Tag: Tips

  • 6 Solutions For Stressed Out Skins

    6 Solutions For Stressed Out Skins

    Worked all day. Out all night. 10 days of straight travel.

    Sound familiar?

    Below, explore the best brands and products that beat signs of stress better than all the rest. Get ready to glow, girls.

    Skyn Iceland Face-Lift-In-A-Bag – This brand is literally all about “solutions for stressed skin.” They wrote the book. I have only tried their Face-Life-In-A-Bag and I am hooked. The weekly system is meant to turn back the clock. Eyes will look more rested, wrinkles appear smoother and smile lines fade away.

    Indi Lee Squalane Oil – This olive-derived Squalane is 100% pure and promotes elasticity, diminishes age spots and hyper pigmentation, and boosts cell regeneration and oxygenation. It’s super natural and suitable for all skin types. I love slathering this all over my face, neck and chest.

    Avène XeraCalm – Another brand who has tackled the calming department and is literally dedicated to sensitive skin. Their XeraCalm line is all about lipid-replenishing skincare that directly targets the source of itching, redness, irritation and even eczema. My favorite is the A.D Lipid-Replenishing Balm. I like to use it on those bumpy areas on the back of my arms.

    Pai Calm Redness Serum – Have you girls tried Pai? This super natural line is my latest favorite and pre-wedding go-to. The Instant Calm line is fab. Jessica Richards of Shen Beauty told me all about it and now I’m hooked. The Instant Calm Redness Serum is so nice and goes really well with the Chamomile & Rosehip Calming Day Cream. I’m hooked on this whole line.

    Erno Laszlo Light Controlling Lotion – This stuff takes me back to the 90s when my mom gave my sister and I our first official skincare routines. Years later, I was reintroduced to this magical lotion and it still works. It’s meant to calm redness and reduce surface oil to refine the texture of the skin and tighten pores, eliminating dullness for fresh-faced results. Anti-inflammatory botanicals calm irritation and support natural tissue repair, leaving skin smooth and hydrated. I’m obsessed with the chic bottle too.

    Rodin Lavender Body Oil – This is the holy grail of body oils. Period. It’s formulated to relieve and nourish tired, overworked skin. It’s enriched with a calming blend of French Lavender Absolute and Bulgarian Lavender, as well as Rosehip, Neroli and Evening Primrose to help promote collagen production. It’s the ultimate in skincare indulgence.

  • How to Walk Off a Flight Fresh and Dewy

    How to Walk Off a Flight Fresh and Dewy

    There have been countless articles written on the subject of travel beauty, but nothing compelling enough for me – well not yet. As someone who truly travels on six and seven hour flights quite often, I can honestly say that I have my en flight kit down to a t. Part of the secret, and as Into the Gloss recently concurred, is the prep that you do before the flight. This is how it goes (for me).

    AT HOME (PRE-FLIGHT)

    Take a real shower. Not that half-a** kind where you only wash what’s necessary. No I’m talking the real deal. Do a full body scrub using Earth Tu Face Salt Scrub on semi-dry skin.  Wash your hair with something awesome, like Christophe Robin’s Purifying Scrub with Sea Salt followed by Robin’s Volumizing Conditioner. Shave your legs. You are going to feel great, trust me. Then slap on something really nourishing like May Lindstrom’s The Good Stuff. It’s totally organic and all natural and smells like cocoa. It’s my latest body addiction. I will also blow dry my hair, so that I feel prettier.

    BUT FIRST…WIPES!

    The first thing that I do once I get settled in my seat is to whip out my wipes and wipe down the arm rests, the cushion area behind my head and neck and any other place that I am likely to touch. Then using another clean wipe, cleanse your face, neck and hands. Simple Skincare and Josie Maran both make great and inexpensive wipes. I like to make sure the wipes are clean and not filled with chemicals, because I really like to use them liberally.

