This time of year calls for celebrations and parties to brighten up the long nights and gray days. Even your choice of makeup can add to the sparkle of the holiday season!
We’ve chosen five of BeeyoutifulSkin‘s most party-worthy eye looks to help you add just the right finishing touch to your natural beauty. Click the links to see each post in detail. Let us know which is your favorite!
Signature Smokey Eyes Full Tutorial
There’s nothing richer and more royal than deep purple eyeshadow. I love our shades of plum, violet, lavender, and aubergine all complementing each other and coming together in one warm palette, and purples really do enhance all eye colors! 
You can cool your purples down by adding a touch of silver or white shadow in the inner corner of your eyes, or directly over your pupil.
Or, try warming the look up with a rich gold in the same places. Either way, purple reigns!
You will Need:
To start, use your Small All-Over Brush to stamp Buttercup underneath your brows and into your inner corners of your eyes.
Then, using the same brush (cleaned off on a dry towel), stamp Violaceous all over your lid, from crease down to lash line.
Next, take the Angled Crease Brush and apply Plum Sky in your crease to deepen and enhance your eye shape. Lastly, line your eyes with liquid Deep Plum to set off the plum-splosion of rich purply goodness.
I like to pair this eye look with a warm-toned blush like Warm Rose or Cherry Bloom, and keep my lips fairly neutral or use just a hint of the same blush color.
Now that Autumn is nearly upon us, my makeup choices are taking on a richer, warmer tone. And what is richer and warmer than brown? It makes me think of coffee, cocoa, chocolate, and the smell of the earth after the rain.
We carry a wide assortment of brown shades, from cinnamon to milk chocolate, to deep, rich coffee, and in matte and shimmery finishes. Brown shadows complement all eye colors! So choose your favorite deep shade for this look; it doesn’t matter which one, but you’ll probably want to pick a fairly deep shadow as your main color.
This eye look is super simple; you really only need three (four if you want to get fancy) basic colors, but it turns out as rich as a steaming cup of dark coffee. Let’s get brewing… err… started! 
You will need:
Using the All-Over Brush, apply Matte Cream on your brow bone, just under your brows and down to your crease. Wipe off the brush on a clean towel and then moisten it with a little bit of water. You don’t want it too wet; just enough to dampen it.
Tap some brown out into the lid, and dip your damp brush into your brown. Make sure to coat your brush evenly with the color! Now, stamp your brush on your whole lid, from the crease to the lash line. You can layer the color on for a deeper look if you like. Give it a minute to dry (keep your eye closed!).
Now, grab your Pointed Sculptor brush and dip it on your mid-range brown. Swirl it in your crease, blending the edge of the deep brown into a soft, smoky blur.
Don’t forget your lower lid! Using the Smudger Brush, extend your deep brown under your eye along your lower lash line, being sure to blend very well. Once you’ve got it all blended nicely, line your eyes with Matte Black Liner and add a coat of your favorite mascara.
This look goes best with a warm-toned blush (I’m wearing Warm Rose) and a fairly neutral lip color.
With Fall and Winter right around the corner (I know, it’s still hot here too, but give it a few weeks!) bold, intense lip colors are going to start cropping up everywhere. Bright lips can be a very intimidating look to even attempt, let alone pull off with panache. I used to always keep my lips neutral because I thought they were too big and might look clownish if I wore red lipstick.
Maybe you think your lips are too thin… or uneven…or your teeth aren’t nice enough… or you’ll mess them up right away…or a bunch of other excuses I’ve heard women use for shying away from trying a bright lip color. But you know what? Pretty much anyone can wear intense shades on their lips, if you know how to do it best for you.
There are a few things to keep in mind:
Choose either a warm or cool shade based on your skin’s undertones. Also, if you have very thin lips, choose a bright, perky shade rather than a very deep one, as dark colors tend to minimize. If your teeth are less-than-white, stay away from orangey shades as they can make the teeth look even less white. (Then brush with baking soda to gradually and gently whiten your teeth!)
