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Does your makeup routine change during the winter? Not skin care but makeup! If so, how so?
I reach for bolder lip colors, more lip balm (that’s not really skin care, is it? hmm!), and I take care to make sure I never look powdery, since my skin sometimes gets drier in the winter so my normal powder usage might look off!
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What’s your minimal makeup look? Janie’s going on a cruise and wants to look good pool-side without a lot makeup, so help her out! 
For me, a really minimal look would be filling in brows, natural-looking mascara (I’d opt for Bare Escentuals Buxom, which lengthens and defines for me), and some gloss. Depending on the situation, I might also wear tinted moisturizer.
Thanks to Janie for today’s question! Got a question idea? Submit yours here.
Celebrity Makeup News and Blogs:
By Leili, Hair Care Contributor
Leili is a 19-year old New Yorker who is obsessed with beauty, chocolate, and celebrity of the trashiest kind. Her drawers look like the stockroom of a hair salon! She’s currently enrolled in her second year of college but still trying to decide on her major. When she’s not worrying about that, she’s either at home with a good book, baking scrumptious goodies for her family, or exploring new restaurants with her friends. Check out her blog, Materialistic Musings!
Asking me to pick my must-have hair items is a bit like Sophie’s Choice for product junkies like me, but I finally succeeded in narrowing my list down to my absolute Holy Grail products. Just about everything here is tried and true—things that I have been repurchasing for ages and have stood the test of time. In some small way, they’re almost taken for granted because I use them so consistently that I no longer get excited over the results, but without them, my hair would be a mess of epic proportions.
Batiste Blush Dry Shampoo ($7.99) | I, like so many people, have come to be extremely reliant on dry shampoo—no wonder this stuff’s been around since the ‘70s. I don’t think I’ve gone a week without spraying a bit into my roots since I’ve started using this product. As someone with almost unbelievably oily hair, I use a quick blast of this between shampoos to freshen up, or to add some volume when my crown looks particularly flat. These days, with midterms basically robbing me of any showering time, I rely on dry shampoo more than usual so people won’t know I’m not exactly clean. (And let’s fact it, showering is really something you do for other people!) I’ve tried (and am still trying) all sorts of dry shampoos, but this is the one I always come back to. The only other one that might match the Batiste is the famous Klorane with Oat Milk. But although Klorane’s powder is slightly, slightly finer, I prefer how the Batiste ones are scented—Blush is the prettiest almost perfume-like floral. Besides, considering how often I use dry shampoo, Batiste is $10 cheaper.
Alterna Anti-Aging Caviar Working Hair Spray ($28.00) | As much as I love perfectly styled hair, I have bizarre issues with how it feels and hate the stiffness any product with real hold creates. I’ve tried a lot of hairsprays and while I liked the L’Oreal Elnett for a while, even that was crunchy and didn’t quite “disappear at the stroke of a brush.” A hair stylist used this on me a couple of years ago to set my curly prom up-do, and two days later my curls looked only mildly rumpled and were smooth and soft to the touch. Not only is a can of this absolutely huge, the product itself is a lovely dry mist that never leaves your hair feeling sticky or clumped together—I’ve never used anything like it. The aerosol spray in particular has also been really thoughtfully designed because you get a nice wide range of spray that comes out in a very fine mist. (This might be a bit of a problem for anyone wanting to spray a narrow area, but works fantastically for larger sections or over the entire ‘do). It is very definitely a workable, flexible spray perfect for maintaining a style worn over a few days or just for anyone who doesn’t like stiff hair. Best of all, this hairspray is paraben, gluten, synthetic color, DEA, TEA, mineral oil, PABA, paraffin and animal testing free! What’s not to love?
