Cleaning your makeup brushes on the regular should be the most important part of your beauty routine. A clean brush is essential for taking care of your skin when you apply makeup. If your brush is dirty, your face will be dirty. So clean your brushes! The process is not as tedious as you might think. This guide serves as a quick reference for cleaning up your brushes daily, with tips on the best bi-weekly deep cleaning. First, gather the brushes you need to clean, MAC Cosmetics Brush Cleaner and some paper towels.

1. For round brushes (like a bronzer brush or blending brush): Apply brush cleaner directly to paper towel and twirl the top of a round brush in a circular motion on the cleaner soaked towel. You should see makeup come off the brush as you twirl it. Repeat this process until no more makeup is left behind on your towel. Lay brush out to dry over night. 
2. For flat brushes (like a fan brush or eye shadow brush): Apply brush cleaner directly to paper towel and brush your brush in a back and forth motion across the cleaner soaked region to remove makeup. Repeat this until no makeup is left behind on the towel when you brush it. Lay brush out to dry over night.
3. For bi-weekly deep cleaning your brushes, Step 1: Wet the tip of your brush with water. not to get any water into the bottom of the brush where it meets its metal handle because the handle will rust if it gets wet.
4. For bi-weekly deep cleaning your brushes, Step 2: Apply dish soap to the wet brush top(organic dish soap is best). Clean the soap soaked brush on a paper towel until no more makeup comes off of it onto the towel. Rinse the cleaned brush thoroughly with water. Set out to dry over night.

Voila! Your brushes are squeaky clean and ready for a beauty bash!

The post Brush School: Clean Those Brushes! appeared first on Kouturekiss.

Long, straight hair is simple and gorgeous, but it can get boring. A great blow dry can give long locks the volume, body and shine they need to look more beautiful than ever. The key to a great blow out is practiced technique and great product. Follow the tutorial below to give your long hair a salon style blow out in a just a few easy steps.

1. Start with combed out, wet hair.
2. Apply a heat protector and Morocaan oil to your hair. 
3. I use two pumps of Biolage heat protector by applying it to the ends of my finger tips and working throughout my damp hair and then follow with about 5 drops of Moroccan oil on the ends of my hair.
4. Blow dry hair, freely, until it’s almost 100% dry. No diffuser needed for this part.
5. Section hair into 3 or four sections with claw clips and leave bottom section down. Always start from the bottom-up when blow drying.
6. Using a large round brush with narrow, take a 2 to 3 inch section of hair, and starting from the ends of your hair, roll the hair around the brush INWARD towards your head.
7. Add a defuser to your blow drier and start with the nozzle on your rolled-up hair and slowly unravel the hair from the brush, away from your head, using the drier to blow the hair dry as you go. When you get to the ends of your hair, remove the drier and spin the brush a few times on the ends to let it cool and set. This action will give your hair a small turn at the ends.
8. Repeat steps 4-6 on each section of your hair until you have dried all of it. Always leave the crown for last and you may want to go over your bangs and top layer of hair more than once.
9. Voila! Now you have volumized, silky, smooth, straight and beautiful hair! I like to finish my hair with Garnier Fructise smoothing cream.

The post Long Hair Don’t Care! How To Get The Perfect Blowout appeared first on Kouturekiss.

A signature look for classic, American beauty, is big, beautiful curls. Feminine and sweet, soft curls are a polished way to style your hair, anywhere you might go. To celebrate Election Day, here’s a tutorial on how to get the biggest, bounciest, vote-worthy curls in the country.

Step 1: Heat a large 1.5 inch curling iron to it’s highest heat setting. Start with day-old, un-washed hair. The oils in dirty hair hold curl much better than clean hair does, especially for those of us with fine, straight locks. Starting at the crown, section your hair into 4 layers. 

Step 2: Spray hair with heat protector like the Chi spray I used. Working from one side of your head to the other, divide your hair into 2 inch sections.

Steps 3-4: Take a section of hair and start by clamping the curling iron at the end of the section. Roll the curling iron INWARD towards your head, until all the hair is rolled into the iron. Heat section for about 20 seconds or until hair is quite hot to touch.

Step 5: Slowly unroll hair from iron and you will have a loose ringlet. Move to next 2 inch section until entire layer is curled. Set curled layer with hairspray, like the Tresseme spray I used.

Steps 6-9: Repeat steps two through four on all section layers of hair, working your way up to the crown. Once at the crown, if you have long bangs, separate them away from the rest of the hair in that section and curl those last.

Voila! Now you have big, beautiful American girl curls. Head on out to that voting booth and remember to always VOTE BEAUTY!

The post I Vote For Big, All American Curls! appeared first on Kouturekiss.