Bun’s Beauty Tips: Back to School

When the end of August approaches, it becomes Back to School season! Whether you’re going to middle school, high school or college, here are some great tips for staying beautiful during the school day.

  • Go for a simple look. Even though school is a place to express yourself, don’t overdo it! Stick with simple looks that emphasize your natural beauty. Also, the less products you use, the easier it is to touch up throughout the day.
  • Buy some fabulous accessories. The easiest way to put a little glam into your look is a great piece of jewelry, a nice handbag or an awesome hair clip. These will enhance your look without making you look overdone.
  • Dress appropriately. School is a place of learning, first and foremost, and you don’t want to wear clothes that are distracting to you or others. If you wear it on a night out, think about whether or not you should wear it to school!
  • Be smart when packing your makeup bag. Only put in what’s essential, like your lip color, lip balm, blotting papers, pressed powder and a mini mirror.
  • Go easy on the perfume. You don’t want the whole school to know when you walk by!
  • Be comfortable! Since you’ll be at school for many hours, you want to wear something you feel comfortable in, especially if you have to walk a lot. This goes for shoes too!
  • Get a great school bag. You have to carry around books and supplies to your classes, so get a chic bag that can holds everything and still looks great.
  • Stay hydrated! Classes can be long and you shouldn’t wait until they’re over to take a drink. Staying hydrated during the day will not only make you feel better, but make your skin and hair look better as well. Travel size moisturizing cream is also a must!

Hope everyone is ready for a new school year!

- Bun 

Bun’s Beauty Tips: Qtips as the Ultimate Beauty Tool

I always have a giant box of Qtips/cotton swabs on my make up table. Why? Because they’re so versatile! There are so many ways you can use Qtips in your everyday beauty routine. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Cleaning up mascara. Sometimes when I apply, I’ll get it on my lids or under my eyes and a Qtip is small enough to get rid of it without messing up my make up.
  • Blending and smudging eye makeup. You can use a Qtip to blend your shadows together or to smudge your eyeliner to create a smokey effect.
  • Applying medication. Have a pimple? Use a Qtip to apply acne medication. Have a small cut or rash? Use a Qtip to apply cream. It’s better than using your fingers, which may have bacteria on them.
  • Cleaning up eyeshadow/etc palettes and tools. A Qtip is perfect for cleaning up your palettes if they’ve gotten messy over time. Also, you can dip it in a bit of alcohol to clean tools such as tweezers and eyelash curlers.
  • Removing make up or mistakes. If you’ve accidentally put eyeshadow or lipstick where it wasn’t supposed to go, you can easily remove it with a Qtip without disturbing the rest of your makeup. Just dip it in a bit of remover and then wipe everything off with the dry end. You can also use it to clean up lines, such as eyeliner, to create dramatic and sharp looks.
  • Fixing nail polish. If you’ve accidentally gone out of the lines and gotten nail polish on your fingertips or cuticles, you know that wiping it off isn’t enough sometimes! A Qtip dipped in nail polish remover is small enough to remove your errors without messing up your original work.
  • Helping with precise lipstick application. Especially with bright lip colors, it can be hard to apply it perfectly without smudging or going outside of the lips. However, if your swipe a Qtip around the outline of your lips, you can get rid of any mistakes and create sharp definition all around. 
  • Applying falsies. You can use Qtips to apply the false mascara glue or even to help put the lashes in place.
Just remember— never put them in your ears! Though I have to admit, sometimes I’m guilty as charged … 
What are your favorite beauty tools?

- Bun

Bun’s Beauty Tips: Face Powder As Dry Shampoo

In between hair washings, your hair may build up a bit more oil than you want. It’s not enough oil to shampoo your hair but it’s enough to give your hair a slightly greasy look. In this case, you can grab a dry shampoo to soak up any unwanted oils so your hair stays beautiful for another day. But if you don’t have a dry shampoo on hand, there are a few DIY alternatives you can try.

My favorite alternative is translucent face powder! (Either loose or pressed) Face powder is meant to absorb the oils on your face, so why wouldn’t it work on your hair? I usually apply a thin layer around my hairline and roots, which is where the most oil accumulates. A powder brush works fine, though I prefer using a powder puff. (Like the ones usually included in pressed powder compacts) Alternatively, you can put some in your hand and gently pat it against your hair. After applying, just brush your hair out and you should be ready to go!

Since it’s translucent, you can apply a fair amount before it starts to become noticeable. Even though translucent powder is recommended, you could use other shades as long as it blends into your hair nicely.

