Well folks, after a little hiatus I'm back and I am so excited. Not only am I excited to be back in action, I'm back in action with my FIRST product review ever! *Que applause* During my blogging hiatus I was able to take a trip with a good friend of mine to the North American Hair Stylist awards  in Las Vegas and it was so much fun! For those of you who don't know what the NAHA's are its pretty much the Grammy's of the hair world. Stylists from all over the country come to be a part the NAHA's. Giuliana and Bill Rancic hosted the event! I mean... if that's not the real deal then I don't know what is.  We even got a swag bag filled with all kind of goodies for our hair. One that I'm most excited to share with you is The Wet brush. This brush has been dubbed the best detangling brush ever and has been featured in tons of magazines including Haper's Bazaar, Glamour, and Style watch just to name a few. The Wet Brush has changed my beauty routine. I no longer have to use copious amounts of product in my hair to make combing through my hair with a pick, bearable. Before the wet brush I was ripping and pulling through my hair trying to comb it out with a pick. OUCH!   I love this brush with all my soul and here are just a few reasons why.

• Sleek, matte finish
• Comes in fun colors like neon orange
• Special bristle technology allowing the bristles to glide effortlessly through snarly, tangled hair
• Great to use on wet or dry, curly or straight 
• For all my colorists out there - great for combing out all that backcombing after washing out an ombre. I've got one in my kit!
• ZERO TEARS - this is huge for all the moms out there. 
• Stops swear words in their tracks, at least for me. 

This product is a must for moms, snarly haired girls, and stylists! I give the wet brush 5 gold stars. Go get your detangling on!

Keep Life Golden

First, I want to say how hard it was to keep this a secret and not share it with everyone! Recently I was part of an amazing team working on an amazing brand video for one of my most F A V O R I T E fashion bloggers in the universe, Jessica Cheesman of Golden Swank. Jess so sweet, insanely trendy, and absolutely gorgeous! But enough from me, I'll let the pictures and video do the talking.
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It's totally fine if you had to pick your jaw up off the floor... I did.  Head over to Golden Swank for all the deets from this shoot and unlimited fashion inspiration!

Videography: Nicole Traveller
Photography: Mary Claire Photography
Makeup: Yours truly
Flowers: Soil and Stem

Skin Care Savers for Shnoz Surgery

So there I was, fashionably dressed in my pale blue hospital gown and matching surgical cap, being wheeled into the operating room. Lets just say I looked good, real good. I was just seconds away from being put to sleep for a  N O S E job. H O L L E R! Totally kidding...sorta. Almost a month ago I had surgery for a deviated septum repair. For the last 25 years I was often mistaken for Darth Vader's long lost sister (or Darth himself on my bad days) and I was tired of mistaken identity. So a nose job it was! With having surgery on my nose I knew that washing my face and taking care of my skin like I normally would was out of the question. However I was determined to make sure my skin stayed zit free and fresh through out my recovery and I had come up with a plan of action to do just that! The night before my surgery I got my scrub on with my Clarisonic (LIFE SAVER- if you guys are on the fence about investing in one, let me tell you, you wont be sorry! More on that later...) and followed up with Biore pore strips. You better believe I slapped those puppies on every part of my face a blackhead might have tried to appear! After surgery I couldn't even touch my face for a good couple of days. Biore pore strips are the equivalent of gold in my opinion. After most of the swelling had gone down I used Kirkland brand facial wipes to gently swipe over my face. If you haven't tried these wipes I highly recommend you do so. I have sensitive skin and they weren't irritating at all! They also made my face feel clean and fresh. The power of one little wipe right?!  Now that it has been almost a month since my surgery I am able to be a little more rough with my face. I started using Lush's Mask of Magnaminty! This stuff feels as awesome as the name sounds and bonus, its organic! Its chalk full of peppermint for a deep clean, aduki beans to combat dry flakes, and vanilla to reduce redness. I mean, what more could you want? This mask can be used all over the face, on the back or even on the chest. If you only have a few spots that concern you its great for a spot treatment.

And just to show you how well these products worked for me, here I am in all my  post surgery glory. Not a zit in site, and I haven't had one since! #nofilter #knockonwood

SPF 30 + SPF 25 = SPF 55?