Prepare your lips by doing a little bit of exfoliation. I lightly scrub my lips every few days with my toothbrush after I brush my teeth; it takes about 4 seconds longer than usual and keeps the flakey, dry skin away. I also keep lip balm on my lips all the time. This is a comfort thing for me; I don’t like the feeling of dry lips. But it’s a good habit to get into to prevent chapped lips. Right before you apply your bright lip color, use some balm while you do the rest of your makeup, then blot it off. This will ensure your lips have absorbed the pure moisture and are ready to hold the color.
Use the Flat Brush to touch up the skin around your lips with a bit more foundation; since you’re drawing attention to your lips, you’ll want to make sure your foundation is flawless right around your lips. Apply Lip Balm to your lips, then dip your Small All-Over Brush into the color of your choice (you can use any blush or eye color to customize your look). Outline the natural line of your lips with the brush, then fill in your line with more color, making sure to get the color all the way toward the inside of your lips.
To keep your look from being too “made up” and garish, use very minimal eye makeup. I like a dash of Champagne Pearl or Sandstone Cream all over my lids, a very light dusting of a neutral in my crease (I love Lavender Shale or Cinnamon Rose) and Matte Black Eyeliner, applied sparingly.
Mascara is a must! You can still contour and highlight your skin, just be sure to use a light touch of blush in a color that has the same undertone as your lip color.
Bring your color (and a mirror!) with you when you go out. You can go all 1940’s movie-star glam and pull out your shiny makeup mirror from your evening bag and touch up right at the dinner table… or you can do what I do and dab on a refresher in the rearview mirror of my car. 😛
If you are trying something different than your usual look, you will probably have a little freak-out moment (I think mine went something like “OHMYGOSH, huge red lips! Take it off!!”) but if you give yourself some time, you can train your brain to recognize the “new” as “normal”.
You may feel slightly self-conscious when wearing a bold lip for the first time in public, but nothing, and I mean nothing beats self-confidence. Hold your head up high, look people in the eye, and smile… rock what ya got! Chances are, people might not even realize that your makeup is different, but they will notice your boost of confidence. And you definitely don’t need lip color to do that, though it helps sometimes!
Do you incorporate bold lips into your looks on a regular basis? Share any tips we might have missed in the comments or on Facebook!
As summer is just beginning to mellow into Autumn, my thoughts start to turn toward all things cozy and fall-ish, including more muted makeup colors. I thought it would be fun to do another look in our Inspired by Nature series; this one takes its cues from the waning greens of summer, the deepening browns of nature, and the rich golds of early Fall. 
What You’ll Need:
Start off by applying Sandstone Cream to your brow bone with the Small All-Over brush, and add a dab right over your pupil area of your lid. Then, using the same brush, grab up some Army shadow and stamp it all over your lid, working around the spot of Sandstone Cream in the center.
Now take your Angled Crease Brush and dip up some Fen Gold; using a slightly circular motion apply into your crease, starting at the outer corner and working your way in to about the center of your lid. Be sure to blend, blend, blend; we really want these greens to meld together and create a nuanced look. For an extra touch of bright green, add a touch of Moss eyeshadow right in the center on top of the Sandstone Cream.
Now, using the Smudger Brush, dab a little bit of Sandstone Cream on your lower lid in the inner corner, then some Army in the center, and a bit of Fen Gold on the outer third of your lower lid. Again, be sure to blend and smudge those all together really well. Use your eyeliner brush to finish off the look with Rich Earth and a generous coat of mascara.
I like to pair this rich eye look with a warm blush such as Cherry Bloom or Warm Rose. I used Kiss of Ruby lip shimmer on my lips to add just a hint of warm color. Check out more Inspired By Nature looks here!
Lately we’ve been focusing on neutral eye shadows, which are very wearable, very easy, and can be either no-fuss casual or sophisticated and dramatic. Today I thought it would be fun to talk about how to wear some of our more intense, vivid eye colors in a way that integrates with your already established everyday tried-and-true neutral look.
Bold eye colors can look intimidating in the jar; I think our minds automatically jump to using that single bright color all over our eyes… but a very effective way to incorporate your favorite bold color is to simply add a bright pop of color alongside the neutrals you are already comfortable wearing.
