Five Beauty Ideas to Get You Through the Dog Days of Summer
Dry shampoo may seem like one of those things your great-aunt Sylvia used to keep her weekly set in place, but as more women have their hair professionally blown out, it’s rapidly becoming a money (and time) saving necessity. But it has more uses than staving off the inevitable return to the dry bar – Bumble and Bumble’s Hair Powder can be used to add volume to hair as well as keep it looking fresh longer. It also helps slightly oily or dirty hair (as in second day) hold its style, which is why so many professional hairstylists use it for photoshoots and fashion shows. Plus, Bumble and Bumble’s dry shampoo comes in three colors: Blonde, Brown, and Black, so you can be sure to avoid the white powder hair scare.
Flower Water Spray
Dirty, humid air does more than get you down – it’s a disaster for your skin. And if you’re wearing sunscreen (you are wearing sunscreen, aren’t you?) everything gets even more sticky – and that means breakouts. This is where spray toners come in, and the simpler and lighter, the better. Lavender water is fabulous for the summer: it’s refreshing and antiseptic (good for preventing breakouts), and also hydrating. Lavender is also cooling for sunburns, and it’s a mild insect repellent, which makes this Lavender Hydrating Mist perfect after a day at the beach.
john masters organics Lavender Hydrating Mist for Skin & Hair, $16.00 at Beauty.com.
Making up in the heat can be an exercise in futility: by the time we’re out the door, half of it has melted off! And lip glosses don’t really *pop* when they’re set on a shiny face. So bright lips are the easiest way to go (and I’m not just saying that as a bright lip enthusiast…) But even lipstick can feel like too much product in the summer, which is where a little craft comes in: a super-saturated lipstick also makes a great stain.
Case in point: Besame’s Classic Color Lipstick is modelled after 1950′s lipsticks, which means over-the-top color payoff. You might be waiting for Fall to pull out those rich reds, but there’s no need: a sheer veil of Red Velvet stains the lips bright red and lasts all morning.
Besame Classic Color Lipstick in Red Velvet, $22.00 at Besame.
Makeup Saving Spatulas
If you get annoyed at the amount of product left in your supposedly empty cosmetics jars, you’re not alone: beauty inventors have been working to deal with the hassle (and expense). So far, two worthy inventions have crossed my desk. Makeup Miser (pictured at top), a set of three different-sized miniature silicon spatulas on long brush handles, is designed to get into any jar. They can also be used to scoop products to avoid contamination. And Nikki’s Magic Wand (shown at left) is a tiny, mascara wand-sized flexible spatula that can get the last bits of any lip gloss or tubed product. So you can save your money for the new Fall colors you want.
Makeup Miser, $19.95 at Makeup Miser.
Nikki’s Magic Wand, $9.95 at Nikki’s Magic Wand.
As fun as shopping can be, there’s so much product out there that sorting through all the possibilities can be exhausting. So a lot of our shopping gets done before we hit the stores – by searching online for the best contenders to try. But when your fingers are too tired to do the walking, visit Rank & Style, a new, data-driven Top Ten service for the best beauty and fashion products. Rank & Style utilizes an algorithm that aggregates information from user reviews, best seller lists, celebrity loves, plus editorial and beauty blog reviews – and formulates a relatively unbiased Top Ten list for your shopping perusal.
