8 tips to maintain short natural hair

I am going to review 8 tips to maintain your short natural healthy hair. Hopefully some of this tips provided by Africa Trading Group will help you in your healthcare routine.

1. Don´t overcomplicate

Do not overcomplicate your hair routine, your schedule, your regimen and what you do with your hair. I know it could be exciting when you cut your hair off. For example, when you have long hair and you go back to short length. Please, don´t overcomplicate your situation. Don´t try to combine all the treatments on yourself when you are starting. You can start overwhelming yourself, your hair, causing a lot of manipulations.

2. Learning your hair

When your hair is short it is the perfect time for you to figure it out what works for you and what doesn´t work for your hair. Also you should learn the kind of method of your hand dealing with your hair.

You are learning what product to put in your hair. But if you are constantly using all these different products in your hair, it is difficult to narrow down which one is actually benefiting you.

You need to know what products works better for you to have healthy hair.

3. Consistency

You need to be consistency with whatever you do. Once that you know what works for your hair, you need to become consistent with that. If it works for you, just do that!! Over time you will see that your hair will start to flourish and it will become healthier. That is the reward of doing what works best for you. This is like when you are experimenting with a fragrance.

4. Moisture

I know that you would have heard hundreds of times. Moisturized your hair is an important part of hair care. You don´t want your hair to break up. Also, moisture is also good for your skin when applying perfume as we review in another article of Africa Parfums.

5. Styling

You may feel that you are limited when it comes to styling your short natural hair, but you are not. You can do a lot of styles. You can put your hair back, you can do twist outs, break outs, etc.

When you first try it may feel a little bit difficult. But you have plenty of options to styling your hair. Just try to make it look as neat as possible.

Also think about the styling that you are choosing. Make sure that it is not causing too much damage to your hair.

6. Condition

Condition your hair! You should condition about twice a week. You can do a co-wash at mid-week and then a deep condition during the weekend. And remember, you need to be consistent with this as well. This way you will have a gorgeous healthy hair.

7. Protein balance

You should figure out if you need protein in your hair. I recommend you to do a protein treatment in your hair every 6 to 8 weeks.

Back to tip number 2. This is where all the leanings pay off. You need to figure it out how to incorporate the protein treatments in your hair routines.

8. Low manipulation

Think if you are planning on growing your hair out. Or if you just want a healthy short style.

Also, if you want thick ends you need to make sure that you are doing little manipulation and that you are treating your hair with care.

Makeup: 10 must-know beauty tips for dark skin tones

Choosing the right makeup will make the difference to enhance your beauty. Africa Traiding Group knows that very well, so are sharing these 10 tips for dark skin tones.

1. Know your lighting

When it comes to applying and shopping for makeup, you should always make sure to do so on natural lighting and in bright lighting. It should be the light where you can see your face on its more natural tone.

While you are shopping, if you can, apply the makeup on your hand, walk outside see how it looks and then make your decision.

2. Build your foundation

You not always are going to like how you look with one foundation. Your face is not one tone. You would want to start with your base tone, and then a highlighter for a healthy glow.

3. Warm up the center

The center tones on a person skin, looks really healthy when they are warm. So add warm and dimension on your skin. Apply amber and camel tones to the center of your face using a brush and blend it out.

4. Embrace orange

Orange is your friend. Orange blush, orange lipsticks, orange concealer… you choose. It looks very natural on dark skin tones. It helps to cancel out purple tones. If you have under eye circles definitely invest on a great orange concealer.

5. Line your lips

If you have larger lips, line your lips with a shade close to your natural pigmentation. It helps to keep your look in place.

If you have pigmented lips, use an orange color corrector. This will helps to balance out to the deeper tones on your lips.

6. Avoid black brows

Most of the time, stay away from black brows. They can be a little bit too harsh. You can go in with a medium dark brown for the inside of your brows to a deeper brown. And then, just add a little black on the tale of your brow. It should be just enough to create a nice strong frame.

7. Don´t go too light

I know that I told you to stay away of black, but you don´t want to go too light or too warm because it can wash you out and it can age you. Nobody wants that!

8. Frost is not your friend

When highlighting, stay away from frost. It can be too pale and it can make you look ashy. Instead go for a warmer shimmer. It adds a beautiful highlight to your skin.

9. Take care of your skin

I am a huge advocate of sunscreen. If you have hyperpigmentation I recommend you to exfoliate and then you use sunscreen to protect your beautiful skin.

10. Break the rules

Darker skins should stay away from antiquated rigid rules. Maroons, plums and gold tones on the lips can look a little dated. It depends on what finish you use.

Just because you are dark, it doesn´t mean that everything in your face has to be dark. Try contrast. It is beautiful!! Using darker tones may age you.

Celebrate your skin, celebrate color!

