From the category archives:

How To/Tips

Skincare and Makeup Tips for Flight Attendants

March 10, 2010   in Ask, How To/Tips, Skincare

Reader V wrote to me a week ago after reading my post, Beauty Tips for Flights and she wanted to know more specific tips for those who are in planes very frequently – aka, working in one!

I was wondering if you have a tip for me, or possible post on the website about it. I read your post about how the lack of moisture in the aircraft can dry up your skin. I am a soon-to-be stewardess and you know how I will be exposed to ‘this’ dry atmosphere most of the time.

So do you have a tip about how I can keep my skin healthy? Our 5 inches make-up surely is no help, and I’m not sure about the use of facial mist, with 5 inches make up on. Yeah, some stewardess tend to get worried about their skin because we can’t afford to look like we sped up our aging process.

I can relate to air stewardesses who are wary about speeding up the aging process – those working full time in cold, dry offices also have the same complaint (like my friends!). Thing is, unfortunately, I’m aware about the makeup stewardess are required to wear daily, so it’s quite a challenge. No worries though, I have a few tips up my sleeves!

Here’s an idea to start you off – even though it’s just a plane, you can actually just research “winter skincare tips”, because, as you’ve guessed it, one of the main factors is the extremely dry temperatures. They have tons of tips for dry climates and would definitely help in your work environment!

Before the Flight

First of all, it’s vital that you start by cleansing your skin very well before your flight. Try switching to a cleanser made for dry skin. While in the shower, avoid very hot water as it will just dry out your skin more. Instead, opt for a luke warm temperature, and really clean your face well. (Read here for more tips on cleansing.) Basically, leave the cleanser on your face for at least 30 seconds to really let it work.

I’m not sure if they give you makeup to wear or if it’s your own, but if it’s your own, I highly recommend finding a mineral/organic foundation, as this will not clog your pores and irritate your skin. Find formulas made for dry skin, preferably a tinted moisturizer made for dry skin. Since you’ll be traveling a lot, you can go overseas and find winter-related skin care products that would cater to extremely dry weather conditions.

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How to: The ‘No Makeup’ Natural Look

March 7, 2010   in How To/Tips, Make Up

If there’s one makeup trick every beauty fool should know, it’s that the “natural” look actually takes just as many products as a “normal” look, but it takes twice the time! It’s all about careful blending and making everything appear like it was God-given, so it’s quite a routine!

And though I like to preach about having fun with makeup and adding color to your look, sometimes, the occasion calls for a more neutral looking face. Here are some tips on getting the natural (except not really…) no-makeup look.

  • Step 1: Start off with a great base.

For great makeup, you need a solid base – everything goes well when there is a proper foundation, no? Keep it light though, a tinted moisturizer (this tinted moisturizer is amazing) and some concealer on your problem areas (dark circles, zits, etc) should do the trick. Skip the loose powder on this one (or keep it VERY light if you really need it), because the whole point is to look dewy and fresh.

Remember to blend everything well, so there are no obvious lines and areas that look like there are two parts. And we must never see that your foundation ends at your jawline, no, no, no! Blend until all the makeup disappears into your skin, so it looks like even, flawless skin.

nars-orgasm-sephora

  • Step 2: Get blushin’.

Next is to apply some more color to your skin so you don’t look too washed out – I’m talking about blush. Again, keep this color light. A light pink or peach that gives you enough color (but not like you’re wearing anything) is enough.

Gently sweep it across your cheeks, up to your cheekbones and stop. Take a step back from your mirror and make sure it looks light, as if you’re blushing naturally.

If you’ve applied too much blush, take some tissue paper across your palm, and gently wipe off the excess. (NARS Orgasm, the famous blush to mimic that certain glow, may be a good option, as it suits all skin tones.)

