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Has someone given you a piece of beauty advice that really resonated with you?
Has someone given you a piece of beauty advice that really resonated with you? Why? Share the wisdom!
“There are no rules in beauty” and “wear what you love.” The first because it encourages you to try different things and see what you like or don’t like, what works and doesn’t, and the second because it reminds you to wear makeup for you – not for what others want to see on you or what others think is “beautiful.”
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My Granny told me this, “It doesn’t matter how much makeup you put on if you’re ugly on the inside. Makeup can cover a whole lot of ugly!” That has stayed with me my whole life. 🙂
Wise Grandmother.
I always loved what Kevyn Aucoin is credited with saying:
“Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart.”
I was told to never wear blue eyeshadows with my blue eyes. It didn’t make sense to me because I always figured that it should look great, but I couldn’t figure out why my eyes looked so full when I used blue eye shadow. That was until my someone told me the reason and now I don’t own a single blue shadow anymore. I have them all away.
I must say: that same friend told me that I’d look better if I penciled my brow. I hate the way I look when I do. I am a brunette, but somehow my brows are lighter than my hair and so a brown pencil looks so odd on my milky white skin. I’m yet to find a brow pencil that works for me.
What was the reason they told you for never wearing blue eyeshadow??
I don’t know what motivated her. I started modeling just before her piece of advice and in one of pictures I had blue eye shadow on. Another friend of my complained that I looked slutty. Even though it was just a head shot. I get it. People feel intimidated. But get this. Xsparkage from YouTube has blue eyes too and she rocks her blue shadows and looks amazing. Was it perhaps just jealousy speaking. Who knows. My mother only wears a very light hue of blue and she has te most lovely blue eyes. Maybe it’s a controversial issue. I don’t know.
In regards to eyebrows, “they’re sisters, not twins” really made an impression on me!
There’s also a passage in Slaughterhouse Five (of all things!) where a POW talks about keeping up his personal hygiene routine so that his pride in and value of himself, and thereby his desire to live, doesn’t wane. It’s a bit of a stretch to connect this to makeup, but it made me see that taking pride in one’s appearance doesn’t have to be about vanity, it’s about valuing and taking care of yourself.
You know, it’s funny…I reread Slaughterhouse Five about six months ago when I first started wearing makeup. Everyone was commenting on it – I had always been a very natural-look type, only mascara and lipgloss. People were making comments that I was becoming shallow because I spent time on my appearance. That passage really resonated with me as well. I had just gone through a really difficult breakup, and I decided to invest in me. Exercise, eating healthy, doing things I enjoy, feeling good about myself. Makeup became a part of that.
I can almost guarantee that the people who made those snarky comments were way more impressed than they’d ever admit, and felt threatened and inadequate.
That is SO often what’s at the root of put-downs.
I only hope that you brushed them off, and kept right on nurturing YOU!
Step 1: Indoctrinate women from early childhood through media and culture that their looks are their most important asset.
Step 2: Call them shallow and vapid for investing in their looks.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
9_9
Sure!
It has often occurred to me that the beauty industry is built upon women’s insecurities and unhappiness with their appearance.
Why else would they use 15-year-olds with flawless skin to model “anti-aging” products? We’re shown “ideals” that we can never humanly emulate, apparently in the hopes that we’ll buy what’s being sold, just in case it can make us look at least a little more like that.
I’m as guilty as anyone else; I don’t spend a lot of money on skin care, but I exfoliate, hydrate, and tone with the best of ’em! 🙂
Carla love your comments and responses on this post. I truly believe that when a woman is happy with herself, the world takes notice. Physical, mental, emotional, and sexual well being are all interconnected and must all be treated with care and attention and when people make nasty comments about women who take care of themselves, it is just a reflection of how inadequate and insecure they truly are.
Years and years ago, when I was volunteering at an in-patient mental health facility near my university, one of the things a doctor there said is that they look for patients to start changing into their street clothes (rather than spending their days in pyjamas and robes) and generally taking an interest in their grooming as a good sign that they’re starting to improve.
@Candance, It’s really not that much of a stretch to apply this principle to makeup.
In 2001, when I was in my mid-30s, a serious illness caused me to have to spend January – April in the hospital, then May – August in a nursing home (!). Some of the therapists encouraged me to wear at least minimal makeup, but I just was not interested. In fact, I emphatically declared, “I can’t imagine EVER again caring what I look like!” And, at the time, I truly didn’t. I didn’t even especially care that my hair was only getting washed maybe once a week, at best. In short, I had just plain given up, and my appearance reflected my attitude.
