Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to pick
A cheerful look for the holiday!
Whether you’re already done with your Christmas shopping or whether you’ve just started, there’s one thing that definitely should go on your list of essentials, and that is your outfit for the festive holidays. Indeed, Christmas is ultimately a celebration of joy, togetherness, and thankfulness. Like everyone, you’re putting a great deal of thought and effort into your festive home decor and your Christmas dinner every year. Similarly, there can’t be any festive spirit if your outfit remains dull and uneventful.
Unfortunately, when it comes to creating the perfect holiday look, time plays against you. It’s fair to say that the pre-Christmas rush is a stressful period. For many, the hectic present shopping occupies the major part of your conscious mind, meaning that you’re more likely to leave the choice of your outfit to the last minute. As a general rule of the thumb, last minute everyday wear is manageable. But party outfits are a different kettle of fish. You might be tempted to get creative or to reproduce a look you’ve noticed in a blog or a fashion article. But when you’re working against a tight deadline, unfortunate shortcuts, careless mistakes and tragic oops are more likely to occur.
This article is here to help you to turn your oops into wows, whether you’ve accidentally messed up your clothes, your hair, or even your makeup. There’s only one golden rule before we start: Don’t panic; otherwise, you’ll only make it worse!
Can you get a professional look at home?
Getting the plan together is the first step
First of all, you need to be ready for your Christmas look. How can you get ready when you’re short for time? The answer is simple: Nothing is stopping you from keeping an eye for the best looks around. Ultimately, the holidays are all about glamming up. You want to prepare therefore a mental vision of what you’d like to achieve. When you need to get prepared on short notice, you’ll find that it’s easier to know already what you want to achieve – it’ll avoid the headless chicken phenomenon! You can find some inspiration online – there are plenty of brilliant styles displayed on Pinterest and Instagram if you don’t know where to start. The preferred trends at the moment are all about fun, and playful party looks with plenty of sparkles, sequins, and satin. You can try to experiment with new hairstyles, and makeup looks if you’ve got time. This preliminary step will be essential when you’ve got only a few hours to get ready for the party. It will act as a compass to guide you – or at least to inspire you.
You decided to add your own sparkles, and it all went wrong
Admittedly, deciding on a look to follow is only the very first step in designing your holiday outfit. Mistakes happen when you’re in the process of creating your outfit. If you’ve chosen to give your plain clothes a festive touch, you’re in a for a treat. Nowadays, you can find plenty of golden, silver, or even light-reflecting vinyl transfers that can bring the right amount of sparkles to an otherwise dull outfit. Transfers are especially practical because they're easy to use and they can turn a common item of clothing into something unique and exciting for a tenth of the cost of a high street outfit. From that perspective, it’s a win-win for you. However, if you’re not used to working with heat transfer vinyl, you might run into difficulties. For a start, a frequent accident is to put the transfer backward, which ruins both the effect and your clothes. Don’t panic. There’s a solution. You can find out how to get vinyl off a shirt here. Secondly, another common complaint relates to the iron itself. If you’re not the kind to iron your clothes – most clothes don’t need ironing anymore –, you might not be familiar with how to use a steam iron. This could lead to scorch marks on your favorite shirt. For light marks, there is hope to get your garment back through rinsing, soaking, and washing.
You went for a tie-dye effect
This year is all about the 1990s revival – and the future Spice Girl tour can only emphasize the feeling that the 90s are back. If you remember your fashion history correctly, 20 years ago, tie-dye fabrics were huge on the market. You can go for a bohemian look by turning an unloved item into something bright and colorful. However, if you’re not used to working with dye, you might come up to surprising results. Coloring your fabric isn’t a long process per see; however, it’s important at this stage not to cut corners. Read through the instructions to make sure that you know exactly what you're doing. Most tie-dye accidents are the result of mistakes in the process of coloring. You can find a great breakdown of everything that could go wrong through the process here. The bottom line is that you need to make sure you’re using the best dye for the fabric, creating the ideal condition and respecting the Ph of your fabric. For instance, amateurs often forget to test the Ph and end up using not enough fixative as a result. However, more to the point, how to fix a dye job that’s gone bad? The dye molecule binds loosely to the fabric, so by washing your garment in the hottest possible water and leaving it to soak you can remove most of the color already. You can also help the removal process with chemicals, such as chlorine bleach and Rit Color Remover.
You can create beautiful tie-dye patterns
You thought you could do your hair color
Clothes are not the only mishap you can encounter. Bad hair color is a common complaint, especially if you’ve decided to try out a new salon at the last minute – or worse if you’ve decided to do it yourself. What happens when you decided to go for a vibrant red and ended up with a little more you had hoped for? Ultimately, your color is likely to fade within a few weeks, but you can harmlessly speed up the fading process to remove most of the dye. You need to gather the proper ingredients first, namely baking soda, clarifying shampoo, bleach powder, and conditioner. The process focus on opening the hair cuticle using a mixture of shampoo and baking soda. You might need to repeat the process a couple of times for stubborn colors. Make a second batch adding the bleach powder to the mixture and apply and scrub it on damp hair. Rinse immediately and finally condition your hair.
In the panic of the moment, you screwed up your makeup. Can you still fix it?
Ah, makeup looks are always appealing, unless you try to copy them in your dark and small bathroom 10 minutes before your Uber shows up. Most of the Christmas makeup styles, this year, involve bold and dramatic choices from gold glitter eyes to seasonal dark green touches. While they are beautiful when they work, if you screw up, you can expect to jump from glamorous girl to clown face in a matter of seconds. You need to work rapidly to fix makeup mishaps without needing to wash everything off – because your Uber is not going to wait for ages. You can address most issues effectively if you know what you’re doing and have the right tools ready.
Prevent your new shoes from hurting your feet
What’s the best way to shine at the Christmas party than by wearing your new shoes? Except that new shoes cause pain until they break in. You can, however, reduce the damage by protecting the usual spots from blisters — heels and toes. Adding antiperspirant will also reduce the risk of friction and keep your feet blister-free. You can also stretch your shoes using chunky socks on a shoe shaper. You can also loosen leather material with heat – blow dry it from a safe distance and immediately walk around the room to stretch the material. Be careful not to use this method for synthetic materials.
You’ve ordered online without trying it on
Last, but not least, everyone has at least once in their lifetime ordered clothes online and discovered with horror that the finished product looks nothing like the picture. A quick search on prom dress fails can reveal the ugly side of eCommerce. If this has happened to you, unfortunately, you might be too late to order an appropriate replacement. If you’re confident with a sewing machine, you might be able to fix the issues. However, if sewing is not one of your strong points, you will need to find a new outfit. As a last minute style, nothing says Christmas like a chunky cardigan on a long summer dress. It’s simple and festive!
Holiday outfit mishaps are more frequent than you think. The key to working your way through these is to be pragmatic. Understand what went wrong and apply the best method to fix it. More often than not, your outfit oops is just a wow waiting to be revealed!
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