Wanna hang out with these fine young men?

To win, all you have to do is share THIS facebook post on their page! Whomever shares to the most people by Saturday, June 1 wins the tickets! Simple enough, right? Right. Now, get moving!

Weird moms = Awesome families!

So if you’ve got a weird Mom, hit up the Attic and buy her something strange! Or get something for your dad, to thank him for choosing your weird mom. Or, just get something for yourself, because without you, there IS no Mother’s Day! Ha HA! See what we did there? Yeah, you do. Now hop to it! This offer ends soon!

Or is it? There’s something to be said about the look of a wall covered in albums. Running your fingers along nubby spines, pulling out a disk and recalling where and when you were when you picked up that gem, no? I’m a library gal. I love my kindle, but I LOVE my bookcases. It’s my brain on display when you enter my home and for many people, music collections are the same way. In the spirit of this awesomeness, and because we here at the Attic just met these guys and they have an AMAZING situation going with music and movies from goth to horror to metal, we’d like to introduce you to Cryptic Rock. You’ll find some info about them below, and in the coming months they’ll be doing some guest posts here in the blog, because, like us, and you, they like Strange Things. Imagine that!

Now, on with the Rock…

After becoming one of the top sellers on eBay in the US and UK, and a growing fanbase of 12,000 on Facebook, CrypticRock’s Founder, Frank Malerba is now launching www.crypticrock.com, a dedicated news and retail website specializing in rock, metal and horror films.

Founder Frank Malerba is launching the website this week as an online outlet where fans can find all the rock, metal and horror film news and merchandise they want in one place. Although there are many sites dedicated to metal music or just rock music or just horror movies, there isn’t one that combines all three elements until now. Enter www.CrypticRock.com which covers all forms of rock and metal music and horror films in one place.
Two years ago, Frank launched www.CrypticRockShop.com on eBay and a CrypticRock Facebook News page, https://www.facebook.com/wwwCrypticRockcom. The CrypticRock retail shop became a major success. The store sells a wide spectrum of rock band T-shirts, hard to find cd’s, vinyl records, horror movie t-shirts, hard to find horror film DVD’s , and 80′s pop culture related t-shirts, from  Iron Maiden to Dave Matthews Band. The store which has an inventory of nearly 1,000 items, has been a top rated seller store on eBay in the USA and on the UK eBay site. The CrypticRock Facebook page continues to grow with a fanbase of 12,000 as a source for all types of rock and metal news and horror films. It covers everything from Depeche Mode and The Who to extreme black metal from Europe. The page provides up-to-date news, new album releases, upcoming tour information, horror film releases, links to band’s new music video releases, and extensive photo coverage of live concerts. Now, all those elements will be combined into a new hub at www.CrypticRock.com.
Providing its growing customer base with the best one-on-one customer service possible, CrypticRock ensures that fans of both music and films are happy with their purchases at the one stop shop. CrypticRock will now reach out to the local rock venues on Long Island and run promotional contests for ticket giveaways to expand the club’s audience reach. CrypticRock will also be working with local and national bands to help spread the word about their music through interviews, album reviews and promotional giveaways. With www.CrypticRock.com being launched this week, the website will have all the same appeal seen daily on the CrypticRock Facebook, plus a dedicated section for live concert photography, interviews and reviews, along with numerous merchandise items as on the CrypticRock shop. It’s all pretty exciting for Frank and his company.
For additional information, please contact crypticrock.com@gmail.com

About CrypticRock’s Founder
Frank Malerba graduated Five Towns College in 2003 majoring in Music Business and Audio Engineering. Music has always been a major passion in his life along with a love for horror films. Over the past two decades, Frank has attended hundreds of rock and metal concerts worldwide resulting in numerous and wonderful experiences. also actively attends horror film conventions adsorbing all they have to offer.

Frank Malerba- Founder
CrypticRock
P.O. Box 951 Wading River, NY 11792
www.CrypticRock.com
(631) 513-0347

Lets work on these one at a time. What is hair toner?

