Great Grandma’s Beauty Tricks
While searching through some drawers in our house, I came across a small beauty book that belonged to my great-grandmother. She passed away when I was in the 4th grade, so I don’t remember too much of her, but from what I see in pictures and videos she was always looking her best.
The book was called Instant Beauty Tricks. One of the coolest thing about it is in the upper right hand corner it’s marked 25¢. You could find these purse-sized books in the checkout line at the supermarket. You can’t even buy a trashy tabloid magazine for 25¢ these days. I read through this book and wrote down some of my favorite, yet very obscure beauty tricks and put them to the test.
Beauty Trick #1:
“For an emergency conditioning treatment, try a mayonnaise massage. Apply it to wet hair, working it into the scalp and down to the ends. Allow to remain on hair for 15 minutes before shampooing.”
This was one of the first tricks I found that make me re-read the passage. Mayonnaise? Really? I’m not the biggest fan of condiments anyway, so I was a little apprehensive about putting this in my hair. However, I pushed through with a little help from some latex gloves. The first step was to get my hair wet.
Step two, massage mayonnaise into your hair. I have long hair, so I used around 3/4 cup of mayo. Like I said before, I used latex gloves because I was not about to get mayo under my nails. (ew.) The gloves definitely made the process easier. I also tried not to breathe through my nose very much because in a small bathroom, the smell of mayo was intense.
Step three, let the mayonnaise sit on your hair for 15 minutes. Step four, rinse and shampoo like normal.
The verdict is, this really works. It’s strange to admit it but my hair is very soft and I didn’t have to use conditioner in the shower! I’ve tried multiple hair masks and deep conditioning treatments in the past and they work, but they’re usually expensive. This is a very cheap way to make your hair shiny and soft!
Beauty Trick #2:
“Just for an evening: smooth wrinkles, puffy under-eyes, and crepey throat by applying a thin layer of unbeaten egg white over areas. Let dry, then apply foundation as usual.”
After my success with the mayonnaise, I was super excited to try this one. The egg whites were definitely less gross than the mayo. I washed my face, toned, and moisturized like normal before applying the egg white. I applied the egg white on the right side of my face so that I would be able to tell a difference between the side without the egg. The specific areas are under the eyes and in my laugh lines. The next step was to apply my foundation. The instructions says like normal, so I used my e.l.f Foundation brush to apply my Clinique Superbalanced Silk Makeup in shade 05 Silk Ivory.
Applying my foundation didn’t seem like a problem. It definitely felt different over the spots that had the dried egg whites. Perhaps I didn’t look close enough, but I didn’t see a line, a textured spot, or any other issue. Next, I applied concealer under my eyes like normal, and set with translucent powder. This is where the problems started. I could definitely see the edge of the egg whites.
Right on the top of my cheek you can see the crusty edges of the dry egg whites. The powder blush I popped on didn’t blend very well either. I think the egg whites would be a great face mask but they do not belong under foundation. In the photo there were no differences with using the egg whites on my laugh lines. But, looking closer the area close to my mouth had the same scaley texture as my under eye. 
I will say that I can see a distinct difference between the “face lift” effect the egg whites had. Analyzing the non-egg white side you can tell that the blush application worked a lot better. Can you tell which side had the egg whites?
