Mom’s Beauty Advice We Should Take

My mom is full of advice….on everything.  Some of it I listen to, some of it I nod my head smiling, and some of it I play very deaf.  I will tell you, though, that the older I get, I listen to a lot more of it, and understand much more of what she’s talking about.  She’s a wise woman, as I’m sure your mother is too, so I thought we should look at all the beauty advice we’ve heard from our moms and listen to her tips.  My mom is gorgeous, so it’s always been an area I take her words to heart on!

Mom’s Beauty Advice that Works!

1.  Get to Bed Early

Holly Golighlty (my hero) got her beauty sleep

I love staying up late, I love being up when the house is quiet and I love late night TV.  The thing is, my mom was always pretty strict about bedtimes growing up, and I have found that she is right about one thing:  I look SO much better when I get sleep and I look HIDEOUS when I don’t, especially the older I get!  When I am tired my face is kind of…gray, and my eyes look old, and my hair is always a mess because the last thing I want to do while exhausted is my hair.  I drag and I look like I’m dragging.  Sleep has restorative benefits from a health perspective.  Collagen builds and repairs as we sleep, the connections in our brain repair, our skin moisturizes, and our overall health of the day gets set back to start.  Without the proper amount of sleep (6-8 hours minimum), your body cannot do all these internal and external repairs.  The oils don’t make it to your scalp and hair, your skin’s collagen remains broken and flat, and your whole body just isn’t back to a good point from the stress you put it through the day before.  So let’s think about having two nights without proper sleep, what about a week?  Or if you’re me, a lifetime!   We all know our bodies, for me eight hours is what I need and when I don’t get it, I show it.  So, get to bed, friends, your face will thank you tomorrow.

2.  Eat Your Vegetables

How yummy does this look??

Have you ever eaten fast food for like, a week, because you’re so busy?   Don’t you feel utterly repulsive afterward?  That would be me, in times of crazy schedules (which is always) and by day three or four of fast-food eating I am down, tired, sluggish, and frankly kind of ugly.  It’s the food!   Fruits and vegetables aren’t just things you should push on your children, you should push them on yourself too!  Antioxidants, vitamins, hydration–these words are all on every beauty product you can buy.  Um…they’re also inside every vegetable and fruit you can eat.  We’re trying to get antioxidants from a cream we rub on our faces, when the natural way is to just eat some berries.  Does anyone else see how silly that sounds?  Eat the good foods and see the results, I know it’s a no-brainer, but I forget sometimes, and I’m sure you do too.

3.  Wash Your Face Before Bed

You missed your lipstick,  pretty girl…and your eyebrow pencil…and your mascara

Ok, I am kind of psychotic about my facial cleansing routine.  I have uber-sensitive skin and I break out in rashes/pimples/hives/etc from the slightest change in routine.  Some people can try out new makeup, new face wash, new anything…I cannot.  So I would say that in the last twelve years I haven’t missed my nightly routine once.  I (vaguely) remember the night of my 21st birthday:  it’s 5 am and I’m not able to even stand, forcing my boyfriend at the time to get a washcloth and my face wash.  If I travel, I put my face wash in carry-on, because I can survive without clothes or shoes, but I will not leave my makeup on at night.  Now, having shown you what a lunatic I am, let’s say that this is a great habit to have!  You should never be sleeping with makeup on!  As stated above your face repairs at night, and clogging your pores up with gunk all night is just asking for a dull, troubled complexion.  You want great skin, it’s the cornerstone to looking great, and one way of getting it and keeping it, is having a nightly routine.  Cleanse, moisturize, toss on some retinoids, whatever works for you, but do it every night.  You’ll be happy you did later.

4.  Be Kind to Everyone

Miss England, Katrina Hodge, served her country first, deployed to Iraq, AND became a beauty queen.  Tell me what’s prettier than that!

My mom has always been big on manners and doing things for others, and you know what?  It makes her prettier.  It feels so good to smile at people and laugh with people and do nice things for others, and when you feel your best, you look your best.  So just take a moment and look at your activities for a week: are they all about you?   Change that up.  Do a few things for friends, families, your mother, the neighbor, a total stranger, and watch the transformation in the mirror.  Being beautiful isn’t all about what’s up front, real beauty comes from the center of your body and heads out.  Don’t we all know people that get prettier the more you know them?  It’s because their beauty is coming from the inside out, and it’s very real.  Right now, think of your grandmother–she’s beautiful isn’t she?  Grandmas have that inner beauty down.   So go be pretty in the verb sense: act in a beautiful nature.  That’s going to be my new slang: I’m going to do some pretty today.  (Let’s just hope that donating enough food bank cans will result in looking less tired on 4 hours sleep somehow…)

Thanks, Mom, I love you.