If you’re shopping for a nice, thoughtful present for a pre-teen or teenage girl, check out “Bobbi Brown Teenage Beauty
“Bobbi Brown Teenage Beauty: Everything You Need to Look Pretty, Natural, Sexy and Awesome” is a handy reference of about 200 pages with:
- glossy pictures of teenage girls of all face shapes, hair colours, shapes and sizes,
- a foreword by Brooke Shields (Calvin Klein supermodel) on being a teenager – she wasn’t as popular in high school as she was on the big screen,
A great quote: “I wish I spent more time just being me. Now I get it: It’s okay to try to fit in as long as you don’t compromise who you are.”
(It’s famously known that Brooke Shields doesn’t allow any make-up artist to trim down her trademark thick eyebrows)
- 10 Basic Rules of Teen Beauty – great tips on basic skincare and make-up,
- the perfect make-up kit,
- individual sections on zits (pimples), eyes, blusher, lips, body types, prom beauty, braces, hair, preteen beauty and lots, lots more!
I was an “early teenager”, which means I got my period (and everything else) at 11 years old.
I didn’t have an acne problem but I did have a shiny T-zone (combination skin…) and the awful once-a-month giant pimple that pops up in the middle of my nose or forehead, which made me look and feel like a witch.
I had thick, wavy hair while almost everyone around me had thin, straight hair.
I was also short and plump.
In other words, life as a pre-teen and a teenager was a mix of good and bad…
Luckily, my Mum, who is a beautician, started me off on basic skincare and was also incredibly patient when I went on crazy crash diets and exercise regimes.
I also had many beauty books and piles and piles of Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Women’s Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar, Female, Her World magazines to flip through…
But I would have found “Bobbi Brown Teenage Beauty” really useful because she talks about:
- not feeling “pretty” and wanting to look like the supermodels in fashion magazines (e.g. wanting to have straight hair when you have wavy hair!),
- glamming up for prom night…err, I think I overdid my eye make-up (experimented with the smudged look) and also went overboard a bit with the black theme all the guys called me ‘The Black Widow’,
- African, Latin, Asian beauty and global (mixed-parentage) beauty – At around 20 or so, I realized that I had more of a ‘Latin’ look instead of an ‘Asian’ look. From then on, I focused on beauty, skincare and haircare products that’s best for me. Of course, I started getting “you’re kind of pretty, you know” comments then
- ‘So…You Want to be a Model’ – real world tips and advice from an ultra-experienced make-up artist (All teenage girls want to be taken seriously and will appreciate useful information),
- runway secrets – the coolest tricks of the trade on how Bobbi Brown transforms models who have hangovers, late nights, bad hair days into the gorgeous girls on fashion shows.
The best part of the book is that Bobbi Brown brings out the best in you (boosting a girl’s confidence) instead of trying to make you look like someone else.
When you look at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos, you’ll see that she highlights each girl’s best feature and leave them looking naturally beautiful.
Even if the book was meant for teenagers, I think ANY girl or woman would benefit from reading this book. I’m definitely looking out for it…
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” is the fourth book I have of the “What to Expect” series – you’d think I collect them the way people do for the Harry Potter or Twilight series 
, this book contains more information on nutrition. 
