10 Beauty Hacks You Should Know

Beauty hacks 

that you wish you knew sooner

☺

The tips I am going to share with you are thoroughly tried and tested. They are so handy, cheap and you'll be kicking yourself that you have never tried them before. I'm sure there are so many beauty hacks out there but here are 10 I love.

• Blow dry your hair upside down for added volume.

• Make your eye make-up the first thing you do. You will save having to touch up your foundation because of eye shadow fall down and those oh so pesky mistakes we all make. 

• If you do make any mistakes, Cotton bud sticks/ Q-tips are an actual god send. Use them to wipe away any damage you may have done.

• After applying your lipstick, put your finger in your mouth and pull out. This will save any lipstick transferring onto your teeth.

• Personally I ALWAYS use shampoo (baby shampoo is usually the best but any will work) to clean my make-up brushes. It leaves them so clean, soft and smelling amazing.

• If you don't have a hair doughnut to hand, simply cut off the end of a sock and roll it down into the doughnut shape and you're ready to go.

• Ran out of shaving cream? Use conditioner.

• Now we all know spots are the bane of any girls life. Pop them and then put a bit of toothpaste on them.

• I always use a slightly damp eye shadow brush, as I find it gives a much better colour pay off.              
• Want longer, false looking lashes? Use a cotton bud stick/Q-tip to apply baby powder to your eye lashes between each coat of mascara. It really does work. 

Let me know if you try any of these and if they work for you too!

Do you have any tips?

Share them!

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The Naked Eye

I have always been a such a boring person when it came to make-up, my face consisted of foundation, eye liner and mascara. Blush, lipstick, and eyebrows never even entered my little brain, let alone eye shadow. It's really only in the last year I have started obsessing over all the different products and how they can transform my plain Jane face. My boyfriend bought me the Naked 3 pallet earlier this year and well...that was it really, It's been my holy grail every since.

In this divine autumn season I have been LOVING this look on my eyes. 1) Because It's simple 2) It's effective and 3) It takes no time what so ever. 

So my first tip would be to always start with your eye make-up, leave your foundation and concealer till after. This is so you can easily wipe away the fall down of the eye shadow, without ruining your flawless foundation. You can also use an eye primer to keep the shadow looking perfect all day, I recommend Urban Decay Primer Potion or Benefit Stay Don't Stray. 

After I applied my primer all over my eye lip, I moved on to filling in my eyebrows. I'm pretty lucky when it comes to my brows, they're dark and quite thick, so I didn't need to do much. I used Benefits Deep Charcoal eye shadow then brushed it through with an eyebrow brush. 

I then used the colour Liar from the Naked 3 Pallet and sweeped it over my lid using the flat side of the brush and then blended it out with the fluffy side. I also took Liar underneath my eye to add a bit of depth. After this I took the colour Trick and patted this over the top of Liar, I did this quite a few times as I wanted it very pigmented. 

Moving onto the eye liner, I used L'oreal Gel Intenza Eye liner in 01 Pure Black. It comes with an eye liner brush, which is so precise and helps to give great pay off. I took this close to my lash line and created a little wing at the end. I then put it on my waterline for a darker effect. 

Now for the Mascara, I adore this product, It's Benefit They're Real. I usually wiggle the brush around while moving it up my lashes, it helps to maximise and create volume. I then went on to put around 2 more coats to my lashes and applied it to the bottom, you don't have to do this step, not everyone is into the bottom lash mascara look.

You can then go onto doing the rest of your make-up!

My recommendations on the rest...

-Mac Match Master-

-Benefit dandelion blush-
-Any dark berry lipstick-

I hope you enjoy re-creating this look and you can find quite a lot of dupes for the products I've used. Find what's best for you.

Dear Diary... Anxiety Entry

"Dear Diary, 

Today was another bad day, I can't seem to shake off the negativity. I feel silly, abnormal and judged. The smallest things are getting to me, making me emotional and I'm just not able to concentrate on anything. 

I went for a meal earlier, I ordered Gammon and Chips without peas. God, how I hate peas, in fact, no, I fear having peas on my plate. Of course it came with them accompanying my meal, touching the chips. My body burned up, I felt hot. And sick. Sick to my stomach. 

My thoughts... What if the chips taste funny? I can't tell the waitress, she'll seriously think I'm a nut case. What if I don't eat it? Everyone will ask me why I have wasted food. Every ones looking at me. What if I have a panic attack?  

At this moment I was holding back the tears but it was overwhelming, I didn't know if I could stop the emotion. My hands felt the brunt of it, I couldn't stop scratching them. 

It happens so often, too often! I feel ridiculous, no one else I know gets like this and people do not understand. They tell me to snap out of it and to stop being silly. I wake up expecting to feel like this every day, and part of me just wants to avoid all social situations where I have to meet new people and face my every day pressures. I'm sure I'll get used to it... some day."

If you can relate to this in any way, you may have Anxiety. Don't worry... You're not alone. It's actually more common than you think and can be easily controlled. All the bad things you think are going to happen, usually amount to nothing and the situations are never as bad as it seems. I am in no way shape or form an expert on Anxiety or other Mental Health conditions, I'm just using my experience to hopefully help some of you. I hate the fact that sometimes my mind controls me a little too much and there's nothing I can do at that time. A few of the techniques that I have used, read about or been recommended are;

• Well firstly, seek the help of your doctor. Be persistent, and don't let them shrug you off. They may give you medication or refer you for therapy. 
• Talk to someone, doesn't matter who. Vent your worries and how your feeling. Try to make them understand.
• Gentle Exercise
• Plenty of sleep. You will tend to feel more vulnerable when your tired.
• Try meditation music or relaxation music. Just lay there for a while with your earphones in and shut out all your worries.
• It's also good to avoid coffee or alcohol.
• Don't run...Face it! Say yes! You will feel SO proud of yourself. (Oh and yes I did eat my meal... I managed to face the situation... eventually.) 
• If your having a particularly negative, unhappy day... Sit down and write down all the positives in your day and what makes you happy in your life. 

Never think that you're being silly or ridiculous. You're not, it matters to you and it affects you.

Don't suffer in silence, get help, talk to anyone, look on anxiety forums etc.

Click HERE for professional information on anxiety and other Mental Health conditions.

Be happy. Be positive. You can do it.