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Hey there, I would like to find someone to teach me about makeup and skincare and hair care and all the things that go into being a fashionable woman. I know very little about any of this, the only thing I do know how to apply is eye makeup and even that I don't have much knowledge about as I don't know how to use any brushes or what they're for. I can use youtube videos to a point, and I've tried using tutorials and web searches to help me with my questions but I have a hard time finding all the answers I need. A lot of the pages I find use terms I see often but have no idea what they mean, so I figured instead of endlessly searching I could try to find a lovely lady to help me out. I will tip for helpful posts, though if you would like to become friends and be there to guide me through the learning process and what not, that would be lovely too.

Here are some topics currently on my mind, though I would love any other beauty tips you have to share.

Hair care: What is dry shampoo, how do I use it, how often to use it, and what are some good brands? How often should you wash your hair? What to look for in a good shampoo and/or conditioner? What is a hair mask, how do I know which kind to use, and how often should I use it? For reference, my hair is thin, kind of oily, and I would like to add thickness to it as well as length.

Skincare: What daily/weekly skin care routines do you use or should be used? What is exfoliating, what kind of products would I use? What is cleansing face care? Would moisturizers just be like lotion? What is a face mask, how should I know what kind to use and how often should I use them?

Makeup: I have absolutely no idea what any face makeup is. What is foundation for, or toner, or concealor or anything else people generally use all over their face? What is their purposes, how to use them, what order to use everything in, etc. What are various brushes used for and how to use them? How do I know if makeup is high quality or not? How to properly apply blush, and how to match blush, foundation, etc. to your skin tone? How to know your skin tone or face shape?

Yeah, as I stated I'm pretty dumb when it comes to all this so don't be afraid to talk to me like a child that got into your makeup box and put lipstick on their eye lids. I would appreciate any help at all and would be most gracious if you answered even one of my question. Thank you for stopping by my thread.

Eloquent Vampire

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Dry shampoo is typically a powder that you spray into the roots of your hair to absorb oil and moisture and increase the length you can go between showers. You shouldn't wash your hair any more frequently than every other day, the constant stripping of oils encourages your scalp to overproduce what's lost, and it means you have to just wash your hair more often. Allow the oils to build up a little, they're good for your hair and scalp. I've never used a hair mask, but I would assume they're just extra moisturizing and can improve texture.

For most people, a basic skin care routine is: cleanse at least once a day every day with a non-abrasive cleanser (no more than twice), apply a toner, spot treat as needed, moisturize. Exfoliate usually 2-3 times a week. Exfoliate means to gently scrub or otherwise remove the first layer or two of old skin to expose the fresher, newer skin underneath. You can do this with products, or even just the old fashioned way with face cleanser and a clean, soft wash cloth. Never, ever sleep in makeup, and never touch your face throughout the day. Moisturizers are a type of lotion, but they're not the same thing as regular all over body lotion. You want face-specific moisturizer lotion. Again, never used a face mask, but I would assume they're just something you can do once a week or so to extra moisturize or extra deep cleanse.

Foundation gives your face a smooth, even canvas to work with. It can even out skin tone and textures. Concealer is for spot-covering areas like dark circles, blemishes, scars, etc. Toner resets the pH balance of your face after washing, helping prevent blemishes from coming in. Most of the time, I see makeup used in this order: after cleansing, toning, moisturizing, apply primer, then concealer, then foundation over the top. You can use a brush or a sponge or beauty blender, it's mostly a preference thing, and sometimes they can give different effects or textures. To find your skin tone, stand outside in natural light and look at yourself in a mirror. Do you see more yellow or pink in your skin? Pink means you have warm undertones, yellow means cool undertones. You can then look at the veins in your wrist, if they're more green, you have warm tones. Blue, cool tones. You can look up diagrams of various face shapes and see which one best matches your own, or ask a friend to help you judge.

All of this you'll have to dedicate time, energy, money, and interest in. There is a lot of trial and error involved, and you'll have to be ready for that. You're not going to learn it overnight, you're not going to learn it quickly or easily. You're going to mess up, you're going to potentially look ridiculous in your makeup trials, and you may end up buying products that you'll never use. You can surf Youtube for basic makeup tutorials and guidelines to finding good products, recognizing high quality from average from bad, how to apply all of these products and what brushes work best, etc. It takes a long, long time to figure out, so don't expect to be good at any of this right off the bat.

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Jagger-Wolf


Thank you so much for your reply, it is very helpful. I have a couple of questions on the information you gave me, though. What is a toner, and what does it do to your skin? For this skin care routine is it something done just on the face or do I use it on all/most of my skin? Also, what is spot treat?

Dapper Ladykiller

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The Puppet That Smiles
Hey there, I would like to find someone to teach me about makeup and skincare and hair care and all the things that go into being a fashionable woman. I know very little about any of this, the only thing I do know how to apply is eye makeup and even that I don't have much knowledge about as I don't know how to use any brushes or what they're for. I can use youtube videos to a point, and I've tried using tutorials and web searches to help me with my questions but I have a hard time finding all the answers I need. A lot of the pages I find use terms I see often but have no idea what they mean, so I figured instead of endlessly searching I could try to find a lovely lady to help me out. I will tip for helpful posts, though if you would like to become friends and be there to guide me through the learning process and what not, that would be lovely too.

Here are some topics currently on my mind, though I would love any other beauty tips you have to share.

Hair care: What is dry shampoo, how do I use it, how often to use it, and what are some good brands? How often should you wash your hair? What to look for in a good shampoo and/or conditioner? What is a hair mask, how do I know which kind to use, and how often should I use it? For reference, my hair is thin, kind of oily, and I would like to add thickness to it as well as length.

Skincare: What daily/weekly skin care routines do you use or should be used? What is exfoliating, what kind of products would I use? What is cleansing face care? Would moisturizers just be like lotion? What is a face mask, how should I know what kind to use and how often should I use them?

Makeup: I have absolutely no idea what any face makeup is. What is foundation for, or toner, or concealor or anything else people generally use all over their face? What is their purposes, how to use them, what order to use everything in, etc. What are various brushes used for and how to use them? How do I know if makeup is high quality or not? How to properly apply blush, and how to match blush, foundation, etc. to your skin tone? How to know your skin tone or face shape?

Yeah, as I stated I'm pretty dumb when it comes to all this so don't be afraid to talk to me like a child that got into your makeup box and put lipstick on their eye lids. I would appreciate any help at all and would be most gracious if you answered even one of my question. Thank you for stopping by my thread.


Whew! Alright, here we go. Ill try not to repeat too much of what Jagger-wolf said. Dry shampoo is AWESOME. I use it after a workout if my hair is still clean, or if I wake up too late to shower. I like using a shampoo/conditioner with argan oil in it (also called moroccan oil) but I have thicker hair than you. Find friends with similar hair to yours and ask them! To find good shampoos and things that aren't drugstore brands, see if your town has stores like TJ maxx- they always have a beauty aisle with majorly discounted shampoos and conditioners. Ive never used a hair mask.

For skincare, I do a very basic face wash (seriously, like off-brand neutrogena) and I wear BB cream- it acts as a tinted moisturizer so I dont have to wear foundation, and it contains sunscreen. Sunscreen is super important, so look for a moisturizer or foundation that includes it. (Im a big fan of BB cream though.) Face masks are fun! I use one with avocado and oatmeal and let it sit on my face for about five minutes. When its dry I wash it off, and it leaves my skin smooth and my pores a little smaller. I think of it as more of a pampering ritual than a beauty routine.

The amount of makeup you put on is entirely dependent on how much you want to wear. If I am going to work, my routine is this: Cleanse, BB cream, bronzer (brush below the cheekbone) and blush (on the cheekbone). If I am going OUT and will be dancing and sweaty but still want to make a good impression (oh god) I do: Cleanse, toner, primer, BB cream, foundation (yeah, on top of the bb cream!), bronzer, blush, and a mineral powder. OOF. Cant do that every morning.

Brushes will not make or break your routine. I wore makeup for years with one simple eyeshadow brush [x] and a blush brush [x] but I dont use much powder. Buy powder-based makeup if youre a little oily, buy liquid-based makeup if you're a little dry.

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Zuska Darling
Thank you so much for your reply, I found this very helpful. Like with the first poster, I still have a few questions if you wouldn't mind elaborating.

For your avocado and oatmeal face mask, do you make this yourself or do they sell it in stores?

What is bronzer for and what is mineral powder?

Dapper Ladykiller

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The Puppet That Smiles
Zuska Darling
Thank you so much for your reply, I found this very helpful. Like with the first poster, I still have a few questions if you wouldn't mind elaborating.

For your avocado and oatmeal face mask, do you make this yourself or do they sell it in stores?

What is bronzer for and what is mineral powder?


This is the mask that I use. Its so dang cheap I dont bother making it myself, although Im sure you could!

Bronzer just gives your face some color, especially in the winter months. I dont like to overdo it with blush (I wear a coral color blush) but it adds some depth to my face. Heres a photo of a girl before bronzer and after adding bronzer and highlight (I dont highlight on a regular basis, but you get the idea) boop

Mineral powder is just a very sheer application of colorless powder. It absorbs oil as well as making your makeup stay in place better

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Zuska Darling

Thank you so much! The picture was especially helpful. The link to your face mask was also a great addition and I bookmarked the page for possible future purchasing.

Dapper Ladykiller

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The Puppet That Smiles
Zuska Darling

Thank you so much! The picture was especially helpful. The link to your face mask was also a great addition and I bookmarked the page for possible future purchasing.

You can find it at almost any drugstore! Sometimes i can find it for less than $3 smile
Good luck on your makeup journey! Dont stress about it too much, just have fun trying new things

Eloquent Vampire

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The Puppet That Smiles
Jagger-Wolf


Thank you so much for your reply, it is very helpful. I have a couple of questions on the information you gave me, though. What is a toner, and what does it do to your skin? For this skin care routine is it something done just on the face or do I use it on all/most of my skin? Also, what is spot treat?
As I said, a toner is a product that re-balances the pH of your skin after washing, to help stop blemishes coming up. You can get them at the drug store, they're not expensive or hard to find. Soak a cotton pad or cotton ball with the toner, and swipe upward all around your face, jaw and neck. No, you don't need it for your whole body.

Spot treat means you treat one single small spot at a time. Like you apply zit treatment cream to a single zit at once, that's called spot treatment.

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Jagger-Wolf


Thank you for clearing those questions up for me, I really appreciate it.

Eloquent Informer

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The Puppet That Smiles

Hair care: What is dry shampoo, how do I use it, how often to use it, and what are some good brands? How often should you wash your hair? What to look for in a good shampoo and/or conditioner? What is a hair mask, how do I know which kind to use, and how often should I use it? For reference, my hair is thin, kind of oily, and I would like to add thickness to it as well as length.

Skincare: What daily/weekly skin care routines do you use or should be used? What is exfoliating, what kind of products would I use? What is cleansing face care? Would moisturizers just be like lotion? What is a face mask, how should I know what kind to use and how often should I use them?

Makeup: I have absolutely no idea what any face makeup is. What is foundation for, or toner, or concealor or anything else people generally use all over their face? What is their purposes, how to use them, what order to use everything in, etc. What are various brushes used for and how to use them? How do I know if makeup is high quality or not? How to properly apply blush, and how to match blush, foundation, etc. to your skin tone? How to know your skin tone or face shape?


I'll try to fill in some gaps and give my own experiences - hope this doesn't overlap too much with what others have said:

The brand of dry shampoo I like the most is from Klorane. It's about $18. I've heard a lot about a brand called Batiste that's a lot cheaper and seemed to work nearly as well. I use it every morning that I don't wash my hair or after working out.

For reference: I have oily but thick hair that is long. I wash my hair about every 4 days and I usually use a hair mask about once a week. A hair mask is really just a very thick conditioner that you leave on your hair for 3-5 minutes before rinsing out. When I don't use a hair mask, I usually keep my conditioner in that long anyway.

If you are interested in adding thickness, you might want to look into texturizing sprays. The only one I've used is from Oribe and it's pretty expensive. You might also want to look into hair extensions if you are interested in volume and length. I've heard that Foxy Locks and Bellami are pretty good. I don't use them because I don't really need them, but you might like them for special occasions.

