Temptation is Beautiful Sweepstakes: Your Chance to Win Amazing, Tempting Prizes

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of KAO Brands. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have spoken about my slight (okay, maybe a little more than slight) obsession with bath and body products here before; so when I heard about the Temptation is Beautiful sweepstakes, I was more than just a little excited.

The Temptation is Beautiful sweepstakes began March 10th and every day up until May 8th a lucky winner who has successfully registered through the sweepstakes website will receive a gift basket full of tempting, luxurious Kao Brands products with a retail value of approximately $75. Those who successfully register will also be entered to win the grand prize of a 3 day/2night trip to Las Vegas for four; the package includes round trip air transportation, ground transportation, hotel accomodations and $1500 spending money with the approximate retail value of $6,000. That is amazing!

This sweepstakes is so unbelievably simple to enter; all you have to do is register on the official website and this sweepstakes is open to US residents (sorry beauty product fanatics of other countries, this giveaway is open only to US residents,) and you also must be 21 years of age or older to enter. While that is simple enough, you can enter to win the daily sweepstakes once per day and by entering every day, you will automatically be entered to win the grand prize trip to Las Vegas with three friends; so by the end of the sweepstakes period, you can have up to 60 entries for the grand prize sweepstakes! Even better, you can score up to four bonus entries into both sweepstakes prizes by taking a short, sweet and fun quiz, finding your Temptress Temperature (see my score below!) and sharing the results of the quiz with your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

Enter the Temptation is Beautiful sweepstakes daily for a chance to win a gift basket full of fabulous products and to be entered to win a trip to Las Vegas.

Julia Roberts’s Lancome Debut–What Do You Think?

Back in December, news broke of Julia Roberts joining the ranks of Anne Hathaway and Kate Winslet, becoming the newest face of Lancome. The news excited Roberts fans tremendously, since the actress has been busy raising a family, putting Hollywood on the backburner. Even in the newest movie she is in, Valentine’s Day, she only appeared in the film for about 6 minutes total. It may have taken a few months, but the famous smile of Julia Roberts has finally made its debut for Lancome in their just-launched French television ad with Roberts wearing their forthcoming European-market mascara, Hypnôse Precious Cells. Check out the television ad below and weigh in on what you think of it in the comments.

The first thing you may have realized about the above television ad is that yes, it is completely in French, which is a little disheartening and confusing. Julia Roberts is an actress; she’s pretty good with saying words out loud, memorizing lines and even the models of America’s Next Top Model have to try their hand at semi-perfecting foreign languages for their CoverGirl commercials. Was it just easier to have a male voiceover be the only thing you hear in this commercial? The fact that this was the debut of Julia Roberts for Lancome and her advertisement is completely in French is a bit of a letdown as well; especially considering that she is still a pretty big deal in Hollywood, retaining every bit of class she has had throughout the years. Hopefully we can see more of Julia Roberts for Lancome television advertisements in the future and perhaps they will even be in English.

Perfect Skin Probably isn’t Possible; Take Tips for Prettier Skin

I have been doing some very frequent research on simple things every day, regular women can do to help keep skin looking healthy and happy. I know as much as anyone out there who has ever scoffed at a commercial or advertisement from some beauty product or another claiming to give you flawless skin that perfect skin is probably not possible, especially when you don’t have an exuberant amount of money to toss at beauty experts. So I have come across a few tips that may help all of my fellow women out there who do all they can to keep themselves together every day and know that while we can’t strive and expect perfection in the way we look, we can aim for skin that looks healthy and keeps us happy.

I am told that I have to drink more water very frequently. With my skin that is very prone to eczema breakouts and my bouts with adult acne, every time someone feels the need to comment on any of this, they always tell me that I need to drink more water. Low and behold, the first rule of getting healthier skin is to drink two to three liters of water a day.

Yoga is already known to help stress, trauma and illnesses that affect the body and mind, but yoga can aid the skin in many different ways and it has been said that some beauty courses even use yoga exercises. While some experts will say that exercise helps acne, a lot of people found that this claim cannot be further from the truth for them because exercise obviously produces sweat and sweat often irritates the skin, which causes acne to become inflamed and makes it look even worse. Yoga, on the other hand, keeps you relaxed, fit, healthy and healthy looking and gives the people who perform yoga a glowing complexion, very much like that “after sex glow” we women (hopefully) know so well.

