I would love a dress in this color!
Mellow Yellow
Archives for May 2009
Grab Your Suit
Because we’re going swimming. 🙂
What to Do When – Ohnoes! – Your Pressed Powder Ends Up as Plain ‘Ole Powder
Today Rae of theNotice shows how to rescue a broken pan of pressed powder from the brink!
Hi there, ladies! It’s Rae from theNotice. I just wanted to take a moment to say “thanks!” to Karen for letting me guest blog. Makeup and Beauty Blog is definitely one of my favourites, so this is pretty much the best. thing. ever.
Okay. Moment’s over!
It’s happened to us all: you go traveling, or you move, or you take a compact with you on your way out the door. When you open up your traincase or cosmetic bag, there’s a thin film of powder everywhere, and then you just know — one of your pressed powders broke in transit, and it’s completely unusable in its current state.
But it’s not the end of the world, because this is a problem that’s easily fixed! Seriously, folks. It’s easier than making toast to fix a hungry stomach or tempting children with candy or Jell-O.
What you’ll need
- Alcohol (no, not vodka. You want cleaning alcohol! I’m using isopropyl.)
- A steady hand to pour it, or an eyedropper
- Lots of tissue and/or Q-tips
We start our endeavor with one of the Smashbox Brow Tech duos from my makeup kit (this one’s Blonde). The powder portion had completely broken in transit — crumbles and chunks everywhere!
You know how when you get to the bottom of your Special K Cinnamon Pecan, there’s just… dregs? Well, it was like that. And for all of you who don’t obsessively eat that stuff, just check out the photo below (and add the cereal to your shopping list, because it’s like heaven. But in cereal form. And edible).
So because this was a duo, I started by scraping off the top layer of the wax with a clean cosmetic spatula and using an eyedropper to moisten the powder half with alcohol.
Use a damp towel or Q-tip to clean up around the edges a little, but it doesn’t have to be perfect — trust me, it’s easier to clean it up at the end, when more doesn’t tip out every time you move the pot!
For the wax, I just wiped off the top with a tissue after scraping, and it was pretty much good to go. But for the powder (or for a single pan) it’s a little harder. To fix this one, you have to keep putting in alcohol until it turns into pudding. I know. SO much harder, right? Oh, my god! I can’t do this! It’s too difficult!
…aaaand I’ll pretend you recognize the sarcasm in my, erm, font.
Anyhow, that’s really all you need to do! Once it’s mushy, all you have to do is let it dry (the stronger the alcohol, the faster it’ll be ready for the next step). Because this was a half-pan, re-pressing was a little harder. But for a normal 26mm MAC shadow pan, all you have to do is wait until it’s just barely damp, put a paper towel or handkerchief on top, stack a couple quarters on that, and apply pressure!
SHAZAM! Just like that, you’ve got a like-new pan again — clean up the edges, let it dry overnight before closing it, and you’re ready to face the day. If you have a half-pan like mine, and not a full circle, just press it with your fingers. The result won’t look new, but unless you’ve found a way to get a half-quarter, it’s the best you can do!
TIP: if you’re pressing something large — like a foundation, powder or blush — the bottoms of glasses work wonderfully instead of quarters!
One last thing, though. The pans in this were a little loose (if by “a little loose” you mean “totally not connected with the pot anymore”), which I’m thinking was the reason for their demise. So I took ’em out with tweezers, applied a couple drops of Krazy Glue, put them back in, and after about 10 seconds, they were secure again!
For loose pans, plain ‘ole Krazy is a lifesaver. It’s my number-four beauty tool, preceeded only by my Tweezerman tweezers, lash curler, and Q-tips. Just please don’t use it as cosmetic glue, alright? 🙂
Is it just me, or did this turn into a lesson about how you shouldn’t blog while hungry, instead of one about re-pressing broken powders?
This post was written by Rae, the beautiful brains behind theNotice. Beauty blogger, student and makeup enthusiast, Rae can’t remember a time when she didn’t love makeup.
What You Need to Have a Makeup Kit Like the Pros
Today Bethany North (aka San Antonio’s best makeup artist) of Face By Bethany shows us what the pros keep in their makeup kits.
For all you beauty divas out there looking for flawless makeup application every time, it helps to stock your beauty kit like a pro.
This army of supplies will never leave you lacking. Pencils ready?
Skincare
Many pros carry their moisturizers in small plastic jars, or they look until they find smaller sample sizes of their favorite products.
“You’re going to want to have an eye makeup remover, eye cream, face moisturizer, shine control lotion, lip balm, and a body lotion.”
Foundation palette
To be a pro makeup artist, you’ll need a wide range of foundations to choose from, so get several shades of correctors, concealers, foundations in different varieties and formulas, tinted moisturizers, and loose powders.
If you’re using solid foundation sticks, you can slice off pieces of them to place in your foundation palette.
Here’s a great foundation palette choice from Amazon.
Blush
You’ll definitely want a full range of cheek colors, too, along with different varieties like powders, creams, gels, or shimmers. You can also mix in a blush with a clear lip color for a dramatic hue.
Eyes
When it comes to doing eyes, you’ll want to have a huge number of eye colors and pigments at your disposal. Make sure that you arrange each palette by shade family so that you’re not getting lost when you’re doing a makeup application, and always include cotton swabs.
Look to get a variety of eye pencils, gel eyeliners, both black AND brown mascaras, false eyelashes, eyelash glue, brow gels, brow pencils, alternate eyeliner colors, and darker shadow shades that you can use as liners.
Lips
Make sure that you always have some alternate colors with you, like black lipstick, to spice up any occasion. Look to have at least 20 different shades of lip colors in your kit, which you can mix to create even more. Include in that lip shimmers, lip glosses, and lip pencils.
“To easily carry a huge collection of lipsticks with you, simply slice pieces off and place them into the palette.”
You can learn how to make your own clever lip palette from this YouTube video, even better! 🙂
Tools
You’ll need a complete set of brushes, a spray-on brush cleaner, makeup sponges, cotton swabs, cotton pads, tweezers, an eyelash curler, disposable mascara wands, and brow trimming scissors.
For the Girl Scout in you
Here are some extras to help you always be prepared…
“Be sure to include a hand disinfectant, baby wipes, breath mints, nail polish, nail polish remover, a hand mirror, and eye drops — just to make your life that much easier!”
Did you get all that?
And make sure that you bring some Ziploc bags to store things and rubber bands to hold your lip glosses and pencils together. You can also get extra nerdy and use a label maker to make sure that all of your supplies are in clear order.
Take time to practice your applications over and over again to find what works best for you, and you’ll never be lost among your army of beauty goodies.
Good luck and Godspeed! 🙂
This post was written by Bethany North of Face by Bethany, a San Antonio makeup artist and licensed esthetician who specializes in bridal makeup. She’s loved makeup her whole life but became even more passionate about it when she started working in the skin care field. She lives with her boyfriend and five-year-old Chihuahua Frankie (who’s not very nice to strangers).
10 Days of Giveaways: Comment to Win Philosophy 3-in-1 Shower Gels
The giveaway is now closed, and I’m contacting the winner by e-mail. Good luck!
One philosophy on Hawaii
There’s a chain of restaurants here in Hawaii that specializes in chili and rice. It’s called Zippy’s, and there’s at least one in every neighborhood.
Hawaii is a place of contrasts, which is a reason why I love it, but those contrasts can be a turnoff for visitors expecting an easily definable Polynesian paradise.
On the one hand, Hawaii has the grass skirts, coconut trees, fresh fruit and Hawaiian music portrayed in TV and movies, but it’s also an incredibly isolated, integrated (not just diverse) land with dozens of cultural influences contributing to create a place unlike any other in the world, where the locals (a local is anyone from the islands but can be a person of any ethnicity) speak a dialect of Pidgin English that’s probably more Pidgin than English, and Zippy’s can sell millions of bowls of Texas-style chili over white rice.
And a lot of the time, not even the locals know when or from where a particular food or phrase appeared, as if one day they woke up and everyone around them was eating chili with chopsticks, dipping Portuguese sweet bread into it and having fresh cut mangoes for desert. 🙂
Today’s giveaway
Ten Days of Giveaways keeps on chuggin’, my lil’ chocolate haupia pies!
Today’s giveaway lets you indulge day or night without having to worry about how all that decadence will make your thighs look in your bikini.
The Prize
Two lucky ladies will each win Philosophy’s A Diet You Can Live With shower gel set.
Each set comes with three Philosophy 3-in-1 Shower Gels in Creme Brulee, Pink Frosted Layer Cake and Fudge Cake (a $30 value), YUM!
How to enter
Entering is easy, and unlike that slice of chocolate cream pie, it’s totally fat free! To enter, just leave a quick comment below about anything at all. Tell me what you did last night, where you’d like to go this summer, your favorite video game or the name of your secret crush!
I’ll choose the two winners at random from among the people who enter by 11:59PM PST tonight (Thursday).
Powodzenia!
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
The giveaway is now closed, and I’m contacting the winner by e-mail. Good luck!
Sand, Sea and Sky
The lagoon at the Ko Olina resort.
Serenity
I find this pond very soothing.
Poolside Champ: Banana Boat Ultra Defense Continuous Spray Sunblock
OOH! I have to tell you about Banana Boat Ultra Defense Continuous Spray Sunblock ($9.99).
It’s probably the best waterproof aerosol sunblock I’ve ever used and has only a couple little downsides.
What I like
First, the good stuff — it’s a broad-spectrum sun protectant offering both UVA/UVB protection and comes in three potencies, SPF 30, 50 and the uber-powerful 85.
SPF is all well and good, but why I really love it is because it works like a lotion and not a flighty spray. Most of the spray sunscreens I’ve used before are too light and watery, requiring hella frequent reapplication, almost like they evaporate away even when I’m not playing around in the water, but Banana Boat didn’t just stamp “waterproof” on the bottle and call it good; this stuff is WATERPROOF INCARNATE and lasts for hours and hours.
I like spraying it on, too, because it feels cool on the skin, kinda like one of those water misters at the mall, and it’s enriched with Aloe Vera, which means a lot to me. I’m a firm believer in Aloe’s ability to help heal mild sunburns.
Even though it’s rub-free and all you have to do is quickly spray it everywhere you want it, I still like to spray some into a cupped hand, rub my palms together and apply the product to my face with my fingertips. It’s easier for me to get it up into my hairline that way and around the back of my ears without spritzing any onto my lips (it doesn’t taste great, but I like the light floral fragrance) or into the corners of my eyes.
Unlike every other aerosol sunblock I’ve used before, a little really DOES go a long way, which may explain its main downside…
What I don’t like
Did I mention that it’s waterproof? Nay, not just waterproof; it hates water like Tabs hates the vet, and perhaps consequently it feels slightly greasy.
But if you’re looking for a good all-purpose waterproof sunscreen you can apply in a hot second, Banana Boat Ultra Defense SPF 30-85 gets a BIG gold star.
Banana Boat Ultra Defense Continuous Spray Sunblock
Price: $9.99 (juuuust under $10), 6 fl. oz.
Use: A waterproof continuous spray sunblock with Aloe
Makeup and Beauty Blog Rating: A+
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen