Make-up is fun. You can change the shape of your eyes with the flick of an eyeliner wand or slim you face with a good bronzer. I have fun sharing tips about brands and routines. Right now I see a lot of bloggers and beauty gurus talking about the best make-up for the summer heat, or what to wear when you’re going to the beach/pool.
My recommendation for make-up this summer — don’t wear anything.
What do these celebs have in common? They’re not wearing any make-up!
When it’s so hot I have to constantly wipe my brow, or I’m going be in water, I don’t wear anything. Make-up is not a necessity. I know it’s hard to go barefaced if you have bad skin. I’ve been there. But you can fix that, too. As you can see from the profile picture on my blog, the one on my Twitter account, or even this picture I’ll stick right here, I’m fine not wearing anything on my face. Sometimes it’s not easy. But remember we all have our bad skin days. I think every girl needs to be okay going barefaced most of the time. After all, isn’t that the real you?
Go natural when the heat gets unbearable!
So if the heat gets unbearable this summer, just skip the make-up. Here are some of the tips I use to still look my best.
My Summer Tips
Heal your skin. Now’s the time to find those products that work well for you. I completely switched to Origins only two weeks ago and my face is almost completely healed from the mess it used to be. The right products for you will heal dry patches, control oil, heal acne, and make your skin glow. Skincare is really important for the health of your skin! I am willing to invest way more in this than make-up.
Drink water. A lot. This is something I forget to do. Not only is it good for you since you’ll be sweating more than usual, but it’s good for your skin anyway. I like to squeeze some lemon in my water to make it taste a little better.
Dab on some sunless tan. If you want a glow but you’re either very pale (like me) or don’t want to keep sweating off your bronzer, use sunless tan products. You can even buy some that will give you a glow, but wash off in the shower that night. It’ll make you look sun-kissed, and you don’t have to worry about it traveling anywhere on your face.
Hydrate your lips. I recommend a good lip scrub and then applying your favorite lip moisturizer. Healthy looking lips can make you look great even if you’re not wearing make-up.
Give your eyes TLC. You may suffer from serious dark circles, like I do. Get plenty of sleep and use an eye cream every night to hydrate the area and you’ll look presentable enough. On the bad days, when I still don’t feel like putting on make-up, I grab my biggest sunglasses and glue them to my face for the day.
Check your hair. If your hair is hydrated and shiny, it really pulls your look together. It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing it straight or going for a boho wavy look! Put some leave-in moisturizer or shine spray on it and it’ll complete your overall natural glow.
I never thought I’d write a post with “recipe” in the title, but here you have it. While I’m not the best of cooks, this recipe requires no cooking at all and will take about five minutes to make!
When I’m craving something sweet, I’ve found that this fruit salad is the perfect thing to make. It’s essentially all of my favorite fruits mixed together.
A quick word of forewarning if you do attempt this recipe: Do not wear something you don’t want dirtied. Guaranteed, you will get at least one drop of red on you.
This will yield one yummy bowl.
Ingredients:
A handful of blackberries
5-6 strawberries
Half a lemon
Half a pomegranate
A teaspoon of sugar
Directions:
Rinse the blackberries and pour them into a medium sized bowl.
Rinse the strawberries and prepare them by slicing them however you like. I use this tool because it’s cute. Put them into the bowl.
Prepare the pomegranate. You can either do this the proper way or do it my way — cut it in half and squeeze the hell out of it until the seeds and juice are all in the bowl. I just pick out any white pieces. Be careful! This is the part that will likely leave your kitchen looking like a crime scene.
Take the lemon and squeeze the juice over the fruits in the bowl. I like pulp, but you can strain it if you’d like.
Dust a teaspoon of sugar over the fruit salad. I use Truvia as a natural alternative to sugar. This cuts down on the sourness of the salad and sweetens it up to the perfect taste.
Toss the mixture with your hands or a spoon. Be gentle, or else you’ll squash the fruit!
You’ll have a bowl of yummy fruits drenched in juice. Yum! Eat and enjoy. Fresh, sweet, a hint of sour. It satisfies my sweet tooth every time. What are your favorite fruits to put into a fruit salad?
This blog entry was posted in Do It Yourself on Jun 23 2011.
Introduction: These photos show the gel stick. It comes in a thick tube and there’s a gel-like product inside. To dispense more, you push it up from the bottom — it reminds me of Push Pops, the candy brand. I’m using the shade Blissful, which is a dark pink shade with a little bit of coral. I’m pale (as you can definitely see) and I find this color to compliment both my pale skin and my dark hair. Tarte offers a variety of shades, try them on your wrist before purchasing!
Application: There are a lot of ways to apply it. I typically use the easy way, which unfortunately makes you look like a complete idiot until you blend it out. (Flattering, no?) As you can see by the look on my face, I was paying too much attention to holding the camera and accidentally smeared the stick way too high up my cheek. I usually drag the stick in circles on the apples of my cheeks about five times or so.You can also apply it in these ways, if you’re not lazy like me:
Drag the stick along the hallows of your cheekbones instead of on the apples of your cheeks.
Use your fingers on the stick and then apply it to your cheek using your fingers.
Use a stippling brush or a large concealer brush to pick up the product from the stick and apply it to your cheek, blending immediately. This ensures that the product stays the cleanest possible because it never actually makes contact with your skin.
Blending: You don’t want to look like a clown (Halloween is over!) so the product doesn’t stain your cheeks immediately. You have about 15 to 30 seconds to blend your cheek color just the way you want it. I typically smear out the circle I’ve made up to my cheek bone and then make sure all the edges blend into my skin. This way, the product makes me look like I’m naturally flush, not like I’m wearing anything. If you’re like me and have ridiculously sensitive skin, your cheeks will look extremely red because you rubbed them. (See picture two above.) This is normal, and the extra redness will fade in a few minutes to reveal your naturally stained cheeks.
Done!: My right cheek is still a bit redder than it will fade to eventually, but the left one has settled. If you apply the stain the way I have, people will probably not notice you have blush on; but your cheeks will have a beautiful color that they lost after you put on foundation. It’s a very natural blush that you’ll completely forget you’re wearing. It has a high recommendation from me!
Some things to remember:
This is a cheek stain. Thirty seconds after you apply, it will not move on your face.
For me, the product stays put even if I sweat a lot or rub my face.
It comes off easily and completely using soap and water.
It has a dewy finish. If you don’t like this, set it with translucent powder.
One stick will last you a very long time!
You can use the stain on your cheeks, lips, or eyes. I prefer cheeks only.
We are now unbelievably in the year 2010. I noticed that I’m not the only one that had a hard time with 2009. While the year brought about a few wonderful things and some life-changing events, it was also one of the toughest years I’ve experienced. I’m looking forward to 2010 being a good year to appreciate relationships and better myself!
Has anyone made new year resolutions? I haven’t, aside from the point I made above. When I went to my morning gym workout today I noticed quite a few people had made resolutions… I’m usually the only one in the gym at the time I go in, and this time it was pretty full. Funny thing is, I bet I will never see them there again after a few weeks. It’s hard to declare a bunch of goals in January and continue them until December. This is really because people forget, lose track, or lose interest in what they pledged those early morning hours of January 1st.
I realized this years ago and decided to make general goals rather than specific ones. Here are a few great articles that may help you, if you have goals for 2010 or (like me) consider January a month for revamp:
What does January hold for me? Lots of cleaning. (If you know me, this is one of my hobbies…) I’ll be going through all of my stuff and donating a good chunk of it to charity (or throwing it out if it’s useless), completely moving into the apartment, cleaning places that really need it, refreshing a few old layout designs, making appointments I’ve been putting off, fixing or replacing things that I’ve been meaning to fix or replace, and giving my dog a good scrub down.
This blog entry was posted in Do It Yourself on Jan 02 2010.
