Karen

5 Things I’ve Been Loving Lately: Palette Challenges, Astrology Mugs, Salad, Pillows and Music!

February 16th, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

1. Personal palette challenges

I’m the first to admit it — I get stuck in makeup ruts sometimes. I’ll get comfy and do the same look over and over and over again. And over again. And again. (*cough* soft bronze glam *cough*)

But I’ve been trying to not do that as much lately by challenging myself to take old palettes (and new ones, too) and doing anything other than my usual brown/bronze look with them. And I’ll give myself no more than 20 minutes each time.

Granted, this doesn’t always work out, and sometimes I end up looking CRAY and have to take everything off and start all over again (*shrugs shoulders*), but I’m trying. 🙂

2. These astrology mugs from Target

My cupboard already runneth over with mugs, but if I had extra room, I’d get one of these astrology mugs from Target for every important person in my life.

3. Bistro Santa Fe Style Salads

Bless you, Costco! These salads are super tasty, and they’re only $10 for a pack of four! The ingredients: romaine, roasted corn, chicken, crunchy tortilla strips, cheese and a dressing that tastes like thousand island.

So I don’t get sick of them, I’ll add different things all the time, like I’ll add avocado, bacon or cherry tomatoes. Sometimes I’ll also crumble a few extra tortilla chips on top for an enhanced crunch version.

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Frivolous Friday Chit Chat: Growing Out Gray Hair, J. Lo Makin’ Me Want to Go to Pilates Every Day, and Blending Boot Camp

February 16th, 2018 by Karen 73 Comments

Let’s talk about roots (among other things)!

Good morning, friend. Happy Friday…

I’m doing my best to smile and keep a positive cattitude right now, because I don’t want to evoke any more disappointment or sadness or frustration or pain at a time when the news is 24/7 heartbreaking.

If you’ve turned on the news once in the past two days, you know what I’m talking about. 🙁

So, let’s talk about frivolous stuff, because the serious issues will still be serious at the end of the day. We Americans will still have to figure these things out, but right now…at this moment, on this blog, I want to talk about things like gray hair.

Early yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to take Connor to her two-year pediatric checkup, I looked at my roots and thought, dammit, I really gotta do something about this situation, because I’m about two weeks from my next hair coloring appointment.

I don’t usually mind the process of covering up my grays myself during the weeks when my roots go from barely noticeable to OH, SH*T GIRL between salon visits, taking the root cover-up spray, and spraying it on, and then using the crayon for baby hairs up front. It hasn’t been a big deal, but for some reason it was this past month and a half. It was a big pain in the @ss.

I don’t want to say that I’m lazy…but I just might be, LOL! The last thing I want to do is deal with covering up my grays. I just don’t want to do it. Also, I haven’t been into the way these products make my roots feel stiff…

I get on these weird kicks, and right now I don’t like it when my hair feels lacquered in any way, but between the spray and the waxy crayon, that’s how my hair feels, like there’s pounds of product in it.

So the other night I couldn’t go to sleep, and I thought, like…what if I just grew my hair out and let my salt ‘n’ pepper hair come through? What if I committed to just growing out my gray?

It would take about a year, and I could write about it! I could let it grow out, see what happens, and if I end up not liking how it looks, I’ll just dye my hair again. Among other things, “it’s something to do,” and I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to be in the process of doing something with my hair, whether it’s growing it out, cutting it short, doing bangs, pink streaks, or waiting for a new season to change the color again. I’ve always liked to play with my hair.

So I think I’m gonna do this. I even started researching how to grow out gray hair, BUT THEN I watched some freakin’ J. Lo music videos and started googling J. Lo pics, and can I just say that J. Lo is the high pony of all high ponytails? OY!

I keep wanting to quit her, but I can’t. She’s been a hair/makeup icon of mine for so many years. I think, like, “Karen, you really have to move on,” but then I watch a J. Lo video, and it doesn’t matter if it’s from back in the day or something new, and I’m like, “DAMMIT, J. LO! YOU ARE MY HASHTAG #GOALS.”

She’s the only reason I do squats, for one, and her hair is so beautiful! I love the caramel tones, the layering, the length… It’s just so luscious!

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8 Things to Know About New MAC Studio Waterweight Powder/Pressed

February 15th, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

mac studio waterweight powder pressed 2 — New MAC Studio Waterweight Powder/Pressed, $36, available meow

Let’s break it down, babe.

