Yesterday’s post about cleansers was a little on the long side, so today I’ll keep it brief.

Today I’m staying on the skin care topic, and moving on to eye make up removers.
Most of the gentle cleansers out there will remove eye make up too, but if you wear waterproof eye make up (not my favorite thing. At. All) you’ll often need a separate product to get it off.
Also some of the cheapie mascaras are super tough to remove.
I’m not an advocate of them either.

The skin around the eye area is the most delicate, thin skin on the body, and needs extra care.
It’s also the first place we see aging.
So in order to be the fabulous creature that you really are, you must take care of the eye area.

I’d say lose the waterproof mascara unless you’ll be swimming or crying, and definitely get rid of the cheapie mascaras…

And when you are dealing with products that wont budge, use an eye make up remover.

Sens Eyes by Make Up Forever is my favorite.
I use it in my make up kit.
Super gentle, even those with ultra sensitive eyes can use it. Its great too because makeup can go straight on top of it too, so if you’re doing a quick make up change you’ll look flawless.

Shiseido makes a good oneand Lancome Bi-Facil has been around forever. Its pretty good too!

When using an eye make up remover, soak a cotton pad with the product and hold it against the eye, so that it can soak in and start dissolving the make up. Then gentle lift away.
Never rub or scrub.
Never.

Eye make up remover is the best thing to remove a lip stain or super bold lip color, such as high velocity reds or burgundies.
Same thing, soak a cotton pad, press, hold and lift away.

xo

C

So now you’ve (hopefully) started paring down and tossing out your old skin care products that are no longer serving you well.
If they ever did.

Have you noticed how the great claims they make on their advertising don’t seem to find their way to your skin?
I often wonder exactly who are these test groups that they get their data from?
They certainly don’t seem to be anyone like you or me…

So anyway, today we’re going to look at how you’re cleansing your skin.
Because believe it or not, plenty of women get this part wrong.

The first thing you have to do is analyze your skin, and figure out your skin type.
And this is where women get it wrong.
I can hear a bunch of you out there saying “oily”.
And I bet you’re not.

You see most of us getting a tad oily/shiny through our T zone
and have normal/dry cheeks.
This is in fact, normal/combination skin.
If you wipe your finger across your cheek and it comes up wet,
you’re probably oily.
If not, you’re not.

And the big mistake I see over and over is girls thinking they’re oily and using a cleanser for oily skin, thereby stripping their skin of essential oils and moisture.
And when this happens you are drying your skin out and prematurely aging it.

When you’ve cleansed your skin it should never feel pulled or tight. It should feel supple.

So.
Unless you are really, truly oily, avoid foaming cleansers.
Like the plague.

Instead, I want you to invest in a really good milk cleanser. And I will introduce you to a few. Some oil cleansers too.
Your cleanser needs to dissolve make up and clean your skin. Most milk or oil cleansers will also dissolve even the most stubborn eye make up.
But I’ll show you some good eye make up removers tomorrow.

Neutrogena Extra Gentle Cleanser costs under $10
And its a great little cleanser.

Clarins skin care products are a bit more expensive, but are fabulous.

I don’t advocate too many Lancome products, but here and there they have something I like, and Galatee is one of them. Its been around forever, and it is a really good cleansing milk.

And now for the oils.
Many people cringe at the thought of using oil to cleanse your skin, but actually, its pretty fab!
The MAC oil cleanser is often found on set for either pre-make up cleansing or for post make up removal. Its very gentle, and really quite lovely.

Shu Uemura makes truly amazing oil cleansers. They have quite a few for all different skin types, so get the girl at the counter to help choose which is right for you.

Oil lifts away oil, so an oil cleanser can be great fro the oily skinned girls too!

When you are building your skin care wardrobe make sure you are staying within your budget. Find the price point that works for you and work from there.
That way you can maintain some consistency.

And unless you are one of those genetic mutants who were born fabulous, having great skin is like getting great thighs. It takes work and consistency.

xo

C

Happy New Year Everyone!!

There’s nothing quite like a brand new year and a brand new decade to get a girl to evaluate all that she has going on.
Time to get some new goals on the table, time to sort out finances,
and time to give your make up and skin care a thorough clean out.

Today we are going to start reviewing your skin care.

The first thing I want you to do is to get all your skin care products out, line them all up and see what condition they’re in.
Anything that you haven’t used in ages, or anything thats looking
(or smelling) icky needs to go.

There is no time like right now to pare your supplies down, and really get set up with the essentials. Think of building your skin care wardrobe like building the perfect clothing wardrobe. You want good, classic, well built products as your building blocks.

I’ve found from talking to vast numbers of women from all over that
A) too many of you don’t believe that you can have flawless, beautiful skin
B) too many of you are mis-diagnosing your skin and consequently using the wrong products
C) too many of you are misunderstanding what various products do and can do for you.

So I am going to devote tons of blog space to going over all these things over the next few weeks,
and making sure that you all can get the gorgeous skin you deserve.

There are also going to be some fabulous giveaways coming up.

But for now what we want to do is get rid of products that are old/past their prime/not right for you. And together we are going to start transforming your skin!