Toner, clearly, affects your hair’s “tone.” Great. What does that mean? Tone is usually described in one of three categories, cool, warm and neutral. Generally speaking, Attic customers are looking for cool. (Otherwise, why would they be in the Attic? Heh, yeah…) Cool tones have a more blue base, and those snow white, and fog grey colors are about as cool as you can get, tonally speaking. When you’re in a salon, toner is usually used in conjunction with color to achieve a specific shade. There are warm blondes (strawberry,)  and cool blondes (ash,) warm browns and cool ones. Each compliments a different skin tone, and achieves a different look.

You want white? You need this.

Toners are are available in semi-permanent, demi-permanent, and permanent varieties. Here in the Attic, we carry Semi-permanet toner by Special Effects. People using our toner tend to be trying to achieve WHITE white hair. Some people also use toner to create pastel dye effects, or to stretch out a bottle of dye to make it cover more hair.

How does she get rid of the orange? Toner.

Hair toners main purpose is to remove the unwanted pigments left behind in the hair after bleaching or lightening and they work by canceling out the unwanted pigments using the opposite color of the pigment on the color wheel (see below.) For example, unwanted orange pigments (often referred to as “brassy”) in hair will be neutralized by a blue toner, yellow pigments are neutralized by a purple or violet toner, and so on. Hair toners provide a way to fine tune hair color and create the exact shade desired without further damaging the hair.

Why can’t green and red just learn to get along?

Special Effects toner (and Manic Panic toner) is a violet shade, so it is going to work the best on hair that’s been lightened to a yellow tone. If you can’t get your hair past orange with bleach, you’ll need to add a bit more blue to your toner. How much blue? VERY LITTLE. We’re talking, one drop at a time in the whole bottle of toner. It’s going to take some playing* but at some point, you’ll hit that expert level and get the elf hair of your dreams.

*A note: bleach is VERY damaging to hair. There’s nothing that will ever change that fact. Bleach works by softening and raising the cuticle of the hair,  once the cuticle is raised, the bleaching agents penetrate the shaft and disperses the color molecules. The more color molecules that are dispersed, the lighter the hair becomes. This is one of the more violent procedures you can put your hair through, and if you bleach too much, or too often, your hair will usually respond by simply breaking off.

Don’t let this happen to you, kids!

The good thing about Special Effects and Manic Panic toners is that they’re suspended in a conditioning base, which can help a *little* bit with post-bleach repair, but remember, nothing is ever going to bring your hair back to pre-bleaching health, so toner isn’t a fix all solution, but much like putting lemons in your bra, it can’t hurt, might help!

No, just kidding, that’s not cool. I’ve been there, people, it’s a huge bummer. I’ll tell you what you shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t go out to eat with someone who has a crush on you but for whom you have NO romantic feelings about because THAT is just gonna be awkward times, I can tell you that. Maybe you can stay home and check out the Attic’s little side project, Chameleon Sex Party! That’ll make you forget your woes for at least ten, maybe 15 minutes!

Ok, so, first up:

1) Attic Stuff!

All the love, none of the mush!

You knew we were going to list this, right? Come ON. This is our blog. It had to happen, but seriously? We have SO MANY COOL THINGS!!! We’ve got valentines that are cute and some that are creepy! We’ve got jewelry for you traditionalists and we’ve got clothing for style mavens. We’ve got squishy lovable stuffed animals for those of you who crave plush love, and we’ve got dye and makeup and bleach and everything else you need to give your partner a day of beauty they’ll never forget! And if THAT isn’t enough, we have gift certificates, because sometimes you think you’ve gotten the perfect gift, but you’re nervous and you want a little backup, so you give them that in their card and you’re double covered!

2) Hair Bugs!

He got me what I wanted, but he only bought ONE. I am crushed. CRUSHED.

I know, right? You didn’t even know about those and now you do and you’ll die without them. And rightly so! They are AWESOME. They’re  from a little company called Cetonia Designs, and are made by super genius Jenn Rose, and they’ll make you look approximately 100x more awesome than you were BEFORE you put a bug in your hair.

3) Weird Dolls!

Because right now, on the other side of the world, this is entirely possible.

You know what’s an awesome thing to get in a box? Art. When someone buys you a piece of art, they’re really going out on a limb. They’re saying “yeah, I know you THAT well.” It’s a bold move, to be sure, but one that, if done correctly, pays off big. Plus, you’re supporting an artist, making you a MUCH better person than someone who just went with the candy/roses route. So we say, check out Concocted Curios on Etsy. They’re awesome and they’re Attic fans. Yeah, that’s redundant, but what are you gonna do?

