What’s better than looking fabulous?  Looking fabulous, avoiding beauty mishaps and saving time, that’s what!

Here are some of the best beauty tricks I’ve learned in my frivolous, magazine reading, Style Network-watching life. You may already know some of these, but maybe one will shave off a few minutes in your getting gorgeous routine.

Haphazardly polish your nails the night before, and any polish that gets on your cuticles and skin will just come off with a little scrub in the shower the next morning.  No more painstaking applications and re-dos for you!  Or skip polish altogether and simply apply a nail oil like Solar Oil to nails and cuticles daily.

Remove deodorant from clothes with Gal Pal or by rubbing the soiled fabric against itself with another portion of the same garment.   This works better than the dry cleaners, which can simply leave behind white muck. 

Tilt your head way back when you secure your ponytail with an elastic, and the underneath hair will not bulge. (From this month’s Cookie magazine.)

Skip carbonated drinks and beer two days before you have an event for which you meant to exercise or have a slim-fitting outfit.  Biological Spanx without crash dieting!

After applying lipstick, stick your finger in your mouth and slowly remove it and you’ll eliminate any excess that could smear your teeth.  I know, I know, BD’s going to get some interesting hits in Google from that tip. Sorry Fussy & Karla!

Apply white shadow to the inner corners of your eyes and beneath your brow arch to look instantly refreshed and visually open up the eye.

Skip mascara on your lower lashes.  The mascara can smear and makeup on the lower lashes can be aging and draw attention to fatigue and under-eye circles.

If you must wear pantyhose with pumps and you’re going to be doing a lot of walking, tie the toe of the hose into a small knot by the big toe.  This will cut down on toe runs.

Use a dry shampoo or talcum powder when your hair is in need of a wash but you’re out of time.  And, if Grey’s Anatomy is to be believed, the best greasy hair style of all time, the French braid, is back in style.

For a salon perfect, smooth blow dry, begin with sopping wet hair.  I know, this adds time to your routine, but for a special event it will make your hair look like a professional blowout.

Hey, if just one woman out there is helped in some small way by this list, maybe all those years of flipping through Seventeen in high school and Allure in college can be justified as something more than a waste of study time!
   
 Jessica is usually telling fellow parents what playground rocks, rather than how to put on lipstick, at A Parent in Silver Spring. 

Photo by sparkeig on Flickr