Beauty on the Web
Beauty & Life on a Budget, by Rachel Harris
For the latest in cool beauty tips and helpful cosmetic tricks, just log on to learn how to reach your personal goals and even shop for cool personalized items. Some of your favorite brands have some helpful websites that contain free and useful tips and beauty tricks.
For example, Olay has a website that provides an individualized skin care plan. Nike can custom design the perfect tennis shoe for your feet and for your fitness goals. Another site provides beauty tips on growing strong nails and this month's issue of Health magazine recommends a wellness site for overall good health and beauty.
For details on these sites and more, read on, and then log on to start looking and feeling better with the click of your mouse.
|
Olayforyou.com asks about personal skin care goals and offers personal skin care suggestions
|
If you feel overwhelmed with the huge variety of skin care products available, you are not alone. How do you know if you need a hydrating cream or an exfoliating treatment? Olay has found a way to take the guesswork out of this task. Simply visit www.olayforyou.com and let the free and personalized skin care consultant go to work for you.
I did it in less than five minutes. I learned what four Olay products may work best for my skin and for my daily beauty plan. It is like having a free individualized beauty consultant come to your home. |
Plus the site is fun to navigate through. A few of the site's screens are shown below to give you an idea of what the process looks like. The first screen shown asks about personal skin care goals. This is followed by a few more questions that result in the tailored routine screen. Products are then emailed to a personal email address or the items can be ordered online through links on the Olay site. It is easy, fun and free.
|
|
One fun habit that I have adopted is to check the websites of my favorite beauty products. For example, after I recently purchased a new Sally Hansen nail product, I visited www.sallyhansen.com to learn more about my new purchase. I became curious and clicked under the “learn” chapter and to my surprise; this site offered what they call a “Master Manicure Class” complete with instructions on how to perform several types of manicures. For folks in a hurry, the “Five Minute Manicure” could be selected or the “Perfect French Manicure” for those who like a more natural look. Several other types were also offered.
|
It doesn't stop at the nails, either. If you want to achieve actress Amy Adams' Oscar night hair style, www.goody.com shows you how. Simply click under the "Trend Watch" chapter and then select "Live From the Red Carpet" and a variety of award show photos of dozens of celebrities are shown.
Goody then takes it one step further with instructions from Celebrity Stylist Jim Crawford. Photos of Goody products are also shown so that readers can see what hair tools are used to create the celebrity's hair style. This is also a good resource when you are looking for that perfect picture to take to your hair stylist. Most hair dressers agree that having a photo on hand with your desired hair style makes their job a lot easier. |
 |
|
|
For the perfect pair of athletic shoes or a purse that carries your personality, there are several websites that will custom create exactly what you want in your new product. Nike has a cool site that enables users to create the perfect sneaker. NikeId can be found at www.nike.com.
 In under five minutes, I selected a Nike Air One Women's Running Shoe in a three-color design that includes hot pink, black and white. I also selected the pattern of the leather and color of the Nike logo. It was fun and easy. The site told me that my order will take about four weeks to arrive since it is a custom design. I paid $130 and shipping costs are waived for first-time customers. If the shoe doesn't fit, I can return it at no extra cost.
 Purses can also be ordered this way through a business called Lill Studio at www.1154lill.com. Celebrities that include Vanessa Hudgens and Carrie Underwood love Lill purses. Members can shop by price or style, so for the many of us on budgets, you can ask the site to only show handbags that are $50 and under. Like the tennis shoes, these individualized purses take up to four weeks to receive. I enjoyed selecting my purse since the site offers a wide variety of styles and designs.
|
|
Good health should be a regular part of your beauty plan and with the World Wide Web, we have never before had an easier resource to keep us informed on the latest health trends.
This month's issue of Health magazine recommends www.VitalJuiceDaily.com as the website to know about. I checked it out and I give this site a thumbs up. It is free and full of current and useful information about nutrition, diet, healing, beauty, green living and more.
I also signed up for the free daily email called Vital Juice Daily that enables me to start my day with helpful and healthy news. Daily information is gathered by the site's approved experts and cover topics like replacing your morning orange juice with mangosteen juice and how acupuncture can help to combat allergies. Other information I liked included how to make a homemade exfoliating body scrub by mixing two equal parts of brown sugar and olive oil.
Another interesting feature is the suggested shopping list which organizes recommended healthy foods under categories that include dairy, protein, beverages and more. For those of us trying out health food stores like Sprouts, this list gives shoppers a good head start. There is even an article about organization, so you don't have to hire an expert to get your house and life in order! Check out this site for the latest in overall health and well-being tips. |
For more ideas on finding useful web sites for health, beauty and wellness tips and products, check out my next segment airing Tuesday, March 11th on Channel 3's Your Life A to Zshow.
|
|
Sweet Library
Beauty & Style
Do you have a Beauty & Style question? Send us an email and we'll try to help!
Having a Fashion Crisis?
Talk about it on our discussion boards
Rachel Harris
Beauty & Life on a Budget
|
