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!