Have you drawn your last cat’s eye? Thrown your essence into the bin along with your emollients?  Gave your lip liner some lip? We know, putting on makeup is tough and time-consuming. Women have been liberated for years now! Who has time for a double cleanse when you’re really craving a double shot of espresso?

Look, there’s a difference between beauty secrets and photoshop. Who knows if Beyonce really woke up like that?  It can be hard to achieve flawlessness, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on all the fun. Here are some shortcuts to beauty that might not keep up with the Kardashians, but it sure will lay the foundation.

Mascara

They separated Mickey from Minnie, had us all fawning over Bambi, and gave Twiggy her signature look. Never underestimate the power of the Magic mascara wand – eyelashes matter! No matter how good your mascara is, there’s always room for improvement. Here are some ways to keep your lashes batting 100.

Stretching It to the Limit

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The average mascara has a shelf of about two to three months. If you don’t time your mascara purchases properly, you could be looking at a sticky situation. Need to de-clump asap? Sometimes stretching it has nothing to do with yoga class. Contact solution to the rescue. It works in a pinch to break up gunky formula and expand the life of your mascara

Turn up the heat to turn up the Volume

Late for work again because you were waiting for your lash curler to kick into gear? Not likely that your boss will go for it even if she’s been there and done that. For better results, heat the lash curler with your blow dryer before curling your brows. It will help you achieve maximum volume and give your lashes a better curl.

Think Before You Pump

Is there something written into a woman’s DNA that genetically disposes her to pump her mascara wand vigorously? It might be a tough habit to break but the pumping action can shorten the life of the mascara by forcing air into the tube and drying the contents out. Think before you pump, the life of your mascara is at risk.

Hair

Let’s be realistic here. Bedhead comes in a bottle. There is nothing about rolling out of bed in the morning that has anything to do with carefully tousled hair and beach waves. Anyone who has tried leaving the house with their hair flattened to their skull will concur.

However, there are some things you can do to take your hair from morning glory to crowning glory in no time. Here are some hair hacks that don’t involve hacking your hair off.

Spray a Toothbrush with Hairspray to Tame Fly- A-ways

Applying toothpaste to your toothbrush and brushing in a circular motion will keep your teeth white and strong but applying hairspray to a toothbrush and brushing in a downward motion is sure to keep your hair free of fly-aways. Just remember to keep your hair tools away from your dental tools. You could end up with a head full of toothpaste and mouth full of hairspray (yuck)!

Keeping Your Pony Perky

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Don’t go from bedhead to deadhead. Even if you do put your hair in a pony when you first wake up, try and keep it lively. Using bobby pins to keep your pony perky is an almost effortless way of making it look like you at least put a little effort into it.

Sock Bun

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Want to get a quick fix for unruly hair and find a good use for your socks without partners as well? Even if your sock has lost its match, it doesn’t mean it has lost its usefulness. Here is a sock bun tutorial to really sock it to your “do.”

• Cut off the toe end of the sock using fabric scissors
• Put your hair in a ponytail. Roll the sock into a donut shape and slip it over the ponytail. Pull it to the bottom of the ponytail so all the hair is gathered inside it.
• Roll the sock downwards toward the base of the ponytail while holding the ends in the center of the sock.
• Once you’ve reached the end, insert bobby pins to secure the bun and add a light misting of hairspray.

Nail Hacks

Does looking down at your nails really mean looking down at your nails? With the heat on in the Instagram nail craze, it’s easy to develop an all-out inferiority complex. Never fear. You may have to leave the aquarium nails to the pros, but there is a lot of fancy finger work you can do without making a mess even if holding your brush straight is a challenge.

Not Connecting the Dots

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Want a tip on making perfect polka dots on your nails? What a bobby pin tip? Trying to put polka dots on your nails using a nail brush can lead to a lot of leakages. The object here is to not connect the dots. Use a bobby pin with rounded caps at the end to create a fun and easy look.

French Tip Dip

Sometimes when you’re looking to beautify your nails, you could use a few French tips. Unfortunately, the classier you want the end result to be, the greater the need for damage control and French tips are tres chic. Want a good French tip?  Use French Tip Dip.

What is this “genie” invention? The French Tip Dip a tool that lets you achieve the French tip design by dipping it into your favorite nail polish and touching it to tips of your nails gently. The result? Ongles tres belle. Check these out on Amazon.

