Yesterday I accidentally washed my hair backwards. I was in the shower, scrubbing and singing like I always do, and before I knew it, I’d filled my left hand with a pile of conditioner. Huh. I could have rinsed it down the drain and gone for the shampoo, but I didn’t. Instead, I remembered a sidebar we have in the book about washing your hair backwards, which is exactly what it sounds like: Conditioner first, then a little shampoo.

It resulted in the best hair day I’ve had in months.

Funny story: After the book came out and we were doing interviews, this little sidebar, barely a page long, came up in more conversations than we could count. (The other thing that always came up was our recipe for vodka hairspray, which makes sense.) But the truth was, neither of us was that into it. We’d tried it, and liked it fine, but it definitely wasn’t what we did every morning in the tub. And when we’d get asked about it, it was always a little awkward. “Um… We don’t actually really… I mean… You know what? You should totally try it.” That kind of thing.

The technique was introduced to us by Horst Rechelbacher, the founder of Intelligent Nutrients (and, originally, of Aveda) and we included it because we thought it made sense—conditioner has the right pH to seal the cuticle, making it sleeker, and the oils and aloe make your hair soft; shampoo just gets rids of the excess.

Here’s what he told us:

“When you wash your hair, try using your conditioner first. If you want to go all the way, put oils on your scalp, give yourself a nice massage, and then comb it through. Next, wet it down, put conditioner all over your hair and then also all over your body. Wash yourself with the conditioner, then rinse it all off. Then, you use shampoo. Rinse it off as well, and you won’t need conditioner again. If your hair is tangly, put a little oil on your hands and then comb it through—that’s it. You will feel very pure.”

I’m not sure I felt very pure, but my hair looked and felt terrific. Who knew?

Have you ever washed your hair backwards? Would you?

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I am such a sucker for a good eye cream. I’ve already professed my love for Kahina Giving Beauty’s, which smells like Oil of Olay (in a very good way) but better, and is packed with good-for-you argan oil. I’ve reviewed La Bella Figura’s serum, which seems to erase undereye circles and puffiness like nothing I’ve used before, perhaps thanks to barbary fig seed oil. I also told you about Skincando’s Eye Balm, which is just incredibly hydrating.

Now I’m going to tell you about my new favorite toy: Sevani’s Eye Repair Creme.

I’ve been using it pretty steadily for about 5 weeks now, and while the smile lines around my eyes are here to stay (and thank god, honestly—we both love smile lines), I have noticed that my undereyes look and feel more hydrated. We’re not talking about some overnight oh-my-god miracle, but a subtle and meaningful difference nonetheless. The edges of my eyes seem a little plumped thanks to the hyaluronic acid, and I’m holding out hope that the peptides and the Q10—a promising antiager we wrote about in the book—may be doing some long-term good as well. Actives aside, there are some really lovely oils and extracts that are packed with antioxidants and have some nice data on them for their skin-friendliness and antiaging properties.

I have yet to get my hands on Sevani’s other eye treatment—a serum with a lovely ingredient list—but it’ll be on my list of things to try. Well, maybe. I have a serious crush on this one for now. We’ll see when (and if) I’m ready to move on…

Have you tried another you like? And do you, like me, share a love of eye cream?

Ingredients: *Aloe vera juice, avocado fruit oil, sunflower seed oil, cetearyl olivate (and) sorbitan olivate (olive derived), evening primrose oil, vegetable glycerin, gotu kola extract, green tea extract, olive squalane, leuconostoc/radish root ferment filtrate (all-natural preservative), caffeine, hyaluronic acid (mushroom derived), acetyl hexapeptide-8, retinyl palmitate, licorice root extract, ubiquinone (co-enzyme Q10), rosehip seed oil, xanthan gum, *pomegranate extract, *rose damascene extract, *sacred lotus blossom extract, *neroli blossom extract, *red tea extract & *neem leaf extract. (*certified organic)

Last night over a glass of wine, my friend announced he was on day 1 (and take 2) of a new diet. Well, not a diet, exactly, and I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something to the effect of: “When I cut out dairy, processed sugar and wheat, I wake up every day feeling better than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Gah. I want to feel like that! Who doesn’t want to feel like that, frankly. But I don’t, and I notice it most when I first wake up in the morning.

Do most people wake up feeling awesome? Seriously?

The thing is, I would wager that most of us know exactly what we need to do to feel our best.

