DIY Beauty - A Girl's Gotta Spa! (sm) Top beauty blog, spa, hair care, makeup, beauty trends, skin care | A Girl's Gotta Spa! (sm) Top beauty blog, spa, hair care, makeup, beauty trends, skin care

Need for Speed: New Quick Drying Nail Polishes

Today's modern polishes promise to dry faster than a speeding bullet, but which ones actually save the day? Top manicurists have known about pro top coats for years - those specially formulated clear coats that left lacquer intact for an extended wear manicure. Compatible with nearly every brand, topcoats like Read more

Verb Detangle+Defrizz Conditioning Leave-In Mist Review

To be completely up front about things, I hate washing my hair because it's a nightmare to comb afterwards.  It’s much like that of a 6 year old little girl. It tangles like nobody’s business and is a nightmare to comb after washing. It’s so bad that my hairdresser Read more

Delfin Spa Cellulite Reduction Apparel and Anti-Cellulite Lotion Review

Everyone deals with cellulite. And no one is a fan of it. We've written about coffee ground products like Gail's DIY Coffee Scrub or isola Jamaican Coffee & Sugar Scrub, that are said to help minimize the appearance of cellulite due to the caffeine. Now there is another product system Read more

Mom: Get Glamorous Twitter Party

This year we're mixing things up with our Mom: Get Glamorous contest! We're adding a Twitter party, where some of the great brands participating in the contest are also giving away products during our party. Come join us on May 15, 2013 from 1pm-2pm EST and tweet with @TheMakeupGirl @ClumpsofMascara Read more

5th Annual Mom: Get Glamorous Contest

// // Are you ready for our 5th annual Mom: Get Glamorous contest? This year I am partnering with Lianne of The Makeup Girl, Brittany from Clumps of Mascara, Christine from 15 Minute Beauty Fanatic and Bryce from The Luxury Spot to find the most deserving mom to award Read more

anti-aging

A Girl’s Gotta Spa! Featured in Spry Living Mom Makeover


Don’t forget to enter our Mom: Get Glamorous Contest (entries taken until May 24th!)
Join our Twitter Party on May 15th from 1pm-2pm EST #momglamorous

When Spry Living Magazine asked me if myself and two A Girl’s Gotta Spa! bloggers would be interested in making over our moms, we didn’t hesitate to say yes. Myself, Ashley and Hillary all participated in Spry Living’s Take Year’s Off Your Looks Instantly (web and print) story and Making Over Mom with tips.

Each of our moms had challenges that prevented them from updating their look. My mom had hair loss/thinning hair, sagging skin, etc. all related to bariatric surgery she had two years ago. Ashley’s mom has nerve damage and a disability when it comes to the use of her arm. Hillary’s mom was nervous since losing all of her hair so long ago (but it has since grown back.)

From skin care to hair care to makeup, here’s the breakdown of the products used to transformed our moms.

mom-makeovers

Paula (my mom): Read more

Posted on by Shannon Nelson in anti-aging, beauty, blush, bronzer, brows, concealer, DIY Beauty, eye shadow, eyeliner, foundation, highlighter, lip gloss, lipstick, Makeup, makeup tips, mascara, Nail Polish, Primer, salon, skin care 1 Comment

DIY Exfoliating Face Mask



My favorite beauty treatments are those that I can create myself with ingredients from my own kitchen.  Creating my own beauty treatments makes me feel good about what I am putting on my skin because I know exactly where the ingredients came from and I know that they won’t harm my skin.

This morning my sister greeted me at her door with bright, glowing, soft skin sans makeup.  And since my sister is a walking  beauty encyclopedia, I had to know what got her skin looking so amazing.  Turns out it was her own concoction of coffee grounds, honey and lemon. The coffee grounds exfoliates the skin, functions as an anti-inflammatory and contains antioxidants.  The honey is a really great  moisturizer and leaves skin feeling soft and supple.  The lemon brightens skin and minimizes the look of pores while getting rid of oil.  Read more

Posted on by Gail Lewis in beauty, DIY Beauty, skin care 3 Comments

How Do You Avoid a Unibrow?

