Butter London Marrow nail lacquer from the fall/winter 2010 collection, $14.
Do you do purple polish?
by Karen 5 Comments

Butter London Marrow nail lacquer from the fall/winter 2010 collection, $14.
Do you do purple polish?
by Karen 5 Comments

Butter London Victoriana nail lacquer from the Fall/Winter 2010 collection ($14).
Would you rock this? Yay or nay?
by Karen 4 Comments

Praise ye makeup gods! It’s the weekend, at last. 🙂
How’s it going today? As you can tell I got off to a pretty late start this morning, but I felt like I just needed to chill, ya know? El Hub and I went out for coffee and breakfast burritos to this cafe up here called Dr. Insomnia’s. The place has a cool biker feel to it and lots of big, beefy dudes ordering turbo charged coffees with multiple espresso shots (I just got a latte). Of course, then when we got home Tabs insisted on taking advantage of my caffeine buzz with some high-intensity playtime. Next thing I knew, it was noon!
Eh, I guess that’s the kind of stuff Saturday mornings are for, right?
That and e-surfing.
Missy Elliott’s one of my hip-hop heroes
For the water babies…
What your cats are *really* saying
Have a great Saturday!
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
by Karen 34 Comments

An inky blackish blue with a whisper of deep purple, Blue Dahlia Pure Color Nail Lacquer ($18) looks like a midnight summer sky on tips and toes. One of two polishes in EL’s fall 2010 collection, (the other’s called Surreal Violet), it makes me long for late-night adventures and broken curfews, and it’s yet another reason I’ve joined the Blue Dahlia bandwagon.
The shine? Otherworldly. If I were a super heroine, I’d deflect laser beams with Blue Dahlia’s luminous shine.
by Karen 52 Comments

Here I’m wearing makeup from the Smashbox Masquerade Collection for fall 2010: The Eye Palette in Masquerade on my eyes, Creamy Cheek Color & Brush in Intrigue on my Cheeks and Masquerade Lip Enhancing Gloss in Reveal on my lips.
Friends, citizens, insomniacs, lend me your eyes; I come to bury complicated eye looks, not to praise them. 🙂 Put down that Sleepytime Tea for a second, Caesar, and take a look at the new Smashbox Masquerade Eye Palette ($35) — enemy of complicated eye looks everywhere!
You don’t have to be an aeronautical engineer to put together fly looks with this palette of nine powder shadows in neutral and jewel-toned shades. In it, Smashbox cleverly placed complementary colors in three horizontal rows, basically taking the guesswork out of color matching. It’s a breakthrough of epic proportions, yo! — particularly for lazy chicks and insomniacs (oh, hai!) like me.
After three consecutive nights of absolutely no sleep, I really, REALLY appreciate how easy it is to get ready with this palette.
Of course, if you’re the kind of girl who gets plenty of sleep and prefers to match her own colors, no problem. I think all nine of these shades work together well, and nothing says we have to use them in any specific order.
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by Karen 26 Comments

Chanel, indoor plumbing, the Internet and allergy meds are just a handful of the many reasons I’m glad we live in these modern times, and here’s another: old school beauty was kinda rough!
Back in the 1800s and early 1900s, you couldn’t just walk into a Walgreens (well, Walgreens was around then but not like today) and buy a tube of gloss or a bottle of polish and call it a day. Many women made their own cosmetics at home, and some of the ingredients they used were downright naaaasty. 
Pale skin was all the rage; to get the look, women would dust their visages with lead-based face powders (we now know how harmful lead can be). As if that wasn’t bad enough, they would darken their hair with shampoos made from iron rust, and for soft, supple smackers, they made lip salves from spermaceti, a waxy substance collected from the heads of sperm whales (classy).
[Continue reading…]
by Karen 8 Comments

Neutrogena Healthy Skin Custom Glow Blush & Bronzer in Raisin Glow, $10.
Have you tried any of the Neutrogena blush/bronzer duos? What do you think?
by Karen 7 Comments

Estee Lauder’s Blue Dahlia Pure Color Nail Lacquer, $18.
I love how this color looks like calligraphy ink.
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