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Have a Hot Date, Need a Hot Dress? TechTarts Review: Rent The Runway

In my previous life before CTT (Chief Tech Tart), I was a boutique owner for nearly 10 years with collections like Alexander Wang, Isabel Marant, 3.1 Phillip Lim and (recently retired, and much missed) Mayle.  After acclimating to receiving designer digs at wholesale for almost a decade I find it VERY hard to pay full retail for the fashion that I love.

I admit I have spent a pretty penny for some ‘investment pieces’ like my YSL boots but with a size 10 foot (I am 5’9”) it is pretty challenging to find shoes that actually fit. Even so, they were a hard price to swallow. In an effort to subside my buyer’s remorse and finally pull my new boots out of ‘purchase purgatory’ I marked the box in lines of five EVERY time I wore them until I got close to 60 times then suddenly, with complete validation,  the guilt was gone.  I have had these boots for seven years now, resoled them a hundred times and still wear them today. In fact, they will go great this spring season with all the nude tones since they are a burnt eggplant color (you can just hear the justification building).  Needless to say as a professional buyer for years I am cursed with good taste but trained to stay within budget and score the ultimate buy.

With the eye of a stylist and a firm grip on my purse strings I have finally found a website that can satisfy the trendy and not too spendy, Rent the Runway.  Rent the Runway offers top designer dresses you can rent and return when you are done.  Considering San Francisco apartment closets are about the size of my boots box and I lean more towards Frugalista these days I like that I can get my fashion like my Netflix and just ship back the fab dress after the big date.  This also completely eliminates the situation of ‘why did I buy that? I look nothing like Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface’.

RTR has an excellent selection of designers including Diane von Furstenberg, Catherine Malandrino, Proenza Schouler and Hervé Léger. Not to mention quite a few of my personal favorites like Matthew Williamson (*love*), Vena Cava (*love*), and to pull off that glamorous 70’s Scarface sexiness Halston Heritage (*love, love*).

No more worrying about full retail prices, justifying purchases, or wardrobe crisis simply rent the designer dress that will knock them out, return it in the pre-paid packaging when your done and they take care of the dry-cleaning, saving us even more money! Now that is fabulous. Brilliant actually, why didn’t I think of this!?
I <3 RTR =D

xoxo

tt.c

twitter-@CristinaSF

PS-Need a fab bag to go with the hot dress?  In case you missed the plug in Sex and the City The Movie, check out similar designer rental site Bag, Borrow Or Steal .

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TechTarts Review: Skimble-The Ultimate Companion to Track Your Activities

As part of my New Year’s Resolutions I, like many others, have added that I would like to get back in shape but primarily I would like to get back into my skinny jeans.  After spending the last several months sitting on my arse in front of the computer for hours upon hours building TechTarts, I have unfortunately been left with only two pairs of jeans out of hundreds that fit.  This is not an exaggeration, well, not too far from the truth =)

Prior to TechTarts I owned clothing boutiques that carried a TON of denim so I literally have drawers, shelves and tubs under my bed of ‘spring jeans’, ‘winter jeans’ and ‘going out hot to trot jeans’. Considering my lifestyle has changed dramatically over the past year from bee boppin between my boutiques and running around styling people out, to sitting the majority of the day on my duff my hot jeans are not trotting anywhere!

Good thing I am active.  I love running, dancing, yoga and weight training so this goal is not so bad I just needed a good way to keep track of my activities which is how I discovered Skimble.  Skimble allows you to plan activities, track your progress and connect with friends all in one place through their website or with the Skimble iPhone app. What I like most about Skimble is that it includes many activities that I enjoy such as hiking and Pilates instead of just tracking my running like most other activity apps and websites.

Considering that the percentage of success is much higher for people to stick to their exercise goals when shared with others, Skimble allows you to connect with friends and share your stats so everyone can see how well you are doing and you can coordinate and track activities to do together.

Whether I am on a run in Central Park for New Year’s Day (which I did, see my Skimble) or heading for a hiking trip to Muir Woods with friends, I can organize my trip and stats with Skimble.  You can create a trip solo or with others and track the result of your time, distance and attendance through manually entering your stats on the site or with GPS through the Skimble app on the iPhone.

Skimble is a fun way to track outdoor sports like snowboarding and ultimate Frisbee but is also good for indoor sports like racquetball and typical gym activites including the elliptical machine, bicep curls, and aerobics classes.  You also get points for all your activities that show just how active you and your friends are and can help you win Skimble contests such as a $50 gift card from REI.

It is a little tricky using the iPhone since you can not use two apps at the same time such as the iPod app and the Skimble app so be sure to check your Skimble tracking if you change a song while using their app or just enter the activity on their website.  You can also post your activities to your Facebook account but it is not a direct post yet to Twitter so you have to send a direct message to @skimble or just tweet with the hashtag #skimble for now.  Still, the Skimble app is on the first page of my iPhone because I use it that much, hellloooo New Years Resolutions!

Skimble pretty much does it all from indoor to outdoor, from solo to teams, their mission to encourage active lifestyles is clear and they really are the ultimate companion for people on the web and mobile.  Now if only they could add dance and direct Twitter posts to their iPhone app and somehow track how much closer I am to getting into my skinny jeans I would be set! [Update: The new Skimble App version 1.1 allows you to track dance activities and post to Twitter, thanks Maria @marialy!]

xoxo

tt.c

twitter- @CristinaSF

Join me on Skimble also at CristinaSF

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Fractional CO2 Laser Treatments and Other New Beauty Technology

I remember when my mom said things like ‘don’t make that face! It’ll freeze like that’!  And, being the tarty tot I was, I rolled my eyes and kept on scowling or frowning, or otherwise expressing my general ennui with life.  Now that I am heading toward the sunset side of tot-dom, I am peering in the mirror, and noticing the creased history I have created in the corners of my eyes, the furrows of my brow AND the laugh lines from all the good times as well :) .

But never fear, because the tarts are here with fantastic, face-saving news.  Science has created a fountain of youth.  Only, it is not a fountain at all.  It’s a laser.  Now, before you conjure up images of Dr. Evil and sharks with frickin’ laser beams, take heart.  I am talking about an innovation in body tech, Fractional CO2 Laser Skin Resurfacing.  This is similar to other methods of lasering away the ages, except that it does so with a minimum amount of damage to the top layer of skin, so your recovery time is shorter, and less painful (insert more happy smile lines here :D ).

Generally speaking, anti-aging laser tech uses teeny beams of light to bore tons of pore-sized holes in your skin, putting your natural collagen production on hyper-mode.  Typically, the process is done over one or two sessions, with about a 4 day downtime in between, and at the end, you have baby soft skin with no damage from the sun.  Which means that you will want to follow up with serious dollops of sunscreen in heavy application, the real dealio amount now ladies.

Stylelist.com heralds examples like Madonna and Vanessa L. Williams as proof that fractional laser resurfacing defies and defeats the gravitational toll that years take on smile lines and their ilk.  The rumor mill also points to Demi Moore and even Heather Locklear as patients of the treatment.   Plucky blogger Carmindy gives us an inside look at the procedure, with a few photo ops of before, during, after, and healed.

It is less scary than it looks and sounds, but there are some risks associated. According to The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, common minor side effects for fractional laser resurfacing include redness and swelling that lasts about two days. Patients with darker complexions may be at risk for pigmentation loss with any laser surgery.  C02 Laser Resurfacing is fairly new, but results are estimated to last 8-10 years, which makes the $5 G (grand) price tag a little easier to stomach.

For those of you who flinch at the prospect of searing off your epidermis do not fret there are less cringe-worthy alternatives suggested by San Francisco Plastic Surgeon Dr. James Romano.  There is also microdermabrasion, a sand-blasty facial that deeply exfoliates the dead skin away, leaving a shiny new layer in it’s wake.  You can also try chemical peels; or non-resurfacing treatments like collagen or fat transfers to fill in deep wrinkles.   If you are more naturally minded, you can make up your own brown sugar and salt exfoliant, and follow that up with a rich lotion with a Shea butter base, and leave the lasers to the sharks.

xoxoxo
tt.c

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Happy New Year Tarts!

New Years ResolutionsWell it is officially a new decade and we all have our lists of things we would like to see happen this year and over the next ten years to come.  Some include the usual loose weight, save more moolah, travel, learn Ballroom Dance, etc.  So the tarts are here to help you find ways to get going on that new you using all the advancements we have today in technology.

For the month of January we will be focusing on a New Year, New You and all the apps, websites, gadgets, and video ‘tartorials’ to help you learn how to achieve the things you desire most this year.  So stay tuned and follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook or sign up for the email newsletter because we are covering all the best in tech to help you accomplish those goals!

Remember 10 years ago when the whole rage was are we going to be Y2K compatible? Boy, we have come a LONG way! There are so many ways now to back up your computer, find Mr. Wonderful, use Twitter to help you land your dream job and most importantly today are the innovations to create a healthier, greener planet!  The tarts are doing the legwork to bring you the answers to making your New Years Resolutions come to fruition and much, much, MORE!

We are really looking forward to building a solid and fun forum within the tart community where the ladies can get the 411 on all things tech and how to actually use them.  In addition, tart.tube will not only be bringing you how-to tartorials with play by plays on techie things but also interviews with industry experts and a whole series on the most common question we are hearing from our fellow tarts…what are the rules of Dating 2.0?  Oh yeah, we are covering everything from Missed Connections on Craigslist, to ALL the dating sites including Facebook, and the basics like can a guy REALLY , I mean REALLY pony up a first date via text? (PS the answer, as Bruno would say is ‘nicht nicht’!).

So stay tuned because 2010 is going to be a fun year discovering the best ways to navigate our technologically advanced world and how to benefit from it and not fear it =D

Wishing you a wonderful and prosperous New Year (Adios 2009, pheeeew) and we are thrilled to bring you the information you need in a way you can understand to help you reach your resolutions!

xoxo

tt.c

twitter @CristinaSF

PSS Thanks for hanging with us during our technical difficulties over the holidays, looks like Santa heard my wish and finally fixed the kinks ;)

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