Does Makeup Expire, Really?

Makeup isn't like you food, is it? Even if they do claim to use every manner of fruit extract and every exotic natural oil in it to better protect your skin, it isn't like food, is it? Does makeup expire?

Makeup can be expensive. When you buy it and it goes to waste because you haven't been able to use it all up, it can be a bad feeling. You may be tempted to go and use makeup past the expiration date the label mentions, because you feel that it's just a bunch of chemicals that you need to use for cosmetic purposes. It isn't like medicine or food that need to go inside, is it?

Nevertheless, you need to understand that cosmetics do expire. You need to throw them away even if safety seems like a luxury. Even if things are quite uncertain in life, financially speaking, your cosmetic stash does need to be culled periodically to make sure that expired products have no place there.

But you have probably heard enough about how it is unsafe to keep makeup that's past its expiration date. You've heard that before. What you want to know is, why should it matter. Does makeup expire in the way food does? Does it get filled up with dangerous bacteria or something?

Well, since you ask, it actually does do that. Makeup does begin to grow bacteria after a certain period of time. You get streptococci and staphylococci and other such nasty bacteria that give you infections.  But not every kind of makeup tends to expire at the same rate.

When a product comes in a wand or tube - product like lipgloss or mascara for instance, it tends to dry out rather quickly since it's open. Not only does this affect how easily it goes on when you try to use it, it affects how hygienic it is as well. If you're worrying about this, you really should go with products that are cheaper so that you can replace them on a regular basis.

You shouldn't even just blindly trust the expiration date. Any time a product looks like it's changing color or its cracking or separating, it's been with you for too long. But here's a more specific guide that should answer the question does makeup expire.

If you have a product that comes  in a bottle that's completely closed off and the only way you can access it is through a pump, you can safely ignore the expiration date. The bottle completely protects the product inside.

On the other hand, products like lipstick, lip gloss and eye makeup should be regularly replaced. You should never keep any of these past six months. The eye pencil is the one exception to the rule. Even if it's something that's used in the eyes and the benefits all exposed, it tends to last quite a bit. You really have to pay attention to any expiration date on this, unless you plan on keeping it beyond a year.

It Makes So Much Sense to Learn to Cut Your Own Hair

When you are a civil engineer who needs to work far away from civilization because he needs to create civilization where there is none, how do you manage to look neat, tidy and trim? There isn't even a McDonald's around, leave alone a quality haircut shop. You realize that being an engineer who works out with big machines in the open, you can't afford to have normal 3 inch long hair. It's going to get messy really soon. You need short hair that's really well done. Well, that's why you'll find that civil engineers who work on oil rigs and other far out places learn how to cut your own hair.

If there are even two of you, you can learn how to cut each other's hair. The first thing we did was to buy a set of $50 clippers for everyone. And then, we downloaded YouTube videos off the Internet to see how it was done. We then drove 40 miles to the nearest barbershop to look closely at how a pro did it. It seemed quite simple.

So we were ready. We took out ourshiny new Clippers, figured out which clipper guards to use for the length of hair we wanted, and then we went at each other. Any decent set of clippers will come with a separate guard for different parts of the head. You'll need to be sure that you know which one goes where.

You mustn't be too disappointed with the results you get at first. Remember - if you're cutting a man's hair, it's usually much easier. You have less hair to worry about. To make sure that you always have less hair to worry about, never leave too much time pass between two haircuts. At first, it would be a good idea for you to go to a good haircut shop, get a great haircut, and then only do the trimming at home. To learn how to cut your own hair can be difficult if you start with an unruly head of hair.

As you learn to trim all the time, you'll get a feel for how properly cut hair is supposed to look. Of course, without really investing yourself in learning how to cut your own hair, you won't ever get great results that make people ask you if you're planning on opening your own shop where they could be regulars.

But it'll look quite decent, and think about the savings. When you consider the time you spend on getting haircuts, the money you pay, and everything else, you can easily save $500 a year.

Fun Cover Up makeup Tips

Do you take the greatest care to make sure that your facial skin is spa-treated, well-pampered and totally perfect? Well, then you don't really need to be reading about cover up makeup? For us mere mortals, the only reason we don't look like them, is that we don't have the time or the resources the for such a great care regimen (yeah right! That's the only reason). Well, whatever we want to tell ourselves, what it comes down to is that we need cover up makeup. We need to do something about our under eye circles. We need something done about our eyebrows that are so sparse you can see right through them.

There are so many of these things. Let's just start with these two. For dark under eye circles, what you need is eye cream, a nice synthetic brush, loose translucent powder, and a light concealer that's a little lighter than your own skin tone.

When you try to use cover up makeup for dark under eye circles, at first, you'll notice that it does something very strange. Every crinkle in the delicate skin of your eyes is quickly made extremely noticeable. It's like you're looking at them in high definition. So you need to conceal them first with creamy concealer.

In fact, it would be good idea to start out first of all, with quality eye moisturizer, and then to let it soak in for a few minutes. Once that's done, you need to take out your concealer and with the brush, use gentle strokes to cover everything. Your concealer goes on top of that, and the final coat with the translucent powder, goes on top of that. And that's it - cover up make up accomplished for dark under eye circles.

Next, what do you do about sparse eyebrows?

Your toolkit for this happens to be a pretty simple. You just need an eyebrow pencil, you need powder that's just a touch lighter than the color of your brows, and you need a tiny angled brush.

What is it that makes eyebrows rather sparse? Usually, women get to this state when they thought that their eyebrows rather to eagerly. Do this for too long, and your brows no longer begin to grow back quickly each time.They begin to show patchy areas baldness.

Of course, the situation can be helped. You just need to give your brows some time to recover. Until then, you need to use your eyebrow pencil to fill in the bald spots. Make sure that you don't use the pencil liberally all over your brow.

That looks just artificial. Look for a light textured pencil and fill the areas in with light strokes. Once you're done, you can finish up with brow powder. That's it - cover up make up accomplished.

Getting Great Anti-Fatigue Mats for your Kitchen to Help Your Tired-Out Feet

They first made anti-fatigue mats for the factory floor. Workers on a factory floor often need to stand in one place for hours and hours, working on whatever they're making. When you stand for that long on hard flooring, it can really take a toll on your bones and joints. And so, they came up with something called anti-fatigue mats - floor coverings that workers could stand on that made standing less stressful.

Manufacturers of those anti-fatigue mats though must have spent some time thinking of all the places they could find a market for their products. And it must have occurred to them that people who work in the kitchen often do spend hours on end standing there cooking, stirring, washing and so on. Couldn't they use these products to help their tired-out legs?

And so, they do make these for them too - a rubber mat that you can place in your kitchen to stand on while you are at the still or something. The idea is that if you're standing there for a long time, the cushioningof the surface you stand on can easily help you cut down on the discomfort you feel. At least, that's the theory.

Do you think you should buy an anti-fatigue mat for your kitchen? Do these products really do what they say they do?

Certainly, to stand on a nice rubber surface does feel nicer. An anti-fatigue mat though is so much more than just a soft surface. They do sell carpets and interlocking rubber mats or tiles. These do a reasonable job if what you're looking at is very light kitchen duty.

For real heavy-duty kitchen use, what you need is a real antifatigue mat. Such a mat is at least half an inch thick, and they make it with special material of the correct density to absorb foot pressure. When you buy such a product, look for something that isn't patterned. That could be pretty difficult to clean in a place like a kitchen where there are are lots of spills often.

Usually, they don't make these mats to blend in with the decor of your kitchen. They basically make these for industrial purposes. You're basically going to just get plain and drab-looking stuff. But do remember - you are getting this to perform well relieving foot stress for you. So if you could overlook how it looks, that could work out well.

The thing is,  when they just sell you soft mats for the kitchen, those are actually soft. Those won't do. For long hours standing, soft surface of really remove stress. What you're looking for is dense and somewhat hard rubber. It's not about feeling comfy. It's about helping your feet be healthy.

Go For The Anti Aging Ingredients. Not The Anti Aging Products

It never fails to happen. You look at the collection of anti-aging lotions and potions on your nightstand - stuff you've spent hundreds of dollars on already - and you promise yourself that never again do you want to fall for this again. And then, the next time you watch TV, you notice that they’ve come up with some kind of persuasive gimmick, and you find yourself wondering if it would be such a bad thing to spend just another $80, just in case. There is a one way you can keep this from happening - you can educate yourself in what anti-aging ingredients actually work.

Actually, an education in the subject would save you so much money. The cosmetics manufacturers totally make a living on pulling the wool over your eyes. Read a book like Paula Begoun’s Don't Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me, and you'll really begin to understand when to believe what the cosmetics manufacturers say, and even to decide that you know better.

Basically, if you could learn what anti aging ingredients work, all you'll need to do is to read the label on each product or brand and then find the one that has what you want. At the lowest price. You don't need to pay attention to anything they say in the advertisement, what celebrity endorses it, how attractive the container looks and how much it costs. You don't even need to know what brand it is. Just go straight for the ingredients list and you'll be done with it.

Okay, so what anti aging ingredients should you be looking for?

AHA and BHA are very important. When your skin's aging problems happen because of sun damaged and because you have naturally dry skin, AHA can be great for you then. It can help your skin retain more moisture and collagen. If you have oily skin, BHA can be great for the way it helps you control skin oil and the skin aging that occurs because of acne breakouts.