Starting with…

What is it? Well, I’m glad you asked! 🙂 It’s a new line of $36 medium-buildable pressed powder available now in the permanent line.
It has a split pan with two shades, one warmer than the other, so you can customize your color.
—-> I love this idea and wish more brands would do this! Heck, I’m always mixing shades anyway.
MAC says it’s for all skin types, but it’s supposed to be ESPECIALLY good for normal and dry skin…or so they say (more on this in a few).
The plastic compact feels sturdy and substantial (yay!). It also comes with two applicators — a sponge and a face brush.
It’s available in 11 shades (Dark Deepest, Dark Deep, Dark, Medium Deep, Medium Dark, Medium Golden, Medium Plus, Medium, Light Plus, Light, Extra Light).
I wear Medium Golden, which is a good match for my NC42 skin.
I think ladies and gents who want 1) oil control, 2) pretty good coverage (one or two layers easily hides hyperpigmentation and uneven skin tone) and 3) a matte finish should give it a try.
At least for me, this powder is a little tricky because when I layer it on top of foundations and concealers, my skin looks dry (it’s REALLY noticeable around the fine lines on my forehead), and my makeup looks heavy (you can see it in action here and here).
Between the opaque coverage (even though it’s described as medium), the matte finish and my *ahem* age, this isn’t the most forgiving powder in the world. I mean, it’s not like I can see the powder grains or anything. In fact, the powder itself is very finely milled, but when it’s applied on top of other face products, it’s just more…Insta-glam fabulous than I’m used to these days. I don’t even venture up to medium coverage that often anymore.

But if I just wear this on its own without concealer or foundation, or with, like, a primer or an illuminating lotion (like BECCA Backlight or MAC Strobe Cream), and I douse my skin with MAC Fix+ afterward, then I like it… It looks natural and gets the job done.

Even by itself, though, it isn’t going to replace my number one MAC powder love, MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural.
It reminds me of Chanel’s loose powder, and if you want moderately opaque coverage in a line with a good shade selection, and you have oily or normal skin, I think it’s definitely worth a try.

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The MAC Jeremy Scott Lip X 9 Future Emotions Is Made for Mixing

February 15th, 2018 by Karen 5 Comments

mac jeremy scott lip 9 x future emotions happy song living in stereo — Wearing Happy Song and Living in Stereo, two lipsticks from the new MAC Jeremy Scott collection, mixed together.

Seriously, this packaging is amazing! All of the details are completely there. THIS IS A LIP PALETTE, PEOPLE. But it totally looks like a mix tape. I can see it sitting on the floor of my little red Honda Civic back in the day. (Side note: it would have been filled with songs that I recorded off the radio on KMEL.)

This is NOT a MAC mix tape, obvs. It’s the $25 MAC Lip X 9 Future Emotions lip palette, and it has nine of MAC’s non-shiny lipsticks inside, so Matte, Amplified and Satin finishes in bright and deep shades like pink, purple, orange — the bold route. There’s only one nude, and everything else is like BAM!

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The MAC Jeremy Scott Eyeshadow X 29 Lo-Fi Palette: 3 Jazzy Ways to Work It

February 15th, 2018 by Karen 17 Comments

mac jeremy scott low fi eye shadow — The new MAC Jeremy Scott Eyeshadow X 29 Palette in Lo-Fi ($75)

The beatbox-lookin’ MAC Jeremy Scott collection centerpiece Eye Shadow X 29: Lo-Fi palette contains 29 (!) powder eyeshadows, and LOTS of them are colorful.

It’s like someone poured a bag of Skittles into it.

First things first, swatched on my arms…this palette looks like a HOT mess. Several of the shadows swatch unevenly, which is kind of disconcerting (it’s $75 after all). One might logically assume that the rough arm swatches imply patchy application problems on lids, too, but that hasn’t been the case for me.

mac jeremy scott low fi eye shadow swatches — Patchy on arms, not so much on lids

So far I’ve done three different looks with this palette, and the shadows applied fairly evenly in all three. Blending hasn’t been bad either, and most of the shadows I’ve used look more pigmented on my lids than they do in arm swatches (weird!). I’ve also noticed very, very little fallout. Like almost none.

