Beauty Secrets My Mother Never Taught Me

My mother is a relatively simple woman. And mom, I know you are reading this, so hello. Send my love to Grandma and Grandpa. Anyways, she is not one for an excessive amount of makeup and rarely styles her hair anyway besides straight (at least, what hair she has). This left me with no choice but to teach myself the tricks of the trade. I burnt myself many times trying to find the perfect way to curl my hair and poked myself in the eye one too many times with my mascara wand. My current beauty resume has been a few years in the making.

1. Blend your makeup, whether it be your bronzer or eyeshadow. Nothing is worse than a harsh line between the color of your face and bronzer, or two to three eyeshadow colors.
2. Shake our your curls. I cannot believe that I used to go to school with my hair in distinct spirals, with the occasional kink or two where I clamped it in one spot for too long. I didn't learn that shaking out my curls and running through them with my fingers would turn my crusty, uniform curls into loose beachy waves.
3. Curl your eyelashes before mascara. This makes all the difference, I promise. They are not scary torture devices for your eyelashes if you do it right. Be careful not too get too close to your lash line and only hold it down for a few seconds.
4. Putting nude or white eyeliner on your lower lash line. This little trick makes you look so much more awake than you actually are. Nude eyeliner looks more natural, but the white eyeliner looks great in photos.
5. Do not smile when you put on blush. I have found that if you smile to find the apples of your cheeks, your blush ends up way too close to your nose and it looks really silly. Instead, sweep up along the top edge of your bronzer. It sculpts your cheeks even more and doesn't make you look like a clown.

My mother has taught me a few tricks, though. I'd like to give her some credit here but telling you what she taught me growing up.

1. Never over pluck your eyebrows. My mom has turned me into the type of person who will never let anyone do my eyebrows besides myself. She told me to only pluck the strays above and below my eyebrows. I strongly believe this is why mine are like two little caterpillars hanging out on my face. And I love it.
2. Blot your lipstick. Just do it. It makes it more like a stain and you are less likely to have it feather or transfer onto other things. 
3. Moisturize daily. I could be on my deathbed and I would be sure to apply some to my dry face. This saved me from a lot of flaky skin in my days, though didn't really help me when I was using Retinol cream for my acne...
4. Less is more. I don't think my mom likes it when I wear a lot of makeup, so to humor her sometimes I keep it simple. And what do you know, sometimes I actually prefer it that way.

What is one beauty tip that your mother has taught you, or that you picked up from observing her getting ready over the years?