Sorry fashion and beauty lovers - getting back to my blog. Also inviting guest writers to join me so that I can keep this content and blog  fresh with content, and frequent content.

It’s amazing how many people commit these ‘hair crimes’ and wonder why they’re so unhappy with their manes!

Take a look at these 5 hair no-no’s I’ve accumulated over the years. What do you think?

Brushing wet hair with a wide-toothed comb is much safer than a brush

1. Never brush your hair when it’s wet. Especially if your hair is curly! Brushing your hair when it’s wet can over-stretch it and cause your hair to break. Only use wide-toothed combs - and work your way up from the tip to the roots.

2. Rubbing your wet hair with a towel. Never rub - always pat. When you’re rubbing your manes with a towel to get it dry, you’re causing friction between the strands, can break the hair, can cause your hair to go frizzy, and increases your fly-aways! Gently squeeze the excess water out of your hair, then pat with a towel.

3. Blow-drying your hair when it’s soaking wet. All this does is make the total drying time much longer - which means that your hair is exposed to heat for a longer period of time. After gently squeezing out the excess water from your hair, wrap a towel around your head to soak up some more water for about 5-10 minutes. By then, your hair should be “towel-dried”. This is the best time to blow-dry your manes.

4. Using old brushes and combs. Sure, the economy calls for all of us to be a little more tight with our money. But using old brushes and combs, and I mean old as in some of the teeth from the combs are misshaped and/or gone, the brushes dont’ look the same anymore, etc etc. Using brushesand combs that are damaged could cause your hair to break, snag, and cause tangles.

5. Straightening your hair every day. The more heat damage you put your hair through, the faster the hair goes through damage. Straightening irons put your hair through much more stress than blow dryers. So try to alternate straightening with a straightening iron and a blow-dryer when you can.

I love love LOVE false eyelashes.
But not like those really trashy looking porn-star eyelashes every day…those are for special occasions only!

False eyelashes can look great on almost everybody - actually, everybody! You just have to know which ones fit your face better.

If you’ve been born with those naturally long and curved lashes that reach halfway up to your eyebrows (lucky!!!), you wouldn’t need a full set of false eyelashes to make them any longer - as it would look very unnatural! For those ladies with naturally long lashes, I would say stick to individual lashes to add to your volume.

If you’ve been unfortunate like me, and was born with stubby straight eyelashes, false lashes are great to create volume+length! Just make sure to curl and apply mascara beforehand - so it doesn’t look like you have a set of fake, long, curved lashes and then straight stubby things right under them.

Also, make sure the glue you are using is a good, sturdy, long-lasting one! And never, ever put false eyelashes ONTO your REAL lashes. They’ll never come off!

beautiful with any eye colour!

Summer is officially HERE! Swiping on nice earthy tones like Gold, Bronze, Browns, and darker colours are all good for colder weather… but now that it’s all sun and fun, have some fun with COLOUR!

Stock your eyeshadow palette with colours such as CORAL, YELLOW, LIME GREEN and AQUAMARINE. I love love love coral right now. Especially on eyes ! (see pic above). The colour is very flattering on all eye colours!

Just make sure you’re not wearing the same eyeshadow, cheek, and lip colour. That’s a little… odd.
Balance your eyes and lips - focus on eyes, play down the lips. focus on lips, play down the eyes.

So many women I talk to are afraid of using liquid eyeliners.
I understand that it can be scary at the beginning! A skinny little brush with a tar looking liquid on it that you’re supposed to expertedly line your eyes with. Delicately, Softly.

Now, I’ve been using liquid eyeliners since 9th grade, and now can put it on in the subway, on the bus, wherever, whenever! All you need is a little BALANCE.

Make sure that when you are applying your liquid liner, your pinky finger is resting on your cheek for balance. This lets your hand glide on your eyelid and apply the eyeliner where needed - and not all over the place.

Second tip is to line your eyelashes first. And by that, I mean apply the liquid eyeliner onto the closest part to your eyelashes, to fill in the spaces between the lashes. This not only makes your lashes look fuller, it makes your makeup look seamless.

Thirdly, create a little wing at the end of your eyes. This allows your eyes to look more awake, and gives you a bit of a sexy kitten look. Who doesn’t want some of that?

I can’t tell you how many girls I know think that shiny, gooey, colourful lipgloss is moisturizing their lips.

Most lip products actually dry out your lips - with their chemicals, perfums, colours, and other additives. If you were to slick on some proper moisturizer under the layer of fabulous colour - that’s a different story. But many women consider the one layer of colour to be enough to prevent them from the flaky, dry, aging lips.

Yes, lips age!

Summer is coming up - and that means the monsterious (word?) DEHYDRATION is right up behind us. We all take extra precautions (you SHOULD if you don’t already) to drink more water, moisturize our skin, replenish our bodies, etc… but have you ever realized how often you lick your lips in the summertime? Wayyyyy more than wintertime! As we are eating more often and drinking more often throughout the day, our lips lose the moisturizer we previously put on, and start to dry out.

So make sure you’re applying those lip moisturizers - preferably with SPF! Sun=sun damage=wrinkles. On your lips too.

My favourite lip moisturizer!

The lucky bunch of the 20-something ladies with clear skin can get away with wearing just moisturizer under their foundations - or no foundation at all! But for the most of us that wear foundation on a daily basis, “simply moisturize” does not seem to be a rule that sticks. (ha ha, get the pun?)

Without using a primer under the layer of foundation, the makeup can look, well, just like the surface of your skin. This means all the little blackheads you may have on your nose, some acne scars from your would-love-to-forget teenager years, and any other little imperfections will show - alas in a uniform colour.

Primers work like a thin, sheer layer of silk over your skin - which makes applying foundation as smooth as a newborn’s bum. Also helps any makeup last longer.

Less re-application = Less “cake-y look”
Less re-application = Less money wasted
Less re-application = happiness!

I must say, I’m a firm believer (and forever lover!) or Smashbox primers. They come in a few different colours - a green base, a purple base, etc - which has their own advantages. For example, I use the green base coloured primer (which glides on transparent) - which counteracts the redness in your skin. Best for skintypes that tend to get blotched easily!

Smashbox primers glide on like those Glycerin hand creams… if you’ve used either, you know what I mean!

If you need a heavier primer, CoverFX has very nice ones as well.

What’s your favourite?

“Tracking the Credit Crisis” provides a timeline of the events that led to the current recession and translates the catchphrases of the economic downturn such as “securitization,” “liquidity,” and “derivative” for the average person.

I guess it’s a sign of the times. What’s next? Will clothing go out of fashion (yeah, right) and the sandwich board become haute couture?

Sources: NEW YORK (Reuters)

MUSEUM OF AMERICAN FINANCE
48 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
Tel: 212.908.4110
Fax: 212.908.4601

When you look into the mirror what would you rather see; a smart, self sufficient woman or a beautiful attention needy knockout?

Recently, a poll conducted for U.S. television network Oxygen, found that 25 percent of those questioned “would rather win the “America’s Next Top Model” TV show than the Nobel Peace Prize”.

Ah duh - don’t they know beauty is everything and all the fame which comes with, imagined or real.

Gold digging 101 - marry for money or not?

According to the same poll, “half of the 18- to 24-year-olds questioned said they would marry an ugly man if he were a multimillionaire”.

Note: More than 2,000 women aged 18-34 were interviewed for the poll.
Source: Rueters