[I wrote this for Associated Content and thought I would share.]

We all know that you should take care of your skin. But you should also take especially care of your skin if you usually wear makeup. If you didn’t already know, makeup isn’t necessarily good for your skin. It’s not really bad for your skin either, unless you are allergic, but here are some general tips on preparing before you put your makeup on.

1. Drink plenty of water. Drinking water hydrates your body, including your skin. It actually contributes to giving you a youthful look. It also prevents dry skin and acne.

2. Eat healthily. Make sure you are getting enough fruits and vegetables. This has a similar effect as water. It helps purify your body and your skin. Oily foods causes clogged arteries. Clogged arteries means bad blood flow which causes bad skin.

3. Change your pillow. This is something you might not even think about, but oil collects on your pillow after you sleep on it night after night. That is often a reason why when you wake up that your face and hair feels greasy.

4. Wash your face. You should wash your face twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. If you are prone to acne, use a wash that specifically fights it. You might have you try out a few different kinds of facial cleansers to find the type that works best.

5. Moisturize after washing. Some people get really dry skin after taking a hot shower so make sure you use a moisturizer right after your wash your face. Lotions are moisturizers are different. Lotions often have oils while moisturizers don’t so make sure you aren’t using just any lotion.

“Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.” – Roy Thompson

Everyone wants to look beautiful. Many people today are turning to cosmetic surgery as a fast way to get a desired look. But you don’t have to be nipped or tucked in order to look good. There are plenty of natural ways you can keep yourself beautiful looking. Here are just a few tips.

You Are What You Eat
A healthy and well-balanced diet is an essential key to radiant and glowing skin. If your diet consists of fast-food burgers and greasy pizza, your skin will show it. Purge your body of all of the junk and you will see results in a matter of weeks.

Drink Lots of Water
Water is the ultimate beauty product because when your skin is dehydrated you will often look tired and worn out. It’s too bad that most people don’t drink nearly as much as they should. The key to beautiful skin is hydration. Water flushes out toxins from your system and it also revitalizes and replenishes your body. So try to drink at least 2 liters of water a day.

Stay Out of the Sun
Our skin automatically ages at it’s own rate but add the sun and you have a recipe for disaster. You’ve seen those over tanned women who look like leather bags and 20 years older than what they really are! The sun increases the effects of aging dramatically and the UV damage causes uneven skin color, age spots, lesions and skin cancer. Do your best to stay out of the sun. And when you have no choice but to be in the sun wear a sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15 or higher.

Moisturize
Invest in a high-quality moisturizer. Most people will splurge on their cars but not on their faces. A high-quality moisturizer goes a long way in keeping your skin looking fresh. Be sure to buy according to your skin type: normal, oily, dry, or combination.

Exercise
If you are fit, then you will look it both inside and out. Maintaining a regular exercise regimen is essential for looking beautiful and staying slim & trim. There is nothing like working up a sweat to clear out pores and release impurities like oil, bacteria, and dead skin cells from your skin. An added benefit is that by getting your heart pumping and increasing your oxygen intake, you actually help your body to clean itself out. As a result, you will notice a healthy glow and more refined skin tone every time you hit the gym! Aim for 30 minutes of cardiovascular activity at least 5 times a week.

Get Your Zzzzs
When you are deprived of your beauty sleep, you and everyone around you can see it. Puffiness, drab skin, dark circles and bags under your eyes are all telltale signs that you are not getting enough sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation causes your body to age more rapidly. People who suffer from insomnia should try their best to eliminate stress and cut caffeine from their diets. They also recommend getting between 6-8 hours of sleep per night.

Work on Your Inner Peace and Happiness
People who worry about their looks too much are often adding to the problem, if indeed there is a problem. Being discontent and worried itself can cause you to look strained. Millions right now are putting down their looks and are figuring out how much it will cost to get liposuction, their breasts done, nose jobs, etc. Instead, the starting point could be to improve the way you feel about yourself from the inside. That will reflect on the outside over time. The eyes of an unhappy person lose their sparkle, and their beauty can be destroyed.

As you may have noticed, all of this this requires a bit of a lifestyle change for many of you. But if you can commit yourself to it, you’ll notice a positive change in not only your appearance, but also your health, and over well being also.

A lot of people are cursed with dry, chapped lips. Winter is the time of year in which this is especially a problem. You buy a well known lip balm for this reason, but you find yourself having to reapply a hundred times a day. The good news is, there are ways to cure this, but first let’s look at the main causes of chapped lips.

• Dehydration. Not drinking enough water every day could cause a lack of necessary moisture that your lips need.

• Smoking. Your lips contain natural oils in which smoking dries up every time you light up.

• Overexposure to the sun. UV rays, especially in the summer, are just as harmful to your lips as they are to the rest of your body.

• Exposure to cold, dry winds. Winter time often brings dry winds, which zaps the moisture out of your lips, and your skin as well, which is why you experience the dry and flakiness of your skin during winter months.

• Medications. Harsh acne treatments have been known to have the side effect of dry lips. Check with a dermatologist if you think this could be a concern.

• Cosmetics. Some lip colors contain chemicals that destroy your lips natural oils. Look out of ones that contain “propyl gallate” because your dry lips could be an allergic reaction to the chemical.

Here are some things you can do now to help heal and prevent your lips fro drying and chapping.

• Drink plenty of water. Keeping your body hydrated will help keep your lips hydrated.

• Use SPF. Whenever you go outside in extreme temperatures, make sure you use a lip balm with at least SPF15.

• Apply a medicated lip balm that contain beeswax, phenol, and sunscreen. Blistex, Chap Stick, Carmex are good and inexpensive.

• Don’t lick or bite. This makes the problem severely worse.

• Run a humidifier in your room. A lot of the air inside homes is dry, causing your lips to dry out as well.

• Avoid alcohol and caffeine. Both of these are dehydrating to your system.

• Take vitamin supplements. Taking a daily vitamin supplement ensures that your body is getting all the necessary nutrients it needs, which can also affect your lips.

Additional note: If you think your dehydrated lips are a severe problem and none of these tactics seem to be working, you might want to consult with your doctor and see if you can get a prescribed medication.

I sit alone and dream
About what life used to be,
before it became so complicated
and my heart wasn’t torn in two.

I sit alone and wonder
what the future holds for me.
If it will be filled with pain,
Lost hope and misery.

I sit alone with my broken heart
in hope that I can find.
Someone who understands my pain
someone to calm my mind.

But I have all but given up hope.
For I must fight alone,
This battle I must conquer
With all the strength of a person

Who can stand tall and proud.
A person who can fight a battle.
When their heart is torn in two.
A person who has belief in everything they do.

This battle is mine, and mine alone.
And however long it takes me.
I am determined to conquer it
With a spring in my step, and a fire in my broken heart.

An article I wrote, in thought of it almost being back to school. [Published on Associated Content]

Stop Procrastination

Are you always seeming to do everything in the last minutes of time? Just about everyone has procrastinated their homework and school obligations at some point in their lives, but allow me to help. Here is a list of things you can do the next time you feel like putting off your work.

1. Break your task up into pieces. It is often overwhelming to do all 40 of the math problems all at once. Instead, try doing ten at a time, take a small break and do another ten. Repeat until you have it all done. You can also break it up into pieces of time. Like if you have to read a novel or a long chapter, tell yourself that you will read for 20 minutes, then take a break and then go for another 20 minutes and so on.

2. Know that it doesn’t have to be perfect. Believe it or not, perfectionism is one of the biggest causes of procrastination. Another one along the same lines is fear of failure. But don’t let that get to you. Once you get started doing your homework, you’ll often realize that it’s not as hard as you have been making it out to be in your head.

3. Starting is the hardest part. It really is. But once you get started, it’s easier because you’ll be more motivated. It’s a fact that people are more motivated to do something that has already made some progress. So get it started, and it will be easier from then on.

4. Do it now and you won’t worry later. You probably know the feeling, when you have had 3 weeks to do a big project and every day that goes by, that’s one less day you have to finish it, and every now and then during the day, that thought pops in your head and it puts your mood down. Now, you only have 4 days and you are kicking yourself for putting it off. But if you were to have started it right away, that worry would have never came. You could ave went about your day perfectly carefree about that project. So remember that annoying feeling you get when you put off your work and stop it before it starts but starting it as soon as you can. Remember, the feeling you get when you finish your work is so much better than the guilty feeling you get when you put it off.

Hopefully now you won’t have the worry and problem with having to cram a task into the last possible moment.