My Beauty with Bree Aylwin

Welcome to another edition of My Beauty with Bree Aylwin. She’s the girl behind The Urban Umbrella, a Vancouver style and beauty blog. She regularly posts fun YouTube tutorials on hair and makeup and offers style advice on her blog.

Besides busy planning her wedding (we are both getting married next year, Brides of 2017!), she is busy producing her weekly YouTube videos. I subscribe to her channel and love seeing her latest tutorial on either hair styles or makeup. What’s best about her is that she’s honest, relatable and super nice!

Hope you enjoy getting a glimpse of her beauty routines and style advice in this month’s My Beauty!

What is your daily skincare routine?
Skincare has always been important to me, and I do take steps every day to ensure my skin looks and feels its best! Each day I cleanse, exfoliate, and apply serums and eye creams to help improve my skin while I sleep.

What are your morning and nightly beauty routines? (please be specific re. product)
My morning routine is pretty basic – especially now that I work from home! I often just wake up, and cleanse my skin with a gentle cleanser like my Shangpree S-Energy Facial Mousse Cleanser, then I follow up with a light moisturizer like the Face Shop’s Blanclouding White Moisture Cream. When my skin is feeling extra-dry, I will follow up with Josie Maran’s 100% Pure Argan Oil Light.

At night, I have been using my Clarisonic Deep Pore Cleanser and my Clarisonic Mia 2. Then, I typically follow up with my Paula’s Choice CALM Redness Relief Repairing Serum. For my eyes, I always apply All About Eyes Clinique Eye Cream before bed. And lastly, for my lips I like to apply the Rodan and Fields Redefine Lip Renewing Serum to help them feel softer and look smoother.

Do you have any other non-beauty rituals that help you feel great?
Definitely! I maintain a exercise schedule that makes me feel healthy and strong. I also love to do Pilates and meditate, and those two things really help me get through stressful times. A healthy mind is a happy mind.

Do you have a game-changing product?
I have two hair products that I swear by, and have been total game changers for my hair. The first one is the Milkshake Purple Shampoo, and the second is Olaplex 3. Milkshake’s Purple Shampoo take away all the brassiness in my hair and leaves it with that ashy blonde tone I love so much. The Olaplex 3 treatment helps keep my hair looking and feel it’s best, and I feel like it’s also made my hair so much stronger.

Do you have any beauty “splurges”?
I definitely splurge on hair care, and sometimes I will splurge on makeup products. I believe in buying what really works for you, and if that means spending a bit more so that you’ll actually want to wear the product than so be it!

Do you have any stories of regrettable beauty moments or experiments-gone-wrong?
How much time do we have? Yes – I definitely have had my fair share of beauty horror stories. Particularly with my hair. I had one nightmare experience where the hairdresser applied bleach to my hair and forgot about me, I was panicked and felt the bleach burning my scalp. Finally I got the attention of another hair dresser but by then my hair was pretty much gum. It took years to get my hair back to healthy + strong – and a lot of inches taken off!

Do you usually wear makeup?
Funny enough, I only wear makeup 3 times a week – sometimes less, sometimes more depending on what’s going on that week. I love makeup, but since working from home I’ve taken a bit more of a laissez faire attitude to my daily makeup routine. I mean, what’s the point of getting dolled up to be in your PJs sat in front of a computer all day – right?

What your makeup routine for day and a night out?
I tend to stick to neutral makeup looks, and lately I’ve been addicted to the Urban Decay Naked Ultimate Basics Palette. I tend to use that palette, along with my Lise Watier Liquid eyeliner, and MAC Zoom Lash Mascara for my eye makeup, my Hourglass Blush in Mood Exposure on my cheeks, and Kat Von D liquid lipstick in Lovesick is my go-to lipstick lately.

Do you have any other beloved drugstore finds?
Definitely! Lately, I’ve been really obsessed with L’Oreal Infallible Eye Shadow in Amber Rush. It’s a beautiful eyeshadow, and super affordable.

What are your favorite lipstick colors?
I tend to stick to natural lipstick colours, or nude lipsticks. The ones I always have in rotation are Kat Von D’s Liquid Lipstick in Lovesick, NARS Audacious lipsticks in Anita and Apoline, and Bite Cosmetics Lipstick in Lychee.

How do you style and care for your hair?
I typically wear my hair parted in the middle and I usually sport my natural waves. Since I don’t like to use heat tools on my hair often, I style my hair overnight by braiding it before I hit the hay. The braids help create more uniform looking waves.

Do you do any DIY treatments?
I do! I do hot oil treatments on my hair every few weeks. In particular, I make my DIY Peppermint Hair Treatment and massage it into my scalp. I’ve been doing this treatment for years as it makes my hair look and feel so soft and healthy.

Are there any foods or drinks that help you look and feel your best?
I eat a lot of fruit, and drink a ton of water every day!

I know you have a feminine style, could you give us three items you are coveting right now?
This fall, I have had my eye on a few different things – but at the top of the list are:
A pair of over-the-knee grey suede boots
A mauve tone sweater dress
A long dove grey coat

Advice to women looking in the mirror and getting dressed in the morning?
Remember to look at yourself and recognize the good. I feel like women and men have a awful habit of looking in the mirror and noting everything they don’t like about themselves, and instead I think we all need to begin really appreciating the things we love about ourselves. It can be hard to not be self-critical (it seems we are all our hardest critic!) but it’s so important to recognize the beautiful things about yourself and love your flaws in order to be happy.

What’s always in your bag? What won’t you travel without?
I pretty much always have my phone, wallet, Kat Von D liquid lipstick in Lovesick, and a lip balm in my purse.

Words to dress by?
Wear what you love, and never sacrifice comfort for style – you can have both!

The staple you haven’t stopped wearing recently?
My Lucky Brand Ankle boots. They are in a snakeskin print, and I just can’t get enough of how they dress up a basic all-black outfit. It’s been my go-to look lately.

Advice to those wanting to start a personal style blog?
Just go for it! It can be scary to start a blog, but that shouldn’t stop you. The sooner you dive in, the sooner you’ll realize it’s not that scary at all – and that there are tons of bloggers out there who are happy to help you when you have a question. The blogging community really is just that – a community.

The one thing I can say advice-wise when you set up your blog is to bulk write a few posts. Life can get busy, and you’ll want to have some content to fall back on when you are going through busy times or creative blocks.

What’s your personal definition of good content?
Inject your personality into your writing, and never try to take on someone else’s blogs persona. If you have a goofy personality, than show it! Or, if you’re more serious than don’t be afraid to write exactly how your mind thinks. It’s important to have your personality shine through every word you write so that your readers really get to know you.

Thanks Bree! Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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