This year, Valentine’s Day kicks off National Condom Week (coincidence? I think not), and it’s time to give these little rubbers the appreciation they deserve! I mean really, what would life be without them (besides there being a lot more episodes of Teen Mom...)?

We (and by “we” I mean “our boyfriends”) tend to look at condoms as a nuisance that take away from the pleasure of lovemaking, so I’m here to bring you a list of crazy condoms that will make using protection fun! (As if safe sex isn’t fun enough already…) Read More »

[Everyone's got a morning-after story and we wanna hear yours! Send it over to us and we'll post it - anonymously, of course - right here!]

I had a feeling my roommate situation was going to be interesting this year when the first thing she tells me after meeting me is, “I like to sleep naked.”

It all started on an innocent Sunday night in my routine of “Get up, survive, go back to bed.” I had a math test to cram into my brain for Monday afternoon, so I was in the dorm room jamming away on my calculator and re-learning weeks of notes when I heard the door open. My roommate sauntered into the room with a friend. A man-friend.  A man-friend who I’ve never met before.  A man-friend who I earlier heard her on the phone arguing with.

I knew she had bad taste in guys but, God damn! This guy was sprawled out on my futon (as in the futon I bought myself, but we share because that’s what roommates do) telling her he wanted the Gatorade he saw (MY Gatorade) and making fun of playfully teasing her. Nice guy, eh?  I was blatantly annoyed and semi-nauseated seeing them canoodling on the futon while it was plainly obvious I had an assload of work to do. Read More »

I am a self-confessed hippie eater. No, I do not eat hippies (they tend to be too chewy). However, I do eat in the way that most hippies do—that is, staples of my diet include wheat germ, quinoa, and organics of all kinds, and, occasionally, I will even go out on a limb and try something like Kefir. Basically, I want my body to be as healthy as possible, so I’m going to put healthy things in it.

But I’m also a self-confessed foodie, and I want my food to taste GOOD. If it doesn’t, it’s out. So I have been searching high and low for months now in an effort to find the perfect pancake recipe—one with both taste and health benefits. Most pancakes aren’t bad for you, sure, but I wanted a recipe that really packed in the good stuff and had a flavor that couldn’t be beat.

Well, you guys, I’ve finally found it. All Recipes saves the day once again! This time, though, I modified the recipe to make it even yummier by adding extra flavor to these bad boys. As if that wasn’t good enough, you can also whip up all twelve of these pancakes in just about 15 minutes. It may not look it, but this recipe is SUPER easy.

Sunday mornings never tasted so good.

Read More »

Even though I am a beauty guru of sorts (dishing out sage makeup wisdom) and own lots of high end beauty products, I still like to budget shop for drug store options. I am a cost conscious college girl, after all.

I’m not gonna lie – it’s easy to get swept away by brand names and pretty packaging (and pushy sales people) in department stores, but you don’t need to burn a hole in that wallet to get some good makeup. There are a lot of products in drug stores that do nearly the exact same thing as high end products, especially when it comes to mascara. In case no one told you before, you don’t have to use products from MAC or Sephora to look beautiful!

You lookin’ to enhance those lashes without spending all that hard earned (or begged-your-parents-for) money? Just watch:

Got a beauty question? Want to know about a product? A hairstyle? Leave your questions and suggestions below and I’ll try to help you out in future videos!

In this new series we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer for a month as she takes on a personal challenge. This month we’re following Lauren from University of Michigan. She’s going sober for the month of February and will be sharing her ups (like feeling great last weekend!) and downs with us each Saturday.

It’s official: I’ve been 100% sober for a full two weeks! (I’ve even opted out of using mouthwash!) While that may not be such a big deal to some people out there (ahem, mean commenters, ahem), I am really, really proud of myself. Especially after the week I’ve had.

My first week of this challenge was pretty easy, breeezy Cover Girl. The weekdays flew by and then I was back at my parents’ house, where the temptation to drink was pretty minimal. But since then, I’ve survived a steakhouse dinner without wine, a Super Bowl party without beer, and two very serious nights at the bar without shots, shots, shots, shots shots.

On Thursday night I hit a low key bar with a few friends. They sipped on some beers and I sipped on some Diet Cokes. We were all having a great time – talking, catching up, giving guys the eyes across the bar. I really didn’t miss drinking at all, especially when I only spent $3 the entire night (unlike beer and vodka, Diet Coke has free refills at the bar!). But it wasn’t totally smooth sailing; LMFAO came on the jukebox towards the end of the evening, which, as we all know, makes you want to drink. Or chug. I was starting to cave. I was having a hard time remembering why I was doing all this. Seriously, Had Ke$ha or Miley come on next, I probably would have had to run out of the bar screaming. Instead, I took a little sniff of my friends’ SoCo Lime shots, grimaced, and instantly felt better about my decision. Read More »

It's so cozy!

