Winter may be creeping near an end, but cold and flu season is still in full swing. Even when you are over the worst of it, sickness can mess with your look. These makeup ideas on dealing when you are under the weather will help take the edge off.

A few select beauty products and a little know-how, and no one will even know you’ve been ill.

7 Makeup Ideas for Looking Good When You’re Sick

1 Beat the red eye. Red eyes are a dead giveaway that you aren’t feeling so hot. Try all natural redness relief drops prior to applying eye cream and makeup. A swipe of white eyeliner under lower lash line does wonders in brightening up eyes, too.

2 Lube up. Adequate moisture is always key to healthy looking skin, and during illness more than ever. It not only hydrates and softens, but soothes and brings skin back to life. To treat puffiness, apply moisturizer and eye cream with spoons that have been chilling in the fridge.

3 Heal, then conceal. Foundation and concealer may not go over chapped skin smoothly. Prepare skin by adding a thin layer of a light balm, like True Organic of Sweden All You Need is Me, on areas that need smoothing before applying this layer. As always, using the right color concealer goes a long way toward covering blotchiness and dark circles.

4 Beware the highlighter. Yes, you are most likely looking a little sallow during or right after any sickness. And you may think highlighter will rescue your skin from its sorry state. Highlighters are perfect for creating luminosity that isn’t there naturally. But it can also highlight dry, chapped skin and redness if used the wrong way. Be sure to apply over concealer and steer clear of the nose (which tends to be red or swollen with a cold) and eyes (which also tend toward redness when you are sick).

5 Powder less. With skin so dried out, you may need less to no powder. Let your moisturizing products work to add life to skin. If you do feel the need to add a puff, go lightly as any dryness will only enhance chafed skin.

6 Go nude. This is no time to use brightly colored hues, especially anything veering toward red or pink. You likely have enough of that going on already. A nude makeup palette is your bestie right now. Use taupe shadow and a peachy blush that closely mimics your natural (read: healthy) skin tone.

7 Give some lip. As for your pucker, nothing looks worse than lipstick worn on super chapped lips. Give your pout a break and apply a moisturizing lip balm until things are back to normal. Nothing creates a softer kisser than Butter Elixir Lip Balm. I even apply this under my nose when it gets tissue irritation.

Now be sure you are chugging water and catching extra Zs. As for your looks? No one will have a clue you aren’t feeling your best.

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Tired woman image via Shutterstock

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The moment you feel a cold coming on, use the wisdom of a thousand grandmothers from around the world and make one of these healing homemade chicken soup recipes to feel better almost instantly.

There’s something so comforting about the silkiness of fresh homemade chicken soup. The velvety broth, soft vegetables and tender chicken are almost instantly healing. Different cultures have different versions of chicken soup but the basics are the same: boil parts of a raw chicken for a few hours and add vegetables and either rice or noodles.

2. Korean Ginseng Soup
Samgyetang in Korean, this delicious soup packs a healthy amount of ginseng which is prized for its medicinal benefits in many asian cultures. Ginseng is commonly used for energy and immunity boosting and this soup is an excellent way to get your fill without taking unpleasant pills.

Photo by Ally-Jane 

3. Jewish Matzo Ball Soup

Jewish grandmothers have followed the wisdom of the philosopher Maimonides since the 12th century, who wrote of the healing powers of chicken soup. Matzoh balls are delicious fluffy balls of crushed matzo meal and egg.

4. Moroccan Chicken Soup

This wonderfully filling soup is spicy from the added garam masala as well hearty from the moroccan cous cous. Fresh avocado adds protein and flavor.

Photo by Alpha

5. Japanese Miso Noodle Soup
The rich smoky flavor of miso is mixed here with chicken, noodles and shiitake mushrooms for a divine soup that will lift your spirits in no time. This dish is elegant enough to serve guests so you can relax and concentrate on feeling better.

6. Colombian Chicken Stew
This latin stew is brilliantly flavored with dried oregano, fresh corn and cilantro. Capers add a delicate saltiness and avocado balances everything out.

7. French Pot-Au-Feu  
This gastronomic classic relies on the beautiful vegetables of the French countryside for a bright and vitamin-rich stew. Luckily, potatoes, cabbage and squash are available almost everywhere so there’s no need to visit the French countryside, just your local Farmer’s market.

