A Detailed, Pro-Approved Guide to Every Single Beauty Treatment You Can Do at Home

The best advice is to leave your haircut in the hands of a pro, but when push comes to shove and you need to DIY, celebrity hairstylist Sunnie Brook has a few tips you can take to make the process a little easier to do at home. All you'll need are a towel, a comb with wide and fine teeth, scissors, a scrunchie, and fine mist spray. Once you've gathered those, check out her very helpful play-by-play of trimming your own hair at home.

Step 1: Gather the Right Tools

Lay a towel on the surface you'll be cutting over to make the cleanup super quick and easy. Pick up your comb with wide and fine teeth. Brook says the wide-tooth side gives less tension, which is great for wavy or curly textures. You'll also need a good pair of scissors, so it glides through and doesn't chew your ends. The main goal is to open up your hair around your face, add some movement, and remove dry ends while keeping the length.

Step 2: Create a Guide on Dry Hair

You'll need to cut on dry hair so you can see the shape. Wet hair isn't the best indicator, Brook said, as it stretches. Create a guide in the front, by taking the tiny pieces on both sides. Use your ears to section those away. Twist the part where you want to cut it, take the scissors, and cut down. That gives the hair more of a tapered end instead of a blunt one. Remember, if you have wavy or curly hair, less is more because your hair will bounce up.

Step 3: Cut in Small Sections

Go little by little — you don't want to cut off too much. Then use a scrunchie or a hair tie to put up the back half of your hair. Keep cutting the front part of your hair from top to bottom, toward the floor.

Step 4: Move On to the Ends

Don't forget to check along the way that the sides are even by bringing both ends side by side in front of your face. Once you are done with the front, take out your ponytail. Separate your hair onto both sides, and cut into the ends vertically. This will soften your blunt ends and add a little more movement.

Step 5: Revive Your Hair

You're done! Use fine hair mist to revive the hair and see the shape.

Maybe you're looking to use this time at home to grow out your eyebrows (and to that we say: there's no better time than the present), but if you're looking to keep yours groomed and in tip-top shape, celebrity brow stylist Joey Healy has some tips.

Step 1: Pick Up the Tweezers

Desperate times make it tempting to try an at-home waxing kit or threading on your brows, but resist the urge. Instead, and because you're working with an area with such little hair (in comparison to, say, your legs), you want to carefully tweeze stray hairs.

"When tweezing, pull the hairs in the direction that the hair grows," Healy said. "Make sure you only tweeze dead center (the 'unibrow'), your forehead, the temples, and the upper eyelids. When you're doing it yourself, you're giving yourself a general perimeter, and you don't want to overpluck."

Step 2: Snip Longer Hairs With Scissors

Most people don't think to trim their eyebrows when doing at-home brow maintenance, but it can make a world of difference. Use a scissor made specifically for trimming eyebrow hair. "The key is to trim one hair at a time at an angle," he said. "Never trim in a straight row across. Your brow ends up looking very blunt and stubby."

Step 3: Don't Go Overboard

"If you do find that you've overworked one of your brows, just stop," Healy said. "Don't try to fix your eyebrows by making the good one match the bad one." Until you can see a professional for help, use makeup to fill them in and make the mistake less noticeable. The last thing you want to do is mess up both of your brows in the name of symmetry.

If you're an avid spray-tan enthusiast, switching over to applying self-tanner at home can seem intimidating, but it's actually quite simple. These tips from a handful of pros — including St. Tropez's skin finishing expert Sophie Evans, Tan-Luxe's lead artist Alexandra DiMarchi, and more — can help.

Step 1: Do the Prep Work Ahead of Time

The same rules you'd follow before going to a professional spray tanner apply to the at-home process, as in make sure you exfoliate the day before and keep your skin moisturized. You'll also want to take care of any hair removal ahead of time. If you plan on waxing, do it at least 24 hours before your appointment. "Waxing can open up your hair pores, so allow the skin to settle after your wax so that your spray tan does not come out with a spotted pitted look," Evans said. And if you choose to shave, do it eight to 12 hours beforehand.

Step 2: Consider Your Options

Whether you choose a clear formula or one with color guide depends on personal preference, but most people agree beginners could benefit from seeing the shade they are applying. On the other hand, "clear tanners allow you to see true color as it is developing," DiMarchi said. "For example, after four hours you will start to see a slight glow, then light color at six hours. At seven to eight hours you should be at medium to dark. This method of transparent about the process, and you'll avoid the 'I lost all of my color' notion after rinsing the product."

Step 3: Hydrate Your Hands and Feet

"A common tanning mistake for beginners is applying too much tan to drier areas such as hands, elbows, knees, and feet, which results in an uneven finish," said Clara Anderson, head VIP tanner of Vita Liberata. "To avoid this, apply a light layer of an oil-free moisturizer to those areas prior to tanning and use a makeup brush to buff product lightly over the skin. Don't forget to wipe the knuckles and the palm of the hands clean when you're finished to remove any excess product, giving the most natural finish."