Let’s talk about two of my favorite ways to add a bold pop of color: as a smoky wash of color, and as a dramatic liquid liner.
I’m using our Warm Neutrals look and then adding an electric blue shade. To recreate this yourself, you’ll need:
Start off with our Warm Neutrals eye look, and your best foundation and blush combo; this will be the backdrop upon which you’ll add a punch of bold color in the foreground.
Dive right in with the Smudger Brush and grab up some of that bright color! Using a circular motion, lightly dust Boldly Blue on your lower lash line, creating a bright smoky glow. If you like, you can take it all the way in to your inner corner for the most dramatic look, or you can keep it to the outer third of your lower lash line and blend it with some more Matte Cream Base as you go inward.
Now you could leave it here and have a fabulously fun look… or you could take it a step further and add a bold blue liquid eyeliner on your upper lash line too. And since I always tend to lean toward the dramatic, let’s do that!
Grab your eyeliner brush and get it wet with a drop or two of water, and mix it with some Boldly Blue in the lid. Don’t overdo it with the water! You want to make a paste with some of the dry shadow, not colored water.
Once you have a well-mixed paste, apply it as lightly or as boldly as you dare to your upper lash line. Remember, the water creates an even more vivid color than the dry powder itself, so you might want to test it out on your wrist first to see how intense you want it.
Let the liner dry for a minute or two before opening your eye, you don’t want to smudge it onto your eyelid. Once that dries, finish off with mascara and you’re all set with a fun, bold pop of color!
Silver can be a bit tricky to wear, because if you just slap on one bright shade and call it good, you can end up looking like you’re wearing fishing lures on your eyes. Not exactly the look most of us are going for, I’d imagine!
The key to wearing silver shadow well is to layer a brighter silver with a deeper, more muted pewter to give contour and nuance to your look. It’s not as complicated as you might think!
Follow along with my tutorial and you’ll get a subtly shimmery silver look that can be tailored for daytime or evening.
You will need:
Let’s get started!
Grab your Small All-Over Brush and Matte White Base; stamp the shadow up underneath your brows and just down to your crease area to highlight your brow bone. I prefer using our Matte White Base over the more shimmery white shadows we carry because I think the matte (non-shimmery) finish balances out the glitzy silver we’re about to use.
Now, after wiping your Small All-Over Brush on a clean, dry cloth, dip it into Deep Silver and stamp it all over your lid, from the crease to the lashes.
Next, define your crease and add depth by swirling Slate Blue into your crease with the Pointed Sculptor Brush, starting at your outer corner and working inward, getting lighter as you go. Mirror this progression on your lower lid by using the Smudger Brush with Matte White on the inner corner, Deep Silver in the center, and Slate Blue on the outer corner of your lower lash line.
Finish the look off with Matte Black Eyeliner (dry for a smoky look, liquid for a sharp, dramatic look) and a few coats of your favorite mascara.
To balance the cool tones of this silver eye look, choose a warm-toned blush such as Cherry Bloom or Warm Rose. Keep your lips neutral for the most sophisticated vibe.
Have you tried silver eyeshadow? Did you love the look you created or did you find it hard to get it just right? Share your experience in the comments!
Metallics are some of the best neutrals there are! Gold, silver, pewter, bronze… they all go with pretty much every color out there, and flatter most skin tones as well.
If you’re wary of shimmer or bold colors, start out with a light touch, or add just a dab of the metallic color to your usual makeup routine, and you might be pleasantly surprised at what the addition does for your look! (Remember that not only do we offer full-sized eyeshadows, you can also order a sample of any eye or cheek color to try out for a few applications before you commit.)
Today, I put together a gold eyeshadow look using some of our most stunning shadows… 
You will need:
Start with the luminous Buttercup eyeshadow on your brow bone down to your crease, applied with the Small All-Over Brush in a stamping motion.
Then, wipe off your brush on a clean dry cloth and dip up some Pure Gold Eyeshadow and stamp it on your lid, from your crease down to your lash line.
Using the Angled Crease Brush, use Cinnamon Sparkle to define your crease and add depth to your eyes. How light or dark is up to you!
