I always considered blue eyeshadow to be a bit of a fashion throwback, retro in a tacky way rather than a cool touch of vintage. But the mainstream institutions of fashion seem to believe otherwise: blue shadow is back in a big way.

While I was reluctant to embrace the trend at first, I'm coming around to it. You don't need to color your entire lid, but a bold streak of blue beneath the crease is a refreshing alternative to the typical smoky eye. Plus, this color really makes brown eyes pop. Just make sure that you go more neutral on the cheeks and lips to avoid the dreaded clown face.

Lipstick is an amazing way to spice up your makeup routine. Unfortunately, making it last all night can be tricky. Here are some tips that will keep your lipstick looking fresh all night long.

1. Apply a light lip balm on your lips to even them out.

2. Take a nude lip pencil and line the outside of your lips.

3. Apply a layer of your favorite lipstick onto your lips, making sure to blend with the lip liner.

4. Take a loose powder and use a napkin to blot a think layer over your lipstick. This will set the first layer of lipstick in place.

5. Apply another generous layer of lipstick over the layer of loose powder. You will now have lips that will last you the whole night!

In every family, there is a great wealth of tradition, from family recipes to stories. For the women in the family, one other thing that gets passed down is a plethora of strange beauty treatments and regiments—at least, that’s how it is in my family. I suppose the affinity of women in contemporary America for getting poison injected into their faces would be considered a little strange to my great grandmothers, but to each her own eccentricity. Here are two examples of beauty weirdness various members of my family swear by:

1. Egg to maintain the hair’s integrity - My parents are from Iran, and my mom says that my grandmother used to treat her children’s hair with raw egg to nourish and strengthen the hair. I let her try it on me once. It was cold and wet and didn’t seem to produce any results. I call old wives’ tale.

2. Yogurt mask - Apparently, making a mask out of yogurt for one’s face can help to brighten and improve the complexion. This one might have a shred of credibility -- the lactic acid in yogurt may conceivably have some kind of effect on the skin. Maybe I’ll try it one day.

Does your family have any interesting or quirky beauty routines?

This is the time of year when my lips and skin gets really dry. Spring time. Perfect. I personally have very sensitive skin so I cannot use any lotions with a heavy scent, which is why I use Aveeno's fragrance free lotion.

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion, drugstore.com, $6.95

I apply this lotion on right after the shower and it basically moisturizes my skin for the rest of the day. But I like to apply more during the day because Southern California is always really warm. Similarly, my face gets just as dry as my arms and legs. Since my skin is very sensitive, I have to use different products for my face. With the combination of oily and dry skin, I like to use this Garnier Gel Cream. Once applied, my skin instantly feels softer and smoother. Plus, it isn't very oily so it works well on my face.

Garnier Nutritioniste Moisture Rescue Refreshing Gel Cream, soap.com, $8.65

They also have SPF products for sunscreen as well as cleansing foam to moisturize your skin while you wash it. And when it faces sunlight, your skin will be well protected and moisturized.

Finally, my lip moisturizer. I recently fell in love with this EOS lip balm because its design is really adorable and convenient to bring in and out of the house. It smooths out my lips and keeps it moisturized when it gets dry.

EOS Organic Lip Balm Sphere, target.com, $2.99

I would try all the flavors if I could! These are my recommendations for moisturizers, hopefully they are useful and help keep your skin moisturized as well.

For the sake of full disclosure, let me start off by confessing that I am without question, a nail polish addict. My friends constantly poke fun at me when I paint my nails for the third time a week, or complain that all my lacquers will no longer fit in my (fairly large) Tupperware container that I use for polish storage. I have never actually counted how many colors I have in my collection, but let’s just say that it’s more than a few dozen (at least).

Recently, however, I have developed a problem -- well, sort of. What is my problem, you ask? Lately, I’ve had an aversion to color on my finger tips; basically, I find myself removing any colorful shade within minutes of painting my nails, and replacing the polish instead with a sheer pink or beige color (FYI, my go-to is cult favorite, Essie in “Mademoiselle”). Now, for the normal, non-nail-polish-obsessed folk, this probably doesn’t seem like a problem at all. However, for me, this is completely out of character. Furthermore, my endless collection of pigmented shades is totally going to waste. I don’t even want to think about the cash I dished out for all those shades that I “had to have” that are now collecting dust.

Given that my sudden gravitation to plain, nude nails is so out of character, I decided to do a little investigating. From where exactly is my current aversion to color truly stemming? My first thought was my job search. Just like many of my fellow college seniors nationwide, I am currently on the hunt for employment. Of course, interviews and networking sessions demand professional attire and grooming, which pretty much rules out any sort of color on the nails. But I don’t actually enjoy donning my business casual, and job hunting isn’t exactly my first choice of activity. So this could not possibly be the reason I actually found myself wanting to keep my nails bare, right?

After a while, I gave up on wondering what happened to my colorful polish obsession. Of course, as we all well know, once you stop searching for something, it usually turns up right away. I was surfing the Web, looking at my go-to beauty and fashion blogs, when BAM, I stumbled across this article that I read back in October. And viola, I had my answer. To sum it up, Chanel told us way back during Paris S/S ’13 that French manicures were the new thing, and given that the geniuses at Chanel are basically the gods of nail polish, I must have listened (even without realizing it). Now, to be sure, I am not sitting in my room giving myself French manis, but I think my gravitation to sheer pinks and nudes may stem from Chanel’s prophecy.

So for now, as much as I’m hesitant to admit it, I’m all about the sheer, barely-there nail polish kind of look. Given my history of polish-obsession and my fairly impressive lacquer collection, my new preference may diminish quickly. But for now, bring on the nude.

Chanel S/S '13
(Courtesy: Beauty Editor)

Essie "Mademoiselle", essie.com, $8