Hair Care Guide

Getting your hair to look sleek, straight, and healthy can feel like solving a difficult math equation. Using hot styling tools to straighten hair strips your hair of moisture, causing breakage. Over time, blow-dryers, ceramic straighteners, and hot curling irons can cause damage that makes even the most carefully styled hair look dry and coarse.

Tips for getting straight Brazilian hair without using heat

There are tricks you can try to get straight Brazilian hair without frying or burning your hair with heat. Most of these tricks will work better for people with finer hair that carries a bit of a wave.

For other Brazilian hair textures, it’ll be more challenging to achieve the look of straight hair without sacrificing your hair’s health. But, if you’re willing to embrace Brazilian hair with a slight curl or a little bounce, you might have more options. Consider incorporating some of the tips below into your own straight-hair solution. Keep trying different combinations of the tricks we’ve listed until you achieve a look you love.

1. Blow dry with cold air

If you’ve already mastered straight and sleek Brazilian hair via the classic “blowout,” you might consider switching up your method slightly with blasts of cool air, instead. After you’ve let your hair air-dry about three-quarters of the way, divide your hair into sections as you normally would. Use the “cool” setting on your blow-dryer, making sure that your blow-dryer is moving continuously from root to tip. Keep the blow-dryer about six inches away from your hair while you dry it.

This method shouldn’t take considerably longer, but you may need to keep a straightening serum or spray-on leave-in-conditioner at the ready to tame fly-away strands. While using a hot blow dryer has been shown to damage the hair shaft, using cool air has been proven to cause less damage than air drying alone.

2. Wrap your Brazilian hair - Brazilian Hair for Sale

Hair wrapping is one of the more popular ways to get straight hair without heat styling, but not everyone knows how to do it effectively. Luckily there are tons of hair wrapping tutorials on YouTube geared toward almost every hair type.

While there are different methods for different hair textures and lengths, the basics are pretty much the same. You’ll need “long” bobby pins (three inches in length, also called roller pins), as well as a satin “hair wrapping” scarf or turban.

To wrap hair, separate the top section where you part your hair and use a fine-toothed comb to comb it out flat. Holding hair taut, bring the hair around to the opposite side of your head from where it naturally falls and pin it tightly to the side of your head. You’ll need to repeat this method for each section of your hair, and secure with a hair turban before you go to sleep at night.

3. Roll with plastic rollers

If you buy plastic rollers in a “jumbo” (1 3/4 diameter or bigger) size, you can achieve hair that’s slightly wavy with tons of volume and a glossy finish, no heat required. Simply divide your damp hair into medium sections and roll the products into your hair before you go to bed, or about four hours before you intend to take them out. These types of rollers may take some practice, but some people with medium-to-longer length hair swear by them.

4. Use products meant to straighten Brazilian hair

There are shampoos, conditioners, leave-in conditioning products, hairsprays, and just about everything else you can think of that are aimed at calming and relaxing your hair. Experimenting with products that are meant for straight hair, or meant to make your hair easier to style, could be a good place to start.

Smoothing serums and keratin-packed spray-on conditioners can coat your hair strands, weighing them down and relaxing your curls.

5. Sleep with your hair wet - Brazilian Hair for Sale

If it’s difficult to imagine sleeping with a hair wrap or big rollers on your head, start small and simple: Try sleeping with your hair wet. Use a hairband to tie a loose ponytail at the top of your head, then create a bun shape by wrapping your hair around that ponytail and securing it with another hair tie.

If you’re sleeping with wet hair, you may want to consider getting a satin pillowcase. This will cut down on friction against your hair that can happen while you sleep, giving your hair a straighter appearance once you let it loose in the morning.

6. Try a Brazilian hair mask

You can deep-condition your hair with a DIY hair mask to give it a shinier and straighter appearance. Hair masks that are meant to restore protein to hair could make curly hair appear more relaxed. Try a hair mask that uses raw egg, manuka honey, or avocado for a deep-conditioning effect. You can also use warmed coconut oil or almond oil as hot-oil treatments to infuse and strengthen curly hair.

