilet I have this girnormous wicker basket filled to the brim with cleansers, night creams, day creams, masks, and peels…which are rarely, if ever, used. And I’m a poor writer. I can’t keep living with these hits and misses!

Well thank God (I can’t-believe-I’m-saying-this) for Oprah. I recently discovered on her fantastic website, the holy motherload of everything you need to know about how to take care of your skin.

Entitled Four Decades of Beautiful Skin, this “how-to” tell you what you should be doing to your face everyday, no matter your age; whether you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s. And as a 28 year old extremely vain, fair-skinned, sun worshipper, this advice is more than welcome.

Things I learned for 20-something skin:

– I should use a SP 15+ daily lotion everyday on my face AND neck.

– Since my skin is more oily than dry, I should use a gel cleanser, but only at night.

– I should use a Retinol-based, oil-free (essential), night moisturizer. Retinol is basically just highly concentrated Vitamin A, and this vitamin has been proven to erase wrinkles and boost your skin’s collagen levels. Plastic surgeons highly recommend this product. And if you put it up under your eyes, you won’t need to use a separate eye cream.

Neutrogena has a great anti-wrinkle, retinol-based night cream (see above), which after only using a few nights, I can attest to it’s results. Freakin’amazing shit (totally softened my forehead lines), and it only costs $12.00 approx (bought mine at Target). Just use a pea-sized amount each night.

– Tiff

YouTube makeup maven, FilthyWhore, has some of the coolest “how-to” makeup videos I’ve ever seen. Here’s one of my favs.

This Monday’s beauty product recommendation is courtesy of the uber-glam goddess from sunny Florida, Miss Meaghan G.

The Eyecurl II, a heated eyelash curler that requires no finger movement to operate (only wrists), is hands-down the most awesome beauty product I’ve seen in a long ass time (and the underfed Kate Moss apparently agrees).

You can get this nifty curler from various online locales (including Ebay and Ecrater), and I’ve seen it go for as little as $6.99 all the way to $16.99, so don’t be afraid to shop around.

If you’re wondering how this thing actually works, simple: The curved heated wand, when pressed under the upper-lash line and slowly lifted upwards, causes the lash to curl….thanks to the heat. And FYI, you’ll have the best results if you use mascara first. Think of your mascara as a rockin’ glue.

And yes it’s true, curled eyelashes make an immense difference to your face.

Immense!

Curled eyelashes make your eye look exponentially bigger; not Disney-esque, but close :/

– Tiff

This was a weekend kingmaker the all of the cabin-fever inducing, stay-inside-or-you’ll-die, weekends. It lingered around -10 – -20 degrees here all weekend, and I wasn’t about to go outside and suffer; no matter how badly I wanted that Cinnabon from the mall. So instead, my boy and I hunkered down and watched two seasons of “24,” and then went off and watched our own programs in separate rooms. What can I say? My boyfriend isn’t always going to like to watch what I like. Case in point: The Girls Next Door.

I find Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends mildly entertaining, but sometimes the show just sucks you in so badly you can’t look away. I may not understand all of the babble that’s coming out of their spoiled, living-in-a-bubble mouths, but they’re good for a decent laugh now and then.

I noticed an interesting beauty trend amongst the girls while watching the show on Saturday night, They had all changed their makeup colors (only a true girly-girl like yours truly would notice that) from a lot of taupes and browns to greys and pinks. And I loved it! Bridgette (the eldest of the trio at age 32) looked the best in the new look, wearing a silvery grey eyeshadow along with a bright bubble gum pink lipstick. It was so complimentary to her bleached blonde hair. A great idea!

Now if you haven’t noticed, I too have bleached blonde hair. I was blonde when I was born, but as I got into my late teens it turned an ugly dark blonde/red color that could only be likened to a kid mixing a bunch a paints together in art class. Truly vomit inducing. So today, per my Girls Next Door inspiration, I copied their makeup look. So, what do you think?

