1. Keep your nails short and trim. Just because you have short nails does not mean that you can't shape and color them. You don't have to have long nails in order to look fabulous. Trimming your nails so that you don't have to worry about breaking a nail is a great time-saver and costs you less money. In addition, short nails don't get in the way of doing your job while your hands still looking polished and manicured.
2. Maintain a hair color that's closest to your true hair color. It is so unattractive to see the roots on someone's hair that is such a contrast to the rest of her head. Your hair color shouldn't be more than two shades lighter or darker than your original hair color. By keeping the shade closer to your true shade, you don't have to go to the hair salon as often, and it also saves you a lot more money.
3. Stay true to your hair style. The grass is always greener on the other side is such a true expression when it comes to your hair. If you have straight hair you want it wavy or curly, and vice versa. My sister and I have the opposite hair. She had these gorgeous curls, and I had straight hair; and wouldn't you know it, she spent her time and money trying to relax her curls so that it would be straight like mine, and I spent my time and money on perms. Be happy with your hair and work with it by getting a cut that goes with your natural hair so that it can be displayed at it's best and you'll have so many compliments and more time to hear them.
4. Keep experiments on your skin to a minimum. It's very hard to ignore the latest skin care treatment. Everything looks so effective and you always to bring back that healthy, dewy look that you had when you were a teenager. But you're not and you can't turn back the clock by using every skin care line that comes out. What you can do is to keep your skin clean and use moisturizer. "The key to beautiful, healthy skin is consistency," says Jeffrey Dover, M.D., a dermatologist in Boston, who counsels patients to stick with a streamlined regimen. Every time you use different cleansers, toners, washes, etc. it affects your skin's natural balance, so do your skin a favor and experiment sparingly and use a skin care line until you run out.
5. Don't overtweeze your eyebrows. It's so disconcerting to see a straggly line of overtweezed eyebrows. Some women try to cover it up by by darkening it with eyebrow pencil, but then it just comes out looking weird. Women can't seem to stop from tweezing their brows out and they spend so much time on the shape. To make sure your don't overtweeze, take a white pencil and use it to shape your eyebrow, then tweeze any hair outside of the white line.
6. Keep makeup to a minimum. You don't always have to be fully made up when you make a quick run to the store or other errands. Minimize by using concealer instead of foundation. Use an eyelash curler instead of mascara. But always wear lipstick because it's a great finishing touch.
7. Wax less. There's a reason why you have pubic hair. "Pubic hair acts as a natural buffer against chafing. And, as you get older, you'll want to leave some hair there for camouflage because everything, and I mean everything, sags eventually," says Amy Wechsler, M.D., a dermatologist in NYC. So take the doc's advice and don't always go brazilian. A nice trim, V shape or a landing strip, seems to be what the doctor recommends.
Now you don't have to implement all seven beauty tips at once. Try one or two at a time until it becomes a habit and pretty soon you'll see that maintaining your best self doesn't take time at all.
Originally published 8/8/2010