7. Apply essential oils - Brazilian Hair for Sale

Anecdotally, there are some essential oils that make hair appear tamer. Some essential oils are more readily absorbed into your hair than chemical products. Coconut oil, argan oil, almond oil, and macadamia oil can all penetrate your hair follicles, sealing and repairing the cells inside.

Once you’ve used rollers, wrapping, a cold blow-dry or another technique to style your hair, apply your essential oil of choice. Warming the oil by rubbing it between your palms may make it easier to spread the oil through your hair evenly. Focus on the ends of your hair, and be careful not to apply more than a dime-sized amount. Not only does this add a sweet scent and a beautiful gloss to your hair, it will also weigh your hair down slightly, helping it to hold its style.

Troy-Bilt Storm 2625 Review

Waking up to a foot of snow is a normal winter sight for many. But Jack Frost doesn't always get a warm welcome. The best two stage snow blowers like the TROY-BILT SNOWBLOWER get you out of the snow faster. This snow blower has a clearing width over two feet wide, enough to clear a driveway in a couple passes.




This Troy-Bilt model can handle deep snowdrifts and slippery surfaces. The intake is 21 inches high, enough to shovel almost two feet of snow into the auger and impeller. The 15-inch tires give you a boost over the snow and keep the snow blower grounded when covering slippery turns.




The 4-cycle engine in this snow blower is huge with an engine displacement of 243 cubic centimeters. All the gas power coursing through the engine has to start somewhere. While this Troy-Bilt snow blower has a gas powered engine, it uses an electric push start to get going. This reduces the number of starting attempts, so you can get going faster. For all its power, this snow blower is highly fuel-efficient. The gas tank only needs up to half a gallon of gas to get moving.




This two-stage snow blower has a self-propelled drive, which keeps you from working too hard. You can control the pitch of the chute with the one-handed lever, so you won't have to stop the snow blower to adjust the chute. The plastic chute rotates 200 degrees around, so you can control where the launched snow piles. Additionally, there are six forward speeds and two reverse speeds on this snow blower to help you make it through different types of terrain or inclines.




Some of the extra features on this snow blower are useful for low light or rocky conditions. The headlight boosts your visibility so others can see you and you can see where you're moving the snow blower. This is a useful feature because the best time to clear a sidewalk or driveway is in the morning during the low light hours.




The Troy Bilt also has adjustable skid shoes. These pieces attach to the bottom of the snow blower's intake. You can raise them or lower them to avoid scraping gravel, rocks or debris on uneven terrain.

The Troy Bilt 2625 is a tough snow blower that channels a lot of power. The 4-cycle 243 cubic centimeter engine is big enough to power the self-propelled system, so you don't have to work as hard. The clearing width is wide enough to clear a two-car driveway easily and the headlight adds to your visibility.

Best Solar Panels for 2017

That 30 percent tax credit on solar panels, (such as: GOAL ZERO NOMAD 100) that was supposed to expire in 2016? It’s been extended, all the way to 2019. I feel like we just got an extension on a term paper — but if we don’t start writing now, the deadline is going to be here again before we know it.

To get the full Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), we’ve got to get our panels purchased and put up in the next three years. After that, the credit fades out: to 26 percent in 2020, and then to 22 percent in 2021. By 2023, the residential tax credit will be $0. And after that, who knows? We may all be living in egg-shaped, self-reliant, solar-powered tiny homes. The time really is now.

The price of solar panels — even for top-rated panels from SolarWorld and Canadian Solar — is down. It’s fallen by more than 75 percent since 2009, according to prominent environmentalist Bill McKibben. This drop reflects increased efficiency, both in the manufacturing process and in the panels themselves. Still, the initial cost of buying and installing a full system, including panels and supporting parts, can run between $10,000 and $40,000.

But, you don’t need to have a spare $10K to plunk down. Options like leasing and power purchase agreements (PPAs) from well-known solar names like Solar City and Vivint allow you to generate solar energy without up-front costs. Depending on where you live, there might even be a way for you to buy power from a solar farm.

There’s more than one route to the best solar panels.

If you own your home, and you can afford it, buying your panels outright is the best option. It’s the only way to take advantage of the ITC and other incentives, and it’s the only way to earn renewable energy credits (RECs) — actual income from selling your excess power back to your local utility.

Although solar panels are expensive up front, they pay off in the long run. According to EnergySage, a solar energy marketplace, the average solar payback time (or time required to recoup costs) is eight years. Panels, by contrast, last upward of 25 years, leaving you with a potential 17-plus years that’s pure savings.

A recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows solar energy systems add value to homes — in its comparison of California residences, every kilowatt of brand-new solar panel system added $5,911 to the selling price. (Granted that value decreased by $2,411 for every year the system had aged.)

Many solar installers will also give you the option to lease panels, and an increasing number are beginning to introduce PPAs as an option. But buying is the simplest option — it just requires cash up front, or you can take out a loan.

When you lease solar energy, the company you lease from will install panels on your roof at no charge. It’ll take care of maintenance, and you’ll pay a set monthly fee (think of it like a subscription) for the length of your lease, which will likely be about 15–20 years. The company, not you, will get to claim the ITC and other benefits. Just like with a car lease, at the end of your term, you’ll have the option to buy your panels, but solar developer Tom Kacandes cautions against buying. “Unfortunately, the leased systems I see sometimes have used second-tier panels and old technology string inverters to make more profit for the leasing company,” he says, “which bothers me as an advocate for solar power.”

The PPA option is very similar to leasing; instead of paying a subscription, you’ll pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of solar energy that you use. (If you need more than your panels produce, you can buy more energy from the grid — aka the power company you used pre-panel.) The biggest name in PPAs right now is SolarCity, chaired by Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, with Vivint not far behind.

Leasing, and its sibling the PPA, sound like lower commitments than buying. In a couple of ways, that’s true: You have no up-front cost (or at least a comparatively low one, if you’re asked to make a down payment), and maintenance is included, which can feel like a big weight off your shoulders. But solar leases have much longer terms than the ones we’re most familiar with: car leases.

I chose a three-year lease for my first car for a few reasons: I didn’t want to worry about maintenance; I wanted the lower monthly payments on a fuel-efficient car I wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford; and I wanted the option to walk away after three years in case I moved to a new city. In the end, I bought out the lease and paid more than I would have if I had just financed the car from the beginning (or bought a used car). I wouldn’t make the same decision now, but as a 22-year-old, I was paying for the privilege of a low commitment.

With a solar lease, you’re usually signing up for 20 years, which would have been long enough for you to purchase your own panels through a loan — and the subscription you’d have paid during that time could actually be more than the loan payments you would’ve made. If you lease and sell your house before the terms end, you have to either pay off your remaining time (eek!), or convince the buyer to take on the lease (eek again!).

“The lease system mostly benefits the banks, whereas owning the system outright yields a much greater return over the life of the system,” says Paul Maylone, a project manager for Standard Solar, a commercial installer based in Maryland. “However, I would encourage anyone thinking about a residential or commercial installation to carefully do the math and come to their own conclusions.”

So let’s do the math.

After contacting more than 10 solar installers in my area and receiving six quotes, I wound up with two top choices to compare, both from LA Solar Group: purchasing SolarWorld panels or leasing SunPower panels through my local utility. (Unfortunately, neither of the major PPA providers, SolarCity or Vivint, services my Southern California neighborhood.)

Because I currently rent an apartment, I used a sample 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom house with the average monthly utility cost in my area ($152 for 9,125 kWh) to get my quotes. I asked to put $0 down so that I could show the highest monthly and total costs possible.

Lease: I’d save as much as $5,810 in 20 years.

With the lease, LA Solar Group estimates that I would be able to generate all the power I need with my SunPower panels. If this is true, my energy bill would fall to $0 and, with a lease payment of $136, I would save all of $16 per month. Over 20 years, if my utility bill stayed exactly the same, I’m projected to save $3,840.

But the US Energy Information Administration projects that the price of residential electricity is going to go up 11 percent by 2036. If that’s the case, and it increases at a consistent rate, I would save $5,810. (The plan LA Solar offered me includes maintenance, so my upkeep costs should be minimal.)

Buy outright: I’d save as much as $22,287 in 20 years.

