There’s lots of advice out there on strengthening the pelvic floor muscles.  Regularly doing these kegel exercises can help with many common issues.  It can help prevent incontinence, and generally keep everything down here from falling out when you sneeze especially as you age.  There are training devices on the market to squeeze and weighted “yoni eggs” you can use to aid in training the correct muscles.

People with active bangs are like Jeep or Harley owners, they acknowledge each other in passing as members of a loose open-membership club of like-minded individuals.  Once you’ve had bangs you are forever a member of the bang mafia even if those bangs are so long that they blend in with the rest of your hair.  Bald is beautiful and baldness is just very short bangs that don’t need to be trimmed often.  Bangs are eternal.  Technically, we’ve all had them at some point so you’re already in the bang gang and I salute you.

My wise and inspirational co-blogger Christine (the Betty to my Veronica) and I discussed starting from scratch after a bad breakup by getting a haircut.  She recently got the cutest fresh hairstyle that says “I’m totally over it and I’m out doing fun things and focusing on myself”.  As most of us (and all hairdressers) know, changing one’s appearance after a bad breakup can sometimes help a person deal with trauma and offers a quick way to transform into a new you… at least on the outside.  You know how they say that after so many years you are not really the same person on a cellular level? Well you can accelerate this process by cutting your hair.  Hair holds ghosts just as it contains traces of whatever you’ve been putting into your body.  You could have a New Orleans jazzy funeral parade for the meager useless inches that you’ve chopped off to symbolize that your past is dead to you.

I have not discussed this with any men so if you have input on a man’s perspective, feel free to comment below.  Since men don’t always have spare inches to part with, they can skip right to the growth phase of the transformation and begin cultivating the breakup beard and celebrate not having to be clean shaven,

My bang life began in kindergarten when the night before picture day, my mother decided to be the bang fairy.  She took me outside, put a trash bag over me with a hole torn out for my head and used huge metal kitchen shears to carve my baby hair into short jagged bangs.  They looked terrible and the next day my teacher was concerned by the extreme (possibly abusive) hair butchery and asked if things were ok at home.  I looked like that creepy Isaac kid from Children of the Corn.  To this day my mother blames me for “moving” during the cut and thus my love for bangs was born. 

The Long:

Sherpas have long bangs to shield their eyes from the blinding light bouncing off of glaciers.  Long bangs offer privacy and allow you to see out while others cannot see in.  They increase your ability to see through bullshit.

Here are some helpful bangspirations for longer bangs:
The Sarah Connor bangs that say, “come with me if you want to live”.  Like The Terminator, your bangs will never stop. EVER.

The mermaid from Splash bangs that let them know you are ready for 7 fun filled days before you must return to the sea. 

The die alone bangs where you impulsively give yourself bangs while drinking box wine and singing “All By Myself”.

The Short:

Maybe you have considered adopting baby bangs but know that once you have them there are no shortcuts while they grow.  You can’t un-bang yourself and sending them to bang college is expensive.  Short bangs show a high level of self-care and confidence.  You are willing to put effort into things that matter to you and are a great caregiver while not putting up with time wasting nonsense.
Here are some short bang inspirations:

Fun Faux Fringe Facts:

Bangs were first brought to our planet by alien visitors from Alpha Centauri according to pottery from the pre-Aztecs who secretly worshipped the bloodthirsty god of bangs Xiluclotlotl.

They actually had bangs on Princess Leia but then George Lucas realized that bangs in zero gravity would just be kinda floating out from her face and look terrible and thus the iconic spacebuns were born.

If you want to try bangs, I say go for it!  Great things can come from mistakes so don’t be afraid to make them.

~B

My cousin’s wife was shopping on her lunch break and saw a maxi dress she thought I’d like. It wasn’t expensive and it was from a store she liked, so she very kindly and generously bought it for me. It was a very bright and loud peacock print – nothing I’d ever choose, but it was very pretty as well as light and flowy, so I excitedly branched out of my “black everything” go-to wardrobe choices. The first time I wore this magnificent dress was to run errands in my downtown Toronto neighbourhood. I got a LOT of attention! Some subtle, some not-so-subtle. And I swear at least two men got whiplash! I guess I have a new favourite dress!!

Obviously I’m taking this magical number to my weekend get-away! It can be my sightseeing dress. I’ll be a casual and breezy goddess! There I am, in my new favourite summer dress, wandering through town with friends, popping in and out of shops. I noticed the men insist we go ahead of them everywhere. Well! Chivalry is alive and well with this group!

