Beauty Vices and Virtues

Everyone breaks the beauty rules sometimes. Here are some of my worst habits:

• I pick my split ends. A lot. Plenty of people have told me not to, but I don't really want to break the habit. I find it strangely soothing. Besides, it's just hair. I can trim it and grow it back anyway.
  
• I pop pimples. Yeah, gross, I know. I just can't stand when they turn into whiteheads that concealer won't stick to. Yes, I end up with red marks because of it. They go away eventually, though.
  
• I neglect my feet. I forget to put sunscreen on them when I'm wearing flip-flops and jeans, which is pretty much every Saturday and Sunday of the year. Aside from the melanoma risk, the tan lines are not cute.
  
• I abuse my cuticles. Get hangnail. Try to bite it off instead of locating cuticle cutters. Make hangnail worse. Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad infinitum.
  
• I keep mascara too long. Who wants to spend $20 on mascara, just to throw it out after five weeks?
  
• I abandon my routine. Every once in a while, when I'm too tired to get ready for bed, I skip the makeup removal/face washing part of my evening. Invariably, vice #2 will follow within days. 

It's not all bad, though. Here's what I get right most of the time:

• I wear sunscreen on my face and hands. Always.
• I avoid rubbing my eyes. It drives me nuts to see people do this! Besides risking infection, it also pulls at the delicate periorbital skin, causing wrinkles, roughness, and discoloration. I pretend that the skin around my eyes is tissue paper. 
• I get plenty of antioxidants. I'll do a full posting on antioxidants sometime. For now, suffice it to say that antioxidants, like vitamins C and E, are effective both ingested and applied topically to prevent the damage ("oxidative stress") done to your skin by harmful free radicals like smog and cigarette smoke.
• I don't smoke. I hope that in this modern day, that's a pretty self-explanatory one. 
• I sit up straight. Good posture alleviates back pain, enables deeper breathing, opens the organ systems, and prevents the hunch effect that sometimes comes with age. It's also slimming!

Well, there you have it. Do as I say and not as I do! What are some of your best and worst beauty habits?

Gray Trifecta

It took me forever to find the perfect shimmery gray eyeshadow shades for a base, contour, and liner. So many were matte, didn't spread well, had huge chunks of glitter in them, were tinted toward blue or pink, et cetera. I finally found what I was looking for at Sephora (no surprise there!). These are all powder shadows. The base, which you would normally apply from the lash line to about ¼" below the eyebrows…

Aside: I say "below the eyebrows" instead of how makeup artists say "to the browbone" because for a long time I was confused as to what it meant to apply shadow "to the browbone." I thought it meant applying it up to the eyebrow hairs. I would read that and think, heck no, if I do that, I'm going to look like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show! Maybe that would work in a fashion editorial, but not for a trip to Ralphs! Then I figured out that it meant to apply it up to the top of the eye socket, to the point slightly below the eyebrow where the bone protrudes.

…is the delightful Stila shadow "Cloud."

The medium gray, which took me the longest to find, is surprisingly from Urban Decay. I always thought of that brand as too punky and puerile for me, but when I took a closer look, that wasn't the case. They do have quite a few outrageous colors, but most of the edginess is in the packaging and the shade names, not the product itself. Who knew? The color, inaptly called "S&M," is the ideal shimmery medium gray. I use a long-bristled, dome-headed brush to apply this in the crease, like I'm tracing around the top half of my eyeball with the brush. That said, my gorgeous sister Becca prefers to use her fingers to apply shadow, and I'm sure she would do a fine job of it that way as well. It's really not too tricky. I also add some to the outer corners of my eyes to create the illusion of distance, since my eyes are slightly close-set. Finally, I use a stubby smudge brush to spread a little of this shade just below my bottom lashes.

The third color I use is another Stila shadow called "Pewter." This one is highly pigmented, so make sure you gradually layer on the color until it's just right. I like to use a tiny flat, angled brush to apply this as a liner on the top lid. You can use the brush wet, too. This is not necessary to intensify the pigment, but will help to reduce the little specks that fall off the eyelids during application. It just depends on whether you want a softer, less noticeable line (use dry) or a harder-edged, more defined line (use wet).

For night, I would also blend a little Pewter into the outer half of the crease, and would use that shade with the smudge brush to line all around the eye to create a bold but diffuse look.

The instructions are long for completeness' sake, but this can be done in less than five minutes. Give it a try and tell me what you think!

New Favorite Moisturizer!

I didn't really use Olay before, but after reading a review on www.beautypedia.com, I decided to try Olay Regenerist SPF 50 UV Defense Regenerating Lotion. Not only is it an SPF 50 designed to be lightweight enough for daily wear, but it's also chock full of skin-soothing ceramides, antioxidant vitamins C and E, collagen-building peptides, and beneficial green tea extract. For whatever reason, these components are not advertised on the packaging, but are simply listed by their scientific names under the ingredient list.

In case you couldn't already tell, I love this product. It goes on lightweight enough to be suitable for oily skin, yet does have enough moisturizing ingredients to keep skin supple throughout the day. It's got pretty much everything you would want a daily moisturizer to have. In the three weeks I've been using it, my skin has gotten much more smooth and even. The price point is about half that of the Clinique sunscreen I'd been using, and has double the sun protection. Also, it comes in a pump instead of a jar like the Clinique moisturizers. Did you know that jar packaging can eviscerate the effectiveness of even the most potent products? Neither did I, until I read about it a few weeks ago. Apparently, lots of ingredients are sensitive to light, air, and the contaminants that are deposited when you put your fingers in the jar.

With my fair skin, I'm obsessed with sun protection. (But really, everyone should be. Even the lovely dark chocolate–skinned folks can get wrinkles and melanoma from the sun, although it won't look like a sunburn.) I've been wearing sunscreen daily since I was fifteen. I think this is the staple I'll still be wearing when I'm forty-five.

Greetings!

Hello Interwebs! I am a lawyer who loves beauty products, cosmetics, and things that smell good! Although I was a C science student, I've delved into it since then in order to figure out how to keep my hair shiny and my face smooth. And now I am here to share with you what I know, and to learn from you as well. Happy primping!