The BIGGEST Myths About Natural Hair
10 All Natural Springtime Beauty Secrets
Springtime as sprung. As the flowers start to bloom and look beautiful, we would like our hair and skin to radiate too. Below you will find 10 tested and tried all natural beauty secrets that will have you glow like a spring flower. All the products used are things that you already have in your kitchen, bathroom or can be purchased at your local grocery store.
1. Repair your skin. There are many things you can use to repair your skin but none as simple, cost effective, or beneficial as an egg white face mask. Egg white face masks are great for people with dry flaky skin as it hydrates, nourishes and moisturizes dehydrated skin. It also tightens and tones the skin, while slowing down the aging process. One of its really great features is it eliminates toxins that create wrinkles. Use 1 egg white at room temperature. Apply it with a thin coat to your face and let stand for about 15 minutes. When it has dried completely, place a hot wet towel on your face and remove in a circular motion. Pat dry with a towel and marvel at the smooth feel of your skin!
2. Instant Eye Lift. Refresh and sooth your puffy eyes with cool cucumbers. Cucumbers contain ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and caffeic acid, both of which help reduce swelling. Take two chilled cucumber slices and place one slice over each eye, relax your head for about 10 to15 minutes. Remove cucumbers and relish in your new instant eye lift.
3. Grind it up body scrub! Start your day with a smoothing body scrub made from coffee grounds. Grind the coffee up very fine. As you take your soothing shower, rub the coffee grounds on to exfoliate old dead skin leaving your skin soft, smooth and silky.
4. Invigorate your feet. Now that winter is over get your feet ready for sandals with an invigorating oatmeal foot bath. An oatmeal foot bath will help relieve dry, cracked skin. It helps soften and moisten the skin so your feet can be silky smooth. The way you make the oatmeal foot soak is simply by adding the 1 cup of ground rolled oats, ½ cup of baking soda, and ½ a cup of chamomile tea leaves. Put directly into your footbath and fill with hot water. Simply allow the ingredients to melt right into the footbath for a minute. Stick your feet into the foot bath and allow them to soak in all the goodness so your feet can feel soft and pretty again. Try to soak your feet in the foot soak for as long as possible.
5. Age defying hands. Your hands have been known to be a big age giveaway. For a more youthful look you must add moisture to the hands and nail bed. Instead of cutting your cuticles, moisturize and push them back. If you don’t have a cuticle pusher, use an eraser head wrapped in tissue to push them back. To keep your nail bed white and healthy looking, rub them with a lemon wedge. The acid in the lemon will brighten your nails. Rough nail files can weaken your nails, causing them to split and peel. Use a superfine grit nail file to produce a clean, chip-free nail edge. For a youthful look, Keep your nails no longer than ¼ inch beyond your fingertips.
6. Protecting your hair. Protect your hair from the drying elements of, the sun, salt, and wind. Apply a few teaspoons of olive oil to your hair from scalp to the ends of your hair. Brush through with a boar-bristle brush. Wrap your hair in a hot towel for 15 minutes. Rinse thoroughly with warm water and follow up with cleansing shampoo to remove excess oils from your hair. This treatment creates a barrier around the hair shaft, protecting it from the drying elements of sun, salt, and wind.
7. Hydrate your hair. It’s easy for your hair to become dry and brittle. Cold temperatures and very dry environments like heat from your home tend to deplete your hair of its natural moisture. All of this can cause dull, flaky, dry skin and brittle, frizzy hair. The key to nourishing your hair is to keep it hydrated. One great way to keep your hair hydrated is to sleep with a humidifier on and close your bedroom door. This will add moisture to the air.
8. Nourish your hair. You don’t have to buy tons of products to nourish your hair. With a proper diet, you will have strong healthy shiny hair. Here are just a few food items that will aid you in your quest for healthy hair. Essential fatty acids are foods that keep your hair and skin healthy, especially omega-3 fatty acids, which play a key role in skin, hair, and nails. You should eat some of these foods everyday: Salmon, tuna, mackerel, and other fatty fish. Citrus fruits and tomatoes contain vitamin c which aids in improving scalp circulation and encourages hair growth. Eggs or Egg Whites contain vitamin b12 which is essential for hair growth. Broccoli is an iron-rich food that helps reverse hair loss. Brown Rice is a great source of biotin and is necessary for healthy hair. Eating properly promotes healthy hair.
9. Preventing Sun damaged hair. Too much exposure to the sun can cause your hair to become overexposed leaving it dry, brittle, and damaged. Honey is a natural humectant, which attracts and locks in moisture. To get the best results, mix ½ cup honey with 1 Tbsp of olive into clean, damp hair, let it sit for about 20 minutes, and then rinse with warm water. Follow up with a light shampoo. This treatment can be done once a month.
10. Water is the key to it all. Water has so many benefits for our hair and skin and is essential to stay properly hydrated. Water helps to deliver key nutrients to cells allowing our hair and skin to look and feel healthy. Additionally, water helps eliminate toxins from the body and impurities from the skin. And well hydrated skin will result in a healthy and radiant complexion. It is recommended to drink at least 8 cups of water per day.
By using these springtime all natural beauty secrets, you will not only look good but feel great!
Makeup Do’s and Don’ts
Celebrity Hairstylist/Makeup Artist Shereese Slate
• Clean off all makeup before going to bed to prevent clogging your pores.
• Never use your hand to check for the correct shade of foundation for your face. Use your cheek.
• Never use a black eye pencil to fill in your eyebrows. Use a brown for a natural look
• Never pump your mascara wand, always roll and pull out.
