Product Diary: Crest 3D Whitestrips (Part 1)

Dearest readers,

I may have just spent the best $40 of my life on a "beauty" product. 

Behold: a decade of coffee and soda stains vs. the bleaching power of peroxide.

Both photos are unfiltered, in natural daylight at midday.

Guys! I wanted to wait til the end of my full treatment before writing an in-depth review of the Crest 3D Whitestrips, but I just couldn't wait. The results were noticeable almost immediately and I just had to share!

As some of you may know, I decided to try using the Crest 3D Whitestrips to achieve a brighter, whiter smile, specifically the Crest 3D White Whitestrips Luxe Glamorous White (wow, how many times are they going to use the word "white"? LOL) shown below.

Here's the backstory.

If you've seen my "Giving up bad habits: Soda and Alcohol" video on YouTube (if not, check it out by clicking on the link), then you'll know that I'd been a soda guzzler practically all of my life, and more recently, an indulger of red wine. Well, in addition to those, I was also heavily addicted to coffee. I wanted needed it for the caffeine kick, because otherwise, good luck getting me out of bed, out the door and to work or class. But I also loved the taste. And justified it by telling myself, there's dairy in there, which is wonderful for me olde bones.

But as it turns out, a decade of coffee was not so wonderful for me olde ivories. And nothing made that more clear to me than starting my YouTube channel. Yes-siree, Bob, the camera don't lie.

I started paying more attention to the popular YouTubers' teeth - man, are they white! I'm sure the light quality, saturation, etc., all had something to do with it, but still! They're like chiclets!

Yes.

I also started noticing the whiteness of the teeth of some people I work with in real life. My boyfriend, by the way, has a gorgeous set of pearly whites himself, so when I look at photos of us together, I can't help but notice the contrast of my not-so-brilliant ones. I am not sure how I ended up surrounded by so many people with such beautiful teeth, but suffice it to say, I started feeling insecure about my own two rows of chompers. The more I looked at them, the more they looked like corn on the cob in comparison.

So I decided to take action.

I consulted my dentist first to make sure that my teeth were healthy enough for whitening. I actually first wanted to try Zoom! Whitening, about which I'd seen raving reviews on the Interwebs and in YouTube land. But my dentist actually recommended over-the-counter treatments and specifically mentioned Crest, citing lower levels of sensitivity.

As luck would have it, I stopped by Costco and Sam's Club on my way back from the dentist (ok, we will address my bulk grocery obsession in another post). Both had Crest Whitestrips! I don't remember which one I purchased my whitestrips from (will update you if I can find the receipt and figure out). But the one I bought was in Glamorous White and had 50% more strips than the version at drug stores. So instead of 28 strips (14 treatments), it came with 42 (21 treatments). At the time, I thought, Score! I'll definitely need the extra strips, because let's be real... I didn't think I could actually quit coffee after starting the whitening treatments, as good as my intentions were.

But now, I'm actually considering stopping my treatments early.  I'm 6 treatments in and loving the results so much. You can see in the above comparison photo - the difference is very stark. I think I'd be pretty happy with my teeth in their current shade. There are still some darker areas, so maybe I'll finish up the 14 day treatment.

But I've had a slight change of heart about wanting chiclets for teeth. And the sensitivity from using the peroxide is starting to drive me a little batty.

Anyway, here are some other changes I've made since starting the whitening treatment:

• Brushing with Sensodyne. My friends in college used to make fun of me for using Sensodyne, calling it my "old people toothpaste," but guys, honestly, that stuff is great! It dulls down my whitening sensitivity quite significantly. I even love the taste. 
• Giving up the Joe. Yes. I actually did it. There was no weaning, just cold turkey one Saturday morning. The next day (Sunday), I actually went into work, and boy was that hard. I had these horrible withdrawal headaches that threatened to burst open my skull every time I stood up quickly. I've skipped a few days (I didn't do consecutive whitening days), but didn't drink coffee even once. It is now Tuesday, and I'm happy to say my withdrawal headaches are gone.
• Water-you-drinking? (Yes, pun intended.) I've been drinking water so, so much. Particularly after eating or snacking. Good old New York City tap water. I've read that drinking water constantly can help wash away some of the dark pigments we consume so that they don't stain as much. I hope that's true!

Please stay posted for Part 2 of this product diary, which I will post either after another 5 or 6 days or finishing the 14 days.

xoxo,
the closing belle

By the way: I purchased all products mentioned myself and opinions are 100% my own. 

Belle Tells: Finding your 1st Job Post-College | Corporate Recruiting, N...

Hello wonderful readers:

Please check out my newest YouTube video on ways to find your first job out of college. I definitely wanted to share my experience and advice before those of you going back to college do so.