Bumble and Bumble Straight Blow Dry ($28.00) | Bumble and Bumble launched this product along with their “straight” shampoo and conditioner, and although I haven’t used this as long as the other items, it’s earned itself a firmly established place in my everyday hair routine. My natural hair is wavy and frizzy, so I like to blow dry it with a round brush to smooth out the kinks but still leave some movement and a bit of wave. I’ve tried a lot of blow drying and styling creams, but nothing turned my frizzy mess into smooth locks as quickly as this does. This also cut down on my drying time overall, not only getting the styling done faster, but it helped to get rid of the moisture in my hair very quickly. Usually it takes me almost half an hour to do my DIY blowout, section by section, but when I use this it barely takes 20 minutes. But what really earned this product a spot on my list is how well it holds the straight style. By day two of my blowout, normally the waves and frizzes start popping up, but something in this product maintains the look remarkably well—as though it’s laced with hairspray or whatever chemical John Frieda 3-Day Straight uses. This cream would be especially helpful to people with very curly hair looking to smooth it as much as they can with a hair dryer before the deadly flat irons come out. And for people with finer or straighter hair, with this and a paddle brush, it’s a cinch to get hair that looks like you’ve straightened it without even having to plug in the GHD!
Bed Head Ego Boost Split End Mender ($15.50) | The ends of your hair are always the driest and most damaged, and for anyone trying to grow their mane out, it’s very important that they stay healthy. I’ve been using this product for over 3 years now and have yet to find anything that could take its place. Not quite hydrating enough to be a leave-in conditioner, this mender is a sort of gel that locks in moisture for my ends. I actually think the name of this product is quite misleading as it doesn’t actually mend split ends, but it does add a great dose of moisture to those fragile tips. This is actually my preventative hair product to help prolong the health of my hair and avoid split ends, more than anything else. Comparatively, Herbal Essences Long Term Relationship is heavy and tacky feeling and Joico K-Pak’s Split End Mender is really to help split hairs look healthy without actually making them so. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to take better care of your hair, a few pumps of this out of the shower really adds a look of health to those parched ends and can even help delay trims at the salon!
Redken All Soft Conditioner ($15.99) | Ever since I discovered this conditioner, I’ve done disgraceful things to keep a tub of it in my shower at all times, even in my very poorest of poor college student days. I’ve never seen a conditioner as gloriously thick as this one is—the product comes out a paste and could honestly rival some deep conditioning masks. It feels absolutely sinfully luxurious and such a treat for dry or damaged locks every time I slather it on. Just like its name would suggest, it leaves my hair unbelievably soft and incredibly shiny, giving my usually lackluster mane this fantastic look of health. This is absolutely one of those use-it-and-you-won’t-be-able-to-stop-touching-your-hair products, and short of people with fine hair, there isn’t anyone I wouldn’t recommend this to. I’ve never liked the chemical, slightly noxious smell, but hair care products could smell worse (Ojon!), and for the results I get, I would put up with a far worse scent.
Now you might have noticed that my short list of must-haves doesn’t contain a deep treatment mask, leave-in oils/creams or volumizing mousses. I test these types of products out all the time and have handfuls of each category that I certainly like and use, but none of them in particular stands out and therefore cannot qualify as a must-have. Of course, if anyone would like me to, I’d be happy to write a post on the masks, oils/creams or mousses that I like but can’t really rank or discern significant differences between.
Celebrity Makeup News and Blogs:
By Leili, Hair Care Contributor
Leili is a 19-year old New Yorker who is obsessed with beauty, chocolate, and celebrity of the trashiest kind. Her drawers look like the stockroom of a hair salon! She’s currently enrolled in her second year of college but still trying to decide on her major. When she’s not worrying about that, she’s either at home with a good book, baking scrumptious goodies for her family, or exploring new restaurants with her friends. Check out her blog, Materialistic Musings!
Asking me to pick my must-have hair items is a bit like Sophie’s Choice for product junkies like me, but I finally succeeded in narrowing my list down to my absolute Holy Grail products. Just about everything here is tried and true—things that I have been repurchasing for ages and have stood the test of time. In some small way, they’re almost taken for granted because I use them so consistently that I no longer get excited over the results, but without them, my hair would be a mess of epic proportions.
Batiste Blush Dry Shampoo ($7.99) | I, like so many people, have come to be extremely reliant on dry shampoo—no wonder this stuff’s been around since the ‘70s. I don’t think I’ve gone a week without spraying a bit into my roots since I’ve started using this product. As someone with almost unbelievably oily hair, I use a quick blast of this between shampoos to freshen up, or to add some volume when my crown looks particularly flat. These days, with midterms basically robbing me of any showering time, I rely on dry shampoo more than usual so people won’t know I’m not exactly clean. (And let’s fact it, showering is really something you do for other people!) I’ve tried (and am still trying) all sorts of dry shampoos, but this is the one I always come back to. The only other one that might match the Batiste is the famous Klorane with Oat Milk. But although Klorane’s powder is slightly, slightly finer, I prefer how the Batiste ones are scented—Blush is the prettiest almost perfume-like floral. Besides, considering how often I use dry shampoo, Batiste is $10 cheaper.
Alterna Anti-Aging Caviar Working Hair Spray ($28.00) | As much as I love perfectly styled hair, I have bizarre issues with how it feels and hate the stiffness any product with real hold creates. I’ve tried a lot of hairsprays and while I liked the L’Oreal Elnett for a while, even that was crunchy and didn’t quite “disappear at the stroke of a brush.” A hair stylist used this on me a couple of years ago to set my curly prom up-do, and two days later my curls looked only mildly rumpled and were smooth and soft to the touch. Not only is a can of this absolutely huge, the product itself is a lovely dry mist that never leaves your hair feeling sticky or clumped together—I’ve never used anything like it. The aerosol spray in particular has also been really thoughtfully designed because you get a nice wide range of spray that comes out in a very fine mist. (This might be a bit of a problem for anyone wanting to spray a narrow area, but works fantastically for larger sections or over the entire ‘do). It is very definitely a workable, flexible spray perfect for maintaining a style worn over a few days or just for anyone who doesn’t like stiff hair. Best of all, this hairspray is paraben, gluten, synthetic color, DEA, TEA, mineral oil, PABA, paraffin and animal testing free! What’s not to love?
Bumble and Bumble Straight Blow Dry ($28.00) | Bumble and Bumble launched this product along with their “straight” shampoo and conditioner, and although I haven’t used this as long as the other items, it’s earned itself a firmly established place in my everyday hair routine. My natural hair is wavy and frizzy, so I like to blow dry it with a round brush to smooth out the kinks but still leave some movement and a bit of wave. I’ve tried a lot of blow drying and styling creams, but nothing turned my frizzy mess into smooth locks as quickly as this does. This also cut down on my drying time overall, not only getting the styling done faster, but it helped to get rid of the moisture in my hair very quickly. Usually it takes me almost half an hour to do my DIY blowout, section by section, but when I use this it barely takes 20 minutes. But what really earned this product a spot on my list is how well it holds the straight style. By day two of my blowout, normally the waves and frizzes start popping up, but something in this product maintains the look remarkably well—as though it’s laced with hairspray or whatever chemical John Frieda 3-Day Straight uses. This cream would be especially helpful to people with very curly hair looking to smooth it as much as they can with a hair dryer before the deadly flat irons come out. And for people with finer or straighter hair, with this and a paddle brush, it’s a cinch to get hair that looks like you’ve straightened it without even having to plug in the GHD!
Bed Head Ego Boost Split End Mender ($15.50) | The ends of your hair are always the driest and most damaged, and for anyone trying to grow their mane out, it’s very important that they stay healthy. I’ve been using this product for over 3 years now and have yet to find anything that could take its place. Not quite hydrating enough to be a leave-in conditioner, this mender is a sort of gel that locks in moisture for my ends. I actually think the name of this product is quite misleading as it doesn’t actually mend split ends, but it does add a great dose of moisture to those fragile tips. This is actually my preventative hair product to help prolong the health of my hair and avoid split ends, more than anything else. Comparatively, Herbal Essences Long Term Relationship is heavy and tacky feeling and Joico K-Pak’s Split End Mender is really to help split hairs look healthy without actually making them so. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to take better care of your hair, a few pumps of this out of the shower really adds a look of health to those parched ends and can even help delay trims at the salon!
