Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup
A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
Currently enamored with…
How about you? What are you currently enamored with?
I plan to make this purple a priority this weekend. 🙂
While stunning on its own, I bet this hybrid cream/powder eyeshadow, with its metallic finish, would look that much more amaze-balls under one of Urban Decay’s shimmery purples like Gravity, Flash or Asphyxia.
Can’t. Wait. To play!
Purple Priority, one of six shades in L’Oreal’s Butterfly collection, is available now at drugstores, Ulta stores and ulta.com.
I usually lack the wherewithal for multi-step manis involving a base and top coat when I’m painting my paws (read: I’m too lazy, yo), even though my rational mind fully recognizes the prudence of taking the extra time to extend the life of my polish.
But ever since I started using Sephora’s Formula X “The System” $32 nail kit, I don’t mind going the extra mile at all.
This is partly due to thinking that the bottles in the kit look kind of sci-fi and cool, like they belong in an Apple store beside the latest iMacs, and also because they just plain work.
The kit gets high marks from reviewers on sephora.com, and I can see why. I used the Nail Cleanser (a brush-on liquid that helps remove residue from your nails so the products you layer on top bind better), Base Coat and Top Coat with Tom Ford’s Viper Nail Lacquer this week, and my nails have definitely handled the hell I regularly put them through better.
This morning I woke up feeling like this…
…because of this.
Yup, just call me TBK (Two Beer Karen), LOL!
We took that out-of-town friend of El Hub’s who stayed with us last night to a local brewery here in Novato called Moylan’s, where I “sampled” some of their Pomegranate Wheat, and since I hardly ever drink, I did not feel exceptional this morning.
I intended to do a full face o’ warpaint today, but when I sat down in front of my makeup mirror, my arms felt like lead weights… My body was like, “Oh, hell naw, hookah. We’re doing minimalist makeup today.”
So, out came my tube of Big Easy, a new BB cream from Benefit.
Dude! This stuff is boss. I’m not usually a big BB cream fan, either, mostly because I rarely feel like they provide enough coverage for me.
But Big Easy evens out my skin tone and blurs my pores without leaving my skin looking overly “done,” if you know what I mean, and the natural-looking, velvety matte finish is my favorite thing about it.
More quick and dirrrrty deets…
It has an interesting texture — kind of slippery like many face primers (it does contain silicones), and it glides across my skin easily, buffing and blending with very little resistance.
The matte finish looks very flat on my combination dry/oily skin — no shine whatsoever — and I can even skip setting it with a powder, which is nice. It stays matte, too, as the day wears on, and controls oil like a champ.
I do find that Big Easy will settle into my pores and get a little streaky on my drier spots (like my cheeks) if I don’t moisturize immediately beforehand, almost like the product skips a bit on those dry patches. Benefit suggests applying it after moisturizer, and I can see why. It glides across my skin more smoothly when it’s thoroughly moisturized.
Another one to cross off the bucket list.
They say you can’t find the end of a rainbow, but I did! This one ended in a tree on a hill outside my living room window.
I wonder how they got the pot of gold up there…
Also, if you look closely, you can see the faint outline of a second rainbow, making this one a double rainbow, all the way. All the way across the sky. 🙂
P.S. TGIF!
Kind of a funny story… One of El Hub’s childhood friends is visiting from out of town tonight, and we only had about 2.5 seconds to clean the house (OK, more like 20 minutes) before his flight landed this afternoon.
You know you’re doing an improv cleaning job of your condo when your idea of tidying things up is hiding the telltale indicators that you’re a crazy cat lady (“Don’t forget to hide his outfits.”) and spraying Nest Birchwood Pine Room Spray in every room and hallway. LOL!
I probably should tear myself away from makeup temporarily to socialize… While I do that, here are pics of a few of the new Tom Ford Beauty Lip Color Sheers that came out for spring.
Yeah, these are crazy expensive at $49 each, but it’s T.F., so that price point is business as usual. But if you love sheer, luxurious lipsticks, these might be your dream come true.
Keep an eye out for these shades, along with the rest of the Lip Color Sheers collection, at Tom Ford counters and online.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
First thing this morning I told myself, “Karen, take note of the little things today,” and I’ve taken note of some wonderful little tidbits throughout the course of my day (a hot cup tea, seeing a rainbow, catching Tabs looking extra cute), but I have to say…
Even though I didn’t really plan to go anywhere fancy today, I thought it might be fun to glam it up a little — ya know, for Tabs, and because it’s Thursday.
It all started with the Lancôme Color Design Shadow & Liner Palette in Dancing Rose ($50) from the French Ballerine spring collection. One glance at that deep, plummy reddish purple in the middle, and I just had to get it on my lids, ASAP!
I used the sparkly light purple as a base all over my eyes, patted the pink shade on my lids, swept the plummy shade in my crease (creases?), and then highlighted underneath my brow bones with the light opalescent pinkish beige.
Then, I added a fatty-bo-batty wing on my upper lash line with the deep blackish plum, woo hoo!
Glam eyeshadow deserves glam lashes, so I brought out the big guns, Katy Perry Lashes in Banging Beauty ($6.99). These falsies are cray, yo! I could barely lift my eyes because they were so big and so over the top. Definitely not for the faint o’ heart.
Since the eyes were so shimmery, so purple, so BAM! — I tried to keep my cheeks and lips soft to balance things out.
Why scribble notes to yourself (“Don’t forget the gravy!”) on boring yellow Post-its when you could transcribe your awesome ideas on these!?
They’re a steno-loving beauty nerd’s dream come true. 🙂
I spotted them at Staples last weekend, where I was shopping for a big metal filing cabinet (don’t ask).
They’re only $3.40 for two packs of 50 3×3-inch sheets.
Also available in Ring, Shoe and Purse…
