Winter

Being a Canadian we have to suffer with the problems winter causes. A lot of people have multiple complaints about winter but my 3 main complaints are dry skin and hair, chapped lips and hat hair. The air is so dry in winter it is almost impossible to avoid having crackling hands and lips, not to mention that dry hair causes more breakage. It is so cold most of the time that I can't stand not being all bundled up and this includes a hat but that gets super annoying if you want nice hair. OH, and I'm totally forgetting about static. Staticy hair is sooooooo annoying.
I recommend carrying around a few essential supplies during the winter with you at all times if you want to avoid these problems. First of all you always have to have chapstick. Who wants crusty dried up unkissable lips? Whenever you feel it is necessary apply the chapstick. I would also recommend investing in a lip stick that also has moisturizing components to it if you avidly wear lipstick. Most lip balms are good for this as they usually have a colour and flavour and they moisturize. Before you put on your make up you should use chap stick and apply it regularly through out the day. Try not to lick your lips as this just makes the problem even worse. The next thing you should carry is a small tube of hand cream. Pretty self explanatory here but your hands get so dry that they probably need to be quenched a few times throughout the day. I would recommend moisturizing your whole body after you shower as the hot steamy water will also just add to the problem. You can also buy body wash with moisturizing agents which would probably be a really good idea if you regularly have dry skin. Go to the dollar store and get one of those spritzing bottles. Fill it with water and carry that around with you too. Hold the bottle 2 inches from your hair and spray but try to not to soak it with water. The water will stop the static. Brush through with a dry hair brush because you don't want your hair to be actually wet, just spritzed a tiny bit. Hairspray is also a life saver for static. Hairspray your hair after you have spritzed it with water to stop this problem from coming back and probably before you leave the house too.
I would start using a leave in conditioner and a hair mask if your hair is getting really dry and breaking off due to lack of moisture. The other problem is bundling usually involves a scarf and when your hair rubs up against it tends to either knot up like a rat's nest or rub agaisnt it and become weak and break off. It really is best to wear your hair to avoid that but I know that isn't always possible. Just take extra good care of your hair's moisture levels and you should be fine.
Now, if you want to stay bundled but not get hat hair there is a tip you can try. If you have a side part like myself, you need to part your hair on the other side and flip all of your hair over to the side it normally does not go to. Then when you take your hat off you can flip your hair back to normal and it should still have volume and look normal. If you have a middle part just flip all of your hair over to one side and it should work just same. This works really well with straight hair but I'm not too sure how it would work if you just spent an hour curling your hair. If you are nervous about ruining I would invest in a cute pair of ear muffs or a head band as they won't flatten your hair at all. My main problem is the cold makes my ears ache for hours. I always feel warmer when they are covered too. Anyways, I hope this helps you. It's all pretty straight forward but these are definitely things you need to start paying attention to and taking extra care of during these dreadful months. Stay Beautiful! :)

Waterfall Braid

I've recently been practicing the waterfall braid and I have prepared a video for the tutorial as it is a little bit hard to show this with pictures. I love the waterfall braid because it is so elegant looking. It works best to middle part your hair. Since, I have bangs my hair looks a little silly middle parted so I started off my french braiding my bangs as it would fall out and look dumb if I started with the waterfall braid in my bangs. The first thing you want to do is start with 3 pieces of hair just like a normal braid. If you don't have bangs you will want to braid it over a few times just to give you something to start with. Once this is done all you have to do is drop the bottom strand. Then you will proceed to pick up a piece of hair from the root beside the last piece you dropped and then braid that part into your hair (kind of like a french braid). You need to repeat this again. Pick up a strand of hair from the top and french braid it in. Then once that strand gets to the bottom drop it. Then pick up a new strand from the root beside the strand you dropped and french braid it in. I'm sorry if this is a little confusing it is kind of hard to explain so hopefully the video helps you understand. I also apologize for my hands being in the way at the beginning and making it slightly hard to see. Near the end it is easier to see and I think i have dropped the hair about 3 times. Now with the waterfall braid you can end it in 2 different ways. You can either start a braid from both sides of your part and have them meet in the middle for a sort of half up and half down look or this one is done most commonly, you can go all the way around the back of your head and the braid ends on the other side with a zig zag braid. When they meet in the middle they simply just tie together. I also have a video of myself attempting the zig zag braid for the first time except I only did one side of my head in the waterfall braid. All you need to do for a zig zag braid is braid your hair normally. Then separate the excess hair on the braid (where you stop braiding) into 3 strands and the 2 strands on the side up your hair with your braid. Then reverse what you just did with it and bring it back down about half way (hopefully the video makes this a little bit more clear once again). As it turns out I lost the original video of me finishing the waterfall braid with a zig zag braid so I just quickly made a video of my just putting a zig zag braid in my hair. I apologize as it is kind of messy because I'm in msip and did not have a hair brush. It looks a lot neater when you can brush your hair before hand. 

