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5 Summer Staples: Eye Makeup Essentials to Beat the Heat

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Summer, summer, summer time!

Orange eyeshadow? Come to mama. Teal eyeliner? I’m all over it. You don’t have to ask me twice when it comes to trying trendy eye makeup. The answer is the same emphatic “Yes!” I’d give to an up-close-and-personal search from Detective Elliot Stabler on Law & Order: SVU.

But while outrageous eyes can be a blast, this girl’s gotta have her steady staples, too. Tried-and-true eye makeup essentials, like the five summer staples below, can keep your eyes fly when the temperature climbs.

1. Waterproof mascara

urban decay cannonball review brush
Urban Decay Cannonball Waterproof Mascara

Don’t let melting mascara ruin your chances with that hot, muscled, baby-faced guy in your summer school statistics class — the one you thought was adoring you from across the room but later realized was probably wondering how you ended up with two black eyes.

Escape that fate with an industrial-strength waterproof mascara like Urban Decay’s Cannonball ($20). It’s a little pricey, but it stretches my lashes to the limit, resisting sweat and water like a champ (I’ve been wearing it in all my pictures as of late).

2. Eye primer


NARS Pro Prime Smudge-Proof Eye Shadow Base

Whether I’m applying a single eyeshadow or five, I reach for eye primers to protect my work from fading, creasing and melting in the heat. My favorite right now? — NARS Pro Prime Smudge-Proof Eye Shadow Base ($24), and I also like Urban Decay Primer Potion ($19) and Too Faced Shadow Insurance ($18).

I haven’t had the chance to try it yet, but Cover Girl’s $8 Intense Shadow Blast in Beige Blaze sounds like a great drugstore option. MBB reader Erin says it intensifies colors and keeps eyeshadows locked down all day long (thanks, Erin!).
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NARS Unsung Heroes: Pro-Prime Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base

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When I finished my first tube of lightweight, colorless NARS Pro-Prime Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base ($24), the thought of not being able to reach for what I’d come to consider the best eye makeup primer currently on the market almost triggered a minor panic attack.

We’d been inseparable since we met last November, thanks to the Troublemaker Gift Set, and I was impressed from the start. Pro-Prime intensifies the color of products applied on top of it and extends wear time, too. It grips cream and powder shadows, eyeliners and brow pencils tighter than teeth on a night guard.

When I start with Pro-Prime in the morning, my eye makeup still looks fresh and crease-free at dinner, even on hot, muggy days.


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NARS Unsung Heroes: Amour Blush

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NARS Amour blush

You know what they say: you never forget your first NARS blush (well, I’m sure someone says that).

I remember mine like it was yesterday… I’d just gotten my first paid freelance writing gig, an interview for a small magazine that paid a whopping $25. Man, I was all kinds of nervous, but I got through it without making a terrible fool out of myself, and at the end I felt such relief that I decided to treat myself with makeup.

I made a beeline for Sephora, setting my mind on finding something pretty to wear with NARS Dolce Vita Lipstick, which I was wearing at the time.

I asked a friendly sales associate at the store for ideas, and his eyes lit up immediately. He knew just the thing and pulled out a pan of matte peachy pink NARS Amour Blush ($27).

He beckoned me to come closer. I did, and he swept a layer of Amour on my cheeks, and then gestured toward a mirror. “Pretty!” I exclaimed when I saw the combo with Dolce Vita. It was amour at first sight. 🙂

Ever since then I’ve thought of Amour blush as my interview blush/power tie. It’s one of the products I reach for when I want a polished, confident cheek flush that doesn’t overpower my eye or lip makeup.

If the $27 price tag ties your stomach in knots (a perfectly understandable reaction), keep this in mind: it packs off-the-chart pigment, which means you probably won’t have to use a lot. I’ve had mine for years, and despite using it about once a week, I still haven’t made much of a dent in the pan.

Amour is sometimes referred to as a matte NARS Orgasm, but I find it noticeably redder that that, with less peach. The color seems to vary widely on different skin tones, sometimes appearing more coral, other times more pink or red. One thing it almost always does, however, is look natural, and I think it looks particularly great on gals with golden undertones on skin that pulls to the warmer side of the spectrum.