• We know how much sleep we need *
• We can list the foods we digest most easily **
• We can identify the habits that make us feel like garbage and, in theory anyway, we could not do those things ***
• We know what kind of exercise our body craves ****
• We understand who make us feel all happy and glowy  *****

I certainly do, I just don’t always do it—and how boring would life be if I did. (That’s what I tell myself, anyway—which might be part of the problem?) The truth is, I am a sucker for a good time, I’m pretty spontaneous, but I’m also someone who feels best when I stick to a routine. Because as anyone over the age of 30 knows, good times often come at a cost. And that feeling of waking up totally rested and relaxed? You can’t beat it. So I’m going to embark on a mission to have more mornings like that, and fewer when I wake up with a four-letter word in my head just because the alarm went off.

Now tell us, and be brutally honest, please: Do you wake up every day feeling refreshed? If so, I am jealous, but I want to know your secrets. Share, share.

* 8 hours

** Vegetables, cooked or raw, gluten-free grains, some fish, yummy good fats

*** I’m not telling

**** Vigorous yoga, hiking, boot camp drills in the park

***** You know who you are, and I thank you!

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When my insomnia hit the other night, I did everything wrong.

I’d managed to work myself up about something before bed, but because I have the stamina of a toddler when I’m upset, I tired myself out quickly and crashed hard around 11:30pm. Then, at 4:30am, my brain went on like a light. There I was, in that strange time when “tonight” becomes “tomorrow” and the last thing in the world you should be doing is witnessing it. (Unless of course you’re doing something really fun—which I wasn’t. I was lying there with looping thoughts, the lights on, a search window open on my laptop, and Twitter fired up on my phone…)

We have written plenty about sleep hygiene here. We polled you once to find out how much you sleep (a lot!); we asked you guys to share your bedtime rituals with us (they were great!); we’ve explored how sleep can help your looks (duh); and we’ve covered ayurvedic principles about sleep before, as well.

But isn’t it funny (dumb) that no matter how much you know about the Right Thing To Do for your wellbeing, it’s often exactly when you need that advice the most that it escapes you?

With that in mind, here’s a primer, filled with things you already know, on the best and worst things to do when you can’t sleep. Obviously this advice is highly subjective. Where appropriate, we’ve mentioned some actual science to back us up. And, as always, we want your tips in the comments.

The Bad

1. Tweeting, emailing, checking your stocks, approving comments on your blog etc. Research shows that light-emitting devices can suppress the production of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin—which means when you wake up to check your cell, or simply have it on blinking at you from the bedside table, you’re sending signals to your brain that it isn’t time to chill out. Turn them off, use airplane mode, or put them on the other side of the room. When you wake up, try your best not to check them.

2. Watching scary TV shows. I can’t watch scary things at night anymore without getting nightmares and waking up a lot. Granted I’m on the sensitive side (cough), but there is good research that shows how disruptive this can be. It can spike stress hormones in the body and put you in an excited state (not the good kind) that doesn’t bode well for rest. Some people can watch anything before bed and fall asleep, but if you wake up in the middle of the night and decide to flip on the tube, maybe don’t try to catch up on a season’s worth of Boardwalk Empire?

3. Turning on the light. This actually can be a good thing (see below), but in general, if you wake up and have to pee or you stand a chance of falling back asleep fairly quickly, don’t turn on the lights or lift up your black-out blinds. (You all have black-out blinds, right? If not, you should! They’re super cheap at Ikea and make a world of difference.) For the same reasons you want to avoid electronics, you also want to avoid turning on the lights: It tells your brain that it’s time to be awake by suppressing sleep hormones. Pas bon.

4. Drinking booze. We’ve all seen the research about nightcaps actually disrupting sleep, and here’s why: It robs you of REM and the other, deeper stages of sleep—which are the ones that make you feel most rested. A glass or two of wine can make you feel nice and relaxed, and that can be sleep-promoting, but drinking too close to bedtime (not to mention in the middle of the night) should probably be avoided.

5. Just lying there freaking out. If you’re past the point of no return—meaning you can just tell you won’t be falling back asleep any time soon—do something else. You can go ahead and break rule number 3 here. Get up and do something, anything, until you feel sleepy again.

