Beauty tips you’ve never heard

Your morning beauty regimen takes exactly 12 minutes. First comes the face wash, then the astringent, followed by the moisturizer. And the list goes on. It has become a chore, but wasn’t there a time when this routine was fun? Well, we decided to take you back to the days when putting on makeup was a delight by bringing you some innovative beauty tips and tricks to spice up your routine.

To get this insider tip, we reached out to Carmindy, resident makeup artist on TLC’s “What Not to Wear” and author of The 5 Minute Face. Here are 10 beauty tips from her to make you feel fresh and fabulous.

Beauty tip #1 – Make the perfume last.

A few drops of perfume in the morning won’t get you through the day, no matter how expensive your bottle is. To make your scent last, try this beauty trick: put on a fragrance-free moisturizer first, then spray on your perfume a few seconds later. “There’s so much alcohol in perfume,” explains Carmindy, “that if you spray it on dry skin, it often evaporates very quickly. But if you have moisturizer on your skin, it adheres much better.”

Beauty Tip #2: Non-sticky lip gloss.

Instead of directly placing the tube of gloss on your lips, Carmindy recommends adding an extra step to ensure less stickiness. “I like to put lip gloss on my fingertips first and then just apply it to the flesh of my lips. This way you’ll get a bit of shine, but it won’t be too sticky.” Also, he’ll try a moisturizing lipstick or lip stain first before adding the gloss to make sure the color stays put.

Beauty tip #3: A sweet scrub.

“The best exfoliant in the world is white table sugar.” If every scrub out there contains some kind of sugar, like “Almond Sugar Scrub” or “Brown Sugar Scrub”, why not just use what’s in your kitchen cupboard? “What happens is that the small crystals dissipate in the water so they don’t tear your skin.” And if you have sensitive skin, don’t worry. “It even works better because with other products you may not like a fragrance or a lot of ingredients,” says Carmindy. When you’re in the shower, all you have to do is lather your face as usual and then take a handful of sugar and rub it on your face. And if you run out, you can ask your pretty neighbor for some sugar!

Beauty tip #4 Get rid of your blemish concealer.

Instead of fumbling through your makeup bag for multiple concealers in the morning, just stick to one, advises Carmindy. The reason why? Because you can actually use the foundation attached to the top of your liquid concealer lid as a spot treatment. “It oxidizes there, so it gets a little thicker.” Plus, she says, “it’s the same shade as your foundation, so it will instantly erase your blemish.” To apply, simply take a small pointed concealer brush and dip it into the lid of your foundation, or the nozzle if using a spray. Then brush it into the stains and you’re good to go. Now it’ll be a good thing when your foundation cap cakes up.

Beauty tip #5 – Recycle: Good for the earth, good for your lips.

What are you supposed to do when your four best lipsticks are almost gone and your finger is tired of scraping the remains from below? Carmindy suggests combining half-worn lipsticks into your own lip palette. “Go to the drugstore and buy a plastic pill box and take out the lipstick that’s left in the tubes. Then put each color in a different little section of the pill box.” You can mix and match the colors or even put Vaseline on one of the sections to make your own lip gloss.

Beauty Tip #6 Celebrity-sized lips.

To get fuller lips, people often line them with a pencil, but most of the time it looks noticeable and unsophisticated (especially when the lipstick is removed and you’re left with that horrible line). For an invisible enhancement, Carmindy recommends that you take a cotton swab and dip it in some shimmery white eyeshadow and lightly line the outside of your lips. “What will happen is the gloss will catch the light and make your lips look bigger.” You won’t be able to see it, but the slight glint will do the trick. Great if you don’t have collagen on hand.

Beauty tip #7 – Tan but not dirty.

Applying sunscreen all over your face can make you look like you’ve been rolling around in the sandbox all day or landed a part-time job as a chimney sweep. Carmindy prefers a spray tan to get the look of a cool summer tan. “I like to spray a sponge and then what I do is push it onto the skin, at the temples and then just below the cheekbones because this is where the sun would kiss your face. And if you like powder bronzer, you can also apply in the same places.

Beauty tip #8: Make a move on your brows.

If you’ve been given barely visible brow DNA, you’ve probably tried everything to make them visible and found that more often than not these products end up wearing off at the end of the day. If you still want brows at 5 p.m., Carmindy recommends buying a waterproof liquid liner that matches your hair color, like black, brown, or taupe. Then, she says, “You can take an angled brush and apply the liquid liner to your brows and it will stay on all day. It looks more natural than a pencil and stays on longer.” It’s a win-win.

Now, if you’re like me and you’re on the opposite end of the brow spectrum, you may need some help getting your brows out of control. To do this, “take a spiral brush or an old toothbrush, put some hair gel on there and just run it over your brows so they don’t budge.”

Beauty Tip #9: It’s not your typical smoky eye.

“What I like to do is take a color like a navy blue or sort of a bright burgundy purple and just line the inner edge and just along the top and bottom lash line and then smudge it out with a cotton swab. Either way, there’s no eyeshadow pushing the eye back, but you still get the smoky effect because they’re outlined with color. So many ways to do a smoky eye, but people always think there’s only one way to do it.”

Beauty Tip #10: Save Time and Eye Shadow

Running late in the morning? The best thing to put on is a bright white shimmer powder. “If you highlight three key places that you establish from the planes of your face, you don’t even need eyeshadow,” says Carmindy. These key points are located below the eyebrow, at the inner corner of the eye and at the top of the cheekbone. “It adds shine to the eyes, lifts the eyelid and draws attention to the upper part of the cheekbone.” Now all you need is a great cup of coffee to feel as awake as you look.

Who says your beauty routine has to be boring, especially now that you can take a box of sugar with you into the shower or turn a pill box into a custom lip palette? With these beauty tips, you may have to rethink your 12-minute routine after all.