Also, please stay til the end for outtakes because bloopers are super! :)

Midtown Misadventures #2: Hugly Greetings

Awkward greetings are the hallmark of corporate amurrika. They are so embarrasing. And I definitely hoard embarrassing moments to replay torturously over and over in my head.

Ex-coworker (let's call him N) was in town.

Came into the office to say hi.

Approached my desk with right arm raised high, so I assumed this would be a hug (even though we'd worked together for all of 2 months and never hugged before) so I matched with an equally high left arm.

Only to see his swoop down into handshake formation.

I try to do the same.

Too late. 

OMG.

The situation had become too confusing at this point.

N tries to dispel the awkwardness: "You want a hug? I'll give you a hug"

Ok. I guess.

We try to maneuver the one-armed kind of hug that New Yorkers reserve for the type of acquaintanceship where you've worked on like half a project together but you don't know their middle name or their kids' ages.

But I ended up going with the wrong arm.

So while he hugged me with his right arm, I went with my right arm also.

Just imagine what that looks like.

Giving Up Bad Habits: Soda and Alcohol | the Closing Belle

Hey guys. About 6 months ago (on January 15), I decided to give up soda and alcohol.

I wanted to reflect on my choice and how it's been going. Please give this video a watch (and a thumbs up if you enjoyed it!) I would love it so much if you'd subscribe!

Stop living life hedged

I had my one-year performance review at work yesterday. It started out as a pretty standard review, but then my boss asked me about my greater career goals ... and somehow that set me off. I started taking bold tangents. I started psychoanalyzing myself. Holy cow, guys. I'm cray! That meeting, which was slotted to be a 15-30 min review of annual goals completion status, turned into an hour+ long digression. And I bet my manager spent the majority of the second half thinking, "I didn't sign up to be her therapist." LOL, Sorry, B!

And then afterwards I had an emotional breakdown (Shel, what are you doing in life!!) followed by a revelation (Shel, you gotta start taking bold steps!)

OK OK, let me take a couple of steps back.

I am a very risk-averse person.

Here is a shameless silly selfie. Once upon a time back in junior high, I was a bold, bold blogger, with my page littered with selfies. Like, we're talking Kim-Kardashian-level selfie obsession (and I don't mean that in a bad way - I think Kim is absolutely gorgeous and may she be forever bestowed with endless selfie-opportunities!).

That was, until I started becoming more and more scared of taking risks. My senior year of high school, I decided I had to delete all my social media, especially after hearing horror stories of rescinded college admissions driven by incriminating FaceBook photos. For good measure, I also ended up applying to 20+ universities (...yes). Keep in mind that back in my day (and I'm feeling more and more like a dinosaur every time I say this), common app was still in its very nascent stages, so that meant literally 20+ separate applications. Which meant each one was very vanilla, with very bland, easily tweakable essays. I had one dream school in mind (and no, it's not Harvard LOL) and I think I had a pretty good shot. But I couldn't give my all because, well, I was spreading my time across 20 different applications. So I didn't get in.

In college, I spread myself thin taking classes in way too many disciplines and filling my extracurricular time with too many disparate activities. I wanted to double major - and also be premed - and also run 5 or 6 clubs - and also research - etc., etc., etc. This, obviously, was not great for my grade point average ... or sanity.

For my first job, I took what I perceived to be the "safest" entry-level job I could -- the most "generalist" one, despite being the lowest paying of all my offers by a pretty substantial spread. By a strange twist of luck, this actually turned out to be a pretty good decision. Because it got me to where I am today, working on investments and with some of the smartest people I could ever meet. BUT who's to say that I won't still have gotten here if I decided to go to a big consulting firm or direct investment fund?

The buck stops here. I won't live my life so hedged anymore. All my life, my fear of closing off possibilities (closing off college doors by not applying to a million, closing off career doors by taking too "specialized" of a job) has been at best, breakeven, and at worst, very limiting of my potential and achievements.

I have to be bold from now on. Aggressive. Vocal. Opinionated. Unhedged.

These were things that my manager (who is one of my greatest role models - someone I aspire to be in 5-10 years) have cited as things he wanted me to work on from a professional standpoint anyway. It would be the only way that I could rise to become a manager.

I had expected this.

What I didn't expect was the sudden connection I made between this feedback on my work and my own personal feedback on how I run my life. As, as I sat in his office, hearing his words and watching the hustle and bustle of Manhattan outside the window, it dawned on me that this meek, afraid, totally hedged, person who is afraid of making large investment recommendation or redemption decisions ... is the person I have been for over a decade, and the person that I no longer wanted to be.

No more hedging. There are some big career goals I want to reach. There are some big blogging, vlogging milestones I want to pass. And I'm going to go forward loudly and boldly to get what I want. Enveloping myself in the comfort of fall-back plans is no longer an option for me.