Side braids are a hot trend in Hollywood right now and Amy Adams rocked it at the 2011 MET Ball.  She wore a side-parted French braid across her hairline and it caught everyone’s attention. Her complicated yet stylish front braid was a great way to add some fun to a sophisticated bun.

1. Apply a small amount of mousse such as Tousle Me Softly Mousse to dry or damp hair. Work it into the roots with the pads of his fingers, moving them back and forth to create movement in the underneath layers of hair.
2. Blow hair dry, continuing with the pads-of-the-fingers trick. Don’t use a brush.
3. If your hair is already dry, you can rough it up a bit by spraying your fingertips with hairspray Body Envy Volumizing Hairspray and then working it into the ends so they look frayed.
4. Curl your hair with a medium-barreled curling iron.
5. Lightly run your fingers through your hair to tease and gently separate the curls. Spray with a volume-building hairsprayThen part the hair to the side.
6. Starting at one side, loosely braid your hair across the side of your head working pieces in as you move across, sort of like a sideways French braid. Secure it on the other side with a clear elastic band. It’s supposed to look messy and loose, so don’t braid too tight.
7. Twist and pin the remaining hair into a bun. Secure it with bobby pins. Then spray with hairspray and you’re done!

Braids never go away and offer that nice twist to your normally random hair style. Whether it’s delicate or bigger braids, celebs have adopted this style and you should too!

Going all out for a New Year’s party? New Year’s Eve is the time to stand out and have fun dressing up and being a girl! Your makeup look could be more dramatic. It is the time to get dressed up and be more daring and dramatic. Plus the best makeup trend during those big nighttime events that make the best impression will always be the brown Smokey eyes makeup.  Amp up your look with the brown smoky eye like Jessica Alba who knows how to light up her deep hazel eyes perfectly. You can create a smokey eye with any dark eye shadow shade. Charcoal gray and black look great on brunettes.

To copy her look apply a cream concealer like Iman’s Second to None Cover Cream over your eyelid to create a smooth base for your eyeshadow. Use a pencil liner (black or gray looks best) to trace your top lashline from the inner corner to the outer. Then, use the same pencil to dot between your lower lashes. Smudge both lashlines with a cotton swab or an eyeliner brush. Next, sweep a dark brown powder shadow over your lid and into your crease, blending the color up and outward. Bobbi Brown’s Slate shadow is a great one to try. Finally, dust a lighter, neutral eyeshadow (such as ivory) over just your browbone and finish with some volumizing mascara like Dior’s Diorshow Mascara in black. As always finish with Skindinavia finishing spray for a makeup look that lasts.

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Celebs know that the quickest, most effective way to make their eyes look big and gorgeous is with fake lashes. Kim Kardashian regularly enhances her eyes with fake eyelashes and makes it look natural using Kre-at Beuaty’s 3/4 winged lashes.

Now, you too can master the art of faking it and make your eyes pop! A full strip of lashes adds even more drama than a few individual ones. Here’s how to do it yourself:

1. If the lash is wider than your eye, trim one side of it lash by lash.
2. Squeeze eyelash glue onto the back of your hand and run the eyelash along it. Blow softly from edge to edge to make the glue a little less runny to apply your lashes.
3. Pick the lashes up with tweezers and bring it as close to your natural lash line as possible.
4. Press from end to end and hold until the glue dries (30 seconds to a minute, or sometimes less depending upon the adhesive). This allows the glue to set so that when you lift your fingertips from it, the lashes won’t come along for the ride
5. Apply mascara while pressing your finger behind the fake lashes. This will bond the false lashes with yours.(It may be beneficial to use an eyelash curler before applying mascara)
6. Fill any gaps between the false lashes and your natural lash line with eyeliner.

The messy updo is a chic look for the Holidays and is all you need to really pull your look together. If you have little time, the lazy sexy hair look is perfect because you don’t have to do much at all. Just take Zoë’s lead and wear your mane in a classic French twist with lots of height at the crown and face-framing pieces.

After washing, towel-drying hair and spray it with a lightweight styling spray such as Bumble and Bumble Styling Lotion. Work it through hair, then use a paddle brush to separate and dry hair with a blow dryer.

Work a small amount of mousse through the hair at the back of your head. This will create volume. Now,  you’re going to make a crazy high ponytail in the back. From there, double up on your ponytail: Divide the ponytail into four sections, then bring one at a time back to the base of your ponytail, securing it with Googy’s elastic “ouchless” clear rubberband. You know how sometimes you just “fold” a quick-and-messy ponytail into itself so it doesn’t hang as long as it normally would? That’s the general idea. Do that to four sections, pull strands so that fall out and finish with a curling iron.

There’s something really sexy about this look because it isn’t as buttoned-up as more formal updos can be. And best of all, it’s easy to create a variation on this look in just a few minutes.

Most think bronze is best suited for summer months but Elizabeth Olsen works it on the Gotham Independent Film Awards red carpet, proving that a bronze smoky eye will heat up your winter look.  It also takes almost no time so it’s perfect for those days you feel like hitting the snooze button on your alarm clock.

The trick to achieving a soft smokey eye is to layer on. You should start with a solid light brown shade all over the lid and pile on deeper colors on top.

1.  Prep eye area with a foundation and concealer/powder.
2. Apply a light neutral base eye shadow to upper eyelid and crease area with large eye makeup brush like Motives Press Eye shadow in Vintage Glam. Also, sweep this color under lower lash line from inner to outer corners with smaller brush.
3. With a medium eye brush, apply a more intense bronze based color to upper eyelid. Try out Elle’s Motives Paint Pot Mineral Eye shadow. Feather this color under 1/2 of outer corner of lower lash line also.
4. Add dark brown eye shadow color to outer eye corners for more intensity if desired.
5. Line eyes with black eyeliner, paying careful attention to the lower and upper eyelids. Try Ultrafresh Black Magic Eyeliner and be sure to blend for a smudged look.
6. Curl lashes and apply 2 coats of black mascara.
7. Apply a highlighter to brow bone and inner corners of eyes.
8. Finish with Skindinavia for a look that won’t smudge or wear off.