Category Archives: Reviews

More Lipsticks, Glosses, and Stains for Dark-Skinned Moms

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I had a great response to my Shellac nails post recently–despite having busy lives, lots of us love to glam it up.

The problem is, we don’t have much time to try out products, and there are few cosmetics reviews by women of color out there.

I’d like to help fill in that gap with cosmetics reviews from time to time. Tell me what you think in the comments!

Here are a few swatches of lip colors I’ve been loving lately:

Revlon Just Bitten Kisable Balm Stain in Romance

This shade looks great on lots of skintones.  It’s a warm-toned red that brightens up your entire face.  I wear this all the time–at work and on the weekends.  It’s not glossy, but does have a sheen to it.

This product is part of the Balm Stain line–chunky crayon lip colors that apply really smoothly, simultaneously depositing a stain of color that soaks into the lips and a balm-like layer of color that sits on top of the lips.  The product leaves a minty tingle on your lips and is hydrating.  They last only a few hours, but I like the shade selection for darker skintones.  They are pricey for a drugstore color, at around 9 bucks a pop, but I like them for their smooth feel and low fragrance.

 

Revlon Just Bitten Kisable Balm Stain in Crush

This shade is perfect for the wine or dark berry lips trend of Fall 2012.  This is a classic Desi color, as we’ve known since our teen years that our darker skintones look great berry shades.  I find this a little dark for daytime, but I think if you’re comfortable with a darker lip this would be okay in the workplace too.

Revlon Colorburst Lipstick in Rosy Nude

Generally, when I hear the terms “rosy” and “nude” in a lipstick, I think it will make me look like a corpse or not show up at all.  Hello, pigmented lips, party of one.  But this color pleasantly surprised me by giving my lips a natural, but slightly rosy color.  It was pigmented enough to cover my darker toned lips.  If you have a caramel skintone, this shade would work well for days when you want a “no lipstick” look but still look polished.  Also, if you have small lips like I do, lighter colors like these will make your lips look fuller.

The Colorburst line of lipsticks is excellent because the lipsticks are highly pigmented, apply smoothly, and most importantly, have no fragrance.  I find the perfumey fragrance in a lot of other Revlon lipsticks offensive, so I was glad that they ditched that for this line.  Like most Revlon products, this is a bit pricey at $9.  But the drugstores frequently have sales and coupons, so be on the lookout for that if you like this shade.

Revlon Colorburst in Rosy Nude with Avon Renewing Rose Glazewear VitaLuscious Lip Gloss on top

The downside of Rosy Nude’s natural look is that it can make me look washed out.  It’s almost too natural.  For that reason, I like to use it as a base for lighter glosses.  It helps even the less pigmented ones show up more true to the shade in the container.  This one is Avon’s Renewing Rose.  It’s a gloss that looks scarily bright pink in the tube, but is a nice, wearable medium pink on the lips.

 

Ladies, what are your favorite beauty products?  Would you like to see more reviews on here?  Let me know, and I’ll try to put some more up.

Quick Weeknight Meals: A Review of Rasoi Magic Paneer Tikka Mix

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For working parents, getting weeknight meals on the table is a big challenge.  Between commuting, caring for children, homework, and bedtimes, there is little time to prepare a meal.  The Quick Weeknight Meals series aims to help solve this problem so we can eat at home, healthfully and frugally.
Rasoi Magic Paneer Tikka Mix
This quick weeknight meal is also a product review of Rasoi Magic’s Paneer Tikka Mix.  FYI, I purchased this product on my own and have been using them for years.  They are flavor packets that you combine with fresh ingredients to create instant subjis.  They contain all the spices you need (including salt) in premeasured quantities so you don’t have to fiddle with a recipe when you’re in a rush.  I can cook many Gujarati subjis without a recipe but need them for Punjabi dishes like this one.
Here is what a Rasoi Magic packet looks like: 

And here is the back, with the directions and nutritional info: 

To make this, you mix the flavor packet with a cup of milk and set aside, then blend up several tomatoes, and stir fry the tomato puree in oil.  You are supposed to separately pan fry the paneer and then mix the milk and spice mixture into the tomatoes and add the fried paneer into that.

It’s really quick and easy, and with readymade paneer you could probably make it in about 15 minutes.  That is assuming there is no baby crawling around on the floor, trying to munch on any little tidbits that you’ve dropped, like pieces of tomato or onion skins from another dish, while you repeatedly pick him up, slide your finger around his mouth to make sure he won’t choke on the tidbits, and put him outside of the kitchen to play with his toys.

That adds about 10 minutes to the cooking time.

Making It Healthier

I Am Dad and I like to put our own spin on this by adding additional veggies and not frying the paneer.  What we add depends on what we have, but favorites include cubed zucchini and onions.  Sometimes we substitute cubed, baked tofu for the paneer to make it healthier because paneer is pretty fattening.  We let it all simmer for a few minutes until the veggies are tender and the flavors are mixed.

On this particular night, we did not have any zucchini and didn’t feel like chopping onions (crazy busy day), so we just added in frozen mixed veggies (already chopped), including corn, carrots, peas, and green beans.  We already had some cubed, frozen paneer in the freezer, so I threw that in too.  It was nice to put together a fresh meal with veggies without having to chop anything.

Since we can rarely go through a whole block of paneer on our own in one sitting, I chop the leftover paneer into cubes and freeze it in a freezer bag with the date on it.  You know how sometimes you have all these blobs in your freezer in containers and you have no idea what they are or when they got there?  This system of labeling and dating the bags helps avoid that mess. 

Here’s what our version of Rasoi Magic Paneer Tikka Mix subji looked like in the pan: 

Now doesn’t that look better than takeout?

And by the way, one day I hope I’ll be one of those bloggers with gorgeous photos of delicious foods.  But for now, you’ll have to deal with my crappy cell phone pics, hastily snapped while I ask I Am Dad, “Wait a minute, don’t take it off the stove yet.  I need a picture for my blog!!”

 Suggested Accompaniments

Of course, paneer tikka subji can’t be eaten alone.  The day we made this was a special treat because we actually made bhakri, daal and rice.  Most weeknights it is too difficult to make the time for bhakri.  I know I just pissed off about 1500 aunties with that sentence.  Anyway, bhakri is a rare thing at the I Am household, because making the dough, rolling them out, and cooking them takes too long.  Not to mention that I’m terrible at it.  So I Am Dad usually makes them.

I have a couple of friends who make 3 days’ worth of rotli or bhakri dough at once, so when they come home from work, all they have to do is roll them out and roast them.  My friends who do this say 3 days is the max the dough will keep without becoming all gelatinous and gross.  So an easy way to make bhakri would be to have the dough ready to go ahead of time. 

Another option would be to just make white or brown rice and mix the paneer tikka subji into it with a dollop of plain yogurt.

Sometimes we buy naan to eat with this, but we try to avoid naan because it is high in calories, and the paneer is already rich enough.  

The Bottom Line

The Rasoi Magic Paneer Tikka Mix was delicious.  This flavor packet had been hanging around our pantry for awhile, but it still tasted fresh.  It was extremely easy to put together, and in the past I’ve used it when we had company.  I like that you don’t have to measure anything and can just blend and go. 

One downside is the cost.  Indian grocery stores in the US tend to charge $1.50 per flavor packet, and I’ve found recipes for paneer tikka online that aren’t too hard to make and are probably more cost effective. But I’ve also purchased these in Toronto, Canada, which has a huge Indian population, for only $0.25 per packet. 

If you don’t mind paying $1.50, or if you either don’t have the spices on hand or just don’t feel like measuring, then I’d highly recommend these.  They are still much cheaper than buying takeout and healthier too.

As for quantity, the packet and recommended additions were more than enough for the two of us, and we had leftovers for the next day.  

If you’d like to try another flavor, I also like Rasoi Magic’s Methi Mutter Malai Mix.  

www.iammoms.com

Postpartum Wardrobe Assistance: A Review of Nordstrom’s Personal Stylist Service

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Postpartum clothing shopping is like a cruel joke.  Yippee!  I get to shop.  Oh.  That size doesn’t fit me anymore.  Neither does that one.  Neither does THAT one.  Holy hell, I still look pregnant in this outfit.  

We all know that pregnancy does a number on your body.  You waddle instead of walk, your joints ache, your feet swell and get numb, and by the time you are ready to deliver, you want nothing more than to have your old body back.  In my pre-baby naivete, I pondered buying a cute spring dress in my prepartum size to wear just after my son’s birth.  By that point, I was 9 months pregnant and had even outgrown my maternity clothes.  I Am Dad would point out the “Bubba patch,” belly skin that sometimes peeped out from below my maternity sweater and above my elastic maternity pants waistband (you former preggos know the Bubba patch!).  I couldn’t even see the Bubba patch over my pregnant belly (though I sometimes felt the cool breeze).  I was ready to put the Bubba patch away and return to my svelte and stylish old self.


Turns out that after I delivered, I was still FAR from my pre-pregnancy size.   During my maternity leave, I picked up a few casual, breastfeeding-friendly dresses and tops to wear until I could get back into my prepregnancy size.  I thought for sure I’d be back into my prepartum clothes by the time I returned to work.  After all I was breastfeeding.  Didn’t that burn like 500 calories a day?  Fast forward to 2 weeks before I was due to return to work, and prepregnancy work clothes still didn’t fit.  My maternity clothes were all winter clothes, and I was slated to return to work in the muggy DC summer.  I decided to get some cheap duds to tide me over until I could get back into my prepregnancy clothes.

I scoured the mall and discount stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx.  The plan was to buy dresses that I could wear over and over with different accessories until I could get back into my old clothes.  Turns out that it was very difficult to find outfits that were (a) flattering on a body shape that I wasn’t used to, (b) breast-feeding friendly (I planned to pump at work and didn’t want to wear silks or other high-maintenance fabrics), (c) work-appropriate, and (d) cheap (after all, these were only temporary, I kept reminding myself).  With a new baby to care for, I was short on time too.  A month into my return to work, I was feeling frumpy and sick of wearing the same drab things over and over.  Of course, I was still not back into my prepregnancy size.

I hit upon what I thought was the perfect solution with Nordstrom’s Personal Stylist service.  No, I didn’t want to spend Nordstrom prices on outfits that I hoped would be too big for me in several months.  But I had read on an online message board that a Nordstrom Personal Stylist could work with a budget of $20-30 for tops and a similarly reasonable price for other articles (e.g. pants, dresses).  Sounded like a dream come true for time-crunched, limited wardrobe me.

Unfortunately, Nordstrom’s Personal Stylist service didn’t deliver.

There were several problems.  First, the website form promised that someone would contact me within 24 hours.  No one did.  Several days to a week later, someone finally contacted me.  We went back and forth over e-mail and set up an appointment.  Then I showed up for the appointment, and the Personal Stylist stood me up!  Apparently there had been a mix-up–the stylist thought she e-mailed me to cancel the appointment, but she never had.  We rescheduled.

Fast forward to the rescheduled appointment.  The Nordstrom Personal Stylist was very sweet and a mom herself.  When I explained my needs, she was very reassuring and shared her own struggle with dressing her postpartum body.  I clearly told her my price range of $20-30 per top and let her know that if this was not realistic, I would be happy to just shop on my own.  She said that range was a bit low but that we could get close to that price range by shopping in the cheaper sections of the store.  I was excited to finally get some flattering and pretty new outfits.

We set out to look at clothes from the different sections of the store, but it was clear that the Nordstrom Personal Stylist was not sticking to the price range we agreed to.  Instead, the pieces she showed me were in the $70-$100 range.  When we walked by the sale racks, she let me go through them on my own.  But she picked out lots of full-price pieces to show me.  I tried on probably 20 different pieces (some were items I had picked out from the sale rack but most were the $70-$100 pieces that the Nordstrom Personal Stylist had chosen for me).  Nothing fit me well, but eventually I purchased one top that was just okay for $70, because I felt that I somehow owed it to the Nordstrom Personal Stylist for spending about 2 hours with me (even though she had made it clear that the service was free and there was no obligation to buy).  Just before I was rung up, I found a beautiful dress on a sale rack in one size smaller than my size.  The Nordstrom Personal Stylist helped me order one in my size from another store.  Because they didn’t have it in stock, Nordstrom would ship it to me free of charge. 

After I paid and was getting ready to leave, the Nordstrom Personal Stylist told me that she would keep an eye out for outfits in my price range and preferred style.  She promised to call.  It’s been 3 months, and I haven’t heard a peep from her.