It's going to hit the mid 80's this week and I couldn't be more excited! I wasn't made for the clouds. I was made for sunshine and those little umbrellas that come in all the poolside drinks. Growing up at my house 80 degrees meant one thing.  SWIMMING! I just got excited just thinking about it. My mom always said, " As soon as it's 80 degrees outside, you can go swimming." So naturally we got to know our local meteorologist real well. Now don't go running for your arm floaties yet. Make sure you've got your sunscreen on first. Oh, what's that you say? You're wearing a mixture of SPF 45 and SPF 15, so really you're wearing SPF 60?  WRONG! All through our lives we have been taught that if we add things together we get a greater number. Which is true, but oh so wrong when it comes to sunscreen. Whenever you use SPF, which stands for sun protection factor, the highest number you use will always be the SPF at work. So if you slather on SPF 30, SPF 50, and then an SPF 15 you wont have on SPF 95 but SPF 50. SPF is never going to be an equation. Ya with me so far? Lets go back to what SPF means. Sun protection factor means the amount of time you can stay in the sun without getting a sun burn. Of course this depends on your skin type. Here's an example. If I am in Hawaii (I wish) and I use SPF 25, I can hang out at the beach and drink pinacoladas 25 times longer than I could had I not used any sunscreen. So make sure not to skip the SPF. You're less likely to get skin damage, and you're extending your play time in the sun! Lets be honest, those are two things we can both celebrate.

Ink + Ice

This week was a HUGE week for me! I was lucky enough to be featured on two different wedding inspiration websites with a great group of girls, AND I got a nose job! I'm kidding about the nose job, sorta. I had a deviated septum repaired so I will stop breathing like Darth Vader (I'm 1000% serious about the Darth Vader thing). Here are some of my favorite shots captured by the insanely talented  Mary Claire Photography. The rest of the shoot can be found here on The Perfect Palette. Go ahead and feast your eyes!

Photography: Mary Claire Photography 

Wardrobe Styling: Golden Swank 

Event Styling & Florals: Amber Reverie

Hair: Katy Dix

Makeup: Hailee Day

Jewelry: Katie Waltman

Lovely Models: Jess, Kat, Ariel, and Jessi

Here comes the bride

You guys! Wedding season 2014 officially starts in less than a week and what better way to get the party started than by sharing some wedding inspiration! This has been my favorite shoot to date and was recently featured on Swooned! How exciting is that? Swooned is an amazing site for all you brides-to-be and so helpful when it comes to  inspiration and tips on the big day! Organic and romantic is always a beautiful theme for the big day and was the idea behind this shoot. Don't you love how crisp and classic the white is with the greenery and white floral arrangements? And that backdrop, how amazing is that? Rachael Affleck, from Rachael Ellen Events, created it from coffee filters. She's brilliant! Enjoy!

To wash... or not to wash?

It's the age old question. Shakespeare himself probably asked it a time or two. Should I wash my hair or shouldn't I? I used to be a serial washer, I mean every day! Some times, if I went even 28 hours without washing my hair it seemed like I swam laps in a vat of butter. I had what I like to refer to as butter head (not as cute as it sounds). I also had trouble growing my hair out. It just quit growing when it reached my shoulders for some reason. Probably because my hair was dry, and tired from all the scrubbing. So a  few years ago I set out on a mission to grow my hair PAST my shoulders. I was so determined you probably could have sold me a cup of dirt if you told me smearing it on my head would grow my tresses long and strong. The first step on my quest was not washing my hair every day. Yes, I felt like I was dripping with grease but the longer I went without washing my hair everyday (not consecutively, come on guys, gross) the less greasy my hair felt and looked. What was this miracle? Well, it started with my sebaceous glands. Sebaceous glands secrete an oily substance called sebum A.K.A. the grease on your scalp which weirdly enough is a good thing. Sebum acts as our bodies natural conditioner by keeping our hair and scalp moisturized and healthy. When you start to feel like you're sporting the butter head look it just means your sebaceous glands have produced an excess amount sebum. This is due to washing your hair everyday. How? When you wash your hair everyday you are actually stripping away that sebum leaving your scalp and hair dry. When this happens your body's natural reaction is to create more sebum to replace what has been lost hence butter head. So the goal is to not let your sebaceous glands go into over drive and you can prevent this by NOT washing your hair every day. I myself like to wash my hair every other day and I don't even wear a hat on my non-washing days! I know right? This is thanks my bff, the holy grail, DRY SHAMPOO! It sounds like an oxymoron but its the best thing you'll ever use. Dry shampoo is a powder that comes in an aerosol or can be applied with a brush to your roots. Once its applied to your roots the powder soaks up the existing sebum without making the glands think they need to make more. Not only will dry shampoo give your existing 'do' a second life, but it adds body and bounce that might be lacking after a day of being awesome. By incorporating dry shampoo into my beauty routine I was able to grow my hair F O U R inches past my shoulder! Mission accomplished!!  My insanely creative friend Larissa, of Just Another Day in Paradise , came up with a HOME MADE recipe for dry shampoo you can make with things you already have laying around your kitchen! Bonus! It smells like chocolate! You know what they say, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach... Take a short cut by smelling like chocolate all day!

Visit Larissa's blog for more recipes and crafty things!