The Good

1. A cup of herbal tea or some aromatherapy. Many herbs—chamomile, lavender, valerian root—have been shown in research (and by wise grandmothers) to make you sleepy. Similarly, jasmine has a sedative effect when inhaled, as do Hope Gillerman’s Sleep Remedy and Essence of Vali’s. Just be sure to do your research and/or check with your doctor before you start dosing yourself. Nature makes some very powerful plants

2. Reading something you’ve read before. This works wonders for me. A yogi and a nerdy scholar at heart, I have been rereading The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali for years now. Here’s why it works: When you read things you are already familiar with, it doesn’t stimulate your mind with new information the way an exciting novel or a piece of nonfiction would. In fact, it has the opposite effect of comforting you with information you already possess, and, well, kind of boring you.

3. Meditate. A tough sell at 4am, I know, but it helps quiet the mind and ready you for more sleep. Our tips are here—and the compassion meditation is an especially nice one to do because it puts your focus on people you love. You could also try listening to recordings of meditations by Pema Chodron (or someone else, but man is she good). You can break rule number 1, above, for this one, obviously.

4. Do some yoga. Nothing too vigorous, but some poses have been shown to promote sleepiness. There’s a nice list over here.

5. Wake up your buddy and chat and/or have sex. This requires a forgiving and generous significant other, but if you have one, and you know they won’t mind hearing what’s on your mind and helping you simmer down, this can be very helpful. As for sex, just bear in mind that for some people, sex is sleep inducing (for example, every single man who ever walked the earth*) and for others it’s sleep inhibiting.

6. Pretend it’s already tomorrow. If you’re really stuck, try pretending it’s not 4am but 8am and it’s time to get ready for work or school. Take a shower, brush your teeth, drink some water—but be sure to skip the coffee. It sounds nuts but this has worked for me! At some point, when you’re going through the motions, something in your mind will click and you’ll think: “This is totally insane. I should be asleep right now.” And then maybe, just maybe, you will be.

Your turn! What are your tips: What’s the best—and worst—things one can do when one can’t sleep?

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* I kid! Sort of.

Here, I’ll go first: I use simple bar soap from Leap Organics, coconut oil, Soapwalla body oil, or whatever is left on my hands after I apply conditioner. We are of the mind that for girls shaving their legs especially—guys, we get that you might not want to put conditioner on your mugs—shaving cream is one of many things you think you need to buy, but don’t.

When I have bothered to buy an actual product, I’ve tried Weleda’s in the past, and loved it, and just called in some oil from Portland General Store, which our trusty boy tester will try for us soon.

For a refresher on why traditional shaving cream is among the worst products you could be subjecting your skin to, let’s revisit this post we wrote, about the six dangerous products men use every day. About shaving cream…

Besides the propellants and butane in many shaving creams, there is also diazolidinyl urea, which is a formaldehyde releaser, triethanolamine, which is often contaminated with carcinogenic nitrosamines, parabens, which are weak estrogen mimickers, and synthetic fragrance.

Instead, we recommend using organic oils, such as olive or coconut, if you can get past the whole oil-on-face thing. For a store-bought option, try Dr. Bronner’s Organic Shave Gel, which is 100 percent free of synthetics. If you break out, get the one with tea tree oil. Weleda also has a nice one.

Okydoke. Your turn! What do you use to shave your face, legs, nethers, pits, what have you?

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Guess what’s the last thing in the world I want to think about? Correct: Whether or not my beauty products, which I am already very picky about, are gluten-free.

But I’ve been performing a somewhat irresponsible (and unscientific) study on myself in the shower, and the results are in: Shampoo and conditioner that contains gluten totally gives me a rash. Well, sometimes.

This should not surprise me. I am allergic—not intolerant—to gluten,* and have been strictly avoiding that pesky protein for about 6 years now.** This is not a big deal! I avoid wheat-substitute foods for the most part, but I love what I get to eat, I cook a lot, I make it work. You would think that, knowing what I know about transdermal absorption, it might have occurred to me at some point that I should eliminate it from my beauty products too. But it did not.

Problem: It’s everywhere. Another problem: Whether or not I react to it is unpredictable, and probably has to do with particle size, concentration, and how aware I am of my own symptoms. Sometimes I’m totally in tune with these things; sometimes I treat my body like a garbage can and notice nothing. (Rare! But true story, I do it.) Now, some gluten-containing beauty products cause a reaction—specifically, an itchy-rashy back of neck, which drives me bonkers and makes me very self-conscious—and some do not. Complicating things is the fact that other ingredients also cause a neck rash to flare up: Stress, hair dye, SLS and SLES, you name it.