Redken All Soft Conditioner ($15.99) | Ever since I discovered this conditioner, I’ve done disgraceful things to keep a tub of it in my shower at all times, even in my very poorest of poor college student days. I’ve never seen a conditioner as gloriously thick as this one is—the product comes out a paste and could honestly rival some deep conditioning masks. It feels absolutely sinfully luxurious and such a treat for dry or damaged locks every time I slather it on. Just like its name would suggest, it leaves my hair unbelievably soft and incredibly shiny, giving my usually lackluster mane this fantastic look of health. This is absolutely one of those use-it-and-you-won’t-be-able-to-stop-touching-your-hair products, and short of people with fine hair, there isn’t anyone I wouldn’t recommend this to. I’ve never liked the chemical, slightly noxious smell, but hair care products could smell worse (Ojon!), and for the results I get, I would put up with a far worse scent.
Now you might have noticed that my short list of must-haves doesn’t contain a deep treatment mask, leave-in oils/creams or volumizing mousses. I test these types of products out all the time and have handfuls of each category that I certainly like and use, but none of them in particular stands out and therefore cannot qualify as a must-have. Of course, if anyone would like me to, I’d be happy to write a post on the masks, oils/creams or mousses that I like but can’t really rank or discern significant differences between.
Celebrity Makeup News and Blogs:
By Laura, 40s, New York, Skincare Contributor
Laura “came of age” in the 80s, so she considers a survivor of some very disturbing fashion and makeup trends, like shoulder pads, acid-washed jeans worn unironically, streaky blush, and thick eyeliner that we softened with a lighter before putting it on–don’t even get her started on what women wore to the gym in those days! She now works in a more conservative field, and she’ll get an odd look or two if she wears crackle nail polish (and she expects we’ll look back on that trend with the same disbelief we now reserve for horizontally-striped leg warmers).
One thing I find difficult about my middle-aged skin is that it doesn’t tolerate rough treatment as well as it did when I was in my 20s and 30s. I used to be able to stay out late, fall into bed leaving all my makeup on when I slept, and wake up with nothing worse than a wee bit of puffiness under my eyes, if that. Not anymore. Now, if I want to skin to look presentable at work in the morning, not only do I have to be a lot more careful about my diet, but I also have to be absolutely fastidious in making sure I care properly for my skin before I go to bed.
Still, despite my having to take a few more minutes in my bedtime routine than I used to, my skincare routine is pretty simple, and I’ve developed one habit that might surprise some people: I don’t use a lot of department store skin-care products. I’ve found after many years of trial and error (more than I care to admit!) that while expense isn’t necessarily inversely proportional to effectiveness, my skin does not necessarily look any better when I spend more money on it.
On the contrary, some of the best products I’ve found are in the drugstore, not at the cosmetics counter. This rule holds particularly true for facial cleansers; I’ve found that there’s absolutely no reason to spend megabucks on any of them. A lot of department store cleansers are very fine. Sometimes I use Clinique Extra Mild Liquid Facial Soap ($16.00) when I’m feeling flush, but I’ve never found them markedly different from the skincare products you can find easily at Rite Aid or CVS. (I’ve found myself using certain department store products regularly because the drugstore brands don’t make a comparable product – Clinique Take the Day Off Cleansing Balm ($27.50), for example – but that’s for another post.)
Of course, there are some cleansers I can’t use because they happen to have ingredients that irritate my skin, but in that regard, I’ve found that the expensive stuff is just as likely to be an offender as are the less-expensive brands. As just one example, I know a lot of people love Philosophy’s Purity, which is $20 for an eight-ounce bottle, and I wish I could love it, because I do love the scent and texture. However, it drives my skin insane and not in a good way. I also haven’t found that cleansers work any better if they have gold-plated ingredients like antioxidants, salicylic acid, and so forth. After all, those ingredients touch your skin for only around a minute before you literally wash them down the drain!
I’ve tried dozens of different cleansers since I was a teenager, and I always come back to Neutrogena in one form or another. The company has, of course, changed its formulations over the years, but right now, my favorite is Neutrogena Fresh Foaming Cleanser ($6.50). It not only cleans beautifully, but also removes my makeup–even my eye makeup–thoroughly. I buy it for around seven dollars at Rite Aid. And I live in New York City, so you’ll probably be able to get it even cheaper.
I have another opinion that I know will raise a few eyebrows: I don’t believe in eye creams. But that’s also for my next post!
