Sexilicious Summer

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Yah. So I was relieved of my World Cup watching duties for the last couple days just long enough to get back to work. These last couple weeks have been a blurr. Who knew so many things can happen in one month of June? Shout out to all my peeps who saw it fit to celebrate my existence on this earth with a birthday week to remember, not that I really do remember anything seeing that there were oh so many cocktail bombs involved. At least I have the pictures to jog my memory. ***ooooh for reals??? We did THAAAAAAAT?!! ***

Anyways, in the meantime, between all this World Cup and Wimbeldon action and all, summer is in full swing y’alls! Gotta enjoy it because blink 3 times and it’s over man, specifically referring to Canada and it’s rationed SIX WEEKS of ‘Summer’; 2 nights ago and I was already freezing. Still, gotta love the long days – 8pm and ya still sweating cause it’s 12 o’clock hot sun beating down your back, sandal season, chance to let your skin breathe and actually see real live human beings. Get in where you fit in because summer ain’t waiting on nobody. Who would have thought that there are so many beautiful people in Toronto? I certainly couldn’t have guessed that during the ghost town that is the winter season. My word the place is empty. Me likey this current situation a looooot.

Summer – Boat rides, cooler fetes, beach parties, BBQ’s, pool parties, patio brunches, lunches and dinners, all things Crop over – for my Caribbean peeps and of course Caribana for my North American posse –  There is always an excuse to unapologetically bring the Freakin’Fabulous-ness; My kind of vibes.

Regardless of what you choose to don in the dance, however expensive or not, your biggest accessory this summer is your skin.

Show as much of it as you can get away with, without looking like someone’s jump off. This means no exposed butt cheeks; no fall-out boobies. Be well aware of your body type when choosing your kit and size, and most of all, wear it well.

Face

The summer heat can bring on the slick, so keep pores breathing with a skin treatment that involves a deep cleanse, exfoliation and skin rehydration least once a month to keep the slick at bay and reveal fresh, healthy, supple skin.

Exfoliate skin at home at least once weekly (preferably evenings rather than mornings) to keep skin cells refreshed, and use hydrating moisturizers; mattifying ones if your skin is oily and/ or acne prone. Blotting paper can assist in keeping the shine at bay during the day.

Makeup

Well contoured, layered, and expertly applied makeup has its place, and it’s definitely not at summer events. Let your skin breathe Louise, it’s an oven out there. Heat does not befriend makeup convincingly.

When it comes to summer makeup, less is definitely more, for the more makeup you wear, the more makeup will slip – off your face and onto the shoulder of your friend’s crisp white shirt dress after that rehearsed “OMG!!!!…Hiiiiiiiiii! <<Grin>>” embrace. Interestingly enough, the less you wear, the less you’d have to fidget with your face and the more time you’d have to enjoy the intoxicating vibes. Sounds like a recipe for good times. 

The key is to let your skin radiate through your makeup, so opt for sheer colour. To achieve a dewy glowing look, use a tinted moisturizer mixed with bronzer rather than just plain old pressed powder. If you must wear foundation, opt for a light coverage formulation. Apply bronzer under your go to blush to boost your ‘natural’ glow, and choose golden or coral translucent lip colours for a most natural pout. Soft pinks or pale purples also work well on lighter and darker skin tones, respectively. For an unexpected pop of colour, use coloured eyeliner such as teal, which works well on most skin tones. Apply a coat or two of waterproof mascara and finish with a smile.

Body

It would stand to reason that, as clothing is minimal, hair removal is tantamount to being a prerequisite. No hairy peek-a-boo surprises please. Not only is it unpleasant for one to witness, but also it is also (or should be) pretty awkward for one to experience. Save yourself and everyone else the terrifically uncomfortable visual, and organize the line up/ removal of the hair situation pronto. Be sure to include scheduled visits for further upkeep. Anyone with a cell phone can easily turn paparazzi these days, so before your fluffy muffy ends up plastered over the Internet, consider hair removal a must.

Like the face, exfoliate your body at least once a week. Exfoliation is recommended at night time as this gives your skin some time to recoup and regenerate during sleep, which helps the newly revealed skin to be less susceptible to sunburn the next day.

Shoulders are dead sexy. Even if you didn’t get to do those handstand presses that you meant to do earlier this year, still expose your shoulders and collect your no-brainer, instant sexy points.

Feet

Please. Three words – Well. Groomed. Feet.

Manicures are necessary yes, but the condition of jacked up feet is an entirely higher, inexcusable level of unfab. Goodness.

Whether it involves a DIY or hitting the nail salon, feet need to be addressed. I know, it does seem like the feet are all the way down there but, don’t believe the hype, everyone still sees them.

Maintain your heels by giving them some gentle foot file action in the shower either daily or every other day and follow up with a thick moisturizer at night before bed. If the polish on your toes has a tendency to chip often, or become dull from walking in the sand, refresh polish every 2-3 days by applying a layer of top coat and your pedicure will last, as is, at least a couple of weeks longer.

The same goes for your hands. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Invest in some cuticle oil, or alternatively apply olive oil, jojoba oil or vitamin E, whatever you have, to your cuticles (hands and feet) every night before bed.

Long sandal wearing day? Pack a tiny bottle with oil (one with a polish applicator type top is helpful) in your bag and apply to cuticles as necessary – after washing hands or to refresh the toes. Really, it is just oil so you can never apply too much. In the event that your heels get ashy, apply the oil to the heels and rub in. I’ve found that a touch of one of the aforementioned oils work much better at concealing the ash than does a go to hand cream and, for my people who have a tendency to have sweaty palms after the application of certain creams, it’s much lighter and isn’t nearly as greasy.

For a no nonsense jolt of colour, try nail polish in one of the season’s various fluorescent hues. Haute!

Sunscreen

And of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t plug the use of sunscreen.

It will not only save your skin but you will appreciate that you took the extra 5 minutes to slather it on somewhere around 10 years from now. Sunscreen also helps prevent against pre-mature aging and pigmentation disorders, like darkening of the skin, especially in darker skin tones and Asian skin. You’re welcome. You can thank me later.

With the various different packaging of sunscreens out there – lotions, powders, sprays, wipes, and your old fashion lotions, available in two different formulations – chemical (for most skin conditions) and physical (for sensitive skin conditions), there is absolutely no excuse to expose your skin to potentially irreversible damage, unless you are dead set on looking like the grandparent in the bunch.

Alcohol, which increases the degree of a wicked dread sunburn or at the very least ‘tan’ for my chocolate peeps, will almost undoubtedly be the system so protect your skin accordingly. Get it. Wear it. Love it.

b Freakin’Fabulous

Photo: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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She got it from her mama

Humans are an interesting bunch. 

We are so technologically advanced at times, yet at the same time it’s amazing the things we accept as truth. “Anti-Aging” for example, must be one of the most overused words this decade, yet when you really think about is, is ‘anti-aging’ possible? 

No. 

A perfect example of marketing at it’s finest. 

Truth is, although aging (an alteration in structure, appearance and function of skin as taken in this context) cannot be prevented, it can be accelerated.

Aging is a continuous process that starts the day that you were born. It is one of life’s harshest realities; the degree of harshness of course, is dependent on many factors including both Skin Type (genetics) and Lifestyle (how you choose to live your life) – just how much you didn’t care about your skin in your 20s shows up in your 40s, if you’ve paced yourself socially, earlier if thought then that life was running away from you.

As you can imagine, there are many factors that influence how a person ages. These factors may be classified as being either Intrinsic or Extrinsic in nature. 

Intrinsic Aging refers to that which may be naturally expected to happen with time. It is said that 10% of our aging is intrinsic i.e. 10% of how we age is beyond our control and is affected by:

1. good old Father Time and

2. Genetics, that which your parents were so kind enough to give to you, like those allergies, and those toes.

A whooping 90% of our aging however, is extrinsic, meaning that it is under our control. Can you imagine that? Ninety percent.

What we eat, what we do, where we go and how we go there, as well as what we don’t eat, what we don’t do, where we don’t go and how we don’t go there can determine how well or how dreadfully awful we age. 

Extrinsic factors would include:

- Diet, nutrition and overall health

- Lifestyle

- Exposure to UVA and UVB radiation, like the sun’s rays)
- Smoking
- Excessive alcohol consumption
-  Stress
- Medication

- Environment, or other such external factors, for example if you injured yourself or otherwise did some damage to your skin. Or for example, if you live day in day out in metropolitan smog or if you live your life breathing in the fresh Caribbean breeze in some laid back tropical paradise. 

- Hormonal

As you may, or may not, imagine, a significant amount of extrinsic aging may be attributed to aging as a result of the damage that is done to the skin as a result of the over exposure to UV radiation, which is otherwise referred to as ‘photo-aging’, a state where the skin is irreparably damaged.

Photo-aging may occur on it’s own or as a result of other ‘lifestyle’ factors. For example, the heightened sensitivity to the sun’s UV rays that occurs within the skin when something like alcohol is ingested. Smoking, quite a few over the counter medications as well as poor nutrition can also make your skin more sensitive to the sun’s rays aka burn more easily when you are outdoors. 

So yes, she may have got it from her mama, but if she’s over 35 and can still get carded, best believe that there are a whole lot of other things that she, and her mama for that matter, have been doing right, like using a cleanser that’s an upgrade from soap perhaps, or using sunscreen… for starters.

be FiercelyFabulous.

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Nail Tip | Polish Smudge Fix

You finally got that second top coat on on your nail polish and one single, first-class, clumsy move royally wrecks it with a nasty dig?

Of course you can remove the polish completely and start from scratch with your base coat, first layer then second layer of polish – another 10 minutes (because you need to allow the polish to dry sufficiently between coats) or, if you are impatient like I can tend to be with my own nails, you can opt for a quick fix.

Tip 1:

1. Wet the finger pad of a strong, stable finger – perhaps your index finger of the opposite hand, in nail polish remover and tap the smudge lightly with the remover, using quick firm taps.

Your finger pad must be wet with the nail polish remover, or else you will just stamp your finger print on your wet nail polish. Dip your the finger pad again in the nail polish remover if necessary.

Careful now, tap don’t attempt to smoothen.

1. If the first coat was smudged, allow the quick fix to dry, then apply the second coat and base coats as you would normally.

2. If the second coat was smudged, allow the quick fix to dry, then just apply the top coat once the remaining two layers of nailpolish looks like you have already applied two layers.

3. If the top coat was smudged you can do the same and then apply another layer of top coat once the nail has COMPLETELY dried. If not then it would take very long for 5 layers of nail polish to dry rather than 4. 

Tip 2:

Alternatively, you can press the nail polish on top side of your tongue and smoothen out the polish in the appropriate direction. Sounds janky I know right? but I kid you not it works!

Now I don’t know about the health benefits of nail polish of course, so maybe you don’t want to do this on a regular basis, but you know… maybe if you are in a jam.

Allow the quick fix polish to dry completely and then finish with a top coat.

In the event that you do not have a professional nail polish remover dispenser, simply pour enough nail polish remover into the nail polish remover cap (more than halfway) that would allow you to wet your finger pad with ease without removing/ compromising the nail polish on that nail.

Of course this is for personal use, if you are charging people for your services then might I suggest you drink less caffeinated drinks and reapply the polish?

Might get you a larger tip.

Toodles!

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Q/A : Oil on 'Oily'

It’s great to find something that works – a relationship, a pair of jeans, and yes even a facial cleanser.

…

 ” I have sensitive, combination skin, with oily patches and terribly dry, flaky patches. I usually use foaming washes or scrubs, which have sometimes helped but largely… not so much. I live in the Caribbean and flew North over Christmas time, and my face dried out so badly I was like a snake shedding skin. Then I tried a “Cleansing Milk”. Not to sound like a cheezy ad, but it was like a miracle; No more flaking, my skin was soft and smooth, and no breakouts. I’m currently back home and I’ve kept using it. It’s been a week and my skin still looks great.

My question is, how does this make sense??? everything that I’ve been told about skin care suggests that I should avoid an oil based cleanser, yet this contains nothing BUT oil and it is making my skin thrive. How does that work?”

…

Oil on ‘oily’ skin? I know right, totally doesn’t follow logic. Maybe then:

1. Combination Dry

Your skin is combination yes, but combination dry, rather than combination oily, which would explain why your skin would benefit more from products that are formulated for dry skin types rather than products that are formulated for oily ones.

Alternatively:

2. Dry & Dehydrated

It is possible that your skin isn’t oily at all, and really is more of a dry skin type (sensitive skins usually are) that is also dehydrated, a skin condition that is very prevalent in tropical climates.

Dehydrated skin lacks water, and as the skin cannot produce water to hydrate itself on its own, (it will require that you either use hydrating moisturizers and/ or increase your water intake), the skin will produce more of what it can produce – oil. The over production of oil in this way can give the impression that your skin is combination oily when really is isn’t, because you see oil, but it’s not all over your face – only in certain areas, so you don’t think that your skin is outright ‘oily’, so ‘combination’ is the next best guess.

Dry skin types lack oil, which may explain why your skin is absolutely thriving with a milk cleanser rather than a foamy cleanser, which is normally very stripping for dry skin types. 

Of course being in a temperate country for the winter only makes a naturally dry skin type more dry and irritated, which is what probably prompted you to use a lipid based cleansing solution, like the milk cleansing solution in the first place. These ‘milk’ solutions, especially when ‘ (artificially) fragrance/ parfum free’, are usually specifically formulated for sensitive skins as well, and don’t contain harsh cleansing agents that would further irritate skin, resulting red/ dry/ flakey/ tight skin.

So although the product is largely oil/ lipid based, it is possible to see a dramatic improvement after switching to this product because it addresses at least 2 of the 3 possible challenges your skin faces:
- Combination (normal to dry) &
- sensitive

Many cleansing milks contain ‘natural extracts. Though some of these may seem like oils, it is not uncommon for certain extracts to have hydrating properties that will deal with your skin’s 3rd possible underlying condition – dehydration, which will result in your skin itself producing less oil, and seeming to be more balanced. 

Alternatively, as you did think that your skin was more on the oily side, you may have been using a moisturizer that contains less oil, and therefore more water or another hydrating ingredient, which will work with your milk cleanser to address this dehydration, which results in your skin producing less oil.

Less oil production by the skin = less breakouts, as the ideal conditions (excess sebum/ oil) for this type of bacterial activity no longer exists. This type of moisturizer will still work with the milk cleanser because your skin doesn’t seem to be chronically dry so this balance of oil and water products can work quite well.

So… boom, bang, boom.

You have a product that works perfectly for your skin type and conditions

Scrubs (with spherical micro-beads) do well at helping to exfoliate the excess flakiness on dry skin, maybe 2-3 times a week.

However, it must be followed up with a moisturizer that would replace the oil that is lost/ hardly present. So maybe you can do the scrubs at nighttime, and follow with a rich, thick, cream moisturizer, to allow your skin to rebalance itself while you sleep. That way when you follow with your normal cleansing routine the next morning, you wouldn’t have the excess oil that the thicker cream would have left on your face still lingering during the day.

Thanks for asking. Keep the questions coming.

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BMP Tip 5| 5 easy ways to look 10 years older

Lest you be found guilty by the Beauty & Makeup Police (BMP) while you try your very best to get your festive sexy on this holiday season, we thought it would be constructive of us to pin-point some of the biggest beauty/ makeup mistakes to avoid this ‘Holiday Glam’ season.

Here is the 5th simplest way to look 10 years older.

Bold Eye and lip colour

This only works on the runway and on 10 year old girls y’alls. Otherwise, it’s just too much going on aka ‘hot mess’.

Either:

- Dramatic eyes and nude lips, paired with blush that is present enough to balance the both. 

For bold eyes, stick to matted smokey colours, focusing shimmery highlights on browbone or on the inner corners of the eye. Alternatively, use shimmery accent eyeshadow colours to line/ add smokey definition to the eye.

All over eye glitter screams 80s.

Or:

- Bold lips paired with ‘Understated Glam’ eyes.

You don’t want to go too bland with the eyes when donning bold lips as you run the risk of looking lopsided, or at least like your makeup is unfinished. So, you can apply a shimmery neutral eyeshadow colour, a shade or so lighter than your natural skin colour, over your entire eyelid area, and then line your upper lash line with a statement liquid eyeliner in black, and you are good to go.

Alternatively you can do eyeshadow contouring for a smokey eyed look, but with neutral colours, opting for the smokey part in a brown or similar natural looking colour rather than black. Paired with eyelash extensions, this look can get you exactly where you need to go.

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Drama Glamour
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5 Simple Ways to Look 10 years older | BMP Tip 2

Lest you be found guilty by the Beauty & Makeup Police (BMP) while you try your very best to get your festive sexy on this holiday season, here is a second easy way to look 10 years older.

Wearing too much powder

Because it’s cakey and aging.

Packed on powder doesn’t stand up well to bright lights and flashing camera lights. Also if you have started to wrinkle or even if you have laugh lines, it’s just way too easy for the creasing lines to be more pronounced by wearing too much powder, as the powder will tend to break apart and crack in a sort of arid, desert lands steez.

Further to this, unless you are of a fair complexion, do not believe the hype that translucent powder matches ‘every’ skin color. It doesn’t.

There are over 6 billion of us here, if finding a similarity between all of us was as easy as translucent powder, then World Peace would not be an issue. Skin and skin tones, like human beings are way too complex for anything to be even remotely that simple.

Find powder in your skin tone, apply it over any foundation or concealer that you may be wearing and call that a day. Unless you’ve been sweating up a storm crunking in the club and have totally removed your makeup, use oil absorbing or blotting sheets to get rid of the shine, rather than apply more powder.

In a crunch? Those sanitary toilet seat ‘paper’ covers, grab one (a clean one) tear it in some manageable sized square-ish shapes and stash a few in your pocketbook.

They function in pretty much the same way as those commercial blotting sheets and work better than tissue, as they don’t leave any white residue behind.  This way you don’t look all spotted when the UV black light comes on in the club.

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Eye Seduction | The Basic Smokey Eye

The Basic Smokey Eye

With the understanding that there is no way really for someone to either or explain or master a smokey eye makeup application by just reading about it, these are the basic steps to a smokey eye.

Of course many variations exist, as well as various executions based on various levels of expertise, still following steps ought to be useful.

1. Prepare the eyelid by creating a good base

After applying foundation and loose powder, prep the eyelid using an eyelid primer.

Alternatively you can blend a small amount of your normal foundation over the eyelid using a cosmetic triangle or sponge and pat lightly with loose powder on large powder brush.

2. Apply the mid-tone eyeshadow from lash line to eyebrow

Fill the entire space up with an eyeshadow that closely matches, or is a shade lighter than, your natural eye lid colour and blend. A shimmery (not glittery) shade is usually very flattering.

3. Apply the highlighter eyeshadow to the inside corner of the eye area and on the brow bone.

Using an eyeshadow brush, apply a light shade of eyeshadow at the inner corners of the eyes as well as on the brow bone. Blend WELL into the existing mid-tone.

If you have perky (large) eyes, forget applying this shade to the inner corner of the eye as this will just make your eyes look even larger.

 4. Line eyes with black eyeliner and blend

Using a black eyeliner, line upper and lower lash lines with black soft kohl eyeliner pencil. Smudge the line with fingertips or a soft brush to diffuse the harshness of the line a bit.

5. Apply the accent tone around the lash line

A smokey grey, a black, a metallic navy, an eggplant shade – you create the fantasy that you’d like here. Just so long as it doesn’t match the colour top that you’re wearing exactly. Too matchy matchy.

Starting from the outer corner of the eye, apply eyeshadow using short, controlled strokes on the upper lash line toward the middle of the eye using a small eyeshadow brush. Use a little of the accent colour at a time, you can always layer more colour if you wish the colour to be darker.

At the middle of the eye on the lashline, blend this accent colour into the corner of the eye where it meets the high tone that you’ve previously applied.

Now, starting again from the outer corner of the upper lash line, blend accent color upward and over the eyelid until the colour reaches the eye crease, just where the eye folds when you blink.

Blend, blend, blend.  

If you decide that you want you want the smokey effect darker, use more eyeshadow on the eyeshadow brush and always start from the outer lashline and blend it up. That way the darkest effect will always be at the outer corner of the eye.

You can choose to focus most of the accent colour just to the outer colours of your eyes, or you can up the ante and colour your entire eyelid with the accent colour. For extreme sized eyes, the first technique opens smaller eyes and the second minimizes larger eyes.

With a very small eyeshadow brush, or with those teeny, firm eye shadow sponges that normally come with eye shadow compacts, apply accent colour on the outer bottom lash line, and blend toward the inner of the eye. 

Blend the free outer edge of the eye in a slightly upward fashion, so as to not make eyes look droopy.

6. Apply Mascara

Focusing on outer lashes, apply two coats of masacara on top lashes. If you dare, try applying to the outer bottom lashes as well. However, to avoid the spidery look, only apply mascara to bottom lashes if you’ve previously lined them. Mascara with no eye-liner on the bottom line looks well scary.

Easy does it, it’s a little tricky.

Use waterproof mascara, or the type that coats the eyelashes in a ‘tube-like manner’ so that mascara, especially that applied on the bottom lashes,  wouldn’t run if you get misty. 

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Minimalista Steez

On a very basic level, smokey eye shadow differs from a more natural, well defined eyeshadow application in the following ways:

- The choice of makeup colours (variations of your skin-tone’s natural colours vs. statement bright/ deep/ vibrant colours)

- The intensity/ amount of the accent shadow applied and 

- How far from the lash line toward the crease the accent eye shadow goes.

Just a little definition goes a long way. In a normal eyeshadow application the accent colour is limited to the lash line, with particular focus being paid to the outer corners of the eye.

For more on applying everyday makeup using 3 colours see GC post Makeup | 3-C Eye Definition
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Anti-Aging Tip #6

Wear Sun Screen

This should have been the first Anti-Aging tip, but I didn’t want it to get lost in the melee.

Badly damaging skin due to unprotected exposure to the sun’s UV rays is the greatest way to accelerate your skin’s aging process. 

The best anti-aging advice anyone can give is to avoid excessive sun exposure and at the very least, wear a broad spectrum sun screen that protects against both UVA and UVB rays.

Everyone should wear sunscreen daily, SPF 15 minimum. Lighter skin types, Fitzpatrick skin types (I, II and III), should wear sunscreen containing a minimum of SPF 20.

Exposure to ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun, even in small daily doses, results in free radical action on skin that enables the destruction of natural collagen and elastin fibres in skin, causing skin to lose elasticity and tone, as well as develop wrinkles, crows feet and frown lines. 

We live in modern times. There are many types of sunscreen products in various formulations/ weights in creams, lotions and fluids.  No longer does sunscreen have to smell of bananas and coconuts, be oily, or cause acne breakouts. There are formations that incorporate sunscreen into moisturizers and foundations. Alternatively sunscreen can be worn alone or under makeup. There are sunscreens formulated for the face and others formulated for the body. The options are endless.

It may be cute and ‘cool’ to bake in the sun and live in tanning beds when we are young, but not so cute to have to consider replacing the lost collagen in our skin when we are older, by the use of injectable fillers or surgical procedures.

Though darker skin types are better protected against the damaging sun’s rays, they are not immune to aging.

So really, there is no excuse to not wearing it.

Playing russian roulette with your skin health is so 80′s.

For more on Sun Screens see post Sun and Skin Types

Lotion up!

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Hair | Beweaveable

Ok. I like wearing weaves. 

But it is particularly unnerving for me to see  someone wearing something that looks like a spat out wool ball.

YUCK!

It’s very difficult for someone to focus on what you’re saying when they are trying to figure out what the hell is really going on with you upstairs.

I had that experience the other day, wanna know how I knew it was a sewn-in weave? Well, she didnt bother to cover the exposed tracks…*sigh* sigh*…*siiiiiigh*… Made me wanna snatch it out and do it over for free.

A weave is a good way to add some volume, length, highlights, a new colour, lowlights, curls, go straight, add bangs without cutting…. the list just goes oooooon! But there is a good way and a bad way to wear a weave.

These are my tips on how to get the best from your weaves.

1. Understand your features.

Pull your hair back into a bun or a ponytail and sit in front of your vanity. Look in the mirror and take in your features. It is necessary for you to consider these things, because for a weave to be flattering, the hair must match your face.

To look most natural, hair extensions must compliment your facial features, or you will draw unnecessary and unwelcomed interest to the fact that the hair on your head isn’t yours.  You should also match your hair perfectly to the weave, as the difference will be noticed immediately.

So, even if your hair is relaxed but still manages to retain a bit of its previous coarse or curly texture, there should be no trouble at all to find a weft that matches this texture perfectly, as there is more than enough variety out there to choose from.

2. Next, chose an appropriate colour.

Really, you can go two shades darker or two shades lighter than your original colour; a little lighter with the help of a professional Stylist. In choosing a colour, take into consideration not only the colour of your skin, but the colour of it’s undertones. Usually medium to darker skin tones have a yellow undertone, while fairer complexions have a pink one. The colour you chose should compliment your skin colour rather than make it look sallow.

Also, if you are going to go go lighter or darker with your extensions, make sure that any hair that is left out, for the purpose of covering the hair tracks, is properly dyed to match them.

3. Choose the right method 

Ask your hairstylist which method would be best for your lifestyle. If s/he is knowledgeable s/he would be able to explain these matters to you.

For example, if you have a really busy lifestyle, then the sewn-in option would be best. However, do understand that once this option is styled it cannot be changed easily.

If you have a more easy going lifestyle, or like to change your look often then maybe you can opt for the glued in method. This is usually a very temporary method of putting in extensions, but it lies flat on the scalp so it is less detectable by the general public. Let the stylist cut it into a more natural style when it is inserted, and walk out of there looking like the million dollars that you are.

However, we are NOT finished yet.

4. Hair Care

Never make the mistake that once you leave the salon, your hair will take care if itself. Newsflash – it won’t. 

You now have the job of taking care of your new hair. Please do NOT sleep with the hair out, all cascading on your pillows. Moisturize the natural hair that you left out and put it all away in a head scarf. 

WASH your weaves people. Rancid hair smells something disgustingly fierce. Just because it ain’t naturally yours does not mean that you don’t have to shampoo it.  Also when you get your locks washed, make sure that you have the tracks dried properly, or you get that musty smell, which is just as nasty.

You really should not wash weaves that have been glued in because the conditioner causes them to slip right out, but it should not  be a problem because you are going to change it within two weeks right???  Nice.

5. Be comfortable

Last but not least, don’t walk around touching it constantly; You will draw attention to its newness.

And before you leave the house please make sure your tracks are covered – nothing is worse than sitting next to or behind someone and you can see the tracks of their weave. Even though everyone is probably aware that you bought your ‘do, you don’t have to take the mystery out of it.

And put some makeup on. Well-kept, gorgeous, healthy looking hair, but the face looks like it just washed up on the shore with last night’s seaweed? Come on. Seriously? Who’s going to believe you?

At least put on the basics: a little blush, some mascara, a little eyeliner, some gloss and head out there and blow them away!

Forward ever!

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Lets keep it together ladies.