To de-stress, take your time. We mean it literally. If you don’t, someone else will claim it or you’ll give it away – so claim it for yourself. Devote at least 20 minutes a day to an activity you enjoy, like gardening, playing with a pet, having a bath, talking to someone you love, exercising, reading, whatever. (And no, time on Facebook and Instagram doesn’t count.)
Having your photo taken? Beware of a high SPF foundation; anything higher than an SPF15 can make you look ghoulishly pale in pictures.
For a great lip stain, add a teeny-tiny dot of lip balm and then apply lip pencil (either in a rose or a deep tone like wine or cranberry) all over lips. Smoosh together and blot, and you’ll be surprised how long the stain lasts. Lip pencils tend to be more matte than lipsticks, and stay put longer.
Renowned therapist Susie Lung has this recommendation for an instant face-waker: ‘To give instant definition to a tired face, after exfoliating splash your face 10 times with very cold water. Then gently circle the back of a chilled teaspoon around the eye area.’
To clean up nail polish, wrap an orange stick in cotton, dip it in non-acetone polish remover and carefully trace around the skin, rolling the orange stick as you go so that the cotton stays clean.
To find your most natural blusher shade, pinch your cheeks when you aren’t wearing any make-up at all, and apply blusher to the opposite cheek. If they match, that’s your perfect shade.
Stimulating the pressure points on feet relieves stress. Feeling angsty-y? Press your thumb into your solar plexus point, which is located just below theball of your foot. Hold for one minute and repeat on the other foot.
From Sarah Wilson, author of the bestelling ‘I Quit Sugar’: ‘Don’t be afraid of fat. Protein needs fat to be absorbed; so do a lot of the nutrients in your vegetables. It saturates us. I don’t mess with my food any more – I eat chicken with the skin on, eggs are eaten whole and yes, I do sometimes cook my vegetables in butter.’
Exfoliate eyebrows to remove make-up build-up, next time you’re using your usual (and it really should be gentle, too) facial scrub.
If any eye product at all irritates – cleanser, cream, mascara, eyeshadow – give it up. Constant rubbing breaks down the collagen and elastin fibres, producing wrinkles in the lower lids in particular.
Test your multivitamin: drop it into a cup of warm water and stir. If it hasn’t dissolved in 30 minutes, chances are it’s not breaking down properly in your stomach, either.
Saturate a cotton wool ball with your favourite perfume or Cologne and drop it into the vacuum cleaner. As you hoover, the scent will be released and gently freshen the room.
If you suffer from under-eye bags, start your day with sports – especially yoga, we’re advised – to increase circulation, and the blood flow will support the filling-in of skin wrinkles, and the dispersal of excess fluid.
Just the quickest skin-blitzing scrub for winter-dry skin (and we’re all getting it!): create your own exfoliating body scrub by blending sugar with safflower, grapeseed, olive or jojoba oil until it has the right paste-y texture. Massage into skin to slough away dead cells, then rinse. Almost certainly you won’t need to moisturise.
From Thandie Newton: ‘I never powder my whole face; I keep certain areas looking shiny. It gives a much fresher look.’
Is your desk ageing you? If you constantly lean your face in your hands at your desk in the same position day after day, you can create lines similar to those caused by always sleeping in the same position. Sit up straight, feet on the ground (it’s better for your back, too). Need help improving your posture? Find an Alexander Technique practitioner, for some instruction.
If you have annoying flyaways along the forehead – which often happens when hair grows back after a post-pregnancy ‘fall-out’, for instance – brush them into place with an eyebrow brush doused in hairspray. (A clean toothbrush also works well, too.)
Use long-lasting lipstick as a ‘base’ for your regular lipstick, in a similar shade – so that when your shiny/lustrous tone wears off, there are still hours of colour left to take over underneath.
Did you know that hair conditioner works to help prevent rust on tools…? Give the toolbox an overhaul: simply condition them (literally) with a touch of product, on a clean cloth.
Always start a blow-dry with the under-layers. If you start drying your hair with the top layer, you end up scooping wet hair from the underneath and pulling it through the brush, re-wetting areas that are already dry.