…. Or not so much as it turns out…Eventually one of them folds like a house of cards and tells me my dress is see-through. Sure. Ok. It happens sometimes when the sun is shining, and you can sort of see something.. maybe… I get it. Nothing to panic about. Right?

WRONG!

My dress is transparent!

TRANS-PAR-ENT!

You could see absolutely EVERYTHING. Every curve, every part, every mole, scar, mark, dent… whatever there was, you could see it through this dress. I was basically wearing really bright and flowing cellophane!!

Thank goodness I made the last minute decision to put on underpants.

~C

It’s finally summer! The sun is shining, the weather is warm and you can FINALLY start wearing some of those adorable flowy dresses that have been hanging out in your closet for the past 9 months, patiently waiting for their comeback! You excitedly zip it up (YAY! It still fits!) and you bounce out of the house, sunglasses in hand, confident that you look suitably summery and adorable! ….There’s one teeny-tiny detail you overlooked in your excitement to liberate the summer dress. Appropriate unmentionables. See, the thing we always forget about the adorable flowing summer dress is it’s arch nemesis. THE WIND. One gust of that blowy air can (and WILL) whip that traitorous garment right over your head, showing the world what kind of woman you really are! Lets run down the options, shall we?

Commando: If you’re the kind of woman who won’t be contained and prefer your privates free-range, Please remember in this situation there are likely children present and walking around! Don’t subject them to years of therapy… let their parents do that.

G-string/thong: Unless you’re expecting dollar bills (or more painfully, loonies) to be thrown at you at the park, maybe save these little numbers for almost every other outfit that will show panty-lines.

Bikini: Think of it this way.., If your dress IS going to blow up, you don’t want everyone knowing you’re boring.

Granny-panty: The most horrifying option of all. Sure, they’re roomy and comfy but much like the Twilight Series, nobody should know you enjoy them.

Boy-short: If you’re going to have a wind-related fashion faux pas, at least you’ll have a cute coverage that won’t end up with you having to move cities.

~C

Have you ever thought about getting something done to your face to make it just a little better? But nothing too noticeable. Like getting a facial but MORE. I had similar thoughts so I decided to go for it and go to a “medspa” and get some mildly invasive easy services advertised as “lunchtime procedures”. First off, a med spa is like a spa but with needles and lasers instead of aromatherapy and lotions. A lunchtime procedure is something you can do on your lunchbreak from work then go back to work as if nothing insane has been done. How fun!

After consulting with the beautiful and professional technician, I was utterly convinced that an IPL (intense pulsed light) treatment to help reduce redness from having rosacea was just the thing. I was offered add-on services such as lip injections and botox. Why not? Yes, please! I’m going to look amazing in an hour!

The face-lasering was incredibly painful. Imagine an 18 wheeler barrelling down the highway in winter at 80mph. It’s kicking up gravel and rock salt. Your face is the mudflap. That’s what it felt like. Or instead of gravel, it’s angry wasps hitting your face and stinging you. I endured it FOR BEAUTY.

Then they injected some botox into my forehead.  This didn’t hurt and I was excited to erase all emotion from my visage.  Next were the lip injections.  Pillowy full lips, here I come.  By this time I was so brave and numb after enduring the laser that I barely felt the needles.  My lunchbreak was up and now I am going to glide back to work as a glowing goddess.

One hour later my face swelled up to the size of the great pumpkin.  The great angry red pumpkin that wins no ribbons because it starts smashing booths at the county fair while everyone runs and screams.  I started to suspect that there really were wasps in the laser.  I could barely see because my cheeks were so puffy that they came up over my eyes.  Still confident that I was going to look great after the swelling subsided, my lips turned black and I could not close my mouth and as drool poured from my pillowy lips.   I started to feel less positive.  Then my nose went numb and my upper lip turned white. Hmm that seems like a weird reaction let’s look it up online.  The blanching of skin is the first sign that a blood vessel is blocked and the next stage is… NECROSIS.  Due to lack of blood flow to the area your face is now going to die and turn black and fall off.

PANIC. EMERGENCY.

I ran to the medspa.  The “nurse” looked at my face and turned pale.  Which is always a reassuring sign.  She explains that she needs to inject acid into my lip to dissolve the filler that is blocking a blood vessel.  No anesthetic can be used due to the nature of the acid doing it’s job.  Now this pain can’t be described.  I’m pretty sure the Geneva Convention lists this as one of the things you can’t do ever.  I screamed the f-word and tried to punch the nurse.  Then I cried like a shocked newborn after being shot out of the womb.  What kind of horrible pain filled hell is this?

