tips

Beauty Hacks & Tips

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This legacy post has been given a facelift. Content has been edited for flow and some updates have been added, but the essence is the same!

After comparing my list to so many top hits from Google from silly magazines, I’m confident that MOST of these are not cookie-cutter tips. So many of these, “beauty hacks,” are old hat to me just because I’ve been doing them so long – but it’s come to my attention that some of them are apparently, “sneaky beauty hacks.” I figured, “Why not share?” We’re all trying to streamline our life and make time for other things – even as someone who enjoys beauty, that doesn’t mean I have an hour or two to throw at it on a daily basis – in fact, writing that made me laugh.

Let’s get on with it!

Before I had highlights!

Hair Hacks

  • Maximize efficacy of your dry shampoo. It will absorb oils as you sleep so you aren’t in such a rush in the morning. As much as I love dry shampoo, sometimes I want it to do what it does faster than it does. Solution? Use your dry shampoo at night before you go to sleep. I like Batiste and Psssst!  [2022 update: Skip conventional dry shampoos; many of them are being found to contain cancer-causing benzene. Use tapioca starch instead!]
  • If you buy large bottles of shampoo and conditioner (such as Tresemme’s 39oz monstrosities [2022 update: Screw Tresemme, they repeatedly sell and resell formulas that lead to hair loss]) and transfer them to smaller bottles, you will be pleased to learn that the caps for Dawn dish soap fit on a lot of bottles that take pumps. Pumps aren’t the best for transferring thick product to other containers, but swapping one of those caps makes life a LOT easier. (2018 Update: These bottle couplers are nice too if you need to combine contents a lot – but I still use Dawn caps for all sorts of things. Reduce, reuse, recycle, save money etc.)

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Look Awake in No Time

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Today is my first day back to my day job since the day before Christmas Eve; an unpredecented holiday break (my employer has a use-them-or-lose-them vacation day policy) for me. So, as I’m sure anyone in a similar situation can imagine, this first Monday of the year is a molehill that feels like a mountain as I make my way through the motions of my workday. But hey – at least I look awake!

Professionals, students, and Moms, you can relate: Sleep is a beautiful, precious thing. Even though I find significant joy in makeup, one cannot get through the days as a functional human being on joy and/or a perfectly executed winged liner alone.

On a daily basis, I prefer more sleep over more time to primp. I am a Snooze Button fiend. In spite of my extra sleep, I often still look pretty tired and sleepy until my second cup of coffee (and even then, coffee doesn’t cure dark circles). I’m not always a fan of looking like death-warmed-over, though.

Fortunately because I find myself in this situation more often than I care to admit, I’ve become pretty good at handling it. Regardless of the reason we’re time-deprived, most of us have three minutes. Yes, three. That’s it. This isn’t a, “no makeup-makeup look,” that requires you spend more time than you’d ever expect. This isn’t a full blown morning routine complete with sun salutations and lemon water, though – this is JUST making your face look less exhausted without doing a full face. Give me three minutes and I can look like my cats didn’t wake me up three times last night or like I did more harm than good by thrice-striking snooze.

First, concealer, post haste. I still really love Maybelline Instant Age Rewind concealer, even though the packaging could be better. I’m cracking open my fourth tube, soon – and let’s face it, how often do we makeup fanciers repurchase something 4+ times? Yeah, I dig it. We understand each other.

Look Awake In No Time
Look Awake In No Time…with my highly sought-after diagrams /s

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