Oh yeah, and when I came home, I tried on the $70 top again and it wasn’t flattering enough to keep for that price.  So back to the store it went.  And the dress I ordered?  It made me look pregnant.

The Nordstrom Personal Stylist service wasn’t a total loss though.  My Nordstrom Personal Stylist taught me a euphemism for “my stomach looks huge in this,” which was, “that outfit is too structured for your present body.”  That takes the sting out of it!  Also, she helped me figure out the colors that are most flattering for me.  This was helpful because I tend to be a person who wears all colors regardless of what is “flattering” on my skin tone.

Still, I was disappointed with the experience, especially because I had high hopes given Nordstrom’s reputation for stellar customer service.

Bottom line: I would not recommend Nordstrom Personal Stylist service for your postpartum wardrobe needs.  A better option would be to grab a trusted friend who will be brutally honest (and who has a similar body type) and spend an afternoon at the mall buying basics that can be mixed and matched. If you choose the right styles, they can be altered when you finally get back to your postpartum size (at almost a year postpartum, I’m still not there!). 

www.iammoms.com

Cosmetics for Brown Women: A Review of Revlon Colorstay Overtime Lipcolor in Stay Currant

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The Mojo Recovery Project 
As you ladies know, when you have a baby, the frump creeps in.  Well, in the beginning it knocks you over with a thud.  Baby weight, shifting hormones, lack of sleep, and lack of time to primp all have made me feel like I’ve lost my mojo. 

In trying to regain it, I’ve been putting a bit more effort into my appearance.  Some of this involves buying new goodies and some involves just using what I already have.  I have tons of makeup from my pre-baby days and recently decided to haul out one of my old goodies, Revlon Colorstay Overtime Lipcolor in Stay Currant. I wore this, mixed with Revlon Colorstay Overtime Lipcolor in Always Sienna, on my wedding day.  (Note: I purchased both of these products on my own.  In the future, I will tell you if the products I’m reviewing have been provided to me for free).

Cosmetics for Brown Women: The Dilemma
Wearing the lipstick and thinking about the mojo recovery project gave me the idea to start a makeup review series.  As a dark-skinned woman, I have a hard time buying cosmetics because many products aren’t pigmented enough.  Also, though there are tons of makeup reviews out there,  it’s hard to find makeup reviews by people with dark skin, (though I have had some luck at Makeupalley, and The Indian Make-up Diva).   To add to the brown woman’s cosmetics arsenal, I’ve decided to give you my two cents on the cosmetics that I’ve tried.  For your reference, I have yellow-toned skin that’s an NC44 in MAC foundation.  I’d describe it as Halle Berry with a tan. 

Review:
Revlon Colorstay Overtime Lipcolor in Stay Currant is a hard tube with two lip products, each containing a wand-style applicator.  One side has a liquid lip color, which you paint onto your lips the a sponge applicator. You let that dry on your lips for 60 seconds.  The other side contains a clear gloss that you paint on with an included brush applicator.

Revlon claims that the product will give you 16 hours of comfortable color and moisturizing shine.  I agree with the 16 hours of color, but not the comfortable part.  Can’t comment on the shine part, because I couldn’t be bothered to keep reapplying the gloss (isn’t the point of these long-lasting products that you don’t have to reapply?).

I put on the color around 6:30 p.m. last night and almost 24 hours later, the color is almost as pigmented as it was last night except that it has faded on the inner part of my bottom lip.  This is even after I ate 3-4 meals, showered, and brushed my teeth.  So, A+ for staying power.

As for comfort, I’d give it a B-.  The color dries out my lips.  This wouldn’t have been as big a problem if I had kept reapplying the gloss, but like I said, I don’t like reapplying.

I don’t think I can grade the color, since that is so subjective.  The shade is a bright fuschia red color that’s nice if you want to do a statement lip.  It’s wearable, but not appropriate for work. 

The Verdict
This is a good lipcolor for a special occasion, but I wouldn’t use it every day.  This color is too bright and it’s uncomfortable to have it on all day. 

Are there any cosmetics for dark skin that you would like me to review?  Let me know in the comments.

www.iammoms.com