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.

Let’s talk about sex, shall we? Ever since the fascinating and instructive conversation we had here on No More Dirty Looks a few weeks ago about going off the pill and the perils therein, there’s been a raging conversation going among some of my girlfriends about what to do about not getting pregnant unless you’re ready.

Some are still on the pill. One is ready to come off it but doesn’t know what to do. Some just use condoms. Some do the pull-out thing. Some track their cycle and are super careful around ovulation but loose the rest of the month. There’s some variety, but not much.

I recently read the new Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot (thumbs up, for the most part) and was amused that the lead female is in college and uses a diaphragm. Maybe people still use these, I don’t know, but I certainly don’t know anyone who does, and I get why. There’s a scene in the book where she has to go put it in after they start making out and, well, they’re both sort of bummed about that and they stop. Admittedly, the book was written by a man, and I find it annoying when men complain about the inconvenience of birth control—not that he was complaining! it’s a novel! and her boyfriend was on Lithium!—unless he’s a real prince about using condoms. But there’s no getting around the fact that the diaphragm does seem to me like an especially unpleasant option, requiring either foresight or a “wait right here” moment, both of which can kill the mood. (The book, to be fair, is set in the 1980s.) At the same time, it’s a non-hormonal option, so it’s got that going for it.*

These days, there’s a buffet of safety** options (“I’m a safety girl!”) … right? I know I’m not breaking news when I say they’re all rather imperfect. I mean, no one loves condoms, and most of you who were on the pill had some complaints. Which is why we want to hear from you guys. We were taught about “family planning” in high school, which was a while ago now, and I have to assume there are people out there who have come up with semi-satisfactory systems for themselves, right? I keep hearing amazing things about the non-hormonal IUD, for instance, but then I hear sometimes it makes you spot every day. Point being, we’re curious!

Before we open the floor to you, another disclaimer: We are not doctors or family-planning experts; we’re just women and men chatting about what works, or doesn’t work, for us. You should consult your doctor or health care practitioner before making any changes. Nothing we’ve said here constitutes medical or family-planning advice, and nothing said in the comments should be taken as such either.

Now go ahead and post—anonymously if you want, by all means, and we want to hear from the men around here too: What method, device, drug or strategy do you use to prevent pregnancy?

* Whoever guesses the movie reference without googling will have our undying love.

** Ditto.

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OK, first thing’s first: I’ve definitely said many times on this site and elsewhere that I don’t use leave-ins. It’s not that I was lying, exactly, it’s just that I don’t rely on leave-ins to get my hair looking and feeling the way I want. I’m not attached to them. I can take them or leave them, pretty much. That was my refrain, until I realized that I actually do use leave-ins. Like, every day.

It all started when the seasons changed and I started using a hairdryer more often. Always one to cut corners when it comes to hair drying, I thought using a product might shorten the time it takes to get my hair looking just so. Which is why, one day a couple of months ago, I was rifling through the cabinet where I store my extra products, and found a bottle of gel.

Gel, eh? I thought. Who uses gel? The answer, it turns out, is moi.

As you can see from above, the product is Max Green Alchemy Styling Gel. I. Love. This. Product. I’ve actually mentioned it in the past; the bottle has been lying around for a while, and I’ve used it on occasion to airdry my waves during summer months, or smooth my ends. It works great for that, but I like it even better on straight styling, with a dryer.

A word about the gel thing. I’m not picking bones here, but I wouldn’t really call it that. Yes, it has a gel-like consistency but it doesn’t dry crunchy, or wet-looking, and it doesn’t provide much hold, at least on my head of heavy hair. What it does is smooth the shaft so that drying is at least a third quicker than it normally is, making sleek straight styles really pretty effortless. My hair looks shiny, has nice volume at the roots, and movement, but isn’t weighed down at all. No residue. No stickiness. And the stuff washes out with one shampoo, so no build-up, either.

Finally, it also doesn’t smell much like anything, which is good because I’m still obsessed with the smell of my shampoo and conditioner, and might have an issue with a product that competes with that.