Step 4: Start Slow, and Practice on Covered Areas

First, you'll want to practice on areas that aren't typically visible. If all goes well, you're ready to move on to your arms and legs. Most brands offer light, medium, and dark shade options, so if you're unsure, start light; if that's too subtle, build up from there the next day. If you're using a mousse formula (which tends to blend the easiest), grab a tanning mitt and apply the product in large, sweeping motions until it's all blended. The key: take your time to ensure your color is evenly applied.

Step 5: Stay Hydrated

The best way to extend the life of your faux tan? Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Just make sure you're using an oil-free formula, since oils can dissolve the color.

If you're not a professional, there are plenty of opportunities for a DIY hair color to go wrong, which is why you should listen to the pros when they offer up their expertise on how to make the task easier for all of us. Our favorite advice of the bunch? These tips from Brad Mondo, New York City-based hairstylist and founder, CEO, and creative director of XMONDO Hair's latest video tutorial.

Step 1: Start With Dirty Hair

If your hair is oily from skipping a wash day or two, or even if you're dealing with a little bit of product buildup, you might be tempted to shampoo before the process to start with clean hair. But according to Mondo, that's not the best idea, since when you wash your hair, you're creating tiny abrasions on your scalp that the dye or bleach you use can then easily slip into once you start the coloring process.

"This is going to make coloring your hair very painful," he said. "If you're using bleach, that bleach is going to seep into those little, tiny cracks in your scalp, and it's going to sizzle and burn."

Step 2: Brush Your Hair, and Section It Off

Whatever you do, don't try to color your hair while it's tangled; the product is bound to be unevenly distributed. Brush out your hair first, and then divide it into four sections: "Part [it] in the middle all the way back, down to the nape of your neck," he said. "That's your first section, those are your two. Then go to the apex — you can find the apex by laying the comb on your head and finding the highest point of your head — [and] make a section from the apex to behind the ears."

Step 3: Pay Attention to the Developers You're Using

Not all developers — the liquids that you mix with bleach or dye to activate the color — are created equal. Lots of hair dyes work with developers that come at different volumes: 10, 20, 30, and 40. In the video, Mondo explains that 10-volume developer is normally used for anyone trying to permanently darken their hair since it doesn't have any lightening effects — it just helps deposit the color.

On the other hand, 20 volume helps to darken or lift the hair while also covering up gray hair, while 30 and 40 volume can both lighten naturally dark hair by a few levels, though ideally if you've never lightened your hair before, you shouldn't go above 30 volume.

Step 4: Do Your Roots Last

To avoid what Mondo calls "hot roots," which occur when the color applied to your roots develops more than the color applied to your ends, don't start coloring your hair from the roots. The heat from your scalp can cause the color to develop faster, meaning you should always start coloring from the ends up.

Step 5: Rinse With Warm Water

Because dyeing your hair can cause your head to emit more heat, it might seem tempting to rinse out the product with cold water, but this might shock the cuticles and lead to breakage later. Once you get to the cleansing stage, gently massage your scalp as you rinse out the product under warm water.

Step 6: Take Proper Care of Your Hair Afterward

The work doesn't just stop at coloring your hair; you also have to take care of it afterward. That way, should you need to go back and touch it up, it's in a healthy condition to take more color.

You don't need to wait to visit the salon to remove your dip manicure; in fact, removing them at home is a breeze. This specific manicure is "the easiest to remove because it uses a cyanoacrylate: a simple nail glue that is more sensitive to solvents," said Risé Carter, director of education at LeChat Nails, meaning that dip removes easier than traditional gel manicures. Here's exactly how to do it to avoid drying out the skin around your nails in the process.

Step 1: Buff the Nails

First, you'll want to buff the shine off the nail surface with a buffer block, Carter explained. Then, reach for 100 percent pure acetone (you can buy this from most beauty supply stores).

Step 2: Grab a Bowl

Loosen the cap, and place the bottle of acetone into a glass bowl of warm water for approximately 10 minutes. This will warm the acetone and make the process quicker. Afterward, empty the water out, and pour the acetone into the bowl.

Step 3: Choose Your Removal Method

Carter said there are two options for removal: you can either soak the nails and place a dry towel over the hand and bowl, or use a saturated cotton pad on the nail and wrap your fingers in a small piece of foil. Then kick back and relax, leaving the acetone to work its magic on the nails for 10 to 15 minutes. (Carter advises you don't keep looking to check it, just leave it be.)

Step 4: Remove the Remnants of Dip Powder

Finally, gently lift the dip powder off and wash your hands. If the dip powder hasn't quite lifted, place back into the acetone for a further 10 minutes.

Step 5: Hydrate the Area

The worst thing a DIY dip manicure could do is cause drying of the skin around the nails, so make sure you stay hydrated by applying a good cuticle oil or hand lotion to area afterward.