Archives for July 2015

If You Like Liners With Stiff Tips, Let Ardency Inn MODSTER Easy Ride Supercharged Liquid Liner Take You for a Ride

July 9th, 2015 by Karen 9 Comments

ardency in modster liquid liner — $20 MODSTER Easy Ride Supercharged Liquid Liner by Ardency Inn

Important question for you: what’s your stance on LLTs (Liquid Liner Tips)? If you like stiff tips that don’t have a lot of give to ’em, new MODSTER Easy Ride Supercharged Liquid Liner by Ardency Inn ($20) just might take you for an easy ride.

It’s a jet-black matte liquid liner with pedal-to-the-metal pigment and a long-wearing formula. It just takes one pass to produce a completely opaque line, and this ride likes to go fast! Because Modster dries in less than a minute, you won’t have to worry about it transferring up into your crease.

The only thing is… I don’t know if I’m a good enough driver for this ride. With Modster’s stiff tip (I gravitate toward more flexible tips most of the time), my lines go off road. I usually end up with jagged edges and liner in places it doesn’t belong, which is too bad because I like the formula, the finish and the all-day wear time. I give Modster mad props for pigment, too.

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The White Tee Trick (Also Known as Two Pops of Color) Using MAC Giambattista Valli Lipstick in Tats and the Kristin Perry Showered in Neon Necklace

July 8th, 2015 by Karen 16 Comments

mac giambattista valli tats k — Two pops o’ color!

One of the quickest, most colorful ways I know to dress up a standard-issue white tee ensemble is by incorporating twin pops o’ color like a bright lip and a colorful necklace.

When the two pops complement each other, like the hot pinks in the new MAC Giambattista Valli Lipstick in Tats and the Kristin Perry Showered in Neon Necklace, this trick is both quick and easy.

But the complementary color thing isn’t an unbreakable rule, or any kind of rule for that matter. The thing is just to have two focal points. As long as you have that down, you should be good.

I call this “The White Tee Trick” because, apparently, everything in my life needs an ONICL (Official Name Involving Capital Letters). 🙂

mac giambattista valli tats — MAC Giambattista Valli Lipstick in Tats

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Try This Trick for Impeccable Eyeliner

July 8th, 2015 by Karen 30 Comments

laura mercier angeled eye liner brush — My two secret weapons!

In the alternate Marvel makeup comic book universe (because this totally exists), my superhero power is the ability to apply flawless eye liner while I’m walking backwards, hanging upside down or jumping up and down on a trampoline.

(Can you imagine?! I’d be totally doing some weird-@ss YouTube makeup videos, haha!)

But in this universe here, my superhero power is on the opposite end of the eyeliner spectrum. Here I have the ability to mess up my liner almost EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Seriously, why does the liner on my left eye always end up thicker than my right? And how do I manage to completely mess up perfectly decent liner at the last second? It’s an uncanny gift.

Because imperfectly executed eyeliner is something I experience often — like every day! — I’ve come to rely on a workaround when one line ends up thicker than the other. First, I dampen a thin pointed eyeliner brush with eye makeup remover. Then I run it along the edge of the liner to erase any errant bits, and if the errant liner still won’t lift off, I gently rub a cotton bud along the edge to remove whatever else needs to go.

This works for pencil, liquid and gel liner.
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The NARS Matte/Shimmer Palette for Fall 2015: A Quick Follow-Up

July 8th, 2015 by Karen 13 Comments

In today’s episode of The Annals of Awkward Phrasing…

Karen meets Kim at the diner after closing to discuss makeup and teh kittehs. “If you had a fluffy kitten for every time I wished for an eyeshadow palette that included a few mattes,” Karen exclaims, “you’d have enough cats to qualify as a full-blown CCL!”

LOL! Yes, I have no idea what I’m talking about… 🙂

The mattes were/are the main reason I got so stoked about the new $65 NARS Matte/Shimmer Palette. Four of its eight powder shadows are mattes, and the other four are shimmers.

nars narsissist matte shimmer eyeshadow palette — NARS Matte/Shimmer Eyeshadow Palette

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Bootie, Bootie, Bootie, Bootie Rockin’ Everywhere! These Summery, Stylish TOMS Majorca Peep-Toe Booties Give Your Flip-Flops and Sandals a Break

July 8th, 2015 by Karen 25 Comments

TOE LIBERATION, Y’ALL!

