Thursday, August 29, 2013

Chipping of nails

The reasons behind chipping of nails are many but in most of the cases the culprit is insufficient minerals and vitamins in our diet. The other major reasons could be climate changes (sudden changes in temperatures or extreme weather conditions), side effects of diseases like psoriasis or yeast infections on skin, doing a job that requires frequent immersion of hands in water, some kinda regular chemical exposure like pest control, using cheap nail paints or nail care products that contains formaldehyde, toluene and dibutyl phthalate.

Solutions:

· Lets focus on the dietary issues first. Make sure that your every day diet consists of a large number of vitamins (like A,E and B) and minerals like zinc,calcium, iron and biotin. Biotin is critical to nail growth and the sources of this mineral are: Egg yolk, fish, cauliflower, lentils, soybeans, pea nut butter etc. Usually a vegan diet has to be monitored carefully if nails are chipping off (take supplements of above mentioned vitamins and minerals) .
viz: HealthAidNail-Vit Capsules etc

· In a lot of cases, the rich lotions are perfect to be rubbed on finger nails in morning and evening everyday. Products like Cuticle cure from Nail Aid are perfect for this kinda practice.

· Nail care products like Nail Aid’s Peeling Nail Intense Repair Gel or vedic line cuticleand nail cream etc.

Home remedies:

1. Gently rub the chipped/brittle nails with a cotton ball immersed in olive or castor oil

2. Soaking of the nails in luke warm salt water for some time. And then applying a good moisturizing cream or tea tree oil on nails is very beneficial.

3. Avoid acetone on a regular basis as they tend to strip off fingernails of moisture and make them dry.

Have beautiful and healthy nails………………: ) agoodstuff

Saturday, August 24, 2013

10 tips to increase volume in hair:

Pollution, variations in weather conditions, harmonic changes, unbalanced diets, improper selection of shampoos and a lot of other factors are responsible for hair fall and hence the overall depletion of the volume of your hair. Thin hair has to be treated internally by proper diet and consultation with your hair specialists, Ayurvedic or Homeopathy Doctors.

I have some smart ways to give some volume to your hair. Go thru them, they are easy and definitely gonna help you out:

·       Use volumizing shampoos(KérastaseGL Revitalizing Shampoo, Loreal Professional Volumizing Shampoo,Marc Anthony Thickening Shampoo, Joico Luxe Thickening Shampoo, Kiehl’s Ultimate Thickening Shampoo, Matrix Amplify volumizing shampoo, Himalaya volumizing shampoo, Fat Hair Thickening Shampoo, Nexxus Thickening Shampoo and many more) and use conditioner also by keeping away from hair roots and towards the middle and tail part.

·       Flip wet hair after shower and then use towel to dry it up. Lift the roots up by wrapping a towel for 5-10 minutes.

·       Use jaw clips to tie up the front hair and their roots to make a puff and then redo the making of puff with some more or less front hair to avoid kinks. Let your hair dry with natural air and whenever you plan to move out just remove the clips and comb them slightly and see the bouncy effect.( pic a)

·       To create bounciness and volume in front, hold the front mid section hair in upward direction and then do some up & down brushing of the back layers of this section(close to roots) with a narrow bristled comb. Release the front layer over it and pin up this layer at the back making puff.

·       If using a dryer, hold the front middle section of hair upwards and then blow dry the roots (pic b) .

·       In - Salon treatments are also very effective(if comes in budget) as they volumizes fine hair with nutrients, with chemicals which reconstructs the hair fibre.

·       Sleep in loose, tucked in braids! This not only keeps your hair hugging each other, but you'll wake up with pretty waves in the morning and can skip heating tools all together! Try a small, clear elastic at your ends.

·       Use a curler beneath your front mid section wet hair and keep it for few hours to get a big volume in front.

·       Some women don’t comb in wet hair and let them dry as such. This automatically increases the volume in hair but sometimes it weakens the hair while taking out kinks.

·       Avoid high ponytails as you might loose a lot of front hair or will have a sunflower look (as pulling your hair back tightly tends to break fragile front hair and an all day high ponytail will just increase the trouble of short, whispy hair in front.

Try up any or all these techniques and style up your hair in smarter ways to give them volume and good looks......................: ) agoodstuff

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Tricolor 15th August food:

One more addition to tri-color food is the sprinkled veggies on idlis. The circle shape idlis are looking perfect for an Independence Day snack or a lunch box food for kids as well.

It requires the basic process of making idlis. Mix 1 cup semolina with 1 cup water, 2 spoons of curd and salt to taste. Stir it properly and add nore water if required as the consistency should be thick but spoon should be able to stir properly without effort. Keep it aside for 10 minutes and then add 1 sachet of Eno to it and mix it thoroughly. Now, grease the dhokla tray and then pour the paste into it. Sprinkle some shredded capsicum on one side, shredded carrot on another portion and keep one portion plain. Microwave it for 3.30 minutes. Now invert this tray on a plate and invert again to another plate. Cut circular idlis with help of a cutter or small bowl.

