Essie

End of Summer Shimmery Mermaid Makeup Tutorial

August 27th, 2015 by Karen 40 Comments

There is absolutely no freakin’ way that matte-heavy eyeshadow looks are even remotely acceptable among members of the makeup-loving mermaid community, and I know this for a fact.

Actually, I don’t really know that for a fact, since I haven’t kicked it with any of my mermaid friends lately, but if I had, they would DEFINITELY be rollin’ with shimmer.

So…why am I talking about mermaids??

Excellent question.

Well, because it’s late August, and even though I’m excited about fall, I’m still sad to see summer go. *sad tabby face* 🙁

I was thinking about the beach this morning (I haven’t been once this year!), and that led me to think about mermaids, and about mermaid water babies basking on the rocks with their shimmery tails swishing in the crystal clear waters and their subtle blue and green eye makeup sparkling in the sun…

So that’s what I was going for here.

For the record, this look is also appropriate for landlubbers, so you don’t need to have a mermaid tail to wear it, although that would be pretty rad.

I think this is a good look for late summer parties and barbecues, or maybe a back-to-school party where everyone gets kinda dressed up. Or, if you’re heading someplace fabulous that just so happens to have lively nightlife and be located near a warm body of water. Or, if you just want something shimmery to wear while you walk your cat around your neighborhood.

It’s a good look for multiple occasions. 🙂

Now, honey, if you just scrolled down, I know this look might seem impossible based on the number of steps, but you can do it! — even if you’re a straight-up beginner.

If you’ve never attempted anything like this before, though, cut yourself some slack. It’s OK and perfectly normal if it looks like shimmery poo the first few times, and it probably will, unless you’re a makeup wunderkind. But so what? Rome wasn’t built in a day.

OK, enough gabbing… Let’s do this.

1. Apply foundation, concealer and powder

Get yo’ base on that face, because we’re not about to leave the house without a little something-something. For this shimmery mermaid look, I like a full-coverage base because I think it balances out the bold eyes and false lashes.

Go with your fullest coverage foundation, concealer and powder, if you need to. Doing a goofy face while you do this is completely optional but highly encouraged. 🙂
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What Are You Wearing on Your Nails? May I Suggest Essie Pret-a-Surfer?

June 2nd, 2015 by Karen 22 Comments

Not quite the next best thing to actually going surfing (but it’s close!), creamy blue Essie Pret-A-Surfer looks right at home amidst the ocean of cats on my blue shirt. 🙂

This summery $8.50 marine blue is from the new Essie Summer 2015 Collection, and you can find it now online and at salons, beauty stores, Nordstrom and Ulta.

Le sigh… What I wouldn’t give for a longboard, gently rolling (3-foot) waves and warm tropical waters right now…

Wait — I just realized that I can’t even remember the last time I went surfing or, for that matter, the last time I was in a large body of water.

Survey says: That needs to stop.

I wish the weather here would finally warm up already. We’re still wearing sweaters here in Novato, which is weird for this part of California in June. My inner tropical surfer girl wants more sun and temps in the mid-80s. 🙂

Anywho, I quite love this shade of blue (it’s a little moodier than bright) and only partly because it goes so well with the cat shirt I’m wearing.

Speaking of the shirt, don’t you love it? My BFF Jen got it for me a ways back. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s still available.

The last time I wore Pret-A-Surfer, I wore it without a base or top coat (1. because I’m lazy, and 2. because I change my polish A LOT). Even without a base or top coat, though, it holds up well. I started seeing small chips on the fourth day, so it’s pretty sturdy stuff.

What are you wearing on your paws on this most terrific of Tuesdays, my friend? Inquiring tabbies and their loyal assistants would like to know. 🙂

Nails of the Day: Essie Brides No Grooms

May 14th, 2015 by Karen 28 Comments

To say that I’m obsessed with this Bkr Water Bottle I got last month would be a bit of an understatement.

I carry this thing with me everywhere. It may as well be surgically attached to my right arm! I bring it (oh, it’s already been brought-en!) to the mall, to Trader Joe’s, to the movies… Basically, I am never without my Bkr.

What can I say? Homegirl drinks a sh*t ton of water. 🙂

I’m loving on it so hard that I’ve undertaken a mission to find a matching nail polish, and I thought that this shade I’m wearing here, Essie Brides No Grooms, might be it, but it’s not. Close, but no cigar.

It’s warmer and more yellow… Still super pretty, though, but I think I need something closer to a creamy pink flamingo coral.

Here I’m wearing two coats.

Brides No Grooms is from the Essie Bridal 2015 collection, and you can say “I do” to it now, because it’s available now for $8.50 online, and at salons, Ulta and Nordstrom.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Nails of the Day: Essie Petal Pushers

May 7th, 2015 by Karen 14 Comments

Ah, push it… Puh-push it real good!

Seriously, I’ll take any excuse to quote Salt-N-Pepa, even if it’s only marginally related to what I’m talking about. 🙂

Nails of the day! — yesterday and today, because I applied this yesterday, but it’s still hangin’ tough (LOL, NKOTB). I’m wearing two coats of Essie’s creamy gray Petal Pushers from the Flowerista collection.

I love pairing light gray with mint… I think that when you wear certain lighter shades, like mint and some pastels, it’s good to toughen up your whole ensemble by throwing a more serious color into the mix, just to keep everything from going overly sweet, ya know? That’s what I’m hoping these nails are doing for this mint top and necklace.

Nails — Essie
Lips — Make Up For Ever Artist Plexi-Gloss in 103
Top — Loft
Necklace — Forever 21 (here’s something similar)
Bag — Kate Spade (here’s something similar)

P.S. They’re still pushin’ it! Pushin’ it real good…

I love that commercial! I would have no problem with Salt-N-Pepa showing up in an elevator with me. 🙂

Nails of the Day: Essie Flowerista (With a Guest Appearance by MAC Heroine Lipstick)

April 28th, 2015 by Karen 48 Comments

So purple that Prince would be majorly jelly!

There are many reasons to love Essie’s Flowerista Nail Polish ($8.50), but the main one is that it could totally hang with my favorite Tom Ford nail polish shade of all time, African Violet.

This dark, creamy purple isn’t an exact dupe, mind you. African Violet is a touch deeper, but if ya want the Tom Ford look without the steep price ($32 for African Violet), Essie’s Flowerista is an excellent alternative.

It’s also a stunner with bright purple lipsticks like MAC Matte Lipstick in Heroine. Purple lips + purple tips = purple power!

Flowerista is part of the new Essie Flowerista Spring Collection, available now at salons, Ulta, Target, Nordstrom stores and everywhere else Essie is sold.

P.S. Happy Tuesday to you! 🙂 I hope you’re having a good day so far.

With my employer’s help, for what his 20 pounds of tabby “muscle” is good for, I’ll be moving things around in my office in anticipation of those pink shelves arriving. Things have been slow going on the organizational front, but I’m finally making real progress, and it feels good.

Pretty soon I’ll even have some new paintings and pictures on my walls (I’ll take some pics and show you when they’re up). I’m really looking forward to that. I want to get some of those photo ledges, like these from Crate & Barrel, so that I can swap things out easily and keep the place looking new and fresh.

I can’t decide between the black or the white shelves…

P.P.S. What are you wearing on your nails? Inquiring, lacquer-obsessed minds want to know.

Nails of the Day: Essie Garden Variety

April 20th, 2015 by Karen 11 Comments

Irrespective of this super creamy, smooth, streak-free paw paint’s proper name, it’s not your garden variety creamy teal. Essie’s Garden Variety Nail Polish ($8.50) is so preternaturally pigmented that 1) it’s liable to make nearby flowers jealous, and 2) you can easily get away with wearing just one layer.

But I’m wearing two here (force of habit).

With a base and top coat, Essie polishes usually last me five or six days before I start to see any chips, but I’m pretty tough on my nails.

Garden Variety is part of the Essie Flowerista spring collection, available now at salons, Ulta, Target, Nordstrom and wherever else Essie is sold.

Oh! If you’re curious, the pants are the Destroyed Boyfriend Jeans by Blank NYC, and the bracelet is a random no-name bauble I’ve had for a while.

I like how it matches the polish. 🙂

What about your paws today? What are you wearing on your nails?

The New Essie Spring 2014 Fashion Playground Collection: This Fashion Playground Looks Good Outside, Like It Was Inspired by Mother Nature

March 18th, 2014 by Karen 50 Comments

A Fashion Playground?

Nay, I say it’s an equinox-icating spring feast for the eyes! Like spring distilled into nail polish bottles, except without the — AHCHOO! — allergies.

Pass the Zyrtec and Kleenex, please, because I do not want to sneeze all over these beautiful bottles.

Like butterflies, the six-piece Essie Spring 2014 Fashion Playground collection flitted onto counters earlier this month, and I treated my paws to ’em this morning (SKITTLES MANI!) before going for a walk…

It’s crazy just how springy these six shades seem, like the bright blue sky and the two blue shades, or the mint green and the budding leaves on the oak trees outside. There’s also a big cherry tree down the street, and the blossoms are spitting images of the peach and pink pastels. And then there’s the fire bougainvillea bush, which could have been painted by the bright red.

These colors totally say, “Hey, y’all, spring is in full effect!” to me. 🙂

Officially, fashion runways were supposed to have inspired this release, like vintage denim and oversized prints — that kind of thing — but my crazy makeup mind sees more Mother Nature’s influence than Michael Kors’. Like Team Essie sat down with Mother Nature and brainstormed over a few cups of really strong Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee in a caffeine-fueled frenzy, then BOOM! — someone in the art department mixed some acrylics at the table to come up with azure Hide & Go Chic, light denim Truth or Flare, pistachio Fashion Playground, peachy nude Spin the Bottle, crimson Style Hunter and pale tea rose Romper Room.

What to watch

Essie is well-known for their delicate nudes and pastels, and chances are good that if you walk into any nail salon that carries the brand, you’ll see pale pinks, peaches and beiges FOR DAYS.

OK, those are fairly great, but I always look forward to their blues and greens (see: Mojito Madness, Pretty Edgy, Naughty Nautical and Under the Twilight).

Over the past few years, Essie’s released quite a few jazzy blue and green shades I can remember, which is kind of funny considering that for years I thought of the line as specializing in dainty bridal nails — primarily pinks and nudes.

This time around, I think the blues and greens are again the colors to watch out for (at least for me).

Hide & Go Chic

If you get a chance, let your paws play with Hide & Go Chic, the dark creamy blue.

I mean, look at it! It’s so rich… So deep… And a single layer works just fine (even though I went with two to be consistent with the other shades).

I also think this is the one that’ll sing on the widest range of skin tones. It’s the people’s blue!

Truth or Flare

True or Flare, the lighter, vintage denim blue, definitely benefits from a second coat. On my NC42 skin, I feel like the color doesn’t reach out and grab you by the eyeballs as readily as Hide & Go Chic. I like it, but I have a feeling it’ll like lighter lasses best.

Fashion Playground

And then there’s the green… Fashion Playground. Described as a pistachio shimmer, it certainly sounds delicious to me. 🙂 But I get more of a straight-up mint cream, as the tiny flecks of silver glitter swimming in the formula are very hard to see.

At first glance, it resembles Essie’s Candy Apple, but upon closer inspection I think it’s sightly deeper and darker.

One may have to play with Fashion Playground a bit (Ha! Sorry, bad pun). Two thick coats deliver fully opaque coverage, but they have to be thick… With thinner coats, it can look a little streaky and require 3-4 layers.

The remaining colors — the bright red and two creamy pale shades — strike me as rather typical of Essie (I feel like I’ve seen shades like them before), which is neither good nor bad, but they don’t really light my fire like the blues and greens.

Style Hunter

Crimson Style Hunter leans, ever so slightly, toward magenta. This one should be a blast on toes, methinks. 🙂 One coat or two works well.

Romper Room

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The New Four-Piece Essie Resort 2014 Collection Offers Languid, Beachside Luxury for $8.50 a Bottle

January 16th, 2014 by Karen 15 Comments

I’ve been trying to put my finger (Get it? Ba-dum-tss!) on what it is I find so intriguing about the new Essie 2014 Resort collection.

I mean, it’s not the symphony of eye-catching brights Resort 2013 was. That one still makes my heart flutter (The mint green! The turquoise!), and yet I’m drawn to 2014 like a sailor to a mermaid’s song.

Yes, sweet siren, sweep me away…

Essie Resort 214 from the left: Resort Fling, Under the Twilight, Find Me an Oasis and Resort Fling — From the left: Resort Fling, Under the Twilight, Find Me an Oasis and Resort Fling

It’s gotta be something. Maybe it’s a combination of the way the mellow shades — the shimmery beige (It has silver sparkles swimming in it. SO CUTE!) and icy blue both contrast and coordinate with the brighter coral and deep plum.

The colors tell a tale of hills and dales, highs and lows, and I love that! This Resort is definitely not a one-note collection.

Typing away today, reading that word over and over again — resort — I find it difficult to stay in the moment. My thoughts keep wandering to other places, never mind that I’m sitting in front of a keyboard consuming large quantities of coffee and gnawing on a hunk of day-old sourdough bread. And forget that I’m wearing a crumb-covered wrinkled pink t-shirt with a picture of a tabby cat wearing glasses.

Resort… 🙂

I’d much rather be sipping cocktails by candlelight at a Ritz Carlton or dipping a painted toe into the salt water lagoon at the Kauai Grand Hyatt (I’ve always wanted to stay there).

No, those images are much better than the real life picture of grubby Karen currently sitting at her computer…

OK, I think I’ve got it! — what makes me like this collection so much. These understated shades are just so true to that resort lifestyle. Their beachside elegance would look right at home peeking out from under a cashmere blanket around a fun bonfire, or with tiny diamond-studded earrings and a bikini next to the hotel pool.

I’m crushing hard on icy blue Find Me An Oasis. It reminds me of the opaque white manicures I was seeing all over the place last summer, only more refreshing and resort-y. I love how smooth it is, too. Zero streaking. I’m wearing two coats in this pic.

Essie Resort Fling — Resort Fling (three coats)

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