G I R L - G U I D E ♀️ www.girlcode.blog

Those who are comfortable in their own skin, confident in their beliefs and abilities, and are accepting of who they are do not feel the need to belittle, lecture, or stand high on a moral pedestal and condescendingly preach to those they feel superior to.

Those who behave in such a way actually feel insecure, unseen, unheard, under appreciated, and so desperate for admiration, they must shake their audience into believing what they think (or want you to think) to be true about themselves. This is, of course, how grand and superior they are to anyone else.

Although some may argue a person like this is a passionate activist, exudes confidence, or is a “says it like it is” type person, the manner and execution of their beliefs and moral preachings says more about this person than what they are saying. It’s all about the delivery. Unwanted or unsolicited advice, lecturing, therapy, preaching and educating often leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

In order to understand this person in an attempt to heal your relationship with them, you must try to understand why they behave in such a narcissistic manner. More often than not, this person has a deep rooted insecuritiy that they are trying so desperately to convince everyone does not exist. Although they want so desperately to be seen, they try to hide the fact that they are flawed, imperfect, or insecure. In doing so, this person tends to be rather vocal, self indulged, and shares only their best and most admirable qualities. Some of which, may be fabricated or untruthful. They will do whatever it takes to look the part of the character they are portraying.

It’s important to understand that you do not have to maintain a relationship with this person. You are free to eliminate toxic people from your life whenever and however you choose. It’s your life, you decide who stays involved. If you wish to heal and repair a relationship with a self-righteous person, your mental health could be at stake. Unless you can, “uh-huh, yeah, sure, whatever you say” this person, I applaud you. Not allowing their superiority complex to overcome and exhaust you is key to dealing with and deflecting from their off-putting behaviors. These types people are egotistically inflated by attention, good or bad. Any reaction and attention is the fuel that feeds their ego. Some people love getting a rise out of others, just to feel they’re powerful enough to drain someone’s energy...”emotional vampires”, if you will.

Tackling acne is a multi-step process. There is no one FDA regulated acne solution that effectively treats acne in its entirety. If you are battling acne, you must follow these four steps:

1. Cleanse/Exfoliate- unclog your pores and remove dead skin cells in order to shed and heal new skin. You will need a gentle cleanser and 2% salicylic treatment. I recommend Cetaphil Gentle Cleanser and Clean and Clear Salicylic Acid 2%. Every day, cleanse the skin with your normal gentle cleanser. Every other day, mix salicylic acid into your cleanser until your skin builds a tolerance (it can be very irritating and abrasive using salicylic acid every day in the beginning.) Salicylic acid is an exfoliant used to fight acne. Although many people leave the product on the skin, I find its best to use it as your exfoliation rather than spot treat with it and leave it on. It can be very drying and irritate your skin if you leave it on.

2. Moisturize- Use a non-comedogenic, oil free, fragrance free moisturizer. Cetaphil Daily Moisturizer is great for this. Keeping your skin moistueized helps heal wounds, potential scarring, and keeps the skin hydrated when using the harsher products used to fight acne.

3. Eliminate bacteria- After moisturizing, spot treat and leave on Benzoyl Peroxide 2.5% or lower is ideal. This can be used daily. It’s important to find a product that is less potent. Many over the counter benzoyl peroxide solutions are maximum stength containing 10% potency. Using 2.5% or less is actually more effective, dermatologists say. Less product is more effective as well. Benzoyl Peroxide can be very drying and irritating if you use too much. Remember, when you are fighting acne, you want to be gentle and avoid triggering your already sensitive skin. If you use abrasive and high potency chemicals, you’re only going to make your skin worse.

Beauty Pro Tip: Ever applied your foundation and you look like... well.... this cakey mess? From a girl who’s spent her entire adult life trying to cover up her acne with foundation, it doesn’t work the way you want it to work. There’s no foundation that actually smooths out the skin and completely hides your acne bumps. Foundation doesn’t hide acne. It was designed to even out your skin tone. Foundation helps draw LESS attention to your acne prone skin when it covers up the redness and evens out the skin tone, but there’s nothing it can do about hiding it those pesky bumps completely. Therefore, if you want to avoid the caked on foundation look and still achieve healthy and beautiful skin:

1. Use a green concealer, primer, or correcting skin to cancel out the redness in your skin prior to foundation. You’ll use less foundation this way.

2. Use light or medium coverage foundation and build it up until you have evened out the skin tone. Full coverage makeup is a recipe for cakeiness.

1. Highlight Inner Corners with White Eyeliner

Highlight the inner corners of your eyes with white eyeliner or eye shadow to make your eyes appear bigger and brighter. Create an even “V Shape” on both sides.

2. Prime Your Eyes

Prime the entire lid using an eye shadow primer and/or white eyeliner. This will help your eye shadow application stay on all day and appear bolder than ever before. -Without vs With Primer-

3. Layer Your Liner

It can be difficult to line the eyes perfectly using only gel or liquid liner on the first pass. Try lining your lid first with a light brown eye pencil and go back over it using your desired color in liquid or gel based eyeliner. This will help your eyeliner stay on all day, smudge free and well-lined.

4. Soften Your Eyes

For a soft and sexy eye that is defined but not too heavy, line the upper lash line with black eyeliner and the bottom outer corners of the lash line with brown eyeliner. This will create a beautiful, soft eye.

5. Open Your Eyes Up

Open your eye by using a white eyeliner pencil and applying it to the inside rim of your lower eyelid on the waterline.

6. Apply Eye Concealer Properly

Underneath your eye, where you’d normally add concealer to cover dark baggy eyes, apply an upside down triangle rather than a half circle and blend down. You will notice a huge difference in highlight.

