Favorite beauty tool – FMSphotoaday Day 30

Hello my Beauties,

how is everyone doing??
Can you believe, that this challenge is about to end already? We almost made it through the whole month.
Those of you, who kept on going and blogged every day (raise your hands) – you can be very proud of yourself.
Hope it helped your motivation as much as it helped mine. 🙂
I think a challenge like this, where many different people participate, is an enormous motivation booster, since you can exchange your experience and get inspired by other people work at the same time.
I think i might be doing another challenge sometime later this years again. And then, i hope to see you all participating! 😉

So today is Day 30 of the May Photo a Day Challenge and the topic is: “Tool“.
30. Tool: A tool in the garage or something useful that helps you get through life. Perhaps in a cooking tool.
Find one and share it.

I’m going to talk about a tool, that i’m sure by now everyone out there, who loved makeup and all the innovations knows about.
This is my new beauty blender knock off, by Germany’s own drugstore brand Ebelin – “Professional Make Up Ei”.
Let’s admit it, it looks a lot like to original blender, doesn’t it?
I want to take a small step back and tell you who i actually learned the trick with the beauty blender from.
About 2 years ago i was still struggling with my foundation. Even that i was quite happy with the actual product, i couldn’t get the flawless result on my face. No matter what i did.

Applying foundation with a brush somehow always left stripes on my face – well it might have been me and not the brush, but anyways.
But when i saw a youtube video by my friend Michell, who showed how she used a blender and a simple sponge to get an even application on her face, that changed the whole makeup world for me.

In case you are not familiar with the wet sponge application, you might want to check out Michell’s video HERE.
By that time – remember it was over 2 years ago – we didn’t have any “beauty blender” here in Germany, so Michell was so nice to send me the one that is being sold in Ulta and oh heaven – it worked so fine!
I have to say though – a good big and dense drugstore sponge, usually triangle shape, work well too. The technic is still the same.

Now back to the “Professional Make Up Ei”. About 2 months ago Ebelin brought this “makeup egg” on the german market and the beauty community went wild over it. You could literally see all the german blog’s & youtube channels blow up.
I think the “makeup egg’s” were even sold out in the very first week. 
The hopes and expectations were high for this product and i have to admit, i was not disappointed. 
It’s a little bit bigger and pointier than the original Beauty blender and it’s also a little more dense, which is alright.  
The “makeup egg” has a bigger surface to work with, especially the “bottom part”. It’s pretty elastic and literally jumps back after you squeeze it.

It also gains on volume when you wash it. I would say, it get’s almost at twice as big, but doesn’t lose it’s form after becoming dry again.
The actual application goes smoothly, it’s really easy to get an even coat of foundation using this “egg”.
I’m not sure if this one is going to last as long as the original Beauty blender, but i after 3 months or so it would definitely be justified to get a new one, since it only costs 2,45€.

I’m glad our drugstores are becoming more and more aware of the “quality trend” of tools, since a few years ago the brushes & other tools had a horrible quality and i had to get everything from a high-end store or the internet. 

Have you used any kind of beauty blender before? What’s your experience with it?
And what’s your favorite beauty tool? Tell me your secrets.

Until next time – stay beautiful!

Featuring Amanda and SkincareHQ

Hello my Beauties,

today i would love you to meet Amanda, a young woman from Minneapolis, who run’s SkincareHQ – a blog full of great dermatology,  simple skin & hair care tips and makeup. 
About a month ago Amanda approached me about writing a guest post for my site and offered to talk about skincare tips for spring and summer, that really work for her.

I gladly accepted, since getting tips from someone, who calls herself a skincare fanatic can’t hurt at all, right?!
I hope you find Amanda’s article useful and give her blog a chance to grow.  Here we go:

Skincare Tips For Spring and Summer

During the spring and summer, hot conditions rule the day and sometimes even the night. These hot and humid conditions can have a less than ideal effect on your skin. Your skin will certainly suffer the consequences if you don’t properly care for it during these horribly hot conditions. But don’t worry! Follow these simple tips and keep your skin looking great all summer long.

Keep it Clean

 The first thing you should make sure to do is keep your skin clean. Heat means sweat, and sweat can lead to oily, slick skin and acne blemishes. To ensure your skin doesn’t stay this way, you need to make sure you clean your face with a gentle acne wash every night before you go to bed. There’s no need to do this in the morning, however. Just rinse your face with some warm water when you wake up, and pat it dry. This will make sure your skin is clean, but not dried out.
Stay Hydrated

 Heat can also lead to the skin becoming dried out. For this reason, you should make sure you drink plenty of water. Dehydration can lead to the skin becoming sallow, dried out, and yes, even this can lead to excess acne. A good rule of thumb is to drink eight cups of water each day, which is equivalent to four regular sized water bottles. There are times when you need to drink an extra cup or two, however. A few good examples are:

• If you are pregnant, you should drink 2 extra cups of water each day at least
• If you are in high elevations, such as in the mountains, you should drink 1 to 2 extra cups
• If you are in extremely cold weather (under 32F) or hot weather (over 85-90F), you should drink 1 to 2 extra cups per day
• For each daily medication you take, you should try to drink 1 extra cup of water (vitamins not included unless specified on the bottle)

It isn’t hard to figure out, either. It might seem that way, but if you are a perfectly healthy person on no medications, in a normal climate, you would only drink 8 cups or 4 water bottles. If you are a pregnant woman, living in the mountains with a very cold climate, and taking 1 prescription medicine a day, you would drink around 11-12 cups, or 5 to 6 water bottles each day.
Moisturize

 Another  way to make sure your skin doesn’t get dried out is to moisturize. This should be done each night after you wash and pat dry your face, just before bed. Choose a moisturizer that will work well for your skin type. Those with dry skin should use a strong, thick cream, while those with oily skin should look for moisturizers without added oils. Yes, even oily skinned people should moisturize. It is entirely necessary for everyone, no matter your particular skin type.
Protect Your Skin

 When you go out into the sun, make sure that you use sunscreen. Some foundations actually have built-in sunscreen, so make sure you read the package to see if yours is one that does. If not, you can also add a drop or two into your foundation. If you aren’t using makeup, such as at the beach, just place the sunscreen directly onto your skin and rub it in well. Using sunscreen will help you avoid getting a sunburn, which is not only unattractive and painful, but can predispose you to skin cancer.

And that ‘s really all there is to it. 

This is all that is necessary for keeping your skin healthy, clean, and even safe during spring and summer.
Do you have any other tips you would like to add to what i have already said?
Let me know about it in the comments below. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

There you go, Beauties. If you want to connect with Amanda, you can find her @Skincare_HQ on Twitter!

Two of the latest articles Amanda wrote on her blog were on:
Top 10 Foundations For Aging Skin and Best Face Wash For Oily Skin: Top 10 – so check them out and leave her a comment. 🙂
Don’t forget to say HI from me.

Blog Tips – Best Photo Editors

Hello my Beauties,

hope everyone is doing great, even if the weekend is already over. 

On this snowy tuesday, i’d like to talk to you about a topic, that is not quite beauty or fashion related, but it’s a big part of becoming a better beauty blogger – knowing how and where to edit your photos, to make your beauty items shine even brighter on your blog, than before.
Recently i got a few questions on this subject, so i decided to share with you the best places to find your answers.
We all have started somewhere and from my own experience i can tell you, that sometimes knowing who to ask for advice, is already half of the job!

So in this hopefully useful post i want to present to you three very talented blogger, who invested their time to write step by step tutorials and make their readers understand, what the best (online) photo editors are and how to use them.
Let’s all benefit from their knowledge. 

First i want you to meet Ellie, a Creative Digital Media Student from Dublin, Ireland, who know’s a lot about Photography, Website Design & Development (of all the HTML things i personally have no clue about). 
Along many other great posts, she wrote a tutorial on Free Alternatives to Photoshop, to show us the free easy way on how to make the most of our photos.
Ellie is a beauty blogger herself and knows how important it is to present a product in the best light possible.
Please visit her blog and read the whole post. I’m pretty sure you will find it very helpful.
Besides, if you have other questions on HTML, SEO, Blog buttons or anything about Website Design, you can also talk to Ellie on Twitter.
Tell her I sent you, she’s very nice!

My second pick for this post has definitely to be the amazing Kaye, a beauty, photography, DIY, creativity & tech geekery fan (as she call’s herself) from Australia. She also tested a handful of photo editors and wrote a two-part series on how to get more use of editing functions and tools.
What i especially like about this article is her 15 minute rule: “If you knew very little, what could you do in 15 minutes?!”
I think the fact, that we all want to know everything in a very short time period, this blog post is exactly what we need, my friends!
I found some very interesting points and i hope you will as well.

So here is Kaye’s Best Online Photo Editor post. Stop by and leave her a nice comment, as i definitely think this work needs recognition!!
This beauty blogger is also to be found on Twitter for more DIY, design and all things fabulous questions. 

Last but most definitely not least in this post is Donah, my Sweet Jelly Bean, who you probably have heard me raving about over and over again. But simply, because this beauty blogger is so versatile and is not only good in doing reviews on cool asian products (which i would love to try them ALL), but also makes very understandable step by step “beautify your blog” tutorials, which i find very helpful.
In this particular post Donah show’s us how to brand & watermark our own pictures by using the Pixlr Editor.
So basically we get a two in one tutorial here. How cool is that?!
Following that tutorial will make you understand, how easy a photo editor can actually be and how you make your blog post look more professional and organized.
Visit Donah and connect with her on Twitter. 

The tips you will find in all the three blog posts, that i’ve mentioned should give any beginner an idea of how to work your pictures and maybe give everyone else a few new ideas of blog improvement.
Please let me know, if you find such collective post’s helpful and interesting for the future. 
Thanks for reading, and happy experimenting!

Until next time – stay beautiful.