Switching from product to product is incredibly dangerous to your skin and when you’re trying to find that perfect product, the worst place to take that gamble is on your face. Once you get into a stable routine, from what you apply to your face after washing and before going to bed at night and what you apply to protect your skin throughout the day, you shouldn’t have surprise breakouts or bad reactions to products out of the blue. It’s best to apply a gentle face wash and moisturizing cream every morning and night and if you don’t know what products are best for you, try the greatly-rated Olay Gentle Foaming Face Wash ($4.86) or consult a dermatologist.

Frequent pimples, sudden breakouts and premature aging can all be attributed to one thing in a lot of cases–not removing your makeup every night. It is so simple to fall asleep at night after a very long day without removing your makeup, especially your eye makeup that can take a little while to get off completely. There are a ton of eye makeup removers on the market, including a formula developed by Lancome ($19.99).

What causes acne in the first place? Waste and toxins built up in your system. Your bowels and kidneys are the primary ways to get that waste out of your body, so the best way to make sure your kidneys and bowels are working the best they can is to maintain a diet high in fiber. Foods with the highest amount of fiber are apples, bananas, oranges, raspberries, strawberries, broccoli, brussel sprouts, spinach, parsnips and potatoes. If you cannot keep these foods in your diet daily, it’s also important to take fiber supplements, like Benefiber.

Who has the money and the time to get a professional facial? Yeah, not many people in the least, but facial masks do wonders for your skin and a lot of women with some pretty awesome skin have long relied on weekly DIY facial masks to suck out impurities and refresh the skin. One of the best ingredients used in a facial mask is clay–try the Lather White Clay Mask ($22).

Progresso Souper You Review and Giveaway

This giveaway has closed.

At the start of every new year, most of the women I know and connect with regularly openly talk about how their New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and/or to eat healthier. These are some great resolutions, especially the eating healthy one because while losing weight is a perk for a great deal of women, I whole-heartedly believe that crash dieting and the diet industry as a whole is a multi-billion dollar business for a reason, so if you do truly want to lose weight, it should be for purely health reasons, which is why eating healthy and choosing foods that will nourish you instead of just fill you is really important.

Now that we are more than a month into the new year, (by the way, can you believe that? I know I can’t!) a lot of women have been reporting on their progress with their New Year’s resolutions and if they have been able to stick to what they had planned before January 1st. I have noticed that a lot of women are increasingly strong-willed this year in the commitments they have made to themselves, nearly everyone I’ve checked up on who I had read on their blogs had made a New Year’s resolution has been sticking to it pretty phenomenally. So, for those of you who made the resolution to eat healthier and who are still on the fast-track to healthy eating, I have something really great to share with you!

I am a big, big, big fan of soup. I have been not-so blessed in the teeth department, having been diagnosed with Periodontal Disease and rapid tooth decay a few years ago after my wisdom teeth had started to push their way in. Because I am a professional blogger and also a freelance writer and web designer and developer who works from home, I have a very modest monthly income. I can pretty much cover my expenses month-to-month and that’s about it. That, coupled with the fact that I also live with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and major depressive disorder, (which I have blogged about here before,) makes it impossible for me to hold a job outside of the home, it isn’t a possibility for me to go out and get a part time job to help pay dental bills. Needless to say, this causes me a great deal of excruciating physical pain where for days at a time, I am unable to open my mouth wide enough to get most foods in it. That is when soup saves my life and the sanity I would not have after getting insanely frustrated with how big bite-sized food is.

Progresso has always been a great source of delicious and nutritious soup and they have made it even healthier than before by offering an entire product line of light soups that are all 100 calories or less! It is officially super easy to get a great and satisfying meal in your belly and help manage your weight at the same time. To celebrate their line of light soups, Progresso has launched the Souper You Debut–a contest where you can enter for the chance to win a full makeover in New York City!

To enter the Progresso Souper You Debut contest, all you have to do is go to www.Progresso.com/SouperYou and submit an essay (200 characters or less) telling Progresso why you love Progresso Light or 100 calorie soups and why you would like a full makeover. You will also need to submit a photo of yourself that visually reinforces the theme of your essay. Three grand prize winners will be awarded a trip for two to New York City from May 21st-23rd and includes roundtrip airfare, a two-night stay in a NYC hotel, a full makeover, a $1000 wardrobe shopping spree and personal consultation at a New York department store. Pretty fabulous if you ask me!

