Dear monday! Dear my beautiful community of readers. Writing to you all feels like coming home. I get so excited to write to you but I feel like sometimes it’s a one way relationship. I need to hear from all of you. I NEED to know who all you are behind your view count. Please comment on blog posts, Tiktoks, Instagrams, email, or DM me. Tell me about who you are and what you want to read about.
For today's post, I’m going to go over some of my favorite, life saving (and cheap) beauty products and hacks and how and why I use them. All of the following play into the ‘less is more’ idea, refining your own beauty with little tricks that don't make you look too overdone.
While the name might be deceiving and almost an oxymoron, a drying lotion is a mini spot treatment that dries up zits overnight. No moisturizing, rubbing in, or lathering. The idea is you stick a cotton swab into the drying lotion and apply on pimples to seal up the infection and spread of bacteria from inflamed acne. I have heavily relied on this product because I am so tempted to pick my acne but this drying lotion is such a quick fix. In addition, this product unintentionally is a relatively similar color to my skin tone and can seamlessly work as a concealer. No matter your skin tone, you could use this drying lotion as a base coat before applying foundation… my unscientific guess is that this helps protect your pores from being block by the makeup.
My best friend introduced me to bio oil a few years ago and in early 2020, tiktok re-sparked my interest in it. Some goals of bio oil are to diminish the pigmentation from scaring, blemishes, and stretch marks. Bio oil is also known to smooth and moisturize the face and body. I have only seen positive results in my experience of using bio oil and it has definitely helped with alleviating redness. (Also I talk about this in another post but I am on an acne medication called Acutane that dries your pores so I apply bio oil before I put on makeup to give my face a dewy underlayer).
The perfect blow dry meets volume, soft curl, and minimal effort. Straight out of the shower or even more favorable, slightly damp, the drying brush invention is the exact low maintenance and highly effective hair tool you NEED!
In last week’s post, I wrote about how when it comes to makeup, less is more. End zit is a god send that I promise will work wonders on you. Similar to the drying lotion, end zit is a little bottle that is actually meant to be a spot treatment concealer for acne prone skin. One sparsely applies a little dot of the end zit ointment, giving off the effect of a flawless skin that is far from cakey.
K ready this one is simple. Running late in the morning and you got some bead head going on… quick hairspray all around and lightly brush over your flyaways with a comb. Little more refined, a little less puffy. When I was attending in-person school, I would do this every morning.
Also did this super quickly every morning before school but the pink and green clear mascara by Maybelline works wonders as an eyebrow brush when in need of a little spruce and as a non smudgy eye lash lift.
#1 staple. If you don’t have an eyelash curler, what are you doing?!
OOOOOO let me turn you ON to this concealer. This concealer is a solid yet creamy concealer packed into a little pot. The shade matches the cream wand concealer and foundations. I love this concealer because it so effortlessly hides my acne. Applied with fingers and a brush, there is no real ‘rubbing in’ or messy cracking that occurs. The Nars pot concealer is truly excellent and I think it’s definitely worth the splurge as mine has lasted for 3 years.
You might have read about this in the shaving post but I think every teen girl should stop wasting her money on waxing and threading and instead try this painless and cheap facial razor for upper lip, nose, and brows. Again, this facial shaver inflicts no pain and is a great tool for cleaning up any stray hairs.
Thank you to all my dearmondayblog instagram followers who introduced me to acne patches. I stick these clear mini patches on top of my zits to prevent me from touching them and they actually work. Not to mention, these patches are not visible on online zooms and give the illusion of clear skin through a camera.
Tinted Chapstick in Rose
I recently posted a tik tok asking my followers about their holy grail beauty product or tip that saved them as a teen. I was reminded in the comments about tinted chapsticks, which I have been a huge fan of for a while. These lip tints give off a natural rosely color and are perfect for an on-the-go, less-is-more look. Brands that make liptints that I love: Glossier, Fresh, Burts Bees
Remember to reach out to me! I want to hear from you.
You got this,
Sophia
thank youuu!!