Marianne: Cheap Jeans (and a Ouidad followup!)

A couple of weeks ago I swallowed my pride and ordered 4 pairs of jeans from Old Navy. (I also ordered this dress and no. Just no.) Two different styles in two different sizes. I was...not optimistic. But surprise! I ended up loving these Rockstar Mid-Rise jeans in French Grey (on sale now, with an additional 25% off!):

The top is from Daniel Rainn, a brand I've never heard of. I found it for $15 at TJMaxx and it comes in a lot of prints (I kind of want this floral version as well).

Anyway, the jeans. They are very stretchy, but don't have that thin, cheap, you-can-see-your-underwear-line thing going on that is a problem with cheap jeans sometimes. At first I thought the wash was too light and thought about dyeing them, but it's growing on me. Best of all, they come all the way up to my belly button, holding in my post-partum pooch, and the talls are nice and long. For $30, I'm a fan!

(sandals are the Dolce Vita Archer, my favorite shoe this summer, btw)

Now, on to my hair! You guys had a lot of questions on my last post, so I thought I would follow up. As you saw yesterday, I bought a hairdryer and diffuser and I've been trying to recreate the salon look. I think I came pretty close (but it also looks good air-dried, I'll make sure and get a pic of that as well):

Okay, Q&A time! Y'all without curly hair can skip this part unless you're bored.

tehamy and Jen Kanable asked: I'm impressed that you only have to wash your hair twice a week! What do you do the other days? Your curls look ok after you sleep?

My hair often looks better after I sleep on it! Sometimes I freshen the curls with a spritz of Ouidad Botanical Boost spray. My hair tends to be really dry so if I wash it too much it starts to get frizzy and dull. Sometimes I'll extend my style with a little dry shampoo at the crown and temples.

anonymous asked: when your hairdresser did all the "curl forming"- what did she do, and do you have to reproduce it every time? Because I know that I can finger-twirl my hair and it makes a big difference, but I don't always have the patience (and it doesn't always stay- but that's lack of product, I imagine)

This is kind of tough to explain, but there are some videos on the Ouidad site that help. She let the curls fall into their natural pattern and then loosely twirled them with product on her hands. And yes, product is key and a lot of it! I have fine hair, but a lot of it, though. Sometimes I don't bother forming every curl and just focus on the parts around my face, but it really does look best if I take th time to do it all.

  

Also from anonymous: I do a lot of sports/dance (pretty much every day) and I wear my hair in a sock bun; I don't wash it every time; I can't, my hair would dry out too much, but I wash "the edges" (everything that frames my face). Would that kind of wear and tear work with the sort of hair regime you have, do you think?

I don't have a good answer for this, either! I'm really sorry. I guess it would depend on your hair. Water does me no favors so I try to go as long as I can stand it without washing. You might like the dry shampoo I mentioned above!