Tuesday, 29 September 2015

How To Look 10 Years Younger, Instantly

There are some things in life that get better with age (wine, cheese, and George Clooney, to name a few). Generally speaking, however, we’d like our skin and hair to look as young as possible—or at least be an accurate reflection of how we feel on the inside. In our never-ending quest for the fountain of youth, we spoke with makeup artist Fiona Stiles and Joico celebrity colorist Denis de Souza (Kate Mara and Mila Kunis are his clients) and asked for their expert tips on how to fake a younger appearance. Lucky for us, they were more than happy to spill their secrets—take that, gravity.

Click through the slideshow above for eight makeup and hair tips to look younger, instantly!

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Tip #1: Luminize

“When it comes to skin, luminosity and dewiness signify youth,” Stiles says. She recommends employing a creamy luminizer or highlighter, like W3ll People’s Universalist Luminous Multi-Use Colorstick 1 ($35) or RMS’ Living Luminizer($38) to the bridge of your nose and tops of the cheekbones for fresh, dewy skin.
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Tip #2: Brown Over Black

Stiles recommends choosing brown instead of black when it comes to your eye makeup. “Generally, black makes your eyes look smaller,” she says. “Plums are also really pretty colors for any eye color—they’re very warm.” Instead of harsh lines, she suggests using a chocolate brown eyeliner with “a little twinkle.” Try MAC’s Eye Kohl ($16) in Teddy.
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Tip #3: Soften Your Brows

“In Asia, straight brows are a huge trend right now,” Stiles says. “After all, when you’re born, you have no arch.” She says that in the U.S., we like our arches high and dramatic—unfortunately, this can start to look cartoonish and severe once you get older. The solution? Soften your arch and fill your brows in lightly with a brow pencil that’s lighter than your hair color. If you have very light hair, Stiles says to use a tinted brow gel like Anastasia’s Tinted Brow Gel ($22).
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Tip #4: Cream Over Powder

When it comes to blush, choose cream formulas over powder—they blend seamlessly and settle into the skin without appearing caked-on. Surprisingly, Stiles says to avoid gel formulas if you have mature skin: “They look better on younger skin because they can be difficult to blend,” she explains. Her favorite blush? Shiseido’s Lumizing Satin Face Color ($30).
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Tip #4: Avoid Sparkle

Stiles advises that you avoid anything frosty or sparkly in the quest to look younger, because it can accentuate fine lines. Instead, opt for satin, dewy, or even matte finishes—they leave a chic, polished final effect.
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Tip #5: Go Lighter

When it comes to your hair, there’s one general rule of thumb in terms of looking younger: go lighter instead of darker. “The darker your hair, the harsher it will look against your skin,” de Souza says. “It will show all of your wrinkles and lines, especially anywhere near your face line or eye area, [since] this [area] always becomes a focal point with any hair color or cut.” Instead, he suggests going lighter to soften your face and make it appear more youthful. But don’t get carried away—he says to go no more than two shades lighter than your natural hair color to keep things looking natural.
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Tip #6: Go Warmer

De Souza recommends getting warm highlights around your face or a warmer base to promote a younger appearance. Choose honey, golden tones—he says they’ll complement your complexion and soften the appearance of lines and wrinkles.
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Tip #7: Get Glossy

One easy way to reverse time on your aging hair is a quick salon gloss. “It’s a great option when you’re looking to amp up the shine factor,” de Souza says. “It also keeps your color vibrant so that it doesn’t lose luster.” Between trips, keep your hair shiny and healthy by applying a hair mask at least once a week—he suggests Joico’s KPAK Intense Hydrator ($40).
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Tip #8: Mind Your Roots

One last tip: keep an eye on your roots. De Souza says that it’s important for his clients to get their roots touched up every four weeks: “Once the grays start showing, it will definitely age you and [draw attention away] from the great color you once had.” Try L’Oreal Paris’ Root Rescue ($8) to banish greys during salon visits.

Keep clicking to shop the products in this story!
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RMS Beauty Living Luminizer ($38)
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W3LL People Universalist Luminous Multi-Use Color Stick ($35)
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Shiseido Luminizing Satin Face Color ($30)
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Anastasia Beverly Hills Tinted Brow Gel ($22)
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MAC Eye Kohl in Teddy ($16)
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Joico KPAK Intense Hydrator ($40)
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L'Oréal Paris Root Rescue ($)
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SHOP

Anastasia Beverly Hills Tinted Brow Gel ($22)
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SHOP

Joico KPAK Intense Hydrator ($40)
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SHOP

L'Oréal Paris Root Rescue
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SHOP

MAC Eye Kohl in Teddy ($16)
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SHOP

RMS Beauty Living Luminizer ($38)
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SHOP

Shiseido Luminizing Satin Face Color ($30)
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SHOP

W3LL People Universalist Luminous Multi-Use Color Stick ($35)

Sunday, 27 September 2015

#WEEKENDER

Saturday, 26 September 2015

PRESENTS FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS EVERYTHING

#coming soon

Enjoy my favorite resources, tips, guides, courses and go-to individuals for all things blogging

Resources

http://allthingseblog.com/resources/

Enjoy my favorite resources, tips, guides, courses and go-to individuals for all things blogging… and in some cases, all things LIFE.

Tools for Getting Organized & Being Efficient

For social media sharing & scheduling: Buffer & Hootsuite
For planning & scheduling posts: CoSchedule
For blog reading: Feedly & Bloglovin
For social media engagement: Tweetdeck
For pretty much all money matters: PayPal (seriously, the best payment tool)
For list-making and planning: The Day Designer offline (It completely changed how I run this blog…and my life.)

Tools for Better Writing

Hemingway App for brevity + ease of understanding
Ommwriter for focus + zen

Tools & Plug-Ins for Rocking WordPress

The Genesis Framework by Studio Press
Google Fonts
Jetpack Plugin
Simple Social Icons Plugin
WordPress SEO by Yoast
Rafflecopter for Giveaways

Favorite Sources for Stock Photos

My Favorite Reads on Blogging, Creativity & Business:

How to Set Up an Affiliate Program for Your Shopify Store

by Tucker Schreiber Twitter
Sep 26, 2015

So you’ve successfully started an online store and have been able to drive some traffic to it and win some sales.

But now, you’re having a hard time figuring out how exactly to promote your store. Whether it’s due to a lack of time, or you simply don’t know how to continue with your marketing strategy – the truth is, you’re feeling a bit stuck.

That’s why we wrote this post. You’ve been missing out on the power of affiliate marketing and how it can expand the reach of your business, as well as start relationships with marketers around the world.

Today, we’ll take a look at how to get started with an affiliate program for your Shopify store.

What is Affiliate Marketing and Why is it Important?

Simply put, affiliate marketing is a reward based system that incentivizes marketers to promote your product in exchange for a commission.

A marketer signs up to your affiliate program, sends visitors to your store, and any sales that you get as a result of their promotion earns the marketer a reward.

Usually, they’ll take a flat dollar amount or a percentage of the total sale.

via tekmark.net.au

In essence, these marketers are doing your job for you.

So how important can it be to a business's growth? Mike Geary was selling a digital product in about 2007. Because it was a digital product, he was able to offer his affiliates a premium payout percentage.

He listed his offer on Clickbank – a popular destination for affiliate marketers.

Hundreds of affiliate marketers on Clickbank saw his offer, and started promoting it because of the incredible payout he was offering – about 50% of the total sale.

According to an article on Quicksprout, Mike’s revenue grew to about $1M per month due to affiliate marketing.

All Mike had to do at that point was sit back and watch the affiliate marketers do all the work.

Read this: Take a look at this article on This is Why I'm Broke and how they make over $20k per month promoting other companies' products.

Is Affiliate Marketing Right for Your Business?

Affiliate marketing isn’t for every business. In some cases, it just doesn’t make sense if you have poor profit margins.

Most affiliate programs need to pay out a chunk of each sale in order for it to be worth the marketer’s time – and money, depending on how they promote your campaign.

One of the best ways to find out if an affiliate program is best for your business is by checking to see if other businesses in your market are doing it.

If it’s working for them, then chances are it will work for you too.

For instance, in the dog product niche – Barkbox is absolutely crushing it with their affiliate program.

via twitter.com/barkbox

This tweet shows that it was published in January of 2013. That means they’ve been successfully running their affiliate program for almost three years!

If you dig through popular dog accounts on Instagram, a lot of them will have a Barkbox affiliate link in their biography. That’s huge reach, and practically no effort for Barkbox. The Instagram account owners make a few bucks here and there simply from sharing pictures of dogs. It's a win-win for Barkbox, and for the Instagram account owners.

But how can you see if businesses in your niche are successfully running an affiliate campaign?

A simple Google search targeting competitors can help dig up any businesses that are also running an affiliate program.

For example, search for:

“(your competitor) affiliates”
“(your competitor) affiliate program”
“(your competitor) affiliate marketing”

Now that you’ve determined whether or not an affiliate program is best for you, let’s take a look at how to create a program for your Shopify store.

Affiliate Program Apps for Your Shopify Store

Thanks to our partners and app developers, setting up an affiliate program for your Shopify store is easy.

With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to install an affiliate app of your choosing. From there, each app will take you through a specific onboarding process that will get you up and running with an affiliate program catered to your business and products.

It’s up to you which app you want to use, but here are a few examples of some of the apps available in the Shopify App Store.

Note: Need help installing an app on your store? No problem! Be sure to checkout our official documentation to learn more about the Shopify App Store.

1. Refersion: Affiliate Tracking

Refersion is an incredibly powerful referral platform. With over 100 reviews and a five star rating, its certainly one of the apps you’ll want to checkout.

Best of all, it scales with your business. Start out on a free plan, and as you see the need to expand your affiliate offerings – upgrade to a paid plan.

2. LeadDyno: Easy Affiliate Marketing

Another popular affiliate marketing app is LeadDyno. LeadDyno integrates with your Shopify store with just a few clicks, and is highly customizable.

Pay your affiliates automatically or with "one-click" approval using Paypal, Dwolla or even Coinbase.LeadDyno totals and pays out affiliate commissions for you on the fly.

3. Omnistar Affiliate Software

With thousands of business owners using Omnistar as their preferred affiliate software, they’re for sure a platform you won’t want to skip when doing your initial testing. With big clients like Macy's and Cisco – you know the software has to be good.

You can get started with a 15 day free trial to play around with Omnistar.

4. Affiliatly: Affiliate Tracking App

An incredibly clean interface at a very reasonable price, Affiliatly comes highly recommended from its users.

While Affilatly is a newcomer to the app store, it certainly packs a punch when it comes to features and reliability.

Be sure to take a look at Affiliatly's 30-day free trial to get a feel for how it works.

5. Enlistly

Another affiliate program app for your Shopify store is Enlistly. Enlistly helps you with things like custom comission rates based on affiliate, and transaction type. With a clean interface and a low monthly fee of just $9.99, this is certainly one app you'll want to test out.

Affiliate Marketplaces to Expand Your Program's Reach

If you want to expand your affiliate offering beyond just self promotion and links to a signup form on your storefront, consider joining an affiliate marketplace to increase your program's reach.

Take a look at these example marketplaces and see if you can submit your new affiliate program to them!

Conclusion

Now that we’ve taken a look at how to setup an affiliate program for your Shopify store, it's your turn to get started with your first affiliate program! Let us know in the comments below if you have any tips and tricks for first-timers.

About the Author

Tucker Schreiber is an entrepreneur and content crafter at Shopify. He writes to inspire and educate readers on all things commerce.

Monday, 21 September 2015

Shopify Introduces the Shop Section on Facebook Pages

by Satish Kanwar Twitter
Sep 16, 2015

Over the past few months we’ve been working closely with the team at Facebook, and today we’re rolling out the new Shop section on Facebook Pages. The Shop section makes it easy for merchants to showcase their products directly on their Facebook Page. Merchants can then choose to direct shoppers to their online store or to checkout without leaving the Facebook site or mobile app. Buying is safe and secure, and shoppers can optionally choose to save their payment information with Facebook for future purchases. This makes purchasing easier, especially on mobile.

Here’s how easy it is to shop on Facebook:

A small group of Shopify merchants have already been selling their products using the new Shop section, and over the coming weeks we’ll be making it available to all Shopify merchants — at no additional cost.

How is this different than the Facebook Store app I already use?

Existing Facebook Store apps don’t work on mobile devices, which is how most people now use Facebook. As well, existing Facebook Store apps only add a tab to your page, while the new Facebook Shop section appears as a larger section on your main Facebook Page. This means more people will be able to easily discover your products. Finally, the new Shop section includes a subscribe button that lets people get notified when you add new products.

How do I create a Shop section on my Facebook Page?

Shopify merchants will be among the first to get the new Shop section on their Facebook Pages. We’ll be making this feature free and available to all Shopify merchants globally over the coming weeks. Consumers will be able to check out without leaving Facebook when purchasing from eligible merchants or go to their website to purchase.

To see when it’s available for your store, look for this message in your Shopify Home screen:

Once it’s available to you, simply add the Facebook sales channel in Shopify to get started. Then you can choose which product collections you’d like to showcase on your Facebook Page’s Shop section.

Just like with your other sales channels, all orders, products and other information that comes from Facebook will automatically synchronize with your Shopify store.

If you are not already using Shopify, you can sign up here to be notified when the feature is available for your business.