One of the worse parts of highschool for me (apart from, um, everything) was that my skin was a ranging, hormonal mess.
My best friend and I both suffered acne together. Though it was considered mild acne, we were plagued by blemishes, ranging from blackheads, whiteheads, pimples and the occasional painful cystic pimples.
I am extremely glad to report that both of our skin has settled down immesnsely from our hormonal teenage years, though the practices for clean, clear skin is always on our minds. Even after my skin began to get better, I’ve always tried my best to take care of my skin. I think anyone who has experienced some sort of acne would know how awful it feels, and try their best to prevent it from happening again! Here are some of my tips to keeping your skin in tip top condition and hopefully preventing new breakouts.
Remove all makeup at night.
This is the #1 makeup tip and I really cannot stress it enough: Do. Not. Sleep. With. Your. Makeup. On. EVER! Remember, before bed, remove every trace of makeup and cleanse throughly. I do a double-cleanse that I talked about here and would defintely recommend doing that.
Keep hair out of your face.
In my experience, acne and bangs do not go well together. However, you might be a bit lucky. Eitherway, hair can trap a lot of grime, dirt and oil, and it can spread it to your face, causing breakouts. The best advice I can give is to wash your hair regulary, and if you’re hanging out at home, wear hairband to make sure not a single strand of hair is in your face.
Use the correct products.
- Skincare products: I know what it’s like to go a little overboard with skincare products. For example, I once tried the Proactiv skincare line in hopes that because it was so powerful, my light acne will be banished faster and never come back. Wrong. Proactiv burned my skin, made me breakout even more, and my skin could not tolerate it and all sorts of reactions occurred. Lesson learnt: stick to what your skin actually is. If it’s just a little pimple here and there, don’t go overboard with acne washes and medication. For moisturizers, try to find an oil-free, non-comedogenic formula and ones that are marked for acne-prone skin. And yes, even though your skin is still oily, you still need moisturizer!
- Makeup: For liquid foundation makeup, use non-comedogenic (doesn’t clog pores) and oil-free products. I would highly recommend mineral makeup, especially in its power form for oily skin. Mineral makeup is amazing for acne-prone skin and gives flawless coverage. (Check out the other pros and cons of mineral makeup here.)
Be gentle on your skin.
Keeping the above tips in mind, when applying these products on your face, be gentle. Aggressive applying of makeup and scrubbing your face can aggravate your breakouts and make them worse. Be gentle by applying light pressure from your fingertips to your skin when rubbing on your skincare products. (Check out my post, How to: Cleanse Your Skin Properly for more tips.) For makeup, keep a light hand when using a brush.
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Has anyone ever had the misfortune of hearing the pickup line, “I’m a cop, and you’re under arrest… for being too sexy”?! You’ll never hear that cheesy pick up line if you sport any one of these beauty looks, though. Here is my list, in no particular order (they are all as bad as each other!) of the 10 worse beauty crimes against humanity and how to avoid them… .
Over tweezed eyebrows
Over plucked eyebrows remind me of Ursula, which I had the great pleasure of seeing in the reflection some years ago. I had a professional eyebrow tweeze done and they were plucked so much that I constantly looked surprised/evil/stupid/all of the above. Over plucked eyebrows are a big no no, and I encourage you to embrace your natural shape, with just a bit of cleaning up. I’ll do a tutorial on this soon, but basically, look for the natural shape in your eyebrow and just pluck out the stray hairs that are out of line with that shape. This way, you’ll get a natural looking shape, and one that actually suits you. (For those who’ve overplucked in the past and want to grow their eyebrows out again, check out How to: Stop Over Tweezing and Get Your Natural Brow Back.)
Drawn-on eyebrows.
Dark, obviously drawn on eyebrows make you look mean, stern and angry. To combat this tragedy, fill in your brows with a color that’s one shade lighter than your natural eyebrow hair and use soft, light handed strokes.
Foundation that doesn’t match your skintone
This is said all the time, so I’ll put it simply: get the right foundation color for your skin – nothing lighter and nothing darker! You don’t want to get the dreaded ‘mask’ look (lighter face, darker neck).
Claw nails
This one may get a bit of flak because I know it’s quite popular in Asia, but really – there’s a reason why cats need to be declawed. Super long nails are not cute. I’m also pretty sure you can kill someone with those nails. The remedy to this disaster is simple – cut your nails regularly, and if you like fake nails, keep them to a sane length.
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This post is part of my Summer Beauty Tips Series, a collection of posts for the summer season. You can read the rest of the series here.
No one – and I mean no one - rocks sexy, beachy hair like supermodel Gisele Bunchen, showcasing it perfectly here in an old editorial from Vanity Fair.
Long, wavy beach hair (that Gisele seems to be born with … jealous) is the beauty staple of summer, and luckily for everyone, it’s surprisingly ridiculously easy to do at home.
- If you have natural waves and curls, use a curl-enhancing product and scrunch it into hair. Next, use a diffuser in the hairdryer. Set with hairspray and leave your hair the way it is – the whole point is that it looks a bit messy, so do not brush your hair at all when doing this hairstyle.
- For straight hair, you can either load up on products or you can simply braid your hair to sleep the night before, and release it for natural, small waves. If you want to ‘up’ the waves, you can use a medium sized curling thong all over to curl your hair. After, take your fingers and separate the waves so they don’t look ‘harsh’ – this looks need to look naturally undone.
Of course, if you’re a real natural beauty (aka don’t like to fuss on your hair), for fast beach hair, a simple salt spray or texturizing spray will do. Just spray it on second-day hair and scrunch it into your hair for that messy, sexy look. (I’ll be writing more on how to make your own salt spray, so check back for that!)
(Side note: if you’d like to take advance of the heat this season and want to get natural highlights, try this lemon juice trick that I’ve done countless times – it really works!)
Easy, no? What do you think – do you like the ‘beachy’ waves look? :)
I began wearing glasses at – gasp – the age of 9, so you can be sure I got a lot of “four-eyed” jokes at school. And I’ll be honest with you, I was so ashamed of them that I started wearing contacts at 13, which is apparently too young. (If you feel self-conscious about wearing glasses, check out some of the celebs wearing glasses below – glasses are sexy, too!) Thankfully, I’ve gotten over being self conscious wearing glasses and I’m happy to wear my glasses out if I’m too darn lazy to deal with my contacts!
The thing is, glasses and makeup tends to be a bit tricky topic. Glasses can either make your eyes look bigger or smaller, depending on your lens. I’m near sighted, so my lenses tend to make my eyes look small, so full on smokey eyes tend to make your eyes look even smaller – lining my inner rims with glasses on is a no-no. (If only someone had told me that earlier!) Thankfully, I’ve learnt some makeup tips for glasses wearers.
Face
Complete your usual foundation makeup. It’s probably best to keep your skin matte for the day, as makeup can be smudged as your glasses slide up and down, especially near your eye and nose area. Anything shimmery/dewy/shiny might become too messy to deal with.
Glasses can cast shadows under your eyes, so if you already have dark eyecircles or eyebags, this can make them look even worse! (And no, there’s nothing you can do about eye circles!) Instead, remember to apply concealer (Boi-ing and Secret Concealer are my top picks) and sweep a layer of loose powder on top of the concealer to really ‘set’ it – concealer tends to slip and stick onto your glasses, so it’s vital that it stays on! (These concealer tips from Bobbi Brown might be extra helpful.)
It’s best to avoid any shimmer of any kind – be it illuminators, shimmer blush, highlighters. It makes the whole face a tad ‘clown-like’ as there is so much going on. The idea is that your glasses are already a big ‘accessory’ to your face, so your makeup should compliment it, not try to overpower it.
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I‘ve always thought dreadlocks were too cool. Just look at it, there’s something about it! However, you gotta admit that the maintenance – or lack of it – does make this somehwat of an unhygienic hairstyle.
I remember a guy in my Science class back in high school had dreadlocks and I thought they were badass – until one day when I was talking to him I noticed something moving in his hair. (I’d also throw bits of paper into his hair since I was sitting behind him, but that’s another story, hehe.) The dirt and messiness of it put me off of ever trying this style out myself, but I still love the look of it! So for anyone who’s a bit like me and not willing to take the plunge into dreadlocks, you can always fake this look for a day. Here’s how.
Start by dividing dry hair in half, from your ear downwards and clip, leaving one section – the section that you will start working on loose. Clip the very top section of your hair up and away from your face.
- Step 2: Load up on hair gel.
With the lose section ready to be ‘done’ up, take 1 inch sections of the hair (or if you want smaller dreads, 0.5 inches) and apply a quarter coin size of strong hair gel. (The men in my life all recommend Gatsby for the best hold!)
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Not to rain on your parade, but this week’s Beauty Tip of the Week may be a bit of a bummer: lining your inner rims with eyeliner may pose more harm than it’s worth. Since the eyeliner is so close to your eye, potential bacteria, infection and other nasties may come about. Still, I know many – and I mean MANY – absolutely love this look, so there are a few ways to keep it as hygienic as possible.
To minimize the risk, save this ultra-glam look for special occasions. Ophthalmologists strongly advise against it, but if you really have to, don’t do it so often. One ‘layer’ of eyeliner is enough, don’t go over your inner rims with more layers – yuck, eye infection for sure!
Also, sharpen your eyeliner pencil each time. This mean clean, new product each time so less risk. Also, clean your pencil sharpener throughly at least once a week.
And that’s it, really. Keep those tips in mind when lining your inner rims, your eye health is just as important as pretty, lined eyes!
Do you line your inner rims? I used to but it makes my eyes look smaller so I stopped. :)
Image: Chanel, Style.com
After meeting with my extended family (sans makeup) the other day; instead of a polite hello, my cousin greeted me with an earth-shattering: “HOLY EYE CIRCLES! Are you an insomniac?”
After giving him the finger (I kid. Maybe.) I talked with my other female cousin, his sister, about dark eye circles and what we do about them. I’ve been lucky to find some gems (Benefit’s Boi-ing concealer is freaking fantastic and Laura Mercier’s Secret Concealer is not bad either), but I know many suffer from extreme dark eye circles. (And judging from my cousin’s reaction, so do I.) Instead of simply applying concealer and hoping for the best, I decided to source out any other tips and tricks to hiding those pesky things.
I found myself at a tip Bobbi Brown wrote about in her book, Bobbi Brown Living Beauty
, where she talks about “serious dark eye circles”. I wrote sometime back how there are no real ‘cures’ out there, and Bobbi Brown confirms this: “There are no products on the market that actually lighten under-eye darkness. At best, eye cream can hydrate the eye area and give it a fresher look.” Phew. Glad to know that I know what I’m talking about (at least where this blog is concerned!)
I’ve found that the best way to brighten extremely dark under eye circles (circles that have a greenish or purplish tinge to them) is to start with a pink- or peach-toned corrector, then layer on the yellow-toned concealer. The pink or peach shade may work alone sometimes, but mostly you’ll need to layer it.
For problem dark circles keep the focus on the upper part of your eyes. Many women with extreme under-eye darkness also have dark eye-lids, so lighten the area with light (white or bone) shadow. Don’t line the lower lash line or apply mascara to lower lashes. A pop of bright pastel pink or peach blush on the apples of your cheeks will also steer your eye away from the dark circles.
Thanks, Bobbi! I’ve always loved her beauty books and devoured them when I first got into makeup, but I’ll have to re-read some of them as I have the memory of a goldfish. This beauty tip seems logical though, so I’ll be trying it out sometime.
What do you think of Bobbi’s tips? Will you be trying this method out? :)
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