Tag: hair

Leave-In Conditioner Review: Tigi vs O-Pro

I bought these two hair products, Tigi Sleek Mystique and O-Pro Leave In Conditioner Detangler, from Amazon several months ago and it’s taken me a while to get around to reviewing them. I suppose it’s because I wanted to make sure I’d used them enough, and it’s hard to tell during winter whether the conditioner is doing a great job or not.

Tigi Catwalk Leave-In Conditioner (left) and O-Pro Leave-In Conditioner Detangler (right). review
Tigi Catwalk Sleek Mystique Hair Prep Spray (left) and O-Pro Leave-In Conditioner Detangler (right).

Firstly the Tigi Sleek Mystique hair primer. I had really high hopes for this one, but in the end it was a spray bottle of hair goo. It was never going to change my life and I shouldn’t have expected it to. It did make my hair slightly smoother but the effect only lasted for a few hours. My hair is normally very dry, and this means that I usually don’t skimp on conditioner. I thought using this as well as my normal conditioner would leave my hair silky, shiny, and like one of those girls from a shampoo advert.

It didn’t come close. It made my roots hella greasy, even when I only sprayed the ends of my hair. I do wonder whether it was being pulled up the hair shaft by osmosis, but the truth is I really don’t know. Then there was the fact that none of the damn product seemed to stay within 4 inches of the ends of my hair, where my tresses needed the most help. Even when I sprayed some of the Tigi Sleek Mystique into my hand and ran it through the tips of my hair, I still didn’t have any success. I think this was supposed to actually be a hair primer but I don’t really know what that is, and it had very similar ingredients to the O-Pro leave-in conditioner, so if it looks like a horse and smells like a horse… beauty companies will still stick a label on it claiming it’s a unicorn.

Then it made my neck itch after a fortnight, so I gave up on it. It’s been discontinued by Tigi since I bought it so I can only conclude it was a fad product that never lived up to customers’ expectations. That’s gotta be harsh, I mean, what expectations does anyone even have of a hair prep spray?? What, exactly, was it supposed to do? As a sidenote, if you want to prep your hair properly for hair chalk, use dry shampoo like I did in this video.

The O-Pro leave-in conditioner and detangler fared better. It stayed where I put it and it made my hair feel less dry at the ends. I liked the fact that it made my hair softer and more manageable, and this feeling lasted for two days before my roots started osmosising the product (technical term), at which point I washed my hair and the whole thing started again. Two days seems a respectable amount of time for a spray-on product to behave itself. Allegedly, it contains “organic protein” and the cynical side of my brain wants to know if they mean protein from organs (e.g. sausage… EWWW) or from some mysterious rainforest plant. Who knows? It’s not really something I’m super-curious about, but if you are, it has this feature.

Overall, I’d say the O-Pro Leave-In Conditioner Detangler left my hair in better condition and it seemed to be working for a little while longer than the Tigi. There was the added bonus that it didn’t make my neck itchy either, which was nice. I loved the scent as well, and the spray nozzle was easy to use, unlike some I’ve tried where they start to leak liquid down the bottle while I’m using them.

Out of these two, I would definitely recommend the O-Pro Leave-In Conditioner Detangler, as it was noticeably better.

What actually happens when a content farm steals your handmade content

Today I want to talk about something that very regularly affects writers, beauty bloggers and photography bloggers, and occasionally affects travel bloggers too: Content theft. How does it happen and what can you do about it?

I am a moderate traffic website; according to both Amazon and Alexa, I am not yet in the big leagues (I’m in the top 1,000,000 websites, but so are 999,999 other sites). I do have some very good SEO, however, and I score first result on the first page of Google for at least 10 different search terms, because I work very hard to make my content relevant to what people are searching for. Because of this, I’m not blind to the crappy games some other sites play so they can rank higher in Google.

