A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
I’m looking forward to taking my CCL bonafides to new heights in 2014 with these crazy cat lady shirts.
Aren’t they adorbs?
I got them from my mom for Christmas. She knows me well, hahaha! 😀
What are you doing tonight? Tabs would like me to wish you a happy 2014. It’s almost time out here. It’s exactly 9:32 p.m., and I’m just marathoning Breaking Bad with Tabs and El Hub on the couch.
See you next year! 🙂
Welcome to The Fab 5, a new video series I’m starting where I’ll be rounding up (like wildcats!) various lists of five fab products in different categories and from different brands (think best o’ the beauty best).
In this first video, I share five of my favorite products from one of my all-time favorite brands — Benefit Cosmetics.
Thank you for watching, and have a great night (we’re gonna just stay in and rent a movie). Happy new year! Be safe out there if you brave the crowds. 🙂
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Oh, 2013! You were such a lovely year…
Rose gold reigned supreme, blossoming on beauty counters as far as the eye could see, and then, as if by magic, you bloomed into an almost perfect eye palette at Urban Decay. Meanwhile, Chanel painted tips and toes with an out-of-this-world purple polish, and a golden highlighting lotion at MAC made long-time Strobe Lotion fans (like me) swoon.
Because it’s the time of year for looking back with lists, here are 10 of the most terrific makeup and beauty products I wholeheartedly lurved in 2013.
Raise your paw if you want long, separated, luscious lashes with sky-high curl! My naturally unimpressive lashes need major help, like the kind Clarins Be Long Mascara provides.
Available now at Clarins counters and also online.
Through the first half of the year (up until I found Clarins Be Long), I wore Chanel Le Volume Mascara almost daily.
SO GREAT if you’re unafraid of drama and big, bold lashes.
Available now at Chanel counters and also online.
Chanel’s shimmery purple Taboo stuns with dynamic flecks of galactic glitter, and it totally rocked my world.
Seriously, I could wear Taboo on my fingertips every. damned. day, and I’d never, ever tire of it.
Available now at Chanel counters and also online.
Ah… Perfection in a pan.
BECCA’s golden Moonstone highlighter whispers “soft glow here,” and pores needn’t worry about being made the center of attention.
I think it looks fan-frickin’-tastic on all skin types, but it rocks the house on gals 30 and up.
Available now at BECCA counters and also online.
Love the satin finish (goes with everything), lengthy wear time and easy, effortless application of these NARS Satin Lip Pencils. My go-to shades are coral Lodhi, watermelon red Luxembourg, fuchsia Jardin Des Plantes and hot pink Yu.
Like with Chanel Taboo, I could wear these every day and be a happy, happy girl. 🙂
Available now at NARS counters and also online.
Sonia Kashuk’s Roll Up Valet bag changed my life.
BOOM! There, I said it.
My mobile makeup life experience a big organizational upgrade because of this bag, and now I never travel without it.
Available now at Target stores and also online.
A few years ago on a girl’s spa day up in Napa with my friends Jen and Cindy, I decided to live a little and try something different — something other than a massage or facial.
I had a mud bath.
And it was absolutely, positively the most disgusting thing I’ve ever done.
No, it wasn’t the dirt. I’m totally OK with dirt. Mud too. I have no problem getting dirty. I went into it expecting something relaxing, like a massive Glam Glow mask for my entire body.
Little did I know…
When we got to the spa, everything was hunky-dory until they took me to the room with the mud baths.
Uh…where’s my private room? I wondered. Where’s my tub?
Instead of there being a single tub in a private room, all of the mud baths were in a huge open space, all lined up in industrial rows.
There were also ladies in the tubs, and more ladies waiting for their turn, so we were all just standing there — buck naked and awkward — for, oh, 10 minutes or so (did I mention it was awkward?), until it was our turn.
At that point, the spa technicians kicked three women out of the tubs they were in and plopped us in their places.
Sooooo…the mud wasn’t fresh.
Yeah, I don’t know why, but I’d assumed they’d empty the tubs after each person, and refill them with new mud for the next.
Is that crazy? I mean, I guess dirt is dirt and all, but whatever — it grossed me out. The entire time I was sitting in that tub, I kept thinking of all the naked people who’d been there before me, and all of the strands of body hair and wayward bits of poo floating around…
Who knows how long they’d been using that same mud. It could’ve been weeks or months or YEARS!
Looking back on it, I probably should have said, “NO ACTUALLY I’LL PASS! I’M GOOD! I’LL JUST WAIT HERE!” But I was overwhelmed by the grossness of it all and couldn’t stop myself before I was completely immersed in the mud, and by that point, it wasn’t easy to get out.
