Face

Unsung Makeup Heroes: Rimmel London Natural Bronzer in Sun Bronze

June 26th, 2015 by Karen 17 Comments

I can’t vouch for the full-on waterproofness of Rimmel Natural Bronzer in Sun Bronze ($4.99), because I’m still waiting to find myself caught in a downpour with the original cast of Magic Mike, which to my mind is the ideal (and perfectly plausible) testing scenario.

But until said situation plays out — and it’s only a matter of time before it happens, obviously — I’ll just continue adoring this matte bronzer for other reasons, and there are SO, SO MANY OF THEM, starting with the wonderful price.

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MAC Unsung Heroes: Mineralize Skinfinish Natural

June 3rd, 2015 by Karen 34 Comments

MAC has a looot of face powders, and I think many of them are rock solid performers (see: MAC Blot and Careblends Pressed), but if you and I were at a counter at this very moment, and you asked me, “What’s your favorite, best-of-the-best, most natural-looking, comfortable MAC face powder available now?” I’d say one thing: the MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Naturals.

I got this particular pan of MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Natural in Medium Tan shortly after MAC revamped the packaging last year, when they swapped out the old see-through lids for the new black compacts with the mirror, and since then I’ve brought it with me on every trip. It’s pretty much been the only powder I keep in my purse now for touchups.

Depending on which color you choose, you can use the MAC Mineralize Skin Finish Natural line of baked pressed mineral powders for a number of different things, like cutting down on shine, evening out your skin tone, blurring pores, bronzing, and setting your foundation and/or concealer.

They have a semi-matte finish and a moderate amount of pigment, but they can be sheered down. They’re available in the permanent line in 15 shades for $32 each.

In MAC parlance, I’m an NC42, and I have combination skin that ventures between oily and dry. I wear the color Medium Tan as my face setting powder daily, and I also use Give Me Sun sometimes as a bronzer.

mac mineralize skinfinish medium tan — MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural in Medium Tan on my NC42 skin

I love so many things about this powder! — but I’m going to try to keep this short (yeah right, Karen), because otherwise we’d be here ’til next Tuesday. 🙂

The gist of it is this: in powder-land, MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural is my current favorite powder across the board — not just from MAC — for casual, dewy, natural-looking skin.

I’ve worn it for everyday makeup looks, big events, pictures, HD video, daytime work meetings, dinner dates and taking Tabs out for his walks, and I think it looks just as good on camera as it does in real life. Unlike many pressed powder formulas, the Mineralize Skinfinish Naturals look more like loose powders than pressed powders when they’re sitting on the skin.

After having taken a zillion pictures over the years, I think that loose powders generally look better than pressed powders in person and in pics — softer, I guess. Less like makeup and more like real skin. But MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural bucks that trend. When I wear it, my skin looks even toned, smooth, and it doesn’t look shiny (nor does it look severely matte). The powder also doesn’t look super obvious.

The effect reminds me of Chanel’s Loose Powder, which is absolutely beautiful, but Chanel’s powder is also 1) much more expensive ($52 vs. $32 for this), 2) available in fewer shades.

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With the Guerlain Terracotta Joli Teint Powder Duo Bronzers, Subtlety Plays a Big Part

May 29th, 2015 by Karen 9 Comments

If there’s one thing Guerlain “gets” better than most brands it’s bronzers. They do toasty, tanned glows so well.

The latest additions to their brood of bad-@ss bronzers, the $53 Terracotta Joli Teint Natural Healthy Glow Powder Duos, are available now in four shades — 00 Light Blondes, 02 Natural Blondes, 01 Clair Brunettes and 03 Naturel Brunettes — and even though their names correspond to different hair colors, I don’t think you have to necessarily stick to your matching shade. Myself, I bounce back and forth between 02 Naturel Blondes and 01 Clair Brunettes.

These face powder duos pair a bronzing shade for warmth with a brighter pop of color for radiance in every pan, and breaking with their own tradition when it comes to bronzers, Guerlain made these less pigmented this time around. These are more like light golden tan browns than the rich bronzed browns I’m more accustomed to seeing from the brand.

The goal was to glow without looking garish, so subtlety plays a big part — more subtlety than usual for bronzers by Guerlain.

