CyberDERM- The Sunscreen Company TM: The Best Advice We Never Take.

If you ever have the day to spend at home and get to watch any daytime TV, you’ll notice that you can get expert advice on every aspect of your life. From the View to Andersen, you’ll learn the best food to cook from the best way to wear hot pink lipstick. God forbid that you also watch Dr. Oz because then you’ll probably end up with at least five of the hottest supplements attempting to burn belly fat while curing your arthritis. As someone who gives a lot of advice (don’t ever ask me about sunscreen at a cocktail party, I’ll be obnoxious), I’ve realized how much advice we receive nowadays. With Facebook, Pinterest, and Youtube, a lot of that advice may come from your friends and can actually be fairly helpful. I thought this month, I would share the best advice that I have ever given and then failed to actually follow myself. Mom always used to say “do as I say, not as I do”, which really is the most frustrating of statements but we are all a little culpable of it. Here are some of my best tips with absolutely no lessons learned about how I failed to follow them.

Anyone who has been following the evolution of CyberDERM as a company may remember our original tag line. We’re transitioning to “the sunscreen company”, since pat-on-the back, we will be launching our two Health Canada approved sunscreens this summer (and they are pretty amazing!). Our original tag-line was not very sexy, potentially not grammatically correct and as my sister said, the please sounded snotty. It’s still a principal that we try to stand by though and it’s a great litmus test for cleaning out our cosmetic cabinet. Anything over 30 chemicals should go. I’ll never be tempted by a freebie Christian Dior moisturizer even if it originally costs $300+. I just don’t see the need for the dash-of-this, dash-of-that chemical load. I get into trouble though with new and exciting product categories.

I fell victim to the shellac nail polish where you have to soak your nails in acetone for 10 minutes before you remove it. I braved the vibrating mascara. My worst adventure though was with those 7 day blow-out treatments that came out over a year ago. Anyone else try those? Anyone still trying those? I remember sitting in my bathroom with this goop dripping down my neck, burning my scalp where I have eczema. It smelled like the old-school perm chemicals with that strong ammonia smell. My hair did not even look that much better and this was something I was meant to repeat once a week. I bought a better hair brush and problem solved!

Why don’t mascara companies make their tubes smaller if you are meant to throw them out after 6 months? They always feel like bottom-less wells and I’ve never actually finished one before. I’ve always tried to squeeze another month or so out of my products because it seems like such a waste to throw out something that is half full and still seems ok. Mind you I’ve also had a wicked eye infection that taught me my lesson. I know think of it as a mandatory treat to replace my products as they expire. I use it as an excuse to try new things or seasonal trends. I almost relapsed with my pretty Stila lip and eye cream blush in Peony, then realized it was two years old, threw it out and did not look at it sitting in the garbage.

I’ve been using my Latisse now for over 4 months and I have to say I love it! I used to think why would anyone take the time every night to apply this to their eyelashes. Do eyelashes really make that big a difference to how you look? They absolutely do. My boyfriend now accuses me of ‘dinking’ at him. To ‘dink’ means to bat your eyelashes when you want something. You can rapid-fire dink in case of emergency. I don’t think that I actually do that but I’ll now curl them and lovingly apply multiple coats of mascara. I’m currently using L’Oreal’s Telescopic mascara as per Karina’s recommendation. It’s wonderful. Except now, I’m slightly tempted to visit what is called ‘lash bars’. They are sort of like those blow-out bars. Just the word ‘bar’ associated with some form of pampering sounds like a great mix. I’m not actually sure how these longer lasting falsies are applied. I know they last about a month and potentially give you a Kim Kardashian type look. It’s at this point where sanity returns and you stop yourself. Do I really want to risk my eyes for this? It’s so over the top and unnecessary that sometimes idle curiosity just needs to be shutdown and told to behave itself. Unless anyone reading this is curious about these lash bars, in which case it would be in the name of research and not vanity. I’m dinking as I write.