How do you tame a unibrow and shape it?

That’s the question I recently asked brow guru, Ramy Gafni, when trying to tackle my teen-aged son’s very obvious caterpillar above his eyes. Gavin was cool with me separating it into two obvious brows, but then came my next question, how do you shape them without looking “girly”? 

Ramy to the rescue to tell me the correct way to trim and shape his brows (and oops! I was using an electric trimmer to buzz in between the brow…a no-no according to Ramy.)

Here’s Ramy’s expert brow adviceRead more

Posted on by Shannon Nelson in beauty, brows, DIY Beauty Leave a comment

Try This Before Cutting Your Hair

For the last month I have been giving serious consideration to cutting my hair.  Maybe it’s just me wanting a drastic change for the new year, or perhaps I, like so many others have been tempted by the slew of celebrities that have been sporting shorter and edgier do’s in the past couple of months, whatever the reason, shorter hair is really appealing at the moment.

I’ve mentioned the desire to go shorter a few times to my hairstylist Pearson Knight, but he’s been pretty hesitant, which is understandable especially considering that I have been known to ask for a drastic change without considering my lifestyle and hair texture, then regret my decision a week later.  (Can you relate?!) Instead of giving into my pleas to just chop it all off, Pearson suggested that I try wearing my hair in a faux bob, similar to the shorter length I was considering. He told me to try this for a few days to a week to see if I really liked the way I look with shorter hair or if I just wanted to be a part of the latest hair trend.  Read more

Posted on by Gail Lewis in beauty, DIY Beauty, Hair Care 1 Comment

DIY Coffee Grounds Exfoliating Body Cleanser

Last month, thanks to my beauty guru of a sister, I was introduced to the amazing exfoliating properties of coffee grounds, which I of course just had to pass along to you, our awesome readers.  And today, thanks to a serious case of boredom, I have found a way to make the Coffee Grounds Scrub even better, by combining it with my Crabtree & Evelyn Naturals Verbena & Sage Deodorising Shower Foam.  I am absolutely in love with these shower foams, which unfortunately were discontinued, but I have been able to find them on Amazon (as I seem to be able to do with a lot of other hard to find beauty products).  Read more
Posted on by Gail Lewis in bath and body, beauty, DIY Beauty Leave a comment

DIY Face Spritzer/Makeup Refreshing Spray

This past summer I had the opportunity of traveling to the city of Cebu in the Philippines to shoot a show for Fashion One Television. While there I was fortunate enough to work with an amazing makeup artist by the name of Beatriz Lopez.  Beatriz is a  London based freelancer, who provides makeup and hair styling for a broad range of clients from fashion and advertising to private commissions. Fully certified in all aspects of makeup, including special effects and body painting, she is also experienced in styling natural and synthetic hair.  Bea is just downright super talented and I absolutely loved my hair and makeup whenever she worked on me on set, so I was readily accepting of any beauty suggestions/tips she was kind enough to offer.  Read more
Posted on by Gail Lewis in beauty, DIY Beauty, skin care, Travel Beauty 1 Comment

DIY Coffee Grounds Body Scrub

My sister is, and always has been, my beauty mentor.  Whenever I’ve had  a beauty ailment (which is a weekly occurrence,) I’ve always been able to count on her to steer me in the right direction.  Whether it be over plucked brows, breakouts or a lackluster complexion, she always seems to have a remedy in hand.  Her latest beauty advice for me was a body scrub using coffee grounds.

This DIY body scrub was honestly one of the easiest and most enjoyable beauty adventures I’ve been on in a long time.  I got to enjoy a delicious cup cup of coffee then indulge in an amazingly effective…and cheap at home spa treatment.  I just took the leftover grounds into the shower with me and rubbed it all over my body.  The coffee grounds make a really gentle scrub, but also does a great job of exfoliating.  Caffeine is also known to be a fantastic anti-cellulite treatment. The strong smell of coffee in the shower also gave me an energy boost.  Read more

Posted on by Gail Lewis in bath and body, beauty, DIY Beauty 9 Comments

DIY Acne Treatments



If you are someone who suffers from acne, clear skin can feel a bit like a myth. There are several factors that control acne, however, and by learning a little more about them, you can help prevent acne and help the acne that you have clear up more quickly. Check out some of these tips for staying on top of your skin care.

