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Makeup Tips/How To

Makeup Tutorial: Red Hot Lips and Shimmery Teal Eyes

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Red lips and teal eyes makeup tutorial

Do you remember the look I tried last week that featured red lips and teal/brown eyes?

I felt like doing it again today, but this time I snapped a few extra pictures for a quickie tutorial.

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After the post last week, reader Jenna left a great tip in the comments that I also wanted to try… She suggested adding some black eyeliner to ramp up the drama, and here’s how it turned out:

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Better, right? Thanks for the tip, Jenna! 🙂

If you’d like to give the look a try…

What you’ll need

  1. An eyeshadow primer like Too Faced Shadow Insurance ($17)
  2. A creamy pearl eyeshadow like MAC Cream Colour Base in Pearl ($17)
  3. A dark brown pencil eyeliner like MAC Eye Pencil in Coffee ($13)
  4. A dark brown eyeshadow like MAC Brun ($15)
  5. A warm matte brown eyeshadow like MAC Eyeshadow in Brown Script ($15) or Soft Brown ($15)
  6. A matte peach eyeshadow like MAC Eyeshadow in Arena ($15) or Bamboo ($15)
  7. A shimmery teal eyeshadow like MAC Eyeshadow in Aquadisiac ($15) or Steamy ($15)
  8. A matte black liquid eyeliner like LORAC Front of the Line Pro ($22)
  9. A shimmery golden brown eyeshadow like MAC Soba ($15)
  10. A black mascara like MAC Mascara X in Black ($13)
  11. A matte red lipstick like MAC Lipstick in Chili ($14) or Russian Red ($14)

NOTE: I ended up using MAC Eyeshadow in Waternymph instead of the teal eyeshadows and MAC Mattene in Classic Dame instead of matte red lipsticks listed above. Both are limited edition and tricky to track down, but they’re similar to the colors mentioned.

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Swatches from left to right: Too Faced Shadow Insurance, MAC Cream Colour Base in Pearl, MAC Eye Pencil in Coffee, MAC Eyeshadow in Brun, MAC Eyeshadow in Brownscript

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From left to right: MAC Eyeshadow in Arena, MAC Eyeshadow in Waternymph, LORAC Front of the Line Pro Liner, MAC Eyeshadow in Soba
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What Makeup Would You Wear with a Red, White and Blue Uniform?

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Makeup for a red, white and blue uniform?

Put on your most fashionable thinking caps, gals, because Jessica needs our help. 🙂

Karen!

I’m hoping you’ve got the answer to my major problem!

I work on a cruise ship (I know, tough work) and I wear the TACKIEST red, white and blue tracksuit uniform.

What are some eyeshadow looks that I can wear every day that won’t make me look overdone, but still can help me look put-together and sassy in the world’s worst uniform?

Hi Jessica,

How super cool! I’ve seen every episode of Love Boat and circa 1982 had grand plans to become a cruise ship porter/activities director/bartender-extraordinaire.

Your uniform doesn’t sound too bad (well…). At least it’s stretchy, right?

As for your eye makeup, what about something neutral and work-appropriate that leaves room for flexibility when you’re feeling sassy?

Start with a shimmery neutral

You might start with a shimmery neutral like Benefit Creaseless Cream Shadow in Birthday Suit ($19). It’s a shimmery champagne cream shadow that really brightens up the eyes and looks pretty much fab on *everybody*.

Apply over the entire eyelid with a finger or a synthetic brush (because they aren’t as absorbent as natural fibers, synthetic bristles work well for cream products) like the MAC 239 Eye Shader Brush ($25).

To complete the look when you’re pressed for time (maybe late for bingo on the ship?), just curl your lashes and add mascara.

Consider a black liquid liner

When time isn’t of the essence, sassify the look with some liquid liner along your upper lash line. I like Lorac’s Front of the Line Pro ($22), a new liquid liner pen that just hit shelves this fall. It makes lining a cinch, and the rich black color lasts all day long.

Do a thin line when you want subtle definition or a thicker cat eye line (with a flick at the end) when you want a more dramatic version.

Crank it up with colored mascara

Sassify the look even more by replacing your regular mascara with a tinted shade — perhaps a green, blue or purple. I totes adore Estee Lauder’s Sumptous Color Mascaras ($20). They deliver eye-popping color while adding lash thickness, length and lift.

Have fun on the high seas! 🙂 Drop me a line (or a message in a bottle) once in a while to let me know how you and your makeup are doing.

Ahoy, ladies! What else could Jessica do with her makeup considering her red, white and blue cruise ship uniform? Use your imagination, and share your ideas in the comments.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

One Way to Remove Glitter Nail Polish

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Would you believe my glittery Illamasqua Harsh mani lasted all but one day?

It wasn’t the polish’s fault. Coco and Co. were to blame! Late yesterday afternoon, the new Chanel Jade nail polishes I’ve been dying to try arrived in the mail (swatches coming soon!).

Glittery nail polishes can be notoriously difficult to remove — so difficult, in fact, that some women refuse to wear them at all. Those little bits of glitter will just grip nails with a fierceness and refuse to let go!

When I sat down to remove my polish a few minutes ago, I remembered that a few of you, including reader Sarah, asked about it too.

Hi, Sarah. 🙂 Here’s a way to remove glittery nail polishes that works pretty well for me:

What you’ll need

Glitter polish removal, step-by-step

  • Start by thoroughly soaking a cotton ball or pad with the nail polish remover.
  • Place the soaked pad on the nail, making sure you cover it from cuticle to tip, and gently press down.

Acetone removers and glitter polish: There are many different varieties of nail polish remover, but ones containing acetone (a colorless, flammable solvent also found in many household cleaners and chemicals like paint thinner) seem to work faster than the non-acetone polishes I’ve tried, at least when it comes to removing glittery polish. Acetone is not a green chemical, however, and can be rather harsh on nails (making them dry/brittle), so I try to limit my use of it to polishes with glitter.

One brand I like is Zoya’s Remove +. It works well without over-drying my nails.

  • Hold the moistened pad in place for 30 seconds to give the remover time to work its mojo.

TIP: When I don’t have a clock nearby, I hum the Happy Birthday song to myself three times. That takes me about 30 seconds. 🙂

  • Gently slide the moistened cotton ball/pad from the cuticle to the tip of each nail. Most of the glitter should rub away, but remove whatever’s left with the same pad.
  • Repeat the same process for each of your other nails.
  • When you’re finished, wash your hands and nails well to remove the acetone and any stray bits of glitter that were left behind.

A remover just for glitter polishes? While surfing the web I spied a remover specifically designed for glitter called Cutex Glitter Girls Acetone Nail Polish Remover ($3). Have you given it a try? If you think it’s any good, please let me know.

  • You can help to keep your nails healthy after using acetone on them by using a nail polish moisturizer like Nailtiques Nail Moisturizer. It has a thick, rich formula and a light vanilla scent.

Sin Nombre: Beautiful cinematography, intense story

sin-nombre

How was your night?

I rented Sin Nombre, a subtitled film about a teenage Central American gang member who tries to escape the gang by heading north to the US. He joins up with a Honduran family also heading north but for different reasons.
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Urban Decay Primer Potions: Primed and Ready

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Looking to step up your makeup game this fall, girls? Consider a few of Urban Decay’s new primers for face, lips and lashes:

  1. Pore Perfecting Complexion Primer Potion ($30)
  2. Brightening Complexion Primer Potion ($30)
  3. Eyelash Primer Potion ($20)
  4. Lip Primer Potion ($20)

These bad boys deliver an almost airbrushed application for smooth skin, luscious lips and longer, thicker lashes.

To get the most bang for your buck, Urban Decay International Makeup Artist Eric Jimenez suggests a few insider tricks.

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Smile, Eric!

Flawless makeup in t-minus three, two, one…

Urban Decay Complexion Primer Potion — Pore Perfecting

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What it is:
An oil-free, velvety foundation primer with a texture like medium-weight lotion.

What it does:
Minimizes the size of pores, gets oil under control (great for areas like the t-zone) and helps foundation look smooth and flawless.

How to apply:
Begin by cleansing and moisturizing your skin. Cleansing encourages better absorption of moisturizer. Blot away any excess with a tissue.

Next, with your favorite foundation brush (interestingly, Eric prefers stiffer synthetic brushes made from Taklon or nylon), apply Pore Perfecting Primer to forehead, nose, the apples of the cheeks and chin. Blend in an outward direction.

While the primer is wet, apply your foundation with the same brush. Eric suggests blending both together, rather than layering one on top of the other, because “You get more of an airbrushed effect.”

Breaking it down

  • Eric likes synthetic Taklon or nylon brushes precisely because the man-made fibers don’t absorb as much product as natural fibers do. With that, he says, you can really make your foundation last, as one is apt to use and waste less.
  • If you have very oily skin, avoid applying primers and foundation with your fingers. Being warm, they can stimulate the pores on the face to up their oil output.
  • Live where it’s hot and humid? Pore Perfecting keeps makeup in place even in the stickiest, steamiest locales.

