Beauty Tricks Every Girl Should Know

Girls (and guys), there is so much information out there about beauty. Mainly tips and tricks to make yourself beautiful, but there isn’t a whole lot on preventative steps (other than age defying moisturizers). So here are a few things that you might not be doing that you really should.

Moisturize

You’re never too young to start moisturizing. And if you start this trend as part of your daily routine when you’re young, it will become a habit that will save your skin when you’re older. I wish my mother passed this little nugget onto me, but I had to figure moisturizing out for myself when I was like, 24, and I am still terrible with it. It’s taken me years to find a good moisturizer for my skin and I’m dreadful at remembering to apply it. Start as soon as you can. Start now, today. Go buy a moisturizer, it will probably take a couple tries to find the right one, and start using it every day and night.

And make sure your moisturizer contains some SPF protection. I love the sun, but it is an absolute wrecking ball to your skin’s aging process. Be sure to find a good moisturizer, with the highest SPF you can find. And while you’re at it, grab a body lotion that contains SPF as well, or just some sunblock in general. You’re never too young to start warding off fine lines and wrinkles. Be that 50-year-old that looks 30 because of your flawless skin.

Combs, Not Brushes

I’m a big fan of brushes, and there’s nothing better than running a brush through your hair after it’s been windy or your hair just feels stringy or tangled. However, when your hair is wet, you should use a wide toothed comb or pick, rather than a brush. When your hair is wet, it has one-third less strength than normal, and when you tear a bunch of bristles through it, it can stretch, break, and damage your hair. Try to wait for your hair to dry before brushing it at all, but if you can’t handle it, a wide toothed comb is the best option, and if you hair curly hair, the wider toothed the better.

Do not pull your eyelid to apply eyeliner.

Aaaaaah! I wish someone would have told me this, and when I see people doing it I can’t help but cringe in horror. Please, stop stretching your eyelid out to get that perfect cat eye. The skin over your eyes is very delicate and every time you pull it, you stretch it out, and one day you will wake up and wonder how you got creepy eyelids.

If you’re using a liquid liner, start with the point first, angling down from the end of your eyebrow to your lash line, and then fill the rest in. Learning to do this might take a little bit of practice, but you’ll actually get a better wing than if you pull your lid. And you can match up the other eye, giving you the perfect Adele-esque eyes.

If you use a pencil and feel like you have to pull your lid to get it on evenly, switch to a powder or cream liner. Get a thin eyeliner brush and apply some black powder to it and run that across your lash line. To get a more “set” look, apply water to the brush first, and then dip it in your black powder. It’ll go on smooth as butter and you won’t damage your poor eyelid skin while doing it. The best part about this trick is that you can wash the black out of your brush and switch out the black powder for any other eyeshadow color you want to try out as a liner.

Silk Pillowcases

Go ahead, treat yourself. Get a silk pillowcase. You can find these at just about any retailer and I’ve seen them at Sally Beauty Supply. A silk pillowcase doesn’t just sound like you’re going to sleep like a queen, it helps keep you looking like one. Silk pillowcases help keep you cool during your beauty rest, and they help keep skin irritation away. Not only that, but they help keep moisture in, which helps keep wrinkles away. Oh, and B-T-Dubs, it helps keep your hair shiny, moisturized, and free of static and tangles.

Hydrate

This is a pretty obvious one, but water really is a miracle. It helps keep your skin moist (sorry) and plump looking. When your skin dries out, it starts to look old and cracked, and no one wants that. Sipping on water all day is the best thing you can do for your beauty routine, plus your overall health. When you’re dehydrated, your skin shows it, and so do your lips. Don’t forget about that. No one wants to look at chapped, peeling lips. While lip balms help to correct this, try avoiding it altogether by keeping yourself properly hydrated. Your future self will thank you.

Collagen and Retinol Creams/Pills

Alright, what exactly are these two? Well, your body naturally has collagen in it; it’s a type of protein that your body naturally produces. It’s what keeps your skin plump, perky and full looking. Retinol is the purest form of Vitamin A. This means it helps keep your skin from drying out, pre-aging, and forming wrinkles. Basically, retinol helps stimulate the production of collagen in your body.

Collagen pills and creams are still up in the air depending on who you talk to. Do they really work? Some say yes, some say no. But ya know what I say? They don’t hurt, so why the hell not? Throw collagen pills into your daily routine - usually a two or three pills in the morning and then two or three again in the evening is recommended. Helping your body maintain or produce more collagen can only help you stay youthful looking.

And I like to follow my collagen routine up with a retinol routine. I’ll buy a bottle of collagen pills and once I run through that, I’ll switch over to retinol pills, or Vitamin A pills. Once I’ve cycled through those, I head back over to the collagen pills, and so on and so forth.

Pills, creams, whatever your jam is, they can’t hurt you if you use them properly. And while the jury may be out on the *real* effectiveness of some of these products, they definitely aren’t going to cause you to age quicker. The sooner you can get into protecting your skin, the younger you’re going to end up looking later in life.

Rather than waiting until you're older and having to fight back the signs of aging, start taking preventative steps now.