Back to the rest of my face.  They called in “the doctor”.  He had the same reaction as “the nurse”.  I thought he was going to pass out right there in my lap.  I had second degree burns from the laser from my hairline to my boobs.  Plus an allergic reaction to all the trauma my face and chest had suffered.  They had to call the head of the burn ward at the university hospital in the city.  They were all in a panic and a calm washed over me. Or maybe that was shock.  I smiled and felt like a glorious supermutant upon emerging from a vat of radioactive acid. I was now the Laser Avenger.  Bringing justice to all the citizens who thought they weren’t pretty enough.  As I left the medspa I smiled and drooled at all the ladies in the waiting room and slurred out “they’re ready for you” and delighted in their shocked expressions.

For two weeks I looked like the guinea pig for a Cronenberg film special effects artist in training.  Like Brundlefly but instead of going through the telepod with a fly, I went through with a slice of shepherd’s pie.  When people asked if I was in an accident, I would glaze over and look wistfully off as if I was remembering heroically saving a busload of children from a fiery crash as a solitary tear rolled down my rubble of a cheek.  Maybe after this healed I would look like one of those ruggedly beautiful characters from a viking fantasy novel and at one glace others would know that this is one dangerous and powerful individual with a heartbreaking backstory full of tragedy and triumph.

I am one of those people that has all the rare reactions that no one has ever seen before.  The form I had signed (which I didn’t read) said that I was aware of all the horrible things that can go wrong from having a ding-a-ling blast me with lasers and inject crap into my face.  So maybe everything will go swimmingly for you and you should definitely go to a medspa and get stuff done to your face on your lunchbreak. I’m sure it will be fine.

It’s much easier and cheaper to be happy with the face you have.  After all, it’s better than being a mangled swollen necrotic mutant blob.  Tell yourself that Your FACE is FIIIINE the way IT IS.  If you tell yourself anything different maybe it’s not injections that you need.  It’s ice cream and a fuzzy blanket and a pet to gaze at you like you’re the most divine thing in the universe.  But if you MUST, then go to a real dermatologist.

I look normal now besides having a permanent dent in my upper lip that’s kinda sexy in a Billy Idol sneer kinda way. I have a big white blotch above my lip that was almost dead flesh that, if not treated, would have been surgically removed and grafted with skin from my butt. My chest and face skin is still pink but I’m super ok with that.

~B

You’ve been invited to your dear friend’s tropical wedding in Costa Rica.  You have an adorable summery pink halter dress that is perfect for the occasion. Ideal, right? Wrong. You did not consider the BS factor. BOOB. SWEAT. It happens to women everywhere.

What to do? Well, the obvious solution would seem to be antiperspirant applied generously to the underboob and cleavage area. Here’s a secret: antiperspirant (much like most men) becomes useless when confronted with a perspiring bosom.

Another plausible solution would be adhering maxi-pads to the inside of the dress where the sweat-moons develop. Wrong again! The pads do not offer subtle lift or support. They look like you have an extra set of saggy boobs under your already wilting girls. As the day progresses the pads become heavier and more saturated with moisture thus leaving you with two full diapers under that cute dress. Sure it’s always good to have pads on hand for that one woman who ends up getting her period mid-vows. Plus if you become dehydrated from all that jungle sweating you could squeeze the moisture from the pads into your mouth like Bear Grylls on Man vs. Wild. As we all know… He never failed anything!

You could just own it and proudly flaunt your boob sweat. You are in a tropical setting after all and it’s understandable to be perspiring. A friend once told me that “boob sweat is hot” but as I later discovered, it is indeed hot but only in very limited circumstances. Apparently weddings are not one of them. This friend also smirked and said “there’s a website for everything… so…” But being immortalized as the sweaty boob lady on someone’s online wedding album probably isn’t what they meant.

The only plausible solution to the wedding boob sweat conundrum is to throw the cute pink halter dress out the damn window and to pull out the trusty “little black dress”. Sure black is hot in the tropical sun. But no one will SEE that you’re sweating.

~C

We are Christine and Brenna, self proclaimed experts in the art of failing forward.  It’s taken years to hone our skills, but we feel as though we’ve failed enough at life to offer solid advice to others who have managed not to fail as easily as we have.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton