The first few weeks of september can be mighty confusing. On one hand everyones all ready to jump into fall color palettes and clothing (and foods). On the other hand it’s sorta still warm out and it feels super weird. Luckily, there are definitely are definitely some tricks to ease into the fall transition. It’s all about making a few simple compromises that can work for either fall or summer.

First let me address an issue that I run into. As a very pale person who relies on St. Tropez to feel confident in short shorts, the beginning of september marks the time that I stop trying to be tan. I stop putting on my self tanner, and whatever small amount of color I have gotten from the summer begins to fade as well.

My advice to you is DON’T be afraid to mix foundations to match your transitioning skin tone. My tan skin is about two shades darker than my pale winter skin, but buying a new shade in between just for fall is such a waste, so I mix a little of my lighter color in adding more of the lighter one and less of the darker as it fades.

That’s pretty self explanatory but I know some people hesitate to mix stuff. Just give it a try, what’s the worst that can happen?

Last week I posted this photo of my nails in OPI’s Skating On Thin Iceland on Instagram and it got me thinking about fall transition colors. Because I put this on with my green sweater on a chilly day and I felt SO cozy and fall-ish, but the next day it was 90 degrees and I wore it with a white tank and shorts and it still made sense.

As I sat and pondered cosmetics colors instead of doing whatever else I was meant to be doing, I came to a conclusion. Warm purples and classic reds are the perfect fall transition colors for nails AND lips. I can’t put my finger on why, but it just makes so much sense to me. For nails I’m digging this purple polish and some obvious classic red colors, but what can you wear on your lips. Here are some of my favorites.

Too Faced Melted Berry

Stila “Beso” (always and forever <3 lol)

Mac “Plumful”

NYX “Amsterdam”

Mac “Rebel”

Those are just some ideas based off of what I’ve been into. Obviously you can rock whatever colors you like. Red, purple navy blue, whatever you desire. You do you, I just feel like these work into the transition easily.

So what about hair? Well I don’t know about you but by september I am so sick of every variety of buns and ponytails I could scream. Problem is, when that one weird scorching hot September afternoon rolls around I still want my hair off my face. So for early fall days like that I like to do half-up styles that just get the hair off my face, but don’t necessarily slick it back into it’s summer prison again either.

For this one I just pinned the front pieces back off my face and made two little braids and pinned them at the back of my head. I know these car selfies are super professional, but I wanted to give you a realistic version of how I do this. I needed to go get dog food and this hair style took literally 45 seconds, and now my hair is off my potentially sweaty face. And yes that’s totally the same green sweater, don’t judge me 😉

By the way in case you were wondering my sunglasses are the “Francis” frames by Retrosuperfuture and I love them as I would love a first born child.

And that’s how I make the fall transition work for me, do you have any tips for this weird couple of weeks? I would love to hear them!