NARS Amour blush

NARS Amour blush
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A NARS Summer 2011 Face of the Day Inspired by Tabs the Cat and His Pretty Green Eyes

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Happy Tuesday, pretty. 🙂 Tabs woke me up early this morning and then insisted that my makeup today pay homage to him (what a diva!).

Refusing his requests usually leads to scratches, so I reached for one of his current collection crushes, NARS Summer 2011, and told him I would “see what I can do.”


NARS Summer 2011 products clockwise from the eyeshadow trio at the bottom: Cap Ferrat Eyeshadow Trio, Exotic Dance Eyeshadow Duo, Carthage Lipstick, Dogo Eyeshadow Duo and New Order Blush

I built the look with two things in mind — 1) Tabs’ pretty green eyes, and 2) the word “Mixey,” one of his many nicknames (a shortened version of Meow Mix).

Green crops up a few times throughout the NARS Summer 2011 collection, and I tried to really incorporate it into this look, mixing some different colors together.

Unlike my look last week using the Stila Stunning in Sayulita palette, the green here isn’t as obvious or BAM! It’s a subtler hint of green.

The look’s built around the Dogon Duo and Cap Ferrat Trio Eyeshadows. Dogon’s duo chrome taupe side has a touch of green shimmer to it, which I mixed with the light and dark greens in the Cap Ferrat Trio, and then applied to my lids.
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NARS Summer 2011, Sweet Relief and Random Acts of Beauty

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There are few things I adore more than random acts of beauty like…

My tabby alarm clock

Most mornings I’m awakened by a chubby tabby cat set to go off about a minute before the regular alarm on my phone. It’s a very unusual alarm in that I’m actually the source of the sound, which is like a painful yelp. It works like this: Tabs, who usually sleeps in his kitty bed on the floor, climbs up onto my bladder and launches from it into the air, “Whee!”

And it even has something like a snooze button because after he does it the first time, I usually drift back to sleep, so he does it again about 10 minutes later. This repeats over and over until I finally get out of bed.

But this morning the tabby alarm clock malfunctioned in a glorious way! Instead of using my bladder as a springboard, Tabs climbed up onto the bed and gently snuggled his way into my arms like a present. 🙂 Of course, I soaked it up as long as I could (cat ladies, you know what I’m talking about), listening to him purr and feeling the curve of his warm kitty body against mine as rays of sunlight filtered in through the windows onto his fur. It was so peaceful and calm that I almost couldn’t get out of bed!

Sweet relief

When I finally did sit up, the first word out of my mouth was “Hallelujah!” Today’s was the first morning in — I can’t even remember how long — that I’ve gotten up without pain. I’ve been PMS-ing for what feels like an eternity, and “the girls” have been uncomfortable and sore, so much so that even lying in bed hurts. Does that ever happen to you?

Sleeping in my regular bras hasn’t helped because the hooks and wires dig into my skin, and the sports bra I tried was way too binding. But last Saturday at Macy’s I stumbled upon a line of stretchy one-piece bras from Barely There and decided to give them a try.

I got the one called the ComfortFlex Fit Bandini (comes 2 for $26). It’s basically a super soft, non-binding sports bra without any hooks or wires, and it fits snugly to keep everything in place, but yet isn’t so tight that it cuts off the circulation while I’m sleeping.

Two words: sweet relief!

The best thing since…frozen waffles

After making my way downstairs this morning and fueling up on caffeine and peanut butter toast, I took a generic Zyrtec and put on Tabs’ harness to take him outside for a quick walk.

For some, taking allergy meds may not qualify as a random act of beauty, but JEEZ! — it’s so nice to be able to enjoy spring without sniffling or sneezing from allergies, or feeling sleepy or foggy-headed from meds. Back in the day, the over-the-counter stuff hardly helped at all, and I always had dreadful seasonal allergies. It may not be makeup, but Zyrtec is still beautiful to me.

May I have some eye candy?

While Tabs explored the great outdoors from the safety of his kitty harness, I snapped a bunch of pics, like this one of a blooming bush.
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