    SKIN

    On a clean face, spray something. I like SK-II’s Mid-Day Essence Spray. You get all the Japanese pitera benefits but in the easy-to-use spray form. For those of you with no shame like me, use SK-II’s Facial Treatment Mask and just leave it on until all of the moisture has absorbed onto your skin. When you take it off, you can just pat the product into your face, and any excess (especially around the neck) can be whipped off with your handy wipes. There really isn’t anything else better. Otherwise, pop on a clear and more discrete mask like Laurel Organics Honey Berry Enzyme Mask for 10-20 minutes. Wipe it off using one of your handy wipes. I also keep travel size skincare serums and moisturizes and I am always switching them up. I’ll use Tata’s Serum and then I’ll slap a pea-sized amount of One Love Organics Wonder Balm One. Love Organics makes a great eye cream, and it’s super nourishing and compact – making it ideal for travel. I really love that one.

    HAIR

    I like the Tangle Tease brush because its super small, and it doesn’t rip out my hair. So give your hair a good brush, why not. Just don’t freak out your neighbor. ?

    HANDS

    I am addddicted to Weleda’s Skin Food Hautcreme for my hands. It’s goopy and thick, so your only need a little bit. But it moisturizes like nothing else. I randomly saw it at the grocery store here in Zurich, and now I can’t stop using it. I even keep one in my car.

    SPIRIT

    Bring on some essential oils. I feel essential oils are this world of their own. It’s kind of like their own club. Once you get into them, you become addicted (kinda like crystals) and you can’t leave home or anywhere without them. The cool thing is that there is an oil for every situation. On the plane, I will roll Tata Harper’s Aromatic Stress Treatment on my neck, pulse points and on the palms of my hands and breath in deeply 3 to 5 times. This really helps relax my mind. More on essentials oils coming soon.

    MAKEUP

    Let’s face it, everyone likes to arrive feeling concealed. I will apply a bit of RMS Beauty’s “Un” ConcealerLiving or Magic Luminizer and Magic Mixer and Tata Harper’s clear Be True Balm to my lips and lids (I trick I learned backstage at NYFW). On my brows, Glossier’s Boy Brow

     

    COMPRESSION SOCKS

    Yes, this is a real thing. This is if you don’t want your legs to swell up like a balloon. And it works. I buy mine here.

  • Become a Successful Beauty Blogger

    Become a Successful Beauty Blogger

    Some are paid to sit on the front row of shows wearing free designer clothes in return for tweets; others command an audience of millions of viewers – or get the opportunity to work with the biggest brands and names in the world. These days, when it comes to making it big in business it seems to be the new generation of bloggers who have all the power.

    The problem however, is that discovering how to successfully build and project yourself to this level of influence and prowess is no mean feat. A lack of funding, long, unsocial hours and a need to constantly be on the cultural pulse are just a few of the tricky obstacles that can stand between you making it big and having a truly rough ride.

    So, where do you start? To help give us some insight we sat down with fashion stylist and beauty blogger of four years, Gemma Carey, to get her top tips on how best to break into the barmy world of blogging.

    FIND YOUR NICHE

    “The first step to creating a beauty blog is coming up with an idea that is unique to you,” says Gemma. “With so many beauty blogs on the market now, it’s difficult to find something that hasn’t been done. Think about what you like most about yourself in terms of beauty (but not in a vain way!). Perhaps you have long hair that is easy to work with, so you could specialise in hair tutorials. Or maybe you have nice nails, so you could focus on posting nail tutorials. Or, if your passion lies with cosmetics, that’s okay too, but try and make it different somehow.

    “You also have to think about your backdrop/location/layout in your photography. Look at other blogs and find something that you could do differently. It’s all about making your blog unique to you.”

    MORE GLOSS: An Email Exchange With…British Beauty Blogger

    CHOOSE YOUR AUDIENCE

    “Next, you need to think about who you want your blog to be aimed at, which will in turn help determine the content of your blog. For example, if you want to inspire teenagers you’re looking to write about affordable brands such as Rimmel and Natural Collection. However, if you’re aiming at women aged 25+, you need to look more at skincare and anti-ageing products from brands such as Rodial and Dermalogica.

    “You also need to be constantly aware of considering your audience when choosing your style of writing, layout and the general vibe of your blog. If teenagers read your blog, keep your writing chatty, your layout girly and pink! For an older audience, keep it clean and simple.”

