Bold brows are having a moment.  And all of us who spent our high school years torturing ourselves with cheap tweezers rejoiced.

Unfortunately, my "eyebrow game" is naturally more of a unibrow than Cara Delvigne-esque bold brows (what a flattering thing to admit on social media.) However, an eyebrow pencil kinda changed my life.

If you're like me, you don't wear a whole lot of makeup, and eyebrow pencils are something you associate with old makeup ladies.  I am confident that despite the less-than-verbose description, you know exactly what I'm talking about when I say "old makeup lady."

Well, eyebrow pencils can work for anyone.  And there is a way to do it and make it look natural.  It's all in the kind of pencil you get.

Go for one that's self-sharpening (rolls up rather than looking like a school pencil), with a fine tip.  The finer the tip, the more "hair-like" your strokes are going to look.  I like the Merle Norman automatic brow pencil and this one from Milani.

Before - looking a little straggly:

I try to go as long as I can between hair washes, within reason. I can usually do about 5 days without it getting gross, with the help of dry shampoo and sometimes half-washes for my bangs in the sink. The gorgeous girls of Treasures and Travels did a feature a while back where they all showed the hairstyles that get them through a week of no washing, and since all hair types are so different (and I get lots of questions about how I make my wash last so long), I thought I would do the same!

So, about my hair texture: my hair is incredibly think and coarse. It's prone to dryness and split ends, but it usually has lots of volume and holds styling well.

Day one, fresh after a wash.  I usually wash my hair at night and blow dry my bangs with a round brush.  Occasionally I'll use a hair dryer on the rest of my hair for a minute or two just so it isn't soaking wet, but usually I'll let it air dry.  I work in a repairing treatment, concentrating on my ends, for extra moisture since my hair tends to the drier side. The morning after I wear my hair down and work the waves!

Day 2 is usually a half up/half down.  Sometimes I'll put it up with a hair elastic, but I usually use bobby pins and twist the sections of hair before pinning to give it a little more volume up top.  This is gonna sound elitist, probably, but after years of inadequate bobby pins, the ones from Sally Beauty have a much better grip than the ones from Dollar General.  In my opinion, they're totally worth a few cents more.

I'm glad that messy pony tails are having a moment, because they help me get through life with much less time spent drying my hair.  Day 3 is almost always messy pony day.  It's also the first day I break out the dry shampoo (I've been using Not Your Mother's); I'll spray a little in my bangs and work it through the top of my ponytail for extra volume.  The messier the better on this one, so I usually just rake it up as high as I can with my fingers and secure it tight so it stays bouncy.

Day 4 is when it allll goes up.  I've found a ton of hair tutorials for this style, but this one has got to by my favorite, and by far the easiest (I'm showing T and T some serious love with this post, #notsorry).  A little hairspray is always a good idea with a style like this, and I'm a fan of this one because it's not sticky.

You really can't beat a head wrap for hiding greasies.  This one is from Rayna Jaye, who makes the cutest ones in the land.  I'll run some more dry shampoo through my bangs put a little argan oil on my ends if they're dry, and I'm good to go! This is also a great style if you oversleep because it literally takes .2 seconds.

So there's a blueprint for taking your wash up to 5 days!  What are some hairstyles that save your wash?

Is there anything better than cheese? Not really. Unless you add bread, then it skyrockets even higher into it's better-than-everything-ness.

Can you tell that grilled cheeses rank pretty high on my list of favorite foods?

When I make them for dinner I try to add more to them than just cheese - because Caleb is a man, and a simple grilled cheese isn't really enough sustenance for him, and because I like for dinner to be a little bit fancier if I can help it.  That's not saying that we don't have nights when all we can throw together is a bowl of cereal and some peanut butter for protein, but whatever.

I've been getting into plants lately.  Mostly succulents, because I'm (almost) guaranteed not to kill them, but flowers too. My favorites are peonies and hydrangeas and once we buy a house I plan to buy a gazillion bushes of them to plant outside.

In the spirit of full disclosure, these aren't real polaroids.  They're prints from the Printic app, but hey! They're much cheaper than buying a polaroid camera.

I was antiquing with my friend Taylor on Saturday and found this cute old shutter.  I just had these pictures tacked to the wall, but I figured this would be a much more unique way to display them.

I've been searching for something that will make my waves actually look like something pretty rather than a rat's nest for some time now.  Everything I tried either made it too greasy, too sticky, or did nothing at all.  Not so with this pomade from The Hippy Homemaker.

If "how long can you go before you absolutely have to wash your hair or you will have no friends" was an Olympic sport, I would rock at it.

Sadly, I don't think that would fit across the news marquee, so whatever.

This is a hair idea for days when 15 more minutes of sleep wins over shampooing:

Happy Valentine's Day folks!
Even if it's not a holiday you particularly enjoy, it's certainly a good excuse to dress up and play with your makeup.  This is an eyes makeup look I use a lot when I want something more dramatic than my usual eyeliner/mascara combo.  It looks fancy, but it's really easy.

Awards season is upon us.  I don't really watch them (I just catch the important points in gif form on tumblr), but they certainly serve for some hair and makeup inspiration. One of my favorite looks is Chloe Moretz's braided updo, so I decided to recreate it and add a few more braids because that's how I roll.  The end result looked more Khaleesi than movie star, but I kinda like it that way.

My hair is too thick to do lots of cute things.  There's almost too much of it for milkmaid braids, buns sometimes look like planets on my head, and it's way too frizzy during the winter.  I've had trouble putting it in a messy bun before, but I finally conquered it. Having trouble with a messy bun isn't unique to thick haired ladies, though... our fine haired sisters have the same issue.

My good friend Courtney hooked me up with a bag of pureology shampoo samples (hooray!) and as she was handing me the bag, she said "And there's a french bobby pin in there!"  Having no idea what it was, I just said "Awesome!"  When I got home, I dug that french bobby pin out, more curious than anything.

You guys. You need one of these. Or, you know, a whole box.

My hair is super thick, so I get layers cut into it to lighten it up a bit.  While layers are great for keeping my hair from giving me a migraine, they're not so great for when I try to wear a braid.  I'm sure it's happened to you - pieces falling out, bobby pinning until you can't feel your fingers.  Not so pleasant.
Well, here's a solution for when you want a side braid and your hair won't cooperate.

Let's start with some honesty - I only get my hair cut twice a year at most.  I trim my own split ends at home. When I got bangs, I thought I was going to have to change that habit, and my wallet was none too pleased.  So instead of succumbing to broke-ness, I dug in and researched.  Now, I trim my own bangs - pretty successfully, if I do say so myself.
Here's some pointers to keep your bangs tidy between haircuts, regardless of how few and far between they may be.

1. Cut vertically, not horizontally.  In other words, like this: