Pain point No.2 - Always want to put on lip stick, but lips too dry, lazy and many other concerns stopping me!

I have found my solution recently. Thanks to my husband who bought me these lip glosses as Christmas presents!

Reasons avoiding to use lip stick:

• My lips always very dry and cracking as a result of my Retinol / Retin-A (tretinoin) cream and medication to fight my acne problem when I was much younger.
• I had bad habit to peel my dry skin on my lips due to the dry lips problem, so my lips half the time were bleeding.
• I am lazy, I don't like to keep touching up my lips colors after drinking water, coffee and eating my meals. Because of that, I also don't like to and lazy to put on hand cream during day time. To that extent, I don't touch up my make up after I left home.

Other concerns:

• Color stick on my teeth - Other brands I tried before the lip stick / gloss will stick on my front teeth, which I think this is more embarrassing than not putting on the lip stick. Any I can't keep checking if my teeth look okay or not after some time.
• I don't like to taste the lip stick! And I feel like I am eating the lip stick which sounds gross and toxic.
• Those lip sticks that are "all-weather" proof and resistance also sounded scary... that means the substance will stain on my lips(skin) gradually overtime?

After lunch the color (the color is called Determined) still stayed on my lips and not dry. That day I had breakfast, drank coffee and water multiple times, I did not touch up or put any other lip balm. The color stayed until I left office in the evening.

Most of the time my lips were very dried, cracking and bleed a bit.

The color chart that I feel is more realistic and easier to figure which color to choose from:

Basic beauty tips

#6 Nail - Manicure & Pedicure
     
Please change or remove your manicure / pedicure if they are outgrown for more than 2mm!

I always observe people on the train and very often I saw ladies with manicure  or pedicure that serious need to be fixed! If I were them, I prefer not to wear sandals or open toe shoes to show people that they don't maintain their pedicure. 

Manicure or pedicure are suppose to make you look more attractive and special, but lack of maintenance will make the negative effect.


To be honest, I think most of the guys prefer girls with either no manicure or simple ones.

Natural Yogurt Face Scrub

This is a step 1 before the honey yogurt mask that I introduced some time ago. I tried this natural face scrub many times and still find it very effective.

It is all natural and very economical! All you need is just plain yogurt! I can't think of a reason you will be reluctant to try this out...

Steps:
1) Make sure your face is dry.
2) Take about 1 teaspoon of yogurt.
3) Apply evenly on your face but avoid eye areas.
4) Gently rub the yogurt on your face with fingers in circular motions.
5) Rub for about few minutes then start to tap on your face gently. After tapping evenly all over your face for about few minutes, you should start to feel the yogurt become a bit sticky and dry on your fingers.
6) Gently rub your face, you will start to see tiny white colour stripes dropping off, just like you are rubbing with an eraser.
7) Rinse your face thoroughly, then you can do the honey yogurt mask or continue with your usual skin care steps.

Frequency:
Suggest to do once or twice a week  

Basic beauty tips

#5 Hair & Colouring - Strategize your colouring style
     
Before I go to salon to colour my hair, I always have below considerations:

Q: How am I going to maintain this new colour?

• How often and when will be the next round I want to colour my hair either to cover the awkward roots?
• Am I willing to spend another round of money and few hours at the salon every 2 months?
• Too frequent colouring may cause more hair loss and hair damage...
• Am I willing to spend another budget to buy the professional colour protecting shampoo? Or just stick with my current shampoo and conditioner?

My strategy to balance above considerations is always go for highlights! I realise highlight is a good strategy to delay the need to have too frequent colouring to cover the awkward roots growing out. As highlights won't give a very distinct separation between your dyed hair and natural hair colour at the roots. But of course if you bleached your hair until too big contrast, then nobody can help...

In terms of colours, I always go for purple base with red highlights, then when the colours faded out, hair will still look brown and won't look awkward.

Examples with awkward roots growing out:

Example that new roots are not that obvious if do highlight:

Basic beauty tips

#4 Hair & Colouring - Don't just focus on the hair colour alone
     
When you plan to dye your hair, the number one most important thing is to pick the right colour that is trendy yet matching your skin tone and character. However, I am not sharing with you what colour to pick. My key message is about how to ensure your new look is pleasing to eyes and look harmony.

The key is whatever your new hair colour is, please take care of your eyebrow colour as well. If your eyebrows are quite dark and you dyed your hair as lighter brown, chestnut, red or purple colour, please also use eyebrow pencil or powder to make your eyebrow colour matching your hair colour. You can use a bit of foundation and loose powder to lighten your eyebrows then apply the eyebrow pencil or powder. More extreme example is when elderly dye their hair into black colour and didn't dye their eyebrows leaving them as silvery grey, image how awkward it is.

