Carmindy - Get Positively Beautiful: The Ultimate Guide to Looking and Feeling Gorgeous

The 5-Minute Face:

The Quick & Easy Makeup Guide for Every Woman

Copyright 2008 by Carmindy, Inc.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: March 2010

ISBN: 978-1-59995-193-5

To my loving husband, Javier, who has always made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

Te amo, mi vida.

Contents

If everyone were cast in the same mold, there would be no such thing as beauty.

CHARLES DARWIN

I believe looking good starts with feeling good.

Before we consider what to put on our faces, we must confront whats going on inside our heads! For a lot of us, its a blurry mess of negativity. But right now, we can choose to make a change: we can decide to sharpen our focus and start seeing the positive.

I hear the skeptics out there already. Hey, Carmindy, thats great and everything, but could you just show me how to make my lips look bigger? Well, guess what? I can show you lots of ways to gloss up your pucker, but youll only be pretty if you feel that way without a darn thing on those lips. And youll only be beautiful when kind, loving words pass from them!

Words are incredibly powerful, and thoughts are even more so. Need proof?

How often have you stopped a friend whose eyes were clouded with worry and said, Whats the matter? You look upset. Or conversely, youve seen that same friend floating on cloud nine and said, You look amazing. Whats going on? Same woman, different thoughtsa totally altered appearance.

That dynamic plays out on our own faces every day. How we think affects how we look. Period.

Though we cant always control how the world comes at us, we can decide to feel good about ourselves and to meet challenges head-on, with our best face forward. A confident face that knows its finest features and plays them up. A one-of-a-kind face that honors its special beauty and owns it from the inside out.

Ive built my career by homing in on the natural beauty I find in each woman I consult with. But do you know what I spend the most time doing? It isnt mascara. Its convincing a woman to see the gorgeous potential I see in her and to believe in her own gifts.

Fans of What Not to Wear know how stubborn I can be about this. I simply wont allow a capable, captivating woman to sit before me and tear herself down. How can I consider a makeover a success if a lady hasnt first made over her mind? This goes especially for you, my friend!

You chose this book because you want to bring out your best. Its such a privilege for me to play a part in your transformation. And so exciting! Lets get going by turning off those negative old thought patterns and switching on the lovely light you know is burning inside.

Heres how...

Sounds simple, right? But after two decades in the beauty biz, I know how difficult it is to shut out the negative messages coming at us every day.

Think for a moment about beauty experts who show us how to fix what they perceive is wrong with a given face. They see and point out the flaws firstexpecting us to agree with the criticismand then give instruction on how to camouflage the issue. We can get so caught up in obeying their authority that we start transferring other womens problem areas to our own faces: suddenly we can only see dark undereye circles or thin lips. Before you know it, we feel worse than before.

We can hardly place blame on the beauty industry alone. Often the destructive cycle starts much closer to home.

No matter who you are, chances are people in your past have made negative comments about your appearance. Maybe a childhood bully yelled, Hey, pizza face. Or an uncle whispered, Quite a honker of a schnoz shes got there. Or a controlling boyfriend hissed, Your eyes are so tiny, no wonder you cant drive straight.

Im sure you have your own painful list. Why is it that we remember the insults and forget the compliments? Beats me, but we doespecially when were young and forming our ideas about ourselves, and looking to others for guidance. When people close to us try to boost their self-importance by cutting us down, the wounds go deep.

Again, its all about the power of words. We hold on to these negative opinions as truth. A nasty remark said in passing turns into a long-lasting insecurity. Rather than fight the insults, we agree. Whats worse is that we take over the role of critic and turn up the volume.

I cant tell you how many women I have worked with who, when I say, Wow, what beautiful eyes you have, argue that they are too small. Or if I say, Check out your terrific complexion, theyll point out how big their pores are. I feel like calling the Centers for Disease Control to report an epidemic of facial dysmorphic disorder!

Even if you have been lucky enough to go through life unscathed by negative comments, you may have chosen to generate your own, perhaps as a member of the age-hating party. You may be one of those women who tracks every miniscule change, scrutinizing and agonizing. Every trip to the mirror ends in panicked dread.

Its ridiculous. Its also a serious misuse of our feminine power.

By focusing on whats wrong with our looks, wereby definitiondwelling on the negative. When were harsh with ourselves, were agreeing with those who sought to hurt us. And were fueling a damaging cycle that not only dulls our appearance but also darkens our days. Now I ask you, is that how we want to be? Acting as our own worst enemies?

I hear you, feisty ladies. N.O.

So, what do we say yes to instead? Being positively beautiful by celebrating our individuality and enhancing our unique assets.

Every woman has a special bloom all her own. Now is the time to take noticestarting in our own mirrors.

I realize your urge might be to fight me on this. Old habits are tough to break. But has being so tough on yourself brought you the results you want? Clearly not.

By dropping the flaw focus, you set off on a new path, one thats freeing and wonderful.

To understand how silly it is to hold one standard of beauty and to see any variation from it as a flaw, play along with me for a moment...

Imagine hearing a floral expert on a home improvement show proclaiming, Only roses are beautiful. Our instincts would disagree. But, hey, we might still listen. A few minutes later, some of us might believe it and consider tearing up our magnolia trees and painting our orchids to look like roses. But why stop there? Delicate violets, striking birds of paradise? Hit the trash. Elegant calla lilies, scentsational lilacs? Off you go. Heck, we might grow to resent the roses beauty and stop caring about flowers altogether. How absurd, right? Well, we have spent far too much time plucking away at