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 Looking your best on a tight budget is often a lot more than a morale booster; it can help you look for work with confidence, knowing your appearance reflects your inner beauty. But with cosmetics and beauty aids becoming more expensive, you need to be able to make the best of yourself without breaking the bank.
The most important thing you can do to keep your make up costs down is look after your health. A good skin, bright eyes and naturally shiny hair are all aids to beauty that are better coming from within than out of a jar. Up your intake of salads, yogurt, fresh fruit juices and cut out the skin dulling fast food and junk food. Think of every mouthful as internal beauty care.
The great thing about these delicious and healthy foods is that they can also do double duty as external skin care. For example, when you bite into a juicy mango, what do you think of? Skin care? Well, you should because mangoes can improve your skin both from the inside and the outside. It’s a frugal beauty buy because even the best beauty mask can’t provide lunch as well.
So the next time you peel a mango, scrape the remaining pulp off the peel and use it as a beauty mask. It can be applied just as it is or mixed with a bit of yogurt. So while you are enjoying your yogurt and mango snack, remember to set a bit aside for a relaxing ten minute face mask treatment.
 The same applies when you cut up a salad for lunch. Cucumbers taste fresh and delicious, but they also tighten pores. Save the peel and rub it on your cleaned skin as a toner. Having oatmeal for breakfast instead of an expensive cereal? Be thankful – finely ground oatmeal makes a marvelous exfoliator. Just mix it with a little yogurt and scrub away.
If funds are really low, all is not lost. Herbal teas can keep you beautiful inside and outside as well. Dip a chamomile tea bag into some hot water and enjoy a refreshing drink. Soak the used tea bag in more hot water, let it cool and use as a calming rinse next time you shampoo. This works especially well for fine fair hair.
Preparing your own beauty aids and cosmetics can save you lots of money to spend on other things – like shoes! Buy a big jar of sorbolene cream and add some extra ingredients to it, like vitamin E oil capsules broken open and a teaspoon of rosewater. Whip all together for a light, beautifully scented face cream.
When it comes to cosmetics, you can make your own lip-gloss with Vaseline and a little food coloring or make a glittering body gel by adding fine particles of glitter to the Vaseline. If you need a new lipstick in a different shade, gather up all your old lipsticks and try melting them together in different combinations. A few seconds in the microwave or standing in hot water will melt them sufficiently to mix. When you have created a shade you love, put it in a small pot and apply it with a lip brush. You will feel like Paris Hilton!
But you don't have to be fabulously rich to be gorgeous because all it takes is a little imagination and a trip to the supermarket.
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