Face

NARS Man Ray for NARS Holiday 2017 Color Collection: Fetishized and Intensely Blush

October 6th, 2017 by Karen 12 Comments

Is it 1983? Am I in a Duran Duran video (OMG, I WISH!)? Fetishized and Intensely are totally worthy of stylish ’80s video dudes, which says a lot. Simon Le Bon would be raiding John Taylor’s makeup bag, and Simon would be all, “Hey, can I borrow your bright NARS blush?” And John would say, “The reddish coral one? Sure. You should try layering it with the tangerine one. Grab that too, and while you’re at it, could you please hand me my fuchsia lipstick?”

I gotta have blush that applies smoothly, and both of these totally do. They’re from the NARS Man Ray Holiday color collection, and they pack POW.

The really intense coral-red one that looks like a ruby red grapefruit is called Fetishized, and the bright matte tangerine one is Intensely. They look almost tropical, don’t they? Almost summery? — which is surprising for a holiday/winter look, but not surprising, at the same time, since the Man Ray color collection is all around bright, pigmented and joyful.

nars intensely and fetishized blush swatches — Intensely and Fetishized swatches!

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On Wednesdays We Wear Pink (and Purple)

October 4th, 2017 by Karen 9 Comments

igk-girls-club-mac pinklight strobe cream becca pink haze — It’s a pink hump day party with IGK Girls Club Color Spray, MAC Pinklite Strobe Cream and BECCA Pink Haze Soft Blurring Powder.

In the wise words of the Mean Girls movie, “On Wednesdays we wear pink,” and whoops! — sometimes purple, thanks to this temporary hair color spray by IGK, Girls Club ($19), which looks more like purple in my hair.

igk girls club — I call this pose “Purple-haired girl gazes out window.”

I like it, though. It smells like too-sweet bubblegum, and I have to use about half a can before the color really comes through, but I still think it’s fun, especially on mornings when the thought of covering my salt-and-pepper roots with regular ol’ root spray (I use the one by Rita Hazan) is just waaaaaay too depressing.

Even though I have to use a lot, so it’s not something I’ll do every day (because it’s $19), I think it’s better than most of the temporary hair color sprays I’ve used. It doesn’t make my hair feel crunchy (YAY!), and it’s easy to wash out.

OH, EM GEE, change my world, why don’t you?! BECCA Pink Haze Soft Blurring Powder ($38) is a loose makeup setting powder with a sheer pearly pink tint, and it subtly brightens your face, but you can’t, like, really tell when you first put it on. It takes 10-15 minutes before it seems to settle on the skin. Then you can see the subtle soft pink pearl reflecting in the light.

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Product Shout-Out: Sweat Cosmetics Skin-Balancing Cleansing Towelettes

October 2nd, 2017 by Karen 3 Comments

These wonderful wipes are like a portable, post-workout shower, and they’re sensationally soft. They come in packs of 10 for $7 and 30 for $18 from Sweat Cosmetics.

The thing I notice about most specialized post-workout wipes, especially the ones that say they’re for face *and* body, is that they’re usually great at one thing but not great at another, like they’ll be fine for quickly cleaning my neck and down, but when I try using them to clean my face, they’ll sting or make my cheeks feel tight afterward. Or, they’ll leave a film that pills up when I put on sunscreen or BB cream.

Most of them aren’t great at both — face and body — but these are, so even even though you can use baby wipes or regular old makeup wipes to clean up after your workout, these are just better, heftier and softer than usual, like a really good cotton washcloth that smells like lavender and green tea.

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Neutrogena HydroBoost Exfoliating Cleanser and Hydrating Serum

September 27th, 2017 by Karen 12 Comments

Nobody ever sat me down and told me this — I wish they had, because it was hard-learned knowledge: one day, your skin will probably change.

Mine did. I used to have very oily skin. When I was teenager, I was oil slick city, and my skin stayed that way throughout my 20s. Now, though, it’s mostly dry, except for my oily forehead and nose.

If I still had that same skin I had back in the day, I’d probably love new Neutrogena Hydro Boost Exfoliating Cleanser ($8.99) and Hydrating Serum ($19.99).

I think that both of these additions to the Neutrogena Hydro Boost line are mid-level moisturizers. If you have oily or normal skin that still likes/needs some extra moisturizing, but never quite gets so dry that it hurts to smile, then either of these might be a good fit for your face.

Buuut, before we go any further, can we just talk about the packaging for a second?

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Bright, blue and cheerful? But, like, if you look at both of the bottles, they say “HYALURONIC ACID” right there on the front with a little squiggly symbol to get your attention.

Hyaluronid acid shows up in many highly rated moisturizing skin care products (here’s an excellent post on The Beauty Brains about it), but it’s listed down at the bottom of the ingredients for the Exfoliating Cleanser…

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Exfoliating Cleanser: Ingredients
Water, Sodium C14-16, Olefin Sulfonate, Cocamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Glycerin, Sodium Hydrolyzed Potato Starch Dodecenylsuccinate, Acrylates Crosspolymer-4, Cellulose, Polysorbate 20, Citric Acid Sodium Benzoate, Glycolic Acid, Fragrance, Lactic Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium EDTA, Carica Papaya (Papaya) Fruit Extract, —-> Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid

And it’s also halfway down the list for the Hydro Boost Serum…

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Serum: Ingredients
Water, Glycerin, Dimethicone, Butylene Glycol, Neopentyl Glycol Diheptanoate, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate, Isododecane, Dimethiconol, Ammonium Acryloyldimethyltaurate/VP Copolymer, Ethylhexylglycerin, Benzyl Alcohol, Sodium Lactate, Cetearyl Olivate, Bisabolol, Chlorphenesin, Sorbitan Olivate, Sodium PCA, Fragrance, —-> Sodium Hyaluronate, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Sorbitol, Chondrus Crispus Extract, Sodium Hydroxide, Proline, Portulaca Oleracea Extract, Propylene Glycol, Citric Acid, Magnesium Aspartate, Zinc Gluconate, Copper Gluconate

So it sure doesn’t look like one of the main ingredients in either of these… I’m just sayin’.

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Exfoliating Cleanser

This face wash , which feels like a jelly, exfoliates in two ways — one physical, and one chemical. The physical way seems to be via little beads, but the back of the bottle says that this doesn’t contain plastic microbeads.

I’ve been trying to figure out which ingredient actual does the physical exfoliating, but I haven’t figured it out yet. If you can tell from the list what’s doing the deed, let me know.

Whatever it is, the particles feel small, soft and mildly gritty, and they aren’t painful. This feels like an expensive exfoliating product from a high-end brand.

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Stila Stay All Day Cover Powder Finish Foundation & Cream Concealer

September 26th, 2017 by Karen 3 Comments

stila stay all day cover powder finish foundation concealer honey 8 packaging — Matte AND full coverage!

If James Bond’s tech team also made beauty gadgets, one would look like this. To the untrained eye, this doohickey may appear like a run-o-the-mill stick foundation, but flick the top and voila! — a hidden concealer. 🙂

Stila Stay All Day Cover Powder Finish Foundation & Cream Concealer ($36 and available now at Stila and Ulta) is for girls and guy who are committed to a full-coverage glam face beat, and it’s like getting three products in one, because the creamy, matte stick foundation dries to a matte powder finish, so you’re kinda-sorta also getting a setting powder.

Both the foundation and its peachy partner-in-crime satin-finish under-eye concealer cover everything, including post-pimple pigmentation, freckles, sunspots and under-eye circles. It comes in 16 shades, too.

Now, being a 40-something-year-old gal who loves natural-looking coverage and is brutally picky about concealers and face powders (I don’t like cake-y face makeup), I was skeptical about this at first, but turns out I like it a lot.

It lasts a solid eight hours and makes my skin look super smooth. I won’t wear it every day, though, because it feels heavier than the face makeup I normally wear, but if you like full coverage and don’t want your foundation to move, Stila’s got’chu covered.

stila stay all day cover powder finish foundation concealer honey 8 open — Sadly, a chunk got stuck to the cap when I opened it. 🙁 But see the secret concealer in the cap?

stila stay all day cover powder finish foundation concealer honey 8 before after — Before and after Honey 8, which looked like it would be a tad too light for me, but these oxidize a step. It looks a little light, yeah? But shortly after I took this pic, the foundation had oxidized about half a step, so it ended up being darker than it is in this pic.

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The Awesome Hourglass Ambient Metallic Strobe Lighting Palette

September 26th, 2017 by Karen 14 Comments

When I finally enter Valhalla after my Viking funeral, I wanna be wearing rose gold Lucent Strobe Light from the Hourglass Ambient Metallic Strobe Lighting Palette ($62 and available meow) on my cheeks. My plan is to roll up to the afterlife lookin’ like Pat McGrath herself glowed my @ss up.

hourglass ambient metallic strobe lighting palette 2 — From the pan on the left: shimmery pink Absolute Strobe Light, shimmery gold Pure Strobe Light and shimmery rose gold Lucent Strobe Light

I could pat-pat-pat and blend-blend-blend these highlighting powders on my face-face-face all day-day-day, and I know that’s weird to say because, as you know, I’m not the biggest fan of metallic highlighter that wolf whistles and catcalls as you’re strutting down the street, but the metallics in this palette are magical. Yeah, they’re shiny, and yes, they’re bright, but the powder grains are almost imperceptible. They’re even finer than the particles in the BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed Powder Highlighters, and that results in a high beam glow that looks creamy and expensive. And that’s a rare find, my friend!

hourglass ambient metallic strobe lighting palette k2 — The lip is MAC Lipglass in N-U-D-E, and the eyes are courtesy of the Kevyn Aucoin making Faces Beauty Book.

