September 2010 -

Yogurt is a great value snack food, not just in terms of money, but in terms of being quick, easy, tasty and quite healthy. Consider these yogurt facts:

Yogurt is a good source of Calcium and Vitamin D. This can help build strong bones in children and prevent osteoporosis in adults.
Yogurt with active cultures provides digestive benefits. For example, Dannon Activia contains a probiotic culture called Bifidus Regularis®. This active culture helps maintain good digestive health and can be beneficial to those who have occasional irregularity.
According to WebMD, studies have indicated that consuming yogurt may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and may discourage vaginal yeast infections.
Yogurt is a good source of lean protein: A cup of Dannon Activia provides on average around 4-5 grams of protein. If you are dieting, that protein may help you feel fuller, preventing cravings and keeping you from eating too much. It also provides on average around 12-15 grams of carbohydrates, which makes it a pretty good exercise recovery food as well. I’ll discuss that further in a follow up post next week.
Yogurt tastes good! I’m liking my Dannon Activia Strawberry that I was given in order to prepare this post. Hint, toss in a handful of frozen raspberries to make it extra tasty!

One of the additional things that I like about yogurt is its portability. The cups fit well in a lunch pack, so I can take a cup to work with me to add to a meal or to eat as a snack. This helps assure that I get a good amount of healthy protein, calcium, and maintain digestive health all in one shot. Another trick is to combine yogurt with a high fiber food. This adds another digestive health benefit, and works well as either a balanced light breakfast or as a more hearty snack. For example, I like to mix a high fiber cereal into my yogurt to add some crunch and provide additional fiber. I also noticed on the Dannon website that they make a fiber version of their yogurt.

As far as healthy snacks go, yogurt is hard to beat! Dannon Activia is currently running a fourteen day challenge where you can try Activia for two weeks and, if you don’t love it, you can be reimbursed for the cost of the yogurt. For more info on that, or on Activia in general and its health benefits, click the logo below.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post and is based on products supplied to me by a representative of the company. For more, please see the disclosure page.

Disclosures: Beauty and Fashion Tech at times reviews products provided by a representative of the company. When we do so, we specifically state so. We also use affiliate links. For more, please see the disclosure page

About the Author: Carleen Pruess Coulter

I’m a sucker for unique packaging, especially if it looks like it will simplify my makeup application. So, I couldn’t resist grabbing a new CoverGirl Smoky Shadow Blast and a matching CoverGirl Liquiline Blast Eyeliner to try and reveiw.

CoverGirl Smoky Shadow Blast is a thick two ended shadow pencil and, looking at other reviews, people seem to either love it or hate it. One end has a highlighting shade and the other has a darker lid shade that is tapered so that it can also be applied as a liner. The pictures below show it from two angles. Use the point to line and the flat to apply as a shadow. The consistency of the shadow is that of a cream to powder, with it being much more on the cream side, especially when it first goes on. The pigment is rather good for a drugstore eye shadow and it wears rather well, although I did not get a full day out of it. The highlighter shade has a nice luminosity to it. Overall, it is good for a nice basic smoked eye look, or wear the highlighting shade with a thicker sweep of the liner for a simple pin-up girl glam type of look.

One important tip though: Like most cream eye shadows, this one will crease and not wear well if you don’t set it with something. So add a bit of translucent powder or a light matching powder eye shadow over it for better and longer wear. Using a primer with cream types of shadows is also highly recommended. I suspect that some of the negative reviews I have seen of this product have been in part because the product was applied without these steps,which is usually necessary for success with most cream type eye products. MAC paint pots are a huge exception to that rule though—I love those! (link is to previous review).

The Liquiline Blast is a very nice companion product. This soft eyeliner is comparable to my favorite Make Up For ever Aqua Eyes liners (link is to previous review), but is much more affordable. However, unlike aqua eyes, with their multitude of shades, Liquiline only has six choices. The liner also has a nice smudging tip. When I made my purchase, both products were displayed with how to cards that you could also grab. The card is useful, so take a look at one if you see it in the store.

Below are swatches of CoverGirl Liquiline Blast in Brown Blaze (on the left), and CoverGirl Shadow Blast in Bronze Fire, with the darker shade put on using both the tip and the flat. These were taken in indoor light.