The holy grail “beauty tips” that we choose to ignore

Hey Guys,

Today’s post is going to be a little bit different from the ordinary. I’ve been watching a lot of beauty related videos for the past few years and each video offers copious amounts of advice on how to look your best …on the outside. They teach you how to apply your make-up, what the best products for your nails are, how to cover up your imperfections etc etc… the list is endless. What these tips all have in common,.. is that they are all tips to help us cover up something…what we look like naturally. All of us are guilty of ignoring the causes of these “flaws”. If we have dull skin… we get a foundation or concealor. Lifeless hair… throw in an intensive leave-in conditioner. If we didn’t do these things, there’d be no need for beauty blogs and therefore this blog alone would be pointless. I’m not trying to suggest that we ditch the make-up and go completely au natural however I am proposing the idea that our generation has forgotten the “holy grail” beauty tips that kept our ancestors looking fabulous:

1) Drinking enough water: Now I’m not going to harp on too much about this tip as everyone out there knows how important water is for you. However I will make a few short points. Every single fibre and element in our body needs water. Not only for the beauty end of the scale but for our general health. You could apply the most expensive make-up on earth, but if your skin is dehydrated, your skin is still going to look blah! It has been recommended that we drink at least 1 and a half to 2 litres of water a day… which I admit sounds like a lot. However, if you keep a bottle of water with you all day and sip along, you’ll be surprised at how much you actually drink. The trick is to constantly drink water throughout the day… even when you’re not particularly thirsty… as it has been shown that when you actually feel thirsty, it means that you are already partially dehydrated.

2) Getting the right vitamins: This is perhaps the most tricky of all the tips.. as the majority of people actually don’t get the sufficient amount of each vitamin daily. Now I’m not going to sit here and type out all the vitamins that you need and what amount of that vitamin is essential as that would make for an insanely boring blog post AND my hand would hate me for typing so much but if you’re interested, you can type Daily Recommended Allowance of Vitamins into Google and wahey there you go! What I will say however is that the most important vitamins for your hair, skin and nails are: Vitamins C, E, A, all B vitamins and iron. If you aren’t getting these vitamins via your food intake then I’d recommend taking an extra vitamin supplement such as multivitamins. You can also purchase supplements that are specific for hair growth, nail and skin care… one such example would be Perfectil.. which I’ve already done a review on in an previous post so I won’t go into it again.

….I’m aware this photo looks slightly dodgey… but let’s just go with it….

3) Having a proper skin care regime: Cleanse, tone, moisturise. The 3 step plan to healthy clean skin. So simple yet it is probably one of the most neglected tips of them all. I know more than anybody else how easy it is to just roll into bed and pop out a face-wipe and voila off to sleep… however this is not a sufficient skin care regime. Face wipes don’t actually clean your face properly and the majority of the time, they don’t even remove all of your make-up. When you use a face-wipe, what you’re doing is actually pressing the make-up and dirt deeper into your pores… which as you can imagine is not exactly what you want to happen. Face wipes are helpful if you want to remove stubborn eye-makeup.. but they need to be followed by a proper cleanser. There are so many cleansers on the markets these days… between washes, gels, scrubs etc. I recommend finding one that suits your skin type. Lots of you will know, if you’ve read my previous posts. that I have severely sensitive skin so I have to be very careful with what products I use. Currently I’m using the Dermalogica Ultra-Calming cleansing gel as my cleanser, instead of a toner I’m using La Roche-Posay’s “Eau Thermale” which is effectively thermal water that you can spray onto your face ( water is a natural toner) and lastly for a moisturiser I’m currently using La Roche-Posay’s “Hydreane Riche”. This routine is working really well for me at the moment, however it might not suit everyone. If you are unsure as to what products to use for your skin type, i’d recommend asking your GP or even your local pharmacist for some advice. There are also some great sites out there, where you can complete online surveys to try and determine what skin type you are.

4) Sun protection: Like the tip on water intake, this is another tip that I’m not going to go too into. It is a widely known fact that we need to protect our skin from the sun. This means wearing sufficient sun block and covering up when we are outside in the sun for long periods of time. Lots of people think that just because we don;t feel particularly hot or because you don’t live in a particularly hot country that you don’t need protection. The reality is that everybody needs some type of sun protection regardless of your location… the sun is harmful all around the world. So keep yourself covered and fully sun-blocked up to stop your skin getting damaged. It’s also important to take extra care of your lips in the sun too.. (extra lip balm etc and reapply as needed).

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Lol… at the royalty-free photo!

5) Having those essential “days off” (this is a little tip of my own that I’m throwing in for good measure): I thought I’d throw this extra tip in because it’s my favourite tip. Any girl will back me up on this, there’s nothing nicer than those lazy days… in your pjs, hair tied up, no make-up just chillin! There really is no nicer feeling and it is so good for your hair and skin to get this break. Just like you, youre hair and skin need a break. On days like these I love to really treat my skin with a full on facial, maybe a face mask and lots of moisturiser and I will let my hair naturally conditon itself (which is a bit yuck but meh). I know that it isn’t always easy to have a day off every week, with work and college etc.. but everyone should make the effort… even if starts off at just an “afternoon off” or “half-a-day off”… every little bit helps.

Yes I’m wearing no make-up….Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Haha sexy…

Now before I finish, I want to make an important point, I am in no way a certified nutritonist or doctor.. the tips I have given above, are tips that I have grown up with and have been advised of personally. They are common tips that I think everybody should follow… if not for beauty-sake, then for your general health.

I hope that you found this post helpful or at least somewhat interesting. Please leave a comment down below or email me if you have any questions. I’d also love to know if any of you have any personal beauty tips of your own… especially any unusual ones! 🙂

Until next time, thaaanks again and bye! 🙂