Guest Blog Post By Natalia Moore

Laziness and bad habits are often to blame for a woman looking less than her best. Shed those habits and you’ll be closer to looking better sooner, without spending up on cosmetics.

Touching your face
Feeling tiny bumps under the skin and scratching off flaky cells. Often the hand on your chin is the same hand that five minutes earlier was touching grubby pencil shavings or food. Hands transmit germs very rapidly, and touching the face is a sure way to activate acne. Besides that, it’s bad for skin elasticity. Wrinkles come twice as fast from bad handling of the skin.

Frowning and wrinkling your nose
Just think for a minute how frantically you move the muscles in your face all day. Well, to load them with more frowns and expressions (smiles excluded) is only encouraging deeper, more set lines. Smiles and upward movements are fine. Confine yourself to these.

One trick, if the going gets too rough, is to breathe deeply and count to 10. Your face relaxes immediately.

Smoking
It’s just not done if you care about your skin. As one Sydney model says, “Think of all the other things you can do instead of smoking.” Your clothes smell of smoke and men find it unattractive.

Nicotine leaves the body through the pores of the skin and it discolours them. You’ll get that yellowish tinge to the skin, plus tiny lines around the top lip and around the eyes, too, from squinting.

Bitten nails
However much you care about your appearance, you can’t look well groomed if your nails are bad. Chewed, torn, raggedy nails look ghastly. Most manicurists will insist that anyone can have decent nails. You just have to work at it.

Remember: Nails thrive on regular shaping with emery boards. Always file in the same direction, never back and forth.

Discoloured (yellowish) nails
If you continue to hide them behind varnish, they’ll remain yellow. What you have to do is take off your varnish and leave it off until the yellow disappears. Then, when the nails are clear again, wear your polish but remember to put on a clear base before the first coat.

Change the varnish twice a week, and let the nails breathe for a day between applications.

Slouching
It looks bad, it is bad . . . for your back. When you slouch, the muscles in your back are taxed. If you sit up straight, your shoulders in line with your waist, you’ll improve your breathing as well as your posture. Better breathing means your body works better, with improved circulation.

Good grooming is also more effective when your clothes hang better.

Stretch marks
They occur when the skin stretches drastically then relaxes, usually as a result of pregnancy or severe weight loss. Although they can’t be removed (they will fade a little in time), you can avoid more by ensuring that during pregnancy your skin is perpetually oiled. This helps elasticity and reduces the strain.

Avoid sudden weight gains, and keep the skin moisturized with oil bathes and a daily rub with body lotion.

The mid-meal snack
A trip to the refrigerator or milk bar, even for something as healthy as dried fruit, has its repercussions. If you’re the sort of person who can’t live without mid-meal snacks, you should eat smaller meals and more of them.

There’s no harm in eating between meals if, at the end of the day, you’ve consumed only your normal calorie allowance. But snacks tend to add kilos rapidly.

Lack of sleep
You will spend about one third of your life in slumber, so get the best out of it. If you skip on sleep, the risks are bags under the eyes and sallow skin. For the best sleep, avoid coffee before bed (it definitely affects the quality of sleep). Switch to warm milk or Milo.

Sleep with windows open and take 10 deep breaths before bed to relax your body. Sleep before midnight is said to be the best.

Going to bed with your makeup on

The secret to good skin is cleanliness. You wear makeup all day, and by evening it’s time to let skin breathe by cleansing.

Surface grime plugged into the pores because you didn’t clean off your makeup makes your skin stale and dirty. And nobody should face a new day with her skin like that.

About the Author
Natalia Moore is a skin expert who loves writing articles about beauty tips and remedies, and enjoys sharing makeup tips to help girls enhance skin’s appearance. Connect with her at Google Plus.