Just For Fun

You win a completely free vacation to the tropical location of your choice. Airfare, hotel, food, even souvenir spending money is covered (sweet!). There’s just one catch. When you travel to and from your destination, you have to wear a “special outfit” on the plane ride.

Your choices are…

Las Vegas show girl (complete with large feathered headdress), or full Scuba gear (with mask and flippers). YOU MUST CHOOSE!

You and your girls head to Maui for a break. On your first day there you all decide to head to the beach, but as you sift through your luggage you realize that you’ve forgotten to pack a swimsuit. You grab the keys to the rental car and tell your homegirls you’ll meet them after you find a suit. Unfortunately, all of the stores on the island offer only two swimsuit choices: 1) an itty bitty, hot pink bikini (and matching thong bottom) with rhinestones on the bra top, or 2) a full-body Speedo Fastskin FS-Pro, the same suit worn by members of the US Olympic Women’s Swim Team. YOU MUST CHOOSE!

Too bad the 2008 Olympic Men’s Swim Team won’t be wearing these outfits, yowza!

You’re at the airport about to board a plane for a 12-hour flight. When you go to check in at the gate, the clerk informs you that there are only two open seats left on the plane. You can either 1) sit next to a quiet dude who doesn’t talk but keeps passing gas every 15 minutes and then sprays Cool Water perfume into the air to cover the smell, or 2) a guy who doesn’t pass gas every 15 minutes but constantly narrates everything you do as if you’re stuck in a romance novel (“Karen licked her lips, crossing her legs seductively. Her breasts heaved as she leaned over to grab a strip of beef jerky from her purse,” etc, etc). YOU MUST CHOOSE!

Right now I’m on a plane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. I’m probably reading Us Weekly or The Time Traveler’s Wife and drinking ginger ale (I get bad motion sickness). 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

One of the eight major islands that make up the State of Hawaii, Oahu is home to about 900,000 people, or 75 percent of the resident population of the state. El Hub’s parents live in the smallish town of Kaneohe, which is located on the eastern side of the island.

When you’re talking about Hawaii, you’re not talking about a large area. Each of the islands is small by Mainland standards. For the locals, driving from one end of Oahu to the other represents a HUGE trip. For them it is, but in reality the farthest distance one could drive in a straight line without plowing into the sea is never more than 44 miles (71 km).

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Many visitors to Oahu arrive expecting a deserted, quiet tropical island with beaches as far as the eye can see, and some leave the island disappointed after their trip because Oahu bustles with activity (and shopping!). While it does have the snowy white beaches, mountain hikes, secluded waterfalls, beautiful flowers and warm climate that come with life in the tropics, it’s also home to almost a million people, ethnically diverse and busy with their own lives.

The people are what make Hawaii so special. It’s one of the most racially diverse yet ethnically integrated places in America and is the only state in the union in which people of Polynesian and Asian descent outnumber all other demographic groups.

A few of my favorite Hawaiian beauty brands

• Aloha Sun Botanicals – I *love* this line, especially the Maui Mists essential oil body sprays. I think they smell heavenly, and at $13 they’re a steal.
• Island Essence – The cute labels on the packaging feature vintage-inspired images of Hawaiian hotties.
• Maui Babe Browning Lotion – I’ve never used this to tan because I was brown when the stork delivered me, but I have heard from other girls that this stuff creates a lovely, rich tan.
• Hawaiian Bath and Body – These handcrafted soaps and body product are made on the North Shore of Oahu (Hawaii’s surf capital). I love the North Shore for its natural beauty and because it’s also where El Hub and I got hitched.
• Maleana Wedding Cosmetics – Dorys Foltin, a makeup artist on Oahu, created this line of fabulous makeup. Dorys did my wedding makeup two years ago and used her products on me to create a natural look with gold eyes, pink cheeks and pink lips. If you or anyone you know decides to get hitched on Oahu, book Dorys because she’s super nice and has major makeup game.

Some of the most heavily represented groups in Hawaii are Hawaiians, Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and Puerto Ricans. El Hub’s great grandparents came to Hawaii from Portugal in the early 1900s to work in the sugar cane and pineapple fields alongside other people who’d emigrated from their home countries.
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How would you feel if the guy in your life started to wear guyliner (aka eyeliner) and power bronze (bronzer)? Younger men these days are more open to wearing makeup — eyeliner, concealer, bronzer — than ever before. How do you feel about man makeup?

“When beauty companies started investing heavily in focus-group research a decade ago, a surprising fact came to light: Some men dip into their wives’ concealer, bronzer, even eyeliner.

‘Makeup for men is a small niche category, but it is definitely growing,’ says Roman Shuster, a retail analyst for Euromonitor International. He says the influence of rock bands like My Chemical Romance and Panic at the Disco, whose lead singers wear dark eyeliner and mascara, are making the idea of wearing makeup attractive for a younger generation of men.

‘If a guy had worn makeup 10 years ago, he would likely have been beat up. But that’s changed today because more men are getting into grooming. What was once considered weird isn’t so farfetched now that you are using moisturizer and body washes,’ Mr. Shuster says. He calls this the ‘spillover’ effect.”