Review & Giveaway

To get the good word out about new Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups, I had the opportunity to try them out for myself and thanks to Progresso and MyBlogSpark, received 15 cans of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soups in a variety of different flavors, along with a Progresso soup mug and a digital jump rope that keeps track of jumps and calories burned to help you start working out more, in addition to utilizing soup to help manage your weight.

The variety of soups I received is absolutely insane; I was completely blown away by the amount of different flavors offered and there is definitely something for everyone’s specific tastes. My partner, who usually despises soup and will not eat it regardless of what you bribe him with, loved the Italian-Style Meatball with Penne and I cannot get enough of the Chicken and Dumpling. I love, love, love the Progresso soup mug and now refuse to eat my soup out of anything else. It has a great little thumb indentation at the top of the handle to make carrying it from the kitchen to my computer desk very comfortable.

And we want to share the Progresso love!

Because Progresso is awesome like that and MyBlogSpark is always all about extending the opportunity to try awesome products to others, we have the opportunity to give one lucky Woman Tribune reader 2 cans of Progresso Light soup, a Progresso soup mug and a digital jump rope.

To win the Progresso Prize Pack, all you have to do is visit ProgressoSoup.com and tell us what flavor of Progresso Light soup you would love to try. [REQUIRED]

Additional Entries: [Leave a separate comment for each additional entry.]

• Tell us what steps you take to manage your weight.
• Subscribe to Woman Tribune
• Follow Woman Tribune on Twitter
• Become a fan of Woman Tribune on Facebook
• Subscribe to our videos on YouTube
• Tweet about this giveaway. Feel free to use the following tweet or write your own: [Can be done once per day.]
  

  Win 2 cans of Progresso Light soup, soup mug and digital jump rope from @WomanTribune: http://tinyurl.com/yf24hmk #giveaway

• Blog about this giveaway. [2 entries, so leave 2 comments.]

This giveaway ends Wednesday, February 10th at 11:59PM EST. This giveaway is open to all US residents over the age of 18. The winner will be contacted by email and has 48 hours to respond with their necessary information. If no action is taken, another winner will be picked.

Full Contest Disclaimer

Disclosure: I was given the opportunity to spread the word about Progresso’s Souper You Debut and new line of Light and 100 calorie soups from Progresso and MyBlogSpark. For this post, I received the factual information, 15 cans of Progresso Light and 100 calorie soup, a Progresso soup mug and digital jump rope from Progresso and MyBlogSpark. They have also provided me with the opportunity to give away two cans of Progresso soup, soup mug and digital jump rope to one lucky Woman Tribune reader. All opinions throughout this post are 100% mine.

2/365 Days: L’Oréal Paris® Lash Boosting Technology — Week 3

I have been using L’Oréal Paris® Lash Boosting Technology for the past three weeks (you can check out week one here) and according to L’Oréal Paris®, they only need four weeks to completely transform your short, almost non-existent eyelashes into phenomenal, longer, stronger lashes. Thanks to BzzAgent, I was able to give L’Oréal Paris® Lash Boosting Technology a try and in the past three weeks, have definitely seen a few slight differences.

• My eyelashes don’t fall out by the multiples when I wash my makeup off at night. Big, big plus.
• My eyelashes are most definitely longer and more defined, even with no eye makeup on at all.

There are two products in the L’Oréal Paris® Lash Boosting Technology line–the Lash Boosting Serum, which retails for around $12 and the Double Extend Lash Boosting Mascara, which retails for for around $10, or you can buy them both together. While I have been applying the Lash Boosting Serum at night for the past three weeks, if you don’t want to buy the set, I would definitely opt for the Double Extend Lash Boosting Mascara of the two. It is, hands down, the best mascara I have ever used. It goes on evenly and stays there all day long and I really love it.

L’Oréal Paris® Lash Boosting Technology — Week 1

I have never been one to wear a ton of makeup; I am a big fan of natural beauty and most often, I can be found wearing only some eyeliner and mascara. I love accentuating my eyes, I’ll dab on a little lip gloss or if I’m going out somewhere special I’ll apply a classic red lip, but that about covers me and makeup’s relationship. Needless to say, I go through a great deal of eye cosmetics, especially considering you should update your mascara once every three months; something I had not known until just a few months ago. Lucky for me, just around the same time I needed some updating, BzzAgent sent me a brand new mascara product from L’Oréal Paris®–their Lash Boosting Technology.

