M.I.S.S. Michelle's Beauty Tip of the Week - D.I.Y. Facelift

I find a lot of skepticism in the claims of face creams and lotions, and I’ve tried hundreds of them over the years, and a popular trend in the world of face creams lately is the claim to sculpt, lift and chisel the skin on one’s face. In my experience, many of these types of creams cause the skin to feel tight and to look dehydrated, and essentially older and more tired; the polar opposite of healthy, young looking, beautiful skin, which is: Even in skin tone, moisturized, soft to the touch, yet smooth and firm on the forehead, around the eyes, and under the chin and neck. Through my experimentation with a variety of creams and lotions, I’ve discovered this week’s tip: That if you use a slimming cream on your face, it helps remove double chins, and excess facial fat, in the same manner it helps slim your abs and thighs. The result: A more sculpted neck, face, and chin looking years younger, and up to 15 pounds lighter!

Bliss’ Fat Girl Slim Can Also Help Sculpt and Define the Face

WHAT YOU NEED: A Slimming Cream like Bliss’ Fat Girl Slim – $29 Sephora
(See my review of this product on M.I.S.S. Michelle’s Beauty Picks of the Week: Convenient Truths. You’ll Want Them.)

INSTRUCTIONS:
1) Wash your face as you normally would. I prefer to use a gentle cleanser like Shiseido’s ‘The Skincare’ Extra Gentle Cleansing Foam, with a washcloth. To learn more about the benefits of using washcloths to cleans the skin, check out M.I.S.S. Michelle’s Beauty Tip of the Week – About Face: Why Washcloths Rule

2) Apply your moisturizer.

3) Now apply the slimming cream to the areas where you want more definition: For example, I like to apply the slimming cream to: Under and around the chin and neck, on the sides of the face, my forehead, and the tops of my cheekbones. BE CAREFUL NOT TO GET IN EYES.

4) Apply sunscreen, and makeup.

I was not on any sort of diet and had not lost any weight when I started using this slimming cream technique on my face, I’ve been very happy with the results, which I first noticed about a week later.

Enjoy and stay posted for more beauty tips and picks to come next week!

M.I.S.S. Michelle's D.I.Y. Shimmering Bronzing Cream for the Face and Body

Now that it’s almost summer I’ve been super obsessed with that summer glow needed to go with those summer jams, and this week’s beauty post, which I recently found by accident, is a D.I.Y. RECESSION BUSTER tip on how to make a shimmer bronzer for face and body. One night while rushing to get ready to go out, and out of my Lorac Award Show Glow, I decided I needed to step my already faux and real tan combo up a notch, so I did some last minute beauty experimentation with some products I had laying around the bathroom. Bless my lucky stars this impromptu creation worked, and so well apparently that M.I.S.S. Liz, who is very much a true sun worshipper, positively approved. So hell yes you can get a quick and not so dirty faux sho’ tan, and the following steps will show you how.

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This week’s RECESSION BUSTER TIP is a D.I.Y. face/body scrub made from nuts and honey, which a great alternative to manufactured, chemically processed skin scrubs, and is also an INEXPENSIVE and TOTALLY NATURAL way to cleanse and exfoliate the skin.

What You Will Need:
1/8 cup Uncooked Almonds or Apricot Seeds
2 Tablespoons Honey
Yields: 15 Face Applications or 3 Body Applications

Read on for the complete instructions! Read the full story

Michelle Kwan says she’s a “relatively normal girl” just trying to do her thing like everybody else but this lady is next level! Every Tuesday, Michelle comes at the world with new beauty picks and tips in her column M.I.S.S. Michelle’s Beauty Picks and Tips of the Week. She is always on point, puts in the time and does the research to bring our readers the latest and greatest in beauty products and we are more than proud to have her as our first Women Making History 2009 feature!

Get to know a little more about Michelle:

I love all aspects of fashion and publishing, and until recently, I worked for Time Warner in advertising, getting my start as an intern at Surface and Intersection magazines. I’ve also worked in fashion design and marketing, with clients like Chanel and Jurlique as well. For M.I.S.S., I write a weekly beauty blog called M.I.S.S. Michelle’s Beauty Picks and Tips of the Week.

I love the artistic mediums of style and fashion, culture and writing; through which, my goal is to creatively help people enjoy beautiful and healthy lifestyles. I feel inner beauty, outer beauty, self-esteem, and self confidence are all very tightly and complexly interwoven, and play a critical role in the well being of women today. The beauty blog is intended to assist women in their beauty options and purchases as there are such an overwhelming amount of competitive products in the cosmetics market. My reviews are based on my personal experiences with each product, and I carefully consider all the following when I make my assessments: Quality, value, accessibility, and pricing. I like to use a variety of products ranging in price point and accessibility, for I think beauty is attainable at all income levels, and bearing in mind the troubled state of our economy, I recently started to integrate RECESSION BUSTER Tips and Picks to represent the more discerning consumer akin to myself. I particularly like the research involved in my D.I.Y. Beauty Tips, cause if you can make it yourself and make it naturally, AND for less money, you definitely should give it a go, plus it’s fun.

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Whether it has to do with your relationships, job, or family, it’s all too easy to get caught up in your head sometimes when things go wrong. This week’s tip, M.I.S.S. Michelle’s D.I.Y. Wish Box, is a quick and inexpensive approach to being beautiful and healthy on the inside as well as on the outside, starting your own thoughts. A few years ago, after researching Creative Visualization or the technique of using positive thoughts and feelings to influence the attainment of your goals, I gave Wish Box Kits to friends and family as Christmas gifts. Books like The Secret, and spiritual gurus like Deepok Chopra suggest using Creative Visualization in order to form the life you want and to improve your overall well being by bringing your goals and desires to the forefront of your consciousness. The Wish Box is a fine example of how anyone can incorporate Creative Visualization into his or her life in a few simple steps, and is this week’s D.I.Y. Tip.

What you need:
1) Box with a lid in any design that is important to you.
HINT: I like red boxes, since red is the Chinese color for good luck and prosperity.

2) Objects symbolizing your goals.
HINTS:
Objects symbolizing romance are hearts
Objects symbolizing wealth are coins.
Objects symbolizing travel is a photo/picture of the destination.
Objects symbolizing stability are rocks.

Instructions:
Take the box and place objects in it representing what you are wishing for (i.e. romance, new job, wealth, happiness, travel, peace of mind). You can also write down specifically what these goals are, and/or how you envision your life, and include this in the box as well. Just being conscious of what you are wishing for usually helps destiny fill its course. Remember, the Wish Box is all about YOU, so anything you feel is important to you can go inside. Trust me, this really works!

Enjoy and stay posted for more beauty tips and picks to come next week!

My nails are painted for months at a time. Damn, when you say it out loud, you start to realize how strange the acknowledgement really is, and then when I actually start to think about what this means – that my nails are covered in layers of lacquer for something like 50 weeks a year, the whole notion seems even more absurd. With all this in mind, I decided to give my nails a break, a summer vacation if you will, and let them “breathâ€? without polish for a couple weeks. It was through being on nail polish hiatus, and having naked nails, that I realized to what extent cooking, cleaning, gardening, and just living; how all these actvities stain one’s nails, and that is how I came up with his week’s tip: A fast and inexpensive way to make a NAIL WHITENER with common household ingredients.

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