The past two days, however, my single most popular article has taken a nosedive. My traffic has plummeted and I have lost more than a hundred visitors a day. When investigating this, I discovered that a content-farm type website has basically stolen my top ranking article, reworded it and dumbed it down, and posted it on their site. They aren’t ranking above me, but they’ve got enough relevance that they’ve taken some of my traffic away. The thing is, despite the fact they’ve directly paraphrased my article, and added in some photoshopped snazzy pictures (that they also haven’t attributed), they’ve not actually said where they got it from. And they haven’t asked me if they could steal my stuff.

content theft statistics
Picture showing my most popular page; this page was most popular, day in day out, for months.
content theft how to tell
The stats for the blue circles page have increased, proving this shouldn’t have been a “quiet day.” It’s only my most popular page that’s been affected, and all the other stats were just the usual day-to-day fluctuations. That’s how I knew it was probably a content theft issue.

I get by solely on my income from this website and from the books I write (on my author website). This website (Delight and Inspire) generates 20-100% of my income on any given month. Needless to say, I don’t make much money. So when someone steals my personally researched and written articles, changes a few words to get past Google’s duplication penalties, and, by proxy, prevents visitors from finding my site, it makes me feel worried. If people took every article from my site and did that, I’d have no income. It would be like someone putting the PDF of my books on torrent sites, and it’s obviously not a nice feeling.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it because they haven’t just copied and pasted my work. So this is an exercise in pragmatism more than a solution. I am usually not remotely precious about copyright, and when people email me, asking if they can, for example, translate my articles into Italian, I am usually happy that the information is getting shared. But that’s the difference. The cool Italian guy asked, and I knew they were using my content in that way, and I’m happy with the result, which is that Italians can now read that information in their own language. I now get 1-2 emails a week from Italians trying to cross the Bering Strait (true story). Generally, I think sharing information is the way forward.

When someone does it without acknowledging the source material, however, they’re just trying to make themselves look good with other people’s hard work. And that’s not ok. I would bet money that the person who stole my content was paid by the content farm for “creating” my content. But since half the internet is run by automatic bots and computers these days, with little user generated interaction on sites like Livestrong (a content farm), there’s no-one I can contact about this issue (normally, you can contact someone and ask for the page to be taken down or attributed).

So after the initial infuriation has worn off, I am left with the truth of the situation. Someone stole my stuff, they fooled Google (and whoever paid them to “write” it) and my income has been affected. I cannot do anything about it, so I can either go crazy (crazier) with rage and fury at this daylight robbery and turn into a pathetic dribbling ball of tears, or I can choose to let it go.

Imma let it go, and looking to the future, I’m going to try to ensure that I keep producing fresh, relevant content for my readers that ensures I always rank first on Google for other things. Like my lip plumpers review or my eyelash serum comparison reviews that I have written.

How have you dealt with copyright theft? Let me know in the comments!

Amazon Prime Day, Rainbows + Bestseller Lists,

So the book I can’t tell you about on here has now made it (quite a long way) into the Amazon Top 100 Bestseller List for a third week!! SQUEE I WROTE A GODDAMN BESTSELLER, BITCHES!! (…and my in-laws and assorted relatives still think I’m an unemployed layabout loser working occasional days as a substitute teacher. And I can’t tell them otherwise. They probably wouldn’t believe me if I did. It’s like being a superhero only my secret power is NSFW).

Oh and in case you’re wondering, the money doesn’t get good until you hit the top 5, so no, I’m still poor. This person had a #1 bestseller and still didn’t make anything. And I’m sure some sanctimonious middle class person will try to say “but that’s not why you should write” because you *should* write to be poor (which is fine if you’ve never had to choose between eating or paying rent I suppose), to be unappreciated (which is fine if you believe you’re Van Gogh or something), to be ignored (see prev. re: Van Gogh), because that’s the stereotype we imagine for writers and what we tell ourselves to feel better about the fact that some people are spending 16 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week doing something they actually want to do (yes, I actually do, come hypomania or depression, I work very hard and some days I only write 50 words but it’s 50 more than I had the day before, other days what I write makes no sense, but that’s okay because it clears my brain out, it’s like scraping the gloop out of the sink so you can wash dishes in it, instead of letting that gloop touch your crockery). Like we imagine that all the pretty people are dumb and all ugly people have hidden depths, instead of seeing that some pretty people are clever and some ugly people are very shallow. I will never stop appreciating being able to write. So I will look forward to writing being my full time income one day but obviously, the money I’ll get in several months’ time (bookstores pay s-l-o-w-l-y) is a LOT better than nothing and while it isn’t going to pay all my bills that month, it at least goes a long way towards it and therefore validates my Goddamn life choices. And I didn’t even have to take my clothes off this time.* 😛

*I am neither confirming nor denying having done this in the past although I do feel it’s high time my cat** wrote a guest post because it would make interesting reading.

