Tips

Easy Liquid Eyeliner Trick

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A cheat to applying eyeliner without the headache

Trouble with liquid eyeliner?  Curl and apply your mascara first, then apply your eyeliner for an easier application.  Yes, it goes against all beauty wisdom snobbery and breaks long held rules about order.  But it works!

When you curl and apply mascara first, it creates a ledge that you can follow with your liquid eyeliner.  This is great for beginners.  It’s also useful when you’re in a rush and don’t have time to fuss around with Q-tips and makeup remover.

After you apply your shadow as preferred, follow these easy steps: Continue reading

Everyday Beauty Product Heroes

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Saviors for life’s daily beauty horrors, minus the ghosts

In honor of Halloween, here are 5 everyday beauty nightmares and the products I use to combat them.  All under $10, I always go back to these because they work.  No holy water required!

 

Beauty Nightmare #1- Dry, itchy skin!

Weapon- Palmer’s Cocoa Butter ($5.29 for 13.5oz)

An oldie but a goodie, I’ve been using Palmer’s Cocoa Butter since I was in grade school.  This was in my bathroom growing up, so when I got old enough to start buying my own body lotion I stuck to this one.  Even as a child, I loved the cocoa smell.  It’s always such a treat to put it on and  the scent lingers on the skin throughout the day.  What I love most though is that is absorbs quickly without feeling greasy.  It also never stings chapped hands during the winter.  No other brand compares, and I’ve tried a lot of cocoa butter formulas over the years to see if I could find a rival.  When I stray for too long, I find my skin looks a bit dull so I make sure to keep stocked up throughout the year.  Glowing, cocoa smelling skin for $5, what more could you ask for?

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Organizing Your Makeup & Skincare Products- Part Deux

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Part 2:  Saying no to another nude lipstick and preventing product overload

It’s been 11 weeks since my product detox.  That sounds too dire for the subject matter at hand, but it has sometimes felt like a road to recovery.  A sparkly, floral scented road to the other side…void of cosmetic black holes and glorified beauty hauls.

After the high of organizing all my products had vanished, I needed a plan to stay the course.  So here are the steps I took to curb my beauty junkie habits.  Think of it as the cheat sheet given out after a juice cleanse (but less painful).

Steps 1 through 4 are in Part 1: How I took control of the chaos and went one step beyond with a product detox along with a full list of tips for identifying expired products.

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Is it time to rethink your sunscreen routine?

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Here are 5 steps you shouldn’t skip to be truly protected

We all know sunscreen is important to prevent skin cancer and premature aging.  We also know it can be a hassle to apply and reapply during our daily routines.  But it doesn’t have to be.  There are easy steps you can take to protect your skin and keep it looking its best for years to come.

The reality is that while it’s easy to add a facial moisturizer with sunscreen to your morning routine, this usually isn’t enough for all day protection.  You also don’t want to skip over some other very important body parts that need attention too.  Start with basic face and body sunscreen practices, but remember these 5 steps to really make a difference.  You’re skin is worth it!

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Organizing Your Makeup & Skincare Products

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Part 1: How I took control of the chaos and went one step beyond with a product detox

Your makeup and skincare products have managed to decorate your bathroom sink and vanity like a new home decor trend.  You’re a grown up now and it’s time to deal, so you spend your Sunday afternoon organizing and putting everything away.  It looks beautiful when you’re done and you’re beaming with pride. Then the week happens.  Sometime between waking up late Monday for work and getting ready in a panic for your Friday night plans, hurricane Sephora managed to plop a new lipstick and face wash into the mix.  And you’re back where you started from.

Sometimes organizing just isn’t enough.  While it leaves a fleeting gratification, we often find ourselves in the same place we started after a few days or a few weeks.  We’ve only scratched the surface but haven’t really dealt with the problem.  And the problem, though hard to admit is ourselves: how we’ve bought into the idea of wanting more than we actually need.  We need the next and greatest thing though we haven’t gotten rid of (or even used up) the old.  I’m guilty as charged. I fall for the latest beauty campaign just like my fellow beauty insider next to me in line.  While it sounds frightening, purging is the first step to the solution.  It creates a clean slate, can frame your thought process and prevent product overload in the future.