Skip the Soap
It seems counter-intuitive, but the truth of the matter is that soap dries out your skin. Acne worsens when skin is dry, as it leaves the skin more prone to cracks and thus to bacterial infections. In the morning, simply splash water on your face and go from there. Though your face might feel a bit oily for a few days, it will normalize in a surprisingly short amount of time. Leave the soap for the rest of your body and wash your face with water instead.  Read more

Posted on by Shannon Nelson in acne, beauty, DIY Beauty, skin care 2 Comments

DIY Tinted Moisturizer

I am not a huge fan of the feel of foundation.  No matter how lightweight a foundation claims to be, it always feels too heavy on my skin.  I definitely love how my skin looks on those rare occasions when I do choose to…or if it’s a booking…HAVE to wear foundation, but I can never wait until I can get home and thoroughly wash my face.  A few makeup artists have suggested that I try a tinted moisturizer instead, which I have done but never found one that won my loyalty so I decided to try creating my own very  tinted moisturizer.

For the moisturizer part of my tinted moisturizer, I decided to use Embroylisse Lait-Crème Concentrè, it seems to be in the kit of every makeup artist I’ve worked with and I love how moisturizing and soothing it is on my skin.  For the “tinted” portion of my tinted moisturizer I used Aveda Liquid Foundation, because it is one of the lightest feeling foundations I have found and I do not need to mix it with a different colored foundation to match my skin tone (which I tend to have to do with a lot of other brands), however I’m not sure that Aveda still carries this foundation.  Read more

Posted on by Gail Lewis in beauty, DIY Beauty, foundation, Makeup, skin care, Unlikely Pair Leave a comment

DIY Avocado Hair and Face Mask

So let me begin this post by letting you all know that this recipe was actually compliments of my quick thinking sister, as I had originally intended to ingest this and not use it topically.  You are all well aware (based on my earlier post on the DIY Pineapple Strawberry Enzyme Facial Mask) that I started out the year, like a lot of you, on a health kick.  I received a juicer for Christmas and have been really enjoying juicing and coming up with different fruit and vegetable juice recipes, which led to me discovering how amazing the pulp of some fruits work as a facial mask.

Well the health kick continues and in addition to juicing I also wanted to whip up fruit and vegetable smoothies. So I went out and got a Magic Bullet.  My first smoothie was going to contain avocados, pure coconut water, honey and coconut oil.  I’ve been reading up on the health benefits of avocados and was really excited about incorporating it into my diet.  Well I did not have coconut oil handy first thing Monday morning so I substituted extra virgin olive oil instead.  Not measuring anything (because I was so anxious to get going) I put one half of a very large avocado, a bit too much olive oil and honey and not enough coconut water in the bullet and blended.  It tasted absolutely awful, one sip was enough, I could not finish the rest.  When my sister asked about my smoothie I told her how horrible it tasted and she then suggested that it would make a great face mask…something I had definitely not considered, but was glad she mentioned it because that meant I wouldn’t have to toss an entire glass of bad tasting smoothie.

Later that night I applied the mask to my face, including under my eyes, since that area is so delicate and often feels dry. I also applied it to the ends of my hair since that part tends to get really dry and brittle.  My skin definitely felt softer and more hydrated after I removed the mask. The skin under my eye felt as if I had applied a heavy eye cream.  My hair felt the same as if I had just conditioned it and rinsed so I did not notice a huge difference right away, but I will continue using the mask on my hair and leave it in for longer than ten minutes to see if I notice a change in the condition of my hair with continued usage.  I am definitely thinking that avocados are my new health and beauty superfood!

Have you made face masks with avocados? Share your recipe!

 

Posted on by Gail Lewis in anti-aging, beauty, DIY Beauty, skin care Leave a comment