Do You Sometimes Wish You Were Surrounded By A Tribe Of Women Who Could Give You Advice And Help When You Need It?
Kate Reardon, author of "Your Mother Was Right" shares her best tips on money, health, beauty and happiness. Learn how to look younger, make natural bath oil, get softer feet, and respond to rude questions.
Kate Reardon, author of Your Mother Was Right: All The Great Advice You Tried to Forget and founder of Toptips.com shares her best tips on money, health, beauty and happiness.
Kate's Three Favorite Tips On Beauty:
• How to look more friendly:
Always smile! For some reason I have always appeared unapproachable to both men and women and have to work extra hard to make friends/relationships. I always smile if I catch someone's eye and it takes a hard-faced beggar not to acknowledge a smile freely given.
• How to make natural bath oil:
Get a bottle of almond oil from the drugstore (only costs a few cents!) and add a few drops of your favourite essential oils - my personal favourites are rose, lavender and geranium. Shake up and pour in your bath!
Alternatively, pop a few sprigs of rosemary or lavender in your bottle of almond oil, close tightly and let infuse for a week or so - you will end up with a lovely bath oil. You could decant into a pretty bottle and display in your bathroom or use as a gift.
Make sure you only use woody, tough herbs for this (like rosemary and lavender), things like rose petals or fruit peel will go nasty and discoloured.
• How to look younger:
The easiest, cheapest, fastest way to look younger is to stand up straight. You can take ten years off your look by pulling your shoulders down and your stomach in. Make this a habit when you walk down the street and no matter how old you are, it will take years off.
Kate's Body Care Tips
• How to get soft feet:
After you have done your pedicure and slathered your feet in moisturiser, wrap your feet in clingfilm and put on a pair of old socks. If you can bear it, sleep in them. If not, wear for a couple of hours - your feet will be amazingly soft.
• How to cure or prevent a rash under a heavy bust:
Get yourself fitted for a new bra - the girls should NOT be hanging down against the skin below (and I say that as a GG-cupper who had exactly this problem when wearing the wrong size in the past).
Five Tips from Your Mother Was Right That Kate Uses Each Day:
• How to be motivated to go for a run in the morning:
After you're fairly awake, allow yourself a choice. You can either go for the run, or you can stay at home and go back to sleep. The only catch is you have to stand in front of the mirror, looking yourself in the eye, and say, "I am giving up on my fitness goal for today because I am too lazy," or something similar. A big trigger for me is to do the same thing, but in just my sports bra and shorts. That's a big reminder of what you're trying to do.
• How to admit when you're wrong:
Keep asking yourself, "Would the earth stop spinning if I were wrong?" Do this until it sinks in. Oftentimes stubborn folks who feel they can't afford to be wrong received that indoctrination in their formative years. For whatever reason, they learned to put too much importance on not being wrong (and I'm speaking from personal experience here...) But really, it's not that big a deal - most of the time - and you need to retrain yourself to truly believe that.
• How to react to a friend who keeps letting you down:
Why question her behaviour? Look at your own. If she "keeps" letting you down, why do you believe she'll ever change? "The definition of 'crazy' is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." You cannot control the actions of others, but you can control your own.
• How to slice an onion without crying:
This is a verified catering trade secret - just wetting the knife OR the onion should do.
• How to respond to a rude question:
I ask for the question to be repeated. Mentally you can attack with an invisible spade, but in reality it is best to say, "Could you repeat the question?" You can then reply with "Why do you want to know?" This is polite, yet it will probably make the person blush as he or she will look rude and crass to the people around you.
Kate's Favorite Tips on Happiness
1. " It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan" - Eleanor Roosevelt. Start laying plans for something you've only dreamt about so far.
2. Before bed, consider what you've done to be proud of today and what you will do that you're proud of tomorrow
3. Think of a compliment you would like to receive and act in a way that deserves it.
4. My tip for happiness is to "believe the best in everyone." It’s amazing, if you live by this mantra, how rarely you are disappointed and it makes the world seem a much happier place
5. In the words of Cole Porter, 'make someone happy'. Happiness is also Twitter, family (sometimes!), sleep and a tidy house
6. As Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss."
7. Give your time to the people who matter most to you and remember who you are irreplaceable to.
8. Make a list of things you never complain about. Its focuses your mind on all the things you are grateful for. They say, "Change your attitude and you change the world." It works!
9. A life coach gave me this tip: When I wake up, I think to myself that today will be a great day and I am going to stay happy all day and just have fun. I didn't really believe her at the time until I tried it and it really does work.
10. Try avoiding people who are often miserable and depressed. Keep with the smilers and enthusiasts. That doesn't mean that you should ditch your best friend when her man chucks her and she genuinely needs a shoulder to cry on, it just means try to stay away from the moaners until your spirits lift.
Three Health Tips:
• How to naturally cure a sore throat:
Chilli is a natural antiseptic, and takes down swelling, strange as it may seem. A good hot curry, preferably made with fresh chilies will eliminate a sore throat immediately.
• How to avoid mosquito bites at night:
Buy some fresh and smelly basil, and put it next to your bed.
• How to stop yourself from finishing that bottle of wine:
Put the cork back in and put the bottle out of sight, then go and brush your teeth - I guarantee you won't fancy the wine then!
Kate's Money Saving Tips:
• How to save money when shopping:
If you're shopping for food, eat before you shop. It's very simple and it works.
• How to save money when grocery shopping:
If you always do your grocery shopping on the same day every week, try shopping one day later each week and over seven weeks you'll have saved one week's worth of your shopping.
• How to beat a shopping addiction:
Avoid the shops. Sounds so simple, but it's so effective. If you have a lunch hour, take up reading a book in the canteen or use it for a fitness jog or something similar. I used to go round the shops at lunch and it just put temptation in my way.
Kate's Relationship Tips:
• How to know if he likes you:
One word: effort. Does he make an effort to be with you or to talk to you? Then he's into you.
• How to love:
The only answer to this is to love someone as you would want to be loved.
Commitmentnow.com: What are writing this book taught you about life in general that you didn't know before?
Kate: That women are kinder, more generous and funnier in the face of adversity (whether it be bereavement or stain removal) than I ever dreamed possible.
Commitmentnow.com: What motivated you to start the web site, Toptips.com and write this book of great advice for women?
Kate: The motivation to start TopTips.com came when I realized
that, with the breakdown of the traditional extended family, women were
no longer surrounded by their older, trusted female relatives - our
support group is now our peer group, who are at the same life stage and
are therefore as clueless as we are.
I created TopTips.com to serve as a home for all those brilliant tips
and tricks our grandmothers used to teach us - so that next time you
can't get the kids to sleep or can't get a red wine stain out of the
carpet you don't have to learn everything the hard way.
To Purchase Your Mother Was Right click here.
About the Author: Kate Reardon has spent more than twenty years at the cutting edge of women’s publishing and is currently a Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair. She is also the author of Top Tips for Girls. Kate lives in London during the week and her cottage in Wiltshire on weekends.
