A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
Helloooooo, there. 🙂 Greetings from Sniffles-ville!
I’m still kind of getting over that cold, but I desperately want to get out and do some beauty shopping… Maybe a really quick trip to Ulta or Sephora this afternoon, which reminds me — what are your three favorite ways to shop for beauty products?
Loading ...Hmm… My three are 1) freestanding stores, 2) big stores like Sephora and Ulta, and 3) drugstores.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Before this cold totally took me out last weekend and put me on the train to Sniffles-ville (achoo!), I squeezed in one fun afternoon with my in-laws while they were visiting. We drove up to the Napa County town of Yountville in Wine Country to have dinner at one of my mom-in-law’s favorite places to eat. It was for her birthday, so it was kind of a special treat. The place is called Bistro Jeanty, and they serve fancy French comfort food (pricey but delicious). She’s all about their beef stew.
We had some time before our reservation, so we walked around Yountville a bit, and that’s when I bumped into these interesting pumpkins and this HUGE zucchini.
No, seriously, the thing was half my size!
Because it was about 100 degrees that day, I got a very sour, lemony Italian tonic water from the deli in the Napa Style store. I, of course, loved it (pregnancy does funny things to your taste buds, I swear), but El Hub said it was just about the absolute worst thing he’d ever tasted…
Right across the street from the Napa Style style is a place called Bouchon Bakery, which I always try to visit when we go to Yountville because I love their macarons.
There’s almost always a line out the door, but because this was a slow Thursday afternoon, I walked right in and straight to the maracons. I got four — pistachio, hazelnut, fig and salted caramel, my favorite macaron flavor in the world.
Honestly, I don’t even know why I bother with the others. I should just cut the B.S. next time and get an entire box of the salted caramels.
After I got my cookies, it was time for dinner! My father-in-law and I ordered the scallops with pasta, while El Hub and my mom-in-law got the beef stew…
Not shown: the massive amount of bread and butter we also had.
All and all, it was a great afternoon!
And now, of course, I’m craving more of those macarons…
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Lip brushes, with their little, compact brush heads, are usually a lot more precise than your average lipstick bullet, so you can place your lipstick exactly where you want it, every time. Plus, they don’t smooth and dull like a lipstick bullet after you’ve used it a few times and the tip gets all smushed and the edges melt away… Not a problem when you’re working with a lip brush.
To get the most moolah out of your lipsticks, apply ’em with a lip brush, because when you apply a lipstick directly from the tube, little bits tend to pool and glob in and around your lip lines and other textured areas. Also, once you wear a tube of lipstick down to the nub, don’t throw it away yet! You can reach down into the bullet to get the hard-to-reach stuff with a lip brush.
Ever have trubs evenly applying your lipstick? If you do, instead of going back and forth over the same patchy places (and wasting even more product!), even everything out by brushing over your entire lip with a lip brush.
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You might be wondering, “So what in tarnation is this Monday Poll thing anyway!?”
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 seven 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.
Yes, it really does get cold here! Yes, even in California. 🙂 Well…cold for us. It’ll drop down into the low 30s sometimes.
So I have to put away my summer clothes that I’m hoping — fingers crossed — to be able to wear again next summer after Baby Girl arrives, and dig out a bunch of sweaters and scarves from last winter. Oh, and I would to figure out what happens to all of my cold weather socks.
It’s that darned sock monster, I guess…
After my nap, I’d have chocolate cake, then get a text from El Hub saying that we won the lottery, yay! 🙂 And then I’d go to Chanel and buy shoes for myself and purses for my mom and mom-in-law. LOL!
Then I’d accidentally get swept up in a parade and end up on a float where I’d toss candy out to the crowd.
It looked like a person crouching down and looking inside!
Adrenaline shot through my body! I grabbed my brother and was halfway to the phone before I realized, whoops! — it wasn’t a prowler… It was a plastic bag stuck in a tree outside. 🙂
I always feel silly when I remember that one, but I’m still amazed by how quickly the fight/flight response kicked in and how the adrenalin surged through me. Crazy stuff!
Your turn. 🙂 Just copy and paste the following questions into a comment with your answers. I look forward to reading ’em!
1. Tacos or burritos?
2. What’s a project you’d like to start this week?
3. If you had your own Ferris Bueller-style day off, what would it be like?
4. What do you listen to while you’re getting ready?
5. What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you while you were home alone?
Hi, my sweet friend. *waves hi from sniffleland* I’m happy to report that your tabby was indeed an excellent kitty nurse last weekend. He fussed over me and made sure I drank plenty of fluids to help me get over this cold. He also did a great job monitoring my naps.
I’m not 100% yet, but I’m getting there… I’m just happy to be upright and somewhat functional today! It’s the little things, ya know?
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and that your Monday has been all pumpkin lattes and rainbow ponies so far.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
TABS: Hey, Chance, what’s up?
CHANCE: Oh, hey, Tabs. How’s it going?
TABS: Good, good… Just finishing my workout. Hey, did you hear about Dillon?
CHANCE: No. What happened to Dillon?
TABS: He got the new Prada campaign.
CHANCE: NO!
TABS: Seriously.
CHANCE: Fo’ reals??
TABS: Fo’ reals. I just heard it from Tuxie. We were training together. He’s stretching right over there…
TABS: Yo, Tuxie! Chance doesn’t believe that Dillon got the Prada campaign.
TUXIE: I know, right!? I couldn’t believe it either, but my agent told me yesterday at lunch. He said that it was down to Dillon and Tabs, but they went with Dillon because they wanted a fresh face, whatever that means.
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** THE GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED **
This giveaway is closed, and the winner has been contacted (CONGRATULATIONS, ELIZABETH!!!), but check back next Saturday for another giveaway.
You’re gonna have to be rising and shining for the both of us today, my makeup-loving friend, because this here lipstick lover has a cold.
Yub, by doze id dodally sdubbed ub. 🙁
But Tabs has been a wonderful nurse. He’s been making me soup and keeping me company on the couch (I ended up not going to the symphony, poo). Yesterday I watched so much TV it’s ridiculous. I even watched Dirty Dancing for the one thousandth time, and by the way, nobody puts baby in the corner. I’m serious — nobody. You do NOT even want to try it, haha.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Tabs and I will be over here living vicariously through you.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Neat and New to Me
Unlike my Unsung Heroes series, which features permanent collection products I’ve known and loved a long time, the Neat and New to Me series showcases permanent collection products that slipped under my radar for a while, but then I discovered them! — and now I think they’re neat and new to me.
Just when you thought you didn’t need ONE MOAR PINK LIPSTICK!
Who are we kidding…? There’s always room for one more pink lipstick, and this one by MAC is a real contender. I just wish I’d found it sooner because…isn’t it gorgeous!? 🙂 It’s called Cosmo, and it’s one of MAC’s Amplified Lipsticks — the ones with the creamy, long-lasting formula of which I’m a big fan.
It’s classified as a brownish pink, but I think it’s more pink than brown on my NC42 skin. I’ve heard through the makeup grapevine, which is code for, “I went to the MAC counter and talked to a few artists about it,” that Cosmo 1) registers as a pink on lighter skin tones as well and 2) looks amaze-balls on olive-toned skin.
So if your skin has yellow undertones, pour yourself a Cosmo, honey! (It should be noted that this one will not cause hangovers.)
Another thing I love about this color — other than the color, I mean — is how it fades. I put it on the other day around 3, then went about my business. Chatted with the neighbors, took some pictures for the blog, pet Tabs (FOR A WHILE), went to go get a regularly scheduled blood test and stopped by HomeGoods to look at autumnal dinner plates.
When I checked my makeup later at around 7:30, I could still see a hint of Cosmo on my lips. It had lost its creamy shine, of course, but it hadn’t lost its color. It turned into a pretty, pink stain.
Neat and New to Me
Unlike my Unsung Heroes series, which features permanent collection products I’ve known and loved a long time, the Neat and New to Me series showcases permanent collection products that slipped under my radar for a while, but then I discovered them! — and now I think they’re neat and new to me.
You know when you’re driving along and you see someone on the corner waving and spinning one of those huge signs for the discounted furniture warehouse or the Little Caesar’s $2 Tuesday Pizza Special? I feel like I should be doing the same thing next to a Clinique counter, except my sign would read, “EYE MAKEUP LOVERS, IF YOU’RE HELLA TIRED, GO HERE!”
You don’t even know how much their Chubby Sticks have been rocking my world lately. They’re perfect for makeup minimalist mode, or if you haven’t been sleeping well lately (seriously, I go to the bathroom at least four times a night), or if you just want to wear eye makeup but don’t want to spend half your morning blending sh*t out on your lids.
My favorite three shades are Bountiful Beige, Ample Amber and Fuller Fudge, and if you’ve been visiting the blog this week, you may have already seen them in action in this quick blush tip post or when I talked about those Sephora Beauty Classes.
Lightweight, semi-sheer cream shadows in a twist-up stick, they’re $17 each and not too heavily pigmented or shimmery, which I really, REALLY like when I don’t want to deal with intense blending.
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