Tweezing Brows

Well-plucked eyebrows make you appear more groomed than any thing else. Today it is a trend to get eyebrows tweezed or threaded professionally in eyebrow boutiques, which are very expensive. It is even recommended that you should get your eyebrows done by a professional to set a 'blueprint', which will give you an idea of shape, so that you can yourself pluck where the hair grow. The most common way to give shape to your brows is to pluck them, by threading or tweezing them with a good set of tweezers.

Types of Tweezers
Tweezers serve as the best option because using thread is somewhat difficult while making your own eye brows and moreover, it needs proper training; otherwise it can harm your skin by leaving cuts and marks. There are several kinds of Tweezers available in market, such as, one with thin tips which are great for getting a good hold on small fine ingrown hair to pluck them. Tweezers with slanted tips gives you more control and are good for novices. Tweezers with square tips are quite useful when it comes to pluck off coarse thick hair or more than one hair at a time. You can choose any of them depending on your need and convenience.

Before Tweezing Tips
You need to take care of few tips before you start tweezing your brows. Keep a hot washcloth over your face for some time before tweezing as it loosens up hair follicles, making plucking easier and less painful. Smoothen up brows with a little moisturizer as it helps hair to slide out more easily. Brush up the brows to define the natural arch and draw the desired shape using a soft eye shadow pencil before you start plucking. Comb brows upwards with an eyelash comb and trim hair extending beyond the natural brow bone. Make sure that you are standing near a window or under a bright light with a good mirror to get a clear view of your hair growth.

Tweezing Tips
Avoid over plucking as it takes too much time for brows to grow back in shape. The space between your brows should be equal or a little wider than the space in your eyes. Always pluck hair in the direction they grow and avoid grabbing too many hairs at a time. After the job is complete, apply aloe vera gel, which will help to calm the redness, occurred due to plucking. It is also recommended to soothe the area with cool and wet tea bags. Always try to pluck your eyebrows before bedtime so that the redness disappears overnight.

Herbal Beauty

External impurities and internal toxins are the worst enemies of our body and skin and herbal beauty products and detoxification remedies help us not only to get rid of them but also provide additional nutrients to the body. Some of the popular herbs known for detoxification, elimination and expulsion of toxins from the body, providing nutrition and stimulation to skin and other vital organs such as liver and digestive system, are Burdock Root, Cascara Sagrada, Dandelion Root, Echinacea Purpurea Root, Fenugreek, Ginger Root, Lactobacillus Sporogenes, Marshmallow Root, Milk Thistle Concentrate, Pepsin, Red Clover Flowers, Sarsaparilla Root and Yellow Dock Root among many others.

Natural herbal products are skin-friendly, have almost nil side effects, provide nourishment to skin and contain minerals and vitamins that keep your skin healthy. Skin care products must be fragrance free, should not have artificial colors, should be non-irritating and non-comedogenic and must be cruelty-free. Sometimes beauty problems are born out of dietary imbalance and must be paid attention to from that aspect. Weak fingernails may be symbolic of calcium deficiency while lusterless hair may speak of silicon deficiency. Dull and dry skin needs more vitamin D. Healthy person looks naturally beautiful. Green tea, calendula, linden, chamomile and rosemary are some of the natural herbal products that work quite well as sunscreens and skin revitalizers.

Choose lip balms with Aloe Vera for they soothe cracked and dry lips and get rid of painful cold sores and fever blisters. Other herbal lip balms can include Apricot, Bee Propolis, Beeswax, Camphor, Castor Oil, Golden Seal, Icelandis Moss, Jojoba Oil, Menthol and/or Squalane. Products that use animal testing should be strictly avoided. Use only cruelty-free products. Herbal products are the safest bet in this category. Herbal shampoos and conditioners are gentle, organic, environmental-friendly, safe and are made from herbal extracts.

They have ingredients like Aloe Vera, Burdock, Chamomile, Coconut Oil, Comfrey, Jojoba Oil, Marshmallow, Rose Hips, Rosemary and/or Sage. They are effective in treating dry and damaged hair, cleanse and nourish the scalp and hair and prevent dandruff. Natural botanical moisturizers with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and humectants have herbal extracts of Aloe Vera, Chamomile and Jojoba Oil and are usually free of color and artificial fragrance.

Frugal Beauty

You don't have to spend big bucks to get beauty treatments commercially. A little care at home can help you to attain that glamorous finished look at home, quite frugally. For a hydrating treatment for your hands while doing your dishes in the kitchen, cover your hands with a thick layer of lotion and wear latex cleaning gloves. The warm dishwater helps you to get the deep lotion treatment while gloves provide insulation of heat. Repeat it once or twice per week to get beautiful soft hands. Exfoliation to remove dead skin from your body and face can be done with a lot of things available in our kitchens. Pamper yourself with ground almond or be more economical by using cornmeal or a mix of grapefruit and salt or vinegar with some lemon juice in it.

