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What’s Your Skin Tone? | hwh<3
You already know this, but skin is by far the largest organ in the human body. Everybody can see your skin and everyone has a different color and tone. The color of your skin comes mostly from your ethnic background, although sun exposure or dye can alter it. Everyone has either a warm or cool undertone. You’re probably thinking “that’s cool, but why does this matter on a hair blog?” Well, it matters because your hair color, make-up, or clothes can either accentuate it or degrade it.
Obviously, we want to accentuate it, which will make us look more flattering. But before we can play it up, we need to figure out what our skin tone is.
I made a chart of roughly some skin colors and tones that you can try to match up to your skin.
Naturally I am fair-skinned, since I am Irish/German descent (which is as white as they come). However, I tan pretty regularly in the sun or tanning beds (which is bad because my good friend just got stage 2 melanoma removed) but I can’t help it. I hate not being tan. It feels so nice to lay out in the sun during the summer. Just be careful not to burn. I also use self-tanning lotions and get spray tans done which can make me really dark. As of now, I fall into the tan category.
A good way to tell if your skin tone is warm or cool is to look at the veins in your forearm. If they are blueish, then you have cool tones. If they are greenish, your skin is a warm tone.
I have always thought that my skin tone is warm, because I naturally turn reddish colors when I am tan. However, I do believe, after writing this article, that my skin tone is cooler. My veins in my arm are blue. I also look better with cooler colors. Green, blue, purple, magenta and silver eye shadows are the most flattering to me. I can do okay with yellow, gold and orange but they are not as good. Red is a really hard color for me to wear. Red eye shadow works okay for me sometimes, but I look absolutely horrible with red lipstick. I don’t really ever wear lipstick. I usually just use chapstick or sometimes nude-colored lip gloss.
Anyways, the other thing you can try is to hold aluminum foil up to your face in regular light. Make sure your face is clean, with no make-up, lotions, etc on. If the silver foil accentuates your face, you are cool toned. If it looks bad, then you can try gold foil. If the gold foil looks better than the silver, you are warm toned. You can do the same thing with a plain white piece of paper.
Did you learn something new about skin tones? Leave your feedback in the comments! If you liked this article, check out What Shape is Your Face? How to Tell.
Read more about my research about HAIR in HAIR 101.
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MICAbella and Sugarpill Cosmetics | hwh<3
Soooo I’m kinda obsessed with a couple of new make-up products.
I’ve always been a MAC girl, and don’t get me wrong, I’ll always love the stuff. My make up bag is full of so many different MAC colors. I try to do my make-up different everyday and I love crazy vibrant stuff. But recently, one of my customers and friends brought me a couple of MICAbella glitter eyeshadows since she thought they would be something I’d like. The colors are purple and gold. I absolutely love them. Now I am seeing MICAbella everywhere. I can’t wait to buy more different colors. I have always been a sucker for glitter, and they have so many different shades. They are so vibrant and awesome.
*Photo from micabellacosmetics.ca
If you want to check some out for cheap, click here.
The other new eye makeup I just discovered is called Sugarpill. It is amazing!
*Photo from kraseybeauty.com
There are so many awesome vibrant colors and I absolutely love it. Although I haven’t yet tried Sugarpill, I plan on buying some ASAP. You’ll have to buy it through its website here.
I was going to try to post pics of these colors on people, but I don’t know if that would leave me with a copyright issue, so remember, Google images is your friend.
Have you tried MICAbella or Sugarpill? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments.
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50 Fun Facts about Cosmetics | hwh<3
1. Make-up in regulated by the FDA along with food, over-the-counter drugs, and medical devices. They could stop the sale of any cosmetic product if they see it unsafe.
2. The word “cosmetic” comes from the Greek word kosmos, which means “of this world or worldly.”
3. Because you wash your hands more than your face, it is not good to match make-up to the skin tone on your hands. This could make you chose a darker or redder tone.
4. Women used to pinch their cheeks to give themselves rosy cheeks before blush was invented.
5. Ground fish scales can be used to add shimmer to lipstick and eye shadow.
6. Bubble bath, mouthwash and deodorant are all considered cosmetics.
7. The world’s first EVER cosmetics were created from copper and lead ore by ancient Egyptians.
8. The first makeup was used when Egyptian women painted their eyes, applying dark color under the eyelid and blackening their eyelashes.
9. In the old days, make up was used to frighten enemies, show a social rank or make magic.
10. The founder of Maybelline named the company after his sister Maybel who inspired him to create make up products.
11. “Hypoallergenic” means that the manufacturer feels the product is less likely to cause an allergic reaction.
12. When the term “natural ingredients” is used, it means they are extracted directly from plants or animal products.
13. Nestle owns a quarter of the world’s largest cosmetic company, L’Oreal.
14. MAC stands for Make-up Art Cosmetics.
15. 60% of 12-year-old girls use cosmetics.
16. Keeping make-up out of sunlight prevents destroying the preservatives in it.
17. The ancient Romans considered wrinkles, freckles, sunspots, skin flakes and blemishes to be unfavorable. To soften wrinkles, they used swan fat or donkey milk. Sores and freckles were treated with the ashes of snails.
18. Egyptians used henna to stain their nails before nail polish was invented.
19. The first nail polish was invented in China in 3000 B.C. by mixing egg whites, beeswax, gum and colored powder.
20. In 3000 B.C. pale was desirable. People had to “bleed themselves” by using leaches or cutting into a vein to achieve this look.