Most of the time when you see pictures of the infamous "tumblr girls" wearing waterfall braids they have curly hair. For the best results for this type of curl I would suggest using a straightner to curl your hair. Once again, I have created a video to help you. I find straightners work awesomely if you are going for a more lose natural curl. All you have to do is clamp the straightner down in the middle of a strand of your hair and turn it 3/4 away from your face then pull through. It always reminds of twirling ribbon with scissors (it's pretty much the same concept). It is super easy to get the hang of and looks really good. I would use hair spray to set the curls. Don't hairspray until after you have finished curling everything as this is really bad for your hair and it won't work as well either because the heat will just dry the product you just put on your hair instead of curl it.

I have some pictures of the end result so you can see what the whole look pulled together looks like. I attempted to go around my head but I kept getting confused because I couldn't see what I was doing so I just did half of my head. I wish I had room set up with 2 mirrors facing each other but oh well. Stay Beautiful! :)

How To Have Healthy, Long, Luscious Hair

 First of all one of the craziest things I hear on a daily basis is that people refuse to cut their hair because they want it to grow. That's pretty much the worst thing you can do if you want your hair to grow. The reason your hair isn't growing is because it is breaking off at the ends. If you don't cut your hair then those split ends will just split all the way up your hair and just break off more and more until your hair is shorter and shorter. You need to go to your hair dresser right now and just tell her to chop off as much as he or she needs to so there is no more damage at the ends of your hair. You should see your hair stylist every few months to keep up with getting rid of the dead ends.



Once you have gotten rid of the damaged ends then you have to keep it healthy. First off look at the way you wash your hair. What kind of shampoo do you use? Is it targeted for your specific hair type? If it isn't get rid of it and go buy shampoo and conditioner that is. Hair has pores just like your face. When you shampoo you want to rinse it out with hot water because you don't want any of it being left behind in your hair. It is bad for your hair to have product held in it. Shampoo is meant to remove all of the oil from your hair so it looks clean . The problem with this is that some of the natural oils in your hair are good for it and help it be healthy and moisturized. You don't want dry hair so this is where the conditioner comes in. Conditioner is meant to counteract what the shampoo did. You want to put some of the healthy oils back into your hair so it doesn't break off. Rinse the conditioner out with cold water as cold as you can stand to be under so that the pores in your hair hold in the conditioner. The best thing for you hair is to not wash it every day to help keep these oils.

dry hair brush. notice the bristles are soft



wet hair brush. notice the bristles are hard.



After your hair is washed I strongly recommend using a leave in conditioner. It just adds more moisture to your hair especially if you're a wimp when it comes to cold water. Then use a hair brush meant for wet hair to brush out all of the knots from the bottom of your hair to the top of your hair. It is important to get all of the knots out at the bottom first because it causes less strain when you are brushing through your hair from the roots down.



If you style your hair with heating tools for example, a straightening iron or a curling iron then you should go out and get some heat protector. When I blow dry my hair I use mousse because mousse volumizes and protects your hair against heat. It is also very easy to rub into your wet hair. Just put the desired amount (not too much or your hair will be crusty but the amount really depends on the length of your hair) and rub it in all over. Then I would recommend getting an actual heat protector product that comes in a spray bottle to spray over each part of your hair that is going to be touched by the heat. Really, the best thing to do is to leave your hair at a natural state for a while but of course you want to style your hair some times so these products really help. I would go to Sally's to buy these because they carry the best of the best that is available to the public. It helps to style your hair up on days when you don't care as much because most of the time you wouldn't have to use a heating tool to style it that way.



Another thing that is bad for your hair is product build up. About once a month you want to cleanse your hair free of all the heat protection product, shampoos, hairspray etc. that you use. Sally's sells bottles meant for this. Or if you don't want to spend the money you can use vinegar it works just as good. This shouldn't be done more than once a month though because over doing it is bad for your hair just like over washing your skin drys it out. After wards your hair will feel much softer and lighter and look shinier.

If your hair is really damaged you can also try buying a hair mask. Once again, Sally's will cell this. You simply apply the mask all over your hair daily and let it sit in for about 15 minutes. This adds moisture and strengthens your hair. I also recommend trying out morrocan oil shampoo and conditioner (they also make a hair mask) it's really expensive but if you use one bottle of each it does wonders for you hair.


 Hair grows slowly so you have to be patient. Your hair grows about an inch every month and about an inch and a half in the summer months. Take good care of your hair and it will start to grow instead of break off and eventually you will have the healthy, long, luscious hair you've dreamed of. Stay Beautiful!

Knot Bun

So I totally haven't done any hair tutorials yet so here is one :) This is the knot bun. The Knot bun is super easy to do and I'm seeing it in a lot of magazines on models lately. I usually sport the knot bun on a lazy day or when I have to work. I love everything about beauty because you can trick people. Everything that looks so hard is usually so simple and so easy. People always compliment you and are amazed by what you have done to yourself and they don't even know that it took you literally 5 minutes. The knot but is about a total of 3 steps.

