The Holiday Season! 

It’s a swirl of lights and gift giving, of holiday parties and Christmas stories.  It begins the day after Halloween and from then the rush is on. The rush for the perfect gift for the people you love.  This is a time of joy, a time we look forward to each year, but there is still stress involved.  Too often it seems that the holidays become a blur of shopping malls and crowded parking lots. We forget so easily what this holiday season is truly about.  It’s about spending time with our families and showing them how much we truly care about them. 

This season is stressful so here are some tips to help your holiday season stay bright and stress free.

1. Drink Water.  Everyone says it, but there is a very good reason for that.  Stress can build up in our bodies like a poison and when we are dehydrated that poison cannot be flushed out.  We will become more fatigued and everyday tasks will become a drag. So drink water!
2. Make time for yourself.  It’s not easy, we know this.  But it’s so essential.  Make time, even if just for five minutes,take time to just sit, breathe and relax. Self-guided mediation can be a wonderful technique to use at these times.  Learn to release your worries for even a few minutes and the results will be richly rewarding.
3. Sleep.  Sleep can be so hard to come by, but it is so important to our daily well-being.  When we sleep our body finds the time to regenerate, it is nature’s number one beauty secret and something we so easily ignore.  Make your sleep a priority, even four hours of uninterrupted sleep will bring added vigor and youth to your mood and body.
4. Be kind to yourself.  No, this does not mean indulge in the bounty of snacks and holiday goodies. Instead this means to nurture your hair and skin.   
5. And the last tip…. Enjoy yourself!  This season is filled with joy if you can just take those moments and embrace them to their fullest.  Enjoy your family… Enjoy yourself.

From all of us at Method Makeup Academy have beautiful and blessed Holiday Season.

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

I think we tend to down play the importance of a good night’s sleep.  At least until we stop sleeping!

It’s true, in our lives sleep becomes a nuisance or a luxury.  We’ve got jobs, school or both.  We have kids and careers and our own personal goals.  Sleep is even shoved out of the way so we can catch up on our favorite TV shows.  Personally, having to sleep feels like a complete waste of time.  I could be using that time to work, or write, or a million other useful things.  At least it felt that way to me until I started spending long nights in a hospital waiting room with no bed in sight!

Not only does sleep feel great after a long and busy day, it’s the time in which are body repairs all the damage stress and life deals out on us.  It is during sleep that our body heals and part of that is smoothing out all those fine lines that have us disturbed when we look into the mirror and it keeps those dark circles far, far away.

Sleep is what keeps us mentally and emotionally grounded.  During sleep we dream, working out the issues and worries of the day, refreshing us so we can face life fresh and raring to go.  It also keeps us looking a helluva lot younger!

Seriously, if all you have to do is get a good night’s rest to knock a few years off your face why would you argue?  It’s a scientifically proven fact that while the body sleeps it regenerates cells and tissue.  It’s something we’ve noticed in ourselves and others through the years.  Forget the science; you know it’s true when you see yourself after a sleepless night.  You look about as old as your body feels.  A well rested face is a happy face.  Fine lines sometimes are simply a matter of fatigue or dehydration.  So drink some water, get some rest and perhaps you can avoid that little trip to the plastic surgeon.

Life is busy and we tend to focus on everything else, on everyone else but ourselves.  It’s time to change that.  Be kind to yourself and add rest to your regimen of beauty needs.  Every body works on a different level, some require no more than five hours a night to be fully rested, others, like myself, need a good eight hours to feel human again.  If your body isn’t getting those solid hours of sleep, either because you’re going to bed too late or because you’re tossing and turning, your body builds a sleep deficit.  No need to stress about that, it’s like a bank account.  You don’t get enough sleep and your account gets over drafted.  The good part of this?  You can always pay back the bank!

So if during the week you can’t get the sleep your body and beauty crave, snuggle in on the weekend and catch up on your zzzz’s!

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

DIY Skin Care

1. Honey

Raw, organic honey is naturally anti-bacterial, so it’s an effective acne treatment, helps unclog pores and is a great cleanser. It’s also full of antioxidants, making it a potent fighter of wrinkles, aging skin, irritation and blemishes, all while leaving a lovely afterglow.

To use: Mix two tablespoons of honey with eight tablespoons of water until a paste forms. Apply to skin and allow it to dry, then gently wash off with warm water.

3. Olive oil

Olive oil has been used for centuries as a moisturizer. Its antioxidants and natural acids help strengthen the skin to create a natural barrier against the harmful effects of the sun.

To use: Add a few tablespoons of olive oil and two drops of lavender essential oil to a bath for a moisturizing and refreshing effect.

8. Cucumbers

Cucumbers are an excellent source of water for your body, both inside and out. Packed with nutrients like magnesium, potassium, vitamins A and E, cucumbers promote blood circulation and healing, both of which benefit skin, bones and nails. The vegetable also helps to reduce wrinkles and promotes a glowing complexion, and can treat puffiness around the eyes because of their high water content.

To use: Start small and simply place slices of cucumber over your eyes for an easy de-puffer. You can also puree a cucumber and add a few drops of honey to make a soothing, hydrating mask.

4. Oatmeal. Eat it for breakfast because it’s good for you and then use it on your face as a scrub to gently remove dead skin. It’s one of a number of products on your kitchen shelf that can act as an exfoliant—sugar, ground nuts and coffee are three more—but it’s one of the best because of its hydrating qualities. You’ll want to mix those others with some type of oil to soften their harshness

6. Lemon juice. Need a skin toner? Don’t buy a fancy product with fragrance and possibly even drying alcohol. Just dab on some lemon juice for 10 or 15 minutes and rinse. It will not only tighten your skin but subtly lighten blemishes, scars, freckles and other discolored spots. Its antibacterial and astringent properties can help stave off breakouts

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

Long live the modern Mod, her of the smoky eye and thick lash.

The Modern Mod, the Diva rules the night and by day the Sweet Romantic is the queen.

Her sexy skin glows, flawless, her cheeks flushed, her lips rosy like they’ve just been kissed.  This flawless romantic look starts with smooth foundation, pressed powder and light, rosy blush on cheeks.  Her eyes are contoured softly with a neutral golden brown in the crease, blended out to give depth and warmth.  A soft shimmer of white gold on the lid and brow bone give a warm glow to her eyes.  A little ELF Highlighting Gel along the top of the cheek bone and down the bridge of the nose will add a nice sparkle to your skin and is a wonderful highlight for the contour process as well. Lashes are natural, enhanced with a double coat of mascara, or a nice fan of lashes, brows nicely arched to frame the eyes.  The lips are a brighter shade of your own natural lip tone, a color that inspires that full lipped, just kissed look, and for added plumping a dab of highlight in the very center of the bottom lip will do nicely.

By day a glowing, soft romantic, by night a Modern Diva.  You can be all these things with the right makeup.

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

1. Use sunscreen on your face.
2. Stay-proof your eye makeup. For long lasting shadow, don’t use eye cream. Use an eye primer.  This helps keep the shadows from creasing. The primer helps the shadow to cling so it lasts longer.
3. Drink 64 ounces of water daily. (At least!)
4. Always clean your face daily. Cleanse, tone and moisturize.
5. Clean your makeup brushes weekly. They carry bacteria as well as muddying up your finished look.
6. Stop shine, add glow. Use blotting papers to get rid of that unsightly “I’m hot” oily look. If you need to perk up your makeup too, blot first, and then follow up with a dusting of pressed powder. This takes away that shine but leaves the summer glow.
7. Switch out thick lipsticks. Try using a different color of gloss or tinted lip balm for that natural lip.
8. Use waterproof mascara. It will cut down on the under eye smearing most mascara give us during these hot and sticky months.
9. Go sheer on the face. Switch to sheer versions of your go-to lip and eye hues.
10. Lighten up on your face makeup. Swap foundations for tinted moisturizer. These sheer formulas look and feel airier on skin and are less likely to turn cakey on steamy days.

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

How many times have you dropped an eye shadow, powder or blush only to watch it shatter into a thousand pieces?  And what’s the next step, you throw it away and sweep up the mess right?

Well not any more.  Here’s a little trick the pros use.  If you break a shadow or any other form of makeup that is in pressed powder form, you can save it for another day.  All you need is 90% Isopropyl Alcohol and a flat knife.

First, put the powder pieces, as many as you can salvage back into the pan.

Second, douse with the Alcohol until the powder is wet clean through and it turns into a paste.

Third, take the knife and smooth the shadow etc down into the pan until it is smooth.

Fourth, let completely dry.

You’ve now saved your shadow and the pretty penny it would have cost to replace it.

Hope this helps!

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about Oil Pulling.  If not, give it some time you will.  I had heard about it, but didn’t pay any attention until my sister Abi brought it up.  Abi is a massage therapist and a professed Dr Oz addict. She is very knowledgeable about health and healthy living.  (Maybe I should clarify a little more.  Even though she loves Dr Oz she verifies what he says on his show by doing research from other sources before making any changes to diet, lifestyle etc.)  Now, because of this when she suggests something I usually listen to her, baby sister and all, because I know she has done her homework.

