Mardi Gras is over and Lent is here! So for all you Catholics out there, it’s time to pick what you’re giving up for the next 40 days. I’m not very religious, but I love where this girl is taking the challenge.

For all you Catholicism-challenged readers out there, Lent is the period following the bead-bonanza of Mardi Gras which encourages celebrating all the good things in life, before giving up your biggest bad habit for 4o days. It starts on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter, just in time for animal-shaped candy and chocolate binges to end the ordeal. In the meantime, I’ve come up with not one, but nine things that any college girl, including myself, could live without until then.

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Okay, so we now know asparagus can be really yummy. Let’s keep yummifying vegetables, shall we? The next victim I bring to the chopping block: carrots.

Featured Ingredient: Carrots

We learned in first grade that carrots are a good source of beta carotene, that stuff that prevents eye problems. But the antioxidants in carrots have also been found to help prevent heart disease and cancer.  Carrots also help to regulate blood sugar, in addition to promoting lung and colon health. Now let’s make them as good for our tastebuds as they are for our bodies….

You will need:

1 pound fresh carrots
3 heaping TBS honey mustard (but the plain yellow stuff works, too)
2 TBS brown sugar

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You CAN recover from this!

Last week, I gave you all some tips on how to prevent sunburn and recommendations for sunscreen. While I’m sure every one of you went out and bought sunscreen to wear every day and not just for SBXI, I bet there’s a few who didn’t.  Or there are those stragglers who are wearing SPF 5 thinking it will work.  And that’s okay.  Except now you’re all “Why didn’t I listen to Caitlin?! Now I’m sunburnt and having a horrible time!”

Don’t worry, this video is all about treating sunburn!  I rarely burn, but I’ve had a few cases of awful sunburn where I had to stay inside and lay on the floor because my down comforter felt like a bed of nails against my skin.  I’ve blistered and picked and even had sun poisoning.  So trust me, I feel your pain.

If you look like a lobster or want to know what to do just in case, then watch below for some great tips on treating your burn!  And next time, wear your SPF!! Read More »

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. This month, reader Lauren is going on chocolate detox. How did she do this week?]

Before I began this tortuous challenge, I would usually finish my dinner then go through my cupboards and fridge to find something for dessert. And it always included chocolate: chocolate pudding, chocolate chip cookies, frozen yogurt with chocolate sauce, or just a plain chocolate bar. Now I detest the time after dinner! I spent this week looking for treats that would satisfy my sweet tooth, but didn’t always end up satisfied. One night, in a moment of desperation, I reached deep into the bowels of my freezer and found these cinnamon sticks that were actually delicious. But most nights, I stared at the half-eaten chocolate bar in my cupboard or the Boston cream snack cakes with chocolate drizzled all over them and longed to have them in my belly.

Grrr.

To keep myself sane, I keep trying to remind myself why I started this challenge in the first place. Do I really need a chocolate or any other kind of fattening dessert after I just ate my whole dinner? Probably not. A little something definitely won’t hurt me, but perhaps I should wait a few hours when I’ll be hungry again for a healthier snack.

The temptations just kill me, though. Some of you suggested I get rid of chocolately treats in my house, but I can’t exactly throw away food my parents bought and plan on eating. My mom made brownies the other night and when I said, “You couldn’t wait a few weeks?” she replied, “Well your father kept bugging me to make them!” So there they sit. And here I stare. Read More »

Throwing the perfect house party can be a lot of work and a lot more stress than most people are willing to admit.  How much alcohol should you buy?  Who should you invite?  Is it worth it to make Jello Shots? Will the masking tape on the cupboards really keep people out?

While we can’t predict if your invitees will go gaga over a hand-carved ice luge, we can give you the answers to throwing an absolutely awesome house party.

1. Invest in a variety of alcohol…and lots of it

Nothing says lame party like the house that runs out of alcohol before midnight.  People at parties have this great habit of making a drink, holding onto it for five minutes, and then forgetting about their cup and pouring another drink.  Therefore, buy more.  It is absolutely okay to get cheap vodka and cheap rum if that means that more people can drink it.  You and your friends will have the leftover alcohol to use for the rest of the year.  If you need a guide, there are 17 shots in a fifth and 40 shots in handle.

2. Don’t forget the beer!

Even if you aren’t a beer drinker, a party without a keg means no flip cup, no beer pong, and a larger chance that someone will throw up in your house, since hard alcohol drinks will get people drunk faster than beer.  Set up the keg in the corner somewhere, and make sure you have lots of cups.

