The competition season is upon us and I am SO excited, are you? Bring on, the glitter, baby wipes, competition bags, vendors, entrance fees, travel and of course the ROUTINES!
We have less than 4 weeks until our first competition, 2 months until GSSA and all our friends from our old gym, 6 months until The Aloha Championship in Waikiki, Hawaii and the end of our gyms 10th Anniversary Year, Congrats UCF! Then we have The Champions Cup in July 2013, amazing stuff going on this year for us.
Are you dreading the morning of competition? The hair, the makeup, packing that competition bag, the early morning? Over the past 5 years, I have found a few products that I love and I want to share them with you. Maybe they will help; maybe you already have your favorites. I am in no way an expert but hopefully you will find something you can use or relate too.
We have a saying in our house for competition mornings, “The fewer the baby wipes used, the better the morning.” For those of you who don’t know, baby wipes are great for wiping off extra glitter eye shadow and make clean lines, so your cheerleader looks less like a monster and more like a performer. The first time I worked with glitter eye shadow, Tessa definitely looked more ready for Halloween and not competition. With the help of my fellow cheer moms and one of Tessa’s coaches, I was able to get it under control, with practice all is perfected.
Hair: I love Aussie Instant Freeze Hairspray. If your daughter has fine hair with a lot of wispy’s like mine, then this is the hairspray for you. Another one that is great is Got2b Glued Freeze Spray. If you have to do curls and your daughter has hair that will not hold a curl, use a flat iron, it literally saved me our first competition season. We love Tresemme Curl Activator, really helps the curl stay. Practice making curls with the flat iron as it can be a little tricky but the curls do last longer (use hairspray of course).
Eyeliner: Milani Infinite Eyeliner is AMAZING! It will seriously last through sleeping and comes in some cool colors. (Black, Brown, Shadow, Royal Blue and Green) I got lucky because the royal blue shade matched perfectly with the brand of glitter eye shadow our gym uses. We even used it to write “UCF” on our little ones cheek and it lasted for the two day competitions easily. It is hard to remove, after many different types of makeup remover failed, I found Neutrogena Makeup Remover Cleansing Towelettes (for waterproof mascara) that works perfectly to remove all competition makeup.
Mascara: There are two that I currently use: Maybelline The Falsies Volume Express (purple) or Rimmel London Lash Accelerator (gold lid). Whatever you use, just make sure it is waterproof.
Always pack all makeup, hairspray, extra hair ties, a brush, Q-tips, hand sanitizer (great for removing hairspray off your hands), bobby pins in a Ziploc bag before putting in the competition bag to keep it safe and have for touch ups.
If you have little ones you are bringing to the competition with you, Mack’s Pillow Softearplugs work perfect to protect those “little” ears and can be formed to any size and shape. Our “little” Peja was only 4 days old when she attended her first competition and she sound asleep with these earplugs in.
We have a couple other “favorites” for competition day. 1. Cheer Soxx to keep our shoes nice and clean while walking around between
performances. A game system (DS, Gameboy of iPhone), Mad Libs, protein bars,Sharkies Sports Gummies and jerky. Don’t forget your fan wear and sport those gym colors!
I am ready to get that bag packed and arm myself with baby wipes, my Tide pen and head to our first competition. If you are going to be at a competition in Northern California or Hawaii, I would love to meet you!