    UNDERSTAND THAT IT TAKES TIME AND COMMITMENT

    “Blogging looks easy and glamorous. Well I tell you it’s not easy and mostly not glamorous either! Becoming an appreciated blogger with lots of followers takes commitment and certainly doesn’t happen overnight. Compiling and writing quality posts can also take hours sometimes. So, make sure you have some time available on evenings or weekends between studying or a full-time job. You won’t be able to quit your job and become a full-time blogger straight away, so spend the spare time you have working on your blog until you reach your desired goal.

    “There will also be times when you feel demotivated and don’t know what to write about. This happens to bloggers. What I do is read other blogs and search for inspiration on Instagram – it soon motivates me to start writing again!”

    MORE GLOSS: How to be become a successful fitness blogger

    INVEST

    “There isn’t much investing you need to do to become a blogger, but it’s always a great idea to own a good camera. Don’t worry if you can’t afford one though, you could always consider collaborating with a photographer. Often, student photographers are happy to work together in exchange for a credit on your blog (e.g. Photography by xxx). This is a good way to have good quality photos without you having to fork out lots of money. The only disadvantage to this is that you have to work around each other’s schedules, which means you can’t always work when you want to.

    “If you are working on the photography yourself, ensure you have plenty of space with good light. There’s nothing more unprofessional than awful photos on a blog when you’re trying to sell a product!”

    MORE GLOSS: How to become a successful beauty vlogger

    QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY

    “It’s really important to remember that quality is so much more important than quantity. Posting a really insightful article with beautiful images once a fortnight is much better than posting a quick, half-hearted review every day.”

    THE TECHNICAL SIDE

    “Choose a blogger platform to work from – Blogger.com or WordPress.com are the most popular and are both super easy to use. Also for a blogger to be taken more seriously, it’s important to have your own personalised domain. For example, www.beauty.com – not www.beauty.blogspot.com. It isn’t expensive – mine only cost me £7 for the year from Godaddy.com.

    “Another way for bloggers to make money is advertising. There are various ways to sell advertising space – you can simply put tweets out and sell them directly yourself, or you can use platforms such as Passion Fruit Apps, sign up to Google AdSense or join a blogging network called EtailPR. These not only allow you to display ads on your blog, but they also work alongside many brands who you can request samples from for you to keep and write about.”

    BRAND COLLABORATING

    “There are a few different ways to collaborate with brands. They can send you products to review, you can write a sponsored post where they will pay you to write about them, brand ambassadorship or via an affiliate programme. The most popular is gifting bloggers, which of course is a great perk to the job! But don’t be disheartened if some brands reject you – you have to remember that they get inundated with blogger requests and have to be quite picky on who they work with.

    “Brand ambassadorship can bring you a monthly wage but only really works for bloggers who have thousands of followers. An affiliate programme is a good way to earn some money at any stage of your blogging – this is when you feature a product and if someone purchases it from clicking on your blog, you receive a percentage for what is sold.”

    NETWORKING

    “Networking is so important and is the main way to gain followers and readers. Make sure you have at least two social media sites – Twitter and Instagram being the most important. Comment on and favourite other bloggers’ tweets – have conversations and discuss your favourite products. By doing this you’re building relationships with fellow bloggers and gaining followers. You can also join blogging networks such as Bloglovin’ and EtailPR. Attending blogger events is also a great way to network.

    “Soon enough you’ll be invited to them, but at first I’d suggest getting in touch with PRs, introducing yourself and asking them to let you know when they have an event on. At the events you can mingle with fellow bloggers and build relationships with PRs – those are the people that are going to help you build your brand. Also, try and comment on other blogs with a link to yours – they will most likely comment back and leaving a link to your blog increases your brand exposure.”

    To read more from Gemma, head to her blog, find her on Instagram or follow her Twitter feed.

  • 6 Solutions For Stressed Out Skins

    6 Solutions For Stressed Out Skins

    Worked all day. Out all night. 10 days of straight travel.

