Some people have eyelashes so long, that they could probably set a hurricane blowing through distant islands on the other side of the world when they blink. Long, lush eyelashes are great, and they can really open up a person’s eyes, but genetics tends to be a bit of a crapshoot in that department, and for those of us who pulled the short lashes card out of the genetic lottery, worry not! Lush lashes aren’t impossible.

If you want dramatically longer lashes, false eyelashes and eyelash extensions are available just about anywhere. There are even products like Talika lipocils that claim to actually lengthen your eyelashes by nourishing them.

If you would prefer a subtler effect, all you need to do is use a little mascara and a bit of eye makeup; and don’t forget to pick out the best eyelash curler for you and your lashes. A little curl to the lashes can actually go a long way.

The great thing about false eyelashes, or falsies, is that you don’t necessarily have to go to a salon to apply them. They can come in all sorts of designs and colors, and if you want extra-flashy peepers, falsies are the way to go.

You can buy false eyelashes in most beauty stores or drugstores, although if you want special kinds of falsies; sets with feathers and sequins, brightly colored ones, or even ones made to look like parts of a spider web, you may have to dig around online or in specialty stores.

To apply false eyelashes, you usually have to use adhesive to stick them to your lash line. Most falsies come in a kit, and have their own adhesive. Some brands don’t come with them though, but there are a lot of reliable cosmetic adhesives for false eyelashes you can try. For more realistic lashes, the individual strands are usually different lengths, and you can use a pair of small scissors to trim them before applying them.

To stick your falsies on, you usually have to apply the adhesive to the false eyelashes’ lashband and wait a bit, so that the adhesive isn’t runny when you stick them on. Don’t touch the band when you put a false eyelash on; hold it by the hairs, starting from the out corner of your eye and working inward. Place it as close to your actual lash line as possible, making sure that they are firmly affixed as you go along. Try to avoid squeezing your eyes shut too tightly before the glue has dried completely. Afterwards, if you want even more natural-looking lashes, you can curl and apply a bit of mascara.

With false eyelashes, you only have to stick one whole piece onto each eye, but with eyelash extensions, synthetic fibers are applied to individual lashes to make them look longer and more full. This can take a lot of time and effort, but the effect is usually much more natural, and eyelash extensions normally last for a while longer. You can wear eyelash extensions while sleeping, and even while swimming or showering, and they come in all kind of colors and lengths.

Usually, attaching eyelash extensions can take up to two hours, with around thirty to eighty lashes for each eye, but because they’re bonded to each individual lash, the effect, while dramatic, is also a lot more realistic.

If you don’t want to use falsies or go through the trouble of applying extensions, curling your lashes can be a great way to open up your eyes and make your lashes look fuller. Of course, to get the best kind of effect, you have to use the best eyelash curler.

An eyelash curler usually looks like a funky pair of scissors or tweezers, normally made of plastic or metal. It’s a good idea to get eyelash curlers with pads that could be removed, since the pads on eyelash curlers usually need to be replaced once every two months. Some brands of eyelash curlers actually have built-in pad refills, so for easy pad replacement.

To accomplish a nice, natural-looking curled effect that stays, it’s best to heat your eyelash curlers a little bit. Doing this can make a really big difference in how your eyes look, but be warned that it poses a higher risk of injury than regular eyelash curling.

To do this, the best eyelash curlers for the job are usually metal ones, since metal conducts heat much better than plastic does. You can heat up your eyelash curlers using a blow dryer. Or, for only a small amount of money more, you can get a heated eyelash curler that heats the pads on its own. Usually, these handy little gadgets are battery powered, but there are some that you can recharge or attach to an AC or DC adaptor.

A warm eyelash curler ensures that your lashes will conform to their new shape more easily, and stay that way for longer, but you will have to be careful and make sure that the curlers aren’t too hot; you wouldn’t want to burn your eyelids, after all.

Whatever method you want to use to make your eyelashes seem longer and thicker; whether it be using false eyelashes, eyelash extensions, or finding the best eyelash curler, it’s a great idea to supplement the look with a little eyeliner and mascara. After all, when applied correctly, a little makeup can actually go a pretty long way.

Tags: Makeup, Miscellaneous by admin
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There are a lot of different ways for people to express themselves. Of course, not everybody has the time and resources to create a giant marble statue or write a series of novels. For most people, self-expression can be a matter as simple as putting on a particular kind of shirt, or wearing an interesting hat. For some people, self-assertion can go a little further than simply accessorizing and can be a little more… permanent.

Part of the appeal of body art like tattoos and body piercings, is that they can declare a person’s sense of identity and point of view, even when they’re going au natural. Between these two forms of body art, more people tend to do body piercing than tattoos though; especially since piercings are usually easy to do than tattoos.

As far as the question of how to take care of body piercing is concerned, barring infections or any other kinds of problems, it’s usually pretty easy. The body piercing side effects, on the other hand, can range from completely negligible, to excruciatingly painful. Of course, these depend on where the piercing will be located.

If you’re willing to take the pain that can come with piercing and the subsequent healing process, you can have piercings just about anywhere in the body. You can even have your genitals pierced; if that’s the way you want to express yourself.

Not very many people in Westernized societies are inclined to do this, but those who do often claim that the pierced erm… areas enjoy enhanced sensitivity and that the sexual experience is improved.

Uh. OK.

It might be worth it for some people, but for a lot of others, the unbelievable pain that, say, a Prince Albert or an Isabella might involve, simply doesn’t have enough of a payoff to make up for the horror of having your sensitive bits get stabbed through with a needle or a piercing gun. And that doesn’t even take into account the recovery periods that these piercings require.

