How to Survive the Summer Heat

 Greek version/Ελληνικά

Summer is nearly over, but I can’t possibly wait till next year to share this since it proved to be such a life-saver for me. So, how do you keep cool when it’s over 40C where you are? I managed it with the help of floral waters!

I use floral waters all the time in my beauty routine; as a toner, as a mixing medium when I want to use an eye shadow wet, I spray my face with them when my make-up looks cakey, etc. I loved using orange blossom water in the summer because it smells so refreshing that I thought, why limit its use to when I am at home. Why not put some in a spray bottle and spray myself when I am out and it’s too hot. Frankly, it changed the way I feel about the hot summer days in Greece. Even on days when the temperature climbed up to 44oC, I felt a lot better every time I used it.

As I mentioned, I prefer orange blossom water because I find the smell more uplifting and cool, but you can also use rosewater, kevda water, lavender water or whatever else pleases your nostrils. It’s worth trying to find a spraying bottle that provides a good and even distribution of liquid; you want a refreshing mist that won’t interfere with your make-up, not the water hose effect. Nobody wants the water hose effect on top of all the sweating unless they are desperate.

Additionally, you can use essential oils with your floral water. Some lavender adds to the uplifting effect and a little bit of jasmine can calm any storm that might be going on in your head. If you’re really into essential oils, you can even dupe Caudalie’s famous Beauty Elixir since it is essentially a mix of orange blossom water with essential and synthetic oils. I hadn't thought of mixing peppermint oil prior to smelling the Beauty Elixir as I don’t really like peppermint oil-I overused it to help me concentrate as a student-, but I tried it and it works fine.

If you do use essential oils, remember to shake the mixture vigorously before every use. Oils don’t mix with water so you need to shake it every time to get an even distribution. I find that when they mix well, especially if I’ve added sambac jasmine, the mix looks a bit milky and pretty.

A final word of caution: do not use any citrus essential oils, ie no lemon, orange, mandarin, neroli, grapefruit or petitgrain. They are notoriously photosensitive (sensitive to natural light) and you could end up harming your skin. Always check whether the essential oil you are planning to use is photosensitive.

I hope you give it a try and let me know how it went. It was a life-saver for me as it made the heat more bearable and my skin felt so much better at the end of a hot day than it did before I started using it. 

xxx

Elysse

facebook * twitter*email

How to: Store Nail Polish, Thinner and Seche Vite Restore

Για αυτό το θέμα στα ελληνικά πατήστε εδώ.

I find using nail polish thinners quite essential, regardless of how many nail polishes you many own. Nail polishes that dry out or become too goopy to use is something we've all encountered and it's never pleasant, especially when it happens to your favourite colour which -according to Murphy's/sod's Law- has also been discontinued and is hard to find. Users of Seche Vite topcoat also know -if they don't, they will- how important it is to use Seche Vite Restore in order to be able to use it past the first quarter of the bottle and not have to deal with excessive shrinkage of the polish or goopiness. Almost always though I hear that after a while the Thinner or the Seche Vite Restore is 'gone' even though you didn't use it much. 

First let me explain why this is happening. Some of the substances in your nail polish are very volatile, which means that they evaporate really easily. Every time you open your polish bottle you 'lose' some of them as they escape from the bottle. Even when the nail polish bottle is closed, you still 'lose' some of them as no bottle is 100% airtight ( I mentioned a trick to make them more airtight here). Nail polish thinners contain these volatile substances, which is why they can restore your nail polish to its former glory without changing its consistency. Unfortunately, that also means that thinners evaporate very quickly and you're left with an empty bottle.

The solution to this problem is very simple: you should store your thinners in the freezer. The low temperature slows down the evaporation significantly to the point that you will not notice any change in quantity between uses. Don't worry, thinners are not like water; they will not turn to ice in the freezer. They will remain liquid and you'll be able to use them like before.

You can do the same for nail polish that you know you won't be using for a long time, but because it contains other substances, not just the volatile, it may feel a bit thicker when you take it out of the freezer; a few minutes at room temperature and a bit of a shake should fix it. 

I hope this tip helped a bit. Here's a picture of a pretty fridge freezer to help you remember this next time you need to!

Beauty tips: How to Find Which Colours Suit Your Eye Colour

Για οδηγίες στα ελληνικά πατήστε εδώ.

One of the most commonly asked questions you hear women ask with regards to eye make up is "what colours suit me". Personally I subscribe to the 'all of the colours could suit you depending on how you use them' school, but some people need to know what the complementary colour to their eyes is. 

According to colour theory the complementary colours are:

• green and red
• blue and orange
• purple and yellow.

The usual response to this information is this: 0_0. Here is a very easy way to figure out the exact complementary colours to your eye colour. Take a picture of your eye, as close as as you can -please, be sensible and don't use flash for this- and invert the colours in the picture. If you're using a photo-processing program then you probably know how to do this, but even if you don't and are using Windows, there's still an easy way to do this.

 1.Right-click on the image and select 'open with Paint'

 2.When the 'Paint' program opens your image select 'Image' on the top bar

 3.Select 'Invert Colours' and you're done!!

Here's an example of my picture

Original

Inverted colour

I have light brown eyes and in my inverted colours image I can see that my complimentary colours are turquoise to dark blue. The easiest way to emphasize the darker shades of brown in my eyes then would be to wear turquoise colours around my eyes and if I want to emphasize the lighter brown shades I should wear dark blue, whether that is eye shadow, eyeliner or even mascara. 

Are the colours you find using this method the only colours that have that effect on your eyes? Most certainly not; lip colour, other colours around the eyes and blusher can be equally effective, but this is only a beginner's method so that you can start understanding colour and the effect it can have.

I hope it helped a little bit! Good luck trying it!

Beauty Tips: Taking Care of Your Nail Polish Bottle

Για οδηγίες στα ελληνικά πατήστε εδώ

How annoying is it when your nail polish dries in its bottle or when nail polish residue dries around the 'mouth' of the bottle and you can't open it no matter how you twist it?

Well, there's something that can prevent all this and it's really very easy. All you have to do is apply a little bit of vaseline on the spiral grooves of the bottle. The vaseline will prevent polish residue from sitting in the grooves and it will give it enough slip to open and close easily. Additionally, because it's very pliable it will sit in the grooves when you close the lid and prevent the volatile substances from vaporising, ie. no more nail polish smell where you keep them stored and your polish will not dry so much when you're not using it. It's going to be nice and airtight!

Caution:
Be careful not to apply it to the final groove of the bottle. You don't want any vaseline reaching the lips of the bottle because then it might get on your brush or even in the polish and ruin it. Always wipe away the excess.

With frequent opening and closure the vaseline tends to spread so every few times wipe it away and re-apply.

I have obviously applied too much here to make it apparent in the pictures. You don't actually need to apply this much!