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
He finally hit the wall.
No big surprise really. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Not even Tabs can party all night, every night for weeks.
Cat’s got a bad case of burnout…and he hasn’t gotten off the floor all day.
He even blew off Fashion Week, which has to tell you something.
Before he crashed, he’d put the finishing touches on his new look book. Here are some of the campaigns he’s working on for fall. 🙂
Summer’s winding down, girlfriend, so let’s make the most of it before fall. Grab your towel, sunscreen and flip-flops, and brace your bum for a lounge chair; this week’s open thread starts now.
If you’re new to the open thread, here it is in a nutshell:
It’s our very own club house where we kick it in the comments and chat about whatever we want — beauty (of course), books, B-movies, business, buffoonery — and all sorts of other things that don’t start with ‘b’. 🙂
It runs all day and night (even after I’ve hit the haaaaay), so stop by whenever you can, and as often as you like.
There’s a pitcher of iced tea and lemon slices over there. Just help yourself.
See you soon!
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Everyone into the pool! Quick, before the kids get here!
Happy Sunday, ladies. 🙂 How’s it going this morning?
I’m buzzing because our community swimming pool finally reopened for business yesterday (YAY!). It’d been under repairs for months, and I’d all but given up on them finishing before the end of summer.
Now I can get my swim on this afternoon!
What did you end up doing last night? Did you go skinny dipping, win any dance contests or catch any fireflies? Come on, please let me live vicariously through you. All I did was stay home, you know, watching TV and plucking my eyebrows… It was exhausting.
What about beauty? What were your favorite finds this week?
Here are some of the things Tabs and I talked about on the blog:
LES KHAKI DE CHANEL
FALL 2010 NAIL POLISHES
Leave it to Chanel to make baby poo/army green into a nail polish that looks downright effin’ cool to me. Last year, they stormed my beaches with another gorgeous green, Jade, forever and always my five-star general of Chanel polishes, but the three shades in the new limited edition Les Khaki de Chanel collection ($25 each) are bringing up the rear.
I like it when beauty products appear to combine contrasting concepts, and I think the rugged, outdoorsy elegance of Khaki Vert (a creamy army green), Khaki Rose (a creamy, rosy brown) and Khaki Brun (a creamy, cool brown) just…works.
These are well-groomed thugs wearing tuxedos, y’all, and I hope to see them gracing fingers and toes this fall. Read more…
DIOR NUDE PINK
DESIGN PALETTE
It’s a little funny to me that Dior calls this 5-Colour Designer All-in-One Artistry Palette “Nude Pink Design” ($58), seeing as how there isn’t a lot of pink in its design.
Like the four other quints in the All-in-One Artistry line, Nude Pink Design comes with three powder shadows, a cream liner and a cream base. A little mascara and you’re good to go.
As for the pink, well, it’s there, hiding within a few of the shades. You might remember another Dior quint with a similar name. Dior released the Dior 5-Colour Designer All-in-One Artistry Palette in Pink Design (sans the “Nude”) earlier this summer, but if you had trubs with that palette’s cool-toned pink and purple shades, you might have better luck with this one’s warmer palette.
Oh, and if you’re torn between what’s behind Door No. 1 (Pink Design) and Door No. 2 (Nude Pink Design), give some thought to where you might wear the colors. The Pink Design palette feels more like a party quint with its POPS of purple, whereas the Nude-ly named one feels more like an everyday product to me. Read more…
9 THINGS
I COULD NEVER DATE…
If 41% of all tweets are considered pointless babble, does that mean the other 59% are awesome little pearls of wisdom like this one that crossed my path last week?
Someone posited the following for consideration: “I could never date ______.”
Hilarity (and zillions of retweets) ensued.
Even though El Hub and I have been together since the dawn of time (roughly a decade), I still remember what it was like to be lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.
Here are nine things on my “I could never date______” list. What’s on yours? Read more…
MAC VENOMOUS VILLAINS
CRUELLA DE VIL
WOW! Where does the time go? Today it occurred to me that the MAC Venomous Villains collection’s just a hop, skip and a jump away (September 30).
Can I get a WOOT, WOOT! (and an evil cackle) from all the MAC-aholics in the hood?
The collection, a collaboration between Disney and MAC, features four separate color stories, each one based on a different Disney villain — Cruella de Vil, of 101 Dalmatians fame; Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty; the Evil Queen, scourge of Snow White; and Dr. Facilier, from The Princess and the Frog (find out more about the whole collection here).
Despite the subject matter and cartoon imagery, these Trix aren’t for kids. The colors are decidedly grown up, and the products MAC caliber through and through. Read more…
HOURGLASS FEMME ROUGE
VELVET CREME LIPSTICK
Before El Hub I kissed quite a few frogs, and truth be told a few of those kisses were…awkward, like the one with Mr. Sharp Tooth (it was like a single vampire fang!), or the one with Señor Saliva (like kissing a slobbery puppy), or Mr. Mannequin (the dude never bent his elbows).
The first time I tried on the new Hourglass Femme Rouge Velvet Creme Lipstick ($30, available in 12 shades), I was reminded of those frog kisses, because, well, something felt…off.
It wasn’t the texture; no, Femme Rouge feels as light and smooth as a baby-making slow jam. It was something else…
It was the bullet! — its shape, that is. Like a chisel, or a calligraphy pen, the straight edge at the tip is kinda hard to maneuver into the corners of my lips and around Cupid’s bow. Lips are all smooth turns and rounded corners, right? Things this tube is not. Read more…
TARTE EMPHASEYES
GEL EYELINER
No. 4,572 on the list of things I do badly: hip-hop glide moves.