Ingredients: Herbal Infusion [Purified Water (Aqua), (Glycyrrhiza Glabra* (licorice) Root, Tussilago Farfara+ (coltsfoot) Leaf, Achillea Millefolium* (yarrow), Salix Alba+ (willow), Tabebuia Impetiginosa+ (pau díarco), Arctium Lappa* (burdock) Root, Berberis Aquifolium (mahonia), Calendula Officinalis* (calendula), Equisetum Arvense* (horsetail), Urtica Dioica* (nettle)], dehydroxanthan gum (plant derived styling agent), Hydrolysed Soy Protein, Aloe Barbadensis* (aloe vera) Leaf, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Anisate, Panthenol (pro vitamin B5), Leptospermum Petersonii (lemon tea tree), Melaleuca Alternifolia* (tea tree), Lavandula Angustifolia* (lavender), Pelargonium Graveolens* (geranium), Rosemarinus officinalis* (rosemary).*Organic +Wildcrafted

Have you ever tried it? Got another leave in you like? Stay tuned, by the way…. There are two other leave-ins I love just as much.

Salut les amis! We have a very special—and timely—deal from Kahina this week that we hope will warm your hearts as much as it warms ours. In the spirit of giving, and giving thanks, they’ve come up with a generous and inspiring deal that we will definitely be participating in ourselves.

In case you aren’t aware, Kahina, founded by Katharine L’Heureux, goes the extra mile to give back. Where some companies donate a small percentage of its profits to charities, Kahina donates 25% of all profits to support the Berber women of Morocco, who harvest the argan oil that is at the core of the line.

Now, for this deal, they’re going even further.

For NMDL readers, Kahina is offering free ground shipping with any order with code THANKS. Also—and this is the real deal—they will donate $5 for each product purchased toward the “goat fund.”

“Hold up. What the heck is a goat fund,” you ask? Read on.

The money will be donated to the Berber women, who will use it toward the purchase of goats in the remote village of Tazghelite in the anti-Atlas mountains. Goats thrive in Morocco’s dry desert climate. The gift of a dairy goat can supply a family with up to several quarts of milk a day. Extra milk can be sold or used to make cheese, butter or yogurt. Families fertilize their gardens with goat manure. Women use the wool to make rugs, which they can then sell at market.

Basically, goats go a very, very long way for the Berber women. And now’s your change to help them get one.

Happy shopping, people. Deals with this much heart don’t come along every day.

Because we’re getting ready to start tackling stress here in earnest—as Alexandra mentioned yesterday—we’d like to know: What stresses you out most? This will help us brainstorm ways to talk about this. If, for instance, your biggest source of stress is your boyfriend or girlfriend, or your job, or your finances, that’ll help us focus on what kind of practical stress-busters we might explore. Because the stress series is not going to be about doling out tips about how to deal with your 401(k) or your deadbeat husband. Sorry ’bout that.

Alrighty then. Have at it: What stresses you the eff out?

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Quick disclaimer and then we’re going to get right into it and talk about the birth control pill (Happy Monday!): Nothing I say in this post constitutes medical advice, and you should never stop or start taking prescription drugs without talking with your doctor. (Especially the starting part; pretty sure that would be illegal, right?) Also:

There’s no judgment—implicit or explicit—on anyone who is on or has been on birth control pills. Some people love them, some people have to take them for medical reasons, some people abhor them. Here, we want to talk candidly about what happens when you go off them. Because, whoa. That can be hectic.

Feeling like an overshare, so here, I’ll start: I got on the pill for the first time pretty late, comparatively speaking. I was 22 or 23, I got on Ortho, and almost instantly became the girl who cries at commercials (OK, still am, always have been, but this was extreme!) and one time I even broke a plate when my loving boyfriend at the time did basically nothing. This was not normal for me! I was being nuts! I quickly got off it, quickly went back to normal, and then didn’t start it again for another several years.

