Make Up For Ever

Where’s home base? For my eyebrows, most of the time it’s at the corner of MAC Concrete Eyeshadow and the 266 Small Angle Brush, but over the past couple of weeks, the new Make Up For Ever Aqua Brow ($20 and available in seven shades) and I have stamped some pretty impressive locations in our makeup passport, from a series of treadmill sessions in a sweltering room, to a blisteringly hot blacktop parking lot where a pack of food trucks roam, to a humid East Bay afternoon.

No matter how hot, sticky or overheated I got, Aqua Brow didn’t budge, even when I was bathed in sweat from head to toe after daydreaming about Jeremy Renner a rough 6-mile run.

From the left: #25 Ash, #35 Taupe and #40 Brown Black

Make Up For Ever made this brow-filling gel for makeup artists, but you and I can use it, too. 🙂 Designed to fill, define and intensify brows with a concentrated waterproof formula able withstand hot summer days and sudden thunderstorms, it comes in a tube and dries to a powder with a satiny finish.

A tip for the three dudes who read MBB (bless your hearts!), you can use Aqua Brow to fill in mustaches and sideburns, too.

MUFE claims the essential oils and carnauba wax (palm wax) they used render Aqua Brow virtually melt-proof.

All seven shades join MUFE’s permanent line next month, with #10 Light Blonde, #15 Blonde and #25 Ash heading to Sephora stores (but they’re available now online) and Make Up For Ever Boutiques; and #20 Light Brown, #30 Dark Brown, #35 Taupe and #40 Brown Black coming exclusively to Make Up For Ever Boutiques.

So far my brows and I have tried #25 Ash, #35 Taupe and #40 Brown Black. I think that Ash, while a tad lighter than my natural brow color, matches my dyed hair pretty well, and if you’re a brunette, it should work well for you, too.

From the left: #25 Ash, #35 Taupe and #40 Brown Black

Before (left) and after application of #25 Ash (right)
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Wearing the new Make Up For Ever Aqua Cream in 23 Acid Green

I feel like in summer we should all get passes to go completely buck wild with our eye makeup, no matter what we’re doing or where we are.

I mean, we can do that now — wear whatever we want — but there are social mores, workplace policies and dress codes, and those are what the passes would cover. 🙂

Want/need to run to Trader Joe’s for an emergency box of Mango Bars, but you glance in the mirror and notice that oops! — you’re wearing bright yellow eyeshadow all over your lids? No problem, because you’ve got the pass.

When I started getting into eyeshadow in my 20s, I only wore two colors, brown or beige — unless I was feeling extra adventurous, in which case I’d spice things up with a soft seashell pink, haha.

Hello, change. My name is Karen.

The old 20-something me probably wouldn’t even recognize the 30-something me who groans like a brain-hungry zombie and makes grabby hands in the air when she sees bright products like the four new Make Up For Ever Aqua Creams in 23 Acid Green, 24 Yellow, 25 Pastel Blue and 26 Purple ($23 each).

“Brains! Brains! — No, I mean shimmer! SHIMMER!”

Please tell me you’ve experienced the nirvana that is the mighty Aqua Cream. If you have not, joy awaits.

These potted creams, which first appeared back in 2010, are some of my absolute favorite products in the Make Up For Ever line. They come in a ton of colors and finishes now, too — some for Eyes and Cheeks, others for Lips and Cheeks — and all of them have the same special ability.

Once you get them on your skin, they DO. NOT. MOVE.

Special evaporating oils help the pigments stick to skin, rendering them smudge-proof, waterproof and sob-proof.

Clockwise from the yellow pot on the lower left: 23 Yellow, 23 Acid Green, 25 Pastel Blue and 26 Purple

Seriously, you could have a nervous breakdown at an ATM machine, not that I’d know anything about that (“Holy crap, did you just eat my card?! A Windows blue screen — are you kidding me? FREAKING MICROSOFT!”), and your shadow would still look as fresh as a daisy.

So yeah. Love these things. 🙂

These four new summer shades, all of them for eyes and cheeks, might look a little cray in their pots, but babe, the second I got that first batch of swatches on my arm, I wanted to smear them all over my body like a technicolor tart (I suppose this is how some folks feel at Burning Man after one too many special brownies in the body painting tent).

To be blunt, they’re beyond bright!

Swatches from the left: 23 Yellow, 23 Acid Green, 25 Pastel Blue and 26 Purple

26 Purple
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I was lying awake in bed the other night, nestled like the insomnia meat in the middle of an epic El Hub/Tabs snoring sandwich, when I thought, “It’s bad enough that El Hub snores, but when did Tabs start?”

As I lay there, wide awake, I wondered a great many things…like are there Breathe Right strips for cats? And if there are, I bet they look pretty funny.

It occurred to me that maybe that’s what I could do when I grow up, be the inventor of Kitty Breathe Right Strips, because I still don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life.

I started ticking off a list of things I know to be true. 1. Tabs loves gravy, 2. Nutella and asparagus taste terrible together, 3. the world really didn’t need a sequel to Honey…

I must have dozed off somewhere around 3-4 in the morning, only to wake up a few hours later, more than a little cranky and with zombie-fied eyes.

Some serious eye-brightening action was in order.

I grabbed my iPhone (“Siri, remind me to research cures for insomnia!”) and peered into my makeup bag…

That’s when I saw it — Make Up For Ever’s new nude brightening Eye Prime ($22), the brand’s very first eye primer.

A magical brew of waxes and fixing polymers that, according to MUFE, creates a smooth, long-lasting base upon which to apply other eye makeup products. The supposedly universally flattering nude shade (for every skin tone) is also supposed to brighten while amplifying eye makeup colors and reducing creasing, and it’s designed to work with everything, from powder eyeshadows, to cream eyeshadows, liners, and basically the whole gamut of eye makeup deliciousness.

Well, hello, bright eyes. 🙂

Turn around, bright eyes… Every now and then I fall apart! And I need you more tonight! And I need you more than evuh!

(Sorry. Spontaneous ’80s sing-a-long moment.)

Unblended (left) and blended (right)
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