Milk bath strewn with rose petals worked for Cleopatra so there seems to be no reason that it will not do the same for you. Mix half cup of milk powder with your bath water and see the difference. To keep your face naturally beautiful and free of any common skin problems, splash your face with warm water and massage it with a tablespoon of honey, which is antibacterial in nature, once or twice per week. Rinse your face well with warm water. You can also use plain yogurt instead of honey, which works as an exfoliant and its lactic acid dissolves dead skin cells. Prepare a mixture of ½ cup olive oil, ¼ cup vinegar and ¼ cup water to substitute your night cream. Oliver oil serves as a moisturizer and revitalizes skin while vinegar takes care of bacteria, dead skin cells and skin discolorations.

Olive oil is also an effective cleansing cream for dry skin, softens the skin and gets absorbed better than baby oil. Do not waste any leftover olive oil or that has been dripped over. Use your fingers to wipe it off and rub it on your elbows. Tone your skin using witch hazel that you can buy for pennies. It can work as an effective aftershave for your husband too! The best and most inexpensive way to keep your skin healthy and glowing is to drink several glasses of water a day as it helps your body to flush away any impurities.

Instead of freaking over any freckles or aging signs that you can spot over your face and rushing off to costly beauty clinics, try fading them away with lemon juice instead. For scrubbing, rub olive oil over your body after the bath and then scrub sugar on the body until it melts. Then wash it away with water. It is quite effective for face and hands too. Look younger by preparing a mixture with equal parts of onion juice and vinegar and rubbing it over any aging signs daily. However, it takes few weeks to achieve the desired results.

For filling up dry and cracked calluses on your hand and feet, use olive oil mixed with melted beeswax. Cover them up with cotton gloves or socks respectively. Spices and essential oils added to your bath water can make you fragrant for a long time. Frugal hair care ideas include adding a two spoonfuls of baking soda in your shampoo once a week to remove styling product build-ups and using mayonnaise or raw eggs as a hair conditioner. To bleach your hair, you can use lemon juice while olive oil works as an effective hair conditioner and gets rid of the frizz. A quarter cup of vinegar mixed with three quarters of a cup of warm water is a great rinser and makes your hair soft and shiny. We have even found out that a daily soak in burdock tea will stop hair loss!

Facial and Skin Care

Daily skin & facial care makes us look more charming and beautiful. By following some easy tips, you can look younger and more beautiful without spending too much of extra time and money. Before beginning you skin care regime, consider your skin type, is it oily, normal, combination, dry, sensitive, or sun-damaged. After knowing your skin type, you can use products available in the market meant for your skin. However, healthy skin is something that is from within; eating healthy food and avoiding stress can help you the most in this. The four basic steps of skin and facial care are:

Cleansing
Start your skin care with cleansing. Get a cleanser that suits your skin type. Steer clear of soaps as they make your skin dry; cleansers on the other hand contain oil, surfactants and water. Cleanser helps to remove oil, dirt and makeup from your skin effectively. However, using cleanser too often can also be harmful; at times just washing your face at night is enough. In the morning, it's great to use a splash of lukewarm water to remove excess oils from your skin caused by nightly moisturizer.

Scrubbing
Scrubs are very useful for removing the top layer of dead skin cells that make your complexion dull. A gentle scrub with tiny grains is the best for all skin types, as big grains in cheap scrubs can tear your skin and can cause rather more harm than good. You can also use a half-teaspoon of sugar for scrubbing your face. Keep rubbing it until it melts away and then wipe off your face with a warm & wet cloth. Thrash of the flour can also be used for scrubbing. You can also find some good scrubs in the market.

Moisturizing
Moisturizer is a must for everyone, no matter which skin type you have. Even oily skin will benefit from moisturizers. Only the skin with acne should avoid it. Your skin will tell you that how much moisturizer is needed. If your skin is tight, it means that it needs moisture, but do not over moisturize your skin as it can cause clogged pores. You can go for any of the good quality moisturizers available in the market, but make sure that you read the information written on it as for which skin type it may be used. Olive oil can also be used to give your face required moisture, but it can only be used in winters.

Use Sun-Screen
The skin care you're doing can go waste if you don't have the habit of using sun-screen lotion. Yes, the UV Rays of the Sun adversely affect our skin, even causing skin cancer. It is important to make a protection shield on your skin while going out. Skin care is not only about doing cleansing, scrubbing and moisturizing, but it's also about maintaining. Apply sun-screen lotion daily on exposed parts of the body on daily basis to avoid tanning and other skin-related problems.

