Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup

From the MAC Lorde Collection, Pure Heroine Lipstick and Penultimate Eye Liner in Rapidblack

May 12th, 2014 by Karen 14 Comments

MAC Pure Heroine Lipstick — Wearing Pure Heroine Lipstick and Rapidblack Penultimate Eye Liner from the new MAC Lorde collection

Erhm, seeing as how this plummy number I’m wearing on my lips is from the new MAC Lorde collection, I probably should’ve been listening to Lorde while I was taking these pics.

But I wasn’t.

I was actually bumping The Cure’s In Between Days.

I can see it now — Lorde and I hanging out, listening to Robert Smith and shooting the sh*t as we swap out the laces on our Doc Martins.

You can see it too, right? 🙂

This scenario is much more likely than, oh, I dunno, hanging out with Lorde while listening to Taylor Swift songs and practicing our cheerleading moves.

Call me crazy.

Pure Heroine Lipstick is part of the tiny two-piece MAC Lorde collection, a limited release release coming June 5 to maccosmetics.com and the MAC Times Square and Fifth Avenue stores in NYC (international babes, you’ll be seeing it online in July and at the MAC Champs-Élysées store in Paris), and it has MAC’s Amplified formula, which means smoooooth, intense, long-lasting color (between 6-8 hours, no joke!).

Some of my favorite MAC lippies are MAC Amplified family members, so I always get really excited when MAC releases a new shade.

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Blue Monday, Take 3: Laura Mercier’s Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eye Colour Quad

May 12th, 2014 by Karen 14 Comments

Laura Mercier Baked Eye Colour Quad in Summer in St. Tropez — Turning the idea of “blue Mondays” on its head!

Another Monday, another excuse to wear blue eyeshadow. And glitter. And false lashes. 🙂

Seriously, though, I can’t think a better day to bust out the blues.

For starters, there are a ton of ’em out there right now; they’ve been popping up in a bunch of the summer collections (like Lancome’s French Riviera, Tom Ford’s Unabashed and Urban Decay’s Electric Palette , just to name a few).

On top of that, I feel that if we’re going to have to put up with the oftentimes annoying nature of Mondays, we might as well have something fun happening on our lids.

Am I right?

Laura Mercier’s Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eye Colour Quad from the New Attitude summer 2014 collection ($44) has three such shades of fun blue — a sheer, pearlescent baby blue; a pigmented, satiny teal blue; and a sheer and shimmery dark royal blue.

Um…yeah, that’s a lot of blue, so if you feel the need to break it up a little, you could try mixing the bronze shade from the palette with the dark blue, which gets you a really cool purplish bronze.

That’s what I did today, popping it along my lower lash lines to contrast with the satiny teal I placed in the crease.

And because I still have those glittery eyes from that fashion show last week at the San Francisco Academy of Art University on my noodle, I swiped a small amount of glitter — Urban Decay’s Heavy Metal Glitter Liner in Spandex, which has flecks of blue and purple glitter — in the inner corners, figuring that the flickering sparkles would add a little splash to the eyes while tying together the blue on the lid with the purply bronze along the lower lash line.

A’ight then, here’s a breakdown…

Laura Mercier Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eye Colour Quad: Medium blue shade in the crease, bronze shade in the outer corner and the dark blue and bronze shades mixed together along the lower lash line.
Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner in Spandex: The inner portion of my lower lash line.
MAC Mylar Eyeshadow: On the brow bone, on the lids and in the inner corner.
Maybelline Eye Studio Gel Liner in Blackest Black: The upper lash lines.
Ardell 120 Demi Lashes: The false lashes I’m wearing on my upper lashes only.
MAC Deep Dark Brunette Fluidline Brow Gelcreme: Mah brows.

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Makeup and Beauty Blog Monday Poll, Vol. 322

May 12th, 2014 by Karen 54 Comments

The Makeup and Beauty Blog Monday Poll for May 12, 2014

You might be wondering, “So what the heck is this Monday Poll thing anyway?”