On the issue of how to take care of body piercings in these places, a Prince Albert, which is a piercing through the head of a man’s… man-bits, has a healing period of two to four weeks. The Isabella piercing, which goes through the shaft of a woman’s clitoris, has one that is two to three months long.

Of course, there are a lot of other, less sensitive places to get piercings.

The most common and socially acceptable places for people –women in particular- to get piercings are on the lower lobes of the ears. These spots are pretty easy to take care of, and since ear lobes are mostly fatty tissue with hardly any nerve endings anyway, they hardly hurt at all, once the deed has been done. Other common places to get body piercings are on the nostril, the lip, belly button, and eyebrows.

Regardless of where you want to puncture that hole in your anatomy, once the deed is done, you will have to watch out for body piercing side effects, like the swelling that might initially happen during the healing process.

When you get pierced, usually, to make sure that the hole created by the needle or gun keeps, a piece of jewelry is placed there to make sure that the piercing keeps. This piece of jewelry is normally a stud or a barbell, which you may have to get replaced every now and then, especially if the area around the piercing swells too much.

Once your piercing starts healing, a white or yellowish discharge might show up on your jewelry. If there isn’t too much pain or swelling, you don’t have to worry; this is a normal part of the healing process. If there’s a lot of pain, and the area swells up a lot though, you might have an infection on your hands, and when this happens, it’s a good idea to get it checked by a doctor.

To keep infections and other problems, like blood-transmitted diseases, from happening, make sure that you get pierced by a professional who uses sterile instruments and practices good hygiene. You’ll also want to make sure that your piercing heals properly by keeping it clean with soap and water (never alcohol or hydrogen peroxide; these may kill germs, but they dry out the skin and slow down the healing process, too) and taking zinc and iron supplements, which will help your body heal more quickly.

Wherever you get your piercing; be it as innocuous as pierced ear lobes to something as radical as an Isabella, you will still always have to be careful so that you won’t have to suffer through body piercing side effects like infection, excessive swelling, or allergic reactions. You will have to learn how to take care of body piercings.

Tags: Miscellaneous by admin
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Dark circles under eyes and lines around mouths are often signs of stress, and they can age a person’s face by decades. Nothing says “I haven’t had any sleep last night and I’m having a bad week, so stay the **** out of my way!” like undereye circles and a mean look.

But stress and fatigue aren’t the only causes of undereye darkness.
There are a lot of different reasons why people get dark circles under eyes.

If you’re one of those people who still have eye bags or what some might call “raccoon attacks” even after a relatively relaxing work week and lots of good sleep for example, your undereye circles problem might actually be hereditary.

For almost everybody, the skin is thinnest on and around the eyelids. This skin is called periorbital skin, and for some people the skin is so thin, it’s almost translucent. This means that blood passing through the veins near the surface of the skin in this area will usually give it a slightly darker –even bluish- tint.

Eye-rubbing, a habit that a person can develop especially if they have asthma, allergies, or any kind of condition that might make their eyes itch, can also create undereye circles. When you rub or scratch the skin around your eyes, more blood rushes to that area, and because the skin there is so thin, it can look pretty obvious.

If you have hay fever for example, you might get undereye darkness that comes and goes with the hay fever season. So if you want to look fresh, even through the allergy season, keep your antihistamines handy, and keep your hands off your eyes!

Certain medications that make blood vessels dilate and increase the flow of blood under the skin can make undereye darkness quite evident, especially if you’re one of those people who have naturally pale skin.

Other medical conditions, like anemia, can also cause dark circles under eyes. Iron deficiency, a very common kind of anemia, can make skin look much paler. This often makes the veins and discolored skin under a person’s eyes stand out even more.

Aside from being an indicator for a possible iron deficiency, dark circles under a person’s eyes can be a sign of other kinds of medical problems, like vitamin B6 deficiency, dehydration, bad circulation, or simply age.

Still, even though this is a fairly common problem that a lot of people have to deal with permanently, not everybody has to worry about undereye darkness all the time. Some get them only when they’re really tired.

Fatigue can make a person’s skin grow pale, which makes the blood under the thin skin of the area around the eyes really visible.
Whatever the cause of discoloration under a person’s eyes though, unless you’re trying to go for a very specific kind of look, it’s not really something desirable to have.

I had a long night last night, and I have to deal with unsightly undereye darkness right now. After coming home late from work last night, I got call from one of my friends asking if I could meet up with her for a few drinks and a little commiseration. She had broken up with her boyfriend, and she wanted someone to talk to.

As a friend, I knew that I couldn’t refuse, even after a having worked overtime that night. Five hours and half a bottle of tequila later, I finally staggered into bed. Two hours later, I oozed out of bed so that I could drag myself back to work. When I looked at myself in the mirror that morning, I was horrified by what I saw.

I looked like death warmed over. My skin was pale, my eyes were bloodshot, and I had undereye circles so dark, it looked as if I’d painted them on. I looked like I had aged at least ten years! I still had a long commute ahead of me, and if I wanted to look presentable, I knew that I had to get rid of my “raccoon attack” first, at least.

One of the best ways to get rid of dark circles under eyes in a pinch is to cover them up with makeup. Try using concealer with yellow or warm peach tones. Usually, the undereye circles are blue, purple or brownish in color, and using a warm-colored concealer will cancel out those colors, regardless of your skin tone. For a more seamless effect that will also ensure that your concealer won’t rub off or fade too quickly, lightly dust the area with translucent powder.

If you have a little more time to get rid of your undereye darkness though, you can try and soothe the skin and reduce the discoloration by regularly placing slices of cucumber or damp, refrigerated tea bags over your eyes. The soothing effects of both tea and cucumber can really help make dark circles under your eyes disappear.

Tags: Health For Beauty, Makeup, Miscellaneous, Skin by admin
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