Unusual beauty tips and tricks

ALBERTON – These easy to follow steps will help you learn new tricks to applying make-up and doing your hair like a celebrity.

* Brighten up your eyes with white eyeliner. White eyeliner is the new black because it instantly makes you look awake. Line your inner, lower lash line only.

* Use a fluffy eye shadow brush to apply your lipstick for a slight ombre effect. Using a fluffy eye shadow brush to apply your lip colour gives it that diffused effect around the edges. Intensify the colour in the centre of your lips, giving that “I-just-ate-a-popsicle” finish, by picking up a flat brush, swiping it over the lipstick, and pushing the colour onto the middle of your mouth only.

* Use a fan brush to apply mascara to avoid clumpy lashes. Instead of coating your lashes with the brush your mascara came with, load up a tiny fan brush with the formula and paint it over your lashes from root to tip. This allows you to get close to the root and make the lash line look full. It won’t leave your lashes looking clumpy when you’re done, since the fan brush helps control the amount of mascara being transferred.

* Hold your curling iron parallel to your head rather than perpendicular for natural-looking curls. To end up with a more natural curl, turn the curling iron parallel to your hair rather than perpendicular. Wrapping it around the barrel this way helps elongate the curl as well.

* Change up your look by opting for a matte, instead of shiny, finish when it comes to your hair. Shiny hair is always gorgeous, but matte hair is the new hotness. To tone down your sheen, use dry shampoo as your last step. Just be sure to get one that’s clear so that it doesn’t leave residue behind.

* Create horizontal nail stripes with a striper brush and rolling your finger from one side to the other. A striper brush is a long skinny brush you can get at any art supply store, alternatively, try a clean liquid eyeliner brush. Turn your finger on its side and then with your other hand, hold a thin striper brush straight out and parallel to the nail you’re painting. Then, keep the brush still and, keeping your finger in place, roll the nail you’re painting away from the brush. Doing this helps you draw a straight, not shaky, line.

* Contour your cheeks quickly by sucking in and applying bronzer in the centre, try using a cream bronzer. Then, buff it out slightly with a soft blush brush to diffuse the edges.

* Leave your liner disconnected to make your eyes look bigger. When you’re applying black eyeliner, don’t connect the top and bottom lines because it closes off the eye. Where the lashes begin and end is where the liner should start and stop.

* Try a French manicure that uses two shades in the same colour family. White tips are over and have been for a while. Pick two shades in the same colour family, a light and a dark one, and paint the darker colour on as your main shade. Then, grab the lighter shade and apply it to your tips using a tiny sponge. Roll the sponge back and forth to give it that gradated effect, and then add topcoat.

* Properly part your hair using your nose as a guide. Here’s a quick way to part your hair perfectly in the centre, run your pinky finger up the bridge of your nose and create the part exactly in line with it even if your nose is a little crooked, it will be centred for you.

* Get a second-day “didn’t try” make-up look by applying eye make-up and then wiping it off. You look better the day after you’ve worn a lot of make-up. To create this look apply whatever eye make-up you were planning on wearing, dab cream all over your lids, and then wipe it off with a make-up wipe. It just leaves a little remnants behind, giving you that lived-in look.

* Get bushy brows by topping them with mascara. Apply brown mascara to brows with a tiny fan brush. This tints any baby hairs that sit around your true brow, building your brow shape in the most natural way. It’s also a great way to colour greys along the hairline and part.

* Perfect the messy hair look with a cocktail of dry shampoo and a lot of hairspray. The key is to curl all of your hair, then use a lot of dry shampoo, a lot of hairspray, and then mix it all together on top of the head, and secure it with hairpins everywhere. And if you want a romantic finish, add silk flowers everywhere with pins.

* Create an ombre nail look by purposely messing up polish with your fingers. Paint your nail using a base colour and let it dry. Next, trace the tip of your nail with black polish, as if you were doing a French manicure. Then, take your thumb and immediately pull the colour downward, creating a gradated effect. Repeat that step again to deepen the black and that’s it.

* Create the illusion of healthy hair with a hair wax and dry shampoo combo. Make the damaged ends of your hair look thicker and healthier with this trick. Apply a light layer of wax to the ends, followed by hair powder. The wax helps hold the powder onto the hair, and the powder expands on the ends creating the look of thicker hair.

* Use your heat protectant product as shine spray. Apply it as a finisher instead. The oil-based texture adds the perfect amount of shine.

**Information obtained from www.msn.com