Now, if you really want to add some extra pizzaz, you can add a bit of Gold Dust right on top of the Pure Gold on the center of your lid. To up to drama factor even more, try it foiled; dampen your Small All-Over Brush just a bit before dipping it into Gold Dust, then dab the moist shadow on the center of your lids. Keep your eye closed for a second or two to let the shadow dry and set on your lid.
Finish off the look with Rich Earth and our eyeliner brush, and a coat of your fave mascara.
Peaches N’ Cream makes a lovely coordinating blush with this golden look… apply it with our lush, soft Chubby Blender brush (coming soon!) for a seamless, natural looking glow. If you want nude-look lips, reach again for Peaches N’ Cream because it does perfect double-duty when applied over lip balm.
What’s your favorite way to add metallics to your look? Let us know what you think!
Beauty itself may only be skin deep, but the problems that reveal themselves on the surface often are not. They come from hidden places in the gut and become painful and impossible to ignore on our skin, yet most conventional treatments offer little hope, with words like “idiopathic” (of unknown cause), “lifelong and chronic,” and “no cure.”
If you’ve ever sought treatment for skin problems, you’ve likely been offered a steroid cream or ointment to help with discomfort but were given little actual help in curing the fundamental problem.
Don’t you wish sometimes you could discipline your skin or give it a bad performance review, and have it shape up, regain elasticity and be blemish free? Me too!
When I was younger, I was told my skin problems were just normal acne and that it would all clear up as I got older. I took comfort in that, because nothing the doctor gave me or that I found at the pharmacy ever seemed to do anything except make my skin crusty. Then instead of just having blemished skin, I had crusty, peeling, blemished skin. Ugh.
Well, I’m almost 40, and it is the rare day that I don’t have several spots on my face, some of them significant enough that high school tormentors would have termed them “headlights” or “third eye”. As motivated as I was to find something to help my own skin, that was nothing compared to when our sweet Elliot was born and struggled with skin and stomach issues from the very beginning.
My little baby eventually developed extreme eczema, to the point that his feet would crack and bleed when he walked. At times, he screamed for hours on end because of the discomfort. A doctor “assured” us this was “hopefully” just a childhood problem he would grow out of, but left open the dismal prospect that it could be a lifelong condition.
As instructed, we smothered the affected areas with an assortment of creams, all of which included petroleum or steroids, and none of which did a bit of good. Our child’s pain broke our hearts. For almost a year, my husband and I took turns sleeping on an air mattress by Elliot’s bed so we could press on his breakouts to help relieve the pain and “itchies” when he woke up in the night.
I became relentless in researching to find what we could do to get him lasting relief and healing.
Studies show that many skin disorders are related primarily to the gut, based in food allergies or intolerances and/or poor digestion and bowel health. This is especially true for those whose bodies have significant yeast overgrowth. Common trigger foods for skin disruptions include corn, soy, dairy, and gluten.
When we discovered the skin-gut connection, we began to explore healing through adjustments in Elliot’s diet, removing trigger foods and augmenting his diet with gut-healing helpers like Tummy Tuneup and Digestive Enzymes at each meal. (I wish we’d had the chewable versions back then!)
Elliot took daily servings of coconut oil, and once he could swallow the necessary softgels, we gave him Yeast Assassin Lite as a gentle yeast cleanse. Finally, we started him on cod liver oil every day. At that point, not only did his symptoms disappear, but his skin became softer and less prone to itching.
The liver is one of the primary organs in the body responsible for detoxification. The liver filters and removes cholesterol, fats, hormones, drugs, caffeine, alcohol, and other toxins from the body. Due to poor diet, sickness, and stress, sometimes the liver needs healing and restoration.
When the liver is taxed with high levels of hormones such as androgens or estrogens, too much alcohol or caffeine, or inflammatory byproducts from food, the overload can result in skin conditions such as acne, eczema, psoriasis and rosacea.
The good news is that you can improve the health of your liver! By helping the liver detoxify and heal, you can simultaneously detoxify the entire body and clear problem skin from the inside out.
