Not exactly a stop, as I will try and post a little while I am away for the holidays, but it may not be very regularly. This past weekend and (beginning) of week, I have been busily at work with my end of semester finals which has drastically reduced the amount of free time I have had available.
Four words:
Don’t do it.
Period.
This is going to be a very simplistic way of explaining it, but hopefully it will help you guys get the picture. Basically, the formation of a pimple occurs when there is a blockage of the pore by dead skin cells, oil, dirt, and various other forms of debris. This debris creates what is called an open comedone (a.k.a. a blackhead). From this stage, if the follicle is not cleared out, a papule can form. A papule looks like those large, painful, red bumps on your skin and these are the first stage on the way to becoming a pimple.
The dirt and debris have continued to accumulate within the follicle, but they have no where to go so it results in an unsightly (and painful) bump. Part of this pain is due to the follicular wall needing to expand to accommodate the increase in buildup, so the usually straight tube that is a normal follicle begins to expand on the sides until the base has swollen into a sort of oval shape.
Now when you go in and attempt to pop a papule, the pressure from your fingers results in pushing the bacteria down further and breaking the follicular wall. That is why you can sometimes feel a popping “sensation” even when nothing comes out. When your follicular wall is broken, the dirt and debris spills out into your skin in general and can cause more blockages in the surrounding area to form. Additionally, you will usually not remove all of the bacteria when you attempt to pop your pimple and so it will reappear, though maybe not immediately. Now when your papule gets that little whitehead on it that is filled with pus, it is especially bad to attempt to pop it. The pus is actually filled with white blood cells that are attempting to combat the bacterial infection in your pores and make the blemish go away.
What to do when you have a blemish:
In the case of a papule, take and ice cube wrapped in a paper towel and place it gently on the infected area for 5 to 10 minutes. This will help to take down both the redness and the swelling.
For a pustule, take a warm compress (a hot and damp washcloth) and hold it over the offending lesion for 5 to 10 minutes. This will, in most cases, cause the pustule to rupture naturally. At this point you can gently rock it around, back and forth, between your fingers to help remove the debris before applying a topical antibiotic.
For comedones (blackheads) place your fingers on either side of the comedone, parallel to each other. Stretch the skin apart slightly, come up from underneath the blackhead, and then gently rock your hands back and forth. Do NOT force a comedone to come out or it may become lodged in the follicle and form a papule/pustule.
Hope this was helpful!
Hey guys!
This is just going to be a quick update to let you know that I’ve been busy studying for my end-of-semester exam, but that I’m in the process of working out a bunch of new posts.
In the near future you can expect to see:
- Loads of reviews. I placed a large order with ELF cosmetics (their studio line especially) as well as having picked up a few things here and there along the way. I’ll be giving more in depth review of those products as I come to them.
- Skin care education! I’m currently in an Esthetics program where I am studying the skin and it’s functions in depth. I see no reason why not to share some of the knowledge. Expect to see some commonly thought beauty myths busted.
- The return of the youtube videos. I’m going to try and get a couple of new videos up at some point in the next week, though I make no promises that I’ll actually be able to do this.
So that’s pretty much it! I’ll try and get some of the start of these posts up by the end of this week.
Keep an eye out!
As part of my tie-in to returning to the blogging world, I thought I would share some photos from some of the work that has been keeping me busy lately. I recently had two shoots with Rikki Walker and Photos by Nicholas at WNC Studios in Mills River, NC. The images, I think, are amazing! The model has a great face for make-up application and a great personality to boot! Here are some of my favourite shots from our two shoots. If you’d like to see more, you can either check my facebook page or my modelmayhem portfolio. More pics after the jump!
Okay, so I know that I’ve been gone for quite a while now, but I’m hoping to be back in action once again. Unfortunately I got pretty bogged down dealing with working more hours at my old job and then I started school in the Blue Ridge Community College’s Esthetics program. Between all of those different things I haven’t really had a lot of spare time to really devote to blogging, however I plan on starting to make more time for my blog (and hopefully my youtube channel as well). So, with any luck, you can hope to see more posts from me in the future!
I would totally buy this RCMA pro palette from Make-up Mania. It’s incredible good quality foundations and it comes with color adjusters so you can work to make the perfect shade to match any clients needs.
However, with the $275 price tag, I don’t see this appearing in my kit in the near future. Wouldn’t it be cool, though?
I decided to combine the various things I got this week into one post.
First up, I went to Biglots! This past weekend and picked up a few things:
I picked up some blotting papers from Exfoliage, and then from left to right I got:
Revlon Super Lustrous Lipgloss in Gold Bling
Revlon Colorstay Lipliner in Clear
Revlon Blending Brush
And Revlon Nailpolish Sweet Thing in Barely Blush
Espect a review of the lipliner and lipgloss coming soon!
I also picked up a couple things from my work, as we just dropped a Red Dot “extra 50% off the lowest tagged price” sale.
The bag isn’t amazing quality, but $8 and in such an awesome color, I’m not going to say no! The shoes are ones I’ve been in love with for months, but wasn’t willing to pay full rpice on. For $7, though, they came home with me last night =)
I just got the 42-color double stack shimmer shadow and blush palette from Coastal Scents and I was completely pumped to try it out for the first time. I decided to do a look inspired by this photo of a Christmas tree, though it reminds me more of a fairy lights sort of thing than any thing else.
I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of this look (I had work pretty much as soon as I finished and I blanked). Here’s the list of products used, the inspirational photograph, and the video itself.
Next up: A video request from one of my subscribers. Stay tuned!
Products Used:
MAC Painterly Paint Pot
42 Color Doublestack Shimmer Shadow and Blush Palette
MAC Graphblack Technakohl
Coastal Scents Sterling Glitter
Cover Girl’s Lash Blast Mascara
Wet ‘N Wild Mega Pump Shimmer in St. Tropez
NYC Petal Lipstick
Rimmel Vinyl Lipgloss in Eastend Snob
Mixing medium is an amazingly useful product. It can transform just about any eyeshadow or pigment into liner, or it can simply make the colors more brilliant and adhere better. Just by itself, mixing medium is a great budget beauty item because it increases the versatility of nearly all of your eye products.
However, it can cost an arm and a leg at times. I have found a very cheap alternative to purchasing a mixing medium from a cosmetics company. Simple stop by any drugstore or grocery store and pick up a bottle of eyedrops! Now you might be thinking this is pretty silly, but I swear to you that this works.You could also use saline solution if you are a contact lense wearer, but I prefer the nozzle that is on eyedrops, instead.It drips just one or two at a time, as opposed to saline solution where it tends to come out of the bottle much faster.
Want to improve your make-up skills? Whether you’re looking to shore up your skills for personal happiness or for a career in make-up artistry, I have compiled a list of my favourite resources for anyone to refresh their skill sor learn brand new ones.
First up is Specktra. This is a community forum on all things beauty, but with a focus on MAC and make-up in general. This is a great resource to use for learning interesting techniques and product information.
Make-up Artist Magazine. This is an incredible magazine. It covers all aspects of make-up from film and television to print and runway work. They discuss techniques, interview famous artists in the field, and new products on the market. An amazing resource, too bad it only comes out every other month.
Model Mayhem Hair, Make-up and Styling forums. This set of forums is an incredible compendium of knowledge from people who have been in the business anywhere from 2 week to 20 years. You can learn so much from btoh groups. There is a particular focus on products and techniques that work well in photography.
Any book by Kevyn Aucoin. The man was an incredible artist and a prodigy within the word of make-up. Everything he did was incredible, and it was a sad loss for the make-up world when he passed away. His biography is also very good.
Stage Make-up by Corson, Glavan, and Norcross. This is a great resource for people interested in both special FX make-up, learning color theory, or working in the theater industry. There’s an incredible amount of valuable information in great detail within this book. Tip: Look for an older edition to save a TON of money.
The Beauty Bible or Don’t Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me by Paula Begoun. While I do not agree with Paula on her make-up “rules” and some of her application techniques I think are not necessarily ideal, she knows her stuff. These books are both great resources for learning about what products are really made of and what that means. Tip: Buying earlier editions of the book can save you money. Most of the information is still accurate (though antioxidant information is not as accurate in the older editions).
I hoped this helped out some of you. These are just some of my favourite resources. I also love to look at things online, especially blogs and youtube videos.