Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup
A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
Question por tu: Do girls with thicker, fuller lashes have more fun?
A flirty fringe comes in handy when you’re batting eyelashes with a stranger across the room, or in my case with the old dude working behind the counter at the See’s (hook me up with another chocolate sample, holmes!). 🙂
My wimp-tacular eyelashes and I rely on MAC’s Technakohl Liners ($14.50, available in 11 colors), magical, twist-up mechanical makeup pencils that tightline like WHOA!
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Raise your hand if you’ve ever thought, “Ahhh, fresh Blacktrack!”
If you have, then hello there fellow member of Cult MAC Blacktrack ($15). 🙂
If you haven’t, however, then allow me to introduce you to your new favorite (hopefully) gel eyeliner.
During my LBB years (aka Life Before Blacktrack), every liner I’d try would slip right off my oily skin. Blacktrack changed everything.
True story: I was wearing it when I watched The Notebook for the first time, and by the end of the movie my liner was still going strong. ‘Nuff said.
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The beginning of my relationship with MAC Groundwork Paint Pot ($16.50) was white hot and heavy. Oh, that creamy taupe and gorgeous matte finish… I must have worn it every day for weeks!
But then like most relationships, things cooled, and we started spending more and more time apart (it happens).
When we recently bumped into each other one rainy afternoon, I was rifling through a drawer of makeup at the time.
Hello, good looking. 🙂
And the spark was still there.
At first glance, Groundwork doesn’t look like much, but it’s what I like to call a “work horse” shade, the kind of color I’ll wear day after day.
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Sometimes, when I rifle through my makeup, I feel like a deep-sea explorer — like the Jacques Cousteau of cosmetics 🙂 — discovering new species of lipgloss and learning more about the many products that inhabit my personal makeup world, LOL!
I get a big kick out of rediscovering great products that I haven’t worn in months, like the Sparkling Satins Eyeshadow quad from Chanel ($56).
You see, I have a chronic case of makeup ADD. It’s almost debilitating, and Chanel’s stunning limited edition quads always make it worse.
When I recently reconnected with the cool-toned Sparkling Satins quad (comes with four powder shadows; I’d picked it up a few months ago at a Chanel master class), part of Chanel’s permanent line, I suddenly realized how lost I’d been without her.
Each of the four shades — a buttery gold, a light blueish gray, a silvery pink and a gunmetal gray with silver glitter — can do for eyes what only a two-week tropical getaway with a shirtless Ryan Reynolds could do. In other words, they do a lot.
When I’m in the mood for more color than something like the NARS Kalahari can give me (big on the neutral shades), I’ll reach for something like the Sparkling Satins Eyeshadow quad.
Here’s my favorite way to wear Sparkling Satins…
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Urban Decay’s creamy, long-wearing 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils come in a rainbow of gorgeous colors, but my favorite has to be Bourbon ($17).
She’s brown with golden glitter, and we’ve been friends since last spring, when I spotted a mini-Bourbon pencil in Urban Decay’s Get Baked Palette ($28).
Within a month I’d worn it down to a nub!
Ever since then, time and again, I’ve reached for Bourbon (on the rocks, ha!) when I’ve wanted a little sparkle. Its golden flecks lighten my lids in a subtle way, but not so subtle that I can’t appreciate the difference. It’s glitter, after all, and what’s the point of wearing glitter if you can’t enjoy the bling? 🙂
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If MAC ever discontinues Powersurge Eye Kohl ($15), I’ll hunt down every pencil at every MAC counter within a 30-mile radius, fo’ reals.
My love for this shimmery golden bronze eye pencil runs deeeeep. A MAC artist introduced me to it about two years ago, and ever since that fateful day this pencil has graced my waterline many a time.
On days when I don’t want the harshness of a black or brown liner, I like Powersurge. I think it adds just the right touch of emphasis to my lower waterline without leaving me looking too overdone.
Here she is in action with MAC Style Black…
Curious about Powersurge? Here are a few earlier posts:
I love it with gold, purple, bronze and green eyeshadows, but I think it also looks great on its own … or with curled lashes and tons of mascara, yay! 🙂
Have you met MAC Powersurge?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
MAC Nymphette Lipglass and I met at a MAC counter some 10 years ago when a friendly MAC makeup artist introduced us.
You know how it went — SPARKS! We had great chemistry from the start, and the shimmery golden pink lipgloss went on to become one of my all-time MAC favorites. To this day it’s a staple in many of my looks with smokey eyes.
Because Nymphette packs a lot of pigment, I can use it without layers of lipstick and/or lipliner beneath.
For me, the result’s an easy, breezy, neutral lip look that stands the test of time. 🙂
Have you met Nymphette?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
MAC never rests for long on their laurels, and they don’t give fans a lot of time to digest the many fantastic shades in their permanent line because they’re always bringing out new limited edition ones.
Take Gorgeous Gold, for instance. Like Patina and Arena, two of my favorite MAC permanent collection ladies, I paid her no mind for years.
She’s not your average shimmery gold shadow. Gorgeous Gold’s complex and unusual and unlike any other color in my stash.
It goes on like a cool lemony gold, at certain angles flashing to a shimmery green — kinda like getting two colors in one. 🙂
One of my favorite daytime looks lately has been padding Gorgeous Gold on my lids and lining my upper lash line with MAC Humid. It’s easy, casual and makes my brown eyes *pop*.
What say you about Gorgeous Gold? What other ways would you wear it?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. Speaking of MAC limited editions, the new Make-Up Art Cosmetics collection hit the website earlier today. I’ve been playing Fill the Shopping Cart for hours.