Acheive Beautiful Skin

To achieve the best make up look, a daily facial cleansing routine is required. When I ask a client what they clean their face with, I am astonished at the number of them that say "a bar of soap!" Well let me tell you, that is not a daily facial cleansing routine. If you Cleanse, Exfoliate and Refresh twice daily, you can rest assured that you are giving yourself the correct daily routine. Here I will outline the procedure that is needed before applying make up and after removing it. It is essential, so that your foundation and accenting make up will look smooth and perfect.


Daily Cleansing
Cleansing your face with a facial cleanser will remove make up and dirt and also any impurities you accumulate during the day and night. Exfoliation will remove dead skin cells from your skin. Refreshing your face or what many would call a toner, helps shrink the appearance of pors.  There are many different products available and it is all up to you to choose. Some of the products out there have all three in one and others have all three steps. You must also make sure to buy the product for your skin type. It depends on your skin, lifestyle, and your pocketbook. For example, a working mom on the run would perfer all three in one. Where as a person with oily skin on the forehead and dry skin on the cheeks would perfer seperate steps in order to give each spot the product it needs.  My favorites include:

• Perfect Skin - Advertised by the Kardashian Sisters
• Mary Kay - Timewise Line
• Cetaphil - Drugstores and used by many make up artist

Moisturize
So you learned how to cleanse your face, what next? Moisturize. A moisturizer is used to firm and smooth skin. A good moisturizer should help reveal fewer lines and wrinkles, have a spf of 15 or more and last up to 10 hours. It is best if you use the same line of moisturizer as your cleanser and make sure it is for your skin type.


Protection
After you have moisturized, make sure you were a foundation to protect your facial skin. A foundation with SPF 15 or more should work great unless you spend an extreme amount of time outdoors. Every persons lifestyle is different and therefore should be taken into consideration. There are so many foundations to choose from and are made for different seasons and different lifestyles. Experiment and find the right one for you.  Make sure your finishing products have spf all year long. Winter months dry up your skin and there are plenty of uv rays in winter too.


Summing it up
So we have all had those days when we finish putting on our foundation and make up and we can still notice patches of dry skin on our face, oily spots, unwanted huge boulder pores, and definetly those red bumps. It is important to go thru these steps in order for you to acheive great looking skin. When you start using a cleanser for the first time, it is normal to see a little more activity on your face than you want. It can take up to 30 days for a cleanser to take all impurities out of your pores and skin. If you see some pimples and bumbs dont jump to conclusions that the cleanser is no good. Look at it this way, you start cleaning your face properly at age 30, your cleanser has 30 years of impurities to clean out. It won't clean it all out in one day. However, do make sure you have no allergic reaction to the product. Achieve great looking make up by starting with a soft and smooth canvas, your skin!


Let's Accent your Beauty

Polished to Perfection

Look at your nails...what do you see? Did you know that your nails can easily identify your character?
Are your nails ungroomed, unpolished, and uneven? Or are they polished with a beautiful summer color, or just polished clear? Imagine a young lady on a hot summer day, wearing her bathing suit at the pool. Now consider her nails.  In the 1980's the French Manicure was the style, today ANYTHING goes! However, groomed is the key to showing a beautiful character.

Here are the top five T's to nail care:

1. Take Care of your tools - Sterelize and Store them properly
2. Take Vitamins - Make sure you have enough calcium, protein and nutrients
3. Try to Moisturize 24/7 - Dry nails tend to crack and split
4. Take the file with you - Keep them even
5. Try new things - Experiment and have fun!

You can use your nails as an accesory that expresses who you are.  For example, your going to a job interview: I would suggest to groom, keep them all the same length and polish them clear. Your going out to have fun? Then polish them with your favorite color, even black makes a statement!

If you crave the need for fake nails, remember this is not for everyone. Fake nails require much attention and TLC. If your nails are already thin, DO NOT put on fake nails, you will only ruin your real nails faster. I am not a fan of Fake Nails. Beautifuly polished nails are amazing and are the new trend and are seen on so many runways.

Summing it up: First find a nail shop that is clean, gives you advice on your nails instead of just going with what you think is best for your nails, and cares for you as a client. Secondly, take time at home to pamper yourself by giving your feet and hands some TLC. Lastly have fun with it all!

Accent Your Beauty!

Get Your Game Face On

I recently saw a post on FB that my sister posted, in which she describes her morning. She woke up and excercised, ate breakfast, and ran out the door on time, but with no make-up.  Even though she got all her goals met, she did not get her appearance on. I know she probably did her make up on her way to work; however, how many of us don't already run out the door with no make up on?

It is essential to place your game face on! Beauty does come from the inside, but in all cases we as women need to feel the confidence to give each day our best. Make-up doesn't just perk up our appearance, but also makes us feel ready.  I was listening to a preacher on TV and he was speaking of our sinful nature. He went on to say that a certain woman of his concregation had initially asked him if he thought wearing make-up was a sin. He proceeded to answer with a "Sister, it is a sin for some women not to wear make-up." As true as this might be, it doesn't mean that we must slab on a huge portion of product on our faces. Less is better.

If you are that girl that grew up not nowing how to place make up on your face, or are not sure how to, let me tell you that you have so many avenues of learning how to.  Here I am making a list of great sources where you can learn how to apply make up and learn to love the new you:

1. Mary Kay Beauty Consultant - they have weekly meeting to teach them about beauty, and the company gives them the tools for the latest trends.
2. YouTube.com - has so many rising make up artist and application videos. Make sure you follow a reputable artist. For example one of my favorites is Michelle Phan @ http://www.youtube.com/user/MichellePhan
3. Make-Up artist in your area
4. Online blogs - like this one
5. Friends - if you like your friends look, you can ask for some pointers

Remember get your game face on and you will be ready for your day, light make up goes a long way towards how you feel and others percieve you.
Accent your beauty girl!