Perfume: 7 tips for the best results

Do you know when the best time to apply a fragrance is? Should you use moisturized with your perfume? What are the best areas to apply it? If you have any of these questions you should keep reading this article by Africa Trading Group.

1. The best time to apply fragrance

The best time to apply perfume is after shower, when you clean your body from all the dust of the day. At that time your skin is fresh. Whatever you put next gets better absorbed. That is when you should apply perfume because it will stick and it will smell the best.

2. Use moisturized

Perfume holds better in moisturized skin than in dry skin. So make sure than when you get out of the shower you moisturized so the fragrance has something to hold on to. Otherwise it will fall up with your dry skin.

3. Where to apply perfume?

Basically the best part to apply perfume is all your pulse points because these are the hottest spots in your body. For example, you may apply it behind your ears, around your neck and your wrists. That is where it works better with the perfume and the essence came out naturally and smells best. That is like the prime. This may change with the type of fragrance you are using.

4. How to apply it?

When applying perfume many people make a mistake. When you apply it make sure you apply it from a distance of at least 20 to 30 cm away. This allows the mix to gently fall into your skin. You shouldn’t pull of it because it actually destroys the smell and you may waste a lot of product this way.

5. Do not rub

Also many people rub their wrists each other when they apply perfume there. That area is warm enough. So when you are doing that you are over heating the flavor, so you are actually changing the smell of you perfume. Just let it gently, naturally fall and let it works by itself.

6. Don´t mix perfumes

This is very important: avoid mixing smells. A lot of the fragrances come with its own complementing body products like body soaps, body lotions and shampoos. Try to use the complementary ones if you can. If you cannot find one in your scent, then use a body lotion that has no scent.

7. Finding the fragrance that suits you

There are many different kinds of fragrances. Based on their compounds, each of them will react to the different kind of skin that you may have. So whether it may smell great is somebody it may not work in others woman. There are many different kinds of fragrances. Based on their compounds, each of them will react to the different kind of skin that you may have. It may smell great in somebody and it may not work in others woman. Take your time to choose your perfume that you like. I recommend you when you find something that you like stock up, so you can use it all year round.

10 of the most expensive perfumes in the world

If you love the best fragrances you would love all of these perfumes. They are the most expensive in the world. Do you want to know how much do you need to save for the most expensive one? Keep reading this article provided by Africa Trading Group.

10. Annick Goutal Eau d’Hadrien ($440 per ounce)

Launched back in 1982 and the result of a collaboration between the infamous Annick Goutal and Francis Gamail, Eau d’Hadrien is one of the most expensive perfumes in the world.

The citrus flavored perfume, which captures the smell of lemon grapefruit, cypress and mandaring orange sells for as much as $1,500 for a 3.4 oz bottle.

9. Jar Bolt of Lightning ($770 per ounce)

Designed by the jeweler Joel A. Rosenthal, the Jar Bolt of Lighting perfume smells, as marketed, of air just after a lightning strike. Released back in 2001, the perfume costs as much as $770 per ounce.

8. Joy by Jean Patou ($800 per ounce)

Created as early as 1929 for the French courtier Jean Patou, Joy by Jean Patou is one of the most highly-regarded fragrances ever created winning the 2000 FiFi award “Scent of the Century”.

It cost as much as $800 per ounce, just because of the fact that as much as 10,000 jasmine flowers and 336 rouses are required to crate just a single ounce.

7. Caron Poivre ($1,000 per ounce)

Created by one of the most prestigious companies in the world – Parfums Caron and released in 1954, the Caron Poivre perfume is described as being unisex and smelling of clove, spices and having quite the fiery scent. It cost as much as $1.000 per ounce.

6. Hermès 24 Faubourg ($1.500 per ounce)

A limited edition fragrance, launched back in 1995, the Hermès 24 Faubourg perfume is particularly rare as only 1.000 bottles of it were ever created. It currently holds a price of as much as $1.500 per ounce.

5. Clive Christian No. 1 ($2.150 per ounce)

Coming in a bottle that is created from a lead crystal and adorned with 1/3 carat diamond on the neck, the Clive Christian No. 1 perfume was considered the world’s more expensive perfume from 2001 to 2006 with a price of $2.150 per ounce.

4. Chanel Grand Extrait ($4.200 per ounce)

While Chanel No. 5 is the most iconic flavor of Coco Chanel, the Chanel Grand Extrait is the most expensive one. Is being marketed as a limited edition perfume having the rarest, purest Original No. 5 fragrance. Thus it is $4.200 per ounce price tag.

3. Baccarat Les Larmes Sacrees de Thebes ($6.800 per ounce)

Expensive both for its fragrance and the bottle it comes in. Baccarat Les Larmes Sacrees de Thebe is one of the most expensive perfumes in the world coming at $6.800 per ounce.

2. Clive Christian No. 1 Imperial Majesty Perfume ($12.700 per ounce)

Holding the Guinness Book of World Records title as the most expensive perfume in the world and having only a 10-bottle run, the super-rare limited edition perfume Clive Christian No. 1 Imperial Majesty Perfume comes in an extremely fancy bottle with a price tag of $215,000 containing just 16.9 ounces.

1. DKNY Golden Delicious Million Dollar ($295.000 per ounce)

Unveiled in 2011 by DKNY and coming in a golden-apple-shaped bottle, this perfume cost as much as $1 million, because of the 14-karat yellow and white gold and the 183 yellow sapphires, 2.700 white diamonds and the 1.6-carat turquoise Paraiba tourmaline among other jewels used in order for the bottle to be created.

How to choose the best moisturizer for different skin types

The first thing you need to do is figure it out the kind of skin type you have. Then you will be able to choose the best moisturizer for you.

If you have dry Skin

Dry skin is crying for moisture.

It is very easy to spot this skin type. When you don’t put your skin care products you can see the flakiness of your skin. Especially around your eyes, your mouth or your cheeks, and you can feel that your skin is poorly.

During the cold season your skin becomes much dryer. Your makeup doesn’t go on smoothly. This definitely can lead your skin to loose elasticity. Because your skin loose elasticity, it is very easy for dry skin types to have rankles in their face.

The problem for dry skin types is that they lack both water and oil under their faces because they have very low production of sebum and sweat.

For dry skin types it is very important to find moisturizer that have a great balance between oil and water. This will moisturize your skin for deep within. Also won’t let the moisture to escape from your face by forming a protecting oil layer on your face.

Some great ingredients for especially dry skin type, they include hyaluronic acid, glycerin, propylene glycol and lipidure. These ingredients are really great to provide moisture to your skin.

But you are not done if you only have provided the right amount of moisture and nutrients to your skin. You also need to create a protective oil layer on your skin. This will help moisture not to escape out from your face.

If you have oily Skin

They usually have a thick layer of death skin cellules on their face. That is why it looks like if they have a very rough texture.

Oily skin types tend to produce a large amount of sebum; it is very easy to see large pores for especially oily skin types.

Oily skin types usually break more often. Also it is very easy to spot greasiness, especially around the T-zone.

When they apply makeup it erasers quickly.

Those who have oily skin, there is a tendency to concentrate to get rid of the oil layer. However that is wrong. It is a symptom of the lack of moisture deep within. When the skin lacks moisture at an inner level, the skin produces more sebum. So the solution is solving the lack of moisture of the skin.

Choose a moisturizer that has low oil level but instead it has very fresh and light texture that provide moisture deep inside your skin.

This is another tip from Africa Trading Group. I hope you enjoyed it.

What are the most common types of fragrances?

Fragrances came in all different shapes and forms. In this article, Africa Trading Group will classify for you the most common types of fragrances.

Perfume balm:

Part of the fun of wearing perfume is the whole process. If you are using a balm you are taking the fun out of it. This is why many women don’t consider perfume balm the best fit for them.

The advantages are that it is very convenient when you are travelling. Also, it last longer because it is not hit and light sensitive.

It is also one of the best ways to wear perfume in public. It is the most discrete way. You cannot almost see it. You can put it secretly and you are ready!

However the smell of the actual perfume gets alter when is made into a balm version.

Eau de Cologne:

It is maybe most commonly found in men fragrances but it also can be found in women ones. It is probably the lightest way of perfume because it only contains 3 to 5% aromatic compounds.

You can be quite generous when you are applying eau de cologne. You can apply it in the side of your neck, the back of your neck, your wrists, elbows and the back of your knees.

Eau de Toilette:

Eau de toilette is probably the most common type of fragrance that you can find. It contains about 5 to 15% of aromatic compounds. It is a little bit heavier than the eau de cologne.

Sometime it is also marketed as the lighted version of the perfumes. Even though, they usually change the note in the eau de toilette so it smells a little bit different. This way it has its own essence.

You can apply it on the side of your neck, on your wrists and behind your knees if you are wearing shorts.

This fragrance last longer than the eau de cologne. But you should reapply every 4 hours. However, it depends on your kind of skin type, the natural oils of your skin, hormones, etc. It varies from woman to woman.

Eau de Parfum:

It contains between 10 to 20% of aromatic compounds. It is also one of the most common forms of fragrances that you can find in the market.

This one last between 6 to 8 hours before you have to reapply it. Sometimes it essence may change slightly after a few hours. So it may become a new different essence.

You can apply it in the sides of your neck and your wrists. You don´t need more!

Parfum:

This contains between 20 to 40% of aromatic compounds, which is almost half. That is why they are usually in little bottles and they are the most expensive. It is definitely a luxury item.

You can apply it behind the ears and on your wrists. That is all! It will last you the whole day.