21. In 1400, it was popular for women to be hairless. They would shave their heads and pluck their eyebrows and eyelashes completely out.
22. The most common injury caused by make-up is scratching the eye with a mascara wand.
23. In ancient Egypt, the beauty regime was very complicated. It began with a walk and applying incense pellets to their underarms as a form of deodorant. Then, while sitting at a mirror, servants brought grinders and applets used for daily make-up. The servants mixed malachite with oil derived from animal fat to create eye shadow. The servant applied the eye shadow with a small ivory stick carved on one end, and then lined the eyes with black kohl. Red ochre was used as lipstick.
24. Acne is the most common skin problem in teenagers.
25. Except for color additives and a few prohibited ingredients, a cosmetic manufacturer may use almost any raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without an approval from FDA.
26. In the Elizabethan era, coat tar was used as eye liner, mascara and eyebrow pencil. Unfortunately, it smelled bad, caused blindness and is flammable.
27. In the Victorian era, upper class women did not wear any makeup, since it was only used by stage actresses, working class women and prostitutes.
28. Nightingale feces is used in geisha facials. It is applied wet and allowed to dry. It’s supposed to diminish wrinkles and said to be a great exfoliator.
29. Underarm hair was first said to be unfeminine by the Wilkenson Sword razor company in 1915 after a woman appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine without any.
30. Coco Chanel started the trend to be tan after she tanned herself on a cruise.
31. Mum crème deodorant was developed in Philadelphia in 1889. The main ingredient was aluminum chlorhydrate.
32. In 1952, roll on deodorant was inspired by the ball-point pen.
33. After Coco Chanel popularized tanning, fake tan started to flood the market. But in the Asian region, the skin whitening products were more popular since Asians prefer paler skin.
34. A popular therapy called “urine therapy” is used by many celebrities to stay healthy and beautiful. This includes rubbing your first urine of the day on your face, and / or drinking a few drops :-/
35. In the 1400′s, women whitened their faces with “ceruse,” which was made from vinegar and powdered lead. Ceruse rapidly ate the skin away, causing the need to apply more than one layer. It eventually killed the person.
36. After a while, the lead in ceruse was replaced with zinc oxide.
37. Drinking a lot of water adds an instant glow to your face.
38. Natives of New Zealand tattoo their faces with swirls called “Moko”. This beauty ritual is considered sacred and dates back hundreds of years.
39. The United States has the highest rate of cosmetic surgery in the world.
40. Ancient Roman toothpaste contained ammonia from human urine, which whitened the teeth.
41. Cochineal is a red dye made of ground up beetles, and was used in ancient Incan and Aztec civilizations to color lips and nails red.
42. In the 1930′s, a product called “Lash Lure” was sold in the U.S. as permanent mascara. It blinded more than a dozen women and killed one.
43. In the 17th and 18th century, women dilated their eyes with drops from a plant called Belladonna, as it was considered attractive. Long term use damaged the eyes and lead to blindness.
44. Acne and burn patients in the U.K. may be treated with vavelta, a clear liquid that contains skin cells that rejuvenate and revitalize damaged skin from the inside out. These skin cells, called fibroblasts, are isolated from foreskins donated by mothers of circumcised baby boys.
45. In ancient Rome, “cosmetae” (where the word cosmetologist came from) were female servants who applied cosmetics to wealthy Roman women and bathed them in perfume. It is also said that cosmetae dissolved various cosmetic ingredients in their own saliva.
46. Dying your hair black in ancient Rome involved feeding leeches, putting them in vinegar, leaving the substance to ferment for two months and thicken into a paste, then applying the mixture to the hair and allowing it to dry for a day.
47. When waterproof mascara entered the beauty industry in 1938, it was made of 50% turpentine.
48. Cleopatra was known to soak her ship’s sails in perfume so the fragrance would reach Rome (and Marc Antony) before she did.
49. In Vietnam and other parts of Asia, women and men take part in the ritual of “teeth blackening” to enhance sex appeal, maintain healthy teeth, and not be mistaken for an evil spirit.
50. Dermatologist tested does not mean dermatologist approved.
Do you have any more fun facts about cosmetics that I did not list? Please leave them in the comments!
If you liked this article, check out 100 Random Facts about HAIR
To learn more interesting facts, check out HAIR 101!
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TIGI Cosmetics Candy Lipgloss | hwh<3
Note: This picture is from ciao-beautiful.com
TIGI Cosmetics, you are brilliant. If you read my previous article about my obsession with TIGI Bedhead Candy Fixations, you would know I love the stuff. I do know that TIGI has a cosmetics line because I bought some green and purple eyeliner on clearance at Cosmoprof. The colors are so bright and vibrant and I love them. I wear them all the time. Besides that fact, I haven’t dabbled too much with TIGI cosmetics. What I didn’t know until about five minutes ago, is that there is a Candy Fixation lip gloss line as well. They come in five flavors, which are the same flavors as the hair product line: Crème Brulee, Marshmallow, Grape Tarts, Lemon Meringue, and Peppermint. They seem pretty awesome! Check ‘em out here!
Please let me know if you have an experience with TIGI Cosmetics. I would love to know more about them.
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