It would be easy to dismiss this palette based on arm swatches alone, but you really gotta get in there and work it to see what it can do. You gotta drive the car first, so to speak.

(FYI, when I wear some of the brighter shades, like the matte pink, red, purple and green, my eyes have been watering a little, which happens to me sometimes when I wear bright colors, so I’m not surprised by it.)

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14 Days of Ravishing Red! — Day 13 (Actually Day 14): Reddish Fuchsia Lips With Bite Beauty Kimchi and Cayenne Lipsticks

February 14th, 2018 by Karen 12 Comments

I realized JUST RIGHT NOW that I accidentally repeated “Day 7” of this series twice, which is what I get for staying up late to watch Altered Carbon on Netflix. Note to self: go to bed earlier, K-Dawg! Lack of sleep depletes your math skillz.

Sci-fi fans, check out Altered Carbon

Yeah, so this is technically the 14th edition of 14 Days of Ravishing Red, not the 13th. Whoops!

With it being V-Day and all, I wanted to wear a red lip today, but not just a lip with a hint of red, or a tint of red, or a sheer gloss of red. But a RED red.

But I was also in the mood for fuchsia. I looked around and couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, so I mixed a fuchsia lipstick with a neutral red (Bite Beauty Kimchi Lipstick and Cayenne Lipstick, which are $18 each) to get exactly what I wanted.

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3 Things to Know About the New MAC Jeremy Scott Cheek X3: Acoustica Palette

February 14th, 2018 by Karen 34 Comments

Ya know, I’m looking at this palette from the new MAC Jeremey Scott collection, and it’s dawning on me that…I don’t think I have a legit CD player in my house anymore.

There’s one in my Mazda…and I think I might have an external USB one somewhere for my computer…but that’s it. I don’t think I have a regular old music CD player anywhere, and I guess that’s a good thing, because I can totally see myself trying to force-feed this blush palette into it, either by accident, as I mistake it for my Prince mix and push “Play” a bunch of times and, after hearing no sound come out, curse all the technology that has ever existed, or, on purpose, out of morbid curiosity. 🙂

mac jeremy scott collection outer packaging — Kudos to the MAC design team for nailing the ’90s style in this collection. It’s completely ON POINT!

The MAC Jeremy Scott Cheek X3: Acoustica palette CD packaging looks so real, though! When I turned it over, I half expected to see scratches on the back.

mac jeremy scott cheek x 3 acoustica swatches — Blush, bronzer and highlighter

The palette is $35 and part of a new ’90s music-themed MAC collab collection with designer Jeremy Scott, who has his own clothing line and also designs for big brands like Adidas and Moschino.

His style is kinda out there… Like, if the Care Bears were club kids in the world of the Fifth Element (fun fact: Jean Paul Gaultier designed the costumes for that movie). The clothes are colorful, cheeky, retro-futuristic, and often ’80s and ’90s nostalgic.

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14 Days of Ravishing Red! — Day 12: Satiny Bluish Red Lips With Bite Beauty 078 and Caudalie Innocence

February 13th, 2018 by Karen 7 Comments

Are you ready for 14 Days of Ravishing Red? Stay tuned as we explore ravishing red ? lipsticks, lip liners and glosses every day on our way to ? Valentine’s.

Namaste… You wanna do some red lip yoga? — because there are sooo many ways to work a red lip using just a tinted lip balm and red lip liner. They’re two of the most flexible things you can have in your makeup bag.

Like, last weekend I did a causal red lip stain with a Caudalie lip balm/Bite Beauty lip liner combo, and today I used two more Bite and Caudalie products in different shades — $18 Bite Beauty Lip Liner in 078 and $18 Caudalie French Kiss Lip Balm in Innocence — for a more formal Tuesday satiny bluish red lip (got gussied up for a trip to CVS).

Same as with the lip stain, I did the liner first, then followed with a layer of the balm on top, but instead of diffusing the liner to soften it, this time I lined my lips first with bluish red 078 Lip Liner before completely filling them in with the same pencil for a full-on opaque matte lip. Then, I lightly dabbed pink Caudalie Innocence balm in the center of my lips to take the edge off the matte and add some shine.

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Karen

1. Personal palette challenges

2. These astrology mugs from Target

3. Bistro Santa Fe Style Salads

Sci-fi fans, check out Altered Carbon