14
Mar

The Beauty of Day Beforesies.

I’m often asked for my best beauty advice, and I often go completely blank when trying to come up with some, before rambling on about dry shampoo for the 683th time.

But sitting here after a strong coffee, it has come to me at last! The advice I swear by! The best kind that is widely useful! It’s Day Beforesies. 

When I need my best hair and skin and tan and nails and even makeup (in some instances) I do it the Day Before. This allows things to settle in, and settle down, and relax a little. Things are a bit lived in, a bit less perfect, a bit more malleable. Also, it gives you some time and room for error, should there be any (in the way of orange wrists or over boofy blow-dries.)

Some of my Day Beforesies include:

HAIR

I really swear by this one  (f-word swear). My hair never looks good or behaves when freshly washed. Few people’s do. It’s slippery and boofy and silly, or fluffy and frizzy. So, I always wash it at night, particularly if I need it to look nice the next day for an event or a big trip to the post office. (The life of a stay at home writer.) Here’s how I achieve the perfect second-day hair: I wash it, then apply some root lift mousse (I like L’Oreal Professional’s Tecni.Art Volume Lift Root Spray-Mousse for its small nozzle and targeted spray, making it easy to get to the scalp/areas that need root lift, rather than spewing up a big ball of mousse you have to distribute with fingers and generally get wrong. Also, it’s soft, no stickiness or feeling like you just added concrete to your hair) on wet hair and then I dry off to 80% using high heat on my hair dryer, and my trusty Denman styler brush, taking the hair in every direction all over the head so the nozzle of my hair dryer can get in there and get that volume from every angle. (“Wrap drying” I refer to it in Amazing Face.) The drying off will give it some smoothness, but I then secure in a very high bun for more volume and wave until bed time, when I let it out.

Next morning? Lovely waves with a tonne body that can very quickly blow-dried smooth with a barrel brush, or curling-tonged and then lightly sprayed with hairspray/sea salt spritz for glamorous curls/waves. (Which will last a few days, then a few more with dry shampoo.)  Try it. You’ll see. Do the work in prep and enjoy days of good hair.

Loreal-tecni.art-volume-lift-250ml-spray-mousse-1314-pDenmanbrushstyler

 

TAN

This one is fairly self-explanatory. We don’t do a deep tan application (or get a spray tan) on the day we need to look tanned. We do it the afternoon or night before, so it can kick in and we don’t stink up the joint. And we always add a little bit of lotion to the elbows, knees, wrists and ankles when we’re done so as to dilute in those bits, and make sure there’s no orange makes. Then, the next morning we shower off the excess and apply a thick, fragranced body lotion, butter or balm to lock the tan in, and hydrate the skin and mask any remaining scent. If there are any little areas of build up around the ‘bends’ (elbows, knees, ankles or wrists) I use a bit of body or hand scrub (lather with water in hands, but keep the bit you are trying to stain-remove dry) and then rinse. If things are terrible and people will likely notice I have a deep cigarette butt coloured line around my wrists, I get out my Chux magic eraser and very gently, using ONLY the white side, rub it on the spot til it goes. It’s harsh, it’s not recommenced for even remotely sensitive skin, but it works when nothing else will.

Chux-Magic_eraser

 

SKIN

In-salon facials are wonderful things, I recommend them very highly for ongoing skin maintenance and long-term results. But don’t expect to look good on the day you have one. Whether it’s a highly active facial (peels, micro-dermabrasion etc) or a lovely, nourishing, traditional facial, you will not look good on the day of the facial. You will look red and blotchy. You will look roughed up. You will look glowy but half asleep. You will have small pieces of mask sticking to your nose and hairline. It’s not good. And, furthermore, it’s not a good idea to load up with makeup after a treatment – ideally book facials as late as possible so you can just go to bed (and avoid sun exposure if you’ve had a strong peel) and let all the goodness sink in overnight. The results will be there in the morning, usually. (Some medi-peels are different, they can take a few days to kick in due to the ‘peeling’ process.)Wash that face, see how your eyes are bright and clear and your skin bounces with health. NOW you can see the results. NOW you can put on makeup. NOW you can dazzle everyone.

The exception: At home mini-facials before an event are fine to do on the day. I often exfoliate then do a quick 10-minute mask before makeup for events. My favourite pre-event mask? Elemis Fruit Active Rejuvenating Mask.

