Kevyn Aucoin

Romantic Rose Tones With Brilliant Bronzed Browns

February 3rd, 2021 by Karen 8 Comments

mac chatterbox lmac chatterbox laura mercier roseaura mercier rose — I like this palette of luscious golden browns and dainty, rosy pinks. ?

OK, so, I wore this look yesterday, and doggone it — I felt good about my makeup. The pink blush and lipstick spoke to my soul… You can’t go wrong with springy, romantic rosy pinks. Methinks they’re downright therapeutic. Wearing pink in winter reminds me that we will see the sun again.

mac chatterbox laura mercier rose — Just a little makeup!

I’ve been doing the bare minimum in terms of base for months, but I put a little more polish into this look, and I really like how it turned out.

For starters, I mixed a dab of pearly lotion into a matte, medium-coverage foundation, then applied a thin layer with a skunk brush all over my face. Then, for slightly more coverage, I loaded a tiny, pointy-tipped concealer brush with the most minimal amount of concealer and strategically dabbed it where I have a little extra pigmentation (spots on my cheeks and around my mouth). And those couple extra things took my base makeup to the next level! Dare I say it? — an elegant level. 🙂

mac chatterbox k down havana — Swatches of the key products on NC42 skin

I felt like myself again for the first time in a while.

Yeah…I was wearing lipstick around the house again, LOL! MAC Chatterbox is an awfully pretty, playful reddish pink, and it can be quite bold if you apply a layer straight from the tube. I was in the mood for something more mellow, so I blotted it down, then used my finger to push in whatever lipstick remained to create a beautiful rosy pink stain… I think it’s springy and cheerful, and I love it. MAC Chatterbox, man! Don’t sleep on it.

Speaking of MAC, Powersurge eyeliner with Havana eyeshadow = magic. Layer Havana on top of Powersurge the next time you’re wearing warm browns or bronzes on your lids, and don’t forget to send me a thank you note when you’re done. ?

mac chatterbox laura mercier rose 1 — MAC Havana eyeshadow + Powersurge liner = magic!

Makeup in this look

Base: It Cosmetics Your Skin But Better Foundation + Skincare in Tan 41, Kevyn Aucoin Concealer in Medium 06, MAC Strobe Cream in Pinklite

Eyes:Urban Decay Brow Blade in Dark Drapes, MAC Saddle and Havana eyeshadows, MAC Powersurge pencil liner, Bite Beauty Upswing Mascara, MAC Clear Brow Gel

Cheeks and lips: Laura Mercier Soleil 1 Bronzer, Laura Mercier Rose Blush, MAC Chatterbox lipstick

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Summer Glam on the Go! Coral Lips and Peachy Bronzed Lids

July 15th, 2020 by Karen 10 Comments

honest beauty happiness lipstick glam on the go coral lips 2 — Today’s summery glam on the go!

The other day, when I was wearing this makeup, I ran into my neighbor, and she asked if I was going anywhere special, to which I replied, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, “I’M GOING TO SPORTS BASEMENT!”

You know the bar for your entertainment is set reeeeeeeally low when you dress up like you’re going to fancy brunch on vacation, but in reality you’re going to a sporting goods store to look for weights…

Oh, the pandemic stories we’ll have to tell! ?

honest beauty happiness lipstick glam on the go coral lips 4 — A summery color palette

This summery look has a few of my favorite warm-weather shades — coral and bronze! — and looks fancy, but it’s very easy to do. It also feels light and weightless, which are must-haves when the temperature’s rising.

This look has three distinguishing features — long, lifted, lush lashes; warm, peachy bronze lids; and luminous skin.

honest beauty happiness lipstick glam on the go coral lips 5 — Streamlined and summery makeup

1. Primer on the outer lashes

To make your lashes look longer and more dramatique, coat your outer lashes with a lengthening lash primer before loading them up with mascara. This creates a lush lash effect without the time and effort of falsies.

2. Bronzer is your buddy for glam-on-the-go eyes

Bronzed eyes are a summer staple, and while you could always search your makeup collection for that perfect shade, why not save yourself a little time and swish your favorite bronzer on your lids instead?

Here, I layered a warm golden tan bronzer atop a satiny peach cream shadow…

3. Define your lash line with brown and black eyeliner

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: gradients are your friend.

This brown-into-black eyeliner gradient on the upper lash line is subtle, but I think that’s the beauty of it.

Start by lining your upper and lower waterlines with a matte brown pencil. Then, draw a thin line on your upper lash line, and smudge the outer edge of that ever so slightly.

Add depth to the gradient by etching a very thin line of black liquid liner along the top lash line.

Added bonus: the black liner also creates the illusion of a thicker lash base!

Flexible face oil

You probably already know I’m a fan of customizing foundation — mixing in a few drops of concealer for added coverage, or adding a few drops of liquid highlighter for a luminous effect. Well, here’s another one to try: blend a drop or two of face oil into your foundation to dial down the opacity of your base. This trick is handy for applying base to sections of the face where you want more of your natural skin to peek through, and it’s what I did here for my forehead and the outer edges.