Awww!  He lent you his sweatshirt!  It’s so comfy and cozy and it smells refreshingly like boy. It’s perfectly worn in, the lifeguard/lacrosse logo beginning to crack and fade at the edges. Sure, you would normally look ridiculous in such a shirt (anyone who knows you knows you aren’t a lacrosse…er…athletic kinda girl), but hey!  He’s a lifeguard!  It’s OK if it’s his!

You wear it home, letting the sleeves hang past your hands and relishing in the glory that only comes with wearing a sweatshirt of the boy you love. You wear it around your room for the rest of the day. And then, once you’ve finally removed it (because sleeping in it would be weird….right?), you fold the sweatshirt up and lay it on the floor. But what now?  What do you do with it?  Return it? Do you call him or does he call you? Should he come to get it? And, before he does, can you wear it again? What if it’s cold? Is that weird?

The ol’ sweatshirt exchange doesn’t seem like much, but there’s a whole lot of awkwardness that comes along with that XL perfectly worn-in pull-over. Don’t believe me? Allow me to lay out two very real (in that they happened to me) possibilities. Read More »

Whether you end things or he does, break-ups are hard. There’s a reason they’re quickly followed by carb loading (cookies and/or pints of beer) and making out with a rando against a wall. But relationships end for a reason; it’s just too bad that many of us are completely unable to remember the reason when we’re elbow deep in Oreos and crying at the latest Zales commercial.

Why do we always have such a hard time letting go?
Do we actually miss the guy, or do we just miss being in a relationship?

College relationships bring comfort and ease during a time in our lives that is filled with uncertainty. We’re unsure about our future, our jobs, our grades, our finances, and are generally stressed out.  We look at our guys as the one thing we can count on always; to support us, to love us, to cuddle with us after a long day of class and studying.  Not to mention that being single is exhausting!  I’ve had one too many nights of getting dressed up in hopes of finding a cutie to take home, only to end the night crying and carrying a pizza.

But the majority of us college girls will inevitably endure a break-up within these four years. Sad but true. Breaking up is a major change and it’s scary!  It means saying goodbye to those sweet good morning texts, romantic dinner dates, and guaranteed booty (what? it’s usually the thing I miss most!), and hello to a completely new life. We feel vulnerable and lonely and ready to run right back to our ex before we even have a chance to sleep alone. The same ex who wasn’t giving us what we needed or deserved. Read More »

I’ll admit it: this week I fell prey to the “Recommended” table at my local book store. Being a bookseller, I find myself to be a bit of a book snob and will rarely listen to advice about my reading material. However, I am also a sucker for a nice cover (yeah, I judge a book by its cover) and “Sarah’s Key” indeed has a nice cover. So I picked it up, read a few pages and before I could resist, I was hooked.

“Sarah’s Key” is a historical fiction novel that flip flops between two story lines: Sarah’s and Julia’s. Julia Jarmond is living in modern-day Paris. She is married to a man that she describes as a typical Parisian: good-looking, successful, but also very reserved and often, cold. They live with their daughter, Zoe, and also many secrets.

Then there is Sarah, a 10-year-old French Jew who is taken from her home and sent to a concentration camp during the 1942 Velodrome D’Hiver roundup in Paris. For those of you who have no idea what the Vel D’Hiv roundup is (don’t be embarassed – I didn’t either!), here is a crash course: Basically 13, 000 Jewish men, women and children were arrested and taken to the Veldrome D’Hiver (a stadium), right in the middle of Paris, where they were left for several days before going to the Drancy and Beaune-la-Rolande internment camps and finally Auschwitz. Now, even if none of the other words in that sentence meant anything to you, I know you recognized Auschwitz. And so you know the fate of these poor, innocent people. Sarah is taken, along with her mother and father. Read More »

For me, shopping for makeup is like a bargain scavenger hunt. Whether I’m using coupons or waiting for a Friends & Family sale, I’ll do whatever it takes to save money. To be honest, I often hesitate to buy high-end products because I know I can usually find a substitute from a drugstore brand.

You know you have discovered gold when you find a great drugstore substitute for a cult product. Over the years of scouring the aisles at Target and CVS, I’ve learned that there are some amazing high-end product replacements out there – you just have to seek them out! Here are 5 of my favorites. Read More »

This week flew by faster than my entire college career has so far, and that is saying a lot.  It felt like two days ago when I discovered my first ‘Thirsty Thursday.’  And wasn’t it just yesterday when I was holding back confused tears as Ali chose her job and left Jake with only three women on The Bachelor? Yeah, I’m ashamed.

This week has been quite the busy one, and it is ending with a big, glamorous bang. Calling all my fashionistas out there: it is officially Fashion Week!

But before we get into the fun stuff, let’s recap:

- Much to (most everyone’s) dismay, MTV is doing a little logo-renovating. And Snooki is the top design inspiration.

- We’ve been spending way too much time at the gym. Time that would be better spent… watching reruns of The Bachelor?

- We discovered that coming with age (and all of those shots of tequila), there is a lot to learn.

- The Dude taught us guys can be friends. Great news! Now I can totally make them go in to the local department store with me. Too much? Read More »