**I don’t have a cat. That’s sort of the point.

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And apparently every year Amazon has some special deals that are only available to Prime subscribers. This year, that’s happening on July 12th. From today up to July 12th, Amazon has loads of special pre-prime day deals to get you in the mood (or something).

My personal opinion? Signing up for a free 30 day trial of Amazon Prime, including free shipping and loads of TV shows, makes a lot of sense if you want to do some bargainous shopping. This is a very good month to try Amazon Prime for free, just remember (if you don’t intend to keep it) to cancel before the month is up, and sit back and reap the rewards.

I had Amazon Prime for about a year but I cancelled it in favor of Netflix because they didn’t have such a good range of TV shows. I think I’d consider it again now that the Clarkson Hammond and May show (formerly Top Gear) is on there. Also did you hear about the BBC’s so-called “Top Gear” that they’ve been trying to flog as a replacement to the (not-quite-original but definitely best) Clarkson version? Chris Evans, the show’s main host, and seasoned TV presenting veteran, has just quit. They’re flogging a dead horse, and I’ve been saying since Clarkson got sacked, that nobody in their right mind would sign up to take the place of Clarkson Hammond and May, the audience for that show is too pre-prejudiced against change. They’d have been better off doing a total re-format, since Clarkson invented most of the stuff they did on there anyway. Those of you who know me in person know how much I appreciate Jeremy Clarkson’s contributions to journalism (oh God, the way he can get you from the opening sentence, I wish I could do that), he literally invented new ways to write/talk about cars, and no-one can really replace that. But you can watch Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond messing around in cars IN OCTOBER on Amazon Prime with the 30 day trial in the UK; the BBC was really shitty about copyrights on all the stuff Clarkson came up with while he worked for them, so Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May have renamed their new car show “Grand Tour.” I wish I was eligible for another free trial of Amazon Prime now 😦

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Also, this rainbow wig is legit gorgeous I wish I could afford it, its so beautiful, and I wanted to show you all, but WordPress doesn’t allow image links from Amazon. Last time I accidentally pasted the wrong link onto a WordPress post, WordPress actually shut this blog down within seconds, not giving me a chance to fix the problem, and I had to email them 5 or 6 times over 2 days to get them to understand that it was an honest mistake. I totally don’t get the weird and wonderful policies that various blogging sites have regarding their smallprint. I think now I have my own domain I’m allowed to do more advertising, but I look at some of the sites that have come up in reader over the past few months, wall-to-wall advertising, and I simply want to vomit in disgust. The whole marketing model is messed up if they make money from that shit. It’s like those trees falling in the woods and concussing bears who are trying to take a dump.

Emily the Strange Make Up Tutorial

So I’m still waiting for the white hair to arrive for the Lily Munster tutorial, in the meantime, here’s another thing you can do with a black wig (or straight long black hair if you’re so blessed), white foundation and black eyeliner.  Enjoy:

Morticia Addams Cosplay Make Up Tutorial

It’s finally here – the Morticia Addams make-up cosplay tutorial! I have done original Morticia as played by Carolyn Jones in the 1960s, rather than Anjelica Huston, as I am more comfortable with this incarnation of Morticia and for me personally, Carolyn Jones will always be the definitive Morticia Addams because I saw the TV series before I ever saw the films.

I wish I’d had some carnivorous plants in the background but I don’t currently have any. I’d like to say that they ate each other but in reality, one of my rabbits ate the carnivorous plants. Score 1 for bunnies not being as soft and fluffy as everyone thinks.

Here’s the video (it starts off in Black and White, then progresses to colour before returning to black and white).

And here’s some pictures:

Morticia Addams Carolyn Jones Tutorial The Addams Family
The original title card that wouldn’t load onto the video of the Morticia Addams tutorial.
Morticia Addams Carolyn Jones Tutorial The Addams Family
Did I remember to feed the lion?
Morticia Addams Carolyn Jones Tutorial The Addams Family
Now I remember! I did feed the lion. There was some leftover swamp monster in the refrigerator!