However, once I got back on the “outside,” and started mingling with society again, I took up makeup, and now people ask me for beauty advice all the time. Just last week, my mother got a bit impatient with me for insisting on making up my face and fixing my hair, just to go to the corner pharmacy for a flu shot.
All that to say: It can be a self-perpetuating cycle. When you feel “put-together,” you just feel generally better and more positive, and that results in more energy, emotional and physical, which lends itself to maintaining yourself, which leads to …
I completely relate to this. I almost died after a minor shoulder surgery this May. I was in ICU for a week, my lungs filled with blood clots.
After all the drugs they pumped in me, the pain associated with “trying to breathe through a straw,” as I described it, I had all but given up.
I still struggle with exhaustion. The recovery time for pulmonary emboli is quite long given the severity of my case. I have no desire to go through my beauty routine daily because a simple shower wears me out, and it’s really dragging me down emotionally.
On days when I have doctors’ appointments and/or medical testing, I do go through my routine and often feel better for 2-3 days afterwards — an indicator that the Law of Inertia applies to more than just science.
Pain and exhaustion continue to dog my interest and willingness, although I have been paying closer attention to my skin care since all the toxins in my system have taken a toll on my complexion, which is normally translucent and porcelain in appearance. I know I’ll eventually get back to doing what I love, but it’s hard to pull out of the hole.
Try an ash blonde I just can’t color my eyebrows. I just don’t look right.
Which is why I can never have mine identical. Go figure 😉
Don’t let anyone with bad eyebrows tell you shit about life.
LOL!!!!
Hahaha 🙂 like my hubby with how wolverine brows who always chirps when I’m plucking: “not too much. Not too much”. Haha
Wear your make up for yourself and nobody else. When someone says they don’t like black lipstick or the way I do my contouring, I just don’t care anymore. So what? I like my face and that’s what’s important. Tigers don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep. c:
I agree, Quinn.
I wear the makeup I like to see on my face, because, after all, it IS my face. If someone criticizes my makeup, first I try to mentally step back and consider the possible motivation. Then I try, as objectively as possible, to determine if there’s something I can learn from the criticism. If there is, I’ll *consider* making a change, but 9 times out of 10, I just let it roll off, and keep right on doing what I’d been doing.
Well that’s why it’s called make up art. Art is something if an acquired taste. I like Van Gogh. My min can’t stand him. I like pinks and reds on my eyes. Some people don’t. Who cares. They’ll like how they do their make up and I might not. Viva la difference.
The best advice I’ve read are concerning hair care. Gentle detangling, putting my hair up when there is wind or potential damage and not using heat on my hair.
Same here. All through my teens and well into my 20s, I [daily] blew my shoulder length, naturally wavy hair dry as straight as I could get it, put generous amounts of extra-hold spray on it, and fretted because it immediately went frizzy as soon as the wind hit it. Finally a friend showed me the diffuser attachment she used on her hair, which was permed. I thought, “Hmm – wonder how mine would look if I used one of those, and stopped trying to fight the waves?”
II bought a diffuser attachment, began using curl enhancer, and started wearing my hair wavy, and it works so much better. My hair is healthier, and for the first time in my adult life, I have absolutely no split ends. It’s so much more rewarding to work with what you have naturally, rather than fighting it.
‘What you put on the inside has as much impact as what you put on the outside’. This reminds me that no matter how good my beauty products and routine are, if I don’t drink enough water etc., the result won’t be as nice.
Also, the expression ‘beauty sleep’. A couple of good nights’ sleep is still the best trick in my book to look (okay, a little bit) younger!
That is SO true, Tigerlily!
If you’re not healthy, no amount of cosmetic “tinkering” is really going to do the job.
I learned this the hard way when, in my mid-30s, my formerly oily hair went absolutely hay-stack dry, to the point that its color changed from almost-black dark brown to a dusty dull light rust. It looked HORRIBLE, no matter what conditioning treatments I used on it. My skin started looking kind of “muddy,” too.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but instead of going to the doctor for a decades-overdue checkup, I wrote it off as “age,” and went on, until I had a massive cerebral hemorrhage that very nearly killed me.
It turns out, I’d had a [benign] kidney tumor, which led to severe hypertension, which led to my stroke.
