The Secrets to Achieving an Effective Beauty Sleep

If you’re young and working in the city, then chances are, you like talking about how much sleep you’re not getting because of your weekday drinks. But come weekend, isn’t it great to just wakeup fresh and well-rested? Or have better-looking skin because you rested early for three consecutive days? Well, that’s all because of good sleep. So if you ever decide to start hitting the sack early one of these nights, here are several ways on how you could possibly make the most out of your beauty sleep.

Keep Your Hands Off Your Gadgets

Perhaps you already heard about it, but that little white and blue lights on your phone will only disrupt your sleep. You could turn on the night mode on your gadgets but it won’t only keep you up, it’ll also wear your eyes out. Instead of spending more time on your phone at night, just set your alarm and snuggle with your partner or your favourite pillow – this will definitely help in relaxing you more.

Start a Night-Time Beauty Routine

Sitting down and paying extra attention to your skin can be a good me-time ritual. Start with the thinnest formula to the thickest, then the most concentrated to the least. Go straight for the eye cream and apply it directly on the under eye area so it could refresh your sleep-deprived skin. Once you’re done, pat on some night serum and let it sink in. After that, seal in the hydration using a night-time moisturizer so you’ll wake up to a softer and glowing skin.

Read Novels Before Hitting the Sack

If surfing the net or reading online is your way to wind down at night, then choose to go back to reading a good old novel. With this, you keep reading until you fall asleep but ditch those murder mysteries though, as they might keep your mind from relaxing.

Invest in Quality Sheets and Blankets

That’s no surprise here. It’s the reason why most hotel blankets are so comfortable and so good to sink into. To recreate the same feeling on your bedroom, make sure that you invest in quality blankets and sheets.

Enjoy a Luxurious Warm Bath

Enjoying a warm bath and shower is a guaranteed way to calm you down. Plus, it’s more comfortable to hit the sack when you’re all clean and scrubbed.

Getting a quality beauty sleep is the key to looking fresh even after a hard day at work or a night full of partying. So be sure to put these sleep-friendly tips to use so you could maximize your beauty rest, and enjoy a youthful-looking skin.

How to Look Good in the Age of Selfies

Thanks to technology, taking photos these days is just as easy as pressing a few buttons on your phone. A photo is snapped and the next instant, it’s already posted on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter – and that’s why it’s time for you to get prepared. Here, we listed down some tips on how you can avoid hitting the un-tag button, and feel and look better in photographs.

1. Perform a Flash Test

It’s always a good idea to perform a flash test since flash photography tends to emphasize any beauty issue that you have, such as too much blush or a foundation that’s too light. This will also give you a chance to do some makeup tweaks before you start capturing some photos.

2. Powder Your T-Zone

Even if don’t have an oily skin, make it a habit to dab a good amount of translucent powder on your T-zone (your forehead area and on the bridge of your nose). Keep in mind that a glowy face tend to look greasy in pictures – doing this trick will help avoid that, as well as looking too matte.

3. Plump Your Lashes

Applying multiple coats of mascara will help in opening up your eyes and drawing attention to them in the photos. Photography tends to wash out some facial features, which is why it’s a good idea to emphasize them as much as possible. So be sure to pick some good mascaras to give you some eye-popping results in just a few strokes.

4. Know Your Angles

When taking group photos, hand the camera to your friend who has the longest arms. Have him or her hold the camera up, while facing it down at a slight angle. Also, avoid standing too close to the camera or you’ll end up looking disproportionately larger.

5. Avoid Wearing an SPF

Even if it’s only a little, SPF creates a white-cast flash in photography – which is why it’s best to avoid applying it at night when you know that photos will be taken. So if possible, opt for an SPF-free foundation and apply it using a finish foundation brush.

6. Make Your Eyes Appear Brighter

Ditch the sparkle in the inner corner of your eyes, as it doesn’t always register well on camera. Instead, use a highlighting pen to brighten the inner corner and under-eye area of your eyes. Doing this will surely make you look bright-eyed and refreshed.

Looking good in photos isn’t as difficult as you think. Simply putting these tricks to work is already enough to make you feel and look good in your photos.

4 Ways You Should Use Essential Oils

Perhaps, you have heard so many great things about essential oils and how helpful they can be to our health and even to our homes. But what exactly is an essential oil?

Essential oil is a type of natural oil obtained by distillation that has the unique fragrance of the plant where it came from. In short, it is the essence of a plant.

essential oil for aromatherapy

What are its uses? There is actually an endless list of uses for this substance. From being a home cleaning agent to a medicinal healing product, these versatile essential oils are an all-natural solution for many things. To give you better ideas when and how to use it, here’s a list of our favourite ways to use these wonder liquids.

