A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
Good morning, glory! Happy hump day. We’re headed to Tahoe for a few days (apparently Tabs needed some time alone with his pet sitter ?). Connor Claire is my copilot. We’ll see you at the lake soon.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. Kitty Glitter, here I come!
Got a question about makeup, relationships, careers, cats or anything else? If you do, ask MBB! I’ll try to help, for what it’s worth. I’m not an expert in anything, but sometimes it just helps to have another opinion. Hopefully someone else reading might have some insight, too.
Here’s a question Kellie asked in the comments a few days ago…
“What time of the day do you squeeze in workouts Karen? Still trying to figure that one out for myself! And that soup looks bomb! Would you mind sharing the recipe? ?”
Hey, Kellie!
I just started working out again regularly after a looong hiatus (my doc didn’t want me doing more anything more strenuous than brisk walking when I got pregnant with Connor), and to be completely honest…getting back in the saddle has been a struggle, but here are a few things that have helped.
For me, it’s mornings. Not right when I roll out of bed, but after I’ve been awake for an hour or two.
I’ve actually tried working out immediately after getting out of bed, and my body straight refuses to do it, LOL!
Hook or crook, I need to be sweating for one hour at least 3-4 times per week, and for that to happen in the mornings, I have to get up early enough to have breakfast, tend to Connor, and write like a maniac for at two hours (because I also feel better when it comes to writing in the morning) before my workout.
That’s why I schedule my workouts on my calendar, because it’s like etching them in stone, and it forces me to act accordingly and efficiently.
Because if I’m not strict about it, something always seems to come up, and I end up putting off my workout ’til the afternoon, but by then I’m usually exhausted.
Seriously, I think it’s the easiest way to commit to an exercise regimen, because then you have a block of time that’s sort of out of your hands, and you can’t push the deadline even if you want to. The class is going to happen with or without you, and I think it’s also much easier to exercise with other people.
If joining a class isn’t an option, try something where you have to follow along with someone else, like in a workout DVD or a Youtube video.
Let’s get real — if I don’t bribe myself to exercise, I’m just not gonna do it. 🙂 That’s why reward systems work me.
I use a small desk calendar and cute stickers. Whenever I finish a workout, I put a new sticker on the calendar, and after I fill a page with stickers, I can reward myself with a small treat, like a lipstick or earrings.
It’s simple and old-school, but it works for me!
As for your soup question… 🙂 I used this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, but I tweaked it a little by adding a can of drained corn.
It turned out great! — but next time I think I’ll add another can of beans, because I like A LOT of beans in my soup.
OK, Kellie, I hope there was something in there that was helpful.
Does anyone else have any questions for me? I’ll do my best to help.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Duo fiber face brushes, which are sometimes called skunk brushes, are great if you like wearing foundation or tinted moisturizer and really like it when your face makeup looks natural.
The one I’m holding here is the Finishing Brush by Laura Mercier, and it’s my favorite duo fiber face brush because of how wide it is, which I love because it covers a large area and speeds up blending, but really, there are lots of them out there that work well.
One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that the higher-priced ones usually don’t shed as much as drugstore versions do and tend to last longer.
But that’s not a hard and fast rule.
I use ’em to fine-tune my blending and thin-out my face products — liquid foundations, tinted moisturizers, stick foundations, powders, etc. — wherever I’ve accidentally applied too much. I’ll gently run the brush across my cheeks, nose, mouth, chin and forehead after I’ve applied whichever face products I happen to be wearing, and that helps everything look more even and seamless.
One of the things I’ve been super obsessed with lately (in case you haven’t noticed) is even skin tone, except without my makeup looking heavy, caked-on or obvious, and duo fiber face brushes really help with that. Their brush heads and bristles usually aren’t as dense as regular powder and blush brushes.
Ones like the this one from Laura have a very light touch that really blends and pushes product across the skin, while other, denser brushes will often lift foundation and tinted moisturizer away from the skin, thereby removing it.
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 NINE (!) 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.
I didn’t get it, though, because, well, I had leftovers at home that I wanted to finish, but soon…
Right now I could go for a pancake breakfast from McDonald’s. 🙂 I haven’t had one of those in ages.
