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Just For Fun

Sundays With Tabs the Cat, Makeup and Beauty Blog Mascot, Vol. 511

July 22nd, 2018 by Karen 11 Comments

Yesterday, July 21, was a day that will live in infamy. Just as we feared, the feud between Harris the cat and Tabs finally boiled over. Early yesterday morning, while Tabs was doing his rounds and checking all the office doors and windows, he spotted a suspicious long-haired brown tabby through the sliding glass door in the employee lounge. The tabby was canoodling up to the corporate barbecue.

Without approval.

It was a gross violation of company policy, and Tabs, as CFO (Chief Feline Officer) of Tabs the Cat Industries LLC, knew he had to act. Immediately, Tabs poofed up his tail, raised up on his haunches, and proceeded to mewl at the top of his lungs, but Harris was undeterred. He taunted Tabs through the window, faux-nonchalantly licking his paw and kitty hugging the barbecue.

This standoff continued for 20 minutes until eventually Harris wandered off, but it highlighted serious problems with company security.

This morning, by executive order, Tabs created the new Division of Inconsiderate Varmint Arrest, or D.I.V.A., a new special feline forces squad, and he personally conducted the first patrol himself.

[Continue reading…]

There are 11 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun, Tabs

Saturday Surfing, July 21st, 2018

July 21st, 2018 by Karen 23 Comments

saturday surfing karen mirror

I wonder, does anybody ever just say peace-the-eff-out to under-eye concealer?

OK, peeps…deep makeup thoughts right now, because if I don’t distract myself this morning, I’m going to sit here thinking about the three hairline cracks I just found on my iPhone screen, in which case I risk becoming stuck with a permanent crabby Filipino grandma frown for the rest of my life.

*SIGH!* In 10 years that $169 screen repair fee (OY VEY) won’t matter, Karen. 🙁 It won’t matter. Just keep telling yourself that…

So, concealer. Mine has been giving me major trubs lately, and I’m starting to think that not wearing it anymore might be a viable option.

Is that crazy? I’m almost at the point where I’d rather look a little tired than have to contend with my under-eye area looking crêpe-y, heavy and straight-up dire. My once trusty combo of Make Up For Ever Ultra HD Concealer and NARS Translucent Crystal Pressed Powder is doing nothing for me now.

I KNOW.

And I’ve tried all my usual tricks to fix it — a different eye cream, blotting my skin before applying makeup, different primers, mixing in a couple drops of oil, couple drops of an illuminator — nothing has worked. The area just looks thick and heavy.

Hmm… Now that I think about it, it could be because I’ve been wearing minimal base makeup lately, and the full-coverage under-eye concealer effect is contrasting too much with my tinted moisturizer.

That, or the universe just hates me, ha ha! Freakin’ beauty gods and their HIL-AR-I-OUS sense of humor…

I wonder if I should just completely stop wearing under-eye concealer. A few makeup artists have told me that my dark circles really aren’t that bad in the grand scheme of things. Maybe the intense darkness I see in the mirror is all in my head? I am my toughest critic. I recognize that.

My plan is to dip my toe in the water, so to speak, with some tinted moisturizer this weekend. I’m not ready to quit concealing cold turkey, but I’m going to try blending some tinted moisturizer up into those inner corners instead of concealer, wear that around for a bit, and try not to scare any small children. We’ll see how I feel by Sunday night.

Anyway, has this thought ever crossed your mind? Have you ever thought about quitting concealer? Or have you quit it already?

Saturday Surfing: Interesting tidbits I came across this week

  • This is what makeup packaging looked like in ancient Egypt.
  • Despite its name, “dragon’s blood,” a trendy skin-care ingredient being lauded for its healing and calming properties, isn’t derived from actual, ya know, dragons. It comes from trees! — tree sap, to be precise.
  • Take a peek behind the curtain at the creative process of makeup artist Peter Philips, creative and image director for Christian Dior Beauty (and former creative director for Chanel), and how he puts together fantasy-themed makeup looks for the couture runway.
  • Here are the products hair stylists recommend for doing at-home color.
  • Hunter Harris, the author of this piece, firmly believes that more movies should portray teenage girls with skin that looks like real skin — pimples and all — and I agree. From the post:

    “It feels important, then, that in the age of Glossier, the last year has presented two adolescent heroines whose skin isn’t pristine. In Eighth Grade, out this week, and last year’s Lady Bird, we get to see two misfits whose skin looks like the skin of someone actually in high school…Lady Bird’s cheeks, pockmarked with pimples, were the first thing I noticed about Lady Bird when I saw it. In that first scene, mother and daughter are in the car, driving home from a college visit, when a familiar fight erupts: Is everything her parents have worked to provide her wasted on her? Lady Bird rolls her eyes and looks out the window. You can see, ever so slightly, a constellation of brownish spots imperfectly masked with cover-up. I thought it was a mistake at first, but there they were in every scene: This was a real girl, with skin like mine.”

  • This October 20th and 21st in Los Angeles, Sephora will be hosting its first-ever interactive beauty event — SEPHORiA. It’ll be two days of immersive, interactive physical and digital experiences and activities (along with plenty o’ products, obvs).