A month or so ago we went to lunch together and after we said hi, she showed me her teeth and demanded to know if they looked whiter.  Well, they did, but then she has always had beautiful, white teeth.  After the teeth staring she told me she had started doing Oil Pulling.  Sounded bizarre to me.  I mean how’re your teeth supposed to get cleaner and whiter by swishing oil around your mouth?  She was adamant that it made a difference and explained how many healthy benefits came from doing it.  I listened to her, but I was skeptical.  Still the next time I went shopping I picked up a jar of Organic Coconut Oil.  You can do oil pulling with olive oil too, but I prefer the taste of Coconut Oil and it’s supposed to be healthy for skin, hair, nails, digestion, tooth enamel, etc, etc…

Anyway I started oil pulling a few weeks ago.  I do it once, sometimes twice a day.  1 teaspoon of Coconut Oil in the morning while I am making breakfast, walking the dog, etc and gently swirl it around my mouth.  Now you have to do this for 20mins so you don’t want to swish it around like crazy and hurt your jaw.  Just gently swirling around and pushing between your teeth for 20mins.  DO NOT SWALLOW IT when you are done.  It’s full of bacteria from your mouth and teeth, so when the 20mins are up, SPIT.  Once you spit it out the weirdest thing happens, your teeth feel CLEAN.  Not just clean but CLEAN!!!  It’s freakin’ oil but your teeth and mouth feel like you just came from your yearly cleaning at the dentist!  Ok, so here’s the run down of benefits for spending 20mins each morning swishing oil through your teeth (I guarantee once you read this you’ll be doing Oil Pulling yourself in no time!):

• Brighten and whiten teeth – No lie, my yellow teeth are looking pretty damned white!
• Strengthen and repair tooth enamel – WHAT?!?!?!  Seriously folks, it can repair thin enamel areas, thus PREVENTING Cavities!!!
• Reduce allergies – Yes you Sacramento Valley Allergy Sufferers it can reduce allergy symptoms!
• Healthy Gums – it pulls the bacteria out of your mouth and from between your teeth which will make your gums healthier
• Save you money at the Dentist – Hello, healthy gums, strengthened enamel, and brighter teeth!
• Fresher smelling breath – it’s the bacteria that build up in our mouth that leads to bad breath, so eliminating those makes your breath smell nice and fresh, and like Coconut!

I am sure there are more benefits, but do you really need more?  I am completely hooked.  I do it every morning and I have seen a difference in the appearance of my teeth and gums.  My allergies have seemed to be lessening as well, so keeping my fingers crossed.

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

Help is here!

No longer do you need to walk through the world with pencil thin brows or a look of perpetual surprise on your face.   Here are a few friendly bits of advice I like to give to all my clients.

First don’t go tweezer happy.  Don’t sit in front of a magnifying mirror for hours on end removing those hairs.  You do that and you just might find you don’t have any eyebrows left! In fact just throw away that damn magnifier!!  You’ll thank me, I promise.

Second, eyebrows are sisters not twins!  They aren’t going to be identical to each other, no matter how much time you spend on them.  Each side of your face is different.  The hairs grow differently, you hold them differently.  The muscles are developed differently.  So don’t expect them to be the same. You can make them look balanced, but NOT identical, so give yourself some slack. And THROW AWAY the magnifying mirror!

Third, start your brows just over your tear ducts.  Lining them up from this position should keep them from being too narrow or too wide set for your face. But, use your best judgment.  If you feel your eyes are a little wide set, start a little to the inside to be safe.

Fourth, a brow should gradually be arched so that the highest point is just to the outside of our iris. About 45 degrees from your pupil, not directly above your pupil.

Fifth (Yes there are five tips!), fill in your brows people!  This doesn’t mean you need to draw on heavy dark man brows, but using a little powder or pencil, one shade lighter than the hair on your head will finish off your brows.  Even those with a thicker brow can benefit from a light application of color to finish out the underneath of the brow, or enhance the tails.

Follow these simple steps and you’ll have brows you can not only live with, but brows that you’ll love!

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

You ever know that one person who apparently knows all the answers even when you don’t want them to be right?  Yeah, that person for me is my little sister.  She’s always freaking right!!!  Ok, don’t get me wrong, I love and adore her, and she’s right about the best things, but damn it, she’s my baby sister!  She’s not supposed to tell me what to do!  I’m supposed to tell her what to do!  But, once again she is right!