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Self-Esteem Diaries: Bring More Laughter into Your Life

February 28, 2010   in Happiness and Wellbeing, How To/Tips, Self Esteem

“Laughter is an instant vacation.” — Milton Berle

Last year I wrote a post, How to Start Building Self Esteem, after speaking to a young reader about her life and insecurities. Since then I’ve been speaking to tons of readers about their lives and an emerging theme I notice is that we could all use a big dose of self esteem and self confidence, because we all have low moments. I also feel that being a woman these days are especially hard – we have so much to do, so many priorities, and so little time for ourselves. Well, no more!

I’ve decided to do a monthly series on self esteem, called Self Esteem Diaries. Every last Sunday I’ll post a topic we can discuss, inspiring quotes, and share with each other our trials and successes so we can support and encourage one another. What do you think? If you have any more ideas, do let me know!

Anyway, to end this month I thought we’d talk about laughter.

Laughter is so important in our lives, not only to keep us feeling lighter and happier, but can also reduce stress, improve our mood and make us feel happier and better about ourselves. (Read more of the benefits of laughter here.) Here are some ways I bring laughter into my own life, and I hope it can help you out with some ideas as well:

  • Wake up feeling great.

I once read that your mood and circumstances at the first 15 minutes of waking up will shape how you view your whole day. So instead of waking up thinking how much you hate your boss/life/yourself, it’s time to change your mood first thing in the morning.

Once you wake up, go to the mirror and say something wonderful about yourself. Tell yourself that whatever yesterday was like, today will be better. And no matter what happens, you are still a wonderful person who deserves the best! Once you are doing your morning rituals of brushing your teeth, doing your hair, showering, you can always think thoughts of positivity and gratitude – remind yourself of all the things you are excited about today, all the things you are thankful of, and most of all, how special you are!

  • Hang around people who make you feel great.

You know the saying misery loves company, right? Well the company doesn’t exactly love the misery back… It’s totally normal to have some rough times but if someone is really making you feel awful and you find yourself feeling awful after seeing them, (which as I wrote in my post on toxic friends, is one sign your friend is toxic!) it’s time to move on.

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How to: Cleanse your face properly

February 21, 2010   in How To/Tips, Skincare

One of the greatest skin rituals you can do for yourself is to thoroughly cleanse your face, morning and night. And though it seems simple enough – slap on some soap, then water – there are some tricks and tips to making the most out of your cleanser and to learn how to really clean your face for soft, beautiful skin!

  • First, make sure the water you wash your face with is not too hot or too cold. Cold water makes your skin more prone to broken capillaries, and hot water … well, you know what hot water does. Luke warm water is the best.
  • Lather up your cleanser in your palms, and start by applying the cleanser to your face with gentle circular motions. Start at your cheeks, then proceed to your t-zone, chin, and then another round all over your face. Allow the cleanser to be left on for at least 30 seconds (I once read an article that said 2 minutes is the recommended for all the ingredients to soak in properly, but that’s a bit long, so leave it on at least half a minute).
  • If you have oily skin, apply another layer of cleanser, or if you have any oily areas (for me, it’s my cheeks!), cleanse on just that area one more time. (This is recommended for the warmer times of the year or if you live in a hot climate, though. If you’re in a cold climate and you over cleanse when it’s not needed you may dry out your skin too much.) (And if you don’t know what your skin type it, check out my post How to Find Your Skin Type to find out.)
  • Gently allow water to run over your face and gently rub off your cleanser, massaging your face at the same time. After, take a few pieces of face tissue and pat your face dry – don’t rub your face because it’s too harsh for the skin.

Et voila, you are done. Apply your moisturizer and show off that pretty face. What do you think of these tips? How do you cleanse your face – do you have a ritual or is it a simple wash-and-go for you?

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How to: Sexy, Sleek Straight Hair

February 15, 2010   in Hair, How To/Tips

Paired with an evening dress or a tee and jeans, this sexy style is both casual and formal – there’s something so effortlessly casual yet elegant about sleek straight hair. I also love how it really shows off your face and frames it simply.

And the best thing is, whatever your hair texture, you can try this style in 5 steps. Though it does take some time (especially when flat ironing each section), you can memorize these steps easily and it will get easier once you get the hang of it with more practice.

