“I don’t own a single pair of Manolos. Can’t afford an ounce of Creme de la Mer.”
Sound familiar?

Champagne Taste … On a Beer Budget is a beauty blog that I’ve been loving recently.

The author describes herself as a “full time student, former esthetician and makeup artist living on a skinny salary …” And who can’t relate to that?

If you’re still in school or just starting your cosmetology career at a beauty school, you want to look fashionable yet still be able to pay rent for the month. Champagne Taste On a Beer Budget posts entries on makeup, clothes, skincare, hair and random musings that most young cosmetologists can relate to.

If you’re on a budget and looking for a fun place to spend time on the internet, check out Champagne Taste … On a Beer Budget .

The new Eco-MedSpa in San Francisco is the whole package – the whole green package!

This eco-friendly spa is green from the ground up and the inside out. The owners teamed up with several eco-conscious experts in design, architecture, and engineering to design a space that was built in line with the strict requirements of the U.S. Green Building Council and the “Cradle to Cradle” standards developed by the firm MBDC. “Cradle to Cradle” is defined by MBDC as a method “in which products and services are designed based on patterns found in nature, eliminating the concept of waste entirely and creating an abundance that is healthy and sustaining.” The eco-materials used in the construction include eco-paints, numerous recycled items like flooring and fabrics, energy efficient lighting and water filters to decrease bottled water usage.

The “brick-and-mortar” of this spa isn’t the only part that will be eco-friendly. The spa will also be using non-toxic facial treatments and is partnering with Juice Beauty to develop the first medical-grade line of organic beauty products!

This is exciting news for the beauty industry and us at BeautySchool.com, where the challenge to be more eco-conscious is weighing heavily on beauty companies. Read more about how the beauty industry is going green.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – no, this is not a blog about the NBC TV series, Lipstick Jungle. This blog is about what to do when you are scraping out the bottom of your favorite lipstick tube. You might as well know that when it comes to lipstick, it is my FAVORITE! And I don’t believe in chucking my fave shade when it gets down to the bottom of the barrel – do you? Now, that is what I call wasteful!

To save on money and from buying tubes before you have used the last of the last – there are certain steps to take to save the bottom of the tube. You might notice that there is not that much left when you get down the base, but there is more shade in your future! This is what you do – first scrape out any leftovers with a cotton swab and mix it with Vaseline or lip gloss – and presto, you have more of your favorite shade.

You can also put the last little drops of your shade in a plastic cup and microwave it until it is soft and use that as a lip gloss. For more tips on lipstick you can check out this website that I found – 16 lipstick tricks and tips. I found it most helpful since I love lipstick!

Home remedies fascinate me, especially when it comes to beauty products! There’s something reassuring about using food on my skin, as opposed to a product with several chemical ingredients that I can’t pronounce. And, with all the emphasis on “going green” these days, it feels good to know the natural ingredients I’m slathering on are safe for the environment!

So in honor of this month’s “Earth Day,” I’m going to find one homemade beauty recipe per week to try, and blog about! There are several great websites with lots of recipes (try Homemade Beauty Recipes and MakeYourCosmetics.com), but I’ve found that many of them require ingredients that I don’t have on hand in my pantry or fridge. Who’s got beeswax or Tincture of Benzoin lying around the house? As a working mother, I need something easy I can make out of typical grocery items.

So, this week’s experiment: Brown Sugar Body Scrub from MakeYourCosmetics.com.

Recipe: 1 ½ cups brown sugar
½ cup olive oil (or canola)
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Pack brown sugar tightly in bowl, mix in olive oil to form paste. Add vanilla extract last for scent. Massage the scrub gently from shoulders to feet and rinse.

Check back next week for the BeautySchool.com official review!

My make-up drawer looks more like the junk drawer in most people’s kitchens. What can I say? I like to try new things! The crummy part is I have lots of bottles and compacts of beauty products that I barely used because I was unimpressed.

Luckily, I discovered a new trick – ordering beauty product samples online! It’s easy and best of all, free! The only setback is you have to beware of spam and giving out your personal information to the wrong people. After several attempts, I learned some valuable lessons. So, here they are – my tips for getting great free beauty samples without exposing yourself to inbox abuse.

1) Before submitting your name, address, and email to any website, your safest bet is to only use the actual manufacturer’s website, or an established well-known retailer. For example, Walmart.com is always offering product samples for new items. Another great source for manufacturer samples is About.com. Well-known brands typically want to maintain a quality and trustworthy reputation, so they will likely abide with anti-spam laws.

2) Read the Terms of Service/Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy to make sure you are okay with the deal. I’ve found many supposedly “free” samples can only be received once I’ve completed several other “offers.” This is a big red flag of spam! Plus, your sample may not really be free if you are required to purchase something else you didn’t really want in the first place.

3) Setup a separate email account with a free service like Yahoo! or Gmail. Many manufacturers will still send a product newsletter or coupons to the email address you provide. So, even by using reputable websites, you may end up with a flooded inbox. Having a separate email account for ordering online will help keep your shopping adventures organized and separate from your other personal or business email accounts.

4) Finally, if the free offer seems too good to be true, it probably is! I’ve seen countless ads offering a free $100 gift certificate to a certain retailer/manufacturer. But after completing numerous other “offers”, I never completed enough to qualify for the prize. And, I ended up with more spam in my inbox than the state of Hawaii consumes in a year!

Now that you are armed with spam defense, go out and find great new beauty products! Please leave us at the BeautySchool.com blog a comment about cool free samples you find (and where to get them!), and we’ll do the same!

Welcome to the BeautySchool.com Blog! This is a place where beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.  We know, we know – how many cliche’s could we spout off on a beauty blog? But seriously, we truly have a vision of beauty that’s not cut and dry (no pun intended). It’s not about flawless skin or the perfect hairstyle. Besides, what is “flawless” skin? Who ever said laugh-lines were a bad thing?

We, at the Beauty Blog embrace honest beauty. We are real people, and we want to celebrate and discover beauty within our community. How will we do this? For fun of course! We will share our thoughts on beauty fads and faux paus, and use our expert (wink) opinions on the latest trends. We will discover and review new, unique, and maybe even slightly off-kilter beauty products. We will learn about beauty and fashion in other cultures around the world in addition to supporting cosmetology and wellness training in North America.

Dare to enter into a world of not-so-average beauty! Because, like mentioned, we love and crave beauty. And, if you do to – then this blog is especially for you! Check back to see what our beauty-crazed team comes up with this week!