Hourglass

The Awesome Hourglass Ambient Metallic Strobe Lighting Palette

September 26th, 2017 by Karen 14 Comments

When I finally enter Valhalla after my Viking funeral, I wanna be wearing rose gold Lucent Strobe Light from the Hourglass Ambient Metallic Strobe Lighting Palette ($62 and available meow) on my cheeks. My plan is to roll up to the afterlife lookin’ like Pat McGrath herself glowed my @ss up.

hourglass ambient metallic strobe lighting palette 2 — From the pan on the left: shimmery pink Absolute Strobe Light, shimmery gold Pure Strobe Light and shimmery rose gold Lucent Strobe Light

I could pat-pat-pat and blend-blend-blend these highlighting powders on my face-face-face all day-day-day, and I know that’s weird to say because, as you know, I’m not the biggest fan of metallic highlighter that wolf whistles and catcalls as you’re strutting down the street, but the metallics in this palette are magical. Yeah, they’re shiny, and yes, they’re bright, but the powder grains are almost imperceptible. They’re even finer than the particles in the BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed Powder Highlighters, and that results in a high beam glow that looks creamy and expensive. And that’s a rare find, my friend!

hourglass ambient metallic strobe lighting palette k2 — The lip is MAC Lipglass in N-U-D-E, and the eyes are courtesy of the Kevyn Aucoin making Faces Beauty Book.

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Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit – Volume 3

September 20th, 2017 by Karen 18 Comments

hourglass ambient lighting edit vol 3 top pic — Inspiring wannabe rappers everywhere: the new Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit Vol. 3 ($80)

Hourglass, Hourglass,
Your makeup kicks @ss.
Hourglass, Hourglass,
Face powders lit with all the sass.
Hourglass, Hourglass,
Prepare to drop some major cash!

They say that you should never give up on your dreams…but I don’t think they were referring to me and my dream of becoming M.C. Makeup, because I’m a sh*tty rapper! I might know all the words to most of Lil’ Kim’s songs, but that doesn’t mean they come out in the right order, haha.

This palette, though? — the new Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit – Volume 3? It IS coming out in the right order, because this is the third year in a row that Hourglass has done a palm-sized travel kit o’ powders for the holidays, and it’s numero three.

I love the first one, Vol. 1, and still use it all the time. The second one, however, I bought but soon returned because, even though I thought it was beautiful, it wasn’t right for my skin tone. It was too light.

Like the first one, Vol. 3 has six pans of face powder that I think will suit more skin tones than ever. It also looks pretty chic in that gorgeous rose gold packaging, but it should…because it’s $80.

hourglass ambient lighting edit vol 3 overhead — Top row, from the left: Finishing Powder in Diffused Light, Strobe Powder in Hypnotic Strobe Light (NEW) and Finishing Powder in Dim Light; Bottom row from the left: Bronzer in Luminous Bronze Light, Blush in Surreal Halo (NEW) and Blush in Pure Effect (NEW)

Of the six pans, three are re-promotes — Dim Light, Diffused Light and Luminous Bronze Light — and three are NEW! — Surreal Halo and Surreal Halo (which are blushes), and Hypnotic Strobe (a highlighter).

Both Surreal Halo and Pure Effect are darker and more intense than the colors in last year’s palette, which is potentially fantastic news for marvelous medium-toned mavens and darker damsels.

Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit – Volume 3: the six shades

Dim Light — This subtly luminous peachy beige can set your makeup, and it doubles as a highlighter. It creates that trademark Hourglass Ambient Powder sheen.
I dig this one. I’ve been using it as an all-over face powder and to set concealer.
Diffused Light — This warm pale yellow can set, highlight and conceal redness, but I can’t really work it now because I still have a tan from summer. For now at least, it’s borderline chalky on me.
Lighter lovelies are in luck, and I suspect that it’ll also work better for me as we get closer to winter.
Luminous Bronze Light — This medium tan has golden undertones and creates a subtle golden sheen. I think it works better as a bronzer than a contouring powder, but watch out — if I apply too much of it over large areas on my face, it looks muddy and kinda dirty (especially on my cheeks).
I much prefer Hourglass Radiant Bronze Light, which is warmer and more golden, but this one’s also very pretty if you get the amount right.
Surreal Halo Blush (NEW, exclusive to this palette) — This bright berry is absolutely GORGEOUS and creates a very natural flush. I don’t have anything else quite like it in my Hourglass collection.
I like applying it by doing big sweeps with a large fluffy brush because, for some reason, it looks REALLY good when you cover a lot of skin with it.
Pure Effect Blush (NEW, exclusive to palette) — This bright petal pink is brighter and more intense than the other pink Hourglass blushes out there.
I like layering it on top of Surreal Halo, where I’ll do a small pop of color on the apples of my cheeks. 🙂
Hypnotic Strobe Highlighter (NEW, exclusive to palette) — This shimmering champagne gold is great for subtle highlights.

hourglass ambient lighting edit vol 3 swatches — Swatch out! From the top: Finishing Powder in Diffused Light, Strobe Powder in Hypnotic Strobe Light (NEW), Finishing Powder in Dim Light, Bronzer in Luminous Bronze Light, Blush in Surreal Halo (NEW) and Blush in Pure Effect (NEW)

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Countdown to National Lipstick Day on July 29th! Hourglass Confession Ultra Slim High Intensity Refillable Lipstick

July 27th, 2017 by Karen 14 Comments

hourglass confession lipstick review — I love these new Hourglass lipsticks to bits.

Two more days ’til National Lipstick Day!

I must confess… Sometimes when I drink too much coffee, which I did today, I get so hyper that 1) I annoy myself, and 2) my hands get really sweaty, and when my hands get sweaty, I have a hard time opening the Hourglass Confession Lipsticks.

They look so cool, but man! — they’re slick.

hourglass confession lipstick packaging — A bullet you don’t want to dodge…

Shout-out to the person (or peeps) who decided to put these in bullet-shaped packaging, though. Very clever. 🙂 A bullet-shaped case with a lipstick bullet inside? Oh, the symbolism. The layers within layers. That kind of thing gets me every time (it’s the former English major in me).

hourglass confession lipstick refill — Oh, hai!

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Unsung Makeup Heroes: Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo in Explorer

June 6th, 2017 by Karen 10 Comments

hourglass explorer girl lip stylo — Praise be to coral lipstick! Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo in Explorer is errrrrrthang

The long-running Unsung Heroes series here on Makeup and Beauty Blog features some of our all-time favorite permanent collection products.

You know when you’re standing in the middle of Sephora, carrying as much as you can possibly carry in your paws, but you see one more coral lipstick that makes your eyes light up, and you think, “Oh, boy, I dunno… I’ve already got too much. Do I really need another coral lipstick??”

GIRL. The answer is yes. The answer is always yes. 🙂

I keep finding myself reaching for Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo in Explorer on my lady dates lately. It’s a soft pinkish coral. It’s not a super bright orange-y coral, so it doesn’t go into costume/vintage territory…which can be a totally kick-@ss look, for sure, but I have to be in the mood for it.

I think it’s an awesome everyday neutral.

The Girl Lip Stylos are $32 each, so they’re definitely on the expensive side, but if you have dry lips (which I do!), or, if you can’t stand it when your lipstick breaks up or gets patchy or latches on to your flakes, or if you just like easy-to-apply, low-maintenance lipsticks that you can throw on anywhere, even while you’re crossing Market Street in SF, which I totally did last weekend, they’re beyond great!

Creamy and oh, so hydrating, they feel fantastic on my lips (they’re unflavored and unscented, by the way), and they last about three hours.

Oh, and get this: even though I’ve owned Explorer for months and have worn it dozens of times, the pencil tip hasn’t flattened. It’s still pointy! I don’t know what kind of makeup voodoo is at work, but whatever Hourglass did, something is keeping the tip pointy.

hourglass girl lip stylo — Hourglass Girl Lip Stylos from the top: Believer, Creator, Explorer, Seeker and Peacemaker

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New From Hourglass for Summer 2017: The Ambient Strobe Lighting Blushes and Two New Shades of Ambient Lighting Bronzer

April 19th, 2017 by Karen 18 Comments

hourglass ambient strobe lighting blush bronzer — There’s a new line of Hourglass single pan blushes for summer and two new shades of Hourglass bronzer (available now online and coming soon to stores)

I think we should start a petition to promote ice cream ? as a legitimate dinner option. Because why not? It’s got protein and…calcium. It’s totally real food.

Thanks, Hourglass, for giving me an ice cream ? craving. All I can see when I look at these new bronzers and blushes from Hourglass is ribbons of caramel in rich chocolate. Mmm…

A new line of Hourglass blushes and two new shades of bronzer

Hourglass has some new things for summer, yay! This is epic news for me because they’re one of my all-time favorite high-end brands. Their products are pricey, but they work amazingly well, and they’re BEAUTIFUL. The brand carries things that you just can’t find anywhere else (like the Ambient Lighting Blushes and their Vanish Seamless Finish Foundation Sticks).

Now there’s a new line of super shimmery blushes (although we have seen them in a palette before) called the Ambient Strobe Lighting Blushes, which are $38 each and available in four shades, and two new $50 shades of Ambient Lighting Bronzer, bringing the new total up to four.

Hourglass Ambient Strobe Lighting Blush in Incandescent Electra (left) and Euphoric Fusion (right)

hourglass iridescent flash brilliant nude strobe lighting blush — Hourglass Ambient Strobe Lighting Blushes in Iridescent Flash (left) and Brilliant Nude (right)

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Speed Is the Name of the Game With Hourglass Voyeur Waterproof Liquid Liner

February 22nd, 2017 by Karen 15 Comments

It’s the Murphy’s Law of makeup. Whatever can go wrong with your winged liner, will go wrong with your winged liner, and that little kitten flick you intended to make morphs into a giant jungle cat of a flick extending from the outer corner to almost all the way behind your ear.

That said, it feels a little strange to talk about new $34 Hourglass Voyeur Waterproof Liquid Liner in the context of speed, and speediness, because, you know, “liquid liner” and “speediness” don’t often go together, but they do in the case of this liner. It makes quick work of liquid liner lines.

So, how does it do what it does? I dunno… It’s some kinda Hourglass hocus pocus.

A new addition to the permanent line, it’s a dark, true black liner with a shiny finish and a waterproof formula, and the color doesn’t have any blue or green undertones.

The tip reminds me of Tom Ford’s liner

The long, thin felt tip looks a lot like the tip of my holy grail Tom Ford liner, which is the main reason I was eager to give this liner a try, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s slightly stiffer (the Hourglass tip) and, because of that, the first few lines I drew with it were jagged, thick and, basically, out of control.

The tip took me a little while to figure out.

Use a light touch

Like, the lightest of light touches — we’re talking butterfly kisses. Once you get that down, it’s easy to quickly draw crisp lines with it in just a minute or two.

SO FAST!

And I think that the intensity of the black color lends to its quickness, along with how readily the liquid dispenses from the pen tip. Even that seems faster than usual for liquid liner.

I mean, it doesn’t gush out like a liquid geyser or anything, but if you press too hard… Not good. Your lines will look thick and jagged.

If, on the other hand, you use a light touch with it, it’s easy to get those perfect, opaque crisp lines.

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The New Hourglass Girl Lip Stylos, Part 2: Yeah, I’m Lovin’ These Lighter Shades

January 16th, 2017 by Karen 16 Comments

hourglass creator — Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo in Creator, one of 20 shades in the new $32 Girl Lip Stylo line

How far would you go for the perfect nude lipstick? What would (or wouldn’t) you do? To what ends would you traverse?? Girl, because I know I’d go far! I’d wake up from a dead sleep at the witching hour, and THEN walk several miles, uphill, both ways, IN THE SNOW, to find a perfect nude lipstick.

I’m dedicated to mah nudes! And the one thing I want from them more than any other? — that they play nicely with my lip lines and don’t settle in them.

Well, that and that they don’t make me look half dead… You know what I’m talking about. Those nude lipsticks that wash you out, and make you look like a throwback to Michael Jackson’s Thriller video?

hourglass girl lip stylo part 2 — Batch #2 of the new $32 Hourglass Girl Lip Stylos (here was batch #1)

I’m so happy that this second batch of 10 new Hourglass Girl Lip Stylos — the nudes, pinks, peaches corals and browns — is just as smooth and pigmented as the 10 bolder, brighter colors we looked at the other day. They’re fantastic!

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The New Hourglass Girl Lip Stylos, Part 1: Shiner and Creamier Than the Femme Nudes

January 14th, 2017 by Karen 25 Comments

Good morning, glory! I was thinking last night after reading your comments on the last post that I may not need a treadmill very soon, since I’ll just be chasing the coywolf around the house all day long.

After I put her down last night, I made these easy “healthy” cookies. “Healthy” in quotes. But they’re actually pretty healthy. You take a cup of oatmeal blended in a food processor, 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, two (super ripe) mashed bananas and 1/2 a cup of chocolate chips. Then, cook on a baking sheet at 350 for 15 minutes. Yum! We had them for dessert while we watched Hidden Figures, which was really good. I won’t mind if Connor decides that she wants to be a mathematician for SpaceX or NASA. ?

In other news…lip crayons are having a moment this spring, right? Chanel came out with a line of them, Clinique has their new Crayola Chubby Sticks, and now Hourglass has these $32 Girl Lip Stylo Crayons.

This post is a look at 10 of the 20 available shades (second batch coming up soon).

Do you remember the Hourglass Femme Nude Lip Stylos?? They came out a while ago… Well, these new Girl Lip Stylos have the same style packaging — a pointy tip and a twist-up lipstick in crayon form. I’m sure you’ve seen the same idea before.

How are the Girl Lip Stylos different from the Femme Nude Lip Stylos?

First off, the Girl Lip Stylos have a wider range of colors (and more bold shades), and they’re shinier (I’d call it a luster finish), slicker and smoother. The Femme Nudes have more of a satin finish, so they aren’t quite as shiny.

The Girl Lip Stylos are also creamier than the Femme Nudes — more like a MAC Cremesheen or a Chanel Rouge Coco Shine — so they have that slippery, balm-like texture.

Color and formula

Every single one of the 10 faintly vanilla-scented shades here (there are 20 shades total; stay tuned for swatches of the second batch soon) applies smoothly, and I only need a couple swipes because of how pigmented they are. None of them — not even the brightest of the brights or the darkest of the dark — settle into my lip lines or get jammed up in my flakes.

hourglass girl lip stylo activist — Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo in Activist

hourglass girl lip stylo inventor — Hourglass Girl Lip Stylo in Inventor

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