When the heat gets going, the only thing I need is...

This month has been one of the hottest months on record her in the Mid Atlantic. As a Shine Beauty Guru, each month we are given an assignment to write on concerning beauty topics. This month is: What is your summer beauty secret?

Well.... when it's as hot as it's been lately and the only secret I can come up with concerning beauty is ICE!

When your face is melting off and your can barely breath from the humidity either take yourself inside an air conditioned room and sit or you can take a plastic baggie and fill it with ice. Wrap it in a thin towel and place at the nape of your kneck. When your body is cool, you can back to looking your best.

A couple of other secrets I do to keep cool:

• A Fan


• A Personal Mister


• A Parasol

Don't Get Caught With Sweaty Pits: Secret Clinical Strength

Wanna know how you can tell if your antiperspirant is working? Well for me it meant traveling thirteen hours to my hometown, experiencing one of the hottest beginnings of summer the Mid South has seen. With temperatures hovering at the 100 degree mark and humidity that made the temperature feel like 120, Secret Clinical Strength Waterproof Antiperspirant/ Deodorant held strong all day. With the heat as high as it was, dousing yourself with water was a must. Even when swimming, it didn't swim away. It stayed put and keep me smelling my best.

Summertime means shaving the underarms more frequently. Usually, I am worried about deodorant causing pain and irritation to this delicate skin but Secret Clinical Strength didn't let me down. With skin soothing conditioners and odor absorbing capsules, the heat and humidity was no match for the toughness of this deodorant.

Don't be caught with sweaty armpits...

Testing Cover Girl's ShadowBlast: A lesson in choosing the right color for you face.

For Shine Beauty Guru's latest assignment, we were asked to choose a color. Because I had recently tried a cool purple eye shadow I loved, I figured why not the Purple Plume. I always enjoyed looking at purple on my lids before, why not this time?

WRONG!

On my skin, the radiant purple turned mauve. Mauve is a color I associate with bad 80's design: tacky balloon shades, ugly floral patterns and borders with cows and chickens. This was the color my mom used in my childhood home to add a little "spice" to our home and it has haunted me to this day. You could say, I was horrified when I looked in the mirror and was reminded of days lounging around staring at wooden cows and chickens as decorations. My face was washed in an instant.

Beside the fact I chose the wrong color, Cover Girl's ShadowBlast is a unique tool in producing a smoky eye look. It's creamy, goes on easy and a breeze to use. Just don't twist it too far because it will break.

How to use it is written right on the applicator. Step one goes on first and then you highlight your lid with step two. You can blend the color with your finger if it's too bright. Pretty simple but make sure you choose the right color!

* After completing my bachelor's in Interior Design, I can happily tell you, my mom has a home that is fit for a magazine now. She may not be an interior designer but she has always been good investing. She spent her money wisely.

CND Nail Color Is Pretty Awesome

After my last pedicure left my toes with chips of pink for the world to see, a thought occurred to me. "Why not try nude next time?"

Lo and behold, Shine was sweet enough to provide me with the experience to try this out.

CND, a company developed for those individuals in the salon and spa industry the opportunity to provide the best quality products to their clients, was kind enough to allow the Beauty Gurus this month to try out a couple products the style world has known about for years.

Armed with Desert Suede and Gold Shimmer, the two colors I tried for the month, I went for Desert Suede first. It provided me with the nude color I was wanting. The paint goes on effortlessly and dries faster than any nail color I have ever used.

Moments after I painted my toes, I was anxious to put my feet back in my bunny slippers because they were cold. Though the paint many have need more than moments to dry, my toes were not smudged. Personally, I hate waiting for nail color to dry. I want it painted on and ready to go. CND's nail color is the fastest drying paint I have tried.

A month later, the color still looks nice and not chipped. YAY!!!

Today as I prepared for my report to you on CND, the final test came: How easy does the polish come off?

Viola! Pretty easy. It's a good thing too!! Nothing is worse than spending thirty minutes taking off polish.

CND makes a great product and one you will love! With over 50 colors to choose from, you are bound to find the perfect shade for your nails. (And with an $8.99 price tag: pretty affordable.)

CoverGirl Shineblast: Not My Type of Lip Gloss

When the package arrived this month for my Beauty Guru assignment, I was stoked. I'm a lip gloss addict! Maybe this is because I have purchased almost every brand known to man but I know my lip gloss. I need my lip gloss!

