Simple Beauty at a Simple Price

It's amazing how much money we can spend on looking good. The funny thing is, no matter how much effort and expense we put into our appearance, the real wow factor of our look is determined by how we feel about ourselves. That's why make-over shows have such a tremendous impact on the women they glam up. They take someone who is not only looking frumpy, but feeling it too (whether she cares or not), pampers her and compliments her for a day, brings out her best features, and leaves her not only with a great new look, but a new vision of herself. She feels great and it shows. I love watching those programs, but at the end, I always scramble for my make-up and hair dryer because I want to feel good about my appearance, too. As a stay-at-home mom with no car, little contact with the outside world, and a husband who comes home from work just in time to go to sleep, I'm often inclined to skip the make-up and hair each day and just wear a ponytail. I genuinely worry over wasting product when no one is going to see the results. But the real results of my skimping are the feelings I have about myself all day and the thoughts that arise each time I see myself in a mirror. I recently realized that I have done well to find inexpensive yet very effective products to pamper and enhance myself, and saving a little bit of foundation and hair gel at the cost of feeling unbeautiful when I could feel great is really an expense in itself. Particularly for a stay-at-home mom, because emotions tend to dam up within the walls of your house and just run higher and higher over time.

So here are some things I've learned about beauty and how to achieve it low-cost and feel great about yourself. Feeling beautiful is not only an emotional thing, but a visual one: "The way I look makes me happy." And it's also a physical one: "My healthy skin feels beautiful. My silky hair feels beautiful. My exercised body feels beautiful. My smooth feet feel beautiful." They are little thoughts and feelings that provide pleasure and confidence throughout your day. It's nice to be able to go to bed at the end of the day and not think "Yay. Now the blankets and dark can hide what I've been ignoring all day."