How to Feng Shui Your Beauty Cabinet

originally written for mindbodygreen

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In feng shui, areas and objects in your spaces represent something deeper. Your beauty cabinet, for example, is where you keep skin care products, hair styling tools, makeup and other toiletries, all tools that assist you in showing your best face and your inner radiance to the world. Giving your beauty cabinet the attention it deserves will maximize its potential and can reflect positively in how you view yourself and how you show up in your life. 

Whether you have a beauty cabinet chock full of the latest products, or you just have a few precious bottles that you use daily, here are 3 tricks to give you and your beauty cabinet some radiant energy! 

Toss the expired items

I think it goes without saying, but just in case... be sure to go through and toss any expired items. It may be hard to let go of some of your favorite or most expensive products, but it's important to know that using them past their expiration date can actually negate their effects! Using expired skincare products can essentially mean putting bacteria on your face, which can lead to irritation, inflammation, redness, bumps, rashes, swelling, and even infections.

Keeping them around isn't great feng shui either. The symbolism of a cabinet crammed with expired items is that your body is also cluttered with this similar energy, which is the opposite of radiant. We want to attract freshness and spaciousness instead of outdated, forgotten and spoiled qi.  

Add Citrine to the Center of your cabinet    

When I think of radiance, I immediately think of citrine, a quartz crystal with orange tones. Love is In The Earth, my crystal bible, states that citrine “promotes a radiance from within the self, culminating in a constant happy disposition. It brightens even the darkest corner of one’s perceived reality, and helps one to ‘laugh without restraint’.” I think we could all use some of that!

The reason why it goes in the center is that when we lay the feng shui bagua map on your cabinet, the center area relates to health and overall well-being. It also touches all the other 8 areas of life in the feng shui map, including but not limited to career, abundance, and relationships. The center touches all the aspects of your life! Among the many benefits of this stone include the ability to cleanse negative energy as well as clear itself. It will keep your beauty cabinet filled with bright and positive qi. 

Change out your vanity light

The lighting around your beauty cabinet helps to bring clarity and light to whatever you're doing, whether it’s putting on makeup, washing your face, or brushing your teeth. The light also represents fire energy in feng shui. Fire energy is all about radiance, like the sun at high noon. It's a good idea to clean and dust off the bulb and fixtures periodically.  

Something to consider as you’re choosing a lightbulb for this area is the temperature. If you happen to have a CFL or LED bulb (as opposed to an incandescent), opt for a bulb with temperatures of 2700K or 3000K (kelvin) or higher. The higher the number, the cooler the color of the light. You don't want to go much cooler than 3500K, or it will feel blueish.

by Anjie Cho


If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

How To Use Numerology To Contour Your Face

featured this week on MindBodyGreen by Kayla Jacobs

Contouring and numerology are like chocolate and vanilla: best together.

It's safe to say that the world has had enough of misleading jawlines and deceptively high cheekbones. Enter numerology contouring, a technique that is by no means novel but has recently resurfaced as the latest trend in the green makeup game. Physiognomy, or face reading, is the art or science of reading the face of an individual in order to identify that person's personal traits. Our faces reflect our deepest emotions, whereas our eyes give others an idea about our feelings to the external world. "The human face is a map that indicates an individual's personality, personal history, mental attitudes, inner needs, morals, emotional style and verbal communication," says feng shui expert Anjie Cho.

The best thing about numerology contouring is that it's a real way to enhance what nature gave you without spending hours trying to fake razor-sharp cheekbones. Instead, keep your formulations sheer and emphasize whatever you desire! Remember that your skin tone varies by area, meaning your forehead may need a bit of brightening, where your cheeks might need to dial down the rosiness. Extra shine on your nose? Pick up a yellow tone formula like Nu Evolution Loose Powder ($39) to counteract any redness and draw an 11 along the sides of your nose; it's about defining and emphasizing your best features, and creating a gently "lifted" look through careful product placement. For deeper skin tones, the same equation is applicable; just go a shade darker, like a peach powder hue or vegan brand Han Cosmetics Pressed Blush in Coral Candy ($15) instead of a light pink pigment.

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9 Steps to a Beautiful and Functional Make-Up Corner

featured this month on Houzz by Melissa Cowan

Carving out a few spare moments in the morning or evening to do your make-up can be surprisingly relaxing. It’s either a marker of the day to come, or it adds to the excitement before a big night out. But if you always find yourself doing your friends’ make-up or trialling new looks on yourself in the bathroom, it may be time to create your own make-up corner to play in. It can be as simple or as glamorous as you want it to be, and can be adapted to fit the amount of space you have available. Here’s what you need to make a functional make-up corner.

1. Add multiple mirrors

Having more than one mirror is a priority; it’s best to have a combination of different magnifications to help with the finicky steps like applying liquid eyeliner. Double-sided mirrors can be an effective way to meet your magnification needs without taking up too much space.

...read full article