It’s one of those things where I’m inclined to say I don’t really know what to do about it—except I do. I need to eliminate all beauty products that contain the stuff and then pray to the rash gods that the itch stays at bay.

And so, dear readers, I turn to you: What gluten-free shampoo and conditioner do you love? And have you ever noticed a similar reaction to gluten—or some other ingredient in your naturals?

* Gluten, as most of you almost certainly know, is the protein in many grains, including wheat. Wheat is very commonly used in hair products, often in the form of hydrolyzed wheat protein.

** When I eat it by accident—an extremely rare event—terrible, terrible things happen. Not gross, but like, indescribable pain. And then a black cloud of death comes over me, mood-wise, as well.

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Confession: Sometimes I sort of miss phthalates.

Ugh, OK, I don’t really mean that. But you know that feeling when you smell something so amazing—a flower, a candle, your boyfriend’s deodorant—and then all you want to do is smell that thing all the time? Well, phthalates can help with that. They can also help bend your gender, though, so we avoid products that contain them—which means almost anything with synthetic fragrance.

As such, I’ve been on the hunt for a perfume I could love as much as my old favorites. A signature scent, if you will. My criteria has obviously changed over the years: I don’t want a perfume to last all day—I find that weird; but I’d like it to be portable so that I can reapply it before I go out at night; I’d also like it to be 100% organic, or as close to that as possible; and I want it to elicit as many or more “You smell greats” as my Chanel and Hanae Mori used to.

Tough! But not impossible.

In the last three years, I have tried many, and loved few. Alexandra and I have both experimented with using essential oil treatments as perfume. She loves Hope Gillerman’s, and we both still adore Tata Harper’s Irritability Treatment; I love Honore des Pres for its luxurious and playful packaging and nuanced scents (Vamp à NY and Love Coconut are my favorites). There have been others. And now…there’s a new favorite in town.

Lotus Wei has started making perfume! And at $45, it’s affordable! And portable! And organic! And…transformative? Ben oui!

Like all Lotus Wei’s products, these perfumes contain aromatherapy and flower essences, meaning they’re double-teaming you for best results. I have already professed my love for the Infinite Love Energy Mist, and I dose my friends with the Elixirs all the time. Now, thanks to the unbelievably delicious smelling perfume, I can wear it all day long, too.

So Infinite Love is the one I’ve been wearing. It has rose, and mandarin and honey, starting out as a mix of really bright—not heavy or musty—rose with citrus, and it quickly warms into a sexy, caramelly smell as it blends with my own skin. It’s garnered a lot of questions, comments and, yup, compliments, and because it’s got the flower essences in there, I feel like it’s working on a subtler level as well. Mmmmm!

So let’s toss this topic back to you guys. Have you found YOUR signature scent?

(And guys, get excited, because we’ve started calling in some aftershave and colognes as well. Expect some reviews from our boy testers soon!)

Here’s a thing we’d like to do: Challenge you guys—again—but this time it’s going to be all about food. We’re bringing back an early idea we launched here but never initiated as a formal challenge because this blog was just a baby then, and we hadn’t started our Challenge series yet.

Get excited: This is one is fun, easy, and rewards you with glowing skin.

A while back, a friend mentioned a study he’d seen showing that Japanese farmers who ate on average 20 fruits and vegetables a day were in significantly better health than those who ate just 10, even when controlling for other factors. They lived longer, had fewer health events and felt better. We’d wager they looked pretty good too.

Intuitively this makes sense, and it’s partly why we devoted two chapters in the book to food and lifestyle. We’re big believers in the idea that you can’t just slather on products and expect to look your best. You also need to eat avocados, drink plenty of water, sleep a lot, have sex, have fun, exercise and commit to relaxation in some form or another (preferably the sober kind, at least some of the time).

We’ve been talking a bit about resolutions here, and we’ve been (mostly) keeping up our Meatless Monday Inspiration posts, so how about we put those two together and eat more veggies! And fruit.

And we’re making it easy. A bite of anything that contains a fruit of vegetable, even if somewhat adulterated, counts for one point.

Half an apple counts, and so does the garlic you crushed into your pasta sauce*. And, like, if you eat a greek yogurt with the gooey raspberries at the bottom, well, ew, but that counts! Even better would be yogurt with whole raspberries, but that’s the thing with this challenge: You can fake it to make it. Cool? Great.

Now who’s in?

Some rules: Don’t cheat.

