For years, I’ve been trying to find a facial sunscreen that;
a) didn’t cost twice as much as regular sunscreen, (what’s up with that).
b) has a higher spf than 15
c) doesn’t feel greasy, waxy, sticky…
d) can be used alone or under makeup
e) is water/sweat resistant, but easy to remove.
The good news is, I found it!
The bad news is, I had to make it myself. But it just requires the mixing of 2 things. I just mix it in my hand prior to each use.
The first ingredient is any face cream or lotion that you’re happy with.
The second ingredient is one of the those tiny jars of zinc oxide based cream made for faces, NOT regular zinc oxide. They are made by several different brands. Here’s one.
The zinc oxide cream is okay by itself, but it doesn’t spread well, and you end up using alot for each application. Plus, it’s kind of sticky.
I use Neutrogena Healthy Skin face lotion, with SPF… something or other. I forget what. It has AHA, so you’d just better get the version with sunscreen in it… it helps with acne, too.
For puffy eyes, I keep some cotton swabs that were dipped in water in a bag in the freezer. On those puffy days, I run the frozen swab under my eyes. Also a (not so?) nice wake up if the shower didn’t cut it.
Jojoba (or any other unscented oil) applied under a fragrance allows the fragrance to last much longer. This is especially useful when you wear something that’s ridiculously expensive/good but doesn’t last, like most of the Creeds and Guerlain’s Mouchoir de Monsieur.
#1 cheap beauty tip: Don’t smoke. That alone will save more beauty loss than anything else.
Stark Raven Mad, good tip on using jojoba. That leads to my second beauty tip: Jojoba is the very bestest thing in the world for your hair. It’s actually not an oil but a wax that’s liquid at room temperature. It’s the plant world’s closest approximation to your own scalp sebum, which is needed to protect your hair and keep it in good condition. I massage jojoba into my scalp before bed and comb it out to the ends, when I’m going to shampoo the next morning. Although jojoba is not “cheap,” being a bit of a luxury, or rather a luxurious necessity, you only need a little bit, so an affordable little bottle of it will last you quite a while.
My third beauty tip: Rosemary essential oil is believed to benefit your hair and scalp, and to promote hair growth. It is fairly cheap. I use it at night along with the jojoba.
My “cheap beauty” comes from lack of sufficient and satisfying sleep and enormous
amounts of stress. Those make me look cheap (and old, tired, sad, etc.) everyday,
or so I am told by other well-meaning yet snarky women.
I use that too! It even looks good with clear gloss.
Another of my favorites, Queen Helene Cocoa Butter lotion. 32oz for around $3.00.
The container is not great, a bottle that size should have a pump. But you can recycle one. This is the only lotion my husband will use. Actually, I’ve known several guys who’ve used it. Maybe because it smells like cookies.
That’s a consderable exaggeration. First of all, “wax” is a completely meaningless term. Jojoba oil is mostly unsaturated alkyl esters. Human sebum is a mixture of triglycerides, fatty acids, alkyl esters, squalene, cholesterol, and cholesterol esters, of which the fatty acids are the major constituent – about 50%, compared to 10 - 15% squalene and about 20% alkyl esters. Certainly jojoba is a fine plant source for such esters, although it’s quite a bit heavier than the esters in sebum, but actually replacing sebum requires a more complex formula. Besides, no benefit has been proven to accrue to replacing sebum as opposed to substituting for it.
My beauty tip, FWIW, is to accept no sunscreen over SPF-15 unless it contains a real UV-A blocker; either avobenzone (Parsol 1789), zinc oxide, or titanium dioxide. I like Neutrogena SPF-45.
Oh, and a personal care tip for guys with athlete’s foot or jock itch – don’t buy those pansy-ass 1/2 oz. tubes of antifungal ointment labeled for athlete’s foot. Instead, go and buy one of those massive tubes they sell for women with yeast infections; it’s way cheaper. Suck it up, dude.
Another tip about sunscreens. Replace them every year. Even if you bought a gallon jug and only used half. It’s been my experience, that the thinner the product, the shorter the shelf life.
A cheap hair conditioner ($0.99 a bottle, like Suave) makes a great shaving cream for your legs; they’re soft as silk afterwards and you only need a quarter-sized amount per leg.
If you haven’t shampooed and you should’ve, baby powder makes a fabulous dry shampoo; sprinkle a little at your roots, flip your hair over, and shake it all out. Absorbs excess oil (“the greasies”) and gives you lots of volume. There are expensive “hair powders” out there that do the same thing, but they’re just colored talcum powder. Skip 'em and use the baby powder; even my very dark-haired gal pal swears by it now.
Rimmel makes a great, silky smooth lip gloss called Vinyl Lip for $3.50 a tube; I don’t understand why people pay a lot for something that you have to reapply as often as you do lipgloss. Wet ‘N’ Wild, as noted, also makes an even cheaper lip gloss that also works, but it’s thicker and doesn’t smell nearly as good.
A drop of nail polish remover in a bottle of old gloppy nail polish will thin it out back to its original consistency.
Cheap napkins, like the kind you get at Starbucks or in bars, make great oil-absorbers when your face gets greasy/oily during the day; they don’t smudge your makeup or leave little tiny flakes behind, like tissue does.
And as far as moisturizers go, Oil of Olay’s classic formula with SPF is all I’ve used for years; it’s less than $10 bucks for the big bottle, and if I’d just stop using it as makeup remover it would last three months.
To turn any lipstick into a longlasting all day lipstick:
[ul]
[li]Apply a tiny amount of 100% Aloe Vera gel to lips[/li][li]Rub lips together[/li][li]Dip your fingertip into a small amount of baby powder (NOT face powder)[/li][li]Lightly pat lips with the powder[/li][li]Apply lipstick and blot (twice)[/li][li]If it feels too dry, pat a teeny tiny bit of vaseline onto lips[/li][/ul]
Speaking of Aloe Vera;
Keep some in the refrigerator and apply it underneath your eyes to get rid of puffiness, make sure it’s Pure Aloe.
Refrigerated Aloe also feels much better burns.
Bag Balm is the greatest stuff for dry feet and hands. For your feet, slather it on before you go to bed. Make sure you wear socks because the stuff is very smelly and sticky. For your hands, apply a small amount and don rubber gloves before doing the dishes.
I have found that dishwashing is much more fun if I tell myself it is part of a hand treatment.
When painting your fingernails, apply a thin coat to the top and bottom of the nail tips, let dry and paint the entire nail. Your polich won’t chip as easily and when it does, it won’t be as noticeable.