I was 26 or so when I went back on the pill, Mircette this time, thinking it would add convenience to my personal life, and clear up my skin—after all, that’s what my dermatologist told me would happen. I stayed on it for two years. During that time I didn’t cry a lot or break stuff. My skin was OK but not perfect. My libido was OK—which seems better than most, according to this new research, but “OK” does not equal amazing. I didn’t have major mood swings or anything. But something never felt quite right. The best way I can put it is, I sort of felt like a prisoner in my own body. I’m not sure why, and no, I can’t elaborate, but something never felt quite right. It was FINE. But FINE has never been all that appealing to me, and so I talked it over with my GYN and we decided it was time to stop. It wanted to let nature run its course. And by nature I mean, like, ovulation and stuff.

After I went off the pill, my skin freaked out. It was erratic for a few months, throughout which I tried everything: Products, lasers, facials…products. Not clean ones, either. (This was pre- everything I now know.)

My take, in retrospect, is that you shouldn’t try a million things at once, nor should you spazz out. If I were doing it all over again, here’s what I would do: Coach my body, with the help of a doctor or acupuncturist or both, to get my hormones in balance. I would stay away from, or at least limit, eating hormone-pumped meat and dairy, take folic acid and omegas daily, get plenty of sleep and keep a routine, and use a gentle, organic skincare regimen.

I emphasize hormone balancing because what’s happening in your skin is a reflection of what’s happening inside your body—not on the surface of your skin. Also, because the other thing that happened when I went off the pill: my period went away for the better part of a year. I have many explanations for this, both medical and completely esoteric, but suffice to say it was really disconcerting. To be in your late 20s and have it…missing, for months at a time, feels indescribably bad. On the PLUS side (there’s always a plus side, you guys): Now that I’m regular again, I’m so very thankful every single month when my period comes. And no, I will never, ever go on the pill again.

Anyway, because we understand the challenges that come with such a major decision, we were moved by a recent reader letter from Paris. She’s gone off the pill and, yes, ugh, skin woes. She really wants NMDL readers to help! In her words:

“I accept that my body is going to go on a roller coaster ride. I’m ready for the acne this time. Last time I thought I could just stop taking the pill and my skin wouldn’t talk to me. How oily my scalp got and the abundance of acne caught me by surprise. I froze up and caved in and took the pill again. This time, I will be ready for them, and hope to have better ways to deal with them or even prevent them.

Are you guys all in love with her now, too? We thought so. Now let’s help a girl out. Who’s tried what? And even if you don’t have advice for Paris Girl, have you gone off the pill ever? What happened? Share, yes? Please and thank you.

Oh man, get ready to FREAK OUT y’all. NuboNau is doing a little something called their Sale Noir—a once-a-year-only housecleaning sale—and NMDL readers are getting in 3 DAYS EARLY. What’s the big deal? Oh, just a freaking 40% discount off a huge selection of amazing products. You’ll find favorites like Juice Beauty, Nvey, Erbavivia (hello mommies!), Ren, Dr Hauschka, and so many more. This. Is. Nuts.

Reminder to Canada: Your glorious provinces are now fully integrated into the NuboNau online ordering system. Booya.

As for the deal: Anything you see on the Sale Noir page is a whopping 40% off, and you actually earn loyalty points on them too! This sale opens to the rest of the world on Monday, so get in there before the masses.

All you have to do is add sale items to your basket—along with any other non-discounted products from the regular site—then at checkout (on the right, above the subtotal) enter the promo code nmdl (all in lower case). The discount on sale items will be automatically deducted.

As per, the total price will change to reflect the offer, and you’ll get free shipping if you spend over $95 (first time customers will also receive a $20 credit to their loyalty account).

We’re seriously grateful that NuboNau is offering this early entrance to our readers. We know that naturals can be a little out of range price-wise, so we hope this is an opportunity for some of you to stock up—and, hello, early Christmas shopping! Happy trails, and have a wonderful weekend. xx

Small print and clarifications straight from NuboNau:

-       New customers will receive 2000 Welcome Points with their first order (worth $20) when their order is over $25.00

-     Customers can also choose NuboNau Complimentary Gift Wrapping

Legal Stuff – Additional details / No confusion!

