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
I think that everyone in my timeline last weekend was at Coachella, which reminds me — festival makeup. Lots o’ dots, crazy lip colors and shapes and graphic designs painted all over faces.
Are you into it? I like a lot of the looks I see on other people, but it’s not really my style. It depends on whether I’m actually at a music festival.
How about you? Festival makeup: yay or nay?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
So…what is the Monday Poll?
Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 10 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine. ?
GIRL, I don’t even remember what it was called, but it was an R&B/hip-hop festival (we saw Destiny’s Child — with the original lineup!) at a beautiful place called the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington State. It must have been around 2001… My ex and I took his teenage cousin and her friends (we were the “adult supervision”), and I remember introducing the girls to Bene-tint.
I also remember brushing and flossing my teeth behind a parked car and being less than thrilled about the lack of running water (because, apparently, I’m the freak who flosses her teeth at a music festival).
Generally, I don’t attend a lotta music festivals because of 1) porta-potties, 2) no defined seating (or seat cushions), 3) no air conditioning, 4) tons of mud 5) and the possibility of sleeping outdoors in tents. Basically, things that comprise my worst nightmares.
Be a crazy cat lady? And to make lists. Oh, and buy ? shoes.
Up for now, but I may wear it down if I get around to using my curling iron.
My hair’s gotten long again, and it’s at that point where if I don’t do something to it, it’s too wild and out of control to wear down. I’m counting down the seconds to my haircut on Sunday.
Naw, I was too square for something like that. Plus, my parents were super strict and had me on lock-down! I don’t think I could have pulled it off if I’d tried. My dad would have found out, and there would have been hell to pay.
Hmm… Well, I’m not in the mood for breakfast toast, but I’d love a smashed avocado with an egg over easy on top for lunch, and please add a sprinkle of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and a pinch of salt and pepper.
In case somebody forgot to mention it to ya, one of the best days of the year is the Monday right after Easter, because all of the candy goes on sale. 🙂 That means discounted Easter chocolate at Target. YES!
You’re welcome. 🙂
I hope there’s a bounce in your step and a twinkle in your eye today (which may or may not be due to glitter). May you feel strong, capable and confident.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. Here are the questions to copy/paste.
1. What was the last music festival you went to?
2. Finish the following sentence: I was born to…
3. Hair up or down today?
4. When you were a teenager, did you ever throw a party at your house when your parents weren’t home?
5. What would you like on your toast today?
Hello babies and bunnies,
On Sundays, I usually like to treat myself and sleep in, but I got up at the crack of dawn today because, you see, the Easter Bunny, who always gets the credit for these things, gets a little help from me each year. FYI, this is a secret, so please don’t tell anybody.
Shortly after dawn I went outside and did what any good tabby would do. I hid eggs for the neighborhood children and kitty cats and filled them with the most delicious snacks — smoked trout biscuits, organic catnip mini-cookies, and, for a lucky few, deep-fried turkey nuggets.
Happy Easter, my friend. 🙂 Rise and shine, morning glory! I hope you have a wonderful Sunday.
Easter is one of my favorite holidays because — helloooo — bunnies, food and fam, but I also love the sense of renewed hope. It’s another opportunity to start again, and that always feels so good.
Have a wonderful day. We’ll be taking it easy over here at MBB HQ, nothing fancy because I think Connor Claire is still too young to hunt down dyed eggs (plus, she won’t remember), although she friggin’ loves eating scrambled eggs.
Talk to you soon.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Happy Caturday, lovely kitten, and happy Easter weekend to you. 🙂
If there isn’t a stack of pancakes in front of you right now, I hope there will be one shortly, because, as you know, and as the scientific community has confirmed through multiple peer-reviewed clinical trials, pancakes make everything better (fact).
Specifically, banana pancakes. With walnuts.
Are you doing anything exciting today? On my end — and this probably doesn’t qualify as exciting to many people, but it does to me — I’m looking forward to trying some of these goodies from the new Space NK “The Essentials” gift-with-purchase.
I’m all about that greige patent-leather makeup bag. I gotta say that the Space NK makeup bags in their GWPs are usually kinda bomb. They’re always roomy and fit tons of stuff.
Spend $150 or more at Space NK (stores or online) and get the following
*Also includes the cute LE makeup bag above
- 111 Skin Cryo Activating Hydra Gel (0.5oz)
- By Terry Mascara Terrybly in Black (0.14oz)
- Diptyque Eau De Parfum (0.34oz; assorted scents)
- Eve Lom Time Retreat Face Treatment (0.33oz)
- Juara Coconut Illipe Hand & Nail Balm (0.27oz)
- Kat Burki PH+ Enzyme Essence (0.25oz)
- Kevyn Aucoin The Eye Pencil Primatif in Basic Black (0.024oz)
- Lipstick Queen Belle Epoque in Belle Pink (full-size)
- Malin + Goetz Vitamin B5 Body Moisturizer (1oz)
- Miriam Quevedo Extreme Caviar Restructuring Luxe Serum (1.75oz)
- Oribe Gold Lust Repair & Restore Shampoo (0.5oz)
- Ouai Texturizing Hair Spray (1.4oz)
- Rodial Snake Booster Oil (0.3oz)
- Smith & Cult Lip Gloss in Her Name Bubbles (0.08oz)
- Tata Harper Resurfacing Mask (0.25oz)
A $200 value, available in the US April 19-26 while supplies last at Space NK and Bloomingdales
I’m just sayin’…if you were planning to do some Space NK shopping anyway, it might be worth waiting a few more days to grab these extra goodies.
I also want to work on re-organizing my beauty/makeup/brush situation this weekend. I don’t know why this happens over and over again, but I’ll be hyper-organized for a few weeks, then I’ll glance up at my shelves one day and see an out-of-control explosion.
Aaand I can’t find anything again.
Before I get started, here are some things that caught my makeup-loving eye this week.
Beauty tips & tricks with makeup artist Fiona Stiles, who, by the way, does amazing work
Rae shares her top high-end foundations.
Glow in the dark hair is now a thing.
Enjoy the rest of your day, sweet friend. 🙂 Talk to you soon.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
I’m having one of those days, babe. It’s been so hard to focus this morning, and I don’t know if it’s because I stayed up a little later than usual…
Well, later for me. 🙂 I was up till about 10:30 (night owl!) reading Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.
It’s such a great book! I have the itch to read a chapter now, but I shouldn’t…
It’s about three ladies who live in a beach town in Australia. Their lives intertwine when their kids all start kindergarten together. Then, gasp! — there’s a murder at the school! ?
It’s not fluffy, though. My brain doesn’t feel numb. It’s poignant, intriguing, funny and sad at the same time. The story grabbed me like a lasso and pulled me along.
Anyway, I’ve been staying up late reading, and I think that’s kinda messing with me.
Aaand, I’ve also been browsing the web on my phone more than usual, and I swear, that really does mess with my ability to concentrate. Note to self: quit falling into the Facebook/Instagram black hole before bed and early in the morning.
When I feel out of it like this, I try to have an easy day, but there’s always stuff to do, you know? Just gotta go with it.
We haven’t talked a lot lately about non-makeup things, have we? We should catch up! I’ll go first…
Let’s see… Well, I went to the dentist last week and found out that I have a cavity (yay!). I decided to get it sorted out quickly, because I knew that if I didn’t, I’d obsess over it. So I did. I went back a couple days ago for the filling.
Good fun…
Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Gosh, I can’t even remember the last time I had a cavity. It’s been years and years. I mentioned it on Instagram, and someone said that getting cavities after having a baby or breastfeeding is pretty common because the baby leeches minerals from you (yes, like a parasite).
So, yeah. I went to the dentist, which is not my favorite thing to do, but it wasn’t bad this time. The hardest part was the dental mouth frame thingy they had to use to keep my mouth open during the procedure.
THAT was totally exhausting. My jaw still hurts.
Oh, and the sunglasses weren’t my idea. My dentist gives them to his patients to make the bright headlamp less blinding. I wish I’d taken a side picture of them because they said, “I ❤️ SF Symphony.” Haha!
And those Bose noise-cancelling headphones? OMG! They’re amazing! They don’t completely cancel out every sound, but they dampen the background noise. It’s weird! You can still hear someone talking in front of you, but if there’s music playing or other ambient sounds, it gets filtered out. It’s amazing. I plugged them into my iPhone and listened to music the whole time while they worked on my teeth.
Definitely made the experience less traumatic.
Still on the hunt for the perfect black-and-white striped tee! And, apparently, some other things too…
I already have some Caslon tees that I wore all through my pregnancy with Coywolf, and they’re still in great shape, so hopefully this one with the stripes would hold up well.
The only things is…the stripes are pretty thick, so I’m afraid I might feel like a referee in it. I wonder if there’s a version with thinner stripes.
P.S. Who knew one could be so picky about stripe width?
How do these things happen right in front of my face? I have no idea.
So I need/want another one (ideally, a black one).
I do love the hot pink ones, though, but the black ones don’t look as dirty after you’ve used them.
That’s what I’m currently coveting. How ’bout you?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
So…what is the Monday Poll?
Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past 10 (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine. ?
Before you start this week’s Monday Poll, I encourage you to take a few deep breaths, and prepare yourself mentally, because you *have* to pick from among the two scenarios in each of the questions. ? You gotta pick one or the other.
Why?
Because it’s more fun/messed up that way. ?
Eegh! Both sound equally terrible…but I guess I’d rather have hot, sticky feet than cold, wet feet. That does NOT sound appealing… I’d go with the boots and socks in summer.
I’d pick the 10 miles in the wedding gown. It would be absolute torture, for sure, but I can’t afford to lose my left eyebrow… No way. My left eyebrow is my good brow, and I simply can’t afford to lose it.
This one’s easy! Boob falling out.
Well, crap! This ones’s hard, because if the drunk tattoo artist messes up my brows, that’s a major focal point all jacked up, but if he/she messes up my liner, I “guess” I could conceal it, maybe, by doing smoky eyes all the time (which I practically do anyway, ha!).
But I can’t even stand the thought of having a tattoo needle anywhere near my lash lines, ugh!
I dunno… I guess I’d take my chances with the liner?
Yeah, I’d go with the eyeliner (nooooooo!).
Too hard, too hard! Either one would be otherworldly, amaze-balls INCREDIBLE, but since I have to choose…I’d go with Chanel. 🙂
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. Here are the questions to copy/paste.
Remember, you have to pick one scenario or the other, because it’s more messed up fun that way.
1. Would you rather have to wear wool knee-high socks and boots every day during the hottest summer ever, or wear flip-flips and bare feet during the coldest winter?
2. Would you rather run 10 miles wearing an itchy, puffy wedding gown (And you can’t stop to take any breaks. You have to run the entire time, so no walking, crawling or hitching a ride with Jake Gyllenhaal on his gorgeous, majestic horse.), or shave off your left eyebrow in its entirety?
3. You’re in the middle of a group interview for your dream job. Would you rather accidentally poop in your pants, or have your boob fall out (and you don’t realize it for 10 minutes)? Oh, and the poop is stinky.
4. Would you rather have a completely drunk tattoo artist give you permanent eyebrows, or give you tattoo eyeliner?
5. Would you rather receive a gift of 100 brand new Chanel lipsticks, or 100 brand new Tom Ford lipsticks?
P.P.S.
Have an amazing Monday, my sweet friend!