Needless to say, I did not die. The kidney tumor was successfully removed, my blood pressure is at a healthy level, and my hair is dark brown, shiny, and supple again. Both of my kidneys are chugging right along, too.
And, yes, I go to the doctor regularly now!
Wow, thank goodness that scary stroke has such a happy/healthy ending!! Our physical appearance is such a powerful way for our body to send out its alarm signals…big or small 🙂
My daughter is a cosmetologist and she waxes my eyebrows. One day she said to me “Have you ever considered filling in your eyebrows with a pencil?”. I had not really noticed that they were starting to thin out. I took her advice and I have never looked back. Filling in my brows makes a world of difference.
Wayne Goss has said (in one of his youtube videos) something about just trying something because after all, it’s only makeup and if you don’t like it, you can wash it off.
That’s one of the very things I love most about makeup – you can try *anything,* and if you don’t like it, you can just wash it off, and you’re no worse off, and may even have learned something.
I know I probably went around looking ridiculous at times, in my pre-adolescent “beginner makeup” days, but I don’t think I’d have become as deft with makeup as I am now if I hadn’t experimented.
If Wayne Gos wasn’t gay, I’d probably crush on him. What a lovely person. Inside ans out. Always having good advice and an awesome sense of humour.
I crush on him anyway. He is so hot! Love that wink, love his humor, down-to-earth appeal and intellect. He also pays attention to people with beauty tricks needed when you’re over 30. Love him and can’t wait to buy his brushes to support him! <3
I know right. And he’s accent!!! I love that he says: it’s my personal life and it’s boring. I don’t want to talk about my sexual orientation. I talk about make up and it does my relate I that.’
He wears his so well and he is always positive always funny. Did you see the Mariah Carey one. I laughed so much 🙂 he is by far my favourite beauty blogger.
Yes. Ever since my mom told me I can use a Q-Tip & lotion to remove makeup. It works wonders! In the morning, I have some mascara around my eyes and some lotion on a Q-Tip takes it all away!
It’s not exactly beauty specific advice, but my mother once said that, provided it won’t break the bank, it’s okay to buy something if you’re really convinced you love it. I find I often feel a bit bad when I buy non utilitarian things like makeup because I could have spent the money on something ‘more important’, but I think it helps to remember that things you enjoy are worth the price of admission (within reason of course).
When I read in the internet that one doesn’t do makeup for others, but rather for oneself. It expressed perfectly my view on makeup, and it’s what I tell people when they try to make me wear colors/finishes/trends that I’m not confortable with.
Also, BROWS. I don’t remember who gave me this piece of advice, but since I began really paying attention to my brows, my whole makeup looks cleaner and crisper.
Zoella on YouTube has said in a video that your eyebrows are sisters, not twins, so I *try* to remember that. Also, my mom always told me to make sure my skin still looks like skin, even when I have foundation on.
When I was a teenager, and VERY insecure about my looks, I remember reading in some magazine that makeup should be used to highlight and empathize natural beauty, rather than as a means to mask and/or correct “flaws.”
Unfortunately, this did NOT resonate with me at the time. I remember thinking, “What if all you’ve got is flaws?”
It wasn’t until I reached my mid-30s and had a nearly lethal illness that it dawned on me that while I *do* have flaws, like everybody else, I’ve also got large beautiful bright green eyes, full, well-shaped lips, nice skin, and shapely brows. I took a whole new approach to makeup, and it became SO much more fun and rewarding. I accent my features, rather than “fight” them.
I’m now almost 50, and these days, I almost always am pleased with the way my face looks, rather than feeling like “I’m so ugly, I should just *stay home!”*
I just wish I’d wised up a lot sooner.
I can totally relate to that. I wore glasses since the second grade. I wasn’t popular in high school because I didn’t sleep around like all the popular girsl, so I thought I was ugly. Until my dad suggested that I get contacts and new frame, instead of just a new frame. I looked in the mirror and saw my features for the first time. And realized for the first time that I am not ugly. (Not in a vain way, just healthy esteem) I expressed this to my mom who has always been a beaute. She told me: pretty girls are neve popular among women. It’s called intimidation. I really wish I knew this earlier.
I got the same advice from three different people – at Space NK, Guerlain and Chanel: “I’ll be honest with you: you don’t actually need foundation”. It changed my whole idea of makeup. Now I buy blush/lipstick/eye shadow to compliment my skintone, not to compliment the colour of my foundation.