1. Bathing
One of the most popular ways to use an essential oil is to mix them with salt or emulsifier like sesame oil or milk to make a good aromatic bath. Bath salt disperses your choice of oil safely into the water, and sesame oil and milk emulsify the oil so it disperses easily. Without salt or an emulsifier, the oil will just float and won’t mix with the water.

Aromatic baths are much needed essential oils for home in Singapore and highly recommended for people with circulatory problems, skin problems, menstrual pain, nervous tension, muscular pain, and insomnia. However, keep in mind that excessive exposure to oils in the bath can cause skin irritation. Use only mild oils, like clary sage oil and lavender oil for long, relaxing baths.

2. Air Freshener
Do you have one of those plug-in air fresheners? Once you run out of its fragrance, refill them with natural essential oil. Carefully remove the wick with a knife, and then fill the first half of the container with your favourite oil scent and another half with filtered water. Shake well to mix the water and oil before replacing the wick and plugging it into a power source. Using essential oil as an alternative to air fresheners is not just a thrifty solution, but also a healthier, natural alternative to the artificial ingredients that come with standard air fresheners.

Some of the best oils to use for this are peppermint, cinnamon, lemon, and orange. You can also try mixing the oils. Try vanilla and lemon or orange and cinnamon for a unique twist for your home’s scent.

3. Skin Care
Clear up your skin before breakouts start with the help of essential oils. Singapore dermatologists suggest making a natural antibacterial and acne-fighting blend with tea tree oil, lavender oil, and aloe vera gel.

Also, oils are effective treatment for age-proofing the skin. Help prevent skin damage by slathering your face with a blend of antioxidant-rich natural oils. Rose, myrrah, and lavender oils penetrate deeply into the skin and fight free radicals that cause the early appearance of wrinkles and other signs of aging. For best results, Singapore skincare experts recommend moisturizing everyday with facial cream blended with any of those oils.

4. Massage Oil
Massage is another popular way to enjoy therapeutic oils. Not only you benefit from its healing properties, but you also take advantage of the relaxing effect of the massage itself. The essential oils’ therapeutic action, when brought together with the invigorating effects if massage, will stimulate all your body organs, muscles, glands, and nerves. The increased blood circulation and lymph flow also aids with the elimination of toxins from the system.

In making massage oil, you can pick up to five different oils and add five drops of it to your carrier base. For more sensitive skin, add only three drops of essential oil to every 10ml of carrier base. Keep in mind though that this solution is only suitable for the body. Do not use this on the face as it is too concentrated and thus may cause irritation or inflammation to the skin.

Among the best things about these oils are their tremendous versatility and aromatherapy qualities. An incredible amount of therapeutic properties is packed into each drop of these liquids, making them very easy to use on a daily basis to improve your health and well-being.

Fool-Proof Ways to Get Rid of Puffy Face

A puffy face is an undesirable, but an all too common beauty problem that most of us have probably experienced at some point in our life. A swollen face has never been good to look at as it makes you look tired and sick. But just like any other beauty problems, there are several ways that you can do to completely banish your puffy face problem and wake up to a healthier-looking face.

1. Splash on Some Cold Water. Cool water constricts the blood vessels and calms any inflammation, which aids in reducing swelling. Other than that, a splash of cold water also offer beauty benefits like tightening the pores and lessening the appearance of redness on your face.

2. Get a Facial Massage. Massaging your face is another great and easy way to banish swollen face, as it aids in speeding up the lymphatic drainage process. It helps by draining the sinuses and reducing the fluid retention in your face, which are the main causes of having a swollen face in the morning. Check on some YouTube tutorials to get some good techniques if you plan on performing a DIY facial massage.

3. Take the DIY Route. Although there are a myriad of products available to reduce facial puffiness, taking the DIY route is also an excellent way to deal with your de-puffing problems. Not only are they less expensive, some of the techniques also prove to be more effective. One of the known DIY treatments is using cold cucumber slices. The cucumber’s cold temperature and high water content is what makes it an ideal treatment for the task.

4. Live a Proactive Life. Aside from using various beauty products, there are actually a handful of things that you can do regularly to avoid facial swelling. Ensuring that you’re well dehydrated is one, so make sure that you drink enough water daily starting from when you wake up until the time you hit your sack. It would also help if you’ll lower your alcohol intake, as well as of foods that has a high sodium content.