Urban Decay Complexion Primer Potion — Brightening

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What it is:
A lavender-tinted, oil-free primer to brighten, smooth and extend the wear time of foundation.

What it does:
Brightening’s color-correcting lavender tint adds a reflective, but not necessarily shimmery, look to foundation. Eric applies it wherever there are fine lines, like the fine lines around the eyes, nostrils, mouth, and in the hollows of the cheeks. Opt for this formulation if you have combination skin.

How to apply:
Apply in the same manner as the Pore Perfecting formulation (the steps above).

Breaking it down

  • Anticipating a big event? Exfoliate the night before, not the morning of. The reason being that exfoliation stimulates the production of oil, which means shine. It can also change the color of your skin for a short time, giving it a warmer, pink tone.
  • And when you want heavier coverage (like for photo shoots), apply primers with a sponge, rather than a brush.

Urban Decay Eyelash Primer Potion

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What it is:
A hydrating, protein-rich mascara base packed with silk protein (aka gossamer) and panthenol.

What it does:
Eyelash Primer Potion is like a POWERUP A mascara POWERUP! for mascara, boosting lash thickness and length. It also makes mascara more water- and smudge-resistant.
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You’ve Heard It Before, But Makeup DOES Expire

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Use a refrigerator to keep makeup fresh longer

Ew, what’s that smell?

Oh, it’s just my makeup… 🙂

How do you know when that tube o’ lipgloss or pan of eyeshadow has expired? Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to tell. Most beauty products lack expiration dates, and some may not visibly change when they’ve given up the ghost.

Still, even when it’s obvious that a product has gone bad, some of us refuse to let go. This summer the market researchers at Mintel found that just one in four British women discard their makeup, shampoo or shower gel after it starts to smell strange or look discolored. source

Why? Because, the researchers found, many of the women surveyed weren’t aware the products could expire.

Just like food items, beauty products — even natural and organic ones — are breeding grounds for bacteria, and natural products that contain fewer (or no) preservatives often have the shortest shelf lives of all. The risk of using products high in bacteria is INFECTION.

Lawd knows I’m guilty of keeping beauty products around far longer than I should … but sometimes it’s just so hard to say goodbye! 🙂

Expiration dates — from the time of first use

  • Powders and shadows: 2 years
  • Blush and Bronzer: 2 years
  • Cream shadows: 12 to 18 months
  • Concealer: 12 to 18 months
  • Foundation: 1 year
  • Lipstick & lipliner: 1 year
  • Lip gloss: 18 to 24 months
  • Mascara & eyeliners: 3 months
  • Nail Color: 1 year
  • Makeup brushes: Clean weekly using a mild detergent
  • Makeup sponges: Replace weekly or when sponge becomes soiled

What else can you do?

Beyond these rough guidelines, it helps to enlist the help of your nose in checking beauty booty. If something smells a little off, maybe it is.

More things to watch out for? 1) Store products away from direct sunlight and heat, which can destroy preservatives and accelerate the growth of bacteria; 2) refrigerate products (some take better to cold temps than others do) to slow the growth of bacteria; 3) don’t use eye products when you have an eye infection; 4) be careful when you mix products because you could be spreading bacteria around; and 5) be aware that using shared department store testers is a primo A#1 way to catch something SCARY!

For even more on telling if your makeup has expired…

How to Know If Your Cosmetics Are Expired

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. How was your afternoon? Anything cool happen today? I managed to sneak away for a few minutes up to Sephora and left with Lancome’s new Hypnose Drama mascara… Can’t wait to give it a try!

Other than that, I rented Confessions of a Shopaholic to watch tonight. Tabs is a big Isla Fisher fan. 🙂

Get Glowy, Fast, with Benefit High Beam and Moon Beam

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benefit-high-beam-moon-beam

Ask (contact me) and ye shall receive, homies.

The other day reader Styleezta asked for help applying Benefit’s liquid highlighters, High Beam ($24, a shimmery light pink) and Moon Beam ($24, a shimmery apricot).

Here’s how I use ’em to create my own shimmery, J. Lo-inspired glow. 🙂

But first, a little background. Both High Beam and Moon Beam have been around for years… Back in the day (uh, 1999), High Beam was my gateway highlighter drug. As soon as I saw that sexy, shimmery glow on my skin, I was hooked.

Ever since then I’ve had mad love for these liquid highlighters. They’re effortless to apply and to blend — totally fabulous for highlighting virgins.

DollarsA money-saving bonus? — There’s no need to throw down for an extra brush because these cuties come with a convenient applicator.

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High Beam Brush

Doesn’t it look like a nail polish brush?

Used to apply the highlighters directly on the skin, the semi-firm brush head draws lines and dots with ease.

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Swatches from left to right: High Beam, Moon Beam

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Ready, set, draw!

It turns out these lines, dots and stripes are totes key to good application.

To start, I place some dots on my left temple, right temple and chin. Then, I swipe a stripe down the bridge of my nose. Next, on each cheekbone, I draw two short, parallel lines.

I usually do all of this on top of foundation and powder because I don’t have flawless skin. If you do, (jealous!) you can probably get away with applying to bare skin.

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Where I place my dots and stripes

I end up looking a lil’ something like this:

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Seriously, why are my nails so TRAGIC?

To finish, all I do is blend with my fingers until it’s completely absorbed into my skin, taking care to diffuse any visible edges.

Bingo! — an improv J. Lo glow in less than a minute.

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Too Faced Shadow Insurance: A Bald Eyebrow’s BFF

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too-faced-shadow-insurance

Believe it or not, there are a few positives to accidentally hacking off your left eyebrow.

Besides discovering the psychological healing power of long bangs, Raul’s provided the opportunity to solve interesting new problems, like figuring out how to hide a partially bald brow while sweating like a pig (no offense, Miss P!).

Yesterday at hip-hop class, aka sweaty Karen central, I discovered a great trick to keeping filled-in brows put with the help of Too Faced Shadow Insurance ($17).

Normally, I use this invisible primer to lock eyeshadow down. Before heading to class last night, on a whim I patted some primer directly onto the sparse patch before filling it in with the Clarins Eyebrow Kit Pro Palette.

I figured the worst that could happen would be beads of black sweat streaming down my cheeks (ewww). Fingers crossed and hoping for the best, I went about getting my booty shake on.

You know what? It totally worked. As I Cabbaged Patched and Robo Copped my way through yet another old school routine, the filled-in spot miraculously refused to budge. And even though I was drenched at the end of the 90-minute class, Raul totally stayed on the ‘low. Yes!

While I lurves me some Too Faced Shadow Insurance, I’m guessing any invisible eyeshadow primer could work. A few to consider: Urban Decay Potion Primer ($17), Tarte Lifted Natural Eye Primer ($20) and Benefit F. Y. Eye ($22).

MAC attack!

In two shakes I’m heading over to MAC to check out the new Nail Trend F/W ’09 By Jin Soon collection.

I’ve been testing the polish for durability over the past week, and so far it’s held up really well. Here’s an updated photo of Dance All Night (a creamy brick red):
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Which Sunscreens Stand Up to Sweat?

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Hey, ladies. Did you catch this article in the New York Times the other day on women in the military?

“The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first in which tens of thousands of American military women have lived, worked and fought with men for prolonged periods. Wars without front lines, they have done more than just muddle the rules meant to keep women out of direct enemy contact.

They have changed the way the United States military goes to war. They have reshaped life on bases across Iraq and Afghanistan. They have cultivated a new generation of women with a warrior’s ethos — and combat experience — that for millennia was almost exclusively the preserve of men.”

-NYTimes.com

It got me thinking about reader Sandra. She heads overseas later this year.

Hi Karen,

I need some advice! I am getting deployed to the Middle East this winter for a year and want to know what heavy duty sweat-proof, high-SPF sunscreen you can recommend for everyday use on my face. I would like to have something that feels light, offers moisture, and stays put with a ton of sweating. I would be wearing my tinted moisturizer over this product.

Thanks!

Hi Sandra,

I REALLY love Shiseido 55+, aka better than sliced bread.

It’s sweat-proof, moisturizing, comes in a high SPF and feels light — neither greasy nor sticky — on the skin. On top of all that, it doesn’t have an overwhelmingly sunscreeny scent.

At $38, it’s more expensive than drugstore sunscreens, but I think it’s the best basic sunscreen I’ve ever used.

As for less costly drugstore alternatives, I love Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry Touch SPF 30 ($12). Like Shiseido 55, it’s sweat-proof, light and non-greasy/sticky, but I don’t think it’s quite as moisturizing. A layer of moisturizer worn beneath it should help.

Neutrogena makes versions of it in higher SPFs (70-100). I’ve tried them, too, but didn’t care for them as much; the higher SPFs were noticeably thicker and harder (took longer) to massage into my skin. Personally, I’ve never noticed a difference in sun protection between products containing SPF 30 and 70, but I haven’t skin tested with a control to see if that’s true.

Safe travels, Sandra! I hope this helps. Drop by the blog whenever you can while you’re over there to let us know how you’re doing. 🙂

Ladies, let’s give our girl Sandra a hand. Can you recommend any suncreens that stand up to sweat?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

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