    You So-Cal girls and guys are so lucky. Frankly, I’m shocked that they didn’t want to host it in Novato! Ha ha ha.

  • If your mom tells you that at 10 years old you’re too young to wear press-on stiletto nails, here is your solution.
  • Thinking about buying a designer knockoff? Maysa Razavi, an attorney with the International Trademark Association, says that bargain hunters may not realize that they could be funding organized crime, and that “…the same people who are counterfeiting are involved in human trafficking and terrorism.”

    Side note: I just re-watched the Sex and the City episode where the girls go to Los Angeles for vacation, and Samantha and Carrie go to “The Valley” to buy a fake Fendi bag.

  • The author of this piece celebrates her wrinkles: “I’ve raised three children, run two marathons, maintained a career more than three decades, collected a beautiful group of friends and now have the pleasure of enjoying five fabulous, fantastic grandchildren. It’s been a wonderful life, and I’ve got the wrinkles to prove it.”


This is my friend Shannon’s band… And her lips in so many fun colors!


If all my upper division science classes were set to rap music, I’d probably have a PhD in chemistry right now.


I’m anxiously waiting for the day when accordions make their way into popular music.

What are you doing this weekend? We opted against camping for now, but maybe a little later in the season. We literally don’t have any gear at all — no tents, sleeping bags, camp stoves, nothing. So, have to figure out what kind of camping we want to do first.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

There are 23 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun

Do You Enjoy Watching Pimple Popping Videos?

July 20th, 2018 by Karen 14 Comments

*** WARNING: GROSSNESS FOLLOWS ***

Do you ever watch those pimple popping videos on YouTube by Dr. Pimple Popper?! (And do you like them?)

Every once in a while, a Dr. Pimple Popper vid will pop up on my Facebook feed, and inevitably I’ll fall into the rabbit hole of explosive cysts and buried 35-year-old blackheads.

Apparently, these videos are SO popular that Dr. Pimple Popper now has her own reality TV show.

UGHHH!!! The bumps on my upper arms tingle and crawl just thinking about it. It’s not like I actively seek out these videos, but once I’m there, seriously, I CANNOT LOOK AWAY.

What about you? Pimple popping videos?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Ah! TGIF!! 🙂 I’m so looking forward to sleeping in and just relaxing this weekend. We’ve been thinking about going camping one of these weekends (well…I’ve been thinking about glamping, with a cabin and running water, but El Hub prefers the camping variety). Do you have any creature comfort camping tips? What makes it more enjoyable for you?

There are 14 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun

What Are Some Pricey Skin Care Products You Love?

July 19th, 2018 by Karen 28 Comments

clarins extra firming
Ah, so good!

GIRL. Don’t even get me started…but here we go. Saving drugstore/budget options for another day!

  • Clarins Face Moisturizers — My combination skin likes all of them. ? ‘Tis a blessing (because it’s always great to find something that doesn’t break you out, right?) and a curse. Their face moisturizers range from $48-128. Right now I’m using (and just about to run out of) the Extra Firming Day and Extra Firming Night creams, which are $87 and and $93 each, respectively.
  • SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic Antioxidant Serum — It’s $166 (!), but a few years ago when my skin was at its wonkiest and I found this and started using it consistently, it worked wonders. It dramatically helped to even out the uneven spots and the dark marks from old pimples.
  • Sunday Riley Good Genes All-In-One Lactic Acid Treatment — $158!! But IMHO, worth every penny if you can spring for it, especially if you’re looking for something to correct unevenly pigmented areas, or if you’re having trubs with pimples or flaky texture.

What about you? What are some pricey skin care products you love?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

There are 28 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun, Skin Care Keywords: chanel

What Are 9 Makeup/Beauty Things You’ve Never Tried Before?

July 18th, 2018 by Karen 10 Comments

Teeth whitening? Microblading? Bird ? poop facials? Bleaching your hair? Wearing a wig? A mani or a pedi? I’m asking ’cause this video of 9 things Mariah Carey has never tried before (removing a stain with a Tide Pen, really MC? How is that possible when you have two kids?) got me thinking…

What are some things — popular or otherwise (fish pedicure, anyone?) — you haven’t tried?

Here are nine of mine…

9 makeup/beauty things I haven’t tried before

  1. I’ve never tried a spray tan.
  2. I’ve never tried an eyelash perm, although I really want to! (I hear it’s life changing.)
  3. I’ve never tried applying a glitter face mask, mostly because I feel like, what’s the point of having glitter in a face mask anyway? If I’m gonna have glitter in a mask, that glitter better do something, like moisturize or exfoliate.
  4. I’ve never tried clip-in bangs! I want some, though, for when those random urges to cut my bangs strike.
  5. I’ve never tried a fish ? pedicure and don’t think I ever will because it looks really ticklish.
  6. I’ve never tried eye lash extensions
  7. I’ve never tried hair extensions.
  8. I’ve never tried getting my brows microbladed.
  9. I’ve never tried wearing a sheet mask in public!