I’ve also heard that baby powder works well in absorbing oils, but beware! Baby powder is white and will be incredibly noticeable in your hair if you apply too much. Plus, you may have that baby smell following you around all day. 

Do you have other DIY hair tricks?

- Bun

Bun’s Beauty Tips: Maintaining Your Eyebrows

I am really terrible at shaping my eyebrows. Like, really awful. If I let my brows become overgrown, there is no way I would be able to groom them back to an acceptable and flattering shape. They either turn out uneven or really over-plucked.

However, if you’re like me, there’s still hope for us! Even if we’re completely brow illiterate, we can still maintain beautiful brows with relatively little effort.

What I like to do is first, go to a professional salon to get my brows shaped either by waxing, threading or plucking. (Whatever you feel most comfortable with) Make sure you communicate with the stylist about what type of brows you want because whatever shape they make it what we’re going to maintain afterward.

Every two or three days, after I take a shower and right before I put on my make up, I’ll examine my brows in front of a mirror. (I have a table mirror that has x7 magnification, great for brows!) If I see the littlest hair growing back in outside of the eyebrows, I’ll pluck it with tweezers. I will only go for the hairs that are outside of the brows and not try to pull out anything from within. (You want to avoid gaps) It’s best to do this after washing your face because your pores will be open and it will be easier to tweeze.

As long as you regularly check out your brows and pluck any outside hairs, you should be able to maintain the shape that you got at the salon and you shouldn’t have to go back to a salon for a long time, or ever! Because you’re doing it regularly, you don’t give your brows a chance to grow back too much and it’s easy to spot which hairs you have to pluck. If you have a problem with some of your brow hairs growing too long, you can also learn how to give them a slight trim. I’ve never had that problem, so unfortunately I don’t have much advice for that.

After you’re done, if you notice that there are gaps in your brows, you can always use an eyebrow pencil to fill them in. Try not to go outside the line of your brows, though; if you’re not experienced, you may end up drawing a funky shape. Just use natural strokes to fill in any missing hair and eventually those gaps should close.

I think if you follow this simple advice, you’ll save money from going to the salon too often and you’ll also feel more comfortable maintaining your own brows. After time, you might also feel brave and experienced enough to venture into other brow territory as well!

- Bun

Louis Vuitton - Art of Packing

You don’t need to own Louis Vuitton suitcases or clothing to benefit from their packing tips. It will show you ways to arrange clothing and other items so you maximize the space of whatever suitcase you’re using.

Click here to go to the Art of Packing website, where you’ll find even more tips on how to pack and fold certain items. Everything is interactive; it’s really fun to play around with! I know I’m personally terrible at packing clothing, so I really liked this.

- Bun

Michelle Phan - Quick Tips: Foundation Application

This is a great video showing the results of different ways of applying foundation. She uses a lemon as an example, since the pores of a lemon and our face’s pores are very similar. She comes to the conclusion that the best way to apply is with a brush.

I use BB cream or tinted moisturizer everyday, but I always use my fingers. I used a brush today instead (because of this video) and didn’t see much of a difference, although it’s probably because BB creams and the such tend to be more forgiving than liquid foundation.

An important thing to take away from this video is that, even though Michelle is showing a great reason to use a brush for foundation, it’s important that you put on and wear make up in a way that’s comfortable for you! Regardless of what kind of advice make up gurus give, remember that it’s just advice and there’s nothing wrong with doing it your own way. 

- Bun

Bun’s Beauty Tips: Vaseline

Let me just say, I love Vaseline. I really do! I sing the praises of it all the time. You can use it for so many different things and I seriously use it ever day. I always have a little container of it with me. So what do I use it for?

My Lips!
Vaseline has absolutely saved my lips. My lips have a tendency to be very dry and no lip balm or chapstick would help. However, a friend gave me a tip, saying that after she brushed her teeth, morning and night, she would apply Vaseline on her lips and they would stay moisturized. I took her advice and the condition of my lips has changed drastically. They stay moisturized all day and they never flake. It also makes my lipstick apply more smoothly. 

Dry Skin
Vaseline is described as a skin protectant and works wonders on dry, chapped hands, elbows, knees … basically any skin. Sure, it makes the area a little greasy but it really moisturizes the area and traps in as much moisture as it can.

Irritated Skin
When I have an irritated patch of skin, or let’s say I have some acne that is healing oddly and kind of hurts, I can always help soothe it with a thin layer of Vaseline. Since it also protects the area, it promotes healing and it never seems to hurt as much. 

I also find that in addition to Vaseline itself, all of Vaseline’s products are great, from their lotions to their lip balms and more. I mean, the brand has been around for so long, there has to be a reason, right? 

- Bun