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Stila One Step Primer Preps, Primes, Conditions and Smooths Skin

September 25th, 2017 by Karen 10 Comments

Is there a more science-y looking primer than Stila One Step? Seriously, I don’t think so. It’s got that double helix-looking DNA thing swirling around in the bottle, which is kind of cool.

Stila’s moisturizing primer

So, Stila has a bunch of different face primers. I know there’s one for illuminating and one for color correcting, but One Step is their moisturizing, smoothing water-based primer.

The clear liquid surrounding the helix is a combination of water and other moisturizing ingredients. The primer contains a mix of vitamins and 15 botanicals, buuuuuut the plant extracts are mostly all down near the bottom of the ingredient list, which is just something to keep in mind.

I’m not completely sold on this primer’s hydrating power… I have combination skin, and I don’t really feel like this primer does much for my dry spots. (Side note: If you want straight-up hydration, check out MAC Natural Radiance.)

Stila One Step Primer: Ingredients
Water, Cyclopentasiloxane, Butylene Glycol, Octyldodecyl Neopentanoate, Glycerin, Phenoxyethanol, PEG/PPG-18/18 Dimethicone, Carbomer, Dimethicone, Aluminum Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Caprylyl Glycol, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Sodium Chloride, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Disodium EDTA, Phytantriol, Hexylene Glycol, Glyceryl Acrylate/Acrylic Acid Copolymer, Dextrin Palmitate, Palmitic Acid, Octyldodecanol, Stearic Acid, Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate, Tocopherol, Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, Retinyl Palmitate, Zinc Oxide (CI 77947), Lysine, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract, Ginkgo Biloba Leaf Extract, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, Magnesium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Zinc Chloride, Potassium Sorbate, Montmorillonite, Illite, Kaolin

In case you don’t know primers from pancakes

Primers are applied after your skin care but before your foundation, and a lot of brands carry a number of different primers designed to help address different skin issues.

Generally, though, they all smooth the skin by filling in your pores and fine lines to make the products that you apply on top of them appear smoother and last longer. Many primers, like this one from Stila, use silicones to fill the dips and valleys on the surface of the skin.

TECHNIQUE TIP: After I apply primer, I give it a couple minutes to completely dry before I layer anything else on top, because when there are wet spots, my foundation or concealer won’t adhere very well to those areas.

I don’t wear primer every day, because I don’t think I need it if I’m just going out to buy a loaf of bread, but when I’m going to be meeting someone for lunch, or taking certain kinds of pics for MBB, then yeah, I’ll make the effort, because primer makes a night-and-day difference in terms of smoothness and wear time, especially on my cheeks.

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Product Shout-Out: NARS Saint-Raphael Precision Lip Liner

September 21st, 2017 by Karen 3 Comments

OK, this is one of those off-label uses of a makeup product, so if you’re a stickler about only using products in the way they’re intended, you might want to look away. For a second.

On the other paw, if you’re open to experimentation, I found a very effective color corrector completely by accident.

Well, technically, it isn’t a face product. It’s an opaque matte orange lip pencil, NARS Precision Lip Liner in Saint-Raphael. It’s one of the new NARS Precision Lip Liners.

I’ve been using it to color-correct a desiccated former pimple that’s now purple, and it totally works.

I wouldn’t use it on under-eye circles, though, because it is a lip pencil, and I don’t know if it’s approved for use along water lines or around eyes in general. But I’ll use it on my chin, my cheeks, forehead, nose and the sides of my mouth.

Here I’m using it as a color corrector on my chin to hide Julian the pimple, who is STILL plaguing me.

We (or I) could literally talk about color correcting for hours. I think it’s fascinating, but to briefly summarize (haha, good luck to me), orange color-correcting products appear to cancel out/neutralize purple and blue shades, because orange and purple sit across from each other on the color wheel, where they stare each other down 24/7, throw shade and give each other the evil eye…

Typically, you’d apply orange color correctors on purple areas, then layer concealer or foundation on top.

karen bare skin before with julian — The before shot: Julian the pimple is obsessed with me…

nars saint raphael as color corrector — It’s called makeup improv, and I’m into it.

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