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Chicken soup image (top) via Shutterstock

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ColumnCold and flu season is almost upon us, but I’m not going to tell you to load up on echinacea or get a flu shot. I’d like to suggest a novel way to boost your immune system – have lots and LOTS of sex.

It’s early fall. You’ve heard that something is going around, and you feel a tickle in your throat. Your first instinct might be to tell your partner to slowly back away, lest you spread those nasty germs. But your instincts, at least in this case, are probably wrong: sex can boost your immune system, helping you ward off those pesky, snotty invaders.

A study from 2004 showed that people who have sex once or twice a week have higher levels of immunoglobulin A, or lgA – one of the most important defenses your body has against invading organisms.

Human touch lowers cortisol, so you don’t even have to go all the way – just a bit of cuddling, stroking and kissing can do the trick — even getting a massage can help. Skin-to-skin touching is the trigger for cortisol support, something we require in the delicate dance of hormonal balance. But getting your orgasm on brings the suite of benefits to a higher level, as you’ll soon see.

Women have it better than dudes when it comes to the immunity game, because we naturally produce estrogen, linked to an enzyme called Caspase-12, which blocks the inflammatory process. (Men do have estrogen, just in much smaller amounts.) And guess what, girls? Having regular sex increases your estrogen, and not the bad kind as we see in estrogen-dominance. The sweet side benefit of all this is that estrogen is good for your skin and your mood. That post-coital glow is really a thing – estrogen helps your body produce collagen. So skip the botox and go for a nice boink instead.

Oxytocin, the chemical released at orgasm, is a pain reliever and stress-reducer. So do your best to make sure that you get the orgasm you deserve when you have sex. Ask for it if it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming – you deserve it. If partnered sex isn’t in the cards for you as often as you’d like, solo sex offers many of the protective immune benefits that you want during cold and flu season – so don’t assume you’re out of luck – you can boost your immune system with self-pleasure, too.

The “more I get, the more I want” principle applies here as well. Estrogen boosts your sex drive – and having sex makes you produce more estrogen. You see how this delightful hormonal merry go round works, do you not? This is in part why we tend to be hornier in the days leading up to ovulation, when our estrogen is surging. Women’s sex drive flattens after ovulation, when progesterone is the major hormonal player. Progesterone makes you sleepy and PMS-y, horny, not so much.

However, if we focus on having lots of sex (or masturbating) throughout the cycle, at minimum once or twice a week, we can boost our immune system by encouraging healthy estrogen levels. There will be peaks and valleys, but having more sex (or solo sex) even when you’re at your peak estrogen level will help you to avoid that libido-plummet that can begin to feel inevitable after ovulation. This is in part why I created the #30DayOrgasmChallenge — to encourage people to have orgasms as early and often as possible.

Sex also improves sleep, and healthy sleep is basically the key to everything that is good and holy – including a strong immune system. A recent study showed that the oxytocin release paired with the cortisol-lowering effects of sex leave your body in a super relaxed state – the perfect conditions for a beautiful night’s rest.

Another sleep-inducing hormone called prolactin floods the brain at orgasm. The whole thing about women being chatty after sex vs. men rolling over and wanting to sleep is probably a bit of cultural programming – sex primes both genders for sleep. The real truth here is that men are probably having more orgasms than women are, and so the women are left wanting while the men’s brains turn off. You can shift this, again, but making sure you get the orgasm you deserve.

This is one-hundred percent anecdotal, but when I caught the abysmal flu that was going around in the winter of 2013, against my better judgment, I had sex. And I swear to the gods of congestion – I was instantly better. Sex did what all my obsessive ginger/garlic eating, green juice drinking, and neti-pot slinging could not. Just sayin’. And last winter I didn’t get sick once – guess why?

This isn’t to say that having loads of sex means you can slack off on the basic rules of cold and flu season, especially hygiene. If this recent study doesn’t freak you out about the important of hand-washing, I don’t know what will.

Will you boost your immune system by adding sex to your anti-cold and flu arsenal this season? Let me know by tweeting at me @ecosexuality.

Here’s to good health (and equal amounts of pleasure).

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie@ecosalon.com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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Image: emraps

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