Here are the steps I took to take back control. Continue reading

How To Wear A Nude Lipstick Through Spring & Summer

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A step by step guide to giving your nude lipstick a spring makeover

Just because it’s warm outside, doesn’t mean it’s time to ditch your favorite nude lipstick.  You’ve invested time and money into that relationship and there’s no reason to get a new best friend.  Just give it an update with a  touch of pink lip liner and gloss and you won’t need to buy a new warm weather lip color (well, not unless you want to)!

Here’s how I wear my beloved Tom Ford Lip Color in Blush Nude during the spring and summer: Continue reading

Making A Facial Last

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So you’ve just had a facial and your skin looks fantastic, now what?

I love me a good facial.  It’s not for the relaxation or the nice shoulder and hand massage.  It’s for the part that everyone hates, the extractions.  I love having a trained professional squeeze all the dirt out of my pores like her life depended on it.  It’s painful, but in that “hurts so good way” because I know when it’s done my pores will be squeaky clean.

What I don’t like is paying a small fortune for a facial and then having dirt and grime violate my pores before the week is even up.  So what’s a girl to do?  Surprisingly, unless you ask, you don’t really get a step by step guide to keeping things clean after a facial.  Maybe not so surprising…because if you really could master this why would you need another facial, right?  Anyway, here are some things I’ve learned over the years and a few new tips I just discoverd.  I just had an awesome facial a few days ago to prep my skin for summer, so I’ll let you know how things turn out. Continue reading

Get Glowing With 5 Products Or Less

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Used alone or together, these makeup products will help you achieve glowing skin in no time.

We all know the key to healthy glowing skin starts with a good diet, exercise, the right amount of sleep and a good skincare routine.  That’s all fine and dandy if you happen to be from Stepford, but for us in the real world this isn’t always enough or even doable.  When I need some extra help, these are my go-to products to perk up my complexion.

Used alone or combined, you can get a subtle to luminous glow:

1. Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector
This may be my favorite of the bunch, so much so that I use it every day.  This is a sheer cream with light reflecting pearls that gives skin a nice, natural looking glow without being too glittery.  While it can be used as a highlighter,  I prefer to mix it with my sunscreen as a make-up base for a more subtle effect.  It also mixes beautifully with tinted moisturizer and foundation to brighten the complexion and give more natural coverage.  I am currently using the Moonstone shade for Spring, but prefer the Opal shade for summer since it has more of a bronzing effect. Continue reading

NARS Larger Than Life Long-Wear Eyeliner

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Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed

Is just how I feel when I use this NARS- Larger Than Life Long-Wear Eyeliner in Rue Bonaparte. I purchased this color specifically to use on my lower waterline to give me a wide-eyed look.  This is a common trick: use a light colored pencil on your waterline to create the illusion of brighter and more awake eyes.  I just wasn’t convinced it was really worth the added expense of an extra eye pencil, but then I stumbled across this lovely NARS video on youtube and had to have it!

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Top 10 Easy Skincare Tips

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We’ve all heard the prolific tips that scatter magazines and blogs: drink plenty of water, wear sunscreen, etc etc…. so I’ll spare you those and get straight to the good stuff. These are my top 10 easy tips to keep your skin looking it’s best. While these are not glamorous by any means, all are tried and tested by yours truly and have done wonders for my skin.

1. Change your pillow case often
This is especially important if you have skin prone to breakouts. Ideally, before bed you should wash your face thoroughly and apply a treatment and/or moisturizer. So why spoil it by sleeping on a dirty pillow? No matter how well you clean your face, oil and bacteria transfer to your pillow while you sleep. This is not only from your face but also from your hair (especially if you use any hair products). These oils are not meant for your skin, so after several days of contact from your pillow to your face…you get the picture. Make your bed a skin sanctuary and change those pillow cases often.

2. Makeup remover is not only for removing makeup
You can use a makeup remover or cleansing water on troublesome spots to keep pimples at bay. I like to use it as a gentle pre-workout treatment to prevent blemishes, concentrating on areas where I tend to breakout like my hairline and cheeks. My favorites are Caudalie’s Make-Up Remover Cleansing Water and Bioderma Crealine H2O, though the latter is more expensive and harder to find here in the states.

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