Sure-fire tips for a gorgeous holiday you!
Once again, the holidays will fast be upon us and it seems they come faster and faster every year; and every year we vow to get a jump on the shopping, present wrapping and decorating, giving us more time to enjoy our friends, families and certainly all of the spectacular holiday parties this magical season has to offer. This year, to avoid any pre-party hair or makeup meltdowns, let me offer a few fun and simple ideas on how to pull yourself together after a long day of shopping, crowds, cooking and stress – and help you go from frazzled to fabulous!
Foundation.
When choosing a foundation for an evening out, keep two things in mind: primer and luminosity. A good makeup primer will help your foundation last all evening, as well as smooth out any imperfections like fine lines and larger pores. Smashbox Photo Finish Makeup Primer or Benefi t’s “That Gal” brightening face primer are a couple of great primer choices. To give your skin that healthy holiday glow, select a foundation that has a light reflecting quality, lending luminosity to the skin and also refl ecting light favorably away from any imperfections. Clarins True Radiance foundation or Photogenic Lumessence by Lancome are two excellent choices for fl awless looking skin.
Hair.
Glamorous hair is hair that is out of the ordinary. If you usually wear your hair up (at work or around the house) then wear it down. If you wear it down, put it up. If you wear it straight, curl it. If you wear it naturally curly, straighten it. If you part your hair in the middle, try a deep side part. Add a little fl air to your hair with a shimmery headband, hair tie or clip to add a little holiday sparkle! Always make sure your hair maintenance is up to date as well. Keep hair clean, trimmed, conditioned and colored to keep it looking its holiday best.
Skin.
The colder weather this time of year can wreak havoc on your skin, making it rough, dry, flaky and even red and blotchy. A quick, gentle exfoliation and hydrating mask prior to makeup application will assure your foundation will go on seamlessly, and your skin will look fl awless! Try Clinique’s
7-Day Scrub Cream or Dermalogica’s Daily Microfoliant for the smoothest skin ever. Following your exfoliation, apply a hydrating, nourishing facial mask to plump the skin, soften lines, fi rm and refi ne the skin. Try Erno Laszlo’s Hydra Therapy Skin Vitality Mask, it’s a personal favorite of mine that I have been using for 20 years. I use it prior to every big event I attend, and it never lets me down!
Eyes and Lips.
The focal point to any holiday makeup application will certainly be your eyes and/ or your lips. The key is finding focus and balance when choosing colors and application techniques. A simple way to find balance is to choose either your eyes OR your lips to enhance, not both. If you want your eyes to pop, then choose perhaps a dark, smoky eye, and go nude or neutral on your lips. To keep a smoky eye simple, pack on a darker shadow on your lid like charcoal grey, navy blue, dark plum or mossy green (you may want to dampen your shadow brush fi rst for more color intensity), line the inside of the eye lids on top and bottom with black eyeliner and finish with two coats of the blackest black mascara. That’s it! Next apply a nude lip color and a coat of sheer lip gloss and voila, you are gorgeous!
If it’s your lips that will be the focus for your look, a deep burgundy or dark cherry red lip color (a lip liner is a must with a darker lip color to prevent the color from feathering into small lip lines), with a sheer gold or neutral shadow, eyeliner only on the upper lid and a coat or two of mascara should do it! The key, again, is finding balance.
Lastly, for a megawatt smile, throw on a couple of Crest White Strips (two-hour express) before your event, for the brightest, whitest holiday smile ever! Cheers to all, and have a safe and happy holiday season!