If you want to find out more about Carolyn Jones, the actress who played Morticia, there’s an excellent documentary from the Biography channel available on Youtube.  I’ve linked it from my tutorial.

Hair Color Remover FAQ

This is the frequently asked questions I get about how color remover works, how to use color remover, whether it can be used after bleaching etc, all in one helpful place so you can find answers!

Rainbow eye make up from the front (goes with glow in the dark rainbow hair)

Can you get your natural hair colour back after bleaching it?
No, sorry. If you want a longer answer, this video I made explains why.

Does Color Remover Really Work?
Yes. It really does. If you want to know exactly HOW it works, so you know whether it will solve your particular hair dilemma, read my other article. Remember, NO color remover will work if you don’t use it properly! Always read the instructions and take care of allergies/safety. If you did a bad job dying your hair (rather than just being tired of your old color) you might not be the best person to be using color remover – do you have a friend/relative who could help you with it?

Can I bleach after using color remover?
Yes you can, although you should wait at least 2 weeks (preferably longer) because otherwise your hair might turn very dark, as there might be a few residual color molecules left in your hair from before you used the color remover, and if something else is applied to the hair, it can cause them to re-combine which will make your hair go dark. If you want to know more, check out my articles: How color Remover Works and How Bleaching Works.

Can I use color remover on hair extensions?
If they are 100% human hair then colour remover will work on them, but the main problem is that it can affect where they are attached. If you have the ones that stay in all the time, the colour remover won’t be able to get through the glue to remove the colour properly so you might end up with a patchy result, BUT the glue is where nobody sees it much so unless you’re getting a drastic color change it shouldn’t be very noticeable. It depends how you’ll feel knowing there’s some patchy colour under your hair. If it’s the clip in extensions made with human hair, then your problem is the attachment again, but for a slightly different reason. Just like bleach can oxidize the metal clips, the colour remover (depending on which one you use) can affect the area where the hair is attached to that base netting and clips at the top. I would be very careful with this unless your extensions were cheap. Personally I would just buy some new ones.

How long do I leave color remover?
It varies from brand to brand. There should be instructions with the color remover. Color remover should not be stored for future use (it won’t work) so if you don’t have instructions, you have a bit of a problem.

Which color remover works best?
There’s been a sudden explosion of new brands, but the only two I have used and would trust with the important job of stripping the colour from my hair are Color Oops and Color B4 (Color B4 only appears to come in Extra Strength in the US). In the UK, B4 comes in regular strength and EXTRA STRENGTH as well as the “fashion colours” version.  Remember you need to read the instructions carefully and use this correctly or it doesn’t work.  It’s not like hair dye at all!

I’ve left my color remover on for too long.
Rinse it. Keep rinsing it. I would extend the rinse times by about half an hour each (make sure your shower doesn’t overheat and that you have enough hot water to do this). This makes certain that all the colour gets out.  Otherwise you won’t get a result or you will get a weird result (see below).

My hair has gone orange / caramel / some other weird color!
Yep, this can happen.  That’s what’s left of your natural color under all that hair dye. See here for why. It’s not a problem with the color remover it’s a problem with the dyes you have used and how they affect your hair.

Can color remover get rid of semi-permanent color or crazy or bright colors?
No. See here for why. There is a special color remover that claims to deal with bright colors but I have not personally used it, the reviews of it are mixed and it’s not available in the US. See it here on UK Amazon.

Can color remover get rid of bleach?
No, it also doesn’t restore your natural hair color.   See here for why and more tips.

Is color remover safe to use on children?
No. Neither is permanent hair dye. So you shouldn’t need to use color remover. Because it only removes permanent hair dye. Which isn’t safe to use on children.

Is color remover safe to use on animals?
Oh my God no see my previous answer. I’d like to add some choice swear words but this site gets read by a general audience.

Can you use color remover more than once?
Yes. But don’t keep using it over and over again. Use it twice (unless the instructions on your box tell you not to) then wait at least a month before using it again. I don’t know why, it’s just what the manufacturer says.

This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.

Emma Peel The Avengers Cosplay Tutorial feat. Eyelash DISASTER!!