 

ELEMISFruit-Active-Rejuvenating-Mask

 

NAILS

You know how sometimes after you have your nails done, they look a bit… raw?… And a bit ouchy, and if you chose a red or a dark colour and they have attacked your cuticles, or you had a shitty manicurist, your hands or feet can even look a bit, well, brutalised? Yes. Well, that’s usually (rough manicurists aside) because it’s all so fresh, and your cuticles need to settle back in against the nail, and the raw look of nailbeds that have just been filed and buffed and scrubbed and polish-removed and painted needs to be given some time. So do it the day before. This is especially true if the colour makes your skin look lifeless – you can pop on some fake tan, OR, if you had gels/Shellac and hate the colour because it makes your hands look like Aunty Edna in her casket, the poor dear, even paint over them with a coat of regular nail polish. (It can be removed again with a swipe polish remover and your gels will be perfect underneath.)

 

Badmanicure

 MAKEUP

This one is a biiiit of a stretch, and probably not really worth advocating, but sometimes second day liner looks way better than perfect, neat liner. You know the kind, the smudgy, Kate Mossy kind (she was the one who kind of invented second day kohl, saying she never really cleaned her eyes and just kept adding more each day…bit gross but not terrible every now and then) where your eyes are rimmed perfectly in black, in a way that cannot be created by hand and kohl, only sleep and time. The look is best when you’ve done a REALLY smoked up eye the night before, and even despite all your best makeup removal efforts, a black frame still lines your eyes. I must admit I have on one or two occasions applied a rim of black kohl along my upper and lower lashline (and the inner lower) before bed to get this hell rock n’ roll babe look the next morning. All you need do is add mascara and a flush of sweet pink cheeks. Or, more liner, and some brown shadow just keeping it in close to the lashline, top and bottom, and heaps of mascara, and go hard out.

Another thing that kind of counts as makeup is brow tinting. I recommend going strong on tint day if you can, (eg: have no plans that night) so your tint will last longer. By the time you wash your face that night or the next morning even, the tint will calm down, and any that was on your skin, not the hair, will go, and you will look less Bert/Ernie and more Brooke Shields.

 KateMossSmudgedliner

 

FOOD

Spaghetti bolognese. It’s always tastier the second day. You know it, I know it: why fight it?

Responses to this drivel: 36 Comments
Responses to this drivel ( 36 )
  • Dorothea

    Just saying: I recently tried what I’ll call the “Chux magic eraser trick”. As soon as if got the tan off, the spots where I’d rubbed it turned pink and ouchy and burnt-looking. I washed with cold water and Bio Oil’d like crazy, to no avail. The next day it had gone from pink and ouchy to brown and scaly, like a scab (charming! Sorry.) I’ve been Bio Oiling and it still hasn’t gone away and looks like I’ve been in some kind of minor serious accident. All of which is to say:
    1. When using the Magic Eraser Trick, consider whether you reeeeally need to do it. Can you dress to cover a tan smudge? Will it be dark and people be standing, so no one will notice your ankles unless they’re an ankle enthusiast, which would really be more their problem than yours? Will your lover really forsake you forever (or even notice it) if you just leave it there to fade / exfoliate away in a fee days?
    2. If it is actually an Official Tan Disaster, you’re probably freaking out. Therefore DO NOT do what I did and scrub heartily at the offending smudges. Some totally legit Google research I did in the aftermath of my experience suggests that the damage I did could have been caused by the very fine foam material that makes up the spongey white component, rather than by the evil harsh home cleaning chemicals in it.
    3. If you know you’re the kind of prison who, like me, freaks out of all proportion and is likely to take wild chances when faced with an imperfect tan (for me it was the eve of a tricky date; unhelpful), do a test-Erase right now, somewhere discreet, to check whether your skin reacts crazy like mine did. Clearly this is a weird thing to do, but I ain’t judging. If you do react, DON’T DO IT. (And if you don’t, still remember to be incredibly gentle, as Zoë recommends in Amazing Face, because I can confirm that the burn marks afterward are definitely more gross and depressing than the smears I had originally.)
    The bit about the spaghetti bolognese is absolutely true, though.

  • Juliet

    I am going directly to Priceline to purchase Loreal thechni-art. Such a good tip. I’ll see what my hair turns out like and i think it’s the perfect idea because mornings aren’t really my thing and I think this will make it easy for at least just my hair. Id love to know which dry hair shampoo you reccomend. It’s probably somewhere here on fruit beauty…?

    Thanks Zoe xxx

  • Lizzy

    I wish I could wash my hair the night before, but my hair is so fine that it will literally be oily at the roots by the next day. Anyone else have this problem? Dry shampoo doesn’t work for me either.

    • Sarah

      I have fine hair too, and its a pain. Dry shampoo does work for me – just remember that you need to use a heap of it. I usually only get 4/5 uses from a bottle of it.

      • Chelsea

        Argh, I have the same problems. I have found my people! Love dry shampoo, but like you Sarah, I only get 4-5 uses out of it. I can sometimes get away with washing my hair the night before, but it’s always a risk..curse you, fine hair!

        • Brooke

          Try baby powder instead of expensive dry shampoo! A fluffy makeup brush and dab it on your roots before bed and hopefully by morning your hair will still be fairly clean 🙂

    • Mackenzie

      To all the ladies with finer/oilier hair – I hear your pain… just as a side note, check what shampoo/conditioner you are using, some of them leave a “build up” no matter how recently you have washed your hair it will always feel a little greasy-ish – I particularly noticed this with Pantene and I now always use a really quality shampoo, have reduced my washes per week and find I don’t get oily for at least 2 days! x

  • Jo

    Eeek, almost purchased the mask online and realised it contains Kiwi Fruit (of which I allergic!). Zoe, are you able to suggest an alternative to the Elemis Fruit Active Rejuvenating Mask for a same-day treatment?

  • Sarah

    I wish I could leave my hair up in a bun to create pretty waves. Left to its own devices like that, my hair would instead come out in awkward waves and generally messiness.

    I think its because my hair is naturally straight but isn’t really wavy either. Just fine and a bit meh. It needs ot be blow dried totally straight and then left alone.

  • do you have a beauty guru? | THE JULIET REPORT

    […] this morning when I accidentally found myself on Zoe Foster-Blake’s beauty blog ‘Fruity Beauty‘ it took me back to my young beauty loving days. I realised these days I have been lacking […]

  • Charlie

    I love these tips! Day beforesies also make me feel so much more relaxed when I’m getting ready on the day of – more time to swan around the house with perfect tan, hair and nails feeling all Beyonce-I-woke-up-like-this.

  • Jellybean

    How do you do said very high bun, fruity? Secure with an elastic, pins or a clip?

    Is this a step you skipped when you had more cropped locks? I must struggle to scrape mine back into a bun…

    • fruity

      I use a very 90s butterfly clip or a hairdresser alligator clip. HAS to be an animal-named clip, obviously.

    • LouAna

      Those little el-cheapo claw clips you get from red dollar I find are the best cos they don’t leave crips in the ends of your hair like a band does. Also good because because of the different sizes you can get them in, I have very fine straight long hair so I only need the little ones, 2 bucks for a pack of 10, break easy, hurt if you step on one (or boyfie says) but best for an overnight bun and 2 bucks for a pack of 10!

  • Amelia

    Hi Zoe! I need a red lipstick that doesn’t move! I’m sick of being caught out with it on my chin after eating! Xxx love love

    • Genevieve

      I’m not Zoe but I can tell you that Lime Crime’s Red Velvet is the best! It does not move at all and it has a beautiful matte finish

  • Sarah

    Hey Zoe, where can you purchase Denman’s brushes from? I need a good new brush for drying off my hair!

  • Elise

    I’m dying to have glamorous waves!!! tried so many styling products, sea salt sprays but still couldn’t get it right. Hopefully, this L’Oreal Professional’s Tecni.Art Volume Lift Root Spray-Mousse is the key! Would definitely try your suggestion, thanks Zoe!

  • Louise

    Ahhh, zoe the only negative things about your posts, is that everything that you recommend sells out that week and is unavailable. Good thing your line launches soon.

  • Nicole

    Hey Fruity – this is completely off topic but i’m just curious as to what foundation you currently use? Or which brand you would recommend that provides excellent coverage but doesn’t need to be caked on or feel like a thick paste? thanks!!

  • Let’s talk about hair, baby | MJG Beauty

    […] everyday, some never wash at all! (Have you heard of the bi-carb thingo?) However, if you follow Fruity’s advice, only 2-3 times, give yourself a sleep in a few times a week! I on the other hand, am still […]

  • Sarah

    Zoe! Yes, you … I came home from school drop off this morning and there IT was!!! Yes, my very own box of GO TO prodz. I love the box! I love the wrapping, the messages on the box cracked me up and best of all … the moisturiser (Go To) is magnificent. Mag-flippin’-nificent! My skin feels soft, hydrated and I am sure I must look 20 years younger (ok so that one was a stretch!). But in all seriousness, well done Zoe. The packaging, the prodz – all of it is really amazing. You have put so much thought into all of it. And just quietly (so my hubby can’t hear!) – I can’t wait till next week when I can purchase the whole dang range! xo

  • HellB

    The other great thing about doing your nails the night before is any bits of nail polish around the edges from your not-so-perfect application will easily wash off in the shower the next morning. Before becoming addicted to Shellac, I would do this all the time – nail polish at night while watching telly (hence all the mistakes!) then emerge from my morning shower with a perfect polish!

  • Mel

    I’d recommend Pro Naturals

Okay. Your turn.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *