Christmas 2007: Hottest beauty and skin care gift ideas for women – Part 2

Beauty and skin care products can be great gifts for women. From women that are easy to shop for, to women a bit on the picky side, there is such a wide variety of gifts that surely you will find something that fits the personality of the woman you’re shopping for.

When buying fragrances it is a good idea to buy a sample set. Unless you know the recipient very well, you can not be sure they will like a fragrance until they tell you. With a sample set there are always a lot of choices and they can wear whichever one they want. Also they can sample new scents that they’ve never tried.

Makeup is always a fun gift. It is also great because there are matches for different types of women. Does she wear makeup everyday? Does she match the colors to her clothes? Or does she only wear in on the weekends? Does she wear neutral colors for a more natural look? Cosmetics also come in combination sets. Pick one with the most variety for the more outrageous make-up wearer. Or get the one with the more basic colors and hues for the weekend wearer.

Another nice makeup gift is mascara. Mascara is a nice neutral gift. You can pick one that’s a little bit more expensive to make the gift a little classier.

Lip glosses come in a variety of prices as well. A lip gloss is a gift that can be worn alone or over a lipstick. It can be given for a small gift or it can be something that you spend a little more money on depending what brand you buy.

When all else fails you can always resort to a gift card. Department stores like Macy’s and specialty stores like Sephora carry a variety of brands. Gift cards are a nice choice if you really can’t pick.

Tested Beauty Tips for Women Over 50

Once you hit your 50s, your pursuit for a beautiful skin, a beautiful body and a beautiful sense of style should not at all come to an end. The recommended diet and exercise habit for a 50 year old is not much different from those of a 20 year old. In fact, the only difference is in the 50s, a healthy diet and regular exercise become more important than ever. The key to keeping your body properly functioning and in good shape, during the aging process, is to eat healthy and stay active.

Most adults, 50 years and above, are still capable of completing a few exercises. At this age, exercise could mean a daily walk for about an hour, and workouts with exercise videos at home. To ease the wrinkles on your face, there is help in the form of ‘Botox’ injections. Removal of fine lines and smoothing skin, especially around the eyes and mouth, is the magical effect of chemical peels. For ‘plumping’ up your skin and erasing lines, wrinkle fillers come to your aid.

A cream lipstick is a better option for women over 50 than a matte or gloss. In fact, a pinch these lipsticks can also serve as a blush. Lips become thinner with age, and lose definition and color. So, for aging skin, one of the great makeup tricks is – use a neutral lip liner to make lips appear plump, and a sheer lipstick to avoid ‘feathering’. A lip liner helps to define lips. A lip liner with its color close to the natural shade of your lips should be opted for; and the lips should be outlined before applying lip color. For different occasions, outfits, and moods, stash a few lipsticks of daring shades in your purse. You can look great if you use ‘correct’ makeup to accentuate your positive qualities.

Beauty tips for women over 50:

1. Don’t use heavy makeup and powders on dry skin.

2. Your skin may look matte and dry, if heavily powdered.

3. Just as the pigment in our hair turns it grey, the melanin in our skin changes too.

4. Don’t fall prey to the idea that you must have every new color that is in trend for a particular season.

5. Use a humidifier, moisturizing soaps and lotions.

6. Good nutrition is ideal for repairing damaged skin.

7. Drinking lots of water helps hydrate skin.

8. Use products with SPF 15 or higher, and both UVB and UVA protection.

Loss of youthful appearance, decreased skin tautness and the development of wrinkles are the telltale signs of aging skin. As we grow in age, the skin sags and becomes wrinkled. The skin ages for various reasons. Both intrinsic as well as environmental factors are responsible for skin aging. Increasing loss of flexibility due to degeneration of collagen and elastin within the epidermis naturally leads to aging skin. UVA and UVB light wavelengths from the sun also ‘contribute’ their bit in speeding up the ageing process of the skin.

Makeup for men: Marketing folly or about time?

I suppose that everyone should be given choice, and in the area of make-up that the choices are there for men to take advantage of as well as women. Society tells us that it’s somehow not acceptable for men to wear make-up, though let’s take a look at some of the things that society see as acceptable in order to try and get the argument into some kind of perspective.

*Women should use make-up to enhance their features.

*Women should dye their hair

*Women should rip their excess body hair out by the roots.

*Women should use anti aging products

So let’s turn this argument the other way and look at how these expectations are compared with expectations we have of men.

*Men should use deodorant

*Men should use aftershave

*Men should shave

*Men should mature naturally

Looks a little out of balance doesn’t it ? Men have society strongly on their side in that a man that looks older has that Mature look, whereas women that look older just look old. To redress the balance, society also accept that make-up and anti aging products are for women because of society’s expectations of them.

Men, on the other hand do use beauty products, though they don’t call them the same kind of names as those which apply to women. Shaving foam is seen as a necessity rather than a cosmetic product. After shave is seen as an enhancement, rather than as a perfume. The image that human beings have of men don’t actually sit very well with the idea that men should wear make-up.

Let’s look at the make-up available in society and it’s uses :

*Lipstick

*Blusher

*Foundation

*Eye liner

*Eye shadow

Lipstick is used to enhance the curve of a woman’s lips. Do we as a society really want men to enhance their look ? I somehow feel that lipstick would actually look silly on a man unless used for filming purposes or unusual circumstances such as in a public performance, and certainly the idea of a man using lipstick is a little abhorrent.

Blusher is used to give the face a little color. Could men use it ? Perhaps, though in the case of men, I would imagine that there are better alternatives that would look better, and certainly a tanned skin would look far better than pink cheeks.

Foundation is used to obliterate those flaws in a woman’s skin. Used wisely and in small proportions, what’s to say that men may not be able to use it to hide flaws ? I am not suggesting that they cover their whole face area, although there would appear to be a market for stop foundation