That mud was hot and encumbering. Difficult to move around in. And then my claustrophobia kicked in, and I couldn’t breathe. To make matters worse, I was sitting facing a wall that was covered with these really scary masks, and I couldn’t look to either side — mostly out of shock, but also because it might seem like I was ogling the other naked women in the tubs next to me.
IT WAS THE MOST DISGUSTING 20 MINUTES OF MY LIFE!
Lesson learned here: opt for the massage or facial. 🙂
What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever done in the name of beauty?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Whew! Long night…
El Hub and I didn’t get back from the East Bay until almost midnight. We spent some time hanging with my fam to celebrate my mom’s sixty-fifth birthday.
First, noms at a local Japanese restaurant, and then cake, champagne (actually, a peach moscato) and presents back at the house. I got Mom some YSL, Chanel and Dior beauty goodies from Sephora.
Tabs was invited, of course, but he chose to hold down the fort and watch a few more episodes of Breaking Bad instead.
You know cats… 🙂
Ooh! Look at that…
I’ve been a little obsessed with purple lips lately (I think Radiant Orchid, Pantone’s 2014 Color of the Year, is partly to blame).
Here I’m wearing Topshop’s $14 Lip Cream in Double Take, a glossy, pigmented purple lip cream.
Pretty, yeah?
It’s available now at Topshop stores and topshop.com.
Anyone else going through a purple lip phase?
Just me?
Aaaaand, STOP!
As in The Showstopper Set, by Marc Jacobs Beauty.
Super quick pics and swatches here. I had to jam through these and only had 10 minutes to jot down some thoughts before heading out to meet my family for my mom’s bday celebration, so if this seems kind of rushed…it was!
Sorry. But Tabs was kind enough to give me the evening off, and I’m not passing that up. 🙂
Well, I’m glad you asked! It’s Marc’s six-piece limited edition holiday set — $135 (listed as a $216 value) — and it comes with makeup for eyes and lips, a makeup bag, a mirror and a tiny bee-sized bottle of Marc’s Honey perfume.
The lipgloss: I like. It’s my favorite thing in the set. It has a medium-weight, non-drying formula — slightly sticky, but still comfortable — and it’s neither scented nor flavored.
Color-wise, it reminds me of MAC Lychee Luxe Lipglass (here’s my review from way back in 2010), and it’s sheerer than it looks in this swatch. As far as wear time, we’re talkin’ 3-4 hours.
Now, the liquid liner gave me some trouble. I like the color — it’s a true black without any blue undertones — and shine, but I find the felt tip pen difficult to control (the edges of my lines are jagged).
The mascara holds its own with good length, separation and color (also true black); curl hold isn’t bad at all, and I don’t see any clumps, flaking or smudging. I think the sweet spot’s around one or two coats. Any more than that, and my lashes start sticking together.
Lastly, the eyeshadows, and the first word that comes to mind is “SHINE!” Just like that, in all caps. 🙂
I like ’em. Today I patted them on with a flat eyeshadow brush, but I wasn’t too crazy about the shadows when I buffed them out or applied them with a fluffy brush. With a fluffy (brush, haha!), I thought they were tough to blend and buff out, and I did observe some fallout.
This set used to be available on the Sephora website, but wouldn’t ya know it? I’m not seeing it there now. You might want to check in stores if you’re interested. I did spot it online at a shop called CosPro on amazon.com, but I’ve never purchased anything from them before. Amazon has a pretty good return policy, but I don’t know specifically about this store (like the universe, it’s a mystery…).
I’ve always felt like pale, creamy nail polishes were Essie’s domain, but Zoya’s been staging a creamy coup. They’re quickly becoming my favorite line when it comes to colors in the same vein as Ballet Slippers.
Zoya’s famously potent pigments are totally MIA in Naturel, the brand’s new six-piece spring collection, as are the streaks that often accompany light, creamy polishes.
Nudes, rosy tones (the “in thing” right now, as my mom would say) and cream finishes abound! — and not a speck o’ glitter in sight.
These shades are easy like Sunday morning…even on a Monday afternoon.
Is it just me, or has the whole rose-toned trend sort of jumped the shark? Almost? Between this collection and Urban Decay’s Naked 3 palette — I don’t know — I feel a little burned out on rose (file that under “Things I Never Expected To Say in Print”).
Not that I don’t like the shades in Naturel, because I do. I think they’re beautifully…subdued.
In musical terms, I would not call Naturel a rock opera. The colors definitely do not remind me of Bohemian Rhapsody, and if you only like nail collections that hit extremely high and/or low notes, Naturel probably won’t make you hear and see thunderbolts and lightening (very, very frightening! — ungh! Galileo!).
Instead, it’s like a pleasant mid-tempo pop song on the easy listening station. Sure, you can bob your head to it and hum along. Or, you can fall asleep… Totally your call. 🙂
