Although education is important, the inflated costs of tuition and sizeable enrollments in today’s post-secondary institutions make college and university life a totally different experience than that of our parents’ generation.
I’m sure many students will echo the same woe that I face, namely, the lack of time and sleep that accompanies our pursuit of higher education. There are many reasons for these woes. Firstly, there is a growing trend of students (me included) slowly taking on part and full-time jobs while trying to obtain their degrees and certifications. Secondly, academia is becoming more competitive due to the large student population now vying for those select scholarships and research opportunities. Thirdly, the stress caused by the uncertainty of today’s job market further adds to student woes (like, the kind you might run through the six with).
While I am not even going to attempt proposing solutions to this intricate web of problems, I can, however, provide some much needed beauty hacks for those of you in post-secondary suffering with a lack of time, money and sleep.
5. Drink lots of water:
I cannot emphasize this enough, and even though I’m going to sound like a huge hippopotamus—a euphemism of mine for the word “hypocrite”—for saying this, but, drink lots of water! Drink a pool-sized amount of water if you have to! Actually, no, that may have been a tad bit of an exaggeration…but you catch my drift!
Your body is 60 per cent water, so duh, we need it to survive. Besides losing this water through sweating, breathing and by mere virtue of living, around eight glasses of water a day should help flush out all those toxins you regularly accumulate in your body.
4. Become best friends with coconut oil:
I could go on and on about the list of benefits that coconut oil produces, and you know what, for the sake of emphasis, I will! Coconut oil is highly moisturizing, so just pack a bit of it in a small container (like an old contact-lenses holder) and dab a bit on your lips while on the go to add that extra shine. For those of you who care to know, I use Parachute’s pure, unrefined coconut oil.
I’ve also been told, but have yet to try, peppermint oil mixed in lip gloss will help create plumper-looking lips.
Besides being the perfect lip moisturizer, coconut oil can be applied to dry hair to add that much needed glow, to skin and even your nail cuticles (who would have known?).
Have you run out of makeup remover? Don’t worry! just take squeeze a bit of coconut oil on a cotton pad to wipe off all that product from your face. Easy. Safe. Fab!
3. Use a good highlighting wand to fake a good night’s sleep:
When I actually try to care about my appearance for school, which is quite rare these days, I personally like to use MAC’s prep and prime highlighter pen to fake the best sleep of my life.
When applied to the areas directly under the eyes, and upper eyebrow, this product masks the I-couldn’t-get-enough-sleep-because-of-today’s-midterm look that most of us have going on. As an added bonus, you can add some highlight to the centre of both your bottom and top lips to create more depth.
2. Use white eyeliner for the inner corners of your eyes, and to make your eye shadow pop:
If you apply white eye liner as a base on your eyelid crease, it will really bring out the vibrant colours of the eye shadow you’re wearing. A tip is to take the white eyeliner and to draw a line across the lid; you can then proceed to thicken this line until the desired area is covered. Once this is done, simply apply a matte eye shadow of your choice and watch it come to life!
Another tip – apply white eye shadow to the inner corner of your eyes (I used to abuse this trick a lot in high school, but have poked myself too many times in the eyes for me to dare this again). Make sure you have a steady hand to avoid injuring yourself, and I’m sure this trick will work wonders for you.
1. Has your mascara gone flaky and dry? Use contact solution to squeeze out whatever is left over:
I should note that if your mascara is over three-to-four months past is prime, toss it out no matter what. No one wants an eye infection, especially during exam time, so it’s better to sacrifice the monetary cost of that mascara than risk health damages.
However, if the above doesn’t apply to you and your mascara is fairly new but just overused, simply drip a bit of contact solution into the mascara tube and shake. Use the mascara wand to mix in the solution. This added trick will help your mascara last a whole lot longer than it should, and will help you save a couple of dollars in your pocket for the time being.
What are your favourite cost-efficient beauty tricks?
a quarter young 