-       This deal is 3 days only, after that everyone else will have access.

-       Valid while stocks last… first come, first served. All sales are final.

-       We are happy to take order over the Phone: 1 877 NuboNau

-       The offer cannot be used or combined with any other offers.

When I was in Texas last month for SXSW Eco, I did all kinds of fun things: I ate tacos, visited our friends at W3LL People, met up with writer friends, stayed up way too late then woke early to attend some really interesting (and dismaying) discussions about our burning planet…

Being the natural beauty dork I am, though, another highlight was my impromptu visit to Whole Foods’ 80,000 square foot flagship near downtown Austin. This is not just a love letter to Whole Foods, though. Hear me out…

Anyone who’s read the book or the blog will know we love Whole Body, sure. We admire their tough organic standards, and how widely available they’ve made safe, high-quality beauty choices. We like their team, and their scale. But because Whole Bodys differ from region to region, and store to store, you sort of never know what you’re going to find when you visit one. Here in New York, the WB section at Columbus Circle, for instance, is gorgeously laid out, and there’s a nice selection of makeup to play with. At Union Square, my go-to because I tend to work out and play in the lower quadrants of the city, the makeup is crammed in hallway. I still love it, don’t get me wrong, but the shopping experience matters. And if we want to bring organic beauty out of the hippie fringes, nice-looking stores—like Evolue in Los Angeles, and the Apothecary at ABC Home here in New York—are a must.

Of course, small shops devoted to natural beauty are few and far between—and understandably. They’re expensive and the demand for organic beauty products in this kind of setting needs to catch up with the supply. We know that anyone who switches to natural beauty sees their life and their skin and their hair transform. It happened to us, and our friends, our moms and our boyfriends. And we get letters from people all the time telling us as much. Of course, spreading the message is hard—and changing people’s buying habits even harder.

There’s still so much the average American shampoo-buyer doesn’t know about her products—and it’s going to be hard for her to learn if her only options are the confusing, greenwashed aisles of pharmacies.

That’s why we think everyone should read our book, or books like it. And it’s also why we want to see natural beauty scaled way, way up.

When we were writing the book, we had fantasies about curating Sephora’s naturals section: How great would it be, we thought, if you could go in to any Sephora and know with confidence that the products with a green leaf on it (or whatever) had actually been vetted by people informed and passionate about ingredient safety—and effectiveness?

Of course we like the little guys best. We want to support small retailers, several of which are online, and are our favorites—there’s Spirit Beauty Lounge, Nubonau, Nature of Beauty and others. We will continue to support them first and foremost, but if this natural beauty thing is going to get really big, exposure is key. Call me pie-in-the-sky, but we want to see safe, effective and appealing options made available, at reasonable prices, to women and men all over the country, too.

Which bring me to Austin. What blew my mind, and I texted Alexandra as much when I was there, is that I finally saw in person the potential for this whole natural beauty thing—at scale. Here is a giant store (really, it’s almost obscenely big) with a zillion kinds of kale chips and organic quinoa and chickens who lived better lives than we do, and front and center—not as an afterthought, and not shoved in a corner—was a gigantic section, beautifully laid out, well lit with samples galore, teeming with natural and organic beauty products we can feel good about.

I’m not saying Whole Foods is the answer, though it’s certainly part of it. It showed me what was possible.

Now we’d like to hear from you. What do you think natural beauty movement needs in order to grow? More stores? More education? And if the latter, how do you propose we all go about it?

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Ooooweee! In what will, I hope, be the first of many, we’ve been invited by the amazing Buddha Nose to participate in an event with Well+Good and some of our favorite beauty brands at PURE YOGA for an amazing event this Sunday, October 23, here in New York. You can RSVP for free by emailing info@buddhanose.com

It’s all happening kind of suddenly, but who’s kidding who: You don’t already have plans for Sunday at 3pm do you? Wait, do you? If not, please come! I’d love to meet some of you in person.

