Just For Fun

Yes, girl, I’m a beauty snoop. 🙂 Just call me Harriet the Spy of makeup, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a nosy Nellie… It’s fairly innocent. I’d say that I just have a healthy curiosity.

Sometimes, and I can’t believe I’m admitting this because now nobody will ever invite me over, when I go into somebody’s bathroom, I’ll smell the perfumes and colognes if they’re on the counter, try a lotion if I haven’t used it before, and sometimes — OK, all the time — I’ll open up medicine cabinets just to see what’s in there.

I have found some embarrassing things doing that, but you know…of course I never say anything about it.

On a recent weekend trip with my girlfriends Cindy and Jen I noticed Cindy’s little bag of beauty things on the counter… It was see-through, so it wasn’t like I opened the bag… I just picked it up and peered into it. There were very Cindy things in there, practical things, because she’s not a makeup girl. Like there was floss, Band-Aids, and I think there might have been a small bottle of lotion, but I can’t be sure about that last one.

So, yes, I’m a beauty snoop… There, I said it to the world! 🙂

How about you? Are you a beauty snoop? Do you ever spy in other people’s makeup bags or medicine cabinets?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. TGIF!

I have a few things. The first one is my right eyebrow. It kinda stops halfway, so I have to — well, I fill in both of my brows, but my right one is shorter than my left, so I use brow pencils or other sorts of brow fillers to make it look longer.

So that’s one.

Oh, and my left brow is also thinner than my right, so I try to fatten that one up.

Another thing that I like to do is play up my eyes. I have really big eyes, but my crease isn’t very deep. You could call it a “hooded eye,” which is not my favorite term, because I think it makes some people feel bad, but let’s not even go there.

My crease isn’t very deep, so I like to create the illusion of a deeper-set eye with matte shadows, usually matte browns in the crease. Normally cool matte browns — those are my favorites — but I wear warm matte browns too. Matte browns all the way!

Oh! My nose. So, I have a little button nose, which El Hub says is adorable, but in pictures I like for it to look a little bit more, I guess, more — what’s the word? — sharp? So I usually take bronzer, and I just kind of shade the sides so it looks a bit sharper.

I don’t have any issues with my nose. I love my nose. It’s just that in pictures, and I don’t always do this, but in pictures, I do feel like when I shade the sides of my nose, my face looks a little more symmetrical.

One last thing: symmetry. See…and the only reason I notice these things is because I’ve taken pictures of myself over and over for eight years, but the left side of my lips is slightly thinner than the right, so I slightly overdraw that side in order to match with my right.

I mean, this is all just face paint, and it’s unnecessary. I don’t ever want to feel bad about myself without makeup, and I don’t want any other person to feel bad. I think that if you have the ability to sort of play and experiment and do what you want with your makeup, that’s a good thing for your self-esteem. At the same time, I’m perfectly happy with a bare face.

Just remember that you’re beautiful the way you are. I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

Which of your features do you regularly try to emphasize, enhance or otherwise alter the appearance of with makeup, and in what way?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

The lovely Agata of Her and Makeup (hey, girl!) sent these pics of her gorgeous makeup look yesterday. Doesn’t she look ready to par-tay!? She used the cocktail look tutorial from a few days ago as inspiration and tried the look first with a nude lip, and then with a bold.

I think both look beautiful, and a girl’s gotta have options (I’m gonna try that bold pink lip next time I do this look!). 🙂

I just wish we lived closer so we could actually go to a real life cocktail party. Tabs would also be invited, of course. 🙂

If you decide to give the cocktail party tutorial a try, send me a pic of your look, or tag me on Instagram @karenmbb. I would love to see what you do with it.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

What were five fabulous products (makeup, beauty, fragrance, fashion — you name it) when you were in high school?

OK, full disclosure — whenever I think of the actual year in which I graduated from high school (class of of ’93, yo!), I make a painful-looking smile with panicked eyes and just my lower teeth showing.

This emoji describes it perfectly: ?.

Because when I do the math…OMG!

High school was a lot of fun for me. I was a happy teenager (despite the occasional bout of angst), and I loved exploring, in the only ways I knew how to at the time, things like makeup, beauty, fragrance and fashion.

