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I don’t think I’ll ever leave California. I’ve lived here most of my life, and I can’t imagine living anyplace else, but if I ever do move, I’ll never forget the golden brown hills here in NorCal.
You can really it in parts of the state with a lot of open space, like Blackie’s Pasture in Tiburon, where the hills and the pasture are covered by a carpet of golden brown from late spring till fall.
I climbed a rope suspended from the ceiling yesterday (yes, I did this for fun).
It was hard! But I did it. It was for the HIIT class I take at the gym. We were doing all kinds of different exercises with ropes, and I found out that the trick to the rope climbing is to engage every muscle in your body — your core, your legs, your booty — and not just your upper body and your arms.
Anyway, this story is makeup related, I swear, because while I was trying to get up the aforementioned rope, I was wearing $23 Lancôme Drama Liqui-Pencil Longwear Eyeliner.
I was wearing a couple of the new shades that were released last month — a green shade on one eye (Ponts Des Arts) and a purple (Aubergine) on the other, and, as I was trying to climb this rope, the people in class were giving me helpful advice, but at no point did anyone mention that I was wearing two different colors of liner on my eyes…which leads me to conclude that one is literally able to walk around all day with two different eye makeup looks doing lord knows what, and nobody will ever say anything.
I was born in the Philippines, but I’ve been a Cali girl since I was a wee lass of year one year old. In that time, I’ve traveled all across this state from top to bottom, from the mountains to the valleys and up and down the coast (This is starting to sound a little like a folk song, isn’t it?).
Anyway, when you spend a lot of time in a place, certain colors start to remind you of it, which is what Chanel Horizon Line Le Vernis does for me. My, gosh! It’s the exact same grayish green you see all over the beaches from the central coast/Big Sur up to the Oregon border.
I see it in the green algae- and seaweed-covered rocks, in the water, in the plants (especially the succulents that cover, like, every other sand dune). It’s everywhere! And it’s spot on.
Horizon Line is from the Chanel Travel Diary Fall Collection, which is out right meow, and my friends at Chanel HQ tell me that it was inspired by a road trip that Chanel Creative Director Lucia Pica took from Los Angeles to Big Sur. Like a mermaid from the ocean, Horizon Line emerged from that trip.
And I’m glad it did, because I’ve got a thing for greenish grays, man! (Hello, Essie Beauty Nap and Smith & Cult Bitter Buddhist.)
I need a Game of Thrones moment before I get into these new skin care products from Pixi (wasn’t Sunday’s episode righteously epic?!), so here’s a shout-out to one of my favorite fictional families, House Tyrell, and their strong women, especially Olenna Tyrell, who was a freakin’ savage till the end.
The symbol of House Tyrell was a rose, and these two new products from Pixi are roses as well. They’re both $24 each and available now. There’s Rose Caviar Essence — a moisturizing, brightening serum with rose oil — and Rose Flash Balm — a multipurpose moisturizer with rose extract that also works as a primer and face mask.
Both of them are lightly scented like a single stemmed rose. Ah…
Flash Balm is Pixi’s version of a cult classic from Clarins called Flash Beauty Balm, a product that I never quite understood. I’ve heard makeup artists say that it perks up lackluster skin, which Pixi Rose Flash Balm is also supposed to do, but eh, I don’t really see the perkiness.
I do, however, like how moisturized it makes my skin feel and that it doesn’t leave an oily film behind. I also think that my pores look slightly less intense when I use it.
Pixi Rose Flash Balm ingredients
Water/Aqua/Eau, Rosa Centifolia Flower Water, Propylene Glycol, Octyldodecanol, Tapioca Starch, Polysorbate 60, Sorbitan Stearate, Carbomer, Phenoxyethanol, Triethyl Citrate, Aminomethyl Propanol, Sucrose Cocoate, Glycerin, Olea Europaea (Olive) Leaf Extract, Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Extract, Rose Extract, Bisabolol, Ethylhexylglyercin, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, Disodium EDTA, Sodium Citrate, Red 40 (CI 16035)
The Rose Caviar Essence, though, is SO COOL! See how the product looks like it has these tiny flecks? Those are flower and plant oils suspended in a weightless gel.
Lancôme’s new Monsieur Big collection, which includes a mascara and a separate liner, is so obviously a shout-out to Sex and the City’s colossal character, but ya know, I’m Team Aiden for Life, because when a man volunteers to buff your hardwood floors…that’s true love right there.
The collection includes a $25 black mascara, a $25 black liquid liner and a new line of five chubby $25 brow crayons (haven’t tried those, though), all of which are available on Lancôme counters and the Lancôme website now. I’m pretty sure they’re all LE.
I don’t identify at all with the name of this MAC Girls palette.
Prissy Princess? Come on! I don’t think I’m prissy, and I know I don’t act like a ?? princess. Although El Hub would probably beg to differ, LOL!
Now, if this had been called Punk Rock Princess, or Punk Princess? Hell, yeah, I’d claim that title in a heartbeat! 🙂
OK, silly name aside, I like the colors in this palette, which is, in a manner of speaking, a meditation on taupe.
Satin Taupe, specifically.
Seriously, I could wear Satin Taupe almost every day, but I wouldn’t have to, thanks to MAC Prissy Princess, because it’s like someone started with a pan of Satin Taupe, and tweaked it in different ways.
So, we’ve mainly got a bunch of taupes that are complemented by cool and neutral browns, pink, a bit of gray and a sliver of silver.
It looks like it’s designed for cool skin tones, right? But it isn’t as cool-toned as I thought. There isn’t that much gray in the mix, so I really do think that warm skin tones could rock it too.
If you’ve been reading MBB for a while, then you probably already know that 1) my cat is a world-renowned kitty supermodel, and 2) I believe that cool-toned taupes and browns can totally flatter warm skin tones.
For me, it’s all about the crease, and mine isn’t deep, so I wear cool browns and taupes to play with light and shadow on my lids and create the illusion of a deeper-set eye.
Meet the MAC Girls palettes!
Just like the shadows in Mischief Minx, Rockin’ Rebel and Fashion Forward, these are easy to paint with, and easy to blend into each other and other shadows, regardless of which finish we’re talking about.Most of the shadows in Prissy Princess are Satins and Mattes.
I hope “MAC Fashion Fanatic” applies to all the ladies who live in black leggings, because that’s as fashionable as I get these days, haha!
It’s one of the six in the MAC Girls collection, which is on counters now. It’s $39.50, and it’s the fun one! There’s a bright reddish pink and two punchy purples, and the brights are front and center.
But there are also wearable shades, too. There are peaches, taupes, beige, a gorgeous silvery, peachy taupe and a sheer dark plummy brown.
Could the leopard print on the new MAC Mischief Minx palette be any more cat lady? ?
MEOW.
You wanna know what’s even more cat lady, though? I keep calling it “Mischief Manx.”
I would say, “why?!” to this, but we all know why… (It’s because I’m obsessed with cats.)
Mischief Minx is from the new MAC Girls collection, which is available meow, by the way. It’s up on the MAC website and on counters at select MAC locations, which basically means all over the place, but we’re not sure exactly where, so you should probably give your local counter a quick call if you’re interested, just in case.
It’s one of the six $39.50 palettes in the launch, each of which has eight powder eyeshadows in it and one highlighter.