Foods that can help increase liver function include beets, artichokes, garlic and onion, and all dark leafy green vegetables including kale, swiss chard, and spinach. Specific herbs such as milk thistle and dandelion can also help support liver detoxification.
Silymarin is a unique flavonoid compound isolated from milk thistle; studies in the U.S. and abroad indicate that it can provide strong liver support in cases of liver compromise due to cirrhosis, hepatic diseases, and fatty buildup commonly associated with gall bladder and liver stones.
Beeyoutiful’s Silymarin Liver Support is a concentrated blend of herbs, including milk thistle and dandelion, specifically designed to offer powerful liver healing, cleansing, and rebuilding properties. Use it to support your liver and help heal your skin from the inside out at the same time!
While the foods and supplements worked on Elliot’s insides, we’ll be forever grateful for the daily regimen of lotions, astringents, and essential oils that relieved his eczema from the outside! (I’ve also seen benefits in friends suffering with rosacea, psoriasis, and acne.)
Using natural treatments like these increased my peace of mind, knowing they didn’t add a toxic burden to Elliot’s already overtaxed system. When people lather up with chemically-based potions, they often pump toxins—such as fragrances, dyes, petroleum, and parabens—into an already stressed body.
Here are some all natural tools that can be helpful to calm, soothe, and encourage healing for even the most difficult of skin problems.
Blemish Bee Gone AstringentsAll of Beeyoutiful’s astringents are handmade with organic or wild-crafted herbs, specifically formulated to address acne and other facial problems. They also work well on bug bites and flareups of eczema. We offer three formulas corresponding to specific skin types: normal, dry, or oily.
All three varieties of Blemish Bee Gone have a base of plantain, calendula, comfrey, rosemary, sage, thyme, and horsetail in alcohol and witch hazel, combined in varying proportions as appropriate to skin type. These herbs help moisturize while they promote healing of damaged skin, cell renewal, and tightening of pores. The herbs also ease itching associated with eczema and bug bites. We suggest applying in both morning and evening, but you can use them as needed for discomfort.
Laveshmint Daily Moisturizing LotionThis lovely, light facial moisturizer has such a wonderful cooling and soothing sensation that it is my go-to daily lotion. It can be especially helpful for itchy, scaly skin associated with eczema and psoriasis, and also helps calm the flushing and breakouts in skin ailments like rosacea.
Aloe and coconut oil are the primary moisturizers in Laveshmint Lotion. Both offer healing properties ranging from antimicrobial effects to thoroughly nourishing the skin as it softens and hydrates.
In addition, the Lavender and Peppermint essential oils are tremendous for the skin! Peppermint’s cool, tingly, refreshing aroma enlivens the skin and stimulates blood flow while it soothes aggravated areas. Lavender does double duty by decreasing skin irritation, and its healing properties help restore the supple skin that should have been there to begin with.
Miracle Skin SalveWhen a simple moisturizer isn’t enough, we reach for the miracle in a jar: Miracle Skin Salve. Like Laveshmint Lotion, it contains Coconut oil and Lavender, and adds other natural healing ingredients such as plantain, comfrey, propolis, and Rosemary Essential Oil.
Plantain has long been used as a natural and easy-to-find treatment for cuts, abrasions, and stings. It works well to heal and promote blood supply in affected areas. Comfrey has anti-inflammatory properties, and it supports the healing of cuts and abrasions. Propolis is well-known for helping skin problems ranging from acne to eczema to psoriasis.
Finally, Rosemary Essential Oil has strong anti-inflammatory properties which can be especially helpful with rosacea, psoriasis, and eczema, making Miracle Skin Salve live up to its name.
Bamboo Charcoal Unscented Soap and Charcoal MasksI discovered with Elliot that it is immensely cool to a young boy to smear himself with black soap, but he had no clue that I did not choose the soap for its fun in the tub! It actually helps bind and cleanse the impurities expelled from the skin.
This can be especially helpful for those with blemishes and acne, because it serves to draw out toxins the skin is eliminating while reducing redness and swelling.
