A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
I’m filing Estee Lauder Pure Color Nail Lacquer in Lust under “Shades I’m Inclined To Recommend To My Mom But Probably Won’t Because I Can’t Handle Hearing Her Say the Word, ‘Lust’.”
Ha! It’s true though. 🙂
With its creamy finish, this dark plummy reddish brown is one of those nail colors that I think would look fabulously elegant on gals of all ages.
Problem: Your favorite highlighter is MIA, possibly due to your cat, despite lacking opposable thumbs, hiding it somewhere in your condo.
You turn over every inch of the place looking for it, peering under every piece of furniture and checking each of your cat’s favorite hiding places, but still can’t find it.
WHERE IS THAT DAMN PAN OF MAC SOFT AND GENTLE MINERALIZE SKIN FINISH?!
Er…not that I’ve ever experienced this. We’re talking hypothetically, of course. 🙂
Solution: You reach for a shimmery peach, coral, beige or white eyeshadow instead.
Yup — that’s right. Because your eyeshadow can double as a face highlighter!
Here I’m using MAC’s Extra Dimension Eye Shadow in Lorelei, a shimmery golden beige from the new MAC Alluring Aquatic collection.
After I’m done applying blush and bronzer, I swirl a clean finger in the pan, and gently rub it on my upper cheekbones…
…down the bridge of my nose (goofy face is totally optional!)…
Well, hello there, pigment!
There’s plenty of it in bright strawberry pink NARS Quito Lip Gloss ($26), available now at NARS counters and narscosemtics.com.
Aaaand, BAM!
Over-blending…
The struggle is real!
I’m so not kidding either. If someone hands me a fluffy brush like the MAC 217, I will swipe, buff and swirl until the cows come home.
With some eye looks, it works in my favor, like for blown-out super blended smokey eyes with subtle gradients where all of the shadows smoothly transition into each other.
In looks like that, you almost can’t blend enough, ya know?
But then there are those other times… Those times when over-blending isn’t so cool, and while you think you’re doin’ your thang, and blending those subtle transitions between the colors, the eyeshadows all merge together into a muddy mess.
It happens a lot sometimes with certain palettes and eyeshadows.
It happened to me recently with Estee Lauder’s Bronze Goddess the Nudes Eyeshadow Palette, a $60 limited edition summer palette available now with the Bronze Goddess collection at Estee Lauder counters.
Bedecked in tortoiseshell attire, it houses five nude matte eyeshadows in bone, beige, tan, brown and dark brown; and three metallics in white gold, bronze and plum.
First things first — these shades all being together in the same palette makes total sense to me, but figuring out the best way to work with the palette does not.
That’s because the nude mattes are all pretty close together in terms of color. There isn’t a ton of variation among the shades (lots o’ brown), and they’re kind of semi-sheer, so, like, when I pop them on my lids and start moving my brush around, they merge together into a blend of brown.
Same thing with the metallics… They appear quite dark in swatches but apply semi-sheer on the lids.
And, they also blend together a little too freely.
It’s not a big deal if I’m just going to be wearing one or two of these colors, but anything more than that can look muddy.
I think I’m going through a blue period ’cause I seriously cannot wait to get the blue eyeshadows in Laura Mercier’s Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eyeshadow Quad ($44) on my lids.
Especially that intense one on the far left…
It’s from Laura’s New Attitude summer collection (catchphrase: “Dare to be different”), available on counters and online now.
Coming at ‘cha! — riding on a wave of nakedness, three new ways to strip down for summer from Urban Decay.
Yup, I think it’s safe to say that UD is on something of a naked streak (get it, streak?) based on their three latest Naked Flushed Palettes ($30 each).
Native, Strip and Streak arrive to the party with a disrobed desire to enhance skin, diffuse light and give a fresh glow to yo’ face, baby cakes.
Each one comes with one powder bronzer, a highlighter and a blush.
UD bestowed a satiny bronze bronzer upon Native, the palette I’m wearing in these pics, as well as a frosty pinkish beige highlighter and a matte hot pink blush.
The second palette, Streak, is ready for a warm roll in the haaay!. It comes with a warm, matte bronzer; a frosty peach highlighter; and a matte coral blush.
And Strip, the third palette, glimmers with a frosty golden tan bronzer (so shiny!), a gold highlighter and a matte mauve blush.
I wear bronzer, blush and highlighter on a pretty much daily basis, so I like the idea of these, especially late in the week, when my brain is usually so fried that small decisions like which bronzer/blush/highlighter to wear is more than I can take, haha.
I think all three color combinations are super flattering, but my favorites are probably Native and Streak. For uber-natural looks, I like those two the most.
A timer! — as in egg timer or stopwatch.
I usually use the timer on my phone…
I’m so not kidding! It’s the best way I know of to keep things from spiraling out of control.
When I absolutely need to get out the door by a certain time and only have “X” number of minutes to put on makeup, I set a timer on my iPhone, and then that’s all the time I have.
I watch the countdown and adjust myself accordingly, and I seriously think it works better than a regular clock.
With just a clock and no timer, my 5-minute makeup looks tend to stretch out to 15. 🙂
OK, my friend. Your turn. A trick to creating quick and easy makeup looks is…
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Uncle Tio!!!
You know you’ve watched way too many episodes of Breaking Bad when 1) you see a broken down RV parked in your neighborhood and automatically assume that something sketchy’s cooking inside…and 2) flamingo pink Salamanca from the new NARS Lip Gloss line always, ALWAYS makes you shout, “UNCLE TIO!”
Anywho… 🙂
Salamanca, one of the seven completely new colors in the recently revamped lip gloss line, is one of the more potently pigmented shades.
It’s available now at NARS counters and online for $26.
Uncle Tio!!!