What you need:

This hairstyle looks simple enough, but you will need some products and tools:

  • blow-dryer
  • paddle brush
  • flat iron
  • heat-protective serum
  • leave in conditioner
  • shine spray (optional)

What to do:

1. First things first, though many ‘messy’ hairstyles require slightly dirty hair, this style does not – you’ll need completely clean hair for this hairstyle.

Start by washing and conditioning your hair; and then towel-dry your hair until it’s damp.

2. Next, it’s very important to keep your hair healthy. Comb in a dollop of heat-protective serum with a wide tooth comb. (Using a wide tooth comb will not damaged hair, which is more fragile and prone to damage while wet.)

3. The next step is to blow-dry your hair. While flipping your head upside down may be a great trick for volume, the style this time around is to get it as sleek straight as possible, so ignore that trick. Blow dry your hair from root to tip, ‘flat’ down, and just aim your blow-dryer downwards so make your hair go straight. Blow-drying it straight down also prevent fly-aways.

4. After blow-drying your hair straight, it’s time to make it extra sleek. Grab your flat iron and take one inch pieces at a time and flat iron it. I say one each because one-inch pieces are smaller chunks, and therefore are easier to style – plus. the heat will penetrate better and it will last longer.

5. Last but not least, use some light weight leave-in conditioner to keep your hair looking and feeling smooth and soft. Some great leave in conditioners I’d recommend are Redken’s Extreme Anti Snap and Asience’s Essense Lotion. If you want some crazy shine, a spritz of shine spray would help greatly.

Extra Tips:

  • Don’t use barrettes or bobby pins when styling your hair this way. When doing 1 inch chunks, push it behind your ear or leave it alone. Clipping your straightened sections with clips can leave in dents on your sleek straight hair.
  • When you’re done blow-drying, you can use the cool setting and blow your hair with cool air, which will prevent frizz.
  • To make this style last as long as possible, try sleeping on a smooth satin pillow, or put a silk scarf over your pillow when sleeping. This will prevent fuzzing and messing up your hair.

What do you think of this hairstyle? Do you try this hairstyle regularly? If you have any more tips or product recommendations (especially with the tools – I don’t know what’s good!) please do add them in the comments below. :)

Images: Megan Fox for Cosmopolitan

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How to: A Soft, Romantic Valentine’s Day Look

February 10, 2010   in How To/Tips, Make Up

I saw this outtake of a Maybelline ad featuring stunning model Emily DiDonato (whose hair I once raved about, and still love), and gasped. The look screams “flirty, pretty and romantic”. It inspired me to do a how-to look for this look – and with Valentine’s day around the corner, how perfect would this look be?

Now it might look very natural, but as we all know, “natural” looking makeup sometimes take the most time to do and just as many, if not more products. Still, this is a pretty simple look: there’s no heavy colors or dramatic hues. Instead, the look is soft and fresh – I love it!

  • Hair

Hair is soft and feminine with this look, just like the picture on the right. Start off by washing and conditioning hair. Next, blow-dry your hair for some volume (more tips on how to get volume here) and then grab a curling iron, or hair rollers.

Whatever your hair length, try some rollers or a curling iron to add some soft, romantic waves (ala this look on Angelina Jolie). After curling your hair, run your fingers through it to separate your curls, and then set with hairspray.

  • Makeup

First and foremost, keep skin clean and matte. Cleanse your skin and load up with moisturizer. Next, apply your foundation, concealer on your under eye circles and blemishes, and then apply a loose powder to set it all.

For your cheeks, apply a soft pink blush on. If you have a luminating/highlight powder, sweep some on top of your cheekbones and decollage for a sexy shimmer.

The eyes are the main focus of this look, so frame those beautiful things with your natural brow shape. Shape your brows the way they are, making sure they aren’t too thin. If they are too thin, fill them in with powder or another brow product of your choice.

