How to Prevent Touch-Ups

It's likely that you've seen those girls crowding the bathroom mirrors, pushing and shoving with tubes of mascara and hair straighteners, preventing you from checking your teeth for stray sesame seeds. Well makeup, especially for those who have oily skin, has to be reapplied to keep looking fresh and da best!

When you pack up your school bag, you'll want to pack a separate bag for cosmetics and maybe for feminine issues. In all honesty it depends what you wear everyday, but these 3, to me, are the most touched-up makeup items. Why reapply your powder when you could be eating lunch with your friends?

Obviously, the first to be reapplied are lip products. This, unfortunately, will almost always rub off (and if not, I'd love to see a gloss last through a sandwich wrap and fries). However, a sticky gloss does last a class period or 2 more than a slick one. MAC lipglasses are notorious for catching hair on windy days, but it does last a lot longer than say, CoverGirl Wetslicks.

Another commonly reapplied item is powder. Oily skin seems to just absorb powder, making teenage acne all the worse. To prevent powder from being absorbed, you can use blotting sheets to remove the oil but not the powder. If you don't need coverage and just oil control, blotting sheets can blot out powder in your morning routine entirely!

The last item in my list is eyeliner. No one likes looking like they just came out of a rainstorm or a breakup, but the eyeliner smudges anyway. The best, and probably the most obvious solution is waterproof eyeliner! As you can probably tell, I LOVE Urban Decay's 24/7 eyeliner (both liquid and pencil formulas).

Use these tips to get you an extra 5 minutes of chow time, and more looking ready instead of looking like a meltdown!

High School Makeup 102: Wants, not Needs

(Picture courtesy of Seventeen.com)

Note: This post contains high end products I have used and loved for months! You can always find a dupe in the drugstore, but I'm sticking with my classics. I'm suggesting these more towards the high school students than the previous "school makeup" post.

My #1 must have (I've gone through 3 bottles) makeup remover is Clinique Take the Day Off. Just check out my review on why I love it so much!

One must have that you've probably heard of a few quadrillion times is the all famous Urban Decay Naked Palette. I know, I know. You've heard plenty of raves about it already (and if you haven't, where were you when makeup gurus were in an uproar over it?). Well, in short, they're all correct! I know, I know, 50$ is a big thing to drop when you've just escaped middle school. I slowly saved up and got it as a "welcome to high school!" gift for myself (or I made up an excuse, either way). And yes, I like the original better.

Another one of my essentials is eye primer! I use the cult classic Urban Decay Primer Potion -it really amplifies the color and prevents it from sliding around. This is another doozy at 20$ a pop, but a free travel size comes with the aforementioned Naked palette, plus I bought a tube in December, and it's still going strong. I've probably only used up 20% of it, and it's been my daily essential! It also comes in 4 colors variations - I've only used original, but heard great thing about the others.

A good product to have in your arsenal is blush. In pictures, you may notice that your face looks very washed out and pale under flash or other strong light. This can be reversed by using blush, which imitates the rosiness in flushed cheeks. Personally, I never get red or even pink, even when my eyebrows are waxed. My everyday blush is Wet n Wild mineral blush in Purely Mauve (I think it's discontinued). I'll admit the sole reason I bought it is because is was in the sale bucket at CVS. It's extremely pigmented, but a bit of a hassle to get out because it's loose. It's always good to pick up a blush brush too.

Along with acne, comes oiliness. I don't have oily skin, but my dry skin still casts shininess. When shopping around for a powder, I came across Clinique's Almost Powder. It provides a light coverage for minor imperfections, but is still sheer and best of all, hypo allergenic! However, I warn you that it has SPF 15 and is 13% titanium dioxide, which reflects badly in camera flash. I suggest finding another, non-SPF powder for picture
occasions. I use a kabuki brush by Essence of Beauty with this powder.

Finally, every girl should own a natural lipstick for dances when rocking a smokey eye (courtesy of that Naked palette up nya). I'm not a lipstick person, so I just use my Estee Lauder Pink Parfait that was in a GWP. However, some famous/popular ones by MAC are Angel and Blankety, the former being  more pink and and latter more peach. You'd be best off going to a counter though.

You don't need hot pink eyeshadow, or lipstick that stops cars. You don't need to wake up an hour earlier or skip breakfast to meticulously spackle on foundation you DON'T NEED. Makeup may be expensive, but it's fun!