Beauty News: Size Restriction on Carry-on Liquids to be Dropped

Photo by Msmail at Flickr.com
Good news! Soon you'll have no more headaches packing your precious creams and shampoos when travelling by plane. Starting Fall 2009 US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will remove size restrictions on personal care products to be carried on the plane. This change will be possible due to introduction of new advanced X-ray equipment which will allow to differentiate between safe and dangerous liquids. However, liquids will still need to be placed into a separate plastic bag. This will be temporary as US TSA plans to upgrade X-ray software by the End of 2010 to make it possible to spot dangerous liquids even if they are hidden in a carry-on suitcase.
I do hope this very welcome change will happen in Europe as well without any delays.

Source: www.tsa.gov/blog/

Makeup Trend: Fall/Winter 2008-2009 Lips

Here is a look at trends for lips current Fall/Winter 2008-2009.

NEUTRAL LIPS

Matte beige or beige with a touch of pearl lip color created with the help of a lipstick or foundation as at Bora (according to Glamour magazine (Russia)). You can also create neutral lips with a transparent gloss as seen at Miss Sixty.


BRIGHT RED

If you like sexy red, make sure lipstick is matte and lip contours are accurately defined.


DARK LIPS

Dark lip color was spotted at Ossie Clark's, YSL's, Derek Lam's and many other shows. At times lipstick appears to be just black!.. as seen at Giles


WINE STAINED

Lips as if stained from drinking red wine - sexy, bold and romantic...

Makeup Trend: Fall/Winter 2008-2009 Eyes

This is somewhat belated short overview of makeup trends for the current fall/winter 2008/2009 as seen on runways.

EYELINER

Create dramatic eye with liquid/pencil eyeliner or you can use black eye shadow as seen at Karl Lagerfeld. The trend is to apply eyeliner on both upper and lower eye rims. You can also be more creative and focus on outer or inner eye corners. My own favourite look is the cat makeup as seen at Jean Paul Gaultier’s show.


FALSE EYE LASHES

Maximize your eyelashes! False eyelashes were seen at many shows including Versace, Dior and Etro. Elley Kishimoto’s models were wearing color eyelashes.


COLOR EYE SHADOW

Brighten up your autumn days with colors! Choose the one that suits you! Blue, purple, orange, pink... From all of these blue seems to be most popular.
As seen in the photo below, eyeshadow is applied either to both upper and lower eyelids or to the upper and, in this case, not blended. My personal favourite is Miss Sixty.

ARTISTIC EYE SHADOW

You might want to recreate exaggerated artistic looks seen at Dior, John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood (sorry couldn’t find good photo of the latter)



Coming soon: Makeup trends for lips Fall/Winter 2008/2009

Beauty Talk: How to Relieve Eye Puffiness -– Looking for the most effective ways!

Recently I have been testing various ways to relieve eye puffiness. You must have come across all of these recommendations listed below. I was looking for the most effective, convenient and fastest.

Here is what I tested:

Applying cold eye gel mask

Applying masks from cucumber or potatoe slices

Applying a ready-made cloth mask (Estee Lauder’s Anti-Stress)

Applying cotton balls/pads or cloth soaked in cold milk over eyelids.

Applying freshly brewed and cooled tea bags

Sleeping on 2 pillows with my head raised

Test 1: Cold gel mask

I know cold is supposed to be very effective at relieving swelling but I was not so impressed with the effect. First of all, it is a trial for my patience to spend 10-15 minutes lying with the mask on my face when I have so many things to do. Second of all, I did not see much effect after application. Swelling did subside a bit but not so noticeably.

I also saw some recommendations of applying cubes of ice to reduce swelling, so I decided to put the mask into a freezer. Upon application, my eyeballs felt frozen in just 5 seconds. It hurt! I think it can be dangerous to put very cold/frozen masks on your eyes for a long period - as you can get a worse health problem than just puffy eyes.

Test 2: Eye mask Anti-Stress from Estee Lauder (cooled in freezer)

Estee Lauder’s Anti-Stress Mask is amazing in its ability to moisturize the thin skin around eyes. However, just cold masks did not take away the puffiness. When combined with cold gel mask, it did show result! It took though about 20 minutes wearing the mask and 2-3 short-term application of a very cold gel mask over the Anti-Stress mask.


Test 3: Cotton pads soaked in milk

I read many times that makeup artists resort to cold milk when they need to sooth irritated skin or swelling. This mask really worked! I had to make 2 applications though. First, with the eyes shut and pads over leads, then I folded them in the center soaked again, put into fridge for 3 minutes and applied just under my eye. After 5 minutes I could see the effect!
Then I decided to make these masks a bit colder and put them for 1 minute into freezer. After all of this trouble my puffiness was almost completely gone.

Test 4: High Pillow

In the morning I did see that due to high pillow my eyes were less puffy – or was it just a good day for me!? I applied gel mask for a few minutes and then followed up with my cream. I have to say, I was very impressed by the effect of sleeping with a more raised head and started sleeping only on a high pillow after that.


Test 5: Cucumber mask

Cucumber and potato contain natural astringents. It means that upon topical application they tend “to shrink or constrict body tissues”. Cucumber masks did show results. I cut thin slices and applied over the leads. After 2 applications the swelling subsided but I could feel the skin getting very tight as if “shrinking”. So I am wondering if using astrigent containing masks could be not so good for the thin skin as it dries it out or causes a slight stress.

Test 6: Potato mask

Potato masks worked as well as cucumbers. Could see results after application of thin slices 2 times for 3-5 minutes. But I experienced the same feeling of tightness.


Test 7: Cooled tea bags

I tried 2 types of tea: black tea and chamomile. Though, again, I was not very impressed, I have to mention that chamomile tea seemed more effective to me than the black tea.

Conclusioon:

High pillow prevents much of the swelling. It can be hard to get used to sleeping on a high pillow but it is worth the trouble.

Cold relieves the swelling but cold compress used alone is not so effective. Use it in combination with a mask (moisturizing or anti-inflammatory)

Pads soaked in milk applied to eyelids are very effective at relieving swelling and don’t cause the feeling of tightness or dryness.

So now what I do upon waking up, if I see any swelling, I apply pads soaked in milk 1 or 2 times and then either apply a moisturizing mask if I feel the skin really needs it or apply my usual moisturizing cream. You can apply your moisturizer with circular anticlockwise movements (without stretching the skin!), finish up with light padding using your ring finger (which is supposed to be the weakest one!). Such light massage will also help to relieve the swelling.


Update 29.10.08: Here is a tip from Eva Mendes, InStyle US, Oct 2008:
"I often wake up puffy in the morning, so I do a very old-fashioned thing: I fill up a bowl with lots of ice and some witch hazel, and stick my face in the bowl over and over."

Read about the possible reasons for eye puffiness in my previous post.