As you undoubtedly know from reading about all the cosmetic treatments that the celebrities love, collagen is important for smooth and supple skin. Look for a product that has retinol as one of its anti-aging ingredients, and you could come out on top. Retinol helps your skin retain more collagen. It even helps you produce more collagen. When you use retinol regularly, you'll even get better quality skin cells. Go for it.

Not all anti aging ingredients have unfamiliar names. Vitamin C and vitamin A together in any product is very good news. You can buy them separately. When you need to keep what collagen you have, products with these two ingredients will really go to work for you.

Excellent New High Tech Injectable Fillers Take To The Stage

It used to be that you had concerns about how your face was showing up wrinkles or lines, right away, you had either Botox to plan for, or, if you liked a rounder, plumper look, you could plan forinjectable fillers like collagen.

These days though, the world of injectable fillers has changed. We are no longer limited to just collagen alone. When you bring up injectables or implants, nothing can be as good as what your own body can supply. When you use external stuff, there's always the risk of your body rejecting it or having it not blend in as well. As you can probably guess by now, were talking about injectable fillers that actually use substances from your own body. That's where the trend is headed.

You have to be especially careful with facial injectables. For one thing, using artificial materials on your face doesn't really bring about the kind of effect you're looking for. And for another, our facial parts can be especially delicate and sensitive to foreign materials. It can be a great idea to bring in material from your own body to inject in your facial tissues to plump things up a bit.

Some people like to use an unflattering term for this new class of injectable fillers - they call them vampire injectables.

You're probably guessing by now that they use this term because these new products have something to do with your own blood. And you would be right. But it isn't anything to be afraid of or be disgusted by. It's a pretty brilliant idea.

What they do is, they just draw a little blood out of you veins. They process the blood to separate the platelets and the fibrin out, process it further, and produce a mixture called platelet rich plasma.

PRP happens to be the cutting-edge these days. And not just for cosmetic treatments, either. There are all kinds of bodily ailments that can be easily cured this way - arthritis pain, premature gray hair, injuries and so on. The kind of effects of PRP can have - they often make people think of stem cell therapy.

Right now, PRP treatments can be moderately expensive. But that's only because they are new. With time, they'll become quite inexpensive.

Okay, let's fill you in a little bit on why injectable fillers of this kind should be considered more effective than collagen or any of the other traditional stuff.

The great thing about injecting your tissues with PRP material is that the presence of this material makes your facial tissue began to regrow natural collagen and natural skin plumpers. That's the magic of PRP - it's not a kind of cosmetic treatment that does nothing but fix your wrinkles for a short time. It's an actual cure.

Contour Makeup for Heart-Shaped Faces

When a celebrity appears all pretty and dainty and blessed with a perfectly interesting face, we either marvel at their genes or we hint darkly how there's a lot that money can buy these days. There's one thing that we often don't think much about - contour makeup.

Just think about this - when they get those paparazzi shots of those celebrities and they don't have their makeup on, don't theyappear a lot more ordinary? Somehow, their entire shape seems changed. That's your sign right there. When Kim Kardashian has a lean and very interesting face when she is at some gala, but she appears with a face that's rounded out with puppy fat when she's caught off-guard, that's contour makeup right there.

Now you can't use contour makeup like they do. That kind of thing only works in the movies and photographs and strongly-lit red carpet events. Anyone wearing that kind of makeup to the office would look like a streetwalker.

The trick to using contour makeup is to do it in a way that seems barely noticeable in real life, and to get yet use it in a way that gets people thinking that you have face that's shaped the way you want them to see it.

In our example, we'll talk about heart-shaped faces.

Most the time,, women with heart-shaped faces have cheekbones that stand out. The usual mistake women make with contour makeup on such a face is, they will overdo it. This makes the face appear kind of pointy. You just need to know what parts of your face you want to darken to make them look less than prominent and what parts to use light highlighting makeup on, so that they appper to come forward and present themselves.

Okay, the first step in any contour makeup exercise is to apply primer all over for a soft and warm appearance. Once you're done with that, it's time to use the contouring product. To make something like your prominent cheekbones recede, use product that's one shade darker than your skin color. Use it  right under your cheekbones and on each side of your forehead - your temples.

Using your fingers, smoothe the contouring product along each side of your nose and also to the tip. Work it up to where your eyelids begin. The reason you should use your fingers and not a brush to put on contour makeup is that your fingers are warm and they will soften the product sufficiently.

Finally, to make everything blend in nicely use a brush to apply primer. Use the brush to blend downwards from your ear down to your cheekbones. Use a little highlighter on your eyelids to make your eyes appear higher, and that's it.