When choosing a lip gloss, my needs include: one that stays longer than two seconds and one that has a ton of shine. With that said, this product does not qualify.

CoverGirl's Shineblast is easy enough to open but that's where its user-friendliness ends. The main issue with the design of the bottle is in how much energy is required in inserting the stick into the gloss. I felt like I was pumping up a tire.

The "Breakthrough Applicator" claims to hug the contours of your lips but it doesn't grab enough of the thin gloss. You will have to keep dipping the applicator into the bottle, again pumping up a tire. Not what I want when trying to gloss up my lips.

The texture of the gloss itself is very thin. Even with the three bottles I was supplied with, in a month they are almost empty. I personally like a gloss that is a little sticky because it holds to the lip longer. My husband may not like it when trying to kiss me but a gloss with a thicker consistency holds much longer and offers more shine. This gloss will make you lips shine for a moment but look quick! Oops, it's gone.

With a cost of around $8 a pop, I won't be purchasing any more of it in the future. There are finer glosses on the market for much less that offer the qualities I look for in a lip gloss.

On a plus note: As a mother of a pre-teen, I would suggest this product to her. The colors are light enough she won't look like she is trying too hard and they taste sweet. She'll be busy licking off her gloss instead of worrying if it makes her look older.

My Favorite Moisturizer Ever!! Keihl's Ultra Facial Cream

As the owner of sensitive skin, I understand anytime I change my skin regime, she will protest. Instead of harsh words of revolt, my skin erupts into red bumps and puss filled pockets of hate. For this month's Beauty Guru reviews, she surprised me. It's as if she has waited her whole life for Kiehl's s Ultra Facial Cream. She responded with an evening of tone and a restored balance of vibrancy not seen in years.

After months of sitting in front of my computer blogging on a broad range of topics, the palm and fingers of my hand have met my face more times than ever before. While visions of creative thoughts poured from my brain onto my computer screen, the idea my hands could bring about such destruction on my face never occurred. So with red streaked chin and cheeks, something had to be done I had never done before.

I had to purchase my first batch of foundation. The years of getting by with loose powder seemed but a long lost memory.

A funny thing occurs when applying foundation to an unevenly moisturized face - Blotches!! Thinking I could hide the redness on my face with a base turned into an awful, uneven discoloration mess. I felt like I was looking back into the eighties when my mother would fix up her face and her neck would be three shades lighter than her face: Ouch! Preparing for the worst and thinking all was doomed in the world concerning my appearance to public viewing, a gift from heaven appeared on my doorstep.

Kiehl's Ultra Facial Cream!!

With it's 24 hour hydrating formula with extracts of Glacial Glycoprotiens from microorganisms sourced from sea glaciers and Imperata Cylindrica, a plant from the Australian desert, Kiehl's Ultra Facial Cream hydrates and evens the tone of my skin so well, the redness of my skin has diminished and using base to hide my imperfections on the skin is not as necessary as once before.

This is a real miracle cream. I couldn't ask for a better moisturizer and neither will you!

Redken's Body Full Line Is Not For Everyone

As a consumer of hair care brands you can pick up while shopping for dish detergent and tampons, receiving Redken's Body Full line was a real treat. I haven't had the luxury of treating my hair to a salon brand since my grandmother decided I was old enough to pay for my own hair care needs.

With packaging that screams "I'm cooler than what you use," and a scent reminiscent of $100 hair cuts, Redken's allure has it's place but when the hair that grows from your head is not what your hair care line treats, some mishaps can occur.

Redken's Body Full shampoo promises volume for baby fine hair and the conditioner claims to be weightless and a detangler. A fan of the shampoo but without the help of a strong conditioner to hold down the coarseness of my hair, it seemed to get lost. After washing you can apply the Body Full Instant Bodifer evenly into your strands. The mousse claims to provide volume for thin hair. The problem occurred when the combing process of hair care began.

My comb became lodged into my hair. As much as I tried to free the comb, my hair reacted in an ugly manner. Ripping sounds and a neck that bore most of the brunt, the result was torn hair and a pulled muscle. Imagine telling your coworkers you have a crick in your neck from combing your hair.

Needless to say, I'm not completely sworn off of Redken but next time, I don't need "body" for my hair. I need freedom from tangles and a conditioner that's not weightless but more like butter in a bottle.