Facebook links:

BeautyAbility

Tiffiny Carlson

Twitter:

TiffCarlson

email: tiffiny@beautyability.com

Sites I <3

• Visit the BeautyAbility message boards  (email me to get registered: tiffiny@beautyability.com)
• Mind Body Solutions – my amazing yoga studio, founded by adapted yoga pioneer paraplegic Matt Sanford
• EasyStand Blog – great disability blog with great writers (me!)
• Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation – a foundation dedicated to finding a cure for paralysis; founded by former Indy car driver and quadriplegic, Sam Schmidt.
• The Injury Cooperative – a great place for new SCI’ers to find education, support and hope
• GimpGear – fantastic technology, including an adapted PS3 controller, founded by my friend Mark, a C6 quad

…should be this; the SUPER-fantastic enclosed makeup pencil sharpener. All your shavings get caught automatically in its plexi-glass enclosure. Now, how cool is that?

Brilliant, and 100% necessary, for any C6 quad with a hankerin’ to line her eyes a la Cleopatra…

Yours truly, Tiff

When I broke my neck at the end of the summer in 1993, little did I know what I was in for in the long upcoming cold season. I soon discovered by October that my body was far from what it used to be when it came to its ability to regulate temperatures. I was screwed. No matter what I did to compensate for my constant coldness – turtlenecks, space heaters, heated blankets – nothing made me feel the blessedness of body warmth again. It was a perpetual Artic Hell.

Fast-forward four years later at the Courage Center (I eventually moved into this independent living facility to learn how to live on my own), and I began to be a social smoker. A lot of my new disabled acquaintances were hardened “crippled” badasses who smoked all kinds of things (grin), had piercings, liked Marilyn Manson, and pretty much broke every rule that was put in place for the residents. I was like Winona Rider and there were like the collective version of Angelina Jolie in the movie, “Girl, Interrupted.” This novel activity of social smoking outside (we couldn’t smoke indoors), unintendedly made me stop feeling the unbearable coldness that my sluggish blood-flowing body had been forcing on me for all these years. I still hold to the fact that the reason for this was simple: The cigarettes not only provided a small amount of visible warmth, which tricked my mind into thinking of the cigarette as if it were a mini-bonfire, the Nicotine also numbed me to the cold.

Now, I don’t recommend that every freezing quad out there should take-up smoking to cure their neverending bout of freezingness. But I must admit, it was the only thing that worked for me; and I eventually quit smoking years ago. I can still zoom outside, sans jacket, in 40 degree weather for 15 minutes and not even feel the cold. It’s crazy to think about (I never thought I’d get to this point), and I’m incredibly grateful. I live in Minnesota and even though we truly are experiencing global warming (no matter what some crazy Evangelicals may say), balmy Florida-like winters are hundreds of years off. And I don’t plan on moving anytime soon. So as you can see, getting used to the several- month-long winters we have is essential for my sanity.

For you folks with SCI out there reading this, it all really boils down to mind over matter. The cigarettes and the Nicotine screwed with my mind, making the permanent chill I was experiencing become nothing more but a very, un-fond memory. I’ve also found a few other tricks, that I’ll share with you now, that have helped me stave off the “cold:”  Microwaveable neck warmers and drinking hot water vs. cold water (room temp water also will work). These two seemingly minor things blocked the cold from entering my sensitive quad bod. And there’s no need in saying that I had to discover these things on my own. Rehab OT and PT therapists once again proved useless in providing any real, beneficial help to me. I swear, most of everything that helps me on a day-to-day basis I figured out on my own.

Anyways, enough of that. Stay warm this winter all of you quads out there! The Discovery Channel Store sells really nice microwaveable neck warmers, FYI.

I rolled into a Vickie’s this weekend, smacked down my Angel’s card like a good American “hunter and gatherer” female, and bought a sexy-striped chemise from their new Pout line and two of their Beauty Rush body splashes – Juiced Berry and Grapsicle.

Yup, that’s right: GRAPESICLE! I currently smell like someone poured a can of Crush Grape pop all over me, and it’s glorious.

In other scent-related thoughts, I wish someone out there in the wasteland of humanity could also recall the OLD school Victoria’s Secrets scents that were produced pre-1993. Anyone remember Tranquil Breezes cologne from their old “Herb” collection? God that stuff was the most beautiful scent ever bottled! A mix of cucumbers and melon. Better than Jesus’ B.O, and way better than anything Charlize Theron, Kate Winslet, Kiera Knightly, or Liv Tyler are pimping-out these days on TV the week before Christmas.

(The perfume commercials are starting to feel like the most melodramatic soap opera ever. Puke)

Laters – Tiff