MAC Cosmetics

Spellbound by MAC Strip Down: Whirl Matte Lipstick

April 17th, 2019 by Karen 12 Comments

mac whirl lip swatch — Taking MAC Whirl for a whirl…

Meet some of my favorite MAC nude shades this week from the MAC Strip Down collection.

Fun fact about MAC Whirl: Back in the day (as in pre-2015), Whirl, a dark matte brown with a tinge of rose, only existed as a lip pencil.

Way back before the dinosaurs ? disappeared, I used to outline my lips with Whirl pencil, fill them in, and then top everything off with Chapstick to create my own DIY Whirl lipstick.

Yeah!

In 2015, MAC finally turned this iconic color into a lipstick — the Whirl Matte Lipstick we know and love today.

I know there’s this whole thing that Whirl is a very “Kylie Jenner lips” color (as if she invented it ? ), and yes, it’s definitely one of those lipsticks that will help you get that specific look. In fact, whenever a friend asks me for a Kylie Jenner lips recommendation, first, I try not to outwardly groan… Then, I suggest MAC Whirl. But really, though, whenever I see Whirl, I think more of ’90s supermodels like Linda and Christy and Cindy. It has a very early Bobbi Brown chicness to it IMO, and I love ? it.

There’s also another reason why I love it… Because it’s similar to the color of my gums.

Yes, I realize that that is an odd thing to like about a nude lipstick, but I’m looking at my gums here, and it really is the color of my gums. (Side note: I’m not gonna show you my gums. Hi-res pics of my gums do not need to exist on the Internet.)

Maybe that’s why Whirl is the ultimate nude lipstick for so many people. It matches the color of their gums, ha ha ha! Anyway, here it is on lighter skin and darker skin.

mac whirl lipstick swatch — NC42, babes!

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Product Spotlight: The MAC Shiny Pretty Shadows From the Get Blazed Collection

April 16th, 2019 by Karen 5 Comments

mac glitz please closeup — Lids: MAC Shiny Pretty Shadow in Glitz Please with a little bit of MAC Soft Brown blended in the crease. Lips: MAC Mehr and Whirl Matte Lipsticks mixed together. Cheeks: Clinique Cupid Blush

“It’s classy. Not trashy!”

You may recall these glistening gems from your last buried treasure discovery…or from the last MAC Holiday collection, but if you don’t, or if you missed out the last time around, grab ye one from the new MAC Get Blazed collection. The glittery, glistening eyeshadows have a metallic base…which may sound a bit frightening if sparkly makeup isn’t your thing, but the glitter doesn’t go overboard, so they’re shockingly chic, fun and wearable (and NOT excessively frosty or ’80s).

Yup, even for daytime.

mac glitz please — What I’m wearing to volunteer at Connor’s preschool today. I’ll be “the glitter mom,” ha ha ha!

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Spellbound by MAC Strip Down: Mehr Matte Lipstick

April 15th, 2019 by Karen 18 Comments

Meet some of my favorite MAC nude shades this week from the MAC Strip Down collection.

DUDE, the world is your oyster when it comes to nude lipsticks. I mean, there are so many out there, right? But you know, when I think about the old-school, original nude lip look, I think of MAC.

I started wearing MAC in the ’90s, and that’s when I became aware that nude lips were totally a thing.

MAC has created so many iconic colors — colors that everybody rips off. Hello, old-school Whirl? We all know that Kylie was “deeply inspired” by it (don’t worry, I won’t go off on a Kardashi-tangent!).

I think MAC has some of the best of the best nude lipsticks because they have so many matches for the multitude of subtly different shades of bare lips out there, and you can see this in their “new-ish” nude lip collection, Strip Down, which is on the MAC site right now.

I call it new-ish because the first time I saw the product list, I thought, “Oh, I know Whirl!” and “Check out Paramount!” The collection is all about re-promotes, and most of them are O.G. greats.

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Glittery Unicorn Kisses…and a Look With the New MAC Get Blazed Collection (COMING APRIL 11TH)

April 9th, 2019 by Karen 24 Comments

mac dazzlepink dazzlegold — Dazzle Highlighter in Dazzlepink (top) and Dazzlegold (bottom)

The coywolf and I entertain the fanciful notion that every time you find a piece of glitter on your face, your body or really anywhere — and for some reason, this happens often, big surprise! — you were just kissed by a unicorn.

Indeed, if that holds true, then wearing anything glittery from the new MAC Get Blazed collection is tantamount to being kissed by an entire unicorn herd.

SO MUCH GLITTER!

mac p for pink sweet gleams kisses — A kiss from a baby unicorn

I wore a couple things from Get Blazed today — the Shiny Pretty Shadow in P for Pink, and the Bling Thing Liquid Lip Top Coat in Sweet Gleams — and I can say that nothing I’ve seen from this collection goes halfway. I tried to going for subtle with P for Pink and Sweet Gleams (mind you, as subtle as you can go with glitter…), so my lids and lips look relatively subdued here, but TRUST! — if you wanna look like you’re going to swing from the chandelier on a Tuesday night, by all means, you can get there, and you can get there so f a s t.

Faster than a speeding unicorn even.

Because there’s *a lot* of shimmer and sparkle in these products, and they don’t hold back.

A few MAC Get Blazed first impressions…

Shiny Pretty Shadow — This one has small- and medium-sized flecks of glitter swimming in an intensely pigmented metallic base. It has a creamy texture and is long-lasting, and there’s a little fallout…but not much.
Bling Thing Liquid Lip Top Coat — This is like a liquid glitter lipstick “top coat” in a sheer base. The lightweight mousse-y texture dries down and “hugs” your lips. It’ll also last you through a meal and drinks. It’s surprisingly not drying, although I wouldn’t exactly characterize it as moisturizing, either.
Dazzle Highlighter — This one is sensationally soft and creamy. The glitter isn’t an overspray, either. It’s a pigmented metallic base with medium and large pieces of glitter. I wouldn’t wear it as a highlighter (way too crazy for me), but it’s fun, though, if you’re going for statement cheekbones.
Bling Thing Liquid Lipcolour — Same mousse-y texture and lip-hugging effect as the Lip Top Coats. This one is intensely pigmented and even more intensely metallic. How VERY ’80s in the best way possible.

mac bling thing liquid lip top coat liquid lipcolour — A few of the Bling Thing Liquid Lip Top Coats (light gray caps) and Bling Thing Liquid Lipclours (black tops). From the left: Deliciously Disruptive, Discobelle, Sweet Gleams, Purple for Daze Commotion Motion

mac glitz please p for pink — Shiny Pretty Shadow in Glitz Please (top) and P for Pink (bottom)

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Unsolicited Life (and Lipstick) Tip

April 9th, 2019 by Karen 14 Comments

mac velvet teddy lipstick — So this just happened…

Unsolicited life tip: Do not keep your lipsticks in your pocket unless you want to sentence them to certain death.

I’m wondering if there’s such a thing as “makeup Mercury in retrograde?” Or am I just cursed to never have another tube of Velvet Teddy again? Because this is the second tube of MAC Velvet Teddy I’ve mangled in less than a week!

First there was the tube — which by the way, I’M NOT GOING TO USE — that fell in my toilet. I tossed it out and reordered a tube with the LE packaging from the MAC site. Side note: Breathing an internal sigh of relief *HERE*.

Anyway, yeah, that tube in the top pic was the backup I kept on hand for unforeseen Velvet Teddy emergencies (a legit fear), but it’s not in working order anymore because I put it in the pocket of my high-rise mom jeans last week and forgot about it, only to remember when I found it in the washer, completely soaked, after I’d just finished a load.

On the bright site, thank goodness it didn’t open while it was tumbling amidst the suds, or even worse, make its way into the dryer. And extra special thanks to the laundry goddesses for allowing me to find it, because I was washing, like, 100 pounds of laundry (seriously, #momlife), and I could have just as easily missed it.

Still, though, who destroys two tubes of the same exact lipstick shade in one week? This girl.

I’ve come to realize that the common denominator in both of these situations is that I’ve been putting lipstick in my pants pockets lately, which is something I almost never do.

I usually put lipstick tubes in my purse or my Kate Spade wristlet, but I guess I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off lately, so my pockets have been the (sadly unfortunate) receptacle of choice. Apparently, this has not been one of my greatest of ideas, because I CANNOT KEEP LIPSTICKS ALIVE WHEN I PUT THEM IN THERE.

So, that’s it… I’m no longer allowed to carry lipstick in my pocket. Not now, not ever.

I mean, you could stick them in your pocket if 1) you have a better memory than I do, and 2) have lightning reflexes that would allow you to catch a tube before it falls into the toilet, but I am no longer officially allowed to do that. No more!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Makeup Lovers…We’re All Artists! (And a Peek at the MAC eL Seed Collection in Action)

April 3rd, 2019 by Karen 10 Comments

I’ve had painting on the brain lately for two reasons — one, because I’ve been spending practically every free moment at Home Depot because we’re planning some much-needed repairs and updates to the house this summer, including painting the place from top to bottom, because when El Hub and I purchased our place and moved in about a decade ago, we had no idea what we were doing. We were first-time homeowners, and the whole process was (and still is kinda) a mystery. We painted the interior with a flat finish, but flat finish is not your friend when you live with a toddler and/or a perpetually ravenous tabby who eats with reckless abandon and gets gravy splashes on the walls. Go with eggshell, homie. Eggshell is the way! It’s so much easier to clean.

The second reason I’ve had painting on the brain lately is because of the new MAC eL Seed collection, which is coming out in a few days. It’s one of those LE releases that just feels so artsy to me, which I guess makes sense since it’s a collaboration with an artist. eL Seed is a Tunisian graffiti artist who was raised in Paris, and he’s famous for combining Arabic script with graffiti.

It gave me the urge to paint! — and not just because of the gorgeous eye and face palette…

mac el seed cicero full face kit — The Cicero Full Face Kit, which is mostly eyeshadows and two blushes (the pink shades)

It’s the brushes.

Ooh, the brushes… They’re unusually long for makeup brushes.

They look like legit painter’s brushes to me.

I was doing makeup with them the other day and got to thinking about how I forget all the time that makeup really *is* painting. When you think about it, it’s so much like what painters do when they put brush to canvas. You’ve got your pigments and paint, and when you sit down to buff and blend everything on the blank canvas that is your face, you paint a temporary work of art. It’s so cool!

Funny thing is, I never really thought of myself as an “art person.” When I was in high school, I was in band and played every instrument under the sun, so I was a total music nerd, and I was also on the newspaper, but the last true art class I took was in eighth grade (which I got a B+ in, by the way!). That’s the extend of my art training.

mac el seed swatches final — Swatches of the Cicero Full Face Kit (the two pink shades are blushes) and three of the Lipsticks — Declaring Love (pink), Maya La Belle (red) and Une Caresse (plummy brown)

So I don’t think of myself as an artist, but makeup is art! For a few minutes (almost) every day, as I’m painting my lids and my lips and everything else, I get to be in touch with my inner eighth-grade artist, or rather, ahr-teest.

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Mascara Is My Medieval Chain Mail

March 22nd, 2019 by Karen 41 Comments

mac extended play perm me up lash mascara — Remember when perms were cool?

To anyone who says that makeup is meaningless, or who dismisses makeup as something shallow or frivolous, all I have to say is, “Kiss my wannabe J.Lo booty,” because that sh*t is powerful.

Those tiny tubes of mascara and lipstick can change worlds.

I’ve worn makeup practically daily for decades, and sometimes I just go through the motions and take it for granted as part of my habitual routine, but there are those other days, like yesterday, when I really realize just how potent it is.