In summary, the key is overall harmony and consistency when you present yourself.

Bad examples:

Good examples:

Basic beauty tips

#3 Start to apply eye gel or eye cream even if you're only 20+

Take care of your eyes before you start to see the fine lines coming out...
     
Skin care is your life-long career which requires a lot of effort and time. Feeling grateful that I heard this reminder from a friend when I was in early 20+, so I have this mentality that I need to invest in eye cream before I reached 30. Another friend recommended me to use La Mer eye cream and I have been quite sticky to it since then. 

*Disclaimer: I haven't really tried other eye cream, so feel free to recommend any eye cream you consider is value for money. Thanks! :)

Basic beauty tips

#2 Remember to apply the same foundation and loose powder on your neck

Aren't you think is awkward to see yourself or other people in photos with 2 tones on the face and neck? Face very white and neck is much darker...
     
Ladies, please remember to apply the some foundation and loose powder on your neck, just apply the minimum amount to touch up on your neck, so the colour difference won't be so obvious!  Same logic should apply if your body such as shoulders, arms and legs got very tanned, then balance your face tone, avoid making the contrast too huge!

Basic beauty tips

#1 Remember to apply the same cream on your neck

Start to protect it before you realize it's too late. Take care your neck as much as you care about your face!
     
Since young my mom has been telling me by looking at people's neck, you can tell the person is old or not... Too late when you keep your face look perfect, while the wrinkles (cervical stripes) around your neck has betrayed you... Face lifting won't help neither...

Therefore, whenever I apply my daily skin products, I always remember to apply the same toner, emulsion and essence on my neck with gentle massage, trying to reduce the speed of cervical stripes appearing around my neck. Grateful that the 2 lines are still not too obvious yet.

Honey Yogurt Mask

I learnt this D.I.Y. mask some time ago from a friend who recommended me to watch a YouTube video.

This D.I.Y. mask is very powerful, easy to prepare, is all natural and very economical!

All you need is just plain yogurt and honey! Try it out!

Steps:
1) Wash and dry your face thoroughly.
2) Mix about 1 teaspoon of yogurt with 1 teaspoon of honey, mix them well together.
3) Apply evenly on your face but avoid eye areas.
4) Leave for 15 minutes then wash away completely.
5) Apply your usual skin products. Toner is fine. Suggest you apply slightly less amount of day or night cream than usual to avoid your skin become oily as the mask itself already provides sufficient nutrients to your skin.

Frequency:
You can use it daily if you think your face is too dry.  

Best buy Mascara...

For my last 5 years of make up history, I have been very sticky to dejavu mascara. I highly recommend to try this mascara because...

• Suitable for people scared of mascara smudging due to face oil instead of tears. This mascara is oil proof instead of water proof. But trust me, the chances of smudging by your face oil is much higher than by your tears or heavy rain.  Unless you for swimming! please use water proof mascara then!
• It is very easy to wash, you just need to wash with water! Save your money to buy removal oil and you won't risk to drop your eyelashes due to intense removal process.
• It is value for money, cost about SGD 20 (HKD 120). Sometimes they will have value pack
• Easily found in various cosmetic franchise stores e.g. Sasa, Bonjour

Highly recommended All-in-1 CC Cream: Foundation + Tone Correction + SPF UVA/UVB PA+++

I have been big fans of Giorgio Armani, Tom Ford and Cle de Peau cosmetics. I don't care how much money I spent on their foundations. I tried all of their foundation products and they are good in general. But you need to consider the amount of money you need to pay versus the quality they offer.

Personally I prefer more  matte natural, nude colour foundation instead of pinkish sweet look.

3 years ago, I accidentally picked this Artistry CC cream from the Amway shelf and thought it was expensive comparing to those I was using, worth to give it a try... 

Surprisingly, I started to rely on it for my daily make up. It is very easy and fast to use, saving me to apply another 2 layers of cream, which fits my super efficient personality, yet try to look pretty! I used to apply 3 separate layers: sun block, colour toning cream and foundation.  Now I only need 1 layer as this CC cream is 3-in-1!  This also gives me a lighter feel as you don't need to put layers and layers of cream on your face.

However, it only offers 2 colours i.e. light or light medium.  I prefer to use light medium colour, it makes my face colour looks a bit darker, but after applying loose powder and highlights, I think it is just right to give a more natural look. My face in photo will look natural and you won't see the face and the neck are different colours, while the face looks too white!

Retail price is about SGD 47 (HKD 393)   

Just to show you the light medium colour on my hand

After applied on my hand, spreaded with fingers and finished with loose powder