I summery sandals and flip-flops because they 1) give me an excuse to not wear socks and 2) free mah feet.

But ya know…shoe hoarders like moi also like to have many, many options, and that’s why these TOMS Majorca Peep Toe Booties ($97.95) have just entered my summer shoe rotation.

I got these for myself as a belated birthday present from Nordstrom, and I’m so glad I did. They’re made of super soft suede, so there’s no breaking-in period, and the 2-3/4″ heel adds some height without sabotaging my balance…so I don’t feel like I’m going to topple over every time I take a step.

I like ’em with jeans and tank tops, but I bet they’ll also be cute with a summer dress or denim shorts and a loose tee.

This nude shade here is called Stucco, but they also come in Black Suede (also very cute).

And did I mention that these are comfortable? — ’cause homegirl is all about comfort these days. 🙂

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Crank Up the Coverage of Your Favorite BB Cream or Tinted Moisturizer With This Time Saving Tip

July 7th, 2015 by Karen 38 Comments

BB creams.

What do you think about ’em? I’ve been on a kick lately (MAC Lightful C has been my bae for a week or so), but ya know…sometimes a girl needs/wants a little more coverage, and sometimes (well, all the time) that same girl is also in a hurry. 🙂

And that’s how I figured out this makeup tip.

Basically, instead of applying a BB cream (or tinted moisturizer) first, and then applying a concealer on top of it, you can save a little time by blending a bit of your favorite concealer into your BB cream to create a magical brew.

Mixing the two together increases the opacity of the BB cream, which gives you more coverage.

I’ve been mixing MAC Lightful C in Medium Plus with a smidgen of MAC Select Cover-Up Concealer in NC42. Then I buff MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Natural on top, and then spray a little MAC Fix+ all over my face.

The result is medium coverage with a natural-looking semi-matte finish. It’s what I’ve been wearing in my pics lately. 🙂

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Dior’s New Diorshow Pro Liner Waterproof Pencil Is Angling for Your Liquid Liner Love

July 7th, 2015 by Karen 17 Comments

Dior Diorshow Pro Liner Waterproof in Backstage Black #092 ($32)

I like to think of myself as a somewhat creative person who also happens to put necklaces on her cat, so I totally appreciate it when makeup brands think outside the box and approach everyday products from different angles.

Take Dior’s new Diorshow Pro Liner Waterproof eyeliner ($32), for example. It quite literally takes a different angle!

LOL! I made myself laugh…

Dior calls this new eyeliner a “hybrid” because it comes in pencil form but has the glide and color intensity of a liquid liner. Instead of having a regular pointy pencil tip, it has a beveled, angled edge, so that you can draw lines of different widths.

Hold the liner perpendicular to your lids, and you’ll draw a thin line. Place it parallel to your skin, and the line will be thicker.

It comes in six $32 shades — Backstage Black #092, Backstage Brown #582, Backstage Blue #272, Backstage Grey #042, Backstage Khaki #472 and Backstage Purple #182 — now available in the Dior permanent collection.

I struggled a bit the first few times I tried to use it. The shade was Backstage Black #092. I dunno… Maybe I have a funky tube, but the pencil felt very stiff, and it wasn’t that pigmented. It clearly did not want to glide across my skin, at all.

Then I accidentally broke the tip — twice! — which was probably my bad, because I twisted the pencil tip up too far and, apparently, this liner doesn’t want you to do that.

Oops.

dior diorshow pro liner waterproof 2 — Wearing Dior Diorshow Pro Liner Waterproof in Backstage Black #092 on my upper lash lines

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Dior’s Newly Reformulated Diorshow Mascara and Its Connection With Toothbrushes

July 7th, 2015 by Karen 11 Comments

dior diorshow mascara — The newly reformulated and relaunched Diorshow Mascara in Pro Black #090 ($27.50), and yes…a toothbrush

Toothbrushes!

That’s what this new tube of Diorshow Mascara reminds me of, which I know is a weird connection to make, but back in 2002 when Diorshow first launched, it had an oversized brush head inspired by the toothbrushes that makeup artists would use backstage to create long, dramatic lash looks on runway models. Dior hacked the idea and turned it into Diorshow’s XXL brush (your fun fact of the day).

Well, when Dior recently revamped and relaunched Diorshow Mascara, you can rest assured that they did not forget to give it an oversized brush, because without it, it wouldn’t have been Diorshow! 🙂

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