When I was in my 20’s working at a dept. store beauty counter, a very attractive mature woman who looked fantastic and much younger than her age shared her secret. I thought it would be some ridiculously expensive cream but instead it was simply sunscreen-at least spf30 everyday and big sunglasses!
“It washes off! So have fun!”
This is going to sound SO corny, but… this advice changed not just makeup for me, but art in general, because I was in school for art when someone said this to me. It was PERMISSION to be free and mess up. ITS OK. Making mistakes is the only way we learn, and you know what, more often, when you experiment, it looks GOOD!
And when I realized I was soon taking fun risks with color and style in makeup, but was holding back when drawing and painting, I had a revelation! Makeup always washes off, and it’s 100% transitory. It’s an art that really only lasts a day. So have fun, don’t be ginger with it. But when I came to a canvas I was treating it like it was made of gold, and I didn’t want to make a mistake. But really, what IS the difference?
Take chances! HAVE FUN! You will never learn, never excel, until you do! And just because it’s a canvas or a piece of paper, it’s no different than skin, don’t worry about mistakes! Grow! Have fun!
Two of my biggest breakthroughs:
1. Let your brushes do the work for you and do not apply a lot of pressure to your tools during application. Sounds so simple, but it made a huge difference for me.
2. Match your foundation to your neck or your chest depending on how much skin you are showing. Do not match your foundation to your jaw, wrist, etc..and any other variation that creates visual disparity between your head/neck/chest. Matching the skin to your neck or chest results in a cohesive look with no bobble head effect.
Christine, I so agree with you. What also has resonated with me is not to look like you have tried hard.
Wearing makeup can also show respect for others. I do not think that I’m so beautiful that I can just roll out of bed and be at my best. On the contrary, most of us past 20 or so look better with a touch of blush, groomed brows and some lip color. After that, you can wear whatever else you like. As far as showing respect towards others, when you wear makeup it shows that you’ve made an effort to look nice and that’s respectful to others. Kind of like people wearing their “Sunday best” clothing to church. It’s not about vanity or showing off, it’s about showing respect to the importance of the day, the church and church goers, and the minister. I remember Zza Zza Gabor saying that when women accused her of being vain, she said she thinks it’s vain to believe that you don’t need any “help” in the looks department. Maybe it’s the people who don’t make an effort and think they’re fine the way they are, are the ones who are vain.
“Be very clean”. From my mom when I was young. You can have the most beautiful clothing and makeup, but if you’re not clean, it doesn’t matter.
Your makeup doesn’t have to match your clothes AND there is no such thing as being a spring, winter, summer or fall. I remember Prescriptives doing that at their counter back in the 80s and 90s. Such crapola.
I agree!!! I don’t believe in wearing darker clothing during fall and winter either. If I want to wear my bright red skinny jeans in winter, then I’ll wear them and rock them. I think there are too many rules in the fashion world. I like breaking them 😉
The best beauty advice I ever had was never to save the good stuff such as, lingerie, fragrant creams and lotions for “special occasions” use the good stuff for everyday it’s one of the secrets to great confidence ladies.
Take good care of your skin – when your skin looks great, half your makeup is done.
To be your most beautiful you, take care of yourself first. Get enough sleep, exercise, live and eat well. Think happy thoughts.
The above advice was from the book, You Being Beautiful (one of the Dr. Oz books). It was a bit hokey–and the very health-conscious probably won’t find a lot of new information but there were interesting tidbits. Like, during some historical epidemic, an indication of desirability were facial pox scars–bc that meant you survived the epidemic, may live a bit longer yet, and can pass on disease-resistant genes. Tons of other examples throughout history to support the idea that beauty & attractiveness is an indicator of health.
I read somewhere that if someone comes up to you and says, “Your makeup looks really pretty,” you’re wearing too much.
I’m not sure if I agree with this. I do wear a strong eye and a moderate lip, but I am quite talented in application and often hear, “You have the most beautiful eyes.” If only they could see me without makeup; I look very plain.
I’m not sure if detectable makeup is a problem or not, as beauty rules have changed over the years.
Moisturize oily skin and sunscreen of course!
use “plain mineral” water as a tonic for non-problematic times and cooled down green tea (of course without sugar) for problematic times….use pure almond oil for every dry itchy patchy skin problems from lips to (errrrrrr !!! )down under….plain yoğurt aka greek yogurt for immediate action for bad sun burns(which i haven’t ever had but saw many many people do this whith my recommendation who were very pleased-and then applying almond oil to the areas for a couple of days…))