Danielle Staub Really Made Jersey Housewives Hilarious..

So on this lazy Saturday afternoon before I leave for South Carolina I am listening to Little Dragon, which my musically gifted boyfriend turned my on to some time last year. I am still mourning the loss of a long post I wrote the other day that was a love letter to the album The Suburbs, which Blogger happily deleted mid-post. So sad. Anyway, lately I've been very much into developing a healthier lifestyle for myself, this means more meditating, morning yoga, and of course a skin care regimen breakdown. I've been reading a lot of articles on the organic product craze and whether or not these organic products stand up to their chemical cousin's results. My personal take on the whole matter is that products containing harsher chemicals and parabens and whatnot do work, and probably deliver faster results than organic based products, yet the long term effects are what set the two apart truly. Organic products have a healthier impact on us in the long run because what we put on our skin, we are really putting in our bodies and our blood. The skin actually makes up about 16% of our body weight and is our largest organ. So if we wouldn't feel comfortable putting some product on our tongue, should we really be slathering it on our skin?

Ok so I'm not going to eat my beauty products. But I do want to feel semi-safe about what I use. I used to have a skin care regimen that was all about burning the top layer of my skin off so I can have nothing there at all! Now, I've realized that my skin was at it's peak when I used less. I used to get compliments on a daily basis about how beautiful my skin was, but once I started using more and more products, my skin changed and has never really been the same. Bu in another article I read recently, I believe it was on Style.com, a dermatologist pointed out the fact that by using too many products, we are creating more problems for ourselves because we then need to alleviate problems brought on simply because of another product. So I am using all the patience I have with my skin, and letting it get back to it's natural state. This means I 1) returned my clarisonic 2) dropped the Elemis exfoliating cleanser 3) chucked the Cetaphil, which apparently is not all that great for your skin. Now, my new regimen consists of these important steps:

• Eminence Organic Coconut Milk Cleanser (which smells divine omg)
• Boscia Moisturizing Mask (when my skin is very dehydrated)
• Ren Keep Young and Beautiful Serum, recommended to me not only because it evens skin tone and plumps, but because it is a lovely organic line that really delivers
• Ren Glycolactic Peel Mask once or twice a week to refresh the skin
• Peter Thomas Roth Cucumber Gel mask once or twice a week to calm redness and irritation, which I get a lot
• Dermalogica Ultra Calming Mist, but this might change soon since it contains a couple parabens and I feel like I could find a calming toner that is more organic such as Jurlique's rose water toner
• As for a night cream, I alternate between Ren Frankincense cream and Caudalie Moisturizer. I may also purchase Josie Maran's Argan Oil because I have heard it does wonders for really restoring the skin barrier and balancing moisture levels.

I have also been trying to cut back greatly on coffee and caffeine. I still have a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee in the morning, I know, it's naughty, but when I get that later afternoon craving, I usually go for a tea or decaf coffee instead. I'm not perfect, coffee certainly is my main vice, but I don't smoke, so that's a plus! Also, alcohol in moderation and drinking plenty of water if I know I'll be having a couple drinks with friends on the weekend. I firmly believe what you've been putting in your body will show up on your skin. My skin always looks terrible after I sneak in fast food or something really greasy. My friend's with the healthiest diets tend to have the most beautiful skin. Jealous. Now I am going to get ready to pack some things and indulge in an hour's worth of Jersey Housewives because these ladies probably have some fantastic healthy living tips I can pick up.

Catch Up, Ketchup!

Since I don't have a whole lot to rant/rave about today, I thought I'd do a little catching up on some of my favorite things, old and new, curiosities, and everything in between.

Let's start with some of my favorite things, that just might be in your top ten list too!

• Lululemon sweatshirts. These pricey body tents make me feel like a hot, organic-loving jedi
• Flower decorations that light up. I have a set in room at home, a string of flower lights in my dorm, and a jewelry stand that is more like a tree but hey it's close to a flower and it lights up
• The book "Go the F*&% to Sleep". One page reads, "The owls fly forth from the treetops. Through the air, they soar and they sweep. A hot crimson rage fills my heart, love. For real, shut the fuck up and go to sleep". I'm sure this is Kate Gosselin's favorite book as well.
• Whitney Port. Love that girl.
• The elderly couple who wed on the morning of July 24 in New York. The two women were well over the age of 70 and had been dating for more than 20 years. They reminded me that marriage is not just a piece of paper.

Because I still have some time on my hands I also want to talk about my favorite topic, more than anything ev-er: skin care. Right now I'm in the middle of a skin regimen crisis, due to the extreme summer heat and my inability to stick with one type of product/brand. What I love right now are the following:

• Elemis Tri-Enzyme Facial Wash. This is amazing simply because it does not dry out my skin and comes in such a pretty, practical package. No frills here.
• Kiehl's Midnight Recovery. I only use this once or twice a week, but it makes my skin feel so soft, doesn't cause breakouts and fakes 10 hours of peaceful sleep.
• Lush Brazen Honey mask. I only use this once a week since it is such a strong product, but I love to use this fresh mask when I feel like my skin is congested or a little "thick" (with sweat and grime, thanks NYC). **Also, whenever I use a mask or exfoliator, I always boil some water and let the steam open my pores for a couple minutes before. I find this to be the most effective method when I really need to clean my blackheads.
• Clinica Ivo Pitanguy Toner. Unfortunately I got the cleansing set as a gift, and I wasn't too crazy about the whole system, but the toner works nicely. That's about it. I might try it again though, just because.
• Peter Thomas Roth Oxygenating Mask. This mask is nice just before a party or night out, when I want my skin to glow a little. I really don't think this mask can do a whole lot besides brighten, but it is certainly nice and it has lasted me over 8 months.

As far as facials go, I don't get those too often seeing as they are expensive, very expensive in NYC to be exact. But at the beginning of each school year I usually splurge on a facial at Bliss because the spa's amenities are so amazing. I tried a $55 half hour facial at the Elemis counter recently. They had a nice massage chair and a wonderful skin expert, but it really just felt like a car wash. I was cleansed, toned, wiped down, and that was it. I am excited to try the $50 facial at the Dermalogica academy, mostly because it is an hour long, extraction included facial, the catch being that it is performed by students, in a room with other women getting facials. But from what I understand, the Dermalogica academy is sort of a grad school for serious skin therapists, so I'm not worried. When there's a budget involved, some standards are lowered. Hopefully I can afford to experience this facial soon, at which point I will make an update to let everyone know how it goes! I am going to go catch up on some Teen Mom right now, and for the record, Farrah scares the crap out of me.

MTA Under Pressure

Remember the movie The Warriors? Or the classic love story Ghost? Remember the subway scenes? Graffiti was plastered on the train, garbage rolled across the floor and people in trench coats kept their hands deep in their pockets as they yelled at the invisible passenger next to them. Those days of subway horror are long gone, but a new kind of terror reigns. That terror is also known as the MTA. Ok, maybe I'm being a tad dramatic by referring to the MTA as some sort of tyrannical monster who plans on ruling the people with an iron fist. Yet I can't really find another source to blame besides the organization in charge of making sure the subways run efficiently. Subway construction, delays, express to local, local to express, there is no telling what kind of surprises the MTA has in store for me and the rest of New York.

As someone who rides the trains every day, and uses many different lines to get to work and whatnot, I experience my fair share of subway troubles. At this point I expect certain things from each subway line that I use on a daily basis. The 6 is pretty reliable, although a pain when it decides to run from 14 st Union Square all the way to Brooklyn Bridge express. The N is slow, unreliable yet nicely air conditioned. The B or D is pretty clutch, but always slow right before Columbus Circle. The 7 is great unless you have somewhere to be by a certain time. Knowing all these little nuances still doesn't mean I can predict everything. The weekends are particularly heinous since there's about half the number of trains running and they seem to switch up the lines completely. For those of us who work on the weekends, and that's a lot now thanks to this draining economy, it is still crucial to be able to rely on the trains to get us to work on time. Even when I leave an extra five-ten minutes earlier on the weekends, I still end up jogging past tourists to get to my job on time. According to this article recently posted on NY Times website http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/nyregion/with-weekends-not-sleepy-anymore-subway-faces-a-test.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2, there's about an 85% retention rate on the weekends depending on the subway line. That's a lot of commuters! I don't care if the MTA has greatly improved the quality of the subways since the 70s and 80s, I am paying for reliable services NOW. In 2011, we have the intellectual and physical means of creating a great subway system.

Services have gone down, prices have gone up. It's irritating. I wish I could boycott the system until it improves, but I need the system. Just like most New Yorkers, I don't have a great deal of time to spend trying to piss off the MTA. I have a job, and internship and a little bit of a life in between my responsibilities. On a daily basis, nothing runs smoothly, so it would be fantastic if the MTA could lighten my load a little and get me where I need to be on time, without having to tell me in the most passive aggressive tone, to "please be patient".