-Jossbox
I’m aware that beauty is all about being yourself and loving yourself and working up to a place where you can’t catch a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror without breaking into a goofy grin because girl, you are awesome, but there comes a day, and for me it’s usually the day that comes after the week of Chinese food for dinner, when you look at yourself in the mirror and the best you can muster is a hopeful meh.
Never mind what's responsible for your particular brand of lukewarm self-inspection; let’s talk about how to fix it. The answer lies in tricking yourself and the world into thinking you look fresher, happier, and more awake (all things deemed generally desirable vis-à-vis your visage), than you really are.
I'm talking about brightening, people - specifically, getting your skin to glow, like someone turned a light on inside your face. It's the key to looking instantly fresher, more awake, better. There’s a long term solution to getting luminous, lit-from-within skin, but sometimes what you really want is a quick fix – ten minutes or less, to be specific.
So here they are; follow the method below (or some approximation of it, depending on how you’re feeling) and you’ll have glowing skin in no time – well, ten minutes.
Exfoliate
Help your skin along by getting rid of its top layer of dead cells and it will instantly reward you with the bright, glowing face you forgot you had on underneath. For immediate results, you can’t go wrong with a good old-fashioned exfoliating mask, which is a far gentler option than abrading your skin with a rough scrub – you’re going for glowing, not raw. Chemical exfoliants gently dissolve the top layer of your skin and are great for this – try using a mask with lactic or glycolic acid.
Try: For instant brightening, you can't beat a sheet mask - Neutrogena's Fine Fairness Mask visibly brightens skin in 10 minutes and makes it look like it's awash in 20s era Hollywood lighting, great for when you've got an especially big day coming up. It's also great with lightening acne scars and dark spots when used regularly over a longer period (about every other day for a month or so).
Meanwhile, I tried Dermalogica’s Gentle Cream Exfoliant after Lisa Eldridge told me it’s the only thing that keeps her dry / combination skin in check. I came for the celeb recommendation and stayed for the super effective brightening, skin softening effects. Now, we are never apart.
Highlight
Now that your skin looks so much better, show it off by highlighting the crap out of it. There’s no dearth of highlighting products out there, but only a few know (and tread) the fine line between glowing and glittery. Hint: the latter is not the camp you want to find yourself in unless you are a) five or b) a Twihard. Once you get your hands on the right stuff, dab some on your cheekbones, your brow bone (under your eyebrows), over your Cupid’s bow (right above your lips) and down the bridge of your nose. You’ll instantly look way brighter, in an I-woke-up-like-this manner, than you did three minutes ago.
Try: I’m not entirely sure how, but the violet-tinged St. Tropez Skin Illuminator highlighter works on every skin tone I’ve ever seen it used on, which explains why it crops up so often backstage at fashion shows. It makes everything pop just a little, and adds a hint of glow to your face or an all out sheen to your entire body, depending on how much you use (and where).
Line Your Eyes
Contrary to popular belief, white eyeliner doesn’t do anything to make your eyes brighter; it just makes it look like you’re wearing war paint. There is something to lining your eyes in a lighter colour to brighten them, however – just use a softer, pink-tinged shade instead, which is far more natural.
Try: The Pixi Extra Eye Bright Liner is now a bit of a saviour; it is soft, creamy and glides on, and really does brighten the eyes, especially when used on the inner corners of the eyes. It’s great for adding a little something something without being too obvious, which is exactly what you want when you’re going down the whole brightening route.
Wear Mascara
You know that mascara-less trend that’s been sweeping the fashion nation over the last couple seasons? Don’t worry about about that trend. That’s why they’re called trends, so you can adopt or laugh at them as you choose – you are the queen of your destiny! Or your face, at least. Mascara is quite possibly the greatest beauty invention of all time – in fact, even if you did none of the other things on this list and just added a swipe of mascara to your lashes, you’d already look better, instantly. That’s just what mascara does. Use it with abandon and then go out and be awesome.
Try: L’Oreal Paris’s Volume Million Lashes lengthens and volumizes without clumping, while the Rimmel Extra Wow Lash is surprisingly effective at lengthening lashes for a doe-eyed, girl next door fringe that you can build up for a night out without washing it off first (or worrying about the formula clumping).
Whiten Your Teeth
Because nobody likes yellow teeth, not even their owners, so spare a thought for yours and brighten them before you head out the door. “Like I could do that in ten minutes,” you’re thinking, to which I present the science marvel that is the brightening pen – swipe some on your teeth, spend a couple of minutes grinning real wide (make sure you are alone / with someone who loves you for you) and then sail out the door with whiter teeth. For real.
Try: Pearlys Teeth Whitening Pen, while sounding like something dreamt up by a 1950s housewife, nevertheless provides you with 45 – 50 days worth of instant teeth whitening using very modern technology which I cannot attest to having any knowledge of. The company says to let the formula do its thing by attempting to ‘keep your lips away from your teeth’, after application which is where the grinning real wide thing comes in, but it’s worth it for the instant whitening it provides.
Lakshmi Menon photographed by Niko Mitrunen for Grazia India
I’m aware that beauty is all about being yourself and loving yourself and working up to a place where you can’t catch a glimpse of your reflection in the mirror without breaking into a goofy grin because girl, you are awesome, but there comes a day, and for me it’s usually the day that comes after the week of Chinese food for dinner, when you look at yourself in the mirror and the best you can muster is a hopeful meh.
Never mind what's responsible for your particular brand of lukewarm self-inspection; let’s talk about how to fix it. The answer lies in tricking yourself and the world into thinking you look fresher, happier, and more awake (all things deemed generally desirable vis-à-vis your visage), than you really are.
I'm talking about brightening, people - specifically, getting your skin to glow, like someone turned a light on inside your face. It's the key to looking instantly fresher, more awake, better. There’s a long term solution to getting luminous, lit-from-within skin, but sometimes what you really want is a quick fix – ten minutes or less, to be specific.
So here they are; follow the method below (or some approximation of it, depending on how you’re feeling) and you’ll have glowing skin in no time – well, ten minutes.
Exfoliate
Help your skin along by getting rid of its top layer of dead cells and it will instantly reward you with the bright, glowing face you forgot you had on underneath. For immediate results, you can’t go wrong with a good old-fashioned exfoliating mask, which is a far gentler option than abrading your skin with a rough scrub – you’re going for glowing, not raw. Chemical exfoliants gently dissolve the top layer of your skin and are great for this – try using a mask with lactic or glycolic acid.
Try: For instant brightening, you can't beat a sheet mask - Neutrogena's Fine Fairness Mask visibly brightens skin in 10 minutes and makes it look like it's awash in 20s era Hollywood lighting, great for when you've got an especially big day coming up. It's also great with lightening acne scars and dark spots when used regularly over a longer period (about every other day for a month or so).
Meanwhile, I tried Dermalogica’s Gentle Cream Exfoliant after Lisa Eldridge told me it’s the only thing that keeps her dry / combination skin in check. I came for the celeb recommendation and stayed for the super effective brightening, skin softening effects. Now, we are never apart.
Highlight
Now that your skin looks so much better, show it off by highlighting the crap out of it. There’s no dearth of highlighting products out there, but only a few know (and tread) the fine line between glowing and glittery. Hint: the latter is not the camp you want to find yourself in unless you are a) five or b) a Twihard. Once you get your hands on the right stuff, dab some on your cheekbones, your brow bone (under your eyebrows), over your Cupid’s bow (right above your lips) and down the bridge of your nose. You’ll instantly look way brighter, in an I-woke-up-like-this manner, than you did three minutes ago.
Try: I’m not entirely sure how, but the violet-tinged St. Tropez Skin Illuminator highlighter works on every skin tone I’ve ever seen it used on, which explains why it crops up so often backstage at fashion shows. It makes everything pop just a little, and adds a hint of glow to your face or an all out sheen to your entire body, depending on how much you use (and where).
Line Your Eyes
Contrary to popular belief, white eyeliner doesn’t do anything to make your eyes brighter; it just makes it look like you’re wearing war paint. There is something to lining your eyes in a lighter colour to brighten them, however – just use a softer, pink-tinged shade instead, which is far more natural.
Try: The Pixi Extra Eye Bright Liner is now a bit of a saviour; it is soft, creamy and glides on, and really does brighten the eyes, especially when used on the inner corners of the eyes. It’s great for adding a little something something without being too obvious, which is exactly what you want when you’re going down the whole brightening route.
Wear Mascara
You know that mascara-less trend that’s been sweeping the fashion nation over the last couple seasons? Don’t worry about about that trend. That’s why they’re called trends, so you can adopt or laugh at them as you choose – you are the queen of your destiny! Or your face, at least. Mascara is quite possibly the greatest beauty invention of all time – in fact, even if you did none of the other things on this list and just added a swipe of mascara to your lashes, you’d already look better, instantly. That’s just what mascara does. Use it with abandon and then go out and be awesome.
Try: L’Oreal Paris’s Volume Million Lashes lengthens and volumizes without clumping, while the Rimmel Extra Wow Lash is surprisingly effective at lengthening lashes for a doe-eyed, girl next door fringe that you can build up for a night out without washing it off first (or worrying about the formula clumping).
Whiten Your Teeth
Because nobody likes yellow teeth, not even their owners, so spare a thought for yours and brighten them before you head out the door. “Like I could do that in ten minutes,” you’re thinking, to which I present the science marvel that is the brightening pen – swipe some on your teeth, spend a couple of minutes grinning real wide (make sure you are alone / with someone who loves you for you) and then sail out the door with whiter teeth. For real.
Try: Pearlys Teeth Whitening Pen, while sounding like something dreamt up by a 1950s housewife, nevertheless provides you with 45 – 50 days worth of instant teeth whitening using very modern technology which I cannot attest to having any knowledge of. The company says to let the formula do its thing by attempting to ‘keep your lips away from your teeth’, after application which is where the grinning real wide thing comes in, but it’s worth it for the instant whitening it provides.
Lakshmi Menon photographed by Niko Mitrunen for Grazia India
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