Looking to try something new this New Year? Take a look at this list of 25 Beauty tips, tricks, and looks to try. You never know when something new will be exactly what you have been looking for!

Top 25 Beauty Tips To Try Right Now

1. Eat foods that are high in iron, zinc, and vitamin A to promote healthy hair growth, leading to strong, silky hair. These nutrients can be found in eggs, meat, nuts, cheese, and spinach.

2. Use primer before you put on foundation. The primer will keep foundation looking fresh. It will also help conceal any facial flaws.

3. Try Mineral Makeup. While many people opt to use regular liquid foundation, powder mineral foundation works better for many skin types.

4. Use liquid eyeliner instead of pencil eyeliner to achieve a more precise look.

5. Give pink a try. Light pink is a great color to use to highlight certain features. To emphasize eyebrows, use pink eyeliner. Pink blush can be used to define cheekbones.

6. Tone down the mascara. Brown mascara, not black, will give a more natural look that does not overpower the rest of a look.

7. Try a dramatic look. Pair red lips with dark, smoky eyes for a sleek nighttime look. Plump red lips are dramatic and leave a lingering impression.

8. Don’t skimp on the manicure. Add a base coat and top coat of clear nail polish when using colors. This prevents fading and chipping.

9. Pluck your brows. While shaping the eyebrows is difficult, it is also important. An eyebrow should start over the tear duct and end right above the outer edge of the lashes.

10. Maintain your brows. Pluck just a few eyebrow hairs a day to prevent over-plucking and swelling.

11. Use powder. Add a non-colored powder over the top of makeup to keep it looking fresh all day and to absorb oil . Plus, it’s easy to apply in the restroom.

12. Prime your eyes. Before applying eye shadow, add a little bit of foundation or eye primer to the eye lid. This will keep eye shadow from fading, smudging, or creasing.

13. Plump your lips with ease. Try adding peppermint extract to the lips to make them plump.

14. Add moisture over lipstick. Beeswax lip balm will keep lips from sticking, or apply a clear gloss.

15. Fake extra white teeth. Bronzer, which should be used sparingly, can make teeth appear whiter and eyes appear larger.

16. Keep hair from getting limp from oil. Use a large, rectangle brush to help distribute the oils evenly.

17. Use gel on your braids. It is a good idea to carry gel when wearing braids. When hairs begin to break lose, the gel will keep the hair from appearing uncontrolled.

18. Bring out the blue eyes. Women with blue eyes can benefit from using darker shades like purple, black, and gray. Browns will also accentuate blue eyes.

19. Keep your green eye green. Green eyes are best paired with colors like brown, purple, and deep green.

20. Pretty up brown eyes with metallic. Brown eyes look great when shadowed with bronze or gold.

21. Try a different eyeliner. While black remains a popular choice for eyeliner, purple and blue can give a subtle twist to make the eyes really pop.

22. Do something new with your hair. Straight hair day after day can become boring. Braiding hair before bedtime can result in loose, bouncy waves in the morning.

23. Add volume to flat hair. Flat hair can become luscious in a matter of 20 minutes by mixing egg and mayonnaise into the hair once a week.

24. Stand up straight. Posture can do much to improve appearance. Sitting up and walking straight gives an air of confidence.

25. Change your hair color. Sometimes all it takes is a dye job to revamp an old look. Winter is a great time to try a darker look, while summer is a good time to lighten hair.

Disclosures: Girl Gloss at times reviews products provided by a representative of the company. When we do so, we specifically state so. We also use affiliate links. For more, please see the disclosure page

About the Author: Carleen Coulter

Lip palettes are the perfect solution for a variety of gift giving needs. They often fit in stockings, are great for an affordable small gift, or can be packaged with other beauty items to make a nice beauty gift box.  Pick up a few items, put them in a tissue covered holiday box or bag, and you are ready to go! Here are a few neat holiday lip items that any woman would love.

With the onset of winter, lip balm and gloss see higher than normal use and the Ulta 10 Piece Mini Lip Gloss Set is perfect for anyone on a budget. At $14.99, it offers a great selection of glosses in a cute little set.

For a bit of everything, the Sephora Favorites, Give Me Some Lip Set consists of  six best selling lip items. This is great for a wrapped gift, as the box is a nice gift size.

For a nice stocking stuffer, grab the Korres Lip Butter Trio. This set of three natural lip balms is great for winter lip care.

As a small gift of for a stocking the Bare Minerals Keychain Kisses set is an adorable and unique gift.

For a bit of luxury, try the Nars Kudoki Kabuki set. This pretty little box of lip pots comes with a unique brush and exclusive limited edition packaging.

Great lips never go out of style, making lip items an easy to give gift!

The 2011 MAC Glitter and Ice Holiday Collection includes a group of Dazzleglass and lipstick shades. Here are a set of MAC Glitter and Ice Collection swatches of just a couple of the shades that are available.

First up are MAC Lipstick swatches of Eloquent air, a cool silver, and Such Flare, a nice vibrant red. The first swatch on the left is a combination of the two. I put the red on first and topped it with the silver, which resulted in a pretty nice berry shade. That can be a great ways to alter a lipstick shade, and using silver is great for my cool skin tone.

Next are swatches of the holiday Dazzleglass in what are essentially matching shades to the lipsticks. As with the lipstick swatches, the first one on the left is a combination of the two shades. She-Zam is the silver and Love Alert is the red.

The MAC Glitter and Ice Holiday Collection is on shelves now!

You can see more swatches from the collection at Beauty and Fashion Tech.

Shop For MAC Cosmetics and Other Holiday Collections at Nordstrom

Disclosure: This review is made using products provided by a representative of MAC. For more, please see our disclosure page.

The 2011 MAC Holiday Collection includes a number of makeup kits that would be great as gifts. I decided to order one from Ice Parade Collection to swatch that looked like it might also serve a good neutral kit that would be good for traveling. I definitely am not disappointed!

The Fabulously Festive Face Kit in winter cool from the MAC Ice Parade Collection brings together a good basic set of neutral shades that would work well for a large number of people. The kit itself is packaged in an interesting clear case with a large silver pocket. It includes three brushes, a lipstick in the shade Hot Gossip, a lipglass in Emancipation, Blush in Mocha, and four eye shadows: Phloof!, Quarry, Dance in the Dark, and Brun.

2011 MAC Holiday Swatches, Ice Parade

Below are swatches of the Ice Parade cool face kit. The photo is taken indoors with flash. I’ll try to get some sunlight photos at some point down the road too.

I do really like this kit as an easy to carry kit of basic shades. I could wear these in just about any situation and the palette portion of the set is a convenient way to carry both shadow and blush.  MAC’s holiday kits are always a great ways to get some good MAC brushes as well. I also personally prefer the shorter handle brushes that they include in the kits. This set would be an excellent gift.

The new MAC Styledriven Collection includes large number of new items that will be part of the MAC Pro Longwear Permanent Collection. All items are highly pigmented and are designed for long wear, hence the Pro Longwear name.

MAC Styledriven Collection Swatches

I posted my indoor photos of swatches from the collection on Beauty and Fashion Tech. I usually tend to feel that the indoor pictures are more true to color, or at least more true to color for most situations and products, but the outdoor photos of this bunch came out pretty true as well. I suppose the more pigment there is, the more similar the colors will be in different light. Only the eye shadows swatches seemed a bit washed out from the sunlight in these photos.

MAC Styledriven LipCreme Swatches

I adore MAC Pro Longwear lipcreme. The lipsticks provide a good moisturizing texture and fells and the color lasts and lasts. I like to pair them with the lip pencils. These are heavy duty shades with a lot of gloss to them. Below are lipcreme swatches of the shades Endless Drama, Soft Sell, Dress It Up, and So Very Good.

MAC Styledriven Lip Pencil Swatches

The Pro Longear Lip Pencils do indeed give long wear. You can use these alone by filling in your lips and covering with a light gloss, for a sheer look, or cover then with a lipcreme or longwear lipglass for some serious staying power.   Below are swatches of the shades Nice N’ Spicy, Staunchly Stylish, What a Blast!, Absolutely It, Morning Coffee.

MAC Styledriven Lipglass Swatches

The Pro Longwear lipglasses also are high on pigment, but I tend to also find them to be on the sticky side. Here are swatches of the following shades: Ready or Not, Driven by Love, Whoops!, Dark As Night, and Infinitely Likeable.

MAC Styledriven Eye Shadow Swatches

The eye shadow in the MAC Styledriven collection holds up quite nicely. The amount of pigment is very high, as one would expect, and the shades really pop. Below are outdoor swatches of the following shades. From left to right: Styledriven, One To Watch, Hot Paprika, Thru the Night, and Legendary Black.

MAC Styledriven will hit the counters September 22, 2011.

Disclosure: This aticle is based on products provided by a representative of MAC Cosmetics. For more, please see our disclosure page.

Murad has a neat new double (triple even) duty treatment product, the Soothing Skin, Lip, and Cuticle Care stick. This pen-shaped tube contains a super moisturizing oil with Vitamin E and lanolin that you click up to apply. I absolutely love it on my lips and I gave it try on my cuticles and liked it for that as well. Got dry skin? You could also put it on itchy dry patches. The thin tube is easy to carry and easy to use.

Murad Soothing Skin, Lip, and Cuticle Care reminds me in many ways of the Aquafina lip oil, which is next to impossible to find now, but without the strong peppermint aroma and flavor that the Aquafina product had. Murad’s oil is generally odorless and unflavored. I saw one Murad review that mentioned a good flavor, but I don’t recall noticing anything in particular.

