Alyssa's Beauty Tip Directory [hair tips and recipes UPDATE]

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Alyssa’s Beauty Tip Directory~~~~~~~~~~ ♥

Welcome to Alyssa's Beauty Tip Directory.

Here, I will give my knowledge on the topics of skincare, hair care, and makeup, recommend products, and give the basics on the uses of said products. Please note, all of the products I recommend are based on my own experiences, as well as reviews I have read on the internet. Just because it works for me, does not mean it will work the exact same for you. In no way am I pressuring you to buy said products; they are basically just there as references. Also, in no way am I claiming to be a professional in the art of beauty and products.

Feel free to ask questions. I will try and answer them as best I can. Also, feel free to submit your own tips! Just PM me your tips and I'll add them to the thread.

Stuff I was too lazy to go over:
Finding Your Face Shape
Finding Your Skin Type
Makeup Brush Uses: Eye Brushes
Makeup Brush Uses: Face Brushes
How to Wash Makeup Brushes
How to Contour Your Face  

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Skincare~~~~~~~~~~ ♥

♥ Wash your face at least once a day. Now, a lot of people say wash your face twice a day, but some people (me included) find that their face dries out too much if they wash their face twice a day. What I can suggest for this, is to use moist towelettes, such as Neutrigena Makeup Removing Towelettes, or even baby wipes!

♥ Moisturize at least once a day, no matter what your skin type is. It’s a big misconception that oily skin doesn’t need moisturizer. Oily skin does need to be moisturized, just maybe not as much. Did you know that oily skin can actually be cause by dryness? This is because when the skin is dry, it creates more oils to try and rehydrate itself, and in turn we end up washing our faces more to “control” the oils. I’m not saying that everyone with oily skin actually has combination or dry skin, it’s just food for thought.

♥ Always wear something with SPF in it, whether it be your moisturizer, foundation, primer, anything! The sun ages your skin and keeping your skin protected with the SPF will help prevent early aging, sun spots, and even some skin cancers.

♥ Avoid touching your face, UNLESS your hands are clean. Your hands have tons of oils and bacteria on them that can lead to break outs if they get on your skin.

♥ If you tend to get one-sided acne, check your phone and your pillow cases. If either of these are dirty, it can lead to break outs.

♥ Exfoliate your skin at least once a week to remove dead skin cells from your skin. A great homemade exfoliant is a mixture of equal parts honey and sugar. 2 - 3 tablespoons of each should be more than enough to exfoliate your entire face. But rub gently! There is no need to scrub.

♥ Using a toner isn't necessary. They are made to remove the remaining oils, dirt, and makeup. If you have a good cleanser, it should do all that for you.

♥ Your skin shouldn't really be super red after washing your face. A little redness is alright, because rubbing your face is going to get the blood flowing. If your skin feels taut and tight, you may need a new face wash. Your skin should feel dewy and moisturized after washing.  

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Makeup~~~~~~~~~~ ♥

GENERAL
♥ With makeup, you get what you pay for most of the time. Most of the time, more expensive makeup will last longer, look better, and do better things for your skin.

♥ Brushes do most of the work when it comes to makeup, so make sure to invest in quality brushes. Quality doesn’t always mean they have to be expensive. MAC and Sephora both have amazing brushes but at a steep price. Quality brushes that are in a good price point that I swear buy are the Ecotools Brushes or the Sigma Brushes. Quo puts out brushes in a similar price range, but they seem to be a hit or miss.

FACE
♥ Primers are wonderful things. They go on your skin after you moisturize, but before your foundation. They are essentially the foundation of your foundation. What they do is create a good base for foundation, aid in smoothing out your skin tone, help your makeup stay on longer, and can even help absorb oils on your face if they have silica in them. My personal favourite is the MAC Prep + Prime Face Protect with SPF 50. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any drugstore foundation primers. L'Oreal Studio Secrets Magic Perfecting Base and Hard Candy Sheer Envy Primer are some drugstore primers, although I would recommend a high quality primer over these ones.. (Thanks Fathy!)

♥ Concealers are normally more pigmented than foundations are, and are use to cover smaller areas such as under the eyes. There are many different colours of concealer such as green, yellow, flesh, blue, etc etc etc. Each colour has a different purpose. If you look at a colour wheel, different colours oppose each other. Well, opposing colours cancel each other out. So a yellow concealer would be used to hide under eye circles, where as a green concealer would cancel out redness. Flesh coloured concealers are normally used just to hind minor redness or dark circles and to blend in other colours of concealer.

♥ Foundations are used to even out the skin tone. There are multiple types of foundations; powder, cream, gel, and liquid, with each providing varying levels of coverage. Powders are generally the most sheer, and are applied with a powder brush or powder puff. As for cream, gel, and liquid foundations, they all vary in coverage (it depends on the formula), and they can be applied multiple different ways. Creams are generally applied with a damp makeup sponge or a brush, where as gels and liquids can be applied with a brush, damp sponge, or your fingers.

♥ When applying foundation to your face with a sponge, make sure it is damp. When you squeeze it, water should not be coming out. The reason you dampen the sponge is so it absorbs less of the product and allows it to glide on more smoothly.

♥ Also don't apply foundation/concealer on your eyelids if you plan on wearing eyeshadow. Doing this will make it wear off fast and crease since foundations have no oil absorbing properties.

♥ When trying to find your shade of foundation, you should apply it directly to your face, not on your hands/underside of your arm/etc. This is because the skin there is a different colour then you would probably want. Also, you do NOT match your foundation to your face. You match it to the general tone of your neck and chest. When in doubt, you can always go to a Sephora, MAC, or Ulta store and get matched there.

♥ Always set liquid, cream, or gel foundations with powder or else it'll wear off super fast.

♥ There are different way to apply blush depending on your face shape. This is the general guidelines, but really you can do it however you want.

Oval face: This face type typically does not need any contouring at all since the natural slope of the face already provides a perfect plane to apply blush. For a natural look, apply blush onto the apples of your cheeks for a flushed, healthy glow.

Square Face: For this face shape, soften the angles of cheeks by concentrating the brighter color of the blush on the apples of the cheeks, then sweep the color straight out towards your temples. This will give your face a natural lift.

Round Face: Start applying blush to the area just above the apples of your cheeks and slightly blend forward to thin the face. Make sure not to get blush too close to your nose; otherwise, the extra color will highlight the rounded area of the cheeks.

Long Face: To create the illusion of width on a long-shaped face, apply blush to the apples of the cheeks and extend the color outward towards your ears.

♥ Protip: You can use lipstick as blush. Just apply it to your fingers and blend it into your cheeks.

EYES
♥ There are also eyeshadow primers. These act very similar to foundation primers. They prevent oily eyelids, help eyeshadow stay on longer, prevents creasing, and makes the eyeshadows more vibrant. Some fantastic eyeshadow primers are the Urban Decay Primer Potion and the Two Faced Shadow Insurance.

♥ Have an eyeshadow close to the colour of your skin tone. I know it may seem boring but it's very useful when blending eyeshadows.

♥ Like blush, there is different way to apply eyeshadow depending on your eye shape. Again, these are only general guidelines.

Round Eyes: This doll-like shape gives innocent vibes. Any wash of color can be applied on the lid. Give the eyes more depth by applying a medium-dark shade into the crease. To elongate the eyes, extend the eyeshadow on the outer corner of the eye and continued down along the lower lash line.

Deep Set Eyes: This seemingly sunken shape have a very well-defined and deep crease. Use a light, bright color on the entire lid to bring out the eyes. Apply a shimmery highlight shade on the highlight area to lift up brows and give an illusion of more lid space. Re-create the crease with a medium shade well blended into the crease.

Prominent Eyes: The eyes are very distinct and may sometimes seem like it's protruding. Recess the look of the eyes by applying a dark, matte color on the eyelid. Extend the color into the entire crease. Lift up the brows by applying a pastel highlight color along the highlight area.

Small Eyes: Shapely, but petite. To open up eyes, apply a shimmery or pastel color on the entire eyelid. Define the shape by applying a dark shade into the crease. If eyes are close-set, apply a light color into the inner corner of the eye to give a widened look. Highlight under the brow to give more lid space and make the eyes look more prominent.

Almond Eyes: Also known as the "Perfect Eyes". Apply a medium shade all over the lids and blend into the crease to emphasize. Use a darker shade on the outer lid and extend in to the outer eye corner. Complete with satin-finished highlight under the brow.

Hooded Eyes: More common amongst matured women where the lids are starting to sag. To minimize the droopy lid, sweep a light and bright matte shade all over the lid. Give eyes a lift by using a dark shade, swept upwards on the outer corner of the eye. Contour with a medium-dark shade into the crease. Use a pastel highlight under the brow.

♥ Not all mascaras are created equal, and one mascara is not a one size fits all. Thinner lashes will look better with a thicker, mousse mascara, since thin lashes are normally too weak to hold up a wet mascara. Volumizing mascaras are perfect for thin lashes. Thicker lashes on the other hand are able to hold up wet mascaras, but thicker mascaras will normally make the lashes clump together.

♥ It is better to apply 2 thin coats of mascara than 1 thick coat. This is to prevent clumping.

♥ Always curl your lashes before applying mascara. Curling them with mascara on can damage and break your lashes.
Protip: If you are having trouble curling your lashes, blow a hairdryer on the curler and try again. The heat will help.

♥ Avoid putting eyeliner on the lower lid, because it smudges and wears off easily. Use an eyeshadow instead and apply it with an angle brush.  

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Hair Care~~~~~~~~~~ ♥

♥ Avoid brushing your hair when it is dry if it is curly/wavy. This will make your hair frizz up, and cause breakage. Instead, comb through it with a wide tooth comb in the shower when you have lots of conditioner in your hair.

♥ Avoid using heat styling tools as best you can, but if you must use them only do so if you have a heat protectent in your hair, and if your hair is completely dry. Any sort of water moisture in your hair will cause it to frizz and fry.

♥ Try not to blow dry your hair completely from soaking wet to bone dry. Instead, try blow drying it until it is about 80% dry and let the rest air dry. This prevents frizz.

♥ Like your face, you should always moisturize your hair and scalp because a greasy scalp can be caused by dryness. "But Alyssa, conditioning my hair and scalp makes it more greasy wah." That means you're using the wrong product. A conditioner should leave your hair soft and shiny, and not weight it down. Your hair probably just doesn't like an ingredient in what you used, so shop around and try and find something that works. Your hair could be protein sensitive, dislike gylcerine, or react to parabens. See: Ingredients commonly found in hair products.

♥ Try and limit your usage of sulfate shampoos (see ingredient list in previous point > Anionic Sufactants). These are very drying to your hair. In fact, while most shampoos have sulfates in them, so do dish soaps. Why? Because they are great grease cutters. You wouldn't want to wash your hair with dish soap. Why not opt for shampoos with gentler cleaning ingredients (see ingredient list > Amphoteric Surfactants), or shampoos with low sulfate contents.

♥ If you plan on cutting sulfate shampoos completely out of your hair care regime, please read this article. I'm not going to explain it here, because the article does a great job and has a ton of info.

♥ Sleeping on a satin pillowcase will reduce friction on your hair and prevent breakage and frizz.

♥ Cutting your hair does not make it grow faster. All it does is keep the ends healthy.

♥ Products that claim to repair split ends are a sham. They don't do anything. You cannot repair split ends. All you can do it chop them off.  

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Miscellaneous~~~~~~~~~~ ♥  

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Recipes~~~~~~~~~~ ♥

FACE
♥ MASKS
Egg White and Yogurt Mask
Oatmeal and Yogurt Mask
Pumpkin Mask
Yogurt Mask
Clay Mask
Banana Mask
Aspirin Mask
Strawberry Mask
Avacado and Honey Mask
Milk Mask
Rose Mask

♥ SCRUBS
White Sugar Scrub
Brown Sugar Scrub

HAIR
SPRAYS ♥
Lavender Mist

TREATMENTS ♥
Protein Treatment
Oil Treatment

 

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Q&A~~~~~~~~~~ ♥  

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