Host of the TV Show Rock Star Recipes and the 1st Indian-American to walk the Latin Grammy Red Carpet, Anand Bhatt brings us the inside scoop & behind-the-scenes on Everything from Kitchen and Fitness Hacks, who's wearing what, the latest fashion and beauty trends, Inspiration on how celebs keep it together under stress, and more!
It’s a crazy sexy week – from AVN awards to the Pure Romance Hot List. There is a lot going on that we normally don’t talk about (cuz it’s naughty, and intimate, and fun – so you better be 18+ if you want to keep reading this article).
Some of you may know that I was scheduled to sign at the Hard Rock in Vegas this week, alongside some of the hottest girls in hollywood. But, my flight got snowed in – along with everyone elses! I heard 4800 flights got cancelled this week across the country! So don’t fret if you’re somehow not able to make it to afterparty with Cardi B and me this Saturday night in Vegas. Probably nobody can! BUT HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS!
If you’re 18+, you can use the code ANAND10 to get 10% off the released-for-Valentine’s Day-but-feel-free-to-use-it-this-weekend Pure Romance Hot List at https://www.pureromance.com/shop/hot-list (I’ll also post Amazon links below for you lucky Amazon-ers)!
Let’s take a look at the top picks from this hot list:
This is such an interesting concept. It mixes with your natural pheromones to create a maximized unique scent for everyone! Male/Female/Both/Neither – ingenious really. Somehow makes me smell more manly and the girl that’s next to me right now smell like candy.
Eye Cream is an interesting thing. We set out to put SEVERAL eye creams to the TEST over the last couple of weeks. Everything from ultra expensive dermatologist creations to every day brands such as Garnier or Swanson’s. We really wanted to find out which eye creams live up to the hype, and which are the best for wrinkles, dark circles, puffiness, and most importantly – primary prevention to look and stay good.
But here’s the catch, the rub if you will, of what we found out. Turns out most eye creams don’t perform any better than just run of the mill moisturizer – even dollar store moisturizer (except one – which we’ll get to later). Granted, two weeks isn’t a long time and we really should have run this with 100 test subjects and controlled for a “moisturizer” only group – but we’re small staffed and wanted to get results quickly that we could generalize to our own every day use on the red carpet and for life in general. Most brands will come back and say, “oh didn’t work for you? that is because you didn’t keep buying more and using it long enough.” OK, that sounds fair, but it also just sounds like marketing speak. In this day and age, giving some benefit of the doubt of course, you should at least “feel” if not see “some” results compared to what you usually use within a few days.
So what started as a sort of eye cream evaluation guide, essentially turned into a “only one is worth using” article. So instead of wasting your time with listing several brands that didn’t cut it, I’ll just mention the one that did. BUT FIRST, how did we go about coming to the conclusion of “worth it” or “not worth it?”
Eye Creams were judged across a few important categories :
Ease of use (how greasy is it, how hard are the instructions, how often do you have to use it etc.).
Subjective impression (do we as the users, feel like it is working when both looking in the mirror and how it feels).
Effectiveness to others (similar to #2, but a 3rd party opinion of if it works or not).
How fast does it work, if it works at all.
Nearly all brands failed at #4, many failed at #1. Failing at #4, in essence did nothing over and above what every day moisturizer does, automatically cascaded into failure at #s 2 and #3 as well. The #1 failures were usually greasiness and heaviness. Surprisingly Swanson’s – which is a discount brand – had quite a good score for Ease of Use. However, not sure it was any more effective than just Pond’s cold cream! Doesn’t cost much though in comparison, so there is that. Notice we didn’t evaluate on price – because if an eye cream actually works, then price (at this juncture) is irrelevant. If there were more than one working eye cream, then sure – price may matter. But since there was only one eye cream that stood out, it would essentially be competing with itself. They could charge double what they do, and it wouldn’t matter. As of now, they’re the only name in the game.
So what is this winning eye cream?
It’s a cream (spelled creme) by PRIORI. Now, Priori is known for being “adaptive” and uniquely formed for its customers. The cream we tested out was just general eye cream, it wasn’t a personally designed formula or anything. It is called Q+SOD fx230. Yeah, that’s the product name LOL. And even if you look at the ingredients and the box, it is sci-fi movie level no nonsense skincare.
The eye cream has all the right ingredients to combat dark circles and puffiness. But, keep in mind, dark circles are often genetic and unrepairable no matter what anyone says. This cream goes on well after washing your face, and if your regular face moisturizer just happens to go over it like a topcoat on accident, it doesn’t seem to clog. Whatever is in this, it seems to absorb. There is also a noticeable tightening, similar to when spa’s put tea bags or cucumbers on your eyes – that feeling. It’s good. I think this is the only eye cream out of the bunch that has the potential to both correct as well as stave off aging. Check back in with us regularly to find out about long term effectiveness! And feel free to share your experiences as well so we can get a well rounded conclusion!
AS FOR NOW, Priori wins, hands down and eyes closed.
Air Fried What? Yeah, I said it! Injera is that super awesome spongy bread you get at Ethiopian restaurants. One night we came home with some extra, and asked “What do you do with all this leftover Injera?” well 1) it is amazing just as it is. I know if you haven’t tried it before it looks like a sourdough hand towel, but it might be the the tastiest bread product in the world – and 2) it needs something after it is technically a leftover.
Making injera from scratch is a 3 day process of fermentation, and involves securing teff flour. Good luck. Luckily, most Ethiopian places will just sell you some.
So how do you make crispy on the outside, yet chewy and amazing injera chips? In your air fryer of course!
STEP 1. Cut (or tear rather) the injera into chip size portions and place in the air fryer basket.
