Makeup Tools

November 2018 Favorites

December 10th, 2018 by Karen 19 Comments

Because it’s cold, I’m already getting nostalgic for November! Here are some things I loved the heck out of last month…

1. Onomie Boosting Lip + Cheek Sticks ($30 each)

These are super sheer compared to some other creams products out there, like the MAC Cream Colour Bases, but don’t walk away just yet. I don’t really use them when I’m gonna be taking pics for MBB, because they’re too subtle for photography, but for regular life, like when I’m wearing the most minimal of minimal makeup (a recurring theme when you live with a demanding tabby and a toddler), they’re B-O-M-B. They add just enough color to cheeks and lips to liven things up so I don’t look totally dead, ha ha.

I blend concealer under my eyes and skip the tinted moisturizer/foundation completely, then plop on a coat of mascara, and dab and blend one of these tints on my cheeks and lips.

It’s a very Megan Markle makeup look, and I’m into it.

Comes in six shades. I wear the Berry the most.

2. Juno & Co Microfiber Velvet Sponge ($6 each, or four for $20)

You can use this soft and squishy makeup blending sponge wet or dry to apply or set foundation, powder and/or concealer. The surface of the sponge feels velvety, similar to velvet fabric, which makes a big difference in the finished look. It’s a more airbrushed and polished look than you get with the beautyblender-y makeup sponges out there.

3. R+Co Television Perfect Hair Shampoo and Conditioner ($30 each)

You know when your hair feels coated, weighed down and heavy? UGH, I hate that feeling. It’s like living with a family of filthy forest animals on your head 24/7. Anyway, with this shampoo and conditioner, you can completely avoid that issue. They’re for smoothing, moisturizing *and* volume, and they’re made for all hair types, from fine to thick and wavy like mine, and everything in between. When I use this set, my hair is what I call, “light and fluffy.” My only wish is that they came in bigger bottles!

The scent is lovely, too. I detect lavender, pineapple, tangerines and warm, white musk.

4. R+Co Waterfall Moisture + Shine Lotion ($29)

Again for the girls and guys who like hair that isn’t coated with a thick layer of goo. (R+Co is good at that.) This intense leave-in conditioner and frizz-fighter is just as moisturizing as their High Dive Moisture + Shine Cream (don’t even ask me how many bottles of that I’ve gone through), but it retains more volume in your strands, so it flattens the hair less than High Dive.

Both are brilliant, but if you have long or medium-length hair, and you’re all about floofy marshmallow volume, this is the one you’ll want, especially if you like violets, oranges and caramel, which is how it smells.

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3 Shocking Revelations (One of Them Makeup Brush-Related)

November 15th, 2018 by Karen 40 Comments

Why, yes, I do have a toothpaste ? collection.

1. It’s not a good idea to put your foot cream on the same shelf as your toothpaste.

You’d think this would be one of those self-preservation things most people would already know, like “Don’t touch a hot stove!” or “Do sniff the communal office carton of milk before you pour some in your coffee,” but noooooo. A few nights ago, as I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth before bed, I thought, “Hmm… This toothpaste tastes kinda funny…and why isn’t it foaming up?”

At which point I realized, “HOLY FREAKING CRAP, I’m brushing my teeth with foot cream.” ?

Following this, and after rinsing out my mouth for like 20 years, I moved my three tubes of toothpaste to another shelf…

2. If you put your robe on backwards, you can turn it into a slanket.

And by “backwards,” I don’t mean inside out.

OK, how the heck do I explain this…? More accurately, how do I explain how I figured it out? HA HA HA!

Alright, here it is: Instead of wearing your robe in the normal fashion, with the part that opens facing the front, put it on so that the open part is in the back, like a hospital gown.

Does that make ANY sense at all?

Here’s a picture of a slanket, BTW, in the event that you’ve been living on another planet for the past few years and have no idea what I’m talking about…

Don’t ask me why this seems warmer to me than wearing a robe the usual way. Maybe it’s because more material is covering the legs…? I don’t know, but I definitely haven’t been as cold as I usually am since I started doing it. To wit, I’m doing it right now.

PRO TIP: Cut off the tag on your robe to avoid itchiness!

3. The revamped MAC synthetic brushes are not built to last.

Earlier this year, MAC revamped their entire brush line, replacing the natural fibers with synthetic bristles, and you know what? Homegirl is NOT impressed. I’ve been using the new 224S since last May (the “S” stands for synthetic, I believe), and look…

mac 224s and 224 final — 224s throughout the years

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Let’s Talk Makeup Brushes: Which Ones Do You Always Use, and Which Ones Do You Never Touch?

October 16th, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

Makeup brushes! — I HAZ THEM. And I’m assuming you do too. I’m gonna go out on a limb (not really) and guess that you have more than a few brushes in your collection, so tell me, friend, which makeup brushes do you always use, and which ones do you never (or very rarely) touch?

First of all, I’m much pickier about eye brushes than I am about face brushes, which I think is because my lids are sensitive, and I have absolutely no patience for scratchy stuff on my skin.

I think there are many great eye brushes out there, but I usually end up grabbing a brush from MAC (one of the O.G. ones from back before they revamped their makeup brush line with synthetic brushes, which IMO don’t perform well enough to justify their price), NARS or Chanel, because they’re the softest ones I have, and I love how they blend.

Here are the brushes I seem to always use the most…

MAC 221 Mini Tapered Blending Brush
MAC 224 Tapered Blending Brush
MAC 217 Domed Eyeshadow Brush
NARS #42 Blending Eyeshadow Brush (Super great! I think it’s better than the MAC 224.)
Chanel Retractable Dual-Tip Eyeshadow Brush
NARS #45 Smudge Brush
NARS #47 Angled Brush

And while it isn’t an eye brush, the Real Techniques Buffing Brush is one I use every single day for buffing down foundation.

As for the brushes I never use, hmm… I hardly ever reach for large, poofy powder brushes because I don’t wear a lot of powder, and I think they’re hard to control. I prefer powder and blush brushes with smaller brush heads.

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Unsung (Household) Heroes: The TubShroom Strainer/Hair Catcher

July 20th, 2018 by Karen 9 Comments

tubshroom review — The most magical mushroom of all

These are mushrooms…

And this is a magical ? mushroom…

But this is the most magical mushroom of all…

It’s called the TubShroom, and it’s one of those genius “as seen on TV” doohickeys that’ll have you wishing you were the person who invented it, because if you’ve got hair, and that hair clogs the tub drain, this thing will revolutionize your life.

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Too Faced Clover Collection Melted Clover Lipstick and the Clover Makeup Bag

April 4th, 2018 by Karen 7 Comments

too faced melted clover — I get weirdly guilty about eating cookies in the shapes of animals

*** KAWAII ALERT *** KAWAII ALERT *** KAWAII ALERT***

[beep!]

We interrupt our regular programming to bring you this important message:

I haven’t worn anything from Too Faced Cosmetics in a hot second, but it looks like they’re still doing their thing, appealing to everyone’s inner 12-year-old girl. They have a new collection out that’s so kawaii that there aren’t enough emojis on this blog to describe it. ????

So I’ll use emoticons instead! (✿◕‿◕) (ʘ‿ʘ✿)

The Clover collection is available now. There’s a palette and cute makeup bags, including this one, the Clover Makeup Bag ($20), which looks very Tokidoki, don’t you think?

It has a narwhal on it, so you gotta love on that. Clover is Too Faced Cosmetics founder Jerrod Blandino’s dog, and his charm looks extra cute on the zipper.

too faced clover makeup bag — Check out Clover doing the over-the-shoulder “look at my booty” pose (pretty sure Tabs did it first, though)

too faced clover makeup bag 2 — Sweet pup-pup

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An Unsung Hero: The Tweezerman 15X Magnification Mirror

January 4th, 2018 by Karen 17 Comments

tweezerman led 15 x lighted mirror — Locate and obliterate every last rogue lunch lady chin hair.

Yo, let’s get this straight. If you’re the type of person who’ll spend 45 minutes every night pouring over every pore in a magnifying mirror, stay far, far away from the $30 Tweezerman LED 15x Lighted Mirror, because you’ll never want to leave the house!