    Sound familiar?

    Below, explore the best brands and products that beat signs of stress better than all the rest. Get ready to glow, girls.

    Skyn Iceland Face-Lift-In-A-Bag – This brand is literally all about “solutions for stressed skin.” They wrote the book. I have only tried their Face-Life-In-A-Bag and I am hooked. The weekly system is meant to turn back the clock. Eyes will look more rested, wrinkles appear smoother and smile lines fade away.

    Indi Lee Squalane Oil – This olive-derived Squalane is 100% pure and promotes elasticity, diminishes age spots and hyper pigmentation, and boosts cell regeneration and oxygenation. It’s super natural and suitable for all skin types. I love slathering this all over my face, neck and chest.

    Avène XeraCalm – Another brand who has tackled the calming department and is literally dedicated to sensitive skin. Their XeraCalm line is all about lipid-replenishing skincare that directly targets the source of itching, redness, irritation and even eczema. My favorite is the A.D Lipid-Replenishing Balm. I like to use it on those bumpy areas on the back of my arms.

    Beautiful smiling woman lying on a grass outdoor. She is absolutely happy.

     

    Pai Calm Redness Serum – Have you girls tried Pai? This super natural line is my latest favorite and pre-wedding go-to. The Instant Calm line is fab. Jessica Richards of Shen Beauty told me all about it and now I’m hooked. The Instant Calm Redness Serum is so nice and goes really well with the Chamomile & Rosehip Calming Day Cream. I’m hooked on this whole line.

    Erno Laszlo Light Controlling Lotion – This stuff takes me back to the 90s when my mom gave my sister and I our first official skincare routines. Years later, I was reintroduced to this magical lotion and it still works. It’s meant to calm redness and reduce surface oil to refine the texture of the skin and tighten pores, eliminating dullness for fresh-faced results. Anti-inflammatory botanicals calm irritation and support natural tissue repair, leaving skin smooth and hydrated. I’m obsessed with the chic bottle too.

    Rodin Lavender Body Oil – This is the holy grail of body oils. Period. It’s formulated to relieve and nourish tired, overworked skin. It’s enriched with a calming blend of French Lavender Absolute and Bulgarian Lavender, as well as Rosehip, Neroli and Evening Primrose to help promote collagen production. It’s the ultimate in skincare indulgence.

  • How to Walk Off a Flight Fresh and Dewy

    How to Walk Off a Flight Fresh and Dewy

    There have been countless articles written on the subject of travel beauty, but nothing compelling enough for me – well not yet. As someone who truly travels on six and seven hour flights quite often, I can honestly say that I have my en flight kit down to a t. Part of the secret, and as Into the Gloss recently concurred, is the prep that you do before the flight. This is how it goes (for me).

     

    AT HOME (PRE-FLIGHT)

    Take a real shower. Not that half-a** kind where you only wash what’s necessary. No I’m talking the real deal. Do a full body scrub using Earth Tu Face Salt Scrub on semi-dry skin.  Wash your hair with something awesome, like Christophe Robin’s Purifying Scrub with Sea Salt followed by Robin’s Volumizing Conditioner. Shave your legs. You are going to feel great, trust me. Then slap on something really nourishing like May Lindstrom’s The Good Stuff. It’s totally organic and all natural and smells like cocoa. It’s my latest body addiction. I will also blow dry my hair, so that I feel prettier.

    BUT FIRST…WIPES!

    The first thing that I do once I get settled in my seat is to whip out my wipes and wipe down the arm rests, the cushion area behind my head and neck and any other place that I am likely to touch. Then using another clean wipe, cleanse your face, neck and hands. Simple Skincare and Josie Maran both make great and inexpensive wipes. I like to make sure the wipes are clean and not filled with chemicals, because I really like to use them liberally.

