You never hit the hay before washing your face. You floss daily. But you might not know some of your seemingly innocent beauty habits are, well, kind of gross. Here are The Top 10 Beauty Mistakes You Are Making Now and how to come clean.
(FYI, this post is not sponsored, but does contain affiliate links, which means if you buy something through clicking on one of my links, I get paid a small commission. Thank you for helping support my blog and making it possible for me to continuously offer you free and fun style and beauty advice. All thoughts and opinions are my own and always will be.)
1) You are not cleaning your makeup brushes
If your skin is breaking out, your brushes may be to blame. Makeup brushes and sponges can get build-up from makeup along with oils, germs, and dirt. All that creates a nasty breading ground for bacteria that can cause breakouts. Further, it can make your makeup application look less than flawless. I wash mine once a week, usually on a Sunday. I use this to clean them. I love it, because it has mild, yet powerful cleansing agents as well as coconut oil, so it helps condition your brushes as well as break down cream products and waterproof makeup.
2) You don’t clean your hairbrush, either.
This was a recent revelation for me. I should have seen it, I know. I preach about keeping your makeup brushes clean. How are hair brushes any different? Residue from hair products, dead skin cells, and your hair’s natural oils build up on your brush over time. This makes your hair dirtier, faster and it’s not doing you any favors in extending the life of your blowout. The solution? A monthly scrub. First, use a comb to rake through the brush—this should catch all the hairs and make them easy to remove. Then massage your brush with a little shampoo, rinse, and let it dry.
3) You’re too tired to wash your face.
No, a one-time slip isn’t going to ruin your skin—but if you do forgo the face wash, make sure you change your pillowcase the next morning. An even better fix? Stash some makeup remover wipes (these are my favorite and I just started using these as well. They are very gentle, yet very effective.) by your night stand and give your face a once over before you drift into LaLa land. Make sure to pay your skin some extra attention the next day with an exfoliant and/or a facemask.
4) You take a hot iron to still-damp hair.
Ouch! Just don’t. And while you’re at it, make sure you’re using a product with heat protection (this and this are favorites) every time a hot tool touches your hair.
5) Perfume: you’re doing it wrong.
Don’t rub your wrists together after applying. It creates heat and friction, which burns through the top notes of your perfume and causes the scent to have a shorter lifespan. Another fragrance faux-pas is leaving the bottle out on your bathroom shelf where exposure to light and fluctuating temperatures can cause your fragrance to break down, discolor, and even go rancid. Stick it somewhere cool and dark instead. My current favorites for Spring are this one (it smells like a gin and tonic) and this one (so fresh and clean).
6) You are pumping your Mascara
Just don’t do it. Not only will you shorten its shelf life by drying it out, it also introduces all kinds of bacteria and germs into the product, which can be especially dangerous around the eye area. (Hello, pink eye, or worse!) this is my current favorite mascara.
7) You are not using a primer.
You wouldn’t paint your walls without priming them, right?! The same goes for your face. When applying primer, you are prepping your canvas, so to speak. It will make everything you apply on top of it go on smoother and last longer. And to answer one of my most asked beauty questions – Yes, eye primer and face primer are different and NO, you can’t use face primer on your eyes. This is my favorite eye primer and this face primer is amazing and has an SPF30 in it, which is great for the upcoming Spring and Summer season.
8) You are not using an eyelash curler.
This one is huge. Even if you wear no makeup at all, curling your lashes can take you look from tired to wide awake in a matter of seconds. Just check out this photo:
See the difference? Curling your lashes will lift them up and make them look fuller, which in turn, will make you look more youthful. This is the best one, in my opinion. Check out some more tips on looking more awake here.
9) You are neglecting your brows.
I always say, if you do nothing at all, just make sure you groom your eyebrows. If you have never done this before, make sure you see a professional for the first time. Don’t attempt to do this yourself. You will regret it. They will guide you and help you figure out your best shape. After that, you can help keep them neat and clean with a tweezer, but be careful not to over tweeze. Thin eyebrows can age you. Thicker eyebrows are more youthful. If your eyebrows are on the sparser side, make sure you fill them in. This brow pencil is fantastic. It has a spooly on one side and a very thin pencil on the other. You can’t really mess it up.
10) You are using your lipliner first.
I used to avoid liner altogether, because of that dreaded harsh line around the outer lip. However, as I have gotten older, I find I do need a little more definition in that area again. One of my biggest tricks is to apply a lip colored pencil, after applying my lipstick or gloss, in short, even strokes.. This way, you get the fullness and definition without the dreaded hard line. This one has been an all-time favorite.
I hope you find these helpful. Fess up, did you make any of these mistakes? Just for fun, leave your biggest beauty mistake in the comments below.
xo,
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