Looking Good while Doing Good: 5 Beauty Tips for the Giving Heart

1. Make an effort to look good. Because when people look good and know it, they tend to feel good. When you are feeling too self-conscious about your baggy jeans or the stain on your shirt, you have less mental energy to focus on other people's needs and concerns. On the other hand, if you already know how smoking you are (and you're not, you know, arrogant about it), you are already bringing more positive, passionate energy to every person you are trying to help.

2. Invest in some comfortable, stylish shoes--like TOMS. Many volunteer activities call for comfortable shoes, as they may require lots of walking, standing, going through nature or doing other activities that may ruin your nicer and more expensive dress shoes. If you need some comfortable shoes for your volunteering activity, make it TOMS. Not only are they ridiculously comfortable and affordable, TOMS will donate a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you purchase.

3. Align your fashion with your volunteering: make sure it does more good than harm. If you're going to spread good into the world, make sure the clothes you're wearing are doing minimal harm. This means no sweatshop labor, fair trade, organic--or even better, secondhand. As a start, check out American Apparel and No Sweat Apparel.

4. Treat yourself to a beauty indulgence after volunteering. So you have been spending a few hours or a few days every month giving up your personal time to a greater cause. You deserve a treat! Treat yourself to a professional manicure or a facial. Get that new haircut you've been postponing for weeks. This is more than poofy indulgence; before we treat other people well, we have to know how to treat ourselves well. Remember that the next time you feel a tinge of guilt for spending money on yourself for that much needed back massage.

5. Smile a lot! This is a no-brainer beauty tip for volunteering but worth bringing up anyway. Smiling instantly makes you look more attractive and younger. Smiling also makes you feel good and makes other people around you feel good. And really, you can't get any more gorgeous than that.

While we're on the topic of smiles, consider donating to these non-profit organizations dedicated to providing craniofacial surgeries to people in need like the World Craniofacial Foundation.