5 Beauty & Makeup Essentials to Look Fresh Faced for School!

Hi Everyone!

  Hope you're having a great week so far. It's said that it's the clothes that make the man, but don't neglect your face! All the cute clothes in the world will not make you look any better if you've got dull skin and dark circles. So here I am, sharing with you 5 makeup and beauty products in my arsenal that I find to work well and are budget friendly.

#1// Eye Roll On

  Frequently stay up late? You probably have to deal with puffy eyes and dark circles in the morning. Personally, I really hate it when my eyes get so puffy that I find it a pain to fully open my eyes.

  A solution to easing the puffiness is to massage and cool down the eye area, improving the circulation there. This will help to ease the fluid retention which causes puffy eyes a well as help lighten the dark circles. I recommend using a eye roll on which usually has a metal ball roller which helps to massage the serum into the eye area as well as cool the eye area.

  Personally, I use a small tube of Clinique's All About Eyes Serum which has a metal ball roller inside. I got this while I was overseas. There are cheaper alternatives from other brands like Garnier.

  No spare cash to buy an eye roll on? Fear not! There are many home remedies that can be found online (do research well though). Personally, I like the cold spoon trick and doing the eye massage myself. For the cold spoon trick, just place a metal spoon in your freezer before you go to bed so that in the morning, you can use the cold spoon to press against the eye area to help with puffiness.


  Another alternative is to massage the eye area with your fingers using any eye cream you've got. You can check out eye massage techniques by googling "eye massage techniques".

 If you understand Chinese, then here's a video on a good(but time consuming) massage technique (Skip to 3:00 minute mark) featuring celebrity beauty guru Niu Er!

Here's a summarised version of the steps shown in the video:

1. Take a pea sized amount of eye cream and lightly pat it on the under eye area with your ring finger 100X (I'm not kidding). Then tap the upper eyelid 50X. After that, proceed to tap the under eye area another 50X. 

2. Use your index and second finger and gently press and move across the eyelid and under eye area towards your temple in a sweeping motion. Press and massage your temple. Repeat 10X. At the 10th time, from the temple, press and move fingers down the side of face and towards the collarbone area. Then press hard and massage there as shown in video. This will help with lymphatic drainage. 

3. Next, press firmly on certain points of the eye area with your middle finger (starting from 6:27 in the video) Steps are recorded in the bullet points below:

• press the front corner of the eye. 
• the centre part of under eye area. 
• press the point a few cm below the earlier point.
• Press corner of eye
• next point is at the head of the eyebrow
• press at the midpoint of the brow in a upwards motion
• lastly, press and massage the point at the end of eyebrow
• Repeat 3-5 times the whole procedure ideally.

4. Finally, rub your hands to heat them and then use them to cover your eye area. Press and hold for a while. This will help boost lymphatic circulation which will go towards preventing dark circles and eye bags.

I understand that the method shown in the video can be very time consuming so I recommend that you do this at night once a week. It works for me. There are also many quick eye massage techniques out there that you can easily find through Google.

  If all else fails, your next best friend is CC cream, which brings us to the next point.

#2// CC Cream

  A CC cream is great for colour correcting the skin tone and any dullness of skin. There are many brands out with CC creams that are affordable. The good thing about CC creams is that they're usually lightweight and a quick skin brightener. BB creams are similar to CC creams but I find CC creams to work better in correcting the redness of my skin and the appearances of blemishes. However, do remember to remove and cleanse your face thoroughly at the end of the day, just like any other makeup to keep your skin clear and happy.

  For me, I like my 123 Perfect CC Cream from Bourjois.

  I've reviewed this before (read it here link) and gave it an average rating because I didn't find the coverage enough. However, this thing is fabulous for brightening up dark circles. I use this on my eye area before applying a layer of foundation and immediately I look like I've had a good night's sleep. No concealer needed! Plus it's lightweight :)

No editing was done to this photo beside adding in the watermark and line.

  Here you can see that on the left side my eye bag and dark circle looks less obvious with the CC cream on compared to the right side. And that's just a few dots of cream applied!

#3// Concealer & Foundation

  If you still feel really insecure with your skin even with some CC cream, there's always the good ol' concealer and foundation. There's no need to cover your whole face with foundation then a concealer if there's only minor spots that you want to cover up. The less makeup on the skin, the better since you do not want to look overly made up for school. Also, precious time used to pile on those layers can be better used sleeping or doing your hair.

  For those girls with just a few spots or dark circles, just use a concealer to do some spot concealing and leave the foundation alone. Blend well with the rest of the face so that it doesn't seem weird. A good tip for covering up really dark blemish scars is to first apply and blend a layer of concealer on the spot first followed by a thin layer of loose powder. Repeat the same process until the spot is fully concealed. This ensures that the concealer is long lasting and also does not budge from the spot too much.

  For girls who have really blemished skin and want to cover up, use foundation. It'll help to even out the skin tone as well as giving some coverage.  Only after applying foundation and you find it insufficient then do you add on concealer.


#4// Beauty Blender Dupe

  This is a must have item for me. No matter how many layers of foundation you put on your face, this will somehow magically make my face look natural and non-cakey. Also, using it in a tapping motion on the face increases the coverage of the foundation and makes it adhere better to the face.

My magic tool!

  I've been using this for months to put on a layer of CC cream, concealer, liquid foundation and compact foundation on my face (that's a ridiculous amount I know) for work to cover all my flaws.

  I like to apply makeup in layers so a lot of my products are lightweight so I can build up the coverage. I know many of you  won't put on so many layers of products on their face for school. However, this sponge will definitely make your makeup look better even if it's just blending out concealer! Plus you can get dupes of the beauty blender online for so much cheaper than the real thing, so it's friendly to students' wallets.

#5// Eyeliner

  Make yourself look more alert with a good eyeliner! Lining your eyes will make you look focused and awake for class.

  I would recommend Etude House's Play 101 pencils for those of you who love long lasting colour liners. They're budget friendly and comes in many colours. Order yours through Qoo10 or other online sources for the colours unavailable in Singapore. Christine got me two from Korea and I'm loving them!

1. Etude House Play 101 Pencil #6; 2. Etude House Play 101 Pencil #36; 3. CLIO Kill Black Brush Liner

  If you're a liquid liner fan, try the CLIO Kill Black Brush tip liner. It's long lasting and draws a really black line in one stroke! Plus it's surprisingly easy to remove. It has impressed me time and again in the short span of time I've been using it after all the heartbreaks I've had from different liquid liners (I'll write a review about it in a later post).

Here's a swatch of the liners:

*****

It's always important to look presentable and ready for classes, besides revising before lessons. This way, your lecturers are more likely to have a good impression of you... which might help if you ask for a deadline extension for an assignment *wink* These are my 5 makeup and beauty essentials for school which I feel will help to create the good first impression for all your meetings in school. Some people may find it requires too much effort since all these makeup + skincare means an extra 5-10 minutes spent on getting ready and that's perfectly fine. We've all got those days where we really just cannot be bothered with how we appear or are hopelessly late for class.

Well that's the end of today's post!

Till next time,
Love,
El   xoxo