And that’s also a caveat. When I wear these, I don’t really see a major wow factor on my medium-toned skin. The effect may be a little too subtle for some makeup lovers, especially darker divas, and especially considering the $53 price.

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Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights in Baked Starblush: Mmm… Doesn’t a Baked Starblush Sound Delicious Right Now?

May 28th, 2015 by Karen 3 Comments

smashbox fusion soft lights baked starblush — Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights in Baked Starblush ($32)

Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights in Baked Starblush

“Uh, yes, I’ll take a Baked Starblush and a tall Caramel Macchiato, please…”

I really like this product’s name: Baked Starblush. It sounds both astronomical and tasty. 🙂 This here is the Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights in Baked Starblush, one of two new $32 shimmery baked highlighters (the other one is called Starburst) containing five individual shades (there are two of each color) — in this one’s case a soft white, a soft pink, a rosy pink, a dusty rose and a bright rose. Both are available now online and at Smashbox counters, Nordstrom, Ulta and Sephora.

Starblush, which you can wear on your cheeks, eyes, face and body, creates a subtle veil of light pink shimmer, and it’s one of those considerate subtle veils that doesn’t emphasize pores. With a finish about halfway between a super shiny BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector and a less intense Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder, it’s probably better for lasses with light and medium skin tones, because it might look ashy on deeper damsels.

As for wear time, on my combination oily/dry skin, it lasts between six and seven hours.

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Unsung Makeup Heroes: BECCA Damselfly Mineral Blush

May 26th, 2015 by Karen 31 Comments

becca damselfly blush — Wearing BECCA Mineral Blush in Damselfly ($32)

2011.

Ah, my Halcyon Days…

No, really. Those were my Halcyon days. That’s when I started wearing BECCA Mineral Blush in Damselfly ($32), with the BECCA Halcyon Days Collection.

And I still get the same thrill from it whenever I see it on my cheeks, which is really something else when you think about it. I mean, if after four years, you’re still excited by a shimmery golden coral powder blush — one among countless other shimmery golden coral blushes on the market — you know it has to be a gem.

Damselfly’s lovely luminous finish still looks natural, and it takes it from casual Facebook friend to “in a relationship” status. Before the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blushes, there was Damselfly, and its appearance was a straight-up revelation.

Its understated sheen makes cheeks glow without glistening, and it’s unmistakeable in pics and in person. I don’t know how Damselfly does what it does, but it usually steals the show whenever I wear it. Even in posts about — oh, I dunno — bright coral glosses or matte reds or out-of-this world nude lipsticks (all of which look amazing with Damselfly, by the way), I get different versions of the same question: “What are you wearing on your cheeks?”

It’s BECCA Damselfly, my friend. BECCA Damselfly. 🙂
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Dior Diorskin Nude Tan Tie Dye Edition Blush Harmony 001 Pink Sunrise Is Pretty Like a Postcard

May 21st, 2015 by Karen 11 Comments

dior diorskin nude tan pink — $57 Dior Diorskin Nude Tan Tie Dye Edition in 001 Pink Sunrise

Have you ever seen a real life pink sunrise? Like, with your very own eyes and not in the movies or anything?

Aren’t they glorious? We get them out here sometimes in the fall, and whenever we get a really good one, where it’s like a postcard in the sky, I’m that one weirdo neighbor in her pajamas taking pictures in the front yard at the behind crack of dawn.

Like a real life pink sunrise, Dior’s Diorskin Nude Tan Tie Dye Edition Blush Harmony in 001 Pink Sunrise is pretty glorious, too. One of two $57 Tie Dye Edition Blush Harmony powder blushes in the Dior Summer 2015 Tie Dye Collection, it’s the lighter, pinker, cooler-toned option. The other one, 002 Coral Sunset, is warmer, deeper and coral.

There are four colors infused in these pans. Pink Sunrise has a cool-toned light pink, a cool-toned medium pink, a soft white and a cool-toned plum, and you know how this story goes… Mix all the colors together with the included kabuki brush (or a separate blush brush) by swirling it in the pan, and then dust that on your cheeks for blush.