Some Other Skin-Care Tips
Along with your face, other parts of your body also need care. If your eyes look puffy or swollen, wash your face and cover your eyes with sliced potatoes or cucumbers for a few minutes. This is really effective in the morning. Clean you nails with white vinegar before applying nail polish for a smoother finish and make it last longer. Olive oil mixed with melted beeswax can serve as a great lip balm. Try all these tips suggested and get prepared for receiving bunch of compliments for your glowing & youthful skin.

Eyebrow Waxing

One of the easiest ways to get rid of the extra hair around your brow line, waxing is definitely note for those with very sensitive skin. It is more expensive than plucking your eyebrows but lasts longer too. It should best be done under professional supervision. Here are some tips to do eyebrow waxing:

• Before waxing the brows, it is important to prepare them beforehand using a baby toothbrush to define their natural shape.
• Apply astringent on the brow area to make it numb for sometime.
• Calculate the length of the eyebrow you want by holding a ruler parallel to your nose, leveling it with the inner corner of the eye to see where you the brow should begin and mark the point with a dot using the brow pencil.
• For people with close-set eyes, gap between the brows should be left wider while those whose eyes are far apart; the gap should be less for a balancing illusion.
• To calculate the curve and mark the highest point of the brow arch, hold the ruler from the edge of the nostril past the outer edge of the iris up to the eyebrow and mark it with a dot too.
• Link the dots in a gentle smooth arch that slightly tapers at the outer ends.
• You will need a professional waxing kit that comes with a jar of hot wax which, a small spatula and muslin removal strips.
• Warm the wax to an optimum temperature by keeping the jar in boiling water and then use the spatula to apply a thin layer of wax on the stray hairs under the eyebrow in the direction of the hair and remove it using the strips in the opposite direction of the hair growth as directed on the kit before the wax dries.
• Never wax above the eyebrows.
• For thick growth, it is better and less painful to wax off a little hair at the time.
• Pluck any stray hair using a set of good tweezers and apply a soothing balm on the area.
• Be careful enough to avoid direct sun light, acid based facial treatments, and liquid makeup for some hours at least.
• Emphasize your brows using an eyebrow pencil or tinted brow shadow.

Essential Oils

Essential oils have been part of cosmetics for men and ladies alike for thousands of years. Their exotic aromas were enough to win them favors amongst the humankind and when it was revealed that the aromas make a significant difference to the status of our health, the fact was just an added bonus. Aromatherapy is a well-developed science that uses aromatic essential oils to heal and rejuvenate one's physical and emotional health and enhance one's beauty that is constantly gaining popularity day by day. Essential oils are extracts from different parts of the plants such as herbs, flowers, leaves, resin, bark, fruit rinds and roots and are highly concentrated, volatile oils.

The extracts usually come out to be 0.01 to 10 percent of the raw material and are very therapeutic in nature. They are either inhaled directly or are applied to the skin after being diluted with mostly pure-blend oils. Children, novices and people with sensitive skin must take the precaution of using diluted essential oils only. Aromatherapy works on the basis that the lymbic system of the brain channels the effects of the oils to balance the body's systems and stimulated particular chemicals and emotions in us. Massage helps the skin to absorb essential oils, which can then reach internal organs more effectively through our circulatory system.

Some of the most popular essential oils are sweet almond oil, which is considered an all-purpose oil; apricot kernel oil helpful in massage blends; avocado, olive, sesame and macadamia nut oil, which must be used very carefully; borage, kukui, rose hip and evening primrose oil, which excellent in treating many skin conditions but is quite expensive; cocoa butter, which is suitable for use in lotions and creams; grapeseed oil, which is solvent extracted; hazelnut, good for oily skin; jojoba oil or wax, which has a very long shelf-life; peanut oil, which is good for massage blends and arthritis; pecan oil; shea butter suitable for use in lotions and creams and unrefined sunflower oil.

Beautiful Eyebrows

Perfect eyebrows almost transcend the beauty of the face and make an immediate visible impact in a makeover session. The most coveted eyebrow shape is the one that starts directly above the inner corner of the eye, while its highest point is little beyond the outer corner of the iris. It tapers off to the end in a rounded bow like shape. However, not many women have been endowed with that perfect brow so most of them have to resort to many other procedures to attain the desired shape or reach nearest to it such as plucking, tweezing and waxing the brows. Here are some simple tips to tame your brows:

* Spray a little hair spray on your brows and brush them using your toothbrush to keep them in place.
* If you don't have time for tweezing, you can get the desired contour quickly by brushing them upwards and then snipping the longest hairs beyond the natural arch using a pair of tiny scissors.
* Eyebrows slanting upwards make you look angry, so be careful not to take off too much at the outer corners.
* Before tweezing your brows, you must prepare your skin by wiping the brow area with a cotton ball soaked in astringent. The cooling effect numbs the skin for sometime and thus, you do not feel much pain.
* Hold the tweezers at 45 degrees and pluck the stray hairs below the brow line in the direction of the hair growth.
* If your brows are sparse, use a freshly sharpened brow pencil to fill in the areas with light, quick strokes.
* To get a natural and more defined look, you can brush your brows with a brow brush dipped in brow powder in upward and outward strokes.
* It is important to use the correct shade for your brows. Fair women can use blonde shades while olive colored women should choose tawny or brown. Dark African-American women can use gray shades.
* To add volume to your brows, use a stiff, slanted brush to apply eye shadow in short gentle strokes.
* In case, you have over tweezed certain brow area, try to fill the patch using brow shadow, applying in the direction of the hair growth.
* Eye shadow gives more natural look to your brows than an eyebrow pencil!
* Brow shade should be about two shades lighter than hair color for olive or dark skinned women and two shades darker than hair color blondes or women with grey hair.

Beach Beauty

Too much exposure to the sun on beach may cause under-eye skin crinkles, blackheads and acne on nose, cold lip sores, red and scaly temples and broken blood vessels. To avoid these unwanted signs of old age, be sure to use moisturizers and sunscreens or sun blocks that suit your skin type and never forget to wear UV-protected sunglasses and hat to a beach. Today other beauty products with SPF are also available in the market such as concealers and lipsticks. You can use waterproof and water-resistant eyeliners, mascaras and bronzers to look like a glamorous mermaid too. Contrary to the popular belief, tanning is not safe for skin and may cause skin burning, wrinkles and skin cancer.

One must remember that sun can damage the skin within a few minutes and can harm the skin on apparently cloudy days. The sun can damage the skin even more at higher altitudes and on an average at every 1,000-foot height can damage the skin by 4 % more. You can calculate how frequently to apply your sunscreen on the beach by multiplying its SPF number (which determines the protection against burning by UVB rays) with 20 (which incidentally is the number of minutes skin can endure sun), so SPF 15 should stay on for about 300 minutes or five hours. However, this is not exactly correct or swimming and sweating can wash off your sunscreen and you may need to reapply it after 60 to 90 minutes. To block off UVA rays, check the ingredients for avobenzone, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, Parsol 1789, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane or Mexoryl SX.

Sunscreens come in water resistant formulas that are sure to stay on for 90 minutes even if your are swimming. Lip-glosses with SPF are quite effective in preventing dried sun burned lips while liquid foundation and eye shadows are sure to wash out with first few perspiration drops. Cocoa butter is great at preventing peeling and to re-moisturizing the skin while eye drops are a great help in case some sand particles reach your eyes with the wind. Deodorants or antiperspirants, beach wear and two towels are a must of course, one to lie down on one to dry you off. You may also need a beach mat or beach blanket and be sure to wear flat and sneakers to make walking easier.

Basic Skin Care

Healthy and supple skin is not so much of a dream if you take proper precautions and pay attention to your diet and exercise. Balanced diet, hydration and protecting from sun and wind should be a part of your daily regimen. Here are the four basic steps to skin care that are mandatory and cannot be skipped on any account, if you want a naturally glowing skin. It is important that you use the products according to your skin type. You have to pay attention to the order of the steps too:

1. Cleansing The Skin
Cleansing is quite essential to avoid acnes and other skin problems. Wash your skin often using a mild face wash and wipe off with a clean washcloth. It is quite important to get rid of any impurities such as dirt particles and makeup before going to sleep so that your skin can breathe properly at night. Use mild cleanser at least twice a day but make sure that it rinses away easily, does not cause skin irritation and do not wash away natural oils too.

2. Toning The Skin
Toners not only cleanse the skin further and help in removing any remnants of particles that you may have left behind but also cools, nourishes, hydrates and freshens up your skin. It tightens up skin and close up any skin pores that may have opened up while deep cleansing the face. Toners must be alcohol-free as alcohol dries off skin.

3. Exfoliating The Skin
Exfoliants remove dead cells from the skin, rejuvenate the skin and eliminate fine lines and wrinkles from the face. The younger skin that surfaces after exfoliation naturally looks more beautiful and glowing. These products usually have alpha or beta hydroxy acids to quicken up the process but do avoid the ones that are granular as they tend to damage the new skin too that is much more sensitive than the mature layer that it digests.

4. Moisturizing The Skin
Like our body, our skin also needs hydration and proper nutrients to keep it healthy. So, treat it with a good moisturizer and a broad-spectrum sunscreen with more than SPF 15 daily and night cream daily that helps the skin to balance and restores any damage that might have occurred to it overnight.