Yeah… The only gliding I’ve done lately has been along my lash lines with Tarte emphasEYES Aqua-Gel Eyeliner ($18).
Released earlier this summer, the eight liners (Tarte refers to them as gel pots in pencil form) turn lash lines into tug-free zones.
I’ve been wearing the bronze, plum and black ones lately, and they’ve been helping me out on some harried mornings. Not needing to be sharpened, the twist-up sticks are built for efficiency; just two quick swipes along my lash line delivers rich, pigmented color.
Rushing with these doesn’t end in disaster, either, as the colors latch on to my lids with the strength of Greek gods, and they don’t migrate into my crease or smudge into places I’d rather they didn’t, even on bare skin.
Tarte also attributes a whole bunch of skin-loving benefits to the line. Read more…
TARTE
TEN PALETTE
It’s true, your honor. I’m horribly, terribly guilty — of abusing denim.
Especially in the late ’80s.
I guess I was just copying my friends. First, it was that pair of cheesy Guess overalls… You see, I wore them with one strap up and one down. Yeah, I should have known it was wrong, but I was just a kid then.
And that wasn’t the worst of it, either. Soon, I graduated from overalls to cropped jeans jackets. They were bedazzled, with golden studs.
That was probably my worst crime…
To help you understand — not that I’m trying to defend my actions — this all happened around the time my parents forced me to get a boy’s haircut. Read more…
RIMMEL MAX
VOLUME MASCARA
Have you been watching the US Open? I’m probably the world’s worst tennis player (sports involving projectiles = not a strong suit) and only know the bare basics of the sport, but I sure like watching it. Team sports are great, but there’s just something about watching two world class athletes go one-on-one, ya know? Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that most of the dudes are cute, heh!
Today was all about the ladies, though, and watching Maria Sharapova duke it out with Caroline Wozniacki got me thinking about — big surprise — makeup.
If, by some miracle of modern science, I morphed into an elite 35-year-old tennis player, I’d be all about waterproof mascara. With that unlikely future in mind, today I gave Rimmel’s Max Volume Flash Waterproof Mascara ($7, available in a single shade called Black) a try. Read more…
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Every week it gets harder and harder to sympathize with Don Draper, Mad Men’s most eligible self-loathing bachelor (seriously, Don, forgetting to pick up your kids? Not cool!), but I gotta say, Jon Hamm, the actor who plays Don, sure is easy on the eyes.
Born March 19, 1971 in St. Louis, Missouri, Jonathan Daniel Hamm started acting in high school, ironically playing Judas in the musical, Godspell. Where he found the time for acting (he was also on the football, baseball and swim teams) is a mystery, but it’s a good thing he did.
After college, but before moving to Los Angeles in 1996 to pursue an acting career, Jon returned to his high school in Missouri to teach drama (one of his students was a young Ellie Kemper, now an actress on The Office).
But that didn’t last long. He still had the acting bug, so he left Missouri and moved to Tinseltown.
Stardom didn’t come quick, though. He waited tables, getting occasional work on TV shows until his big break came in 2007.
Hello, Don! 🙂
Loading ...Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Afternoon, Saturday surfer. How’s the water?
(dips toe in to check)
OOH! It’s perfect. 🙂 I have enough time to catch a couple waves, but them I’m off to the mall to do some window shopping. I’m in SUCH a mall mood right now.
In other news, I re-watched the last Project Runway again, and you know what? That Michael C. is a class act. The way he treated Mondo after being treated poorly himself — that’s class. He may not be the world’s greatest tailor, but I like his design aesthetic and how well he works with others.
beauty invention? — Bellasugar
All aboard the cat lady train with these 5 ways to wear leopard print — College Fashion
Ever wonder what would happen if you unleashed 100 cats on Ikea?
I whip mah hair back and forth, I whip mah hair back and forth!🙂
Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Before the new limited-edition Benefit Femme Metale Precious Metals Eye Makeup Kit entered my life, the closest I’d come to metallic greatness was the time James Hetfield and I shared a sidewalk.
For $38, you get three full-size Creaseless Cream Eyeshadows and three large sample-size pencil liners in the Sephora exclusive kit — a headbang-worthy bargain (insert sign of the beast [HERE]), considering the Creams usually go for $19 a pop.
Femme Metale’s gilded metallic shades, new but limited edition, give the kit an almost steampunk vibe, and all six colors apply with shimmer to spare.
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I’d travel across the universe to have a bad romance with Deborah Lippmann’s two new glitter-ific fall polishes ($18 each).
Fun, flirty, and catching more light than Vampire Edward’s bare chest in broad daylight, Bad Romance (a glittery fuchsia in a black base) and Across the Universe (a glittery blue-green in a navy base) sing siren songs of shimmery seduction LOUDER than the other Lippmann glitters I’ve tried in the past.
They owe their new singing voice to a shinier jelly base, ooh la la!
Compared to the almost matte-like finishes of Lippmann’s Ruby Red Slippers (2009) and Superstar (2008) glitter polishes, these are practically flood lights!
And I like it. 🙂 What’s glitter, after all, without the shine? It’s like toast without Nutella (or Justin Bieber without the fever).
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Today when I asked myself if I should stop by Sephora on my lunch break, the answer hit me like one of Zeus’s 
thunderbolts: “Of Korres!”
Korres, the Greek maker of natural skincare, color and body products, has been piquing my interest lately. Here are swatches of the colors in their Raspberry Liquid Lipstick line ($22 each).
Pretty, yah?
Korres Raspberry Liquid Lipstick swatches from left on NC35 skin: Nude Beige, Natural, Berry, Fuchsia, Red
I only discovered them last week, but already my lips are in lurve — with everything from the colors to their high-gloss shine and comfy, non-sticky texture. A+
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