Glamourous beauty routines S/D

Destroy: waxing

though it can all be fun occasionally, it seems more fun to keep things fairly simple.

Key to unsmeared mascara (if that's your kind of thing), apply multiple thin coats, set with loose powder, and put on *after* plucking brows.

homemade facials rule, paying upwards of $60 for someone else to clean out your pores does not.

oh,cuban manicure- where you leave a white half moon at your cuticles.

And with that, I'm headed to Sephora for a glam lunch break.

Destroy: nail extensions, womens' magazines banging on about spa breaks, anything endorsed by a celebrity (I mean J.Lo Glow etc, not Kate Moss doing Rimmel ads, she's a model, that's what she does), brazilian waxes, hollywood waxes.

Destroy: Manicures. Fucking spa days ("Yes, please, let me pay $200 so you can dump melted butter on me and then put a rock on my stomach"). Hair gel.

Of course, now that I have very little money, I am living off my stocks of the above and don't know what I'll do when they run out, which is soon. Not so much the lovely smellies as the make up/cleansing routine. I have tried cheaper lines, but they just make my skin go haywire. And I really can't live without the B. Kamins mask.

Evil: bikini wax (please tell me how girls manage to not get a rash or ingrown hairs?), manicures (because they only last for a day), trashy nail extensions, too much perfume, sunbed tanorexia, brassy skunk highlights, rude/expensive hair salons, lipliner drawn outside your lips, trendy mullets, anything that involves surgery, injections or implants.

Not so Lovely: Press-on nails, any kind of plucking or waxing, everything elisabeth k listed as evil

Destroy: CVS (on general principle, but their most recent offense is to stop carrying Alpha Hydrox stuff); the bumper crop of whiteheads and blackheads that has exploded on my face (do the Queen Helene masks live up to their reputation?)

Destroy: anything involving slagging off cos I am a wimp e.g. 'have you tried dying this yourself? Tch tch tch. Sigh'. Also my home pedicure thing as our bathroom isn't very cosy so I end up doing it in my room with a bowl of water then spending the next 6 months hoovering bits of foot mask (HEIN? women are fules sometimes) up. Or thinking about hoovering them up and not bothering.

I have this problem too. I feel totally unfeminine when it comes to eye liner as I have no idea how to apply it correctly.

That being said I never use pencil eyeliner anymore because I discovered that a little tiny square "paint brush" looking applicator and black powder eyeshadow look nicer! And you can always wet down the brush and come up with a slightly softer "liquid liner" look. It's very versatile!

Also, the Queen Helene mask is very good. I have had problem skin ever since I cleaned up my act (?!) and that's helped a lot. I use the Clean & Clear pore scrub or whatever the hell it's caused daily, followed with L'Oreal Hydrafresh moisturizer (the oilfree one), the Queen Helene minty mask once a week and it has worked and none of this is pricey at ALL. The Hydrafresh moisturizer feels really nice too, it's always cool, even if you store it in a blistering hot bathroom.

So I'm back from Sephora (where I suffered huge option paralysis) and bought nothing, but cool Polish assistant loaded me down with Shisheido samples, rah.

Search: TURKISH BATHS especially my local one as it is best for pores, detox, and good self-esteem borne from comparing self to huge, hairy Turkish women and feeling *much* better about arse which seems not so large in this scenario. You can also get an exfoliating scrub for £4 there.

D: GREEN FACE PRODUCTS that claim to stop "rosy cheeks" aka red face ov doom. They do not work. You look like an arse.

Has anyone tried the Prescriptives base? It sounds good in that they mix it for you and I've never been able to find a good base color (very pale and pink). I need a good pore refiner/cleaner too, help!

I'm odd that way. I don't use any myself, but it just suddenly struck me how the thread was all female and I figured that couldn't describe the full range of experiences.

destroy: eybrow plucking/threading (i still do this, despite the pain - especially threading), waxing (pain again) and bad dye jobs/haircuts.

teeny, i've used Prescriptives foundation for years, after trying loads of other ones. it really is the perfect foundation!

Ally is on the money about eyeliner. I long for cheap cake eyeliner/mascara of the days of yore but you can get the same effect with an eyeliner brush and shadow. Using this method, or liquid liner, you should push the color down into the roots of your lashes instead of trying to do road lines.

so many lovely girl tips.

Destroy: putting on makeup (I am as blind as a bat, and putting makeup on is very difficult), shaving (annoying), waxing (ow, tried it once, it hurt way too much!), cheap shampoos that strip my hair dry, ditto crappy facial products that aggravate my excema. Sarah, I have yr problem too re red face, mine is a combo of excema and broken capillaries, Ive had a red face all my life and I hate it, I would do ANYTHING to clear up my skin. ANYTHING *wails*. Makeup is all well and good, but when it rubs off, you start to look like a drunken lush! :-/

about the honey wax?

xpost

I doubt I will be. You know what I'm hoping, though? That it'll give me silky, shiny hair. My hair is soft, but it doesn't GLEAM!

But I think I feeeaaaaar lines around my eyes so I moisturize the fuck out of them with Clinique.

I need to try the Nars liquid eyeliner because I think I am ready to take that extra step since all I use as eyeliner is brown eyeshadow so it's all smokey and I can't mess it up too badly. Has anyone tried the Chanel black eyeliner (next on my list).

Also, may I take this time to preach the gospel of inexpensive, high-quality cosmetics? Because I think Rimmel is the bee's knees and I thank my lucky stars that it's actually the cheapest line of makeup products at Wal-Mart. That's right. So I know I can afford it, even with a tight budget. Also rather good -- some of the products N.Y.C. manufactures, namely the liquid lip shine (in au naturel!) and liquid eyeliner. Mmm. And I think it's rather surprising that the most inexpensive kind of foundation/powder compact out there is the Max Factor kind.

Now, Sam, you've got to give me recommendations on moisturizer! I've tried browsing the aisles at Target, Walgreens, Eckerd, etc., and the massive selection of moisturizers boggles my mind. Would you go for two different kinds of moisturizer or is there some kind of special kind for oily skin that also contains sunblock? What would you have me buy?

Also, I can't remember if I've posted anything about how much I adore Benefit's Dandelion. I love that stuff- it's amazing how well it works. I gave my sister some after her daughter was born, and she says it passes the "make a new mom who hasn't slept in 4 months look ok" test. ;-) I am not usually big into much makeup, but my bathroom has WAY too many perfumes in it. I've been alternating between Sensei (must be sprayed in the air & walked through or its too heavy) and In Love Again this month, last month it was Fracas. (All teensy free spray samples from sephora.com :-) )

I do not tan (red hair, green eyes, skin colour that entails). I do not even fake tan any more. I gave up years ago because I think it makes me look too similarly coloured to my hair. Pale is where it's at for me and I'm cool with that.I'm even buying a parasol this year.

But what I want is a magic product that evens out the flaws in pale skin and makes it luminous and wonderful (like Rose McGowan's or Dita Von Teese, or Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge). What is this magic product please? I have heard of the latest Japanese trend for pale skin (bihaku?), so I'm wondering if anything's come out of that. Any ideas?

I have it, Lauren, and it kind of makes me look like a wet dog.

(I actually have scars on my legs from ... an allergic reaction to some stocking tops. At least it's a sort of glam injury.)

oh. i love it, but my hair is prone to dryness/frizzy bits if i'm not careful so the spray really helps.

I used to have glam porcelin skin but as I age it's becoming rougher, blotchier, and I have worry lines btw my eyes that won't go away. *sigh*

You can get neturogena mostruizer with spf 15. I stick with neturogena as I'm poor. A step up that isn't too much more expensive is clinique's mostruizer. I use heavier cream at night.

If I'm going to be out in direct sun for long periods of time I use a 30spf sunblock MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR FACE. it's not mostruizer, it's not general body sunscreen, it's for the face. whether or not this makes any difference I don't know, but I feel like it does so am therfore happy. This is also what I use on my tats. In the summertime I usually carry around a sunblock stick to reapply on my ink during the day.

Does anyone else use Benefit's little Tortiseshell lipglosses? I found one of my lost ones in my purse today, yay! The little cases are so cute it hurts. I think they've stopped making them, though, as only one color remains on their website.

http://www.benefitcosmetics.com/benefit/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=Cosmetic+Product&product%5Fid=588&Page=1

Search: Anything that is animal friendly.

and darling, it's "vainty".

You sound like a college freshman who has just discovered PETA. So cute. Go discover something else now and leave us be, pet.

Funny how ILX puts on this psuedo liberal/ socialist cover, but when faced with the day to day immorality of multinationals someone like dear old Sam can only dismiss it and shrug, "nah - they don't test cosmetics on puppies anymore anyway".

I remember my grandmother always had some Coty Airspun Loose Powder in her dresser and she would never go a day without using it. I already have the liquid eyeliner, but thanks for the recommend re: the mascara. And also, thanks for recommending an oil-free moisturizer! Hopefully my stuck-in-the-teenaged-years skin will thank you as well.

Also, laura and teeny, thanks for explaining to me the need to use two separate products for moisturizing and sunblock. I'll be getting both tomorrow, then.

uh dee. . .i didn't illustrate this point as well??

:(

lately i've been all about the bukkae-facial. sorry chicas.

http://www.naris.co.jp/njc/ohada/img/bihaku.gif

Lit. white beauty

Any Japanese company from Shiseido on should sell this product as it is a huge money maker in Japan, though from what I know of it it's used mostly for the face. I've never seen it marketed as body whitener, though I could be mistaken. (One of my closest friends in Japan had a super white face and a lovely normal brownish-tan body.) Also, I think once you start using it you can't stop and you end up bleaching yourself and looking like Michael Jackson. Just a warning. There's really nothing subtle about it. I don't think of it as an evening-out type thing, more of an all-over bleach type thing; the same way we use tanners maybe? There was a bihaku boom when I lived in Japan; I'd be curious to know where it stands now, cultural-beauty-wise.

Does anyone know of a good thing that I could put on my hair after I shower and before I blow dry it to enhance the blow drying/styling experience? And/or, any post-blow drying gel or such to make me look more savvy?