If I were to buy SolarWorld panels, I would have a starting cost of $20,648. After the ITC and a utility rebate, that number would drop to $13,380. LA Solar Group thinks that with SolarWorld panels, I would still have to pay around $11 per month to my utility because my panels may not produce all the energy I need. So that’s a savings of $141 per month. Over 20 years, if my utility bill stayed the same, I’d save $20,460. If electricity costs rise by 11 percent, I’d save $22,287.

This plan includes 25-year warranties for the panels, inverter, and workmanship, so my upkeep costs should be minimal here too. Plus, there’s always the property value I’d be adding.

Get a loan: I’d save as much as $18,561 in 20 years.

My quote also came with two loan options: an 8-year term or a 20-year term, both with $0 down. With the 8-year loan, I would pay $17,088 total (about $178 per month). With the 20-year one, I would pay $26,160 total (about $109 per month).

Over the course of 20 years, if power costs stay the same, I’d save $16,734 with the 8-year loan and $7,661 with the 20-year loan. If power costs increased 11 percent, I’d be saving $18,561 with the 8-year loan and $9,488 with the 20-year loan — all not including the theoretical uptick in my property value.

My verdict: I’d choose to buy and do it outright if I could swing it. But these are just my numbers, based on my neighborhood, climate, and available rebates and installers. You should absolutely get some quotes and do a cost-benefit analysis of your own.

If you aren’t in a position to buy right now, keep an eye out for community solar.

Community solar (or a shared renewable energy arrangement) lets you use solar energy without having to install panels on your property. Instead, you’d use energy from panels on a solar farm. The energy generated by the farm goes into the grid and is disbursed to members through a credit system. There are 89 community solar projects operating so far, but the only state where it’s widely available is Colorado. This option isn’t just the lowest-commitment model out there — it’s also available for apartment dwellers like me who are interested in switching to green energy.

Don’t leave any credits or rebates on the table.

5 Important Tips to Pick Web Hosting Provider for Your Business

If you are launching your first business website, you will need to choose a suitable web host first. The host is where your website is essentially stored online so that people can access it. Selection of web hosting provider is an important decision that should not be taken lightly. Picking a wrong provider that has slow response time or, even worse, cannot keep the website up and running can have a significant negative impact on your business. Use the tips below to find the best web hosting provider that fits your business needs.

Type of Hosting Provided

There are various types of web hosting services provided. One of the most common, and usually the cheapest, is shared hosting. However, this also tends to be the least secure because you are sharing your server with other websites. It is also usually the slowest option.

A better option would be using a dedicated server, where you don’t share the server with any other website. Or you might want to use cloud hosting, which has many benefits for business websites.

Is Your Business Prepared for DDoS Attack?

Distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) used to be something only talked about in cybersecurity and hacker circles, but in the past few months DDoS has found its way into the popular lexicon following high-profile attacks last year. After all, it’s hard to ignore DDoS when you can’t access your Spotify playlist or Twitter feed.



For a little background, DDoS attacks take advantage of malware-infected computers (often corrupted through spam emails, clickbait and phony web downloads) and recruit these devices as part of a botnet. This network of ‘slave’ or ‘zombie’ devices obey the command of a remote hacker to flood a website or service with fraudulent traffic requests until the service crashes.

Attacks of this kind are a favorite of cybercriminals and hacktivists because they do not require infiltration into a company’s network. Instead they are launched externally and are extremely visible to anyone visiting the site (making it perfect for cyber protests).

What’s surprising is that according to a recent survey, nearly one-fifth of companies have no DDoS protection whatsoever; and almost 40 percent are unclear on how to protect themselves from DDoS attacks!

Review of Accounting Software for Small Business Needs

Accounting is an integral aspect of every business. However, keeping track of all your billing, payroll, invoicing, and stock is not an easy task, especially if you’re not good at dealing with numbers. Moreover, having all that paperwork to keep track of makes it very easy to lose important information.

For these reasons, prudent business owners are investing in accounting software to handle things more efficiently. Here, we examine some of the best accounting software’s that you can rely upon to efficiently handle the financial aspects of your business.



QuickBooks




This is one of the most recognized names throughout the world of accounting. QuickBooks offer both desktop and online versions. You can choose one over the other depending on the needs of your business and the experience of your staff. Regardless of the version you choose, this accounting software is fairly affordable.