-Dave Lackie, Financial Post

My brother won’t even touch the countless bottles of conditioner I give to him, and El Hub gawks at my every suggestion to use moisturizing skin products (“But it’s Kiehl’s, sweetie!”). I doubt the guys in my life will be asking if they can borrow my Stila Sun Bronzing Powder, but if either of them asked to borrow some concealer to cover a pimple or asked for a few blotting papers before a big interview, I wouldn’t mind.

For the Boys: Man Makeup in 7 Easy Steps

1. Exfoliate with a gentle product like Clinique Seven Day Scrub Cream
2. Apply toner
3. Moisturize face (and neck!) with a lotion containing SPF
4. Use a brush to properly apply concealer
5. Dust loose or pressed powder onto forehead and face
6. Apply a clear or neutral-colored lip balm
7. Wash face before bed to remove makeup and to cleanse the skin

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I read a piece in The Independent this morning about how some of the famous OG supermodels of the 1990s are getting work again.

“Three of the original ‘Big Four’ that Gianni Versace sent down the catwalk in 1991 will be back on the billboards. Linda Evangelista, who celebrated her 43rd birthday this month, is starring in Prada’s autumn/ winter adverts, and Christy Turlington is the face of Escada.”

I remember when you couldn’t escape Cindy Crawford’s face. It seemed like it was everywhere you turned. For years I watched her on MTV’s House of Style. I even went through a Crawford mole phase; I drew it in and wore it around for a few days (until my mom told me I looked completely ridiculous).

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15 Minute Beauty Fanatic
My friend Christine knows what it means to be busy. As a full-time doctor and beauty blogger, she’s always looking for ways to streamline her beauty routine. On more than one occasion, her beauty tips and shortcuts have helped me get to work on time. If time is a luxury in your life, you owe it to yourself to visit her blog.

The Knot
Wedding Mecca. The Knot delivers much more than simply advice on how to plan your wedding. It’s also a social networking site, a support system and a reality check for the newly betrothed.

Lifehacker
Do you ever feel so busy and overwhelmed that you’d trade in your best pair of shoes for a way to shave 10 minutes off your day? No? Me neither, LOL! But seriously, each day Lifehacker posts new time saving tips galore (aka life hacks) and doesn’t charge a thing.

Animoto
Music video directors everywhere must have freaked when they heard about Animoto. The free service lets you create totally kick-ass 30-second music video slideshows from photographs that you upload yourself. The shows are perfectly timed to music. It’s easy, awesome and totally free. And bloggers can embed their creations into their own websites.

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What’s the biggest risk you ever took with your makeup?

Mine was orange lipgloss. It terrified me at first, but I’m addicted to it now. I also took chances on blue eyeshadow and bright colored lashes. One of the things I love about makeup is that even if a look doesn’t work out exactly how I hoped it would, makeup isn’t permanent. If I don’t like something, I can always wash it off!

What’s the biggest risk you ever took with your makeup? Let me know in the comments. And try your luck with the Makeup and Beauty Blog slot machine (click BET MAX above to start). You’ll need to have Flash installed on your computer to play. Have fun and good luck!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Shake Your Beauty
Tia Williams: Novelist. Fashionista. All around bad-ass beauty blogger. Look up “beauty blogger” in the dictionary… that’s all I’m saying. There she is.

Tag Galaxy
Do you have a muse? When I need a little makeup inspiration, I visit Tag Galaxy. They’ve got this snappy Flickr gizmo/photo search engine that presents a visual representation of your search results. When you input a term (like makeup), the resulting photos from Flickr’s gargantuan library fly in to skin a group of revolving planets right before your eyes! Move over, NASA.

Songza
Don’t you hate being stuck at work when you want to hear Play that Funky Music White Boy but can’t because you forgot your iPod at home? No problem! Look no further than internet jukebox Songza. Just type in a song’s title or artist, and it streams like on-demand radio. Did I mention it’s free?

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With summer and lighter clothing right around the corner, my never-ending battle against excess fur kicks into overdrive this weekend. Not only have I been too lazy to wax, but I hate shaving. That, and I don’t have the pain tolerance for laser hair removal. Avoidance of hair removal = furry Karen. I’m a straight-up YETI right now.

But I’ve reached my limits; I’ve hit the hairy wall. It’s time to deal with this fur situation one way or another.

YOU MUST CHOOSE! — the Sasquatch Edition.

Sasquatch Situation #1

Would you rather 1) have a really hairy bum (I’m talking shag carpet hairy), or 2) no eyebrows? YOU MUST CHOOSE!

Sasquatch Situation #2

You finally meet your dream boy. He’s perfect in every way … except for one little hair issue. Unfortunately, he’s inherited a rare disease which causes hair to grow unchecked in specific places. Waxing, shaving — NOTHING stops it from growing, and when his hair gets removed, it instantly reappears. Poof!

If you could choose which parts of his body exhibited the disease, would you rather they be 1) his nose and ears, or 2) his back (where you could braid it for him)? YOU MUST CHOOSE!

Sasquatch Situation #3

It’s time for a haircut, so you head to your favorite stylist’s chair for summer bee-yoo-ti-ficatin. Sadly, your stylist has just switched meds, and he frequently falls a little off his rocker. He handcuffs you to the chair and proclaims you his hostage!
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