I was having a sh*tty day yesterday, as was Connor Claire, because poor thing is sick again. She got croup, again, so I’ve been tending to her needs, which has made it more difficult to balance my other responsibilities.

I don’t want to whine but…I’m going to! LOL! ? Basically, I haven’t been sleeping well because I’ve been staying up to comfort Connor, and it all kind of came to a head yesterday afternoon. I felt super grumpy and defeated, but I still wanted to go to my HIIT class at night, because I knew that if I continued to sit around the house, I’d feel progressively worse.

Normally, I don’t wear makeup to work out, and that’s mostly because I usually don’t have time to put any on. It’s not that I don’t want to, because I used to back in the day, but these days I look at the clock, and it’s like “OH, SNAP!” It’s all I can do to don stretchy pants and go.

But yesterday, even though I was running behind as usual, I said to myself, “Self, you need to do something.” I needed to put on my proverbial armor, lest I burst into tears in the middle of class mid-burpie.”

So I curled my lashes, put on the new MAC Extended Play Perm Me Up Lash curling mascara (It’s smudge-proof!), a little Urban Decay Naked Lipstick and, the piece de resistance, I combed my hair! I actually applied some hair paste, strong-hold hairspray on my cray-cray wiry witch hairs, combed my hair, and put it in a high pony.

Someone needs to invent flattering gym lighting…

Then I went to the gym, and ya know what? Even though I wanted to cry for the first 20 minutes, I swear to you, there was something about that little bit of makeup “armor” I was wearing — like the mascara was a suit of Medieval chain mail — that slowly but surely made me feel a little tougher. I said, “Ya know, I can get through this. I don’t have to be the toughest I’ve ever been, but I can make it through this workout without bursting into tears,” and I did. At the end of the class, I actually felt like pushing a bit. I felt really, really good.

mac extended play perm me up lash brush — I like a mascara brush with a curve.

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Let’s Bond Over Blush

March 13th, 2019 by Karen 47 Comments

flesh beauty blushes — Flesh Tender Flesh Blushes in Caress (top) and Glaze (bottom), $26 each

Can we please bond over blush? Because I have a new appreciation for its power.

It’s REALLY powerful!

This occurred to me last week while conducting the “just one thing” experiment. I realized that applying blush on a bare face was one of the things that made the biggest impact.

Every beauty article ever written on blush basically says the same thing — that blush makes you look healthy and vibrant — but like, really, when you don’t have other stuff going on with your makeup and your face is otherwise bare, you can REALLY see just how powerful blush is.

Yeah, I’ve been loving on my blush a little extra lately. ?

flesh beauty mac clinique blushes — Current blush crushes

I have a couple new favorites, and they’re from a brand called Flesh, which is the line by Allure magazine founder Linda Wells (launched last summer and available at Ultar), and the powder blushes are bomb! I’ve been going back and forth between Caress, which is a matte tan/warm brown (almost looks like a bronzer), and Glaze, which is a deep reddish coral with subtle gold shimmer. I’ve had extremely dry skin for a couple weeks because of winter, and because I’ve been using a retinol at night, but when I wear these powder blushes, which are ridiculously smooth, I can’t even see the dry patches.

flesh glaze — I’m wearing Flesh Tender Flesh Blush in Glaze.

They practically float on top of my skin above the flakes. It’s super cool. Both colors, by the way, are somewhat intense, so if you tend to be heavy-handed with your blush (which I do sometimes because I’m so used to doing makeup for flash photography), just so ya know, grab a makeup sponge or a buffing brush — basically whatever you use to buff down your foundation or concealer — and stipple the leftover base makeup on top of the blush. That should tone down the brightness and lift away any excess product. Or, just, you know…go in with a light touch. That’ll work too! LOL!

Don’t ask me why I only just figured this out right now, but I bought this empty six-pan MAC blush palette years ago, and it didn’t occur to me until last week (!) that you can actually remove the frame that holds the pans and stick your blushes directly into the palette.

DUH, KAREN!

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