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Blogging for Breast Cancer – Site of the Day

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It won’t take long for the ribbons and pink din of Breast Cancer Awareness Month to fade into the background of our busy lives, so we’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot.

Breast cancer awareness and supporting groups like the BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Fund) and Susan G. Komen for the Cure are very personal causes for many.

Last night, Nancy from Beauty411 sent out an email to members of the Beauty Blog Network explaining why she was participating in Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I asked her if I could reproduce it here…

I’m blogging pink in honor of my mom, who passed away from breast cancer. This is also why I am so committed to the Estee Lauder brand and am so grateful for their partnership in October with the BBN [Beauty Blog Network].


My mom was seeing an oncologist at the Mayo Clinic and had received many different cancer treatments, as she was participating in clinical trials. She was so brave. I had read that there was a center within the Mayo Clinic where you could go and beauticians were on hand to fit you with a wig. I convinced my mom that we should at least check it out.


When we went there, the staff couldn’t have been more supportive. They fitted my mom with a wig (she had lost much of her hair, and although she was self conscious, she was too proud to admit that she “needed” one). They also came out with a box of cosmetics — all Estee Lauder brands. The first thing my mom did was pick up a lipstick and apply it. My eyes met hers in the mirror and she said “I think it’s going to be ok, now.”


That box of cosmetics got my mom through a very difficult day and through many more. I wish I knew the person at their Corporate office that I could thank and tell them how much that meant to me and my mom. That’s why the BCRF is so important to me, also. That’s why I blog pink in October.


Nancy
~Beauty411

Throughout October, Nancy will feature pink products on her blog, many of them Estee Lauder brands. In the left sidebar, she’s running a ChipIn widget for donations to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and will also hold a contest at the end of the month.

Nancy has put a lot of work into breast cancer awareness this month. Let’s show her some love and leave her some comments. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Estee Lauder Pink Ribbon Collection Products for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

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I stopped by the mall tonight after work to window shop for shoes (my Adidas Shell Toes are on their last legs), but, alas, *forces* drove me toward the mighty cosmetics department.

At the Estée Lauder counter I stared hypnotically at this pink mountain of awesome limited edition Pink Ribbon products for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Half a million dollars in proceeds from the sale of World Pink products this month will go to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The girl working behind the counter warned me that the Elizabeth Hurley Lip Color Collection ($16) is selling fast.

Check out the jeweled pink ribbon pin ($12.50), bling!

I was tempted by the lip sets. The first one, called the Evelyn Lauder Lip Collection ($22), comes with three full-sized lipsticks in some of Evelyn Lauder’s fave shades (pinks and berries). The second set, the Elizabeth Hurley one, includes three sheer and shiny High Gloss lipglosses in Pink, Rose and Pearl.


Estee Lauder High Gloss Lipgloss in Pink


Estee Lauder High Gloss Lipgloss in Pearl


Estee Lauder High Gloss Lipgloss in Rose

I hope you had a fab day today. Your kindness and response to the Breast Cancer Awareness Month post this morning blew me away. It looks like we’ll reach (and hopefully exceed) the $100 goal ($200 with matching) for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, so you deserve a big hug for that. Great job. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Blogging for Breast Cancer – Will You Join Me?

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What Is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

My college friend Mary Anne was barely 30 years old when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was 2006. She wasn’t long out of dental school when her doctor, during a routine exam, found a lump on her breast.

A lump — words no woman wants to hear and no 30 year old ever expects to.

Today, Mary Anne is doing great. She was lucky, and her treatment went well. But when her doctor found the lump that day in 2006, she’d had no idea it was there. She hadn’t experienced any symptoms, and if it hadn’t been found during that exam, there’s no telling how much longer it may have gone undetected.

Every October, women around the world take time to remember friends and family and to increase awareness of the disease. They promote the importance of early detection, help to raise funds for research and treatment and offer information and support to those affected by breast cancer.

For us, there is no more worthy cause than this one. Breast cancer targets us (women) at a rate 100 times greater than men.

Here’s a statistic that shocked me when I read it, but one in every eight US women will develop breast cancer… That means some of us, here.

So, what are we going to do about it?

Answer: we’re going to stick together.

There are many ways to help and many worthy organizations. No one can possibly support them all, but I would still like to see if we here can raise $100 by the end of the month.

I’ll match your donations (up to $100), which means that if there’s $100 on the ChipIn widget in the banner below here or at the top of the home page, then we’ll have raised $200 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the organization I’m choosing for the donation.

About Susan G. Komen

Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.

In 1982, that promise became Susan G. Komen for the Cure and launched the global breast cancer movement. Today, Komen for the Cure is the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists fighting to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find a cure. Thanks to events like the Komen Race for the Cure, the group has invested nearly $1 billion to fulfill Nancy’s promise, becoming the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world.

How to Give?

How Much to Give?

Every dollar gets us closer to that $100, but there are other ways to give. One way is by commenting on participating blogs within The Beauty Blog Network as part of comments4acure. Last October, the event raised more than $3,000 for cancer charities, one comment at a time.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Life Advice from Gwyneth Paltrow?

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Actress Gwyneth Paltrow has just launched a new lifestyle website called Goop. There’s not much to it yet (I think it’s still in beta), but I’m getting an Oprah/O magazine vibe from it with a focus on “nourishing the inner aspect” through recipes, travel information, shopping recommendations and tidbits on personal growth.

“My life is good because I am not passive about it. I want to nourish what is real, and I want to do it without wasting time. I love to travel, to cook, to eat, to take care of my body and mind, to work hard…


Whether you want a good place to eat in London, some advice on where to stay in Austin, the recipe I made up this week, or some thoughts from one of my sages, GOOP is a little bit of everything that makes up my life.


Make your life good. Invest in what’s real. Cook a meal for someone you love. Pause before reacting. Clean out your space. Read something beautiful. Treat yourself to something. Go to a city you’ve never been to. Learn something new. Don’t be lazy. Work out and stick with it. GOOP. Make it great.”

I’m all for women spreading a positive message online, but celebrity often brings with it vast sums of money and the freedom that comes with wealth and privilege. Certainly, celebrities are people too — frail — with families, health issues, traumatic experiences, fears and desires, but when they try to relate to working class folks on a personal level, they aren’t always aware of their own good fortune in life.

I believe she has good intentions, and I’ve always thought highly of Gwyneth. I’m sure she wants to use her star power to improve the lives of women through her website, but, honestly, cleaning out my space? What does that mean to a multi-millionaire?

Organizing or cleaning the bathroom might be fun for someone who only does it once a year because the maid stops by every Wednesday, but for regular gals that kind of household stuff is a given; cleaning happens every weekend, otherwise we live in filth. That’s all there is to it.

A few of the items she lists within the site’s mission statement (I wonder if she really wrote it) seem to have been written by someone a bit out of touch.

“Cook a meal for someone you love.” Yup, for some families (those without personal chefs), cooking “a meal for someone you love” happens three times a day.


“Don’t be lazy.” Hmm… Wouldn’t it be nice to even have the option to be lazy? I know a lot of women who can’t let up for one minute because they simply *have* to work hard to support themselves and their families.

I dunno, maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning (it happens), but I don’t know if I can relate to this lifestyle site in the way I could to Oprah’s (someone who, despite her current wealth, grew up extremely poor) or even Rachel Ray’s. I applaud Gwyneth’s efforts, but I hope to see her reflect upon how celebrity has changed her life and comment upon how wealth and privilege have changed her perspective.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Red Lips and Smokey Eyes at Macy’s Passport 2008

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Last night at the Macy’s Passport fashion show in San Francisco, the makeup was all about 40s-inspired glamour. Dark lips, smokey eyes and brown, shimmery cheeks dominated the runway.


Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Today I tried to re-create a slightly toned down version of the look (sans flowing burgundy gown) using the Shu Uemura Duo Eye Shadow in Mystifier on my lids and in the crease, the Dior 5 Couleurs Palette in 569 Golds (the pale pink shade in the center of the palette) on the brow bone and MAC Eye Kohl in Smolder on the water line.

For help I looked up the basic smokey eye technique MAC Cosmetics VP of Makeup Artistry Gordon Epsinet described earlier this year.

    5-Step Smokey Eye

  1. Start with a dark pencil eyeliner like MAC Smolder, which blends beautifully with cream shadows and MAC paints as well, and apply lots of black pencil to the eye. Apply the pencil around the rim of the eye first, then blend it with a MAC 219 brush.
  2. Blend and smudge until it looks like a smokey black stain.
  3. Then, blend a dark brown eye shadow into the black liner to create a mix of browns and black. Blend the brown shadow over the black pencil stain.
  4. Next, using a MAC 224 brush (a soft, fluffy, tapered brush), blend a lighter eye shadow color into and above the dark brown layer.
  5. The final look should have the darkest colors at the lash line, and the colors should transition into lighter colors the farther away you get from the lash line.

For the dark red lip I used NARS Lip Pencil in Amazon and Shu Uemura Rouge Unlimited Lipstick in Crimson Dazzle and once again followed Gordon’s advice.

The final look…


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New York Fashion Week Spring 2009, MAC Cosmetics Runway Looks from Days 7-8

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Here are a few more face charts MAC distributed to illustrate the makeup looks some of the designers sent down the runway at Fashion Week. These reflect looks from Thursday and Friday, the final two days of the show.

Not sure which of these I like best… Maybe the Zac Posen one with the violet lip.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Deep Discounts on Stila Cosmetics with Beautycrunch.com

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Do you remember the Stila fall chocolate eye shadow palette ($40) I was drooling over a few weeks ago? Well, I was surfing the web last night and stumbled upon a slightly stripped down version of it on sale at Beautycrunch.com for $12.80.

Where the heck has Beautycrunch been all my life? Is it new, or have I just been sleeping under a rock?

As far as I can tell (saw numerous references to it on Makeup Alley and YouTube), the company’s selling legitimate products, but I admit the low prices made me wonder.

Their version of the chocolate palette doesn’t include the Lip Glaze ($22 if purchased separately) or Major Lash Mascara ($8.50 if purchased separately), which accompany the original $40 Stila palette, but if what you really want are the palette’s blush and the three eye shadows ($18 per pan if purchased separately), you can skip the stuff you wouldn’t use anyway and walk away with 4 products for $20.75 (after $7.95 shipping and handling).

And Beautycrunch has lots of other fab Stila stuff, among other brands, at 50-70% off. Needless to say, I stayed up late e-window shopping and filling my cart. 🙂
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