The Edge

No, I am not talking about the other guy in U2 or that movie with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin (what was that about anyway? I know it was a trillion years ago, but it always confused me)

Nope, nope.

Y'all, I have reached the edge of the beauty frontier. And as a good Yankee, I never say "y'all." So you know I'm serious.

I have been taking some Bikram yoga classes, a form of yoga where they heat the room to 100 degrees and 40% humidity. It's sort of like doing yoga on the surface of the sun.

And while you are contorting your body like a pretzel, your makeup slides off like a dress on prom night. Honestly, I'm surprised my nail polish stayed on.

(No, I did not put on makeup to go to these classes, I go after work and the makeup comes with me)

However, a friend charitably gave me one of the new Goody Stay-Put hair ties and it was the only thing that stay on my body besides my clothes (which I only believe stayed on because they were glued to my body with sweat).

The Stay-Puts were featured prominently in the Express Fit section last Tuesday and were reputed to have special elastic fibers woven into the band to help them grip onto hair. They make ponytail holders and headbands. The band I tried was the "medium" one, and was certainly thicker than the tie I normally use. But damned if it didn't stay-put during the entire class, and I had my hair in one of those half-assed buns where you just pull the ponytail halfway through. Typically, this holds up for about 10 minutes, but this time it stayed for the entire 90 minutes. Every hot, sweaty, twisty, excruciating minute.

A word of caution! These do NOT slide out easily. You must unwind them in the reverse order that you put it on with Jack Bauer technical skill or you will pull your hair out. Also, they arent the most stylish holders that I have in my arsenal. I plan on picking up a set of the thinner version for fine hair though, maybe they will assist in my "oh-so-cute-I-totally-planned-this-messy-bun" look.

The interesting thing about the Bikram class though, is that by the time I got home and showered, I noticed that my skin looked glowing and my eyes looked really bright. Maybe it's a real benefit of the class!

Or maybe it is a heat and dehydration induced hallucination.