Ok, so I have always been borderline anemic, but it got a lot worse when I went vegetarian eleven years ago.  Then in 2012 I started donating platelets every two weeks with the occasional whole blood donation throughout.  Because of this my iron levels were always in jeopardy.  Seems like whenever I ate, it was a quest to find enough protein and iron.  I was doing pretty good to, or so I thought, with supplements.

When you don’t have enough iron in your blood you’ll find you have some really annoying side effects, not the least of which is lethargy and exhaustion.  You can also experience shortness of breath, dizziness, irritability and unexpected weigh loss (though I highly doubt we’d complain about the weight loss!).  Iron is not made in your body; you have to get it through what you eat.  So if you aren’t eating iron rich foods your in big trouble!  You need iron for Proper immune function and it’s and essential element for blood production, especially hemoglobin which gets the oxygen from your lungs through your body.

I had this whole routine to keep my iron high enough so I could donate and still be healthy.  I took 1-2 iron supplements a day, plus calcium, vitamin C, a multi and a bunch of other vitamins.  This combined with my quest for protein seemed to do pretty good.  Well, that was until I had a talk with lil’ sis.  She said that I should switch over to a cast iron skillet.  She said with that alone I would get all the iron I need and not have to struggle so much trying to keep my iron up.

I poo, poo’d her suggestion, not believing something that simple would actually do anything.  Besides, cast iron skillets are hard to use, everything sticks, they get really hot so you burn yourself and they are EXPENSIVE!!!  But she just shook her head and said, you really should.  So I decided what they hell and decided to keep an eye open for a cast iron skillet next time I went to Goodwill.  Hopefully I would find one there without spending too much.  I love thrifting so it would be a win-win.

Well, I found one.  Rather I found a set of 4 really awesome cast iron skillets.  Right about the time I went in for a round of Platelet donations.  At that appointment I barely squeezed by at a 13.2 iron level when the minimum is 12.6 and this is with taking iron supplements every day.  I started cooking with the skillets.  Yes, it was a little bit of a chore getting used to how they worked, but all in all I began to really like them.  Two weeks passed, I ran out of iron supplement pills somewhere right at the beginning so I didn’t have iron pills for quite some time before my bi-monthly platelet appointment arrived.  I was very worried that I wouldn’t have high enough iron since I was in the middle of my monthly ‘visit’ which does drop your iron reserves.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when my count came back as 14.2!!  14.2 when I hadn’t been taking anything?  Could Abi be right?  I verified by checking out a few sites and I’ll be damned but she was right.  According to UC Davis medical, using Cast Iron Skillets to cook with can add 80 percent MORE iron to your diet.  80 percent!!!  I know, I was blown away.  But I had to give my sis her props.  She was right and yes she smiled a very ‘I told you so’ smile.  But she had a right to.  So if you’re struggling to keep your iron levels high, do what I did (without being told by your little sister!) buy a cast iron skillet at Goodwill.  You’ll be surprised.

Some foods rich in iron include:

Meat and Poultry

• Lean beef
• Veal
• Pork
• Lamb
• Chicken
• Turkey
• Liver (except fish liver)

Seafood

• Fish
• Mussels
• Shellfish

Vegetables

• Greens, all kinds
• Tofu
• Broccoli
• Sweet Peas
• Brussel Sprouts
• Kale
• Bean Sprouts
• Tomatoes
• Lima Beans
• Potatoes
• Green Beans
• Corn
• Beets
• Cabbage

Some Useful Links:

http://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/hemoglobin_and_functions_of_iron/

http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/nutrition/iron-in-diet/overview.html

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School

Recently one of my brides asked me what eyeshadow she would wear with her blue eyes and brown hair.  In my opinion if your eyeshadow is properly applied any color can be worn on any eye.  But some shadows definitely enhance certain eyes colors and certain features.  Those folks who are blue or green eyed, may find that some colors seem to overpower them, or they want to make those baby blues pop a little bit more.

My advice?  Choose a warm copper.  This color is absolutely amazing.  And I will confess it is one of my favorite go to shadows, mainly because it makes everyone’s eyes and skin color pop very nicely.  It especially will make blue eyes appear warmer and bluer, green eyes absolutely glow and make dark eyes rich and warm.

Applied over the full lid and blended up into a darker brown crease with a dark brown or black liner will make even the lightest blue eyes pop.

For brown eyes I’m still really fond of copper, though bronze and gold are also a great go to.  They will help bright and warm up dark eyes of all shades.

I think every artist has their favorite go to colors and mine is definitely copper.  I hope these tips help you in your makeup adventures!

Method Makeup Academy, Sacramento’s Makeup School