• When you are not sure of what shades of eye shadows to buy try earth tones, they go with almost every skin tone.
• Use a lip brush to apply your lipstick to get a smooth look
• A foundation brush gives a very soft natural look to your foundation application
• Use a angle brush to accentuate your eyebrows
• Highlight your eyes with a colored eyeliner
• Always try a foundation before you buy it
• Use a foundation that matches your skin tone exactly.
• Use professional makeup brushes to get a clean, smooth, beautiful finish.
• Check your makeup in a magnifying mirror.
• Use concealer to cover blemishes and dark spots
Don’t Hate Me Because I’m BEAUTIFUL!
Don’t Hate Me Because I’m BEAUTIFUL!
By Shereese Slate
How often have you heard another woman say something unkind about a beautiful woman that she sees and doesn’t even know? I have heard women say such things as, “she thinks she’s cute, or she’s overrated, or even she’s ok but she’s no Beyonce. I say to people who have thoughts like this, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful!
Aren’t we supposed to love our neighbor and build them up not tear them down? When you see a beautiful woman walking down the street, compliment her instead of spewing nasty remarks of jealousy and ill will. Negative thoughts and perceptions about other women that a person doesn’t even know says alot about the person thinking the thoughts. It really screams INSECURITY!
It often surprises me that women can be so mean towards another woman just because she is beautiful. Take some of that “hater” mentality and use it for good. The more beautiful you see yourself, the less intimidated you should be of another beautiful woman.
How about rethinking and using positive thoughts like, “she’s really pretty, or I love her hair she has so much body and bounce. Maybe I’ll ask her what salon and hairstylist that she visits.” A compliment say more about the person that is giving it than receiving it. Life is a big boomerang, the more compliments you give away the more compliments you’ll see directed back to you. When you here a person constantly have negative thoughts of them self, they are really crying out for positive attention for them self. They desire to look and feel beautiful but instead of getting the emotional help that they need to feel secure about themselves, they find it easier to take potshots at someone who does exude what they desire to have— confidence.
Here are a few suggestions that you can give to someone who you see spewing hater-a-tion towards another woman.
1. As she begins to say negative things of another woman, stop her in her tracks, not by putting her down but by giving her a compliment. It’s very hard to keep saying negative things about someone when you are the receiver of compliments.
2. When she unloads her negative thoughts of another woman, do the opposite, find a reason to give the other person a compliment, again, positive talk drowns out negative words.
3. Listen intently to the negative woman to find out what her real insecurity is all about and in a kind but indirect way off some suggestions of things that she can do to make her feel comfortable enough with herself to like and love on herself.
4. Speak highly of yourself. Birds of a feather flock together.
5. Tell them stories of how you were able to build yourself up and things you overcame that helped you to like and even love yourself.
6. Start her morning off by sending words of encouragement to her on a daily basis. The morning time is the most important time of setting the pace for how you will respond to many situations. Make her your personal project to help her get the hater out of her.
7. If you know she is negative beat her to the punch and speak positive of another. It will make her uncomfortable about being Debbie downer.
Speaking to someone’s insecurities helps them to be better in every area of their life. They no longer have that long drawn out look that speaks before they open their mouth. Now, they exude a new found beauty that only comes from getting to know and like yourself. Yes, feeling beauty on the inside helps to show the beauty on the outside. One must learn to have good positive self-talk. As the old saying goes, you are who you believe you are. If someone can’t appreciate your beauty it’s not your responsibility to succumb to their vision of you. With a great big smile, let your invoice speak loud and clear, don’t hate me because I have learned to appreciate who I am.
Despite who society deems is beautiful, you are beautiful in the creation that God made you. Yes, you are beautiful in the size, shape, and shade of color that God made you. It is ok to enhance who you are by getting a great hairstyle, or a manicure, or even a makeover. Just don’t hate the woman in the mirror. If you do, you will have a problem seeing another woman the way God sees them!
Pretty Enough!
As Valentine Day approaches, beauty and relationships start to stare you right in the face. I often wondered am I really pretty? Am I really deserving of a great relationship? Do I have the right stuff to be considered pretty? Am I worth being treated as a queen? As I examined myself and gave these questions great thought, I said to myself. “Yes” to all. How can I be a daughter to a King, filled with all the right stuff and not be deserving of wearing the title, “pretty woman.”
Again I say, “I am a pretty woman”, not based off one’s perspective of me but of the perspective that I have learned to see in myself. Growing up with low self esteem will cause you to view yourself as everything but pretty. You see, I no longer look into the mirror wishing to look like or be like, anyone else. I now know that the queen, yes I said queen that stares back at me, deserves not only a great relationship but the best of everything. Including the right to see herself as worthy enough to wear the crown.
Pretty is never defined by the outer appearance alone. One must possess inner qualities that far exceed the beauty on the outside. As I size myself up, I no longer look to see what’s wrong with me, but I now marvel at what is right with me. With great discovery, I have learned that I am overall a kind person, I love to see others happy, I enjoy being a walking light, I often think of how I can put a smile on someone else’s face, and I have also learned how to put one on my very own. You see, a queen knows her worth and it has never been defined by the dollars in her purse but by the character she posses. There is no doubt in my mind that a queen deserves someone who can see the reflection of all of her prettiness. I think we would call him a king. One with a vision of what pretty really looks like, from the inside out. So I say to you, never doubt your pretty— you are pretty enough!
P.S. If you don’t have a sweetheart for Valentines Day, treat your pretty self and love on you!
By Shereese Slate