    SKIN

    On a clean face, spray something. I like SK-II’s Mid-Day Essence Spray. You get all the Japanese pitera benefits but in the easy-to-use spray form. For those of you with no shame like me, use SK-II’s Facial Treatment Mask and just leave it on until all of the moisture has absorbed onto your skin. When you take it off, you can just pat the product into your face, and any excess (especially around the neck) can be whipped off with your handy wipes. There really isn’t anything else better. Otherwise, pop on a clear and more discrete mask like Laurel Organics Honey Berry Enzyme Mask for 10-20 minutes. Wipe it off using one of your handy wipes. I also keep travel size skincare serums and moisturizes and I am always switching them up. I’ll use Tata’s Serum and then I’ll slap a pea-sized amount of One Love Organics Wonder Balm One. Love Organics makes a great eye cream, and it’s super nourishing and compact – making it ideal for travel. I really love that one.

    HAIR

    I like the Tangle Tease brush because its super small, and it doesn’t rip out my hair. So give your hair a good brush, why not. Just don’t freak out your neighbor. ?

    HANDS

    I am addddicted to Weleda’s Skin Food Hautcreme for my hands. It’s goopy and thick, so your only need a little bit. But it moisturizes like nothing else. I randomly saw it at the grocery store here in Zurich, and now I can’t stop using it. I even keep one in my car.

    SPIRIT

    Bring on some essential oils. I feel essential oils are this world of their own. It’s kind of like their own club. Once you get into them, you become addicted (kinda like crystals) and you can’t leave home or anywhere without them. The cool thing is that there is an oil for every situation. On the plane, I will roll Tata Harper’s Aromatic Stress Treatment on my neck, pulse points and on the palms of my hands and breath in deeply 3 to 5 times. This really helps relax my mind. More on essentials oils coming soon.

    MAKEUP

    Let’s face it, everyone likes to arrive feeling concealed. I will apply a bit of RMS Beauty’s “Un” ConcealerLiving or Magic Luminizer and Magic Mixer and Tata Harper’s clear Be True Balm to my lips and lids (I trick I learned backstage at NYFW). On my brows, Glossier’s Boy Brow

    COMPRESSION SOCKS

    Yes, this is a real thing. This is if you don’t want your legs to swell up like a balloon. And it works. I buy mine here.

  • Become a Successful Beauty Blogger

    Become a Successful Beauty Blogger

    Some are paid to sit on the front row of shows wearing free designer clothes in return for tweets; others command an audience of millions of viewers – or get the opportunity to work with the biggest brands and names in the world. These days, when it comes to making it big in business it seems to be the new generation of bloggers who have all the power.

    The problem however, is that discovering how to successfully build and project yourself to this level of influence and prowess is no mean feat. A lack of funding, long, unsocial hours and a need to constantly be on the cultural pulse are just a few of the tricky obstacles that can stand between you making it big and having a truly rough ride.

    So, where do you start? To help give us some insight we sat down with fashion stylist and beauty blogger of four years, Gemma Carey, to get her top tips on how best to break into the barmy world of blogging.

    FIND YOUR NICHE

    “The first step to creating a beauty blog is coming up with an idea that is unique to you,” says Gemma. “With so many beauty blogs on the market now, it’s difficult to find something that hasn’t been done. Think about what you like most about yourself in terms of beauty (but not in a vain way!). Perhaps you have long hair that is easy to work with, so you could specialise in hair tutorials. Or maybe you have nice nails, so you could focus on posting nail tutorials. Or, if your passion lies with cosmetics, that’s okay too, but try and make it different somehow.

    “You also have to think about your backdrop/location/layout in your photography. Look at other blogs and find something that you could do differently. It’s all about making your blog unique to you.”

    MORE GLOSS: An Email Exchange With…British Beauty Blogger

    CHOOSE YOUR AUDIENCE

    “Next, you need to think about who you want your blog to be aimed at, which will in turn help determine the content of your blog. For example, if you want to inspire teenagers you’re looking to write about affordable brands such as Rimmel and Natural Collection. However, if you’re aiming at women aged 25+, you need to look more at skincare and anti-ageing products from brands such as Rodial and Dermalogica.

