Style Supplement: How to shave pants (or deal with stubborn lint)

Greetings from Toronto!  I just had my first interview in this area, and had some free time this evening.  The clothes I brought for this trip are based around a palette of mint, rose, black and grey.  I brought a pair of grey fleece leggings with me, but they looked terrible after being worn constantly under... everything while I was in India.  (Also my brother wore them for a while.  India was cold man.)  They were covered in lint and pills and were generally gross.  I tried a lint brush to no avail, so it was off to Google.  I learned of something called a 'sweater shaver', but thought that was too complicated.  Now, dear friends, what else shaves things?  That's right.  A razor.

HOW TO DEAL WITH STUBBORN LINT AND PILLS

1) First try washing your item and see if that helps.
2) If it doesn't, use a lint roller or some tape if you wanna be MacGyver-ish about it.
3) If you still can't get those fuzzy balls of frustration off, grab a disposable razor.  Now run the razor along the surface of the item in short strokes, as though you're 'shaving' it.  The pressure you should apply depends on the material of your item and what you're trying to remove.  With my fleece leggings, I found I had to press fairly hard to get the lint off, and it didn't ruin the material.  Try it out on a less visible area first.

Success!  I was very, very skeptical about this and couldn't believe it when it worked.  But it does!  Who needs a sweater shaver now?  (As a disclaimer, I've never used a sweater shaver and I have no idea exactly how well it works.)

Try it and let me know it it works for you!

Cheap Thrills - Where's the sale section?

This is the fourth post of a series on cheap fashion, Cheap Thrills- Where's the Sale Section?  The following posts will continue in showing you how I find good deals-- it's a long read so I split it up over a few posts.  I'll also later detail some of my most triumphant steals.

My favourite part of a store is the sale section.  Sometimes I feel bad for the sales staff, so I browse around half-heartedly in the new arrivals before drifting to my real destination-- the sale section.  It's usually in the back, it's usually messy, and often it's weird stuff no one wants anyways.  

(c) JMGRIFFIN via sxc.hu

I often read about the great deals people get when thrifting, but I feel like I'm never particularly enthused about thrifting myself, and I think this is because I can often get almost as good a deal on new items.  How, you ask?  By learning how to shop sales.  Most of this is trial and error, but here are a few things I've learned.