I’m mixing it up a bit this week so here’s today’s Youtube video, it’s a thrilling black-and-white (changes to colour) cosplay tutorial of Emma Peel from The Avengers (fyi it was a TV espionage series starring Patrick MacNee, Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg). There is also an eyelash disaster in this video.  For me, Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg, currently known for Oleanna Tyrell in Game Of Thrones) is the ultimate female character, she’s just perfect.  She’s warm, witty, intelligent, and can thoroughly hold her own in a gunfight, fistfight, or a swordfight but regularly thinks her way out of dangerous situations.  What more could you possibly want?  Oh yeah, and she was played by the drop-dead-gorgeous Diana Rigg who was later a Bond Girl (as was Honor Blackman).  I have wanted to dress up as Emma Peel ever since I first saw her on TV when I was 7 or 8.  Here’s what she looks like (in case you have no idea), with the caveat that her hair varies in length and colour from black to reddish brown and from a bob to below her shoulders, and she is a spy so she wears a huge variety of costumes.  No single photograph can do her justice:

Emma Peel The Avengers Patrick Macnee
Emma Peel. Obviously I don’t own this picture.
Emma Peel The Avengers Diana Rigg
Emma Peel in the costume that got her banned from American TV. I didn’t have the right corset/bodysuit to do this costume/makeup look but perhaps in the future. Obviously I don’t own this picture.

 

Emma Peel The Avengers Cosplay invoke delight Diana Rigg Jasmine Honey Adams
Emma Peel The Avengers Cosplay.  I didn’t have a gun because you’re not allowed them in the UK.

And I will continue my Interrail adventures tomorrow.

Wednesday Addams: Full Cosplay Tutorial

So I had a long black wig and Morticia was too easy for the first use of the black wig (plus I need something resembling an evening dress before I can do Morticia), so I decided to do a hair, make-up and costume tutorial for a Wednesday Addams cosplay which I uploaded to Youtube.

Here’s the pictures:

wednesday4
Wednesday Addams cosplay.
Wednesday Addams cosplay tutorial
Wednesday Addams cosplay.
Wednesday Addams cosplay tutorial.
Wednesday Addams cosplay.

And here’s the link to the Youtube video with the full Wednesday Addams tutorial. Enjoy.

Click here to find out how to get picture perfect skin for cosplaying.

The Beauty Blogger Tag

So I’ve been nominated by Brandie at The Striped Coyote to do the Beauty Blogger Tag!
Thanks to Brandie for nominating me for this tag!  I’m going to try to answer the questions as best as possible!

face of the day again
Face of the day brought to you by blinding daylight in my bathroom!

The Rules for this Tag:

Tag the blogger that nominated you
Answer the questions you were given
Nominate 10 bloggers whose blog is about beauty/lifestyle/fashion
Name 10 questions for your nominees to answer
Inform the bloggers you chose that you nominated them.

Have you ever done yoga and did you like it?
My primary school used to do yoga so I did it with the rest of the kids (it was a very small school with a total of 32 pupils in the entire school) whose parents couldn’t pick them up straight after school. It was okay. I think people like most things at that age. I incorporate some yoga moves into my warmup/cooldowns for my workouts nowadays, but I don’t even think about where they came from any more! I’ve never taken a proper grown up yoga class though!

What products do you splurge on?
Nothing really. I’m flat broke at the moment so I can’t really afford anything fancy. When I do have money, I tend to buy high end primers and concealers because they’re the most important thing to get right. Oh, and good hair products of course!

What products do you save on?
Eyeshadow! I bought a pallette called the Jazooli pallette for £14.99 about 2 years ago, and it’s got literally every colour of the rainbow, so I use it in pretty much all of my Youtube tutorials, especially the most outrageous ones!  I’d like some fabulous high end eyeshadows but this will do for now.  Apart from my Laura Mercier neutrals, that’s all the eyeshadow I own!!

What is your best tip for maintaining healthy skin?
Drink lots of water. I know it’s a cliche but it totally works.

What do you use to remove your makeup?
I use cotton wool and rosewater, but I get the stuff that’s in the cooking aisle at the supermarket, not the stuff that’s in the drugstore, because I want the one that’s just 100% water and roses!

How do you maintain your eyebrows (example, threading/waxing)?
I did a video on Youtube on this last week. I shape them myself then draw the brow in to fill it out.