4) Something Ugly!

You’ve got a little something… oh, forget it.

Ha ha! Got you. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder, along with beauty. Really, his eye is full of crap. Nothing to be done.

Poor guy, always with things in his eye.

So, yeah, here’s another place you should check out for rad Valentine’s Day treats. Ugly Art Dolls by Shyla! Not only does she have some cool dolls, but she’s also got one of a kind jewelry and other assorted thingamabobs.

And finally, a classic:
5) Sexy Sheets!

Oh, we didn’t see you there!

Ladies, you seem to have forgotten something…

For this one, I’m listing two purveyors, Sin in Linen, and Vice Merchants. Now, here’s the thing, these are not cheap gifts. Sin in Linen is going to run about $100 for your sheets, and Vice Merchants laughs at your $100 and asks for $175, but LOOK at how gorgeous these sheets are!!! SIL also offers all kinds of gothic options, with skulls and bones and stripes that would make Tim Burton swoon, while Vice Merchants sticks with the naked ladies, and sometimes gentlemen. Either way, when your twoo wuv unwraps something from either of these sellers, they’re going to want to use that gift right away, with you, in the nude. (And by with you in the nude, I mean they’ll want to have sex with you.)

So there you have it! Amalthea’s Attic’s possibly annual Top 5 Awesome Valentine’s Day Gift Suggestions! Have an idea we seem to have overlooked? Leave it in the comments, we’d love to hear it!

Uggg. Look, here’s the thing, Aveda. I can only have ONE haircut at a time! And I’m loving pretty much every single one of these cuts. That’s an issue. Bigger issue? I have a VERY round face. I’m a human marshmallow. There’s nothing to be done about that. And this haircut is my absolute positive FAVORITE of the bunch:

Welcome to the world of perfect bone structure, how can I help you?

See the issue here? You just can’t have this cut with a circle head. It’s got all those gorgeous little arrows and points that aim DIRECTLY at your huge cheeks and say “look how HUGE these cheeks are!” Grrr. So, what’s a girl to do? I love the long red wavy cut too, but it’s just not ka-POW enough, you know? What I’m thinking is, perhaps the answer here is crowdsourcing? I’m positive that at least a few of the readers of this blog are either hair stylists or have circle heads themselves, so I’m calling on you! In the comments here, or on our facebook page, send in your solutions for a girl who wants pokey pointy hair (anything longer than ear length, I’m really trying to do the old grow out here)  but who ALSO has a marshmallow head! You are the only ones who can save me. Well, you, or endless internet searching. And, I DO have a day job to do, even while I’m in the hospital, soooo, yeah. Help my head! Please!

Hey art lovers, Justice Howard here checking in on Ms. Amalthea’s blog. We all know that you love Ms. Amalthea’s website here and of course she has all the cool shit, and of course I always order from her. But I just wanted to pop in and tell you about a few other things you might want to know about. I have a very cool calendar out this year, and we will also be having one next year along the same lines, and it is called Lady Ink. it has all of my beautiful tattooed models on it in full color. The calendar sells for $13 retail but you  roll over to my website www.justicehoward.com  you  could pick one up for $10.  You are welcome to take a look at the images on my website while you’re there.  I also have some other websites that I will list below in case you want to roll over and take a look at them also. The Justice Howard.com website is my main showcase for my art but I also have another couple of websites that are quite interesting. One of those is www.spattergasm.com  which has a lot of my favorite artists on it along with interviews and samples of their work. Spattergasm.com  is like my little  ” art baby”  and I throw a lot of the stuff I’ve done recently on there  as well as listing and showcasing a lot of my favorite artists. Well okay then kids that’s about it for now. Take care and keep rollin and remember to………. be fierce!

So there you have it, a great deal on some beautiful wall candy right from Justice Howard! Got a tattoo fan on your shopping list? This is the PERFECT stocking stuffer, so pick one up while they’re still available.

We invite you to join us on our Facebook fan page where you’ll meet new friends, have great conversation and even get some extra discount codes!

I’m clearly in excellent company.

As you were.