Your turn. What are some makeup/beauty things you’ve never tried before, and are any of them things you really want to try one day soon? Inquiring minds want to know.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

There are 10 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun

What’s Your Makeup Nightmare?

July 17th, 2018 by Karen 16 Comments

foundation drawer
A little obsessed.

I’ve had this on my mind since my buddy Yelena and I were chatting in the comments last week about the stuff of our makeup nightmares. Yelena’s is a world without brow products, and yeah…I have to admit, that would be pretty crappy, especially for my right brow, a.k.a. my “ghost brow,” a.k.a. the brow that disappears into oblivion.

My makeup nightmare scenario, however, is a world without every single option under the sun for glowing skin, because I can’t imagine my foundation drawer with, like, only one option! *shudders*

Some days I want a little shimmer; some days I want more matte; some days I want more coverage; and some days I want less… I quite love having lots of choices on any given day. I’ve morphed into a foundation junkie, I guess.

Don’t get me wrong — I still LOVE color and wearing lots of it on my eyes, cheeks and lips, but there’s just something about skin that looks like real skin that I find so satisfying these days… Go figure!

Anyway, please don’t ever, EVER take away my foundations. It would break my ❤️ heart!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

There are 16 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun, Makeup

Makeup and Beauty Blog Monday Poll, Vol. 533

July 16th, 2018 by Karen 59 Comments

k pool monday poll pic
Thinking about all the kittens I wish I could hug

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Good question! It isn’t, contrary to its name, an actual poll. It’s just a list of five more or less random questions I’ve been posting on this blog every Monday morning for the past gazillion years (more than 10!). I love reading your answers, and it helps me get my week off to a great start. ?

1. Where do you usually put on your makeup?

It really depends on the light and what time of day it is, but I usually do it in the same place I write, which is my office at home upstairs. The light from my office window is nice and bright until about 4. Then it gets a little too dark. Any time after that, and I’m probably doing my makeup on the floor in my bedroom.

Oh, and my car! (In the passenger seat, of course.) I am forever putting on makeup in a moving vehicle, it seems!

2. Which would you rather do — an eyelash perm (a.k.a. a lash lift), eyelash extensions or eyelash tint?

Eyelash perm in a heartbeat, because even though I love the idea of extensions, I just know that having that little bit of extra weight on my lashes would drive me crazy.

3. Do you have any psychic abilities?

Other than the ability to psychically predict precisely when my cat gets up to no good? Nope.

But before my tabby sense goes off…the house gets eerily quiet — like the calm before a storm — and then, BOOM. A tiny tabby paw comes out of nowhere and pulls your sandwich off the living room table!

4. Something you’d like to eat today?

I’d love a chopped salad with a hunk of fresh bread and a tall glass of unsweetened iced tea to wash it down.

5. Have you ever taken in a stray?

So many times! All of my animal companions and I have found each other through the randomness of the universe, but the biggest love, the greatest love, will always be Tabs. He’s my once-in-a-lifetime cat.

Thoughts on books: e-books or the old-fashioned kind?

Last night before bed I started a new book I checked out from the library, and as I was flipping through the pages to look for pictures or maps (does anyone else do this?!) I got to thinking about whether people still like reading “old-fashioned books” — ya know, the ones with pages! I have a Kindle and even though I’ve used it and liked it just fine, there’s something about feeling the weight of a book in my hand and the pages as I flip through them that I like so much more than scrolling with my finger on a screen. I might be old school that way though. Which do you prefer?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Question time! Here are they are to copy/paste with your answers in a comment. Talk to you soon.

1. Where do you usually put on your makeup?
2. Which would you rather do: an eyelash perm (AKA lash lift), eyelash extensions, or eyelash tint?
3. Do you have any psychic abilities?
4. Something you’d like to eat today?
5. Have you ever taken in a stray?

There are 59 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun

Sundays With Tabs the Cat, Makeup and Beauty Blog Mascot, Vol. 510

July 15th, 2018 by Karen 4 Comments

Sunday is summer fun day at Chateau Tabby, and even though Tabs takes his role as CFO (Chief Feline Officer) of Tabs the Cat Industries LLC seriously, that doesn’t mean feline fashion has to suffe, so today Tabs sported his new summer fun collar on this morning’s security patrol.

You know Tabs. He always finds a way to mix business with pleasure. 🙂

In fact, Tabs was actually hoping the paparazzi would come around today because he felt particularly fetching, but no such luck. It was an uneventful patrol, which is good I guess, because the last thing I need is to do is break up another feline fight club.

What do you think of the new collar?

Tabs is contemplating making these mandatory for all employees throughout the rest of summer.

I’m lobbying to allow an exception for the humans…

[Continue reading…]

There are 4 comments on this post. Leave yours.

Categories: Just For Fun, Tabs

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Welcome to Makeup and Beauty Blog! My name is Karen, and I’m a freelance writer obsessed with makeup.

Makeup and Beauty Blog features daily product reviews, makeup tips and beauty news — like an interactive version of a monthly print magazine, except with occasional pictures of my cat.

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