7. Don’t Line the Entire Waterline

Only apply eyeliner from the lower outer corners of your eye and gradually lighten the line half way in. Lining the entire bottom eyelid will make your eyes appear smaller. Use a brown eyeliner on the bottom lid below the water line, and white eyeliner on the water line to assist in opening up the eyes and creating a soft, open eye.

8. Apply eyeliner below the waterline

Applying eyeliner on the waterline is a common eyeliner mistake. Try applying below the water line to open up your eyes. If you’d like, apply white liner to the waterline to really make your eyes pop.

Throughout the years, I’ve been looking for those “holy grail” products to simplify my daily beauty regime. With a lot of time researching, watching endless beauty guru reviews online, personal trial and error, and gathering information from my girlfriends/fellow esthetician peers, I feel as though I’ve successfully found the best products on the market IMHO. I’d like to share with you... An Esthetician’s “Holy Grail” Skin Care Haul.  

Dermalogica’s Precleanse 

Why I love this product: I use this to remove makeup, dirt, and debris prior to using my cleanser. When we’re washing a face full of makeup, we don’t penetrate our product deep enough to give us a proper cleanse. So, a double cleanse is a must if we want to truly benefit from our skin cleaning routine. 

How to use: First, dispense product into try hands and massage on the face focusing on congested areas. Next, wet your hands and massage the product into your skin over the applied precleanse oil. Watch as your day’s worth of makeup and excess sebum dissolve right before your eyes. Using lukewarm water, rinse your face and pat dry. The precleanse allows you to be properly prepped to use your desired facial cleanser in order to effectively and thoroughly cleanse your skin.

Aveda’s Botanical Kinetics Purifying Gel Cleanser

Why I love this product: This has and always will be my favorite cleanser. I’ve never used a cleanser that has made my skin feel as thoroughly cleansed as this one. You can use this twice effectively, as your go-to makeup remover and again to cleanse this skin effectively. It lathers up so nicely and leaves the skin feeling refreshed, clean, and evenly textured. This product helped me clear up my acne and to this day. maintain a beautiful complexion with no breakouts.

Dermalogica’s Daily Microfoliant

Why I love this product: You probably know all too well, you should not exfoliate the skin daily. Exfoliating too much can strip away at your face once you’ve successfully removed all the dead skin. Well, this product was designed for daily use. This product uses a finely grounded rice-based powder which is great for a safe exfoliator. If you’re unfamiliar with microtears, many scrubs use plastic beads that are not only harmful to our oceans and sea life, they also create microscopic tears under our skin due to the uneven and jagged cut beads. This can lead to infection, breakouts, and further harm your delicate skin. This product is safe to use on skin and beautifully manufactured.

How to use: Dispense a quarter sized amount of powder into damp hands and massage the product gently into your skin for about 2 minutes. You may also leave the product on your face for 5-10 minutes as an exfoliating masque. Rinse with lukewarm water and pat dry.

 Witch Hazel Astringent

Why I love this product: It’s a gentle, non drying alternative to alcohol based toners. Also, it’s only a few dollars at your local drug store or Walmart.

How to use: Personally, I bought a small travel size spray bottle and filled it up with Witch Hazel. I use this to spritz on my face before moisturizing and after cleansing/exfoliating. Toner prepares the skin for moisture while aiding in cleaning and refreshing your skin. You can also dispense a small amount of Witch Hazel on to a cotton round and pat your face with it.

Aveda Botanical Kinetics Hydrating Lotion

Why I love this product: A little goes a long way. After applying an even coat of this moisturizer to the T-Zone, (the driest area of my face) I never feel the need to apply more. Many moisturizers leave my skin feeling tight and dehydrated after use. This moisturizer gives my skin a consistent hydrated feel even hours after applying. 

Bobbi Brown Vitamin Enriched Face Base

Why I love this product: If you’re anything like me, I have dry dehydrated skin. Sometimes, moisturizer can still leave the skin wanting more. If you need a little extra boost in hydration, this face base does it all. 

Whether you’re willing to shell out a few extra bucks on the good stuff or you’re on a tight budget but still looking for quality products that’ll do the trick, I’ve got you covered! Over the YEARS of research, personal testing, and spending my own money to find the best/worst products on the market, here’s my holy grail on products that give you the skin confidence you’ve always dreamed of: 

** Are my HIGHEST Recommendations

 Cleanser:

High End: Aveda Botanical Kinetics ($23) **

Drugstore: Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser ($12) **

Exfoliate:

High End: Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant ($59) **

Drugstore: Cetaphil Extra Gentle Facial Scrub ($8)

Toner:

High End: -Don’t bother. Witch Hazel is the cheapest and most effective-

Drugstore: Witch Hazel ($3) Buy cotton rounds or a mini spray bottle to apply. **

Moisturizer: 

High End: Aveda Botanical Kinetics Hydrating Lotion ($35) **

Drugstore: Cetaphil Daily Facial Moisturizer ($7)

Primer: 

High End: Bobbi Brown Vitamin Enriched Face Base ($60) **

Drugstore: L.A Girl Pro Prep HD Smoothing Face Primer ($5)

Concealer:

High End: Estee Lauder Double Wear Instant Fix Concealer ($29)

Drugstore: L’Oreal Infallible Full Wear Concealer ($13)

Foundation:

High End: Estee Lauder Double Wear ($43)

Drugstore: Revlon Colorstay ($9)

Powder:

High end: bareMinerals Mineral Veil Finishing Powder ($24)

Drugstore: Maybelline FIT me! Loose Finishing Powder ($8) **

Setting Spray:

High End: Urban Decay All Nighter Long Lasting Makeup Setting Spray ($33) **