My parents were strict in a lot of ways, like with grades and after-school activities (I wasn’t one of those kids going to ragers at so-and-so’s house on a Friday night), but I was given free reign to express myself, and I tried a lot of different things!

Or course, I loved the trendy stuff, and a lot of the things I experimented with were the same things my friends liked, too.

There was a lot going on at the time (the early ’90s) with beauty, makeup and fashion, like…

Revlon Toast of New York Lipstick

GURL, three fourths of the flute section in band wore this color, no joke. When band practice was over and all the flutes were put away, the girls would bust out their Cornsilk compacts, and touch up their lips with Revlon Toast of New York. A deep reddish brown, it would be very relevant today because of the current ’90s revival.

I actually just checked online, and Revlon still sells it! I might have to get a tube for nostalgia’s sake.
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Yeah, I admit it. I LOVE ME SOME GRANNY PANTIES.

I had a long conversation about ’em with my friend Jen a couple months ago on our girls’ trip to Napa, with the gist of it being that we both have an undying love for them.

I dunno. Maybe it’s a Filipino thing? — but waaay back in the day when I was a wee lass, I would always get a pack of what were essentially granny panties whenever a relative would visit us from the Philippines, and they were always from a brand called So-En.

Ya know how it is when you’re a kid. You get weird stuff sometimes from relatives, but at the time you don’t really think they’re weird at all. All you know is that “Hey! These come in pastel colors!” and “Ooh! There are flowers embroidered on the front!” so you just start wearing them because they’re super comfortable. Before you know it, though, you’re wearing them all the time in regular rotation until the left leg band is hanging on by a thread, and there’s a small hole in the butt…

Over time I got to thinking that this was just one of those things with my family, but then Jen and I had a talk once about getting souvenirs from the Philippines, and So-En panties came up.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one who got granny panties from relatives!

MIND BLOWN.
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You might be wondering, “So what in tarnation is this Monday Poll thing anyway!?”

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 seven 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.

1. Are you more polished or punk rock?
   Polished, for sure.

   But I think there’s a little punk rocky part of me waiting to come out one of these days, upon which she will start a revolution. 😉

2. Houndstooth or leopard print?
   I feel like it would violate a sacred covenant of cat lady-dom to say anything but leopard print, but it’s leopard print…

   MEOW!

3. Bun or braids?
   Braids please! — preferably messy ones.

4. When was the last time you wore false lashes?
   Just last week. I’m still clawing and scratching my way outta my makeup rut, and I thought that putting on a pair of Eylure 117s would help.

   They did, but I haven’t worn falsies in months, so it took longer than usual… I’m out of practice.

   It’s a perishable skill, you know, false lash application? You gotta do it regularly, or else the muscle memory thing with all the atrophy and stuff. Whatever. 🙂

5. Something that made you laugh over the weekend?
   Not just laugh. I cracked up for 20 minutes!

   I was doing some cleaning when I struck gold. I came across some old handwritten notes that my friend Jen and I passed back and forth in high school band. The notes were buried in a random file folder labeled “Misc stuff that I’m holding onto for god knows what,” which, now that I think about it, was a perfect label for that file.

   Jen and I used to sit next to each other in band and would pass written notes back and forth to each other during rehearsal, and we did this almost every day for years.

   One of the notes was written shortly after we’d gone on a double-date with two brothers from school (we went to a musical; I think it was Camelot), and the note was about how the date went, and how were were enamored with these boys (SO LAME). There were also random references to Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, and wanting to read so-and-so’s letter to so-and-so.

   Just the mundane but now hilarious stuff from the minds of two 17-year-old girls.

Your turn. 🙂 Just copy and paste the following questions into a comment with your answers. I look forward to reading ’em!

1. Are you more polished or punk rock?
2. Houndstooth or leopard print?
3. Bun or braids?
4. Last time you wore false lashes?
5. Something that made you laugh over the weekend?

Good morning to you, my friend! Happy Monday. It’s the last day of August, and it feels a little bittersweet to me. Where did the summer go?

My main goal for today is pretty unambitious. I just want smooth sailing. Low stress — not that I’m feeling particularly anxious or anything. I’m just not in the mood to stress.

So my wish for you (and for myself) is to have a peaceful, productive day. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen