12202011 Beauty Must Knows

Ladies, please. When it comes to beauty, there are some things that EVERYONE no matter what your skin tone, eye color, skin type, or style should know. So, seeing that I am admittedly pretty good with beauty routine knowledge, I feel that I should share some tips to help some girls and keep them from committing some of the beauty don'ts that might be unknowingly plaguing them. So here it goes. 

• Traditionally lipstick is applied before lip gloss. However, applying your lipstick over your lip gloss creates a much smoother and shinier finish and actually helps your lip color last longer.
• No matter what, if you don't use some sort of base, your eyeshadow WILL crease and fade after more than an hour or two of wearing. Using a base also helps your eyeshadow from clumping and looking uneven.
• In order to keep from needing to use so much concealer and foundation to keep your complexion looking as great as it can, its important to remove all of your makeup that you wear during the day to keep it from clogging your pores while you sleep.
• A good facial cleanser and moisturizer are incredibly important! Everyones' skin is different so finding those that work for you are also very important. Just because something works well for your friends, doesn't mean it'll work for you. The most expensive or popular skin care products aren't always the best. Consider what your skin is like before trying and buying skin care products.
• MOISTURIZE! Even people with oily skin (like me) need to moisturize regularly! Often, oily skin can be caused by a lack of moisture. Your skin tends to compensate if it is dry. So if you have naturally oily skin and you don't moisturize, your skin WILL over compensate by pumping out more oil in response.
• One word: Vaseline. Vaseline can be used for EVERYTHING. I use it on my lips every night before bed. It keeps your lips moisturized while you sleep which is when they're most likely to dry out, due to the fact that typically its around 8 hours without drinking anything at all. It keeps your lips soft and supple and they will stay soft for a while. Many people shy away from putting Vaseline on their lips because they're told its gross. Well, speaking from experience, Vaseline actually has no taste to it and the consistency is actually incredibly smooth so most of the time you barely feel it. Vaseline is natural moisturizer. It can be used on elbows and knees to keep them from looking ashy and soothes skin when its chapped or burned. However, be careful with applying Vaseline on your face because its incredibly oily and can cause break outs if you apply it to an area on your face that isn't extremely overly dry.
• Hydrate! Okay, so this is a double whammy. Not only is hydration crucial to your physical health, but its also very important to your beauty routine. Staying well hydrated helps keep your hair, skin, and weight in check. Your hair needs water to help it with essential growth, shine, and softness. Your skin will tend to stay quite a bit clearer and naturally glowing if you hydrate more often. Water flushes out a lot of toxins which helps with keeping your skin clearer. Water flushes out toxins from your stomach and intestines as well which helps with dropping unwanted weight and maintaining a healthy size.
• Combing your hair with a wide toothed comb in the shower after applying conditioner, before you rinse it out is incredibly good for it. This ensures that the conditioner is evenly distributed and also works out knots gently before you get out of the shower which can save your hair from unnecessary breakage.
• Instead of applying conditioner and immediately rinsing it out afterwards, let it sit for a minute or two and really saturate into your hair. This ensures that the conditioner actually soaks into your hair a little more, which helps with softness and also tends to help show more results towards what the conditioner is supposed to do.
• When you're ready to rinse out your conditioner, instead of rinsing with hot or warm water, turn the tap to as cold as you can handle and rinse out your conditioner with that. The cold water shuts hair down at the root which seals in the moisture that you just put into it via your conditioner. This also makes your hair easier to comb after showering and also makes it VERY shiny. I do this every night in the shower and it is very successful
• COMB do not brush your hair after a shower! Brushing wet hair does unbelievable damage, because your hair is at its most vulnerable when it is wet. Instead, use a wide toothed comb after showering to remove knots from wet hair and to ensure that your hair is healthy. To reduce split ends even more, begin from the tips of the hair and work your way up.
• Curly and wavy hair are even more brittle and easy to damage than straight hair, so it should be taken care of a little more. People with curly or wavy hair should be using a good conditioner and shampoo and possibly a leave in conditioner as well. To keep from damaging and splitting curly hair, people should COMB hair only when its wet and try to avoid brushing at all costs because it tends to snap ends and damage curls.

So there you have it. Those are just some basic beauty tips that I live by and use on a daily basis.

12192011 Balancing Life

Balance? In teen lives? Yeah. Right. That's what I thought too, and unfortunately most of the time its true. Life heats up for everyone. There are ups and there are downs. And there are times when trying to balance school, friends, family, a relationship, extra curricular, and some alone time seem almost impossible. Everyone always says that if we didn't need to sleep, so much more could get done. While that is true, I've seen FAR too many people try cutting sleep down or completely out to try and make that room for everything. While it may seem like its working at first...it really is setting you up for more failure and less time being spent on the important things. Last month, I made a very special trip up to New York with a big group and while it was fun, we worked EXTREMELY hard. This meant running around doing things in extremely cold and wet weather that I was not used to, on VERY little to no sleep on some days. After this long week of sleep deprivation, I came down with a bad cold that really wipes me out.Because of it, I wasn't able to go out and do the things I really wanted and needed to do.  When it comes down to it, we all find out that balance is different for everyone and is achieved differently as well. There is a time for everything and if everyone listens to that and follows it according to how their schedules and lives work, balance is possible. Juggling school work, friends split between two different schools, extra curricular  that come into play after school and sometimes at late nights, a family that treasures its bonding time,  a boyfriend who you want to see and wants to see you, as well as time to rest and rejuvenate seems like its impossible. However, it IS possible. As my friends and I found out, school and  sleep come first followed by family friends and the boyfriend if one is present. School for us is taken care of first and foremost during the day and immediately there after. Friends come in on weekends as well as during school. Family is everyday and if there's time...on weekends. The boyfriend fits in nicely during friend slots sometimes. While it IS rather hard to juggle the people groups, most times, they're just going to have to understand when you're not able to be around all the time. Your family will be forgiving usually and your friends tend to understand better especially if a boyfriend is in the picture. The bottom line? There should be no monopolization by any one of these groups. Remembering that will keep balance.