Following this, rejoice. 🙂

I think I might be too warm-toned and tan to really pull this one off, because I feel like it kinda washes me out, but I don’t know… Maybe that’s more because I think the other Dior Tie Dye Edition blush in the collection, 002 Coral Sunset, is a tan girl’s jam.
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Dior Diorskin Nude Tan Tie Dye Edition Blush Harmony in 002 Coral Sunset Will Help Cheeks and Sunsets Make Beautiful Music Together

May 20th, 2015 by Karen 14 Comments

Do you need to fall in love with a $57 blush?

If you’re like me, probably not. But just in case you do, and you’re looking for a new blush with which to have a summer love affair, Dior 002 Coral Sunset is a heartbreaker. It’s all that and a bag of Trader Joe’s Cheddar Puffs.

What is Dior Diorskin Nude Tan Tie Dye Edition Blush Harmony in 002 Coral Sunset?

Like an actual tropical sunset, Coral Sunset has multiple shades. It’s a warm powder blush with four different colors in the same pan (orange, coral, rose and golden beige) that are designed to be mixed together and applied to cheeks. It’s one of two limited edition $57 Tie Dye Edition Blush Harmonies released with the Dior Tie Dye Summer 2015 Collection and comes with a blush pouch and a kabuki brush for application.

It adds a natural-looking orangey coral warmth to cheeks and skin, and the finish is key to the “natural-looking” part. It looks shimmery in the pan, but on the skin reads more like a matte-on-the-verge-of-a-sheen. If you look closely, though, you can see tiny flecks of glitter…but they’re small. No need to worry about any glitter bomb situations.

How do you use it?

Just take the kabuki brush that comes with the blush, swirl it in the pan, and then tap off the excess. Apply what remains to the apples of your cheeks.

There you go. 🙂

You can also lightly dust on parts of the face where the sun naturally falls for added warmth, like across the forehead and down the nose.

You don’t have to use the included kabuki brush, of course, and I think this one works pretty well, but I prefer to use a fluffy wide blush brush instead. Because this blush is quite pigmented, I find that it’s easier to blend and feather out the edges with a wider, fluffy face brush.

Is it worth the price?

So…this is crazy expensive for a blush. It’s $57! But if you can get over that hump (and it’s a BIG hump), you’ll find that it’s an absolutely beautiful blush.

It’s so pigmented that I only have to use one layer, and that single layer lasts six or seven hours between touchups. I’m betting that a pan of this could possibly last years, even with daily use, because you hardly have to use.

I also really love how it rests on the skin. It’s very finely milled, so the grains of powder don’t attract attention, and the application is perfection. A quick sweep of my wide blush brush, a bit of blending action at the edges, and I’m properly blushed in less than a minute, literally.

In trying to think of comparable high-end blushes, the closest I can come up with is Chanel Malice. The two aren’t identical, as Dior’s has more of a rosy tone, which I think makes it every-so-slightly more flattering on bronzed skin with reddish undertones because the rose shades play off the red tones that typically come with a tan. I also think that the addition of that warm rosy shade is why this blush is something other than your standard issue coral.

Yes, it’s cray expensive, but it’s absolutely on point. Recommended for gals/guys who live for high-end makeup and want a warm-toned blush that goes great with a tan. Also recommended for mature skin.
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Tarte The Sculptor Contouring Face Slenderizer: For Contouring You Can’t Miss

May 15th, 2015 by Karen 14 Comments

tarte sculptor contouring — Two of the three Tarte The Sculptor Contouring Face Slenderizers ($24 each)

This too shall pass…

That’s what I mumble under my breath now whenever I see a new contouring product.

Because there are just so many of them!

It’s not that I’m anti-contouring, though. I’m not. I actually love the look when it’s done well on other people, but there are so many new contouring products coming out, and I don’t really like the look of sharp contouring on me.

That said, if you do, get it, gurl. Express yo’self. Tarte has some creamy new contouring pencils you might find interesting.

Tarte’s The Sculptor Contouring Face Slenderizer is available in three $24 limited edition shades — Park Ave Princess, Park Ave Princess 2 and Park Ave Princess 3 — with each being a different take on a creamy deep brown with a matte finish. They’re made for contouring cheeks, noses, foreheads, and neck and jaw lines, and they were released with the Summer 2015 Poppy Picnic Collection.

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