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Beauty Basics Tutorial Series

Posted on Saturday, at • bought • 196 views

When I was growing up, my mom gave me a great gift: once I was old enough to dress myself and brush my own hair, she pretty much let me handle those things. She did buy clothes for me, with gradually more input from me until she turned clothes-buying over to me completely when I was a teenager; but she didn't lay out what I was to wear the next day, she didn't put my hair in pincurlers every night, she didn't braid my hair every morning or put it up (unless I asked), she didn't tell me that I couldn't wear X or Y with Z or say “don't forget to wear a jacket with that” or “you have to always wear skirts”. My appearance was my choice, my clothing and grooming were my responsibility. She did this because she had almost-daily wars of the will with her own mom, who did put all her girls' hair in pincurlers every night, yanked the tangles out every morning (not a gentle person as a rule), and decided what they'd wear. Mom was absolutely adamant that I would not go through that. The upside is that I have confidence in my own ability to pick out an outfit, match pieces up, and also, rather healthily, don't give a damn about “being fashionable” or “looking cool”. The downside is that when it came to skincare and makeup…I was utterly adrift. I had learned only the most basic lessons - wash your face but don't use regular soap; people are supposed to notice you first rather than your makeup; an item's price doesn't always correspond with its quality, especially the most expensive beauty products - but other than that, I was on my own.

Beauty Basics Tutorial Series

I've got a friend who's just getting into makeup, and who has mock-complained on Twitter that she has to learn now, at 30+, what all the other girls learned in their early teens. Except folks like me, who are just learning now. :D So I thought that I'd write up a series of “beauty 101” posts, covering everything from skincare to eyeshadows to the care and feeding (and storage) of your stash. When I've read tutorials on folks' sites, even the ones that are very good about showing the steps will often leave out the “why” of things. And without knowing why a thing is done a certain way…I can't really experiment and find other ways of doing the thing. I can't use a different method if the one demonstrated won't work for me, because I won't know if it's not working because of an error I made, or something else (like eyeshadow application patterns that don't work for my eye shape, or blush placement that doesn't look good on my face shape, or a product whose ingredients don't work as effectively on certain skin types or in combination with other chemicals. Now that I've been using makeup and and aggressively learning about beauty and personal care for half a decade, I've got enough knowledge that I know some of the what, but also the “why”.

I currently have tutorials planned all through the summer, and I hope that folks - besides my friend, who will name herself if she chooses - will find these valuable. I also know that there's plenty of information that I don't have. (There will always be more things to learn! And I'm one of those weirdos who finds that prospect...very good.) If people have any tips to add, please feel free to add them in the comments!! Noncommercial links are always appreciated. (All links left in the comments are parsed through a redirection script - that is, they won't help your site's SEO or page rank. Feel free to self-promote if it's something genuinely useful, but know that it won't help your site's ranking or search engine placement.)

First tutorial: overall general health (posted Sunday 3-Apr-2011).

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