Weddingbee Blog

In Style Magazine has just come out with their 12th Annual Best Beauty Buys issue, and the entire list is available online. Although it’s pretty similar year to year, I always get excited when I receive this issue in the mail. If you’re looking for suggestions for some of the best beauty products and tools around, this is a great place to start.

This morning I was dutifully reading my new issue of Martha Stewart Weddings and I saw an ad for “KP Duty.” KP stands for Keratosis Pilaris. What is KP? In its nonmedical term, it’s a skin condition called “chicken skin.” That doesn’t really help, does it?

Well, from the website Help for KP, it is a skin condition in which the body makes too much keratin, causing blocked hair folicles on the upper and outer parts of the arms and thighs. It is an inherited condition and affects as many as 1 in 2 people, if one parent has the condition. It makes the skin feel like it has permanent goosebumps, and sometimes feels itchy. It is harmless and not infectious. Just mildly annoying.

Here is a pic of an affected arm, so you can see where the “chicken skin’ term comes from. I have this, and it is a pain. I’ve recently been wondering what I could use to make my skin smoother for my strapless dress come W-Day. From what I’ve read, many things can help with KP, like KP Duty, or Neostrata Ultra Smoothing Lotion, or even Eucerin Dry Skin Therapy Plus Intensive Repair Creme, found over the counter in most drug stores. You can find many more treatments here. Read more…

It’s Spaweek again in many major cities across the US (and Toronto) from April 16-22nd! All spa treatments are $50 each, but they book up fast so make an appointment for yourself, your mom, or your bridesmaids soon.

This past weekend, two of my bridesmaids and I went to a wedding event at Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon and Spa in Washington, DC (well Chevy Chase really).

It was a great time! They were offering a plethora of free mini spa services - I received a facial, massage and manicure, but there were girls having hair consultations and airbrush makeup also. There were several vendors on hand to showcase their products and services and plenty of bubbly going around.

My facialist had some great recommendations for me to keep my skin crystal clear - including watching how hot the water I wash my face is. I love really hot showers and unfortunately, I have been too hard on the tiny capillaries in my face.

I am not sure if this is something going on at the location in your city, but the wedding rep here said that many cities are offering it for brides at this time of year. So I would get on the phone and call your Red Door Spa to see if you can get in on the event!

Against the advice of some weddingbee readers, I couldn’t resist a FREE facial and took the risk on Tuesday at Mario Badescu. Since it’s my first time ever getting a professional facial or even being at a spa, I have nothing to compare to… but overall I enjoyed my experience!

As soon as I met my aesthecian, Madonna, I immediately told her of my situation: how I’m a newbie at getting a facial, how my wedding is just a week and half away, how I’m allergic to mangos, etc. Her facial expression read, “Whoa, calm down lady!” Haha. Anyways so she tells me to put on the robe and make myself feel comfortable and she disappears.This is when I begin to panic.

Ummmm… am I supposed to take off my shirt/bra and put on the robe? Or just put the robe over all my clothes? After some internal debating, I decided to keep my clothes on since I’m just getting a facial, and the only other time I wear a robe like that is when I’m getting a haircut and I def keep my clothes on for that. Anyways, I still don’t know if that was the “right” thing to do, especially when she started to massage my upper breast area and back of shoulder a little bit- she pushed my top-thank goodness I was wearing a wide neck sweater- and bra straps down to the side to do this, and I was thinking it would have been much easier if I had nothing on underneath.

Read more…

This past weekend, my best friend and I went to Bliss Dallas to get facials and to just relax - we’ve been trying spas in the area until we find our absolute favorite….

and we found it!

We started out by relaxing by the brownie bar and looking out at the skyline of downtown from the 16th floor of the W Victory Dallas hotel in our robes. The brownies are to DIE for! They also had other little snacks like cheese, crackers, olives, etc., but I only tried the brownies.

I got the triple oxygen facial, which included a light chemical peel and 3 forms of oxygen - although I was not a fan of step 2; it smelled like poo spread on your face, seriously. But I loooooved the 3rd step where they blow your skin with liquid oxygen - my face felt so clean and so energized afterwards!

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I recently received a gift certificate for a European facial at Mario Badescu. I am sooo excited because frankly, I’ve never gotten a professional facial before. The only thing is that I won’t be able to get it done until this Tuesday, which is 11 days before the wedding. Some people say your last facial should be at least two weeks before the wedding. And as I’m reading reviews on-line, I am torn. While some people claim facials here to be the best, some claim extractions caused their face to scar! Yikes!

Since college I’ve had on-and-off mild acne. But my skin was doing really well UNTIL recently (geez when it counts most!!)¢¢â€š¬¦ I think it’s the stress. So I really really want to do this before my wedding but is it worth the risk?? For those of you who are getting facials done, what’s the closest to the wedding date you are getting it done? Any good/bad experiences? Things to know before I go?

I got the latest ads for Sephora in the mail the other day and noticed that they now carry the Zeno (or did they always and I didn’t know?). I had forgotten completely about my experience with this product, but now that I’ve been reminded I thought I’d share a review with you all. I know most of us are planning to use makeup on the big day to even out and cover up, but wouldn’t it be best to not have to?

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Mr. Bee recently said that my skin has been looking great. I have changed the products I use, and my skin definitely feels better, so I’d love to share what I’m using!

I have sensitive skin so I try to stick to basic products with few ingredients, that are hypoallergenic and fragrance-free. I’d been using plain Dove Soap followed by Complex 15 Face Cream. But my face was too dry so I picked up Dove Sensitive Skin Foaming Facial Cleanser and Dove Sensitive Skin Lotion.