Step One: Brush your hair with a dry hair brush. In case any of you don't know this already there are two separate brushes for wet hair and dry hair. It is actually bad for your hair to use a dry hair brush on wet hair or vice versa. It causes breakage and damage to your hair and it would look a lot healthier if you use the proper brush. Another thing a lot of people don't know is that you are supposed to brush the knots out from the bottom up. It damages your hair to be pulling out knots from the top down. Ever wonder why your hair doesn't grow? Probably because its breaking off at the ends from you damaging it from not brushing it properly and a bunch of other factors which I will get into in another entry. Let's focus back on the knot bun now. After your hair is completely brushed put it into a regular old pony tail as high or low as you want the bun to be on your head.

Step Two: Simply just braid the tail of your ponytail in an average, everyday, everyone knows how to do it braid and close it off with another hair tie.

Step Three: Wrap the braid around the elastic holding the pony tail in place. Tuck the tail of the braid underneath the ponytail and bobby pin into place and voila! you have yourself a knot bun.
Stay Beautiful :)

The Simplest Way to Apply Eye Shadow



Image pulled from google images (neutral day make up)



Image pulled rom google images (intense purple eyeshadow)



Yes people, there is a technique to this. Sure you might look fine just slapping one colour over your lid but you will look even better if you apply it the "proper" way. You need an eye shadow palette with one colour and 3 different shades. For a neutral day to day look using brown tones works the best. First decipher the order of darkness of the shades: one colour will be darkest, one colour will be in the middle and the other colour will be lightest. You want to take the the middle colour and smear it all over your eye, from your lashes to your eyebrow. Next take the darkest colour and line your crease with it. You can easily tell where your crease is by opening and closing your eyes there will be a slight line where your crease is. Just line that line with the darkest colour and you can even keep your eye open for this part because that actually makes it a lot easier to make sure you are getting your crease. Fan the darkest colour at the corner of your eyes upwards toward your brow bone. Then Take the lightest colour and apply to your brow bone. Can anyone guess what this does? You got it, it highlights and contours. This will probably look silly until you blend it. Just take a clean brush and rub the colours into each other. Probably looks much better now. You can use any colour you want to as well. For dramatic effects or evening make up you can use bright colours like pink. All you need is 3 shades. Remember the rule though if you don't want to look like a clown you either play up your lips or you play up your eyes. So don't wear a deep red lipstick if you plan on making your eyes a vibrant bright blue. Try wearing a very light pink lipstick, a nude or just gloss because the colour doesn't show up as well if you want intense eyes. If you want intense stand out lips then stick to neutral colours for your eye shadow. I'll get into other eye shadow techniques later because there are so many but I thought I'd just start with the basics for now. Until then, Stay Beautiful!

Galaxy Nail Art



Step one: blacken



I love anything galaxy print. Space can be so pretty sometimes. Galaxy is a huge trend right now probably reflected from the "futuristic" mood of our generation. This is a galaxy themed nail art tutorial. It is a lot easier than it looks and anyone can do this. I have a friend who makes her own galaxy printed clothes so I applied what she does to her clothes to my nails. First, apply your base coat and then you will need a black background. Paint your nails completely black. I used Sally Hansen's #880 "black heart".



step two: cut the sponge



Wait for the black to be almost dry and then cut a little corner off of a make up sponge and use tweezers to hold the sponge. You will need this sponge in the next step.



step three: sponge on blue



Next take a light blue colour and apply a small amount of polish to the sponge. I used a L'oreal pastel blue from their spring pastel collection. Dab on the blue in a curved line or concentrated in one area to create your nebula. Don't worry if it looks sloppy because it should.



Step three: add some pink



Next, immediately take a hot pink polish and dab a small amount on the sponge and dab it over the blue but not completely over the blue. You want to follow the same pattern you just made with the blue but leave some of it showing. Don't be afraid to go out of the lines and in the lines. Doing this while the blue is still wet will allow the colours to blend.







 



Sparkle Polish Stars



White nail polish stars



Let this mostly dry which won't take long because of the little amount of polish used and then it is time to add the stars. There are two options with stars. First you can use a multi - dimentional glitter polish. I used an essie multi - dimentional polish. It needs to be multi - dimentional to create depth and make it look as though some stars are closer than others. Or you can take the pointy end of tooth pick and dab it in white nail polish and then press all over your nail to create little white stars. It is also important to try and make the stars all different sizes to create depth. It is really easy to do because if you just put a lot of polish on the end of the tooth pick then the first few stars will come out bigger than the last few. When you are coming close to needing to dip the end of the tooth pick in the polish again. Just try and put all the big stars in random places not next to each other. Apply a top coat and then you are finished with your galactic masterpiece!

Stay Beautiful!





Day of the Dead

Here is an example of a Day of the Dead skull in case anyone has no idea what I am talking about. Stay posted for the tutorial. The image was pulled from google images