Although it’s an all too common problem, de-puffing your face is actually a pretty easy task. Just live a healthy lifestyle, take proper care of your face and body, and you’ll surely wake up to a fresher and healthier-looking face.

Hair Care Tips for the Humid Weather

If you ever experienced living in a country where hot and moist weather is common, then you’re fully aware of the disastrous effects of humidity on your hair. It causes straight hair to frizz, perfect curls to drop and textured locks to be bushy. Luckily, you can now counteract these unfortunate results by simply keeping the following hair care tips in mind.

1. Moisturize Your Locks. If you’re set to protect your strands against the effects of humid weather, then it’s important that you keep your hair properly moisturized all the time. Remember that dehydrated hair tends to absorb moisture quickly, so ensure that you perform some deep conditioning to restore and nourish your damaged tresses.

2. Air Dry Your Hair. Although blow drying offers many benefits, it’s not an ideal tool to use when dealing with a humid weather. Directing dry hot air at your strands will only dehydrated them further, and surely, dry hair is the last thing you’d want to have.

3. Wash With Cool Water. There’s no better way to battle a hot weather than a good splash of cold water, so once you’re done shampooing and conditioning your hair, rinse it off with a stream of cool water. This will help in closing down your hair’s cuticle and sealing up your scalp’s pores to keep the air’s moisture from getting in and wrecking your hairstyle.

4. Apply Some Silicone Balm. When it comes to battling humidity, using a silicone-based hair balm can work wonders as it helps in sealing in your hair’s natural moisture while preventing the air’s dampness from interfering. Just make sure that you don’t overload your hair with it though, since too much silicone can make your strands look heavy and lifeless.

5. Keep Your Hair Length. Although cutting off your hair can help you battle the sticky summer heat, it’s not the best strategy to counteract the effects of humidity. If you want to prevent unwanted hair puffiness, then keep your current hair length. Cutting your hair short will only make your strands curl up in the damp air, leaving you a messy and an unattractive look.

Making your hair look healthy in a humid weather can be quite challenging, but by following these tips, you’ll surely be able to maintain the beauty of your strands even with the dry air.

10 Must-Know Lipstick Commandments for Women

Is it an everyday struggle for you to get those perfect lips? Don’t be stressed out anymore, as here some the 10 lipstick commandments that every Singapore woman should know and do.

1.       Start with clean lips. The first step to achieving perfect lips is to always start with a clean, fresh lips. Moisturize your lips using your favourite lip balm and exfoliate them at least twice a week to rid them of dry and dead skin cells.

2.       Outline using a lip liner. Make your lipstick application easier by using a lip liner to outline your lips first. This will prevent your lipstick from seeping into the fine lines below, or above your lips.

3.       Test out lipstick formulas. Different kinds of lipstick suits different types of skin complexion, which is why most Singapore makeup artist suggest trying out and experimenting on different lipstick formulas and manufacturers. Try out long-lasting, matte, or creamy lipsticks, and decide on which suits you best.

4.       Avoid too much glitter. Lipsticks that have too much glitter, or shimmer, don’t always look and work well. So opt for lipsticks that uses their creaminess to reflect the light naturally, as they look and work a lot better.

5.       Don’t go too dark. Although black and blue lipsticks are gaining much popularity today, it’s better to stick to the traditional lipstick colours. Aside from looking scary, dark lipsticks look unnatural and also adds up years on your look.

6.       Start applying in the middle, then outwards. To avoid that clown-like lipstick look, apply your lipstick in the middle of your lips first, and gradually work your way outwards by blending it using your fingers.

7.       Don’t overdo it. Yes, bold lipstick looks stunning, but for a less dramatic look, apply your lipstick on your bottom lip only, then lightly press your lips together, and start blending using your fingers.

8.       Go for nude lipstick. Lipsticks don’t necessarily need to be bright red, since nude colours could look great too. One trick to choose the best nude lipstick is to go for shades that are slightly brighter or deeper than your lips natural colour. This shade will give your lips the contrast it needs to look great.

9.       Don’t settle for bargain lipsticks. Lipsticks are one the cosmetic products that you shouldn’t be cheap on. Cheap lipsticks don’t last long, and often contain chemicals that you surely wouldn’t want to put on your lips.

10.   Blot it. After applying your first coat, blot your lipstick with a clean facial tissue, then apply your second coating. Doing this will make it last longer and look a lot better.

Getting that perfect lips has now become easier with these tips. So go ahead, put your favourite lipstick on and show your best pout to the people around you.