The oil also contains salicylic acid, which is great for gentle exfoliation. So this is a nice double duty product that can moisturize and lightly exfoliate dead skin at the same time.

I seriously love this one and consumer Murad reviews on the Murad site have been quite good as well. You can view those by hitting the product link above. If you like using oils, check it out!

Disclosure: This post is based on a product provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see our disclosure page.

The MAC Me Over collection for fall 2011 is made up of three groups of products—MAC Basics, Icelandic Cool, and New Black. The collection is full of perfect fall shades and you can see swatches of some of the eye shadows over at Beauty and Fashion Tech (MAC Me Over Swatches). Girl Gloss has expanded into covering makeup and accessories, but being the lip product addict that I am, it will still have a heavy focus on lip products so, in keeping with tradition, the MAC Me Over lip swatches are here.

I received five MAC Me Over lipglass shades from Icelandic Cool and MAC Basics, shown below:

Here are they are swatched. The shades are:  Illicit, Spite, Good times, Cervaceous, and Wee Coquette:

Here too are MAC Me Over lipstick swatches in the shades Prince Noir, Smoked Purple, Rebel (all three from the New Black group), and Peach Stock (from the MAC basics group). Of all my swatches, these were the only ones where I felt outdoor sunlight was most true to color in the photo. The others were most true to color in indoor light.

The 2011 MAC fall collection will be in stores August 25. Also check the MAC website early since they often put things up ahead of their on counter dates. You can also get MAC products at Nordstrom. It really is a beautiful set of products and is one of my favorite fall collections in years.

Disclosure: This post was based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see the disclosure page.

Dalton Cosmetics is a smaller company that offers rather nice products with luxury style packaging. I was sent a few of their products to try, and I particularly liked the lip gloss. The packaging is in pots in a gift type box, so this would be a great gift idea if you need something quick and easy to wrap. It also comes with a really nice retractable lip brush. In fact, I would buy this kit just for the brush!

The gloss itself is non-sticky and pretty well tinted, especially in the darker shade. All four shades are quite versatile and neutral. Many different skin tones could wear all of these, and there is something for everyone in the kit.

Aside from the standard cosmetics fare, the company also offers a couple of neat illuminizers that I rather like. If you are looking for something classy and a bit different, check them out.

The MAC Semi-Precious Collection focuses on really well pigmented mineralize eye shadows, blush, and skinfinish. But it also includes Five Cremesheen lipgalsses and four lipsticks. I tried a few of them and have Cremesheen and lipstick swatches below. If you are interested in seeing swatches of the eye shadows, Mineralize Blush, and Mineralize SkinFinish, you can view those over on Beauty and Fashion Tech here: MAC Semi-Precious Swatches. I do really like some of the eye shadows in the collection.

MAC Semi-Precious Cremesheen Swatches and Lipstick Swatches

I really love MAC Cremesheen Glass. Unlike MAC’s regular lipglass, which I find can at times get sticky, Cremesheen always wears really well, plus it has better pigment to it. I finid it interesting since more pigment often is what leads to making a lipglosss sticky, so how MAC does it so well with Cremesheen and sometimes not as well with regular lipgalss baffles me. In any event, I am always happy to get my hands on new Cremesheen shades! Of the three lipstick shades I tried I also ended up with keepers.

Below are swatches of three of the Semi-precious lipsticks and three Cremeshade shades. From left to right: One of a Kind (I love this shade! It is a great neutral that I think would work very well for many different skin tones), Musky Amethyst (a gorgeous plum), Lush Amber (a nice light nude), Geo Pink (a pretty berry pink shade), Looks Like Sun (a nice plum that I don’t think is represented quite as well as it could be by the photo-it is a bit more plum than it appears in the picture), and Natural Flare.

I suspect that I will be wearing One of a Kind until it is gone. I really do love that shade!

The MAC semi-precious collection is available July 7, though August 21, 2011. Sometimes collections pop up for sale a few days early though.

Disclosure: This review is based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see our Disclosures Page.

I love covering indie companies. Often they put more care into their products, and it just plain feels good to get away from the big brands sometimes.  Double Dutch Cosmetics are an indie brand produced by twins, hence the name, and they make a pretty good lip gloss!

I was sent a gloss in the shade Crimson Dutchess gloss to try. A portion of the proceeds from the gloss goes to AIDS awareness and prevention, and the company also has a gloss that contributes to Breast Cancer Research. The gloss has a nice sheer pigment to it, with enough pigment to show up well, but not so much as to overwhelm or become sticky. It feels nice, wears well, and has a great shine. Packaging includes a cute carrying/gift bag. Below is a swatch:

The Double Dutch line was developed to appeal to women of all ages, including teens. They also have a nail polish line with some fun shades that would be particularly good for the younger (or young at heart) crowd.  Check them out!

Disclosure: This review was based on a product provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see the disclosure page.