Of course, because I’m well, me, before even reading my literature on the product, I ran up to the bathroom and put it on, since I was getting ready to leave the house already anyway. With just the very first application, I was amazed. I ran into my partner’s office and started saying, “Look at my eyelashes! Look how much bigger and fuller they are, they look amazing!” He agreed, of course, and started comparing the literature on the product to how it really worked, such as the fact that it really does separate and accentuate each and every single lash you have, which let’s face it, most mascaras do not do without some major clumping. I was absolutely overjoyed with the product, but completely forgot that they are currently hosting a 4 week challenge to let you see just how much your lashes will change in 4 weeks while using L’Oréal Paris® Lash Boosting Technology.

So here we are at the beginning. Week 1. Here is a picture of me with absolutely no makeup on whatsoever. In fact, I have been sick with pneumonia for the past 10 days and this is what being sick, just waking up and having no makeup on looks like:

As you can see, without mascara, my eyelashes look nonexistent until I close my eyes. Hopefully this lash boosting technology fixes that. So be sure to check back here every Tuesday until February 9th to see if it really works!

After doing some research when it comes to lash boosting technology and eyelash growth cosmetics and products, L’Oréal is definitely one of the cheapest ways to go about lengthening your eyelashes in a safe, comfortable and easy way. Some products sell for up to over $100 and the entire product line of Lash Boosting Technology sells for up to $21.79. You can purchase it at Walmart and Target for pretty cheap!

Acne Treatment

Most people go through that awkward acne stage; most people also go through the agonizing experience of trying every face wash, exfoliant, moisturizer, cleansing wipes and creams that will get rid of their acne. When it comes to acne treatment, it can really start to feel like you are grasping at straws trying to find a solution. I went through my own awkward acne stage along with a frustrating experience trying to find an acne treatment that would work for me.

It is hard to pinpoint the causes of acne, but in most people, they find that the one thing that is always there is stress. Whether it is stress from school, work, or even from breaking out, acne can easily turn into something you just can’t seem to get rid of. A great way to reduce the amount of breakouts you have is to simply relax. Relaxation and exercise can do wonders for your skin and can also even turn into a skin care regime; keeping your body and mind healthy helps keep your complexion healthy and looking great. However, no matter how healthy you are, you may end up with a case of acne if someone in your family, especially a parent, had acne or still experiences adult acne; genetics is a big determining factor.

There are countless products on the market today to help ease, get rid of and treat acne for good but when it comes to acne treatment, there are so many options to the point where there are too many and while you may feel like you’re in the dark when trying to pick a few to try, it is best to start reading reviews and see what has worked for the most amount of people.

An effective treatment for chronic acne that is completely natural and is said to work better than a run of the mill acne cream is Acnezine. Acnezine is a dual cream and pill that work together to completely rejuvenate your skin from the inside out.

Acenzine not only sounds like a miracle formula, but it has been tested and reviewed and is considered to be the most effective product on the market today.

I’m in a Long Term Relationship with My Hair

I usually keep my hair long, but I’ve noticed that the longer my hair gets, the worse it looks. I frequently develop split ends that I have to trim every two months or so, my hair looks dull and flat a lot of the time because I don’t have very full hair and while it isn’t fine, it’s just thin enough to look flat and boring a lot of the time. I’ve tried a variety of different volumizing hair care products and while they worked for a little while, the effects were short-term and in even just a few hours, my hair returns to its original, lifeless state.

I’m a beauty product addict. Shampoos, conditioners, skin creams, moisturizers, bath products; you name it, I need to try several different variations of it. So when Herbal Essences came out with a line of shampoo, conditioner and split end protectors for a variety of different hair types, it was no surprise that I needed to try them.

I recently picked up Herbal Essences’ Long Term Relationship shampoo and conditioner, a line of hair care products just for women with longer hair and I could not be happier with the outcome. My hair looks so much healthier, feels so much softer and is giving off a beautiful shine, even when just waking up in the morning after washing it the night before. It’s laying a lot nicer now and while I usually keep my hair up a lot because I don’t like the way the ends look after a few months without getting it trimmed, I’ve been leaving it down a lot more lately because of how beautiful it’s laying. It has a very sophisticated scent; it’s a blend of red raspberry and satin but isn’t overly fruity-scented which is a huge plus because I’m not too big of a fan of hair care products that smell very fruity or very floral; Herbal Essences has found the perfect blend that attracts a fan base of not just teenage girls.

I love this stuff; it works a lot better than I thought it would and I cannot recommend it enough.

Emerita Knows Women’s Skin Care

I have spent the last few years of my life fighting with my fickle skin. The slightest things can make my skin turn from the pure complexion I had all through my adolescence into a horrifying Halloween mask-like state that leaves me adopting an “Oh well, I’m just not leaving the house–Ever, if need be!” philosophy. I have tried a downright impressive amount of over-the-counter skin care products and even some infomercial “miracle” collections that left my face incredibly dry and did not help clear acne, but aided in the process of making more! Sadly, me and my complexion had given up, especially since most of the skin care products I had tried made my complexion far worse than it was when I had started using them.

After giving up on skin care products that seemed to work for whoever this company was testing to prove their product worked, as well as for the models and actresses who already had perfect complexions to begin with, my skin was in an absolutely horrific state. My acne stayed, my skin was incredibly dry and it felt as if my face itself just was not fitting into my skin and I had also developed a problem with blackheads that never wanted to go away, no matter what face scrub I massaged into my face. Then it hit me; these companies were interested in one thing–Money. Most companies will say and do anything to pull one over on consumers and as long as they are making their millions, they really don’t care about women at all or if their product had even helped someone.

I recently had the opportunity to give skin care another go–With Emerita. Emerita is a woman-owned business, which of course gets a thumbs up in my book. I am all about supporting any business owned and run by women, especially since most products made for women are made by men, and obviously, men know very little about how women work. Emerita started as a family business and has been helping women over 40 with their extensive line of personal health and beauty products since the 1970s. While Emerita may target women over 40, they are not only for women of that age group since they helped the complexion of a 21 year old woman and most likely many other younger women who refused to accept that there were no skin care products that would work for them.

The Emerita microdermabrasion face scrub is made with all organic and botanical ingredients. It exfoliates your skin, leaving it the smoothest my face has ever been. It is a smooth exfoliate unlike any other I had tried before; it doesn’t hurt when massaged into your skin and it leaves your skin feeling warm and refreshed. The scrub is unscented and contains no artificial colorings, which is great because what most companies don’t realize is that it doesn’t take a fruity smell and a pretty color to make women continue to buy their products, it takes the product to actually work–And Emerita does!

If you are interested in Emerita, but don’t want to spend your money on products that you don’t know for sure will work for you, they also offer two different sample packages of five different skin care products for just $2.00 and they also ship for free!

I have personally found that the balancing toner used after the microdermabrasion scrub and combined with the night cream works famously. It works so great, in fact, that I saw results with using their skin care products in just a 24-hour period, which if you’ve used most other products, you know is astounding!

I would most definitely tell any women looking to clear their complexion and be left with a warm, glowing and refreshed face to check out the products that Emerita offers; they are great quality and above all else, they work.

The ‘Healthy’ Glow

It’s spring, which means summer is just around the corner and women are getting ready to get their bikini bodies. But what if women, with their exercise schedule and healthy diets, are backtracking and while they think they are being healthy in their efforts to maintain that perfect beach body, are really just harming their health more?

If you go to a gym, you most likely utilize most of the facilities and activities that they have to offer. Work out equipment, maybe some private classes with a personal trainer or being part of a weekly class, if they have a nutritionist on staff, you most likely consulted with them about maintaining some healthy eating habits or have gotten a quick snack from them. Just before taking your shower, getting back into your street clothes and going home, how many women hop into the tanning bed for that healthy summer glow; because lets face it, who wants to be a color just a few pigments darker than chalk? But what you don’t know is that tanning beds, a $5 billion a year industry, are harming you more than you may think.

Personally, I used to frequent tanning salons because I suffered from chronic insomnia and I found that while accompanying a friend of mine on her tanning trip and deciding to try it out for myself, that a tanning bed was the only place where I could fall asleep. While I didn’t strive for the perfect tan, I do know women who became absolutely obsessed with tanning, making appointments at two or three different tanning facilities just so no one told them that they were tanning too much because they would go to a variety of different places. It looked as if they were going once a week, but they were really visiting these facilities three times a week or more!

Tanning, while incredibly bad for your skin to begin with, as the ultraviolet radiation can cause wrinkles, dark spots and premature aging; indoor tanning can also put you at a 55% higher risk for Melanoma.

Dermatologist Louis Barich, MD, has reported that “Essentially, 20 minutes in a tanning bed can do as much damage as five hours of natural sunlight.”

So before hopping into that tanning bed for that healthy glow, go outside and get some fresh air instead–but be sure to put the sunblock on! While being pasty white may not seem very attractive to you, think about how you would feel about wrinkles, dark spots and ultimately, skin cancer.

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