You can see freakin’ everything with it. It gives you hawk eyes. Every pore, every “experience line,” every rogue lunch lady chin hair that has so far eluded you. Tweezing is hella easy with this thing, too, and dare I say it — oh, so satisfying. Nothing will be able to escape your tweezers.

tweezerman led 15 x lighted mirror palm — And it purr-fectly fits in my paw

It’s a 15X magnification mirror with a built-in battery-powered florescent ring light and three section cups in the back to attach it to your bathroom mirror if you want.

The ring light is pretty lame, though… I could do without it because the button is hard to get to, and the light is this unflattering greenish color that gives my face a Gollum-like pallor, so I just keep it off.

What’s an unsung hero? For me, it’s an oftentimes underrated makeup/beauty morsel, a permanent collection product that scoots under the radar screen of many beauty lovers but regularly rocks my world. The long-running Unsung Heroes series features some of my favorites.

But the mirror itself is great, and the 15X magnification is more than enough. When I’m plucking my brows, or — ahem! — my Magnum P.I. mustache (which looks like a shag carpet when I hold this mirror up to my face), I can see every hair, even the tiny, barely-there hairs that just sprouted up and I would have missed with a regular magnifying mirror.

Pluck, pluck, pluck! Before you know it, every one is gone, and your upper lip and lids are smoother than a baby’s bum.

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Unsung Makeup Heroes: Shiseido Facial Cotton

September 19th, 2017 by Karen 20 Comments

The Unsung Heroes series highlights some of my ALL-TIME favorite permanent collection products from all sorts of brands.

Dang, I had my heart set on being crabby about these Shiseido Facial Cotton pads, because girl, they’re $10, and you only get 165 of them, which is craziness to me because you could roll up to Target right now and get a massive pack of 300 up & up brand cotton pads for $5.

But ugh, these Shiseido ones are so good!

I didn’t expect to be bougie about cotton pads, but I’m there, man. The Shiseido ones are the softest, most velvety facial pads I’ve ever used, and once you’ve felt their caress (it was unmistakable when they touched my delicate water lines), other cotton pads will feel like rough metal scouring pads. NO JOKE. Even Q-tips.

OK, that was a joke…but you know hear I mean’. The Shiseido Facial Cotton pads feel SOFT. Q-tips used to feel like tabby tum fur to me before I got spoiled by these.

I mostly use them to remove eye makeup, but you can use them like any other cotton ball or cotton pad. They’ll apply toners or liquid essences after cleansing, remove face makeup, and they’ll soften the edges of your blush, eyeshadow or your bronzer perfectly well.

I guess you could also use them to remove nail polish, but I won’t be using them for that. My fingers and toes just wouldn’t appreciate how soft (or pricey) they are.

A single pad can remove all of my eye makeup and face makeup, then STILL have enough oomph left to apply toner.

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The Surratt Beauty Relevée Lash Curler or the Shiseido Eyelash Curler?

May 17th, 2017 by Karen 12 Comments

I got these two curlers during the Sephora VIB sale last month because I needed to replace my ancient, much-loved Shu Uemura curler.

Yup, my little trooper finally broke (RIP). 🙁

I’d heard that they’re similar to Shu’s curler and read some rave reviews, and so, in typical Karen fashion, since I couldn’t decide between them…I grabbed both.

They’re similarly shaped and flatter than many lash curlers (like the ones by Tarte, Urban Decay and MAC), and I like this shape a lot because it fits my eyes better than most.

The Troy Surratt Relevée Lash Curler (which is $30) is just a teensy bit wider than the Shiseido one (which is $20), and when I place my lashes into it (the Surratt one) and press down, there’s no pinching at all, whereas I feel a little bit of pinching on my outer lashes with the Shiseido curler if I hit them at certain angles or get too close to the lash base.

With the Troy Surratt curler, I can really get up in there.

I also like the lash look I get with the Surratt curler a bit more. The curl is more pronounced, and I just think it looks more natural and better.

The Shiseido one definitely has its advantages, though. It costs $10 less and comes with an extra silicone pad. I mean, I like the curl (although it’s more of a crimp) I get when I use it, and I think it’s pretty.

Oh! — also, because the Surratt is wider, I can easily fit false lashes into it (on those rare occasions when I wear falsies and want them to curl with my natural lashes).

Honestly, though, I don’t think you’d go really wrong with either one. Both are solid choices. It mostly depends on whether you want the extra width.

In order, I like the…

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen