Just For Fun

So…what is the Monday Poll?

Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 10 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine.

1. What would no one guess about you?

Hmm… That I love to bake! ??? I used to do it more than I do nowadays, but I still do it on occasion.

I’d do it more if my friends and family would eat my food, LOL! I mean, not to say that it doesn’t taste good (at least I think it tastes OK!), but there was a point in time when I was literally baking multiple cakes every weekend because I thought it was so much fun to do, and then I’d give all of my baked goods away to my friends, folks and my brother, but eventually they were like, “You need to stop because we’re all gaining weight.”

I just love the act of baking. I love the precision and the artistry, and how it’s a combination of science and art. I dunno…

Plus, you get something yummy to eat at the end, and how could you not love that?

2. Your thoughts on purple eye makeup?

I strongly believe that purple is a “do,” and everyone sitting here has to try using at least one purple liner. I recommend MAC Prunella as that liner.

It’s not an in-your-face purple, though. It’s more of a deep plum, and the reason why everyone needs to try purple at least once IMO is because it enhances practically every eye color out there — especially blue, brown and hazel. Purple is the stuff!

It’s also the color of royalty, AND Prince loved it too.

3. What gets you up in the morning?

Sheer force of will, haha!

OK, if we’re being literal, then the answer is “my alarm clock,” also known as Tabs. He’s so vocal now in the morning, and when he isn’t meowing, he’s biting me to get up. LOL!

What also gets me up is knowing that the baby will get up at a certain time, which means that I have that before she gets up to myself, and it’s when I feel mentally fresh, so I know that I can get a lot of writing done.

I used to hate waking up at 5:30, but now I’m like, “I’m getting up, and we’re DOING THIS.”

Also, coffee helps. A lot.

4. I think one should always be__________.

I think one should always be ready with a change of shoes, because you never know when the pair you’re wearing will start hurting your feet, and yes, I know this from experience.

5. Something you just started doing that’s making your life better?

Let me think here… Well, I just started decorating my living room. It’s been slow progress, but it’s definitely progress.

For the longest time… I mean, I’ve lived in this condo for years, and I haven’t wanted to seriously decorate because I have a major fear of furniture commitment. I just get so overwhelmed by the choices.

Someone in the comments here on MBB suggested starting with one thing — and in this case that thing was my new couch — and then build from there with things that you like, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I got a few lamps last weekend and grabbed some pillows with fall colors (wine, orange, gold) for the couch. It’s coming along. 🙂

Happy Halloween Eve/Monday!

Rise and shine, morning gory (haha)! Are you dressing up this week? And do the people where you work get into the spirit? I think it’s so cool when people at work dress up for Halloween.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy and paste.
1. What would no one guess about you?
2. Your thoughts on purple eye makeup?
3. What gets you up in the morning?
4. I think one should always be__________.
5. Something you just started doing that’s making your life better?

I’m wondering if I’m the only person who does this, but during the workweek, I mostly drink either decaf or half-caf coffee, because while full-on coffee helps me get a lot of stuff done, it makes me super jittery, and when I’m sitting there trying to put my thoughts together or do something like write, I just can’t handle it sometimes. There’s no outlet for all of the buzzing going on in my body and my head.

But on the weekends? On Saturdays? Girl, I drink the real stuff. 🙂 Because on Saturday, I feel like, OK, it’s my free day. I can do whatever I want, and real coffee is gonna get me through it.

I mean, there are so many things I want to do today! — other than the usual boring house chores that gotta get done. So many looks I wanna try, stores I want to visit, books I want to read. I dunno!

Speaking of that, I have to tell you about my new Saturday coffee. It’s nothing super fancy. El Hub got me addicted to it, but it’s called Folger’s Simply Smooth, and it’s just… I don’t know if I’ve gotten used to the bitterness of Starbucks and Peet’s coffee, but this Folger’s Simply Smooth isn’t bitter or tangy at all. It’s mild and not acidic, so it doesn’t hurt my tummy at all. Even if you make it VERY strong, it still doesn’t have too much bite.

I just had a sip… Ahhh! It’s so good.

By the way, I’m drinking it from another over-sized cat teacup I recently found at Marshalls. I’m slowly amassing a mismatched tea set of these cat tea cups, haha!

It’s by Portobello by Inspire, and it says “Home is where my cat is,” and there are all these little kitty cats on it! The only thing is, it didn’t come with a matching saucer, though, like my Roy Kirkham mug.

I love drinking out of this cup because when you get to the bottom, there’s an illustration on the inside of a little ball of yarn and silhouettes of kitties with crooked tails. And when I drink out of this cup, Connor always comes by and says, “Cat! Cat!” and points at the cat drawings on the side. It’s so cute.

While I proceed to drink this coffee and melt into blissful oblivion, I’m also going to read more of Cocoa Beach. 🙂 If you need some morning reading material, here are some stories that caught my eye this week.

• Be sure you’re within range of your fainting couch when you peep the vintage makeup compacts in this post. They’re to die for!
• Excited about this! — the new Kérastase Aura Botanica line is 98% natural and silicone-free.
• Here are some products that will last through crying, kissing and everything in between, according to the makeup artist for Jane the Virgin (I marathon’d the first two seasons and thought it was hilarious).
• In case you were unaware, tarot is trending, and Dior predicted it months ago.
• I mean, do you really need to ask? But just in case you were wondering why your cat is giving you the cold shoulder…
• Covergirl is revamping its marking with brand ambassadors who represent a mix of ethnicities and ages (!). All I have to say about that — it’s about damn time a 69-year-old was featured in a beauty campaign.
• Halloween and candy didn’t always go hand in hand, which is craziness to me!
• I’ve been following CRISPR. It’s one of the biggest science stories of the decade, and here’s a simple guide to everything you need to know about it.
• Inner mantras (hey, I have a few!) are powerful things. Here’s how fitness mogul Robin Arzon used them to thrive after a near-death experience, and transform herself into a one-woman fitness brand.
• I love this video of sixth-grade girls rapping about academic success.
• Long-lasting lipsticks, starting at $9
• How to banish butt acne (Don’t laugh, I know you’ve had it before! I totally have.)
• I’m feeling the purples and plums in the Natasha Denona Lila Eyeshadow Palette.
• If you can, marry a man who will go to Sephora so he can learn how to apply your makeup after you lose your vision.
• If you shopped on the Tarte website between 2008 and 2017, your personal info may have been compromised in a recent data breech.
• Desperately seeking this Colombian nail polish brand because it supposedly doesn’t chip.

Have a great day, and oooh! — tell me what kind of coffee you have in your cupboard right now. What’s your favorite blend and brand?

OK, bye!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

As if I needed another reason to love my local library. Beyond the fact that, you know, you can check out 50 books in one fell swoop — which is craziness to me! — they have a gratitude wall with, like, Post-Its and pencils, and you write what you’re grateful for and pop it on the wall. Of course, being the list-loving makeup enthusiast that I am, I had to add my own special flava and give a shout-out to concealer, hello!

Because among all of the things I’m grateful for — the usual: family, health, a roof over my head, a churlish tabby cat — concealer has been saving my life lately.

I’ve been tossing and turning at night. It’s true! Part of the reason, though, and this is my own fault, is that I’ve been staying up late to read.

Not because I checked out 50 books at once, no, but I did check out Cocoa Beach, the latest book by Beatriz Williams (she’s a historical fiction writer who’s written several books I’ve enjoyed, including A Hundred Summers, The Secret Life of Violet Grant and Along the Infinite Sea). Of course, as usual, I started reading it way past my bedtime and couldn’t put it down.

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Lipstick, liner, nails or something else? Accessories? A power tie?

Despite my drab wardrobe of black stretchy pants and black tees (now that I think about it, I’ve been unintentionally dressing like a mime for the last year and a half, holy sh*t!), I actually love wearing color, and my favorite way to add a quick pop is with a bright lipstick.

I love bright lips! — because, you know, when you do a bright lip on a relatively neutral canvas, it makes you look like you tried. 😉

Colorful liner is another good one. When I’m in the mood to wear colorful eye makeup, I don’t always (as in rarely) feel like investing hours into it and doing elaborate crease work, so when I want to draw attention to my eyes, the quickest way for me is to line them with green, blue, teal or purple liner. So easy! You get so much bang for your buck.

With clothes, since I’m rocking mostly black these days (either that or dark jeans and a tee), I like to add color with a bright purse. I have a red cross-body Kate Spade that I love. Fun and playful sneakers are another good option.

What about you? What’s your fave way to add a pop of color to your look?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Sure, with stuff from the kitchen. I’ve done it a few times, partly out of sheer curiosity, and partly because I like to cook and experiment with food!

The first time was back in the day when I was a teenager, after I’d read about homemade skin care in a magazine (I think it was Seventeen).

The story had recipes in it for homemade face masks, toners, cleansers and things like that, and I used it to make my very own face wash with milk and lemon juice.

It smelled divine and worked well, but I eventually got tired of having to squeeze all of those lemons, so I quit doing it after about two weeks and went back to my Neutrogena bar soap, which, BTW, was all the rage in the ’90s.

These days, sometimes when I’m cooking and have the olive out out I’ll make my own lip scrub by mixing some into a thick paste with granulated sugar. Then I’ll scrub my lips with it. And uh…I may or may not end up eating a little of it when I do. 🙂

Have you ever tried making homemade skin care? What did you make, and how did it turn out?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

And when I say “challenges,” I mean challenges as in makeup-level challenges, so these aren’t exactly life-altering obstacles (well…).

Oh, where do we even start?!

The first one — and it was a doozy — was growing out my brows.

Girl, you’d think that merely existing and going about your day as hair grows on your face would be easy, right? But sh*t was really hard! It took forever. It took roughly a year and a half to get them to their bushy, pre-plucked status (I plucked my brows to near oblivion by choice in the ’90s). It wasn’t until about five years ago that I decided to grow them out.

I remember having to be really creative with concealer and having to hide my tweezers so I wouldn’t pluck.

It was a hot mess for a while, but I did it! And I don’t regret it.

My second biggest makeup challenge was figuring out how to do eye makeup on — and I’m not fond of this word, but I’m going to use it because it’s what everyone seems to use — hooded eyes, also known as “not having a deep crease.”

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So…what is the Monday Poll?

Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 10 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine.

1. A beauty brand you’re loyal to?

I’ll always be a MAC girl through and through. It’s a love affair I’ve had for over 20 years (!) now.

2. Describe your hair today using only emojis.

???

3. Have you bought any Halloween candy yet?

Nah, girl… I’m gonna wait until those Mini Snickers go on sale. On November 1st, it’s ON THOUGH.

4. Something that made you happy today?

Having Tabs sit on my lap for a full 10 minutes without biting me. It’s all about the little things, really…

5. If I were to give you one piece of advice about beauty, it would be…

Leave your brows alone (no, seriously, don’t touch ’em). Go to bed early. Drink a green smoothie a few times a week. Work hard, and be nice. Oh, wait, that’s five pieces of advice… Whoops.

BONUS QUESTION: Would you rather 1) have someone tattoo your brows in a pitch black room, or 2) have to do all of your grocery shopping wearing nothing but scandalous lingerie for the next 12 months?

I could not deal with permanently bad brows… I wouldn’t be able to recover from the trauma. But I could deal with going to Trader Joe’s dressed up as the missing member of Vanity 6 for a year! Probably. I mean, I’d certainly have some mental scars, but I’d get over it in like 10 years.

So, lingerie it is!

Rise and shine, morning glory. Happy Monday. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Here are the questions to copy and paste…

1. A beauty brand you’re loyal to?
2. Describe your hair today using only emojis
3. Have you bought any Halloween candy yet?
4. Something that made you happy today?
5. If I were to give you one piece of advice about beauty, it would be…
BONUS: Would you rather 1) have someone tattoo your brows in a pitch black room, or 2) have to do all of your grocery shopping wearing nothing but scandalous lingerie for the next 12 months?