Smart Shopping: Thrift Shops

Thrift Stores. What comes to mind when you think of a thrift shop? I used to be the biggest skeptic of them, I had only been to one in Florida and it was a mess. Ever since then I never really gave them a shot (except for a couple really amazing ones in California). Then one day a friend of mine took me to the Salvation Army in Port Chester, NY for some Halloween garb. I did not think I would love it(which I did) and be able to find a lot of great pieces(which I also did). Ever since then I've tried to make my way over there to check out there new cute things. Recently a few days ago I just decided to go with a few friends. Lucky for me I found an adorable green tweed Banana Republic blazer in my size. And it was only $12.99! We all know Banana Republic is nowhere near that cheap! So of course I bought it. I am going to post a few pictures below to show your what I thought it would look good with and the blazer itself. 

            


I hope you guys are able to get down there soon, they have a lot of great things and every Wednesday the place is half off! 

Is Blonder Really Better?

Hey guys, I'm Tara. I was born with naturally dark brown hair and except for a few blonde highlights over the years I generally keep it dark. Recently I have been craving for something new...and drastic. I usually dye my hair dark brown or in the dark red area but I always wanted to know what it's like to have blonde hair. Going to the hair salon was pretty much out of the question since I haven't had a steady job since August and I am a broke college student. 

This has been my hair color for about a year and a half now.  As you can see I also have extremely fair (pale) Irish skin. More of a curse than anything. Anyway I was also weary about blonde hair because than everything would be pale and I could look washed out. But hey, I'd try anything once :) So I made my way on down to the Wal-Mart by my school and purchased these:

  

I used two of the Clairol Born Blonde bottles and after that I used the Revlon Medium Blonde 175. This is what my hair looked like after the bleaching it twice:

Scary..I know. At this point I started getting nervous about the outcome of my hair. But I knew that if it all went wrong I had a couple emergency dark brown boxes of dye, just in case. After putting the Revlon ColorSilk, I decided to let it air dry over night after washing out the dye. When I woke up and styled it, I was pretty happy with the outcome. Here is the ending result:

I am hoping that it will blend a little more nicely throughout the next week or so. As of right now though I am happy with the result. I didn't even go broke with getting a whole new hair look. Overall I spent less than $30. The Clairol Born Blonde were only about $9.97 each and the Revlon hair dye was only just under $4. Great prices. OK thanks for reading. I'll let you know how it looks in a week or so.