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Hey ladies, this is me reminding you to turn your clocks ahead one hour tonight. Because it’s daylight saving time and we’re losing an hour (Spring ahead. Fall back. That’s how I always remember it.), and if you forget to make the change that means you’ll miss MTV’s rerun of Thursday night’s episode of Jersey Shore, and you’ll just be really, super disoriented for the whole day.

But that’s not even the worst part, the worst part is that we really are losing an hour. One whole hour of our lives! Granted, we’ll get it back in the fall, but I don’t want it back in the fall. I want it now! I mean, I had plans! Big plans, I was going to… Read More »

I love poetry. Sometimes it is just so soothing to curl up under the covers with a cup of hot tea (or even better, hot cocoa!) and your favorite poems. Poetry is such a different form of expression than literature. A poet manages to get so much across in a much shorter prose and makes you read between the lines.

Sure, that sounds like work, but there really is little more satisfying than extracting so much meaning from a little paragraph. Since poetry has been around since the beginning of the written word, there are about 5 billion poems out there to choose from. I kid you not, I have one anthology that is so heavy, I could probably knock someone out with it. There is no way that I would be able to bring that on a vacation, much less lug it around everyday for my ride to and from school. That’s why I was so pleased to receive as a gift the teeny, tiny “100 Best Poems of All Time,” edited by Leslie Pockell.

In the introduction, Leslie says it best herself: the aim of the book was to compile a collection full of classic favorites, with some new or rare ones that would be portable. That means you’re going to find Byron, Shakespeare and Dante, but also some Rilke (one of my faves) and a handful of other poets that I have never, ever heard of. The poems are also arranged in chronological order, as opposed to alphabetical, which is an interesting spin. There is definitely a progression, not only in language, but also style, which makes the anthology a little more unique. Read More »

[The following post comes straight from our BFFs at CollegeFashion. If it weren't for them, we'd still be wearing platform sneakers.]

It’s no secret that the fashion industry favors ultra-thin models – the dialogue surrounding fashion’s narrow portrayal of beauty seems as old as the industry itself.

Amidst all the endless discussions, one thing is clear: People want to see models they can relate to, that show them a realistic and more inclusive ideal of what beauty looks like. While super-skinny models are easy for super-skinny women to relate to, models representing other body types are few and far between, leaving women who don’t fit the super-skinny mold feeling frustrated and excluded.

Fortunately, the girls featured above, which the industry labels as “plus size,” are getting more jobs and more exposure with each passing day, giving us hope that the standards of beauty are beginning to shift and widen. However, much of their work is still in catalogs or other less-publicized mediums, or if featured somewhere in the high-fashion world, the spreads lean towards sensationalism. We certainly still have a long way to go. Read More »

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Meet a real mark. rep!

Let’s face it – college is expensive. And I’m not even talking about tuition costs or room and board! There’s all sorts of other money-draining activities like those beer runs, late night pizza orders, and huge grocery shopping lists. How is a girl supposed to fund herself when there’s school, clubs, and parties to attend to?!

Well, the answer has never been easier. There is a fun, easy, and amazingly flexible way to make some money. Let me introduce you to the mark. college program!

Ever heard of mark.? If you have, you know that mark. is a prestigious cosmetic and fashion brand that includes all the latest trends from the runway and cosmetics counters. But let’s talk more about this program because I know you’ve got to be interested.

A couple of days ago, I sat down with Kelsey Riley, a mark. representative and mentor, to get the lowdown on this fantastic college program, their cutting-edge products, and what exactly it takes to become a mark. representative yourself!

College Candy: “So you’re a part of the mark. college program – could you tell us a little about that?”

Kelsey Riley: “Yes! Actually the college program is kind of a little outdated now. I’m actually a mentor now and that just means I’m in charge of a region and that’s about 3-10 representatives in the state of Maryland and a little bit in DC. And what I do is, I just help them get started becoming a mark. rep, and also continue their careers as a mark. rep and just to be as successful as they can be. I attend a lot of their parties, I have mark. training meetings, and I kind of just, like, encourage them and motivate them to be the best that they can be with mark.

College Candy: “Oh, wow! That sounds great! So how did you get involved with mark.?”

Kelsey Riley: “It was through the college program at George Mason University, that’s where I go, and I was a Freshman and wanted to get involved with school and wanted to get experience under my belt and just try to live up the college experience. And I went to an event because they said they had a free lip gloss for coming so I was like, ‘Oh, I love makeup! So I’ll go see what it’s about.”

College Candy: “So was it just one of those really cheesy and overwhelming sales pitches?”

Kelsey Riley: I was really inquisitive at first and asking all these questions, thinking there had to be some sort of catch. Like, how can you have all this opportunity and have there be no catch? But I signed up and found out there really is no catch and there’s all kinds of opportunities that opened up for me after that. So it’s pretty cool.”