What is your favorite mascara?
L’Oreal Million Lashes. I’ve got the MAC Extreme Dimension as well, and it was my favourite when I first got it, but over time I’ve found Million Lashes still looks perfect at the end of the night, whereas Extreme Dimension always needs topping up. Also after about 6 months Extreme Dimension started burning and flaking, but Million Lashes still doesn’t do that and I’ve had it for over a year.

Where do you buy most of your makeup?
All over the place! Basically I just buy it wherever I see it – I got to like four different department stores because they all have different counters, I go to three different drugstores and two independent beauty shops as well as Amazon and other online retailers.  Sometimes I buy at the supermarket as well.  It totally depends who’s got the item I want.

What is your favorite shade of lipstick?
Nudes. If it’s got “bare” or “nude” in the name, chances are good that I love it. I also really like brown shades because they suit my complexion WAY better than pinks (I’m neutral toned, bordering slightly on warm toned).

What is your favorite perfume?
That’s such a hard question to answer! I honestly don’t know which one I love the most. I love so many different ones for different reasons. I guess Glow by JLo will always have a special place in my heart, it’s so fresh. I also love Chanel No. 5 (because it’s the polar opposite to Glow), and Avon’s Perceive has been a longtime favourite. I like something understated for daytime and something that matches my outfit for evenings! I think wearing one perfume all the time is like wearing the same pair of shoes – it’s just not going to go with every outfit or situation!

Nominations:
Rianne Mitchell
Just Nadiene
Smile Sweetie HQ
Beautiful Butterflies Bethany
Chenhe Yang
Fashion Mimo

Questions:
Do you prefer matte or dewy foundation?
What’s your favourite high end product?
What’s your favourite drugstore bargain?
Do you spend more time doing your hair or your makeup?
Do you co-ordinate your shoes/purses?
If you could only use one brand of makeup for the next month, which would you choose?
What’s your skincare routine?
Would you ever/have you done the no-poo shampoo method? If you’ve already done it, what were your results?
What’s the most unexpected thing you’ve found about blogging?
Name your go-to lip balm?

I can’t wait to see your answers everyone!

Three Classic Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Hairstyles

Today’s video is a hair tutorial showing how to do three classic Lara Croft hairstyles from the video game and film franchise Tomb Raider.
In this video, I show you how I did the original video game bobble braid, how I did the pigtail bobble braids from the first level of Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (and those Irish levels from Tomb Raider: Chronicles) and how I did the Angelina Jolie French Braid (with my short hair…) from the first film.  Which one’s your favourite?  I love the French braid in the middle best, and I think the pigtails didn’t suit my angular features at all!

Lara Croft Tomb Raider cosplay fancy dress tutorial hair
The title card from today’s Lara Croft hair tutorial video.

Also after a lot of thought about my longer-term Youtube plan I have decided to drop back to one video a week rather than two, now that my backlog of finished videos have all made it onto Youtube. I had a period of time at the start of the year when I was very active at making videos and I wanted them to all get onto Youtube sooner, so I’ve been updating twice a week since the New Year, but now I’m back to my usual update schedule of one video a week.
I had so much fun doing this video and when I recorded the shower scene at the end I just couldn’t stop giggling, I had to re-take it about 12 times with the shower door open and my tripod half in the bath and my bathroom floor got soaked!! It was one of those “THIS is why I make Youtube videos” moments.

You can watch the latest video here

I’ve also changed my update day to Thursday because I think it’s going to work better with the rest of my schedule.
I’ve also stopped embedding my videos onto WordPress because I want to keep track of how many views they’re getting and I can’t tell if anyone’s clicking the play button or not on here; if no-one’s actually watching my videos when I link them on WordPress, there’s probably a better thing I could use a full day’s post for. It’s still one click to get it to play, and it’s still going to take pretty much the same time to load, it’s just now it takes you to Youtube when you click the link so you can do Youtubey things.

When I see other people link their videos in WordPress I always prefer to go to Youtube to watch the video so I can like the video over there and comment on it. Let me know if you preferred it when the videos were embedded in WordPress or whether you like the new system better!

I know I haven’t written a beauty post in a little while but don’t worry, I’ve got some doozys* coming up in the near future that I’m so excited to share with you!!

* What’s the plural here?  Is it doozies or doozys?  They both look wrong.