    “You also need to be constantly aware of considering your audience when choosing your style of writing, layout and the general vibe of your blog. If teenagers read your blog, keep your writing chatty, your layout girly and pink! For an older audience, keep it clean and simple.”

    gtg-gemma-carey.jpg
    Salon WordPress Theme – Blogger

     

    UNDERSTAND THAT IT TAKES TIME AND COMMITMENT

    “Blogging looks easy and glamorous. Well I tell you it’s not easy and mostly not glamorous either! Becoming an appreciated blogger with lots of followers takes commitment and certainly doesn’t happen overnight. Compiling and writing quality posts can also take hours sometimes. So, make sure you have some time available on evenings or weekends between studying or a full-time job. You won’t be able to quit your job and become a full-time blogger straight away, so spend the spare time you have working on your blog until you reach your desired goal.

    “There will also be times when you feel demotivated and don’t know what to write about. This happens to bloggers. What I do is read other blogs and search for inspiration on Instagram – it soon motivates me to start writing again!”

    MORE GLOSS: How to be become a successful fitness blogger

    INVEST

    “There isn’t much investing you need to do to become a blogger, but it’s always a great idea to own a good camera. Don’t worry if you can’t afford one though, you could always consider collaborating with a photographer. Often, student photographers are happy to work together in exchange for a credit on your blog (e.g. Photography by xxx). This is a good way to have good quality photos without you having to fork out lots of money. The only disadvantage to this is that you have to work around each other’s schedules, which means you can’t always work when you want to.

    “If you are working on the photography yourself, ensure you have plenty of space with good light. There’s nothing more unprofessional than awful photos on a blog when you’re trying to sell a product!”

    MORE GLOSS: How to become a successful beauty vlogger

    QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY

    “It’s really important to remember that quality is so much more important than quantity. Posting a really insightful article with beautiful images once a fortnight is much better than posting a quick, half-hearted review every day.”

    gtg-gemma-carey-three.jpg
    Salon WordPress Theme – Blogger

    THE TECHNICAL SIDE

    “Choose a blogger platform to work from – Blogger.com or WordPress.com are the most popular and are both super easy to use. Also for a blogger to be taken more seriously, it’s important to have your own personalised domain. For example, www.beauty.com – not www.beauty.blogspot.com. It isn’t expensive – mine only cost me £7 for the year from Godaddy.com.

    “Another way for bloggers to make money is advertising. There are various ways to sell advertising space – you can simply put tweets out and sell them directly yourself, or you can use platforms such as Passion Fruit Apps, sign up to Google AdSense or join a blogging network called EtailPR. These not only allow you to display ads on your blog, but they also work alongside many brands who you can request samples from for you to keep and write about.”

    BRAND COLLABORATING

    “There are a few different ways to collaborate with brands. They can send you products to review, you can write a sponsored post where they will pay you to write about them, brand ambassadorship or via an affiliate programme. The most popular is gifting bloggers, which of course is a great perk to the job! But don’t be disheartened if some brands reject you – you have to remember that they get inundated with blogger requests and have to be quite picky on who they work with.

    “Brand ambassadorship can bring you a monthly wage but only really works for bloggers who have thousands of followers. An affiliate programme is a good way to earn some money at any stage of your blogging – this is when you feature a product and if someone purchases it from clicking on your blog, you receive a percentage for what is sold.”

    gtg-gemma-carey-nails.jpg
    blogger – beauty

    NETWORKING

    “Networking is so important and is the main way to gain followers and readers. Make sure you have at least two social media sites – Twitter and Instagram being the most important. Comment on and favourite other bloggers’ tweets – have conversations and discuss your favourite products. By doing this you’re building relationships with fellow bloggers and gaining followers. You can also join blogging networks such as Bloglovin’ and EtailPR. Attending blogger events is also a great way to network.

    “Soon enough you’ll be invited to them, but at first I’d suggest getting in touch with PRs, introducing yourself and asking them to let you know when they have an event on. At the events you can mingle with fellow bloggers and build relationships with PRs – those are the people that are going to help you build your brand. Also, try and comment on other blogs with a link to yours – they will most likely comment back and leaving a link to your blog increases your brand exposure.”

    To read more from Gemma, head to her blog, find her on Instagram or follow her Twitter feed.