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

Did you drink coffee in high school?
Nope, I did not, but coffee drinking wasn’t a thing when I was in high school in the ’90s (Starbucks — what’s that?). I remember my friend Jen having coffee in the morning once and thinking it was really exotic.

Stiletto nails

Stiletto nails: yes or no?
I think they can look really bad-@ss and rockstar on some people, but for me, personally, I can’t do them because I type all day, and there’s just no freaking way.

Do you ever ride your bike to work or school?
I used to when I went to U.C. Davis. It was a big biking town. My apartment was about a 20-minute bike ride from campus.

What’s the funniest thing your pet does?
Every night just before I feed Tabs gravy he does this thing that I call “sexy time,” where he sprawls out on his back and flashes his tum, kind of like a centerfold kitty posing on the living room floor, as if to say, “Yes, I know. I’m so sexy that you simply cannot wait to feed me.”

Who was the last person you took a selfie with?
My mom yesterday. 🙂 I gave her a makeup lesson at home and touched up her lips.

Your turn. 🙂 Just copy and paste the following questions into a comment with your answers. I look forward to reading ’em!

1. Did you drink coffee in high school?
2. Stiletto nails: yes or no?
3. Do you ever ride your bike to work or school?
4. What’s the funniest thing your pet does?
5. Who was the last person you took a selfie with?

Sometimes, you just gotta get sh*t done, ya know?

It’s good to always want to do your best, but striving for perfection can be exhausting and flat-out paralyzing. I feel paralyzed when I known that something isn’t the best I can do — like a picture, a project, or an eye look or something — but sometimes you just have to do your best with the time and resources you have.

There’s a phrase: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I’m going to try to keep that in mind this week.

Have a great week, babe. Your nephew says “mrow.” 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Sundays With Tabs the Cat, Makeup and Beauty Blog Mascot, Vol. 295

May 11th, 2014 by Karen 7 Comments

MAC Alluring Aquatic Collection Wallpaper Starring Tabs the Cat

There are cats that loathe water, and there are cats that love it. Tabs is a bit of both. His great, great, great, great — well, it was a great number of greats ago — grandmommy cat (which reminds me, happy Mother’s Day!) was a Bengal tiger, and she loved the water. Loved swimming in it, hunting near it and leaping into it from riverbanks.

Sometimes Tabs has his own water kitty moments, like right now, with the new MAC Alluring Aquatic collection.

The release pops up on maccosmetics.com this week (May 15), and Tabs is pretty excited about it. He even commissioned a special commemorative desktop wallpaper. 🙂

He hopes you download one of them (there are different sizes, depending on your screen), and set it as your computer wallpaper, so that you may gaze upon his — ahem! — robust body of work.

Who is Tabs the Cat?
About seven years ago I befriended a stray, flea-bitten tabby cat with a bad case of worms. I could see he’d fallen on hard times, but his profound knowledge of high fashion and department store cosmetics led me to believe that he was more than meets the eye. We became fast friends, and now he’s actually my boss (and a successful kitty model).

Desktop

iPad

iPhone

Resolutions

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Oh! Don’t forget to enter this weekend’s Sephora giveaway. It ends Monday night, and you could take home (well, it arrives by email) a $50 eGift card.

7 Ways to Win a $50 eGift Card From Sephora! (Ends Monday)

May 10th, 2014 by Karen 346 Comments

Rise and shine, pal o’ mine. We made it through another week! Congrat-poo-lations. 🙂

What did you end up doing last night? Did anyone else go see that new movie, Neighbors? On a very serious note (not really), what did you think of Zac Efron’s abs and lashes??

Ha! Not bad, right? Bravo on both counts.

I was surprised by how much I liked that movie. Yes, SO DUMB! — but totally fun, and some of the jokes about grownup life are freaky accurate, like going to bed with a mouthguard and loving brunch.

In other news, this should be a laid back weekend for me. Tomorrow I’m driving out the East Bay to take my mom out to Mother’s Day brunch, but other than that, I’ll just be chillin’ here around the house. I owe Tabs some quality playtime.

Good luck in this week’s giveaway. Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours. 🙂

One (1) Sephora eGift card containing $50 sent to the winner by email (international readers, you may opt to receive $50 sent by PayPal instead).

Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below.
Open to U.S. and international readers.
You must be 18 or older to enter (or otherwise an adult based on your local laws).
Your comment can be about anything at all, but here are some ideas if you’re stuck:
- Do you wear a mouthguard to bed? (I do because I grind my teeth!)
- Have you ever been to Mount Rushmore or the Statue of Liberty?
- Mountain lion, falcon or bear?
- Favorite liquid liner?
- Who makes the best bronzer?
- Have you ever made a new friend at the gym?
- An embarrassing moment that you can now look back on and laugh?
You can enter in up to seven ways to boost your chances of winning.
The giveaway ends on Monday, May 12, 2014 at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time).
Full terms and conditions are available in the widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Jewelry by Dale Beevers and Zoe Cope of the SF Academy of Art University

May 10th, 2014 by Karen 7 Comments

Imagine going to school and taking classes to learn how to make jewelry.

That sounds like so much fun to me!

Here’s some of the accessories and jewelry by graduating students and designers I saw backstage and on the runway last night at the SF Academy of Art University fashion show.

I really like these wood, metal and stone pieces by Dale Beevers…

That’s the designer on the right, San Francisco Academy of Art University Jewelry & Metal Arts graduate Dale Beevers

Dale hand carves her pieces from different kinds of wood, like manzanita, root wood and buckeye, into interesting organic shapes.

She was kind enough to let me try on a few things, like this cool neck piece and bracelet made from buckeye wood, concrete (some of the black patches are actually thin layers of concrete) and shimmery pyrite.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only gal moved by Dale’s work, because Rosita Missoni (yes, as in the Italian fashion house Missoni), who was in attendance at the show, saw and purchased a set of bracelets Dale was actually wearing on her arms.

Um…when a Missoni asks to buy jewelry that you made and are wearing on your arms, you freakin’ sell it to them, am I right?!

I also really dug these black plexiglass acrylic pieces with inset etched copper by Zoe Cope.

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30 Days of NARS: Giza Lip Gloss, Day 26

May 9th, 2014 by Karen 8 Comments

Another NARS gloss great for weekends.

Behold, the Pyramid of Giza! You may not know this, but the ancient Egyptians loved sheer nectar NARS Giza Lip Gloss ($26) so much that they built a pyramid in its honor. 🙂

OK, not really…but I’m sure they would have had it been available back then.

I love this one by itself and layered on top of MAC Staunchly Stylish Pro Longwear Lip Pencil.

It kind of has a similar thing going on with NARS Chihuahua, but with more peach and less pink.

You can get Giza now at NARS counters and online with its 29 cohorts in the NARS Lip Gloss line.

The 30 Days of NARS series features a different NARS Lip Gloss every day

Resist Red Lipstick Mediocrity With Estee Lauder Pure Color Envy Sculpting Lipstick in Defiant Coral

May 9th, 2014 by Karen 12 Comments

I love the name of this Estee Lauder Lipstick — Defiant Coral.

Like it hangs out with a bunch of ruffians in front a 7-11 past curfew or, I dunno, stands up in the middle of a boring staff meeting and yells, “KISS THIS!” to the boss on its way out the door.

LOL! Oh, Defiant Coral, you rebel, you. 🙂

Defiant Coral is one of the new Sculpting Lipsticks in Estee Lauder’s permanent line, which are called “sculpting” because the multi-faceted pigments in each of the 21 high-intensity statement shades is supposed to make lips look more defined, shaped and curved.

Full coverage with 6-hour wear time

Time-release moisture complex helps capture and seal in moisture

Lips feel continuously moisturized throughout the day

— esteelauder.com

They sound pretty expensive for Estee Lauder at $30 a pop, but they remind me of Guerlain’s pricier $51 Le Rouge Gs in terms of how they feel, look and perform.

I mean, I don’t think the packaging is as sexy as the silver bulleted Rouge Gs — although the navy and gold is elegant in its own way — but Defiant Coral’s smooth creaminess, rich hydration, opaque coverage and 5-6 hour wear time is like something out of the Rouge G line.

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