Using Aluminum Foil to Remove Nail Polish

Nothing says, “I just give up” quite like a nail than a half-assed nail removal job. Unfortunately, with stubborn glitter polishes and gels giving up can be all too easy, but there is a way to foil even the toughest contenders. Soak a cotton pad in acetone and cover with aluminum foil for about ten minutes. When you take it off, the nail polish will be the one who gives up.

Spooniversity

Spoons are not just for sticking on your nose anymore. Your mama may have told you to keep your eating utensils and your makeup utensils in separate compartments, but your mama probably never used a spoon to fix her foundation. Welcome to the Spooniversity of Beauty Hacks. We’ll teach you a thing or two about spoons and their hidden talents.

Nailing the Winged Cat Eye

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You know that you can’t wing the winged cat eye. Unless you have the technique down, the cat eye has a funny way of turning into a raccoon eye all too easily.  The answer to keeping your feline from going rodent is a spoon. Line up the spoon’s handle with your lash line and use it to draw a crisp upwards wing. Then flip the spoon so that the upward curve comes together with the end of the straight line and the middle of your lash line. Trace it to create the outer outline for the wing and color it in.

Keep Your Mascara from Getting Out of Line

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There’s nothing like a streak of mascara to ruin your perfect makeup job. If you remove the mascara, you remove the makeup and good luck trying to get it to blend the same way again. Spoons are the perfect shape to cover your eyelids (they also do a pretty good job of contouring to your nose, if you’ve ever tried to stick yours on your shnoz). Cover your eyelids with a spoon and lash it up to your heart’s content.

Fixing Flaws in Foundation

Sometimes, it’s a fine line between a flawless complexion and a slightly imperfect one. Before applying foundation, take a chilled spoon, not frozen (we all know what happened to the kid who licked the pole in A Christmas Story), and run it over the fine lines in your skin slowly following the direction of the line. This will prevent the foundation from caking in the lines and creases. Repeat several times and cover with the foundation immediately.

For Fresh Breath

Ok, so we’ve all heard the expression, “Gag me with a spoon” and we certainly are not recommending that you do that to yourself in any way shape or form, but you might try stopping just short of that if your breath is an issue. Dr. Kyle Stanley, cosmetic dentist in Beverly Hills recommends scraping your tongue with a spoon twice a day: in the morning to get the bacteria off your tongue, and in the evening to get rid of the food particles and bacteria you’ve accumulated during the day. Stanley asserts that spoons are designed perfectly for the tongue scraping task and with a just-right balance of strength and smoothness to get the gunk off without harming your tongue. He warns that many store-bought tongue scrapers are too sharp and may harm the papilla of the tongue.

Celebrity Beauty Hacks

Add this to your “Celebrities Are Just Like Us” files. Move over froyo eating. Celebrities actually have quite a few beauty hacks of their own and some of them might shock you. Check out these celebrity beauty shortcuts to find out how your favorite ladies hack their way through their day “just like us.”

Beyonce

“Put some glue on it?” How does Queen Bey get her eyebrows into formation? According to her personal makeup artist, Sir John, Elmer is the biggest name in beauty. Trade in your eyebrow gels for glue sticks if you want to be just like the Bee. Sir John says glue sticks are perf for holding brows in place even in hot weather. And don’t worry about clogging your pores, according to Sir John, Elmer’s glue is totally non-comedogenic.

Blake Lively

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Why is Blake Lively scraping the bottom of the mayonnaise jar? Judging from her girlish figure, it’s not likely that she’s using it to top off her BLT. Sources say the mayo in Blake’s fridge is the bombshell behind the blond bombshell. In an interview with Byrdie, Blake revealed that she uses mayonnaise to keep her tresses strong and hydrated. “My mom taught me this really great beauty tip. She used to put oil of mayonnaise on the bottom half of her hair before she would shower,” said the star. “That way, when she used the shampoo, the soap wouldn’t strip out the bottom of the hair and dry it out, making it brittle.”

Lady Gaga

With Lady Gaga’s risqué fashion statements, it’s probably no surprise that her nightly preparation routine involves a lot of strategically placed tape, but it might be a bit shocking to find out where some of that tape goes. The Bad Romantic singer admits to using sticky tape every so often to give herself a facelift. However, she describes this process as more of a creative choice than an anti-aging solution. “When I wake up and say, ‘Today is a new day,’ I get to choose or make or create whatever I am feeling at that moment……when I have my wig cap on and I’m taping my face, it’s sort of like a meditation for me…..It’s like a mantra. I wash my face ….and I ask, ‘How am I going to form my eyes today using this tape? How will I pull back my neck with tape?’ Or maybe I won’t pull it back at all.”