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If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a shopping writer, it’s that a product being more expensive doesn’t exactly mean that it is better. This rule especially translates over to the beauty world, where some drugstore products I’ve tried are truly superior to high-end ones. Currently, the No. 1 bestseller in the Lipstick category on Amazon is the Wet n Wild Silk Finish Lipstick; a truly incredible feat considering the high volume of lipsticks that are available on the popular retailer. Ringing in at $1 (99 cents, to be exact, but who’s counting?), it’s definitely surprising. However, the over 18,000 five-star reviews have made a solid case for adding this one to your beauty cabinet.

Wet n Wild

Available in 21 different shades, this Wet n Wild lippie has a color range that includes everything from dusty mauve hues to dark crimson ones. Even more impressive is the fact that aside from the rich color payoff, the formula also includes vitamins A & E and aloe vera, making the lipstick feel extra hydrating on the lips.

RELATED: Chanel Just Launched a New, Velvety Lipstick That One Shopper Says Lasted Them an ‘Entire Day at Work’

Although I have yet to try it out myself, as a self-proclaimed lipstick enthusiast, it’s one I plan on ordering ASAP. When a lipstick meets the criteria of being non-drying and has a fabulous swipe of color, it’s easy to see why so many shoppers are excited to have found this steal. “You don’t have to pay a lot of money to get a quality lip product,” one satisfied shopper noted. “This color is beautiful and goes on as smoothly as my expensive brands. I could not be happier.”

Another reviewer wrote, “This was my first time using a Wet n Wild Lipstick. I have never been a fan of lipsticks but… This lipstick has truly won me over. I love the way how it applies so silky smooth and it left my lips feeling very soft and moisturized.”

If you’re still having some doubts about how good this $1 makeup product can truly be, we don’t blame you, but the reviews speak for themselves. As one Amazon shopper said, “I’ll be honest—for the price I wasn’t expecting much. I was sorely mistaken. It’s a rich crimson color and when I apply it on my lips it’s not overpowering at all. I wear it pretty much every day.”

Did your everyday lipstick combo just become that much less expensive? We think so.

According to research done by the Body Shop, 1 in 2 women feel more self-doubt than self-love. Tragic!

But why do women doubt themselves? And what can they do to boost their self-confidence? Before answering these questions, we need to understand what confidence is and what confidence isn’t.

What Is Confidence?

Most people associate confidence with personality or nature. While there is some link there, confidence is still more of a mindset than anything else! It is a belief that we have in ourselves and our abilities! Understanding the underlying causes of our self-doubt can help us cultivate self-confidence.

Why Do Women Lack Confidence?

This has so much to do with how we are brought up, under the constant critical gaze of peers and society. The problem is that society doesn’t want us to be confident or different; it just wants us to fit in a mold that is considered ideal.

There is always a certain way to sit, to behave, to eat, to love and even to work. In the quest to fit in, we end up internalizing all the criticism and regulations which come our way. We have become habitual in analyzing ourselves, seldom celebrating our achievements, but often mourning our shortcomings. The result is that we see ourselves in a very negative light.

“Good Enough” Is Good Enough

Women tend to put unnecessary pressure on themselves. Your standards for your mastery of any given task need to be realistic above all else. If you feel like you are good enough at your job, then that is truly enough for you to believe in yourself. Perfectionism will only hold you back.

Times Have Changed and So Should the Norms

If you are a working woman then there is going to be a trade-off with your personal life as a friend/mother/wife/partner. You need to accept this trade-off and embrace it if you want to excel in your professional life. You should not feel a sense of guilt or feel you are letting your loved ones down in any way by focusing on your work.

Don’t Give Your Inner Critic Too Much Power

We all find ourselves listening to that voice inside our head telling us to not take risks and calling us out on our audacity. This is the voice of your inner critic. Show compassion towards yourself. Believe that you are doing your best and that is good enough.

At its core, self-confidence is an act of self-love that all women deserve. How you perceive yourself and your abilities manifest in all aspects of your life. Self-confidence is not inherited; it’s a gift that you can give yourself to thrive in life.

Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is how you project yourself to other people. An expert golfer may feel very confident in their ability to play golf. You can develop your confidence further through practice and accomplishments others see. Confidence is something you feel inside, something other people notice in you.

But even if you have confidence in your skills, you may not feel self-confident. People might tell you how well you are performing while you still lack confidence in your skills. Confidence shows up as skills, developed and demonstrated to the world.

Where Does Self-Confidence Come From?

Through experience and training – trial and error and repeating patterns – you gain confidence. Even when you are skilled in a given area, it is only with years of experience that you become confident in yourself and your accomplishments.

Beginning in early childhood, the support we get from our parents (or lack of it) directly affects our level of self-confidence. When a child is acknowledged and encouraged, assured and complimented, that child builds courage and learns to trust themselves.

Peer support is another important factor in gaining confidence. As we grow older, we look to our friends and colleagues for support and confirmation.

How Can Women Boost Their Self-Confidence?

Self-confident people seem at ease with themselves and their work. They invite trust and inspire confidence in others. These are all attractive characteristics to have. But it’s not always easy to be confident in yourself, particularly if you’re naturally self-critical or if other people put you down. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to increase and maintain your self-confidence.

Are you guilty of putting yourself down all the time? Do you ever feel like you’re not good enough? Are you filled with self-doubt? Ugh, we’ve all felt these things or something similar at some point. Good news is, there are a few easy ways you can improve your self-confidence right this second.

Here are five activities to nourish your self-confidence when it’s low:

1. Set realistic goals & focus on what you can change
2. Keep your thoughts positive
3. Don’t compare yourself to others
4. Do what makes you happy
5. Surround yourself with a supportive network

Two Additional Ideas to Try

1. Identify someone you know who is confident. Write down all the things they do that makes them confident. Start doing the things that they are doing. Keep doing those things day after day for at least a month. At the end, you’ll notice that you are more confident than when you started.
2. Start a daily journal. Every day list 5 things that are awesome about you. Do this every day for 90 days. The trick is you can’t repeat the same things every day, you have to dig deep and come up with new things. At the end you will find that not only do you feel more self-confident, but that way of thinking has become more natural.

In summary, by acting and thinking more confidently, you can start training your brain to become more confident. Treat it like a skill you wish to acquire. To get good at something you need to practice. Isn’t it worth the effort?

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What does self-confidence mean to you? Do you think you are confident? What does your confidence depend on? What have you done to gain self-confidence?

Consider this: our possessions are nothing more than inanimate objects. They don’t pulse with the same life energies as we do. Right?

Curiously, no, that’s not the case at all.

Research in the area of quantum physics shows that inanimate objects (stones, mountains, manufactured things we live with) vibrate with the same frequencies as animate creatures (like animals, plants, and humans, for example).

Things Have Energy

The inanimate objects are part of the same energetic field as we are, which suggests we’re connected each to the other by way of this field.

It’s through this field that attachments are formed. In simple terms, these attachments are formed as a result of where we invest our energies, whether they go into a relationship with a loved one for example, an animal friend, or perhaps a favorite handbag.

Which brings me to the notion it’s this attachment to things that, for some of us, makes giving away our things so difficult. As the famous American songwriter Neil Sedaka once crooned, “Breaking up is hard to do.”

On a personal level, the things I’ve accumulated over the years that have worn out their usefulness have not been easy to let go of. I’ve wanted to hang onto pretty handbags… just because. Over time, I grew attached to them by admiring them, using them, and enjoying the pleasurable feelings they evoked when I did.

Feeling Lighter

By the same token, it hasn’t been easy to give away my deceased family’s things – my mother’s stylish vintage clothing for instance, or the antique tools my father once used. I felt an emotional attachment to these things through the memories they held, and the warm feelings they invoked when I saw them.

When I finally did summon the courage to give away some of these cherished things, and got beyond the thought of betraying my family by doing so, I was shocked by how good I felt afterward: lighter, fresher, more content. It felt as if there was more space in my mind to think. I couldn’t help but reflect what a really good form of therapy this was. It shifted a feeling state inside in a remarkable way.

I also wondered if giving away things that were no longer needed was also an unconventional form of self-love: a way of honoring my journey through the different stages of life, from being surrounded by family, to living without their presence in my world any longer. It was a way too of enveloping myself at home in the warm vibrations of the things I cherish.

At this time of year, which for some of us is about remembering the love in our lives, let’s remember too that self-love is as important as any other. Remarkably, we can use the things in our lives that no longer serve us as a way of not only de-cluttering our home and letting go of the past, but also of welcoming in more love for ourselves in the process.

Planning to Let Go

Here are 3 global concepts I’ve found really helpful when it’s come to letting go of un-needed things. (If you’re interested in more detailed information about how to do this, I’ve included a few excellent resources below.)

Plan

Determine what you want to give away, what you want to keep and what items you’re not sure about yet. Put the items in their appropriate piles so you can see what you have. Give yourself time to reflect on what to do with the ‘maybes’. Organizing expert Marie Condo says if they spark joy, they’re a keeper. If not, it’s time to let them go.

Make a list of possible places in your area where you can give away your un-needed things, or places online where you can sell them. I love my local thrift store. I give to them often and on occasion pick up something beautiful that adds a little something to the current style of my home, and by extension, to who I understand myself to be today.

Give

Pack it up and give it away. I like to thank my outgoing things for the utility and pleasure they’ve brought me, and wish them well on their journey. I know it sounds a little nuts, but doing so creates a sense of meaning in my heart: that what I’ve had in my possession has served me well, but is now no longer needed. It can go on to serve someone else. Happy trails to you my beloved blender!

Reflect

Take the time to notice how you feel after you’ve given away your things. It only takes a few seconds to notice what’s happening inside. Do you feel lighter? Freer? Relieved? Sad? Grateful? Give yourself the space to experience this felt sensation for a moment. It’s part of the process of saying good-bye.

When I give items away, I experience many of these things. I find doing so is a liberating experience that really lifts me up.

Why wouldn’t it? Everything’s connected. Every thing is part of the same energetic field, animate and inanimate alike. We can affect how we feel through what we have, and by extension, what we don’t have as well.

Letting go of things that no longer serve us is the fast track to de-cluttering our mind. It’s a beautiful way of loving ourselves in the process too.

References

Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, by B.K.S. Iyengar, John J. Evans, and Douglas Abrams

The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals, by Clea Shearer & Joanna Teplin

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of De-Cluttering and Organizing, by Marie Condo

The Self-Aware Universe, by Amit Goswami

Let’s Have a Conversation:

When you de-clutter your home, how do you feel after you’ve given something away? How would you describe the energy in your home after you’ve done so?

What Baby Boomer doesn’t know at least the refrain from Nat King Cole’s rendition of “Get Your Kicks on Rt. 66”?

Rt 66. The “Mother Road.” Neon signs, motels, offbeat and over-sized roadside attractions.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I criss-crossed the USA on summer vacations with my family, and we traveled along several sections of “America’s Highway.” I remember seeing the signs for Meramec Caverns painted on the sides of barns, clustering ever thicker the closer we got.

During our trips we shared the road with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of similar families, young parents proud of their shiny station wagons filled with their personal contribution to the post-war Baby Boom.

Perhaps in the midst of the present craziness, a desire to return to simpler times is understandable. Maybe nostalgia is unavoidable at my age. All I know is when I turned 66 last spring, I experienced a sudden desire to travel Rt 66. It had to be this year. After all, not only was I now 66, but I had a six-year-old granddaughter. Would her parents let me take her on a slightly crazy 4-day road trip? Why yes, they would!

Where to Start from?

I did realize I couldn’t pack up a six-year-old child and drive 2,448 miles from Chicago to LA – and then back again – so I decided we would do 1/6 of Rt 66. I calculated that to be about 408 miles, which seemed very doable.

Having no desire to start at the very beginning in downtown Chicago (I don’t drive in Chicago if I can help it), we picked Joliet, Illinois, as our starting point. Joliet has many Rt 66 museums and attractions and it is apparently a common starting point for travelers who are willing to pass on the small official starting point sign in downtown Chicago.

