Wedding Day Beauty Mistakes

Avoid Wedding Day Mistakes by Experimenting with Beauty Treatments before your Big Day

Many women make the mistake of deciding to use their wedding or any big event as the chance to try every beauty procedure they have ever been remotely curious about. From tinting their eyelashes to getting thong-ready Brazilian bikini wax to perming their hair, women who take a no-holds-barred approach to big-day beauty run the risk of winding up frizzy-haired, blotchy, broken out and broke, since none of the procedures are cheap. It's fine to do some experimentation leading up to your big wedding day, but you must do it with enough time to correct any mistakes. The key is to plan, and, if you can afford it, to give every procedure a trial run at least once before you commit to making it a part of your wedding day beauty regimen. This tactic has two benefits: You ensure that the procedure actually does what it is supposed to do, such as clearing your skin and making it glow instead of making you break out in hives; and if you decide not to opt for a procedure, you still have time to grow out its effects.

Beauty Treatments and Experimenting Timeframes

Below are a list of the common beauty treatments women decide to try before the big day, as well as some beauty changes you should incorporate into your routine ASAP. We also included a suggested time frame for implementing or testing each one.

• Hair Changes: styles and coloring
• Eyelashes: tinting and perming - Eyelash tinting lasts a few weeks, while an eyelash perm can last up to three months. The idea behind getting these procedures done around a wedding is, of course, so that you are not left with a streaky face and straight, tiny stubs after tears of joy and the emotion of the day. It also has the bonus of giving you a great set of low-maintenance lashes for your honey-moon. A bit of what may seem like obvious advice: Don't have both procedures done at once. Decide what you need, then choose the appropriate treatment. Eyelash tinting is only useful for women with sparse, light lashes, whereas perming can give a great curl to people with long, lush, black lashes that are, unfortunately, straight. As with the facial, do a trial run long before the wedding, so you can make an informed decision about having this done a week before the actual event. Also, some of these procedures are not available everywhere, either because some states do not allow them or because salon clients in the area never request them. Trying these out might involve some research on your part.
• Bikini and Brazilian waxing - A lot of people are already familiar with waxing and have it done on a regular basis. If this is true for you, stick with the esthetician who does this procedure to your satisfaction. This is not the time to go trying out new salons in town. If you are trying one of these procedures for the first time, here are some things to remember: Even waxing done by the best esthetician can leave bumps, irritation, or redness on the skin, so have it done two full months before the event to see how your skin responds and whether the esthetician you use does a good job. Try to get a sense for how quickly your hair grows back. Then, one to two weeks before the big day, get the procedure done a second time.
• Lip and ebrow waxing - see Bikini and Brazilian waxing
• Artificial nails
• Facials - If you insist on getting a facial even though you have never had one before, do the first one a month and half before the wedding. After getting the facial, monitor your skin's reaction afterward--not only for the first few days but for the first two weeks, which is how long it can take if the point of the facial was to clear up any breakouts. If you liked the results, schedule a second one no closer than two weeks to a week and half before the wedding, particularly if you are prone to breaking out or are very fair skinned and are having a pore extraction done. Facials can actually lead to acne, which many facialists say goes hand-in-hand with the excretion of impurities. Pore extractions, especially on sensitive or white skin, can leave the area red for quite a few days. Plan accordingly so you don't have any surprises and can still enjoy the benefits of the procedure.