Tips and Tricks from ELLE Beauty Editor Kate Growney

Kate Growney spent eight years as a beauty editor for Elle Magazine before launching Saffron James Parfums, her own line of eco-friendly fragrances which contributes one dollar from each purchase to environmental and cultural preservation in Hawaii. 

Kate’s favorite beauty tips and tricks:

• Wear undereye concealer to look good in pictures, even if you don’t have dark circles. When the flash hits the makeup, it creates a bounce of light that makes your eyes look brighter.
• Her must-have skin treatment: Intense Pulsed Light with Levulan once per year. “Your face will look terrible for five days. But then all the sunspots fall off, and your skin texture is great.”
• When she doesn’t have time to get her nails done, Kate buffs them and runs a white nail pencil under the tips. “It’s like an au naturel French manicure.”
• Kate’s cheap DIY way to whiten her teeth: rinse with a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide for 10 minutes once per week. (Don’t worry, it’s nontoxic and already in most whitening products; that doesn’t make it taste any better, though.)
• Makeup artist Paula Dorf taught Kate to use black pencil to line the inside of upper lashes, then dot the lower lash line with it and blend. “Once you’ve tried it, you won’t be able to leave the house without it.”
• Kate advises that synthetic ingredients in fragrances hold truer to their notes and smell the same on everyone, while natural ones change on different skins.

Kate’s top product picks:

• Amore Pacific Time Response was the first anti-aging cream with which Kate saw instant results.
• When she’s feeling tired, Benefit Cosmetics Creaseless Cream Shadow/Liner “makes me look like I got 10 hours solid.”
• Saffron James Punono perfume is Kate’s favorite from her own line, combining ylang-ylang, pikake flower, vanilla and Tunisian opium.
• Bare Escentuals Bunny Buxom Lips gloss “instantly makes me feel polished and pretty.” We love the name, too!
• Dove Energy Glow Gradual Tanning Beauty Body Lotion is so natural, “my dermatologist didn’t believe I hadn’t been laying out.”

Source: Elle Magazine, August 2008
Photo courtesy of Lulu Guinness