Next, keep your eye makeup simple. Apply a wash of shimmer eyeshadow in soft colors such as pinks, peaches or lilacs, whatever you like best. Go easy on the eyeliner (brown instead of black, and only a thin line on your top lash line) because this look is all about the eyelashes. Curl your lashes, apply mascara, and apply clusters of individual false eyelashes (how to apply false eyelashes, here).

Lastly: your lips, the icing of the cake! As you can tell, this lip look is juicy, bright and fresh – obviously to make your date drooling at the thought of kissing you. Apply lip balm, then lipstick and then lipgloss. I have to say, the best colors for this look is candy colors: all shades of pinks. The brighter and cuter, the better!

  • Fragrance

A flirty scent is a must! I’ve listed some of my favorites here, but some other romantic, feminine floral scents I’ve tried recently are Ralph Lauren’s Romance Always Yours, YSL’s Parisenne, and Jessica Simpson’s Fancy. (And while we’re on the topic of fragrance, here’s my tip on making your scent last longer.)

  • Nails

I’d actually recommend going dark on your nails – it gives your fresh and girly makeup an edge, but if you’re not into that, keep the look going on to your nails with nudes and pastel colors. A soft pastel pink or baby blue would look really cute! If you want to go dark though, you can check out my post: How to: Dark, Glossy Black Nails.

I hope I inspired some candy-colored, soft pretty makeup looks this Valentine’s Day! However, I’d still love to know – do you have any special makeup looks planned? Or is Valentine’s Day just another day for you? Do let me know! … I guess you all can guess what makeup look I’ll do this Valentine’s? :)

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How to: Start Eating Healthier + Make Better Food Choices

February 7, 2010   in Body, Health & Fitness, How To/Tips

Perhaps one of the most popular new year resolution is that this is the year you will ‘get healthy.’

Anyone who knows me will know that I am not one of those people – although I’ve always hated the ‘bad stuff’, aka sodas, alcohol (very bad) and smoking (even worse), my diet isn’t the best. Not to fear though – I’ve been slowly changing my diet late last year, and this year I’m going to really enforce it.

With that being said, I have a confession to make: I love junk food.

And even though I consider myself pretty fit and health– oh, who am I kidding? A happening night for me includes Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, rainbow sprinkled donuts, and Swedish candy. And don’t get me started on those sneaky 4am calls to McDonald’s delivery WHICH I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. Right. Moving on…

But 2010 is a new year, and I told myself to learn how to stop the junk food cravings and start eating healthy. So far in the last months of 2009 and this January I’ve been pretty good and taking everything in moderation (I wouldn’t say ban junk food forever – life is too short; just don’t overdo it), so I’ve decided to share some of my tried-and-tested tips. Let’s call this my beginner’s guide on how to getting healthy for the junk-food loving, channel-surfing, lazy bum like me:

  • Take daily vitamins tablets.

The first thing you can do it to take a daily multi-vitamin tablet. I know there are some squabbles over whether or not vitamin pills are necessary or even good for you, but it really can’t hurt. I personally think they are great and have started taking one every morning, and will add a few others soon. The famous Dr. Oz takes a multivitamin for Vitamins A-E, Omega 3, and Calcuim pills. I think he’s knows what he’s talking about, so I’d recommend we all do the same!

  • Try out every fruit and vegetable possible and find your favorite.

The #1 thing you can do that benefits your health is to change your diet. Incorporate more fruits and vegetables. As my Mom likes to say, “eat like Adam and Eve did”, meaning all fruits and vegetables. However, this is the hardest thing for me. As someone who despises vegetables, this was quite a difficult task: I forced myself to try a lot of them to see if I liked any. And guess what? I found out I like broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, asparagus, mushrooms and a few others. Who knew? Do the same for fruits too. Try as much as you can and then collect your favorites and make it a point to eat at least a few of each – fruit and vegetable – each day. DO IT!

  • When eating your meal, eat the ‘healthy’ stuff first.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the diet tip that you should eat a salad before your meal, so you eat less of the main meal? Forget that – salads still gross me out. Instead, when eating your meal, eat the healthier stuff first. That means start with the vegetables, next to the protein, etc. I found this worked for me because normally I’d gobble the carbs right down, and would be too full to touch the healthy stuff. if you’re like me, swap the routine!

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Beauty Tips for Long Flights

January 31, 2010   in How To/Tips, Make Up

I go back to Denmark almost every Spring (I’m half Danish), and that is a loong 14 hours flight to and fro. As a kid I’d just wear my pajamas and slather on some hotel body lotion all over my face (don’t ever do that, by the way, unless you want serious breakouts) and head to the airport, not caring how disastrous I look. (Isn’t it great being a kid?!)

Now that I’m older, though, I have to look somewhat more presentable, and heading to the hotel and sleeping for 12 hours after the flight is not an option anymore! Here are some beauty tips I’ve gathered over the years, especially if you have business to do after your flight:

  • Before boarding

Moisturizing is key. With the dry, stuffy cabin air, skin can itch and worst of all, peel. First and foremost, moisturize your bare face before boarding a flight (I think it should be common sense that you’re not wearing makeup on a long flight, right?). What I like to do is double moisturize – that’s two layers of moisture on the face, and normally that is enough for the next 12 hours.

Next, while getting dressed for your flight, remember to moisturize your body as well. Moisturize your legs, collarbone, neck, and arms before flight. Soothing (and very thick) body lotions such as the famous body butters by The Body Shop can aid to calm and relax before your flight.

… Speaking of relaxing, I like relaxing on the plane now-a-days. In the past I used to sit in fear for 14 hours wondering when the plane was going to crash and I died, but now flights are relaxing. Soothing scents always work best: try spirizing on a lavender or vanilla scent to help calm you down. Close your eyes, breathe in the beautiful scent, and relax.

  • On Board

While on the plane, it’s also important to maintain moisturized skin. Of course, our first concern is the skin on our face! It’s vital to up the hydration on the flight. There are many facial moisturizer sprays availble today that you can use to freshen up your face. The most popular one is Moisture Surge Face Spray by Clinique, which is AMAZING. My friend C and I are obsessed about it.

I would also recommend bringing a mini body lotion in your handbag. Hands get insanely dry and so do your legs, which make them dry and itchy, and have this very attractive scale-like appearance. Load up on lotion now and again to banish scally looking skin when you get off the plane!

Next is definitey your lips. Our lips’ skin is very thin and delicate, and is one of the fastest to dry up and can get very, very dry and cracked in the cabin air. I can vouch that my lips get extremely chapped while in the air! It’s best to skip the lipgloss and lipsticks right now and instead go for a moisturizing lip balm. I recommend anything by Rosebud, I currently like the original and the Brambelberry Rose flavor.

Something I’d also recommend but haven’t tried yet are sheet facial masks. I’ve seen a lot of women do this recently, and I’ll have to try it out too. When the lights go off, I’d be walking to the bathroom and see a pool of women before me with their masks on. Jealous! Just apply a sheet mask (in others words, the least messy type of mask) and it’s like heaven. Twenty minutes later, skin is refreshed and plump with moisture, not to mention it’s like having a mini spa experience in the air.

  • After the flight

It’s best not to pile on makeup before leaving your flight because it hasn’t been washed in a while, and it will only cause clogged pores and breakouts. The best, really, if you’re concerned about how you look (but really, who gives a hoot – you were on a long flight!), just apply some lip color and slip on a pair of sunglasses and tie your hair up; you’ll look fresher instantly.

Last but not least, and probably pretty obvious, but after long flights I just feel gross… so it’s time for a good scrub! Take a good long shower and then (hopefully) go to bed and get all the rest you need. (Am I the only one who thinks flights, airports and traveling is extremely tiring? For those who want even more tips, this post can help everyone out as well, not just air stewardesses: Skincare and Makeup Tips for Flight Attendants.)

I hope I’ve given you some useful tips for those going on flights! Do you have any beauty regimes while you’re on a flight? And do you even ‘care’ about beauty and your looks when you’re on a flight?

Images: 1, 2.

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