Arrange them in Flag color and serve with green coriander chutney and red imli chutney or ketchup for kids.

Enjoy the colors………………: ) agoodstuff

Monday, August 12, 2013

Independence Day Colors in Food

The tri-color in our Indian Flag is something I wanted to picturesque in my food. I made this recipe in a single color many times but this time I combined all three and tried to bring an Independence Day celebrative mood in my food as well.

The recipe involves boiling rice in three pans.

1. Boil plain rice with one tsp of oil and salt (as per taste and requirement)

2. Boil rice with shredded spinach/green peas + capsicum +leaves of spring onion and add one tsp of oil and salt (as per taste and requirement)

3. Boil rice with shredded orange carrot (which is not as sweet as red one so it is ideal for salty rice) and add one tsp of oil and salt (as per taste and requirement)

Serve the colors as in our flag with a bowl of boondi or any vegetable raita. My kids have demanded rajma with this as it is full of green peas/spinach and carrot.

Say no to artificial colors and go for colored veggies.

Happy Independence week to all Indians………………: ) agoodstuff

Friday, August 9, 2013

CANON EOS 600D SLR (18-55mm IS Lens )

Three of my friends bought Canon 600D SLR and here is the review with all pros and cons, to guide you, if you are also interested in buying this camera.

Let me give you a brief description of some of the important features of this DSLR camera:

*18 Megapixel Camera with a CMOS sensor

*It can record at Full HD (1920x1080) resolution at 30, 25 and 24 fps. It supports H.264 movie format and JPEG and RAW image format

* LCD has a resolution of 1040K dot pixels with 3:2 aspect ratio and has dual anti-reflection and anti smudge coating

* A built-in wireless Speedlite transmitter

* Scene Intelligent Auto feature, automatically selects the best scene for user.

*The EOS 600D allows user to set up self time of 2 and 10 seconds and can shoot at continuous mode at 3.7 fps.

* Movie Digital Zoom, which allows 3-10x magnification even while shooting Full HD movie. In terms of connectivity, the 600D supports

USB and HDMI mini.

* Canon's latest generation of DIGIC processor, the DIGIC 4, is the brain of the camera and is responsible for the superb responsiveness of all EOS models. Faster and more powerful than its predecessor, the DIGIC 4 processor gives exceptional performance and low noise at higher ISO speeds. If taking pictures in darker conditions, even if the ISO is pushed to the limit, DIGIC processing applies Noise Reduction algorithms – it takes clarity with grains and preserves detail. The speed of DIGIC helps in low processing time for longer battery life and faster start-up times.

Canon EOS 600D SLR is available at a lot of online stores at the prices mentioned below:

Rs.29,484 at http://www.junglee.com  EF-S 18-55 IS Kit Lens (Black) with 4GB SD Card, Camera Bag

· Rs.30,499 at http://www.snapdeal.com with 2 Years Canon India Warranty and Free Transit Insurance , free 4GB SD Card + Carry case + 3/6

· Rs.31,500 at http://www.amazon.in  with EF-S 18-55 IS Kit Lens (Black) with 4GB SD Card, Camera Bag

· Rs. 33,945 at http://www.flipkart.com   with 2 Years Canon India Warranty and Free Transit Insurance, Free: 4GB SD (inside the box) + Camera Bag + Tripod + Lens Cleaner + SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8 GB 30MB/S Class 10+ 58 MM UV Filter (Total freebie Worth Rs 1750/-)

* (prices as on 8/9/13, for current price pls visit the above mentioned sites.)

Lets compare with its substitute in same range, i.e Nikon D500:

The image quality and price are the two important aspects in which Nikon scores higher than Canon but can’t beat the video quality in Canon 600D SLR. The wireless flash option which is in 600D (Canon) is a handy feature, which is not there in D5100 (Nikon) and external wireless flash transmitter cost too much.

Since both Canon (550D & 600) are priced equally, you better go for 600D as both have almost everything common except the swivel screen in 600D & some bunch of software filters for post processing.

Happy Snapping……………… : ) agoodstuff

Friday, August 2, 2013

Online anarkali suits shopping in India

Festivals like Teej, Rakshabandhan, Id and a lot more are coming ahead this season. Indian festivals are full of colorful clothes, sweets, mingling with friends and relatives and a lot of fun. Today I have a nice collection of suits from different online shops that can help you in taking some shopping decisions regarding clothes. I have already made my mind to buy one. I did a small exercise and explored a lot of sites and found some beautiful collections.

Some of them are offering discounts, have a wide collection to choose from and aCOD facility on most of the dresses. Just browse through the below mentioned suits and look which one appeals you.

Brothers , husbands, daddy-----can also choose one for your loved ones and surprise her with a color that you think looks best on her. I think asking a boy (bro, husband or papa) for a color to choose from is a difficult task so you better ask a color choice from your relatives or friends and then gift them. We (Indians) have a lot of festivals ahead but make your mood fast as a few of them are falling this month only.