Not That Simple a Trip

408 miles would take us roughly to Devil’s Elbow, Missouri. I say “roughly” because traveling Rt 66 is far more complicated than I had first realized. I had no idea! Turns out Rt 66 never was one completely straightforward path from Chicago to LA anyway. New alignments were constantly popping up.

On our trip I would find myself on the 1926–1930 section, and then a 1930–1940 section, and then a 1945 section. I bought a Rt 66 spiral-bound guidebook and consulted it constantly to make sure I was staying on the right road.

Sometimes Rt 66 joined a modern divided highway. Hallelujah! I could make up some of the time I lost from all the wrong turns I made on the country roads, and it didn’t feel like cheating!

The Blues Brothers on the roof of the Rich ‘n’ Creamy Ice Cream Shop in Joliet saluted us as we set off. We started by making a wrong turn out of the parking lot of Rich ‘n’ Creamy and lost about 20 minutes right from the get-go. Ha!

This didn’t bode well for our trip, but I made up my mind that while we’d do our best to follow this crazy, mixed-up piece of nostalgia for four days, if we occasionally got lost, who cares? We’d still be having fun because we’d be together.

Roadside Attractions Keep Kids Active

My granddaughter was immediately captivated by the kitschy roadside attractions, as our first stop after leaving Joliet was the Launching Pad drive-in with its “Gemini Giant,” the first of many larger-than-life attractions we saw along the way, including a huge covered wagon with a massive Abraham Lincoln, a giant rocking chair, and a 40-foot bottle of ketchup.

Simply not the sights typically seen when zipping along a modern freeway! My granddaughter kept a lookout for the Rt 66 road markers along the route. She loved this – and it turned out to be a very important job!

Authentic-from-the-Era Diners and Motels

We tried to hit authentic-from-the-era restaurants. Our favorite was the “Cozy Dog” in Springfield, IL – home of the original corn dog on a stick. We saved our French fries from the Cozy Dog for a photo-op with the 40-foot ketchup bottle later in the day. Fun! Another favorite meal was breakfast at Shelly’s Rt. 66 Café in quaint Cuba, Missouri.

I knew I also wanted to stay in authentic-from-the-era motels. On our second night, we hit the jackpot with the Wagon Wheel Motel, the longest continuously-run motel along the entire route, wonderfully restored and maintained.

On our last night, we stayed in the Carlin Villa in Carlinville, IL – a typical bare bones motel from the era. Nothing fancy, no indoor pool or exercise room, but the room was spacious, and I loved the old-fashioned room key!

A Bonus Along the Way?

Meeting other people making a similar trek. Turns out that traveling Rt 66 when turning 66 is a rite of passage for many Baby Boomers. Who knew? I thought I had dreamed up the idea all by myself!

All the volunteers we met at the various museums were so knowledgeable and eager to share. All along the way, I got the sense that the locals were quite proud of their part in the past and present history of the Rt 66 saga.

By the end of our travels, we were definitely tired. We had traveled nearly 1300 miles in 3-1/2 days. My brain hurt from all the navigating, but my heart was full. I know this is a trip my granddaughter will remember her whole life.

Now my other grandchildren are jealous and want their turn to travel Rt 66. Hmmm. I have 10 grandchildren and five-sixths of the route still unfinished. I just might be able to complete the whole thing! With a grandchild or two in tow, who says Rt 66 wouldn’t be just as much fun at age 67, 70 or even 75?

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you traveled any or all of Rt 66 back in the day? What about a recent trip? What were your favorite sights? If you haven’t gone, what would you most like to see?

Gina Kirschenheiter’s White Sheer Cropped Blouse

Real Housewives of Orange County Instagram Fashion February 2, 2023

Gina Kirschenheiter just keeps the looks coming as we anxiously await the details on the debut of the next season of the Real Housewives of Orange County. And her white sheer cropped blouse is a special treat because it’s under $100.

Gina’s wardrobe has totally leveled up, and I cannot wait to see what she brings to the screen in season 17.  And in the meantime I might just have to bring her white sheer blouse to my closet.

The Realest Housewife,

Big Blonde Hair

Click Here to Shop Superdown Helena Button Down Top

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Photo: @GinaKirschenheiter

Originally posted at: Gina Kirschenheiter’s White Sheer Cropped Blouse