Instructions: For seven consecutive days, consume at least 10 different fruits or vegetables per day. Ten total: You decide how many of those you want to be fruits and vegetables. Then write us an email at nomoredirtylooks (at) gmail (dot) com with NOMNOM in the subject line, and include your first name and location, written thusly “Siobhan, Brooklyn, NY” and a brief description of how you felt at the end of your seven days. Send this to us by the end of the day Wednesday, January 18th.

Prize: We’re still working on a prize, but it’ll be awesome as always. Stay tuned. We’ll post when we have it locked and loaded.

Special favor: Help us make sure this awesome. Tell your friends on Twitter, Facebook, at the gym or at the bar. Friend us, follow us, and then RT us, or whatever. Spread the word!

The reason for the challenge: See above. It’s healthy. You’ll glow. And you’ll feel better. Also, when you turn life into a summer camp challenge, and you do it with other people, it’s way more fun.

Good luck! Share your clever veggie- and fruit-loading tips in the comments. Ten is a lot, but it’s not that hard. Bon appetit!

* Yes, we know there’s some debate about whether or not garlic is actually a vegetable, but we’re not sticklers here…and it’s good for you!

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Well, my boy has a bit of a problem, in any case, and I need your help finding him a good, um, boysturizer.

First, let me back up: Despite the fact that I do this for a living and can be a bit of a zealot (“Do you know what is in that?!”), this is something he has decided he wants to do (mostly) on his own. He’s switched his shampoo and conditioner, uses my Tom’s toothpaste, and is super supportive of what we’re up to over here. But after a couple of attempts to switch his face lotion to something a little less…Clean & Clear, we’re sort of stuck.

He likes his J&J moisturizer because it isn’t greasy, absorbs well and doesn’t leave any film on his skin. It also doesn’t smell like a girl, which is a bonus.

Now, I know most skincare lines are unisex, but if we’re being honest we all know that most of them smell like candy, fruit or flowers—and he doesn’t want anything like that. He also doesn’t want something that feels oily, which, hey, I get! It took me a long time to love the feeling of plant oils on my skin, and some people never get into it. Finally, it can’t feel filmy on his skin.

So far he’s tried Organic Apoteke Active Face Gel, which was too acidic and caused his face to turn red. The redness quickly faded, and with it a desire to ever try it again (which works well for me, frankly, since I only have half a bottle of it left and the company appears to be on hiatus!). Next, he tried Dr. Alkaitis’ Organic Day Cream, which is aloe-based but has shea butter high up on the list. This lotion feels lovely on my skin, but it was way too heavy for him, leaving him with that dreaded “coated” feeling. Also, it sort of smells like a natural version of the gum you get in baseball card packets when you’re a kid. To me this is a plus; to him, not so much.

So we turn to you:

Men, it’s time to stop lurking and share your skincare secrets. Women, tell us what your boyfriends, man friends and husbands are using. And if you’ve tried something yourself that you think fits the bill, weigh in. Let’s find him something that will make him as happy at that guy up top.

Please and thank you.

This post might be premature as I’ve only had one for two days now, but I am in love with my new humidifier (that’s Canadian for “vaporizer,” by the way).

My skin’s been pretty dry lately, despite the fact that I’m using a super rich new moisturizer by Tammy Fender (review coming soon), that eye serum by La Bella Figura, a gentle Tata Harper cleanser and my usual argan oil every night. I also eat plenty of good fats, drink lots of water and take omegas every day. So what gives?

Well, since the holiday season started I’ve probably (definitely) been drinking more alcohol, which is dehydrating and disrupts my sleep a little bit, which stresses out skin. Plus, the air has gotten a little drier outside and in; I live in a prewar building where I can’t easily control the heat, and the radiator is right next to my bed.

That’s why when it was suggested to me recently that I get a vaporizer, I jumped at the idea—not to mention it was on Alexandra’s list of winter skincare tips. Dry Montreal winters necessitated them, so we always had them in our rooms growing up, and I got another one years ago, a gift from an engineer who had designed the thing. But somewhere along the line I forgot they existed. Now, just two days in, it’s love all over again.

It’s admittedly a little humid in New York now, but I’m convinced, though I can’t prove it, that the last two nights I’ve slept better, probably because the moisture in the air makes me more comfortable and less likely to wake up parched and desperate for a sip of water. Also, seeing is believing: My skin is much more hydrated, as if by magic.

So what about you? Do you use one?

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