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I’m blessed with fairly non-tempermental skin that breaks out occasionally, but usually is pretty calm. It’s combination — I tend to get oily around my T-zone around midday, while the tops of my cheeks and the rest of my face stay more dry.

I worked in a flagship Bath and Body Works store with my best friend, Jasmine, for a few years in high school, and we both became skincare nuts for a little while. The flagship stores sell a lot of third party, high-end brands like Murad, Peter Thomas Roth, DDF, Molton Brown, and others — so there was a lot of opportunity to get sucked into buying products full of mysterious ingredients and promises of beautiful skin on their packaging. And we did get sucked in sometimes!

What I ultimately learned after applying all sorts of different things to my face? The more basic (and, usually, cheap), the better a product worked for me — with the simple reason being that the expensive products tend to have more complex ingredient lists. More ingredients = more potential components for your skin to react to and flare up in retaliation.

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Yesterday, I started phase 1 of my wedding prep - I got a facial at the Estee Lauder Spa at Neiman Marcus Northpark. Back when I was still going to school, I had lots of free time on my hands. Nowadays, it’s not so easy to find the time…

But after yesterday, I was reminded of how relaxing/great getting pampered is (I even fell asleep!) - and my skin feels so soft! 90 minutes of absolute bliss - I am definitely going to have to start going a lot more.

Btw, the Estee Lauder Spa is definitely cheaper than most of the other spas that I’ve been to in the past (such as the Elizabeth Arden Red Door, Bliss, etc). $85 for a 90 minute facial and neck/shoulder massage?! Come on now - that’s crazy cheap!

Where is your favorite place to go for a facial?

When it comes to health issues, I’m not exactly good breeding stock. Let’s go over the problems I have already blogged about: 1.) Weight gain from asthma medicine 2.) Allergy to the sun 3.) Inability to see (glasses necessary) and now… here’s a new one. Okay, it’s actually an old one, but one I’ve previously kept hidden.

Due to my highly sensitive skin, I’ve suffered from eczema since childhood. Eczema isn’t just a patch of itchy skin, it’s many patches of skin that get painfully scratched raw when you don’t notice you’re scratching. It’s sad because from all my decades of scratching at myself, I have vague scars. Not track mark kinds of scars, just small slightly darkened spots on my inner elbows, and the back of my knees.

Before you guys get all grossed out and think I have no control over myself at all, I do the scratching in my sleep. When I get hot, I itch. When I itch, I scratch. When I scratch, I tear skin. I’ve tried everything; creams, ointments, lotions, injections of cortisone. Nothing worked permanently, just temporarily. In fact, I’ve used so much cortisone, my doctor says it attributed to my cataracts. Thanks a lot, eczema.

Read more…

Like Miss Kiwi, I have a few wedding related fears. My biggest being my skin. It is so temperamental. I can go weeks with perfectly clear skin and them BAM! Explosion city all over my face. I saw this the other day at Sephora and was wondering if anyone has tried it?

It’s called Zeno and it claims to treat mild to moderate acne with heat! I’m very intrigued!

Zeno applies a precisely controlled heat dose directly to the pimple through a metal pad. One treatment lasts 2 1/2 minutes. Two to three treatments spread over 24 hours clear up most pimples quickly.

It’s a little pricey, so I was hoping to get some feedback on it before I bought it. It sounds so cool–I hope it works!!

This past weekend, I went to Bliss Spa to get a facial. I don’t usually get facials, but since my friends got me a gift certificate, I figured I should go. And boy, am I glad I did!

I wanted to get the Steep Clean, but based on my skin type, my facialist thought I should get the Triple Oxygen Treatment with some adjustments. It included the facial, a mini microdermabrasion, a seaweed mask, and deep extractions. Since I don’t have sensitive skin, she thought that it would be OK to get this facial only 2 days before the engagement photo session.

Let me just say, there is a reason why this facial costs 300 bucks (I could never spend this much on my own). Heated tables, arm and leg massage, and 120 minutes of undivided attention to my pores, and voila! My face is so soft and I had absolutely no redness whatsoever. I’m hoping the smoothness of my skin will show through on the photos. I get the pictures back later this week so we’ll see. I will definitely post pictures, I promise!

Even now, I still have really smooth skin and all my blackheads have disappeared! I also bought their exfoliating facial cleanser and their light mask to use on my T-Zone 3 times a week. This was recommended by my technician.

I highly recommend Bliss for any bride, because what bride doesn’t need to be pampered and spoiled right before the wedding?

Final Rating: A++!

I need to be under strict supervision whenever I enter a shopping area. After buying a long-sleeve shirt for my trip to Chicago this weekend, I decided to cut through Bloomingdale’s today on the way back to my car. I tried my darndest to make it through the cosmetics area unscathed, but alas, I wandered over to the skincare section to examine some products. (You see, my face has been the victim of stress and abuse lately, and it’s definitely looking worse for wear.)

It was then that my friendly nature worked against my bank account. I started up a conversation with the Rodan + Fields gals, and before I knew it, I was on my way out the door with this:

Created by the makers of PROACTIV, they have four kits available to treat different skin needs: UNBLEMISH (my choice), ANTI-AGE, REVERSE, REGIMIN-PLUS and SOOTHE. According to my new friends, PROACTIV was made for oily skin, and mine is far from oily. I bought the travel size 3-piece kit ($45) from them and they gave me a free terrycloth travel case and 2 samples of their microdermabrasion paste and an anti-aging face cream.

What really sold me though? The money-back guarantee and Allure rating! I’ll let you know how it goes in the next month!

Has anyone else ever tried the Rodan and Fields line?