Fastest updo

If your hair is crazy from quarantine, and you’re tired of rockin’ your fun bun, gather it into a high pony, and secure it into small sections with tiny hair ties (I like these. Three bucks at Ulta!). You can keep the hair ties bare, like I did here (I think the shiny effect looks like jewelry), but if you want to boost the sophistication factor, cover up the ties by wrapping a small piece of hair around each one and securing it with a bobby pin.

honest beauty happiness lipstick glam on the go coral lips 1 — See the shine from the hair ties?

Makeup worn in this look

I listed everything on my visage below, so please feel free to ask about any of these products in the comments. ?
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FOTD: Khaki and Copper Tones for a Zoom Call

June 24th, 2020 by Karen 21 Comments

Wore this look on a Zoom call with a beauty brand yesterday (it was Urban Decay to talk about their latest Naked palette, for the nosey noodles who were wondering!), and in classic K-dawg fashion I banged it out in 15 minutes before it started because that’s how I roll.

And, um…Connor also had a social distancing playdate at the park shortly before the call was scheduled to start, and we made it back home by the skin of our teeth, ha ha ha! Whenever I’m pressed for time but want to look gussied up, I always fall back on smokey eyes and nude lips. This khaki and copper version relies on just two products.

I paired the eyes with peach lips and cheeks because EASY. PEASY.

I’m also wearing a little more base makeup than I have been lately because I knew that “makeup people” (air quotes) were going to be present, so if there were ever a time to load up on a little more concealer, this was it.

Since we’re on the topic of quick looks, what’s your default medium-impact makeup look when you’re pressed for time?

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Smokey Eyes, Smudged Sparkly Eyeliner, and Why Clean Tapered Blending Brushes Are Your BFF

January 23rd, 2020 by Karen 18 Comments

smokey eyes sparkly lashlines — Back in my happy place!

Can I get a whoop-whoop from all my kindred spirits out there? — the makeup lovers who love rubbing freshly washed air-dried brushes ever-so-gently across their face, and love the fresh scent of those baby soft bristles? (Side note: If this describes you, I bet you also like sticking your face in clean laundry when it comes out of the dryer, too!)

The reason you’re staring at this bevy of brushes is because I built a big-@ss pile of dirty brushes I’d been needing to wash since — gulp! — before Thanksgiving. Weeks ago, I tucked them away in a corner of my office and kinda forgot.

WHOOPS!

Well, I washed them yesterday because the bakery has been closed this week. Apparently, no one comes in this time of year because many people are still on their New Year’s diets, but folks start to fall off the wagon toward the end of January.

So…I finally had time to wash this big-@ss pile of brushes, and I also had time to do the makeup love of my life: SMOKEY EYES.

A few things…

I always forget what a difference clean tapered blending brushes can make. Just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is what they look like:

tapered blending brush clean — It’s handy to have a few around.

Whenever I’m doing smokey looks, clean tapered blending brushes are very, very handy… At the very least, I like to keep two or three on deck. Having bristles that don’t have any eyeshadow on them is key because the clean brush hairs pick up/remove excess eyeshadow while also softening any hard edges, so everything looks that much smoother and more seamless.

Another thing? You’ll want to use the lightest touch while blending, and avoid pressing so hard that the bristles splay out (this just presses the powder into your pores, which makes it harder to sheer out your shadow). All you want is the very tip to lightly touch your lid.

smokey eyes tapered blending light touch — Please don’t smash your brush head into your crease.

smokey eyes sparkly lashlines unblended blneded — You know those pics of yourself online where you look crazy? YUP.

Last, but not least, always keep a clean tapered brush around for a last blending pass at the end. After you’ve done everything — base, blush, lips, the whole schebang — lightly blend your eyeshadow one last time, both on top of the lids and along the edges of the shadow to finalize the shape of your eye makeup.

It makes all the difference!

Makeup worn in this look

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Milkshakes and Massages

July 24th, 2019 by Karen 17 Comments

take me to shake shack — YAAAAS KWEEN!!!

Things that go together like cookies and cream:

Reality TV and bad decision making
Underwear and pants (generally speaking)
Prince and the Revolution
Fast food and deep-tissue massage

And yes, I just figured out that last one, and I think it may be the key to the universe’s riches — a business that combines a luxury spa with bougie-bouge fast food.

I know this ’cause I saw my high school friends Jen and Cindy last weekend for our yearly summertime spa catch-up, and this time we met at a fancy-schmancy outdoor mini-mall called the Marin Country Mart.

Oh, and side note, when you live in the Bay Area and you’re tasked with doing the planning for a get-together, you try to arrange for the festivities to happen on your side of whichever of the three Bay Area bridges is closest to you (Dumbarton, Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate). #bayareafunfacts

Anyway, the Marin Country Mart. It has turtles in a fountain, upscale restaurants, shopping, and a large parking lot where, over the years, I’ve weaved creative blankets of expletives at people who have rudely cut me off. (My 10-year-old Mazda looks out of place amidst the sea of Range Rovers and Teslas.)

It also just so happens to be heaven on earth, because it has a Shake Shack *and* an International Orange Spa.

I love going to spas, but the snack situation is almost always dire. There may be cucumber water, tea, fruit and, if you’re lucky, trail mix. International Orange has dried apricots and dark chocolate, which is OK I guess…but it’s nowhere near as satisfying as stuffing yourself silly with a salted caramel milkshake, cheeseburger and fries!

So, we had a long lunch at Shake Shack — which is like In-n-Out, but with super intense milkshakes — then walked over to International Orange for massages.

international orange spa marin — International Orange Spa

international orange marin inside — Minimalist and zen…

My 60-minute deep-tissue massage liquefied my bones. When it ended, I crawled into a lounge chair in the relaxation room, covered myself with a blanket, and fell asleep…

inside international orange spa — Inside the relaxation room

international orange sun deck — View of the bay from the spa’s sun deck

international orange spa snacks — Spa snacks

At the end of the day, we all made a blood vow to return and experience the magic of milkshakes and massages again, ASAP.

I’m serious, this is a highly recommended spa+cuisine combo!

New face base dynamic duo

While we’re on the topic of ultimate combos…

MAC Face and Body and Kevyn Aucoin Etherealist Super Natural Concealer are SO, SO GOOD together.

mac face and body kevyn aucoin etherealist — For Face and Body, I usually do a mix of C4 and C5. In the Kevyn Aucoin Supernatural Concealer, I wear EC04 (the peachy shade for color correcting) and EC06 (a medium warm beige).

Super Natural is yet another makeup gem I unearthed while recently cleaning out my makeup drawers. It’s a medium-coverage liquid concealer with a demi-satin finish and comes in eight shades.

When I first tried it a while back, I remember loving how it looked on my skin, but I wasn’t a fan of the way it disappeared under my eyes.

But when I wear it on my cheeks on top of Face and Body, it’s a different story.
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The Kevyn Aucoin Prismatic Highlighting Trio

February 28th, 2018 by Karen 5 Comments

Holla! Or rather, holographic. Or prismatic. Or prismagic.

WOW! These highlighters are chunky, but more on that in a sec… I was actually drawn in by the packaging at first. The Kevyn Aucoin Prismatic Highlighting Trio ($48) looks like Hollywood movie magic. It shifts colors at different angles, going from yellow to blue to orange to purple, and sometimes all of them at the same time, which is cool, but also CRAZY.

It’s also quite representative of what’s inside.

There are three glittery highlighters, and they don’t look like much in their pans. On skin, though, we’re talking unicorn-level glitter and shine, and the flecks of green, blue and orange glitter are BIG and flashy — so not at all what I’ve come to expect from Kevyn Aucoin.

I mean, the shadows feel fab. They’re almost creamy-caliber bouncy and soft, so they’re easy to pick up with a finger or a brush. They’re a lot like the awesome metallics Urban Decay did in the Heavy Metals Metallic Eyeshadow Palette from the Holiday 2017 collection, but with much larger bits of glitter.

kevyn aucoin prismatic — Wearing Illusion on my lids (see how it ended up in my lashes?)

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The Kevyn Aucoin Neo Trio Palette

December 5th, 2017 by Karen 9 Comments

kevyn aucoin electropop — Fresh, effortless cheek color and dimension from the Kevyn Aucoin Neo Trio Palette

There’s something about magnets, man. I like stuff that sticks together, like the Fenty Beauty sticks and these Kevyn Aucoin powders in the $58 limited edition Neo Trio Palette on counters meow.

You can stick them together and take them apart like puzzle pieces, which is totally my thing (El Hub is not into puzzles at all, which is crazy to me)!

kevyn aucoin neo trio — Each of the three pans in the Neo Trio Palette contain 0.25 ounces of product; one full-size pan from KA’s permanent line is 0.75 ounces, so you get a good amount of product.

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The Kevyn Aucoin Electropop Pro Eyeshadow Palette

December 1st, 2017 by Karen 11 Comments

Should you listen to electronic music or pop music when you’re playing around with the new $57 Kevyn Aucoin Electropop Palette? #deepmakeupthoughts

Every time I wear it, I end up listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D at least three times, haha! We have a baby lullaby station set on Pandora, and I’m not kidding, every other song is some version of Pachebel’s Canon in D. I swear that song is holding the baby lullaby station hostage!

Electropop is a $57 limited edition eye palette with 12 electric hues and chromatic colors, and it’s all about the brights, dramatic pigment and mega metallic pearl. You’ve got color, shine and all the fun, flashy things, but they’re handled tastefully and executed with perfection.

At first, it was the brights that reeled me in, but the creamy, comfy, weightless formula sealed the deal. It’s like, dude, am I even wearing eyeshadow at all?

The Electropop shadows feel as light as a feather, much like the MAC In Extra Dimension Eyeshadows, and just like the In Extra Dimensions, they kindly stay the crap outta my fine lines. So thanks for that, Team Kevyn!

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