Over the past month, I have set and worked toward my goal of trying to dress with a little more moxie. More put-together. Like…you know…a grown up.

In case you didn’t know, trendiness and fashion are not my strong suits.

Still, even though the process is slow-going, I must admit I am having fun putting together new outfits that the old me would’ve never considered one month ago. Some of them get kind of funky, but really, in the end, who cares if I screw up sometimes? Does it really matter if I look like a wanna-be/has-been on occasion? Sometimes my outfit choices are successful; sometimes they are epic failures. Either way, though, it’s just fun to be excited to get dressed in the morning (as opposed to my former routine of staring bleary-eyed into my closet, totally uninspired and dreading walking around another day as the world’s biggest frumpgirl).

The one thing my outfits were lacking, however, were any sort of finishing accessories—the froof. I would get my outfit put together, but then go to do my hair and just throw it in a boring ponytail. It was very anticlimactic. Having noticed lots of hair-accessory cuteness on the internet lately, I inspired myself to start getting serious about purchasing a few staple items that would be both pretty yet versatile (because I don’t believe in spending fifty bucks on a million headbands for every day of the week—I just wanted one or two that I could wear to dress up my casual hairstyles and add a finishing touch to my hard-won outfits).

I scoured Etsy for the cutest stuff I could find, and I did find a lot, but I wasn’t ready to take the plunge. If I was going to spend more than one dollar on a hair accessory (up till now I’ve only ever bought hair froof from the dollar store—true story), I wanted to make sure I was purchasing the right one.

Hi, I’m Camille, and I consider hair accessories a major purchase—major enough to wimp out of buying every other day. How fun am I to buy a car with? Poor Kyle hates me.

Which is why it was so lucky for me to find a giveaway at Simply Memzelle’s blog last month. I entered it, and shortly thereafter, the gals at Simply Memzelle contacted me, asking if I would like to give their product a shout out on my blog.

Well, contrary to popular [very popular] belief, I’m no dummy.  So I agreed…on the condition that I could test out the product beforehand and get to keep part of the stash.

We had a deal.

Simply Memzelle express-mailed me three of the headbands I liked best from their store, and I got to try them all out.

Here are my findings:

1. Coco Felt Button Headband:

This is the headband I originally liked the best and wanted to win through the giveaway. Although all of the products on Simply Memzelle’s website are darling, this one was so totally unique, so unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, I knew it was the one for me. Plus, I have recently acquired a lot of grey pieces in my wardrobe, so it seems the most versatile and functional for me.

The Coco’s foundation is a wide black satin-covered band, with buttons adhered to a grey felt base. From a distance, it is curiously reminiscent of a vintage side-clip hat:

Don’t you think?

Here I am wearing it, and (apparently) pondering the mysteries of the universe:

I’ll be completely honest with you: I have developed a very serious relationship with this headband.

On the first day, I chose to pair this headband with a grey thrift store sweater dress and jeans. I was pleased with the overall effect.  Since then, I have worn my pal Coco out in public a total of three times, and on each occasion, I have gotten more compliments on it than I could keep track of. It’s truly a statement piece, and the statement that it makes is I AM AWESOME FOR OWNING THIS IMMACULATE WORK OF ART. (Guess which one I’ll be keeping?)

2. Mattie Yellow Felt Headband:

This headband, created from a hand-crafted felt flower and a fat (but also phat) black button, was another huge compliment-earner for me. I appreciated its simplicity and straightforwardness: it could easily work with ten different outfits hanging in my closet right now.

Case in point: One of the oldest fashion faux pas in the book is to avoid wearing black and brown together, right? Well, this headband let me break that rule, and I wasn’t even self-conscious about it. I was just happy that I looked so put-together in my brown shirt and magical black headband. Observe:

I like this headband almost as much as my BFF Coco; in fact, the only reason I’m not keeping it is because it’s against the rules I initially agreed to, and I am a woman of high moral character, beeyotches.

3. Nora Yo-yo Headband:

Okay, I will be honest. Because this is my blog, and because my mantra is to tell the whole truth to my readers (see above statement regarding my impeccable moral character), I have to confess that when I saw this headband in person, I was not as smitten as I was with the other two.

I liked the look of it online (which is why I requested it as one of my three to review), but when it came right down to it, the Nora headband looked funny on my head. Or maybe it didn’t look funny so much as it just made me feel funny inside (that’s a lot of power for a hair accessory, by the way).

It was overwhelming to me.

In the headband’s defense, I am ultra-paranoid about flashy bling, and even though I am trying to be trendier and cuter, I have not fully arrived. Baby steps… For my own personal preferences, having seen and worn the headband as it is, I would feel much more confident with it if there was only one yo-yo flower on it instead of three.

Again, it’s not the headband’s fault that I am insecure and haven’t made peace with bling. A lot of you out there most certainly have made peace with bling (I have seen the headbands you trendy mothers are strapping to your baby girls’ noggins these days…the ones with flowers and feathers and jewels and after-school snacks and spare diapers that end up being three times the size of the kid’s head in the first place), and to those of you who have?

This headband is absolutely for you.

I mean, look at it: it’s cute. It’s just too much headband for my not-enough-head.

Because this headband did not agree with my head, I really struggled to find an outfit appropriate to wear with it. Finally I copped out and put on my favourite lightweight jacket with a braided scarf and called it good.

(But not that good.)

I’m sorry, little yo-yo headband, that I couldn’t do you justice. I know you’re right for someone out there…it’s just not me.

Like I said…cop-out.

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Okay, so here’s the deets (ha—I just said “deets;” as if I could pull that off):

I have two headbands to give away to two different lucky duck readers. The headbands you have a chance to win are the Mattie and the Nora (I’m keeping Coco for myself because I can, but if you want to cut the giveaway crap and just buy one for yourself, more power to ya; just click this link {and trust me, it will be worth EVERY penny}). You can even type in the code “archiveslives” at checkout for a 10% discount. Sweet.

In order to enter this giveaway, you need only do one simple thing: Fill out the survey form at the end of this post. THAT’S EASIER THAN COMMENTING!

Now, if you’re super passionate and hard-core about this contest and you want to up your chances, you can do a few things before filling out the survey form at the end of this post. Each of these steps will earn you one extra entry in the giveaway (for a total of up to SIX possible entries in the giveaway including the one you get just for filling out the form).

Namely, you can:

1. Follow Simply Memzelle on Facebook here.

2. Tweet about the giveaway, linking to this post: http://www.archiveslives.com/?p=3930

3. Write a blog post linking to this post: http://www.archiveslives.com/?p=3930

4. Add Simply Memzelle’s blog address to your RSS feed, Google Reader, or subscription mode of choice.

5. Add my (Archives of Our Lives) blog address to your RSS feed, Google Reader, or subscription mode of choice.

This contest is open to entrants the world over (shipping courtesy of me), and it will close at 11:59 p.m. on March 31st.

Again, for anyone who hates the suspense of giveaways (I know I do) and just wants to buy a dadgum headband already, you can do so RIGHT THIS MINUTE at the Simply Memzelle Store, and enter “archiveslives” at checkout for a 10% discount.

Does this all make sense? Hope so, because it’s time to START THIS BABY UP.

Ready?

Go!

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