Here’s what’s on tap:

…A COMPLIMENTARY OPEN-LEVEL YOGA CLASS, where you stretch, sweat and glow

… A CHAT WITH ME AND MELISSE, where we talk natural beauty and solve your pesky beauty conundrums

…THE AMAZING YOGA BEAUTY BAR POP-UP SHOP, where you can stock up on some of our favorites from Buddha Nose, Lotus Wei, Wei of Chocolate, Revolution Organics, Dr. Alkaitis, Yarok Hair, Priti Nails, and more.

The whole shebang won’t cost you anything (barring, of course, the shopping spree you will probably want to go on after yoga) and it’ll be good girly fun. Come? Please?

Date: October 23, 2011

Time: 2:45 pm

Place: Pure Yoga West, 203 W. 77th St.

Why: Because you know you want to.

Last night I emailed Alexandra a picture of my bare back with the subject line “TMI.” Her response? ” OMG!! Are you gonna blog it?” I wasn’t planning on it, but… I guess so? Anything for you guys.

Backstory: The other night I went to see my acupuncturist here in New York. As I mentioned, I’m a big fan of the needles, and what I love most about my guy is that he’s an all-around healer—a “body, mind, spirit” type (without being new-agey or touchy-feely, I swear), who possesses an uncanny ability to know exactly what I need at any given time. Sometimes I need some massage, sometimes I need weird-smelling herbs, sometimes I need needles, and…

Maybe sometimes I need him to scrape my back with what looks like a Chinese soup spoon until my back turns bright red.

When I emailed him to set up my appointment, I mentioned that my vacation at Rancho La Puerta left me feeling pretty amazing, but that I also felt like there was a monkey on my back. I don’t really know what I was talking about, but that’s cool, because he did. And apparently it meant we would be trying something called gua sha. He’d be using a spoon to literally scrape the fascia on my back. It would free up trapped energy, make me feel lighter, get rid of anything that isn’t serving me, release my tight shoulder muscles, and bruise the living daylights out of me.

“The bruises will be gone in three days,” he promised. “And it won’t hurt.” [UPDATE: The bruises are not gone but they're close to gone. They've faded a lot. Also, bruise isn't the right word, because it's very surfacy and there is no pain.]

I was GIDDY.

The whole process took about 20 minutes. He used lotion to soften the pressure and then made his way over my shoulders with the spoon. Some parts felt a little tender, but I felt no pain. When it was all over he insisted I check it out in the mirror after he left the room.

I yelped when I saw my back in the mirror, but it also struck me as strangely beautiful.

The red and purple marks were so clean, and while I couldn’t read the patterns myself, I knew they were telling me something good. I felt like I could see inside my own body.

I’m sure you’re wondering, beyond my own weird story, what gua sha actually is. According to Wikipedia:

“Gua sha (Chinese: 刮痧; pinyin: guā shā), literally ‘to scrape away fever’ in Chinese (more loosely, ‘to scrape away disease by allowing the disease to escape as sandy-looking objects through the skin’), is an ancient medical treatment.”

I did some reading and learned that it’s commonly used in some populations—Chinese, Thai, Greek, and others—especially when people are coming down with something. The idea is that blood stagnates and pathogens get trapped, and if you release them by scraping, it speeds up the whole process and prevents the illness from lingering in the body (or something like that).

It’s also been studied, and has produced some good results in random controlled trials for chronic back pain, migraine-medication withdrawal symptoms, headache and circulation problems. (There is no study for its effectiveness removing monkeys from backs, however. Not yet, anyway.)

It can also be used diagnostically. Apparently we all pattern differently. I did some google image searches (be careful with that, seriously, if you’re squeamish) and saw that every back pictured was vastly different, and most looked way more intense than mine, to be honest. On my own back, some areas got really dark and other spots were more bright red. Not surprisingly, around the acupuncture points that we’ve been working on, the color was much deeper than it was elsewhere.

My acupuncturist said that once we were done, it might feel like I’d peeled off a hot shirt, and that’s just how I’d put it: Like I’d peeled off a hot, heavy shirt that I’ve been wearing for far, far too long.

Now who’s going to try it?

Image of torture device spoon via