As far as skin care goes, in the morning I usually just rinse off my face with water and add a moisturizer/face lotion (not the same as body lotion) before using a primer for my foundation. At night, I wipe off all my make up with a make up wipe, wash my face with standard face cleanser, exfoliate with a microdermabrasion scrub about every other day (I have oily skin, if you have dry skin, exfoliate about once a week), apply a toner (as already mentioned), apply a serum (basically a gel with concentrated ingredients), apply an eye cream (a heavier moisturizer for the delicate skin around your eyes), and a moisturizer for the rest of the face. About once a week I'll put on some sort of face mask or face peel (kind of a mix between a mask and an exfoliator as far a purpose) after washing my face but before toner.

I use different face masks all the time just to give my skin different treatments and nourishments. There are clay masks which kind of pull out impurities, sheet mask (they are literally just a sheet of paper with eye, nose, and mouth holes that are soaked in a treatment) which tend to be a bit more hydrating/soothing, antiaging masks (tend to have retinol or other ingredients that make your skin feel tighter afterwards). I think most people like sheet masks the best because they are easy to use and feel really soothing.

As far as face makeup, I use a silicon based primer to fill in pore and create a smooth surface to my face while also creating a layer between my oily skin and the make up. I pretty much always wear foundation. I like to use an undereye concealer that is a shade or two lighter than my foundation to brighten the area, which gives your face more dimension and makes you look more awake. Then I set everything with a loose powder to increase the longevity of it. I'll apply bronzer and blush.

To be honest, brushes can be used for whatever you want to use them for. I use a pretty big fluffy brush to apply bronzer because it helps diffuse the product where as I'll use a more dense brush for the blush so it's concentrated in one spot. I would pay attention to the density of the brush when making decisions about which to use and consider if you want a concentrated or diffused color application.

I would judge whether a make up product is high quality based on its longevity. Bad foundation breaks down and you'll see your own skin in places where its broken down. Bad powder products (eye shadow, blush, etc) generally have poor pigmentation and/or fade away quickly throughout the day.

There are actually a lot of ways to apply blush. Most people apply it to the apples of their cheeks (when you smile it's the part that kind of rounds up) but I like to apply it at the back of my cheek bones near my ears and drag it forward. Some people even drag it up to there temples (I do this in the winter when I don't where as much bronzer).

I personally don't think you need to match blushes to skin tones, but generally corals or peachy colors go with warm skin tones (yellow undertones) while true pinks go with cool skin tones (pink undertones). Remember that some people do have neutral skin tones which doesn't lean to either pink or yellow!

You can determine your face shape by tracing your face in a mirror with lipstick or a dry erase marker, but you can also just think about the proportions of your face in three areas: forehead, cheeks, jaw. If all of these areas are roughly the same, you have square face shape; if your jaw is the most narrow and your forehead and cheeks are about the same width you have a heart faced shape, and if your widest point is your cheeks you have an oval face shape. There are more face shapes, but I feel like those are the most common.

I hope this was somewhat helpful. I know other posts in the thread have been very detailed.

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[+Pickleweasel+]


Your post was extremely helpful and very detailed. Thank you for all the information! I found the information on figuring out the face shape in particularly informative, I've been lost on that for years and that kept me from feeling confused and that I can do myself. I'll definitely be trying it out today!

I have just a few questions if you don't mind clearing them up for me.
If I looked for serum, is it just called serum? Sorry if that's a dumb question xD

Does eye cream go over the entire area around the eye and the eyelid? Or just under the eye?

Eloquent Informer

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The Puppet That Smiles
[+Pickleweasel+]


Your post was extremely helpful and very detailed. Thank you for all the information! I found the information on figuring out the face shape in particularly informative, I've been lost on that for years and that kept me from feeling confused and that I can do myself. I'll definitely be trying it out today!

I have just a few questions if you don't mind clearing them up for me.
If I looked for serum, is it just called serum? Sorry if that's a dumb question xD

Does eye cream go over the entire area around the eye and the eyelid? Or just under the eye?


For the most part serums are just called "serums" or "face serums"

The eye cream goes under your eye and then around the outer corner of your eye and little bit onto the eye lid - kind of like a half moon shape where "crow's feet" (wrinkles at the corners of your eyes you get from smiling) develop. The idea is that keeping this area hydrated will keep it plumper and the fine lines won't be as noticeable. Who knows if it works though haha
Gaia Forums » GAIA Community » Life Discussion » Real Life Fashion & Style

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