In addition to the Charcoal Soap, a charcoal mask can be used weekly to diminish acne and blackheads. Here’s a simple tutorial video that shows you exactly how to use it.
Charcoal Mask Recipe
- 1 spoonful raw honey
- 1 spoonful charcoal powder
- 1 tsp Sweet Almond or Jojoba Oil
- 1 drop Tea Tree Essential Oil (anti-fungal and bacterial), Chamomile Essential Oil (calming, soothing, healing) or Peppermint Essential Oil (refreshing and skin rejuvenating)
- 1-2 capsules each of Bee Strong and Bee Immune
Mix well, then apply to face (avoid eyes!). Allow to dry as long as desired, and then rinse with water. Wash with your favorite natural soap or cleanser (we like the Milk & Honey Facial Bar).
Use the herbal astringent of your choice and follow up with Laveshmint Daily Moisturizing Lotion. Dab problem areas with a small amount of Miracle Skin Salve to complete your routine.
Like we learned with Elliot, the ultimate solution for skin disorders is to treat the internal causes. Reducing and soothing the external manifestations is important, too, as it can prevent complications such as infections from broken or irritated areas.
The goal in our family remains complete, deep healing, and attacking the inner problems from inside and out is the best way to bring back skin-deep beauty and gut-deep health.
Between managing our diets and using many of the tools I’ve shared here, these days Elliott and I both are experiencing relief from our skin troubles. It fills my heart with joy to see his soft healthy skin, and for him to experience sleeping through the night without waking up in itching misery.
Do you struggle with a skin problem? Let us know if you could use some moral support as you work to discover how to encourage health and healing for your skin, from the inside out and the outside in. We’ve been there too, and we’re happy to walk alongside you on your journey. Email customercare@beeyoutiful.com or call 877-623-3968.
It’s super fun to jazz up your makeup routine with splashy colors and dramatic looks, but let’s be honest, on a daily basis most of us reach for the neutral look that we know works. It matches everything, is basic without being boring, and is a comfortable no-brainer when you just want to look “done”, but not glammed up.
What I love about matte shadows is that they can be dressed up with minimal effort when the occasion calls for it, but they never look overdone.
Neutral eye shadows are basically like your best pair of jeans: you can cuff them and wear them with flip-flops and a basic white tee for taking the kids to the park, or you can pair them with a swanky top and heels for a night out on the town.
The right combo of neutral eye shadows kinda do the same thing for your eyes! You can dash them on lightly in 5 minutes and you’re instantly pulled together for anything your day throws at you, or you can build the richness and depth of the velvety color for a more glamorous and sophisticated special event look. Either way, neutral eye shadows are a staple in any woman’s makeup bag!
Last week we put together a warm-toned neutral look, and today we’re focusing on a cool color combination. Here’s what you’ll need:
Start with Matte White Base and apply it with your Small All-Over Brush from your brow bone to your lash line. Take care that you apply it very lightly, otherwise you’ll end up with chalky white lids, which is not exactly the look we’re going for here. Think light and bright.
Then use your Angled Crease Brush and dip up a bit of Lavender Shale, applying it lightly to your crease area. You can build drama and intensity at this point if you like, or you can leave it light; just enough to define your crease. Be sure to blend this really well; you want to make it look like a fluffy storm cloud, rather than a block of color.
Now you can take the Smudger brush to your lower lid and echo what you just did on top: first grab some Matte White and bring it down from the inner corner along your inner lower lash line, right about half way around your eye. This will brighten and visually enlarge your eye. Then do the same on your outer corner with Lavender Shale, smudging a soft, blurry line under your lower lid to about one-third to one-half way around your eye. I love defining my eyes this way as it’s softer than a bold, dark line, and tends to look fresher and brighter for daytime. It also distracts from undereye bags! Win-win!
Now line your upper lash line with Matte Black on the Eyeliner Brush. Experiment with a dry line or a liquid line to strike your perfect balance of casual or drama. Finish your eyes off with a coat of your favorite mascara and you’re set!
Our Pinky Pink Blush coordinates perfectly with these cool neutral colors; apply it to the apples of your cheeks with our silky soft Chubby Blender Brush.
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