When my nails get even a millimeter beyond the tips of my fingers, I feel completely non-functional, so I can’t imagine… How would I change Connor’s diapers, or type, or pet Tabs, or wash dishes, or apply eyeliner, or chop fruit?
I’d probably end up in the hospital.
Please note: never, EVER accidentally drop your keys into a large garbage bin, especially down at the curb at night, because getting them out is a comedy of errors.
Of course, my keys dropped all the way down to the bottom of the bin and, of course, our bin is unusually huge, so I couldn’t just reach down into the bin and get them out, so I had to take ALL OF THE GARBAGE BAGS out of the bin, one at a time, and stack them up around me, and then use a shovel to reach down into the bin and fish out my keys.
Also, I couldn’t see what I was doing because it was dark outside…
It was like a sitcom sketch.
Like, if I’m eating a plate of broccoli, I want it to actually taste like broccoli, ya know?
For heat, I’m a total wimp. I don’t mind a little because it keeps things interesting, but when a dish is hot for the sake of setting your mouth on fire, I can’t handle it.
No kidding — I looked like the Joker, and I looked that way for hours because El Hub, who was with me the entire time, failed to say anything!
I honestly don’t know if he was secretly laughing at me on the inside (because that’s something I’d totally do), or if he thought I did it intentionally, or if he was just paying absolutely no attention whatsoever.
The Joker.
That’s how I looked.
Your turn. 🙂 Just copy and paste the following questions into a comment with your answers. I look forward to reading ’em!
1. Recent junk food craving?
2. How do you think you’d do if you had to have long, pointy nails for a week?
3. Has anything funny happened to you lately?
4. How much spice and/or heat do you like in your food?
5. What was your last major makeup fail?
Here, sweets, let me get you some coffee. I think I’m gonna need the real stuff today.
Cream? Sugar? Jar of Nutella and a spoon? Here ya go…
How many times have we spent our Mondays together? If you’ve been visiting MBB since the start, that could be 494 Mondays!
Wow, that’s a lot of Mondays…
Today my main goal is to savor the little things, like this hot cup of coffee, the tapping sound of my fingers on the keyboard (it’s comforting), a cat on my lap and Connor’s smile.
Hi, friend. 🙂 What’s on your to-do list today?
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Tabs seriously does not care at all about citrus.
Before I explain, he does, however, care a great deal about whatever goes on outside, and he surveils the neighborhood like the world’s greatest security guard from his window perch.
But we planted a new dwarf orange tree outside this week, and I expected Tabs to be hella interested in it when we went outside today for our walk, but he couldn’t have cared less.
Get up, sleepy head! It’s Caturday morning! 🙂
There’s a time to be nuanced, and there’s a time to…talk about Nuance, as in Salma Hayek’s CVS-exclusive Nuance makeup line.
If you’ve been kickin’ it at CVS lately, you may have noticed that Salma Hayek’s Nuance makeup products have a new look to them.
Nuance debuted in 2011 (remember the alien egg eyeshadow packaging?), but the color products sort of drifted away for a while… But they’re back now with new products, formulas and packaging.
The brand is all about ingredients, and some of them are exotic, especially for a drugstore brand. Salma says that the women in her family have used some of them for generations, like monoi butter (in the lipstick); cotton blossom (in the mascara and brow gel); soothing tepezchuite extract (in the night cream, anti-aging cream and skin cleanser); blue agave, a naturally moisturizing humectant (the Blue Agave hair line); mamey fruit sapote to condition hair; jojoba oil and raw honey.
The entire color line has been reformulated (but they kept the original foundation) and includes eye shadows, a cream concealer, moisturizing lipstick, brow pencil, cream illuminators and shadow sticks.
I love a cat with marbled sides.
And I also love marbled packaging.
The new $80 Hourglass Surreal Light Ambient Lighting Palette comes dressed to impress in an elegant marbled compact which, by the way, looks a lot like the kitchen of my dreams in my dream house.
When I finally win the lottery, I’m going to point to a pic of this palette and say, “Please do this for my counters, OKTHANXBAI.”
Or “high intensity interval training.” It’s a full-body workout where you do all sorts of things, like throwing 10-pound medicine balls around (which I did yesterday), old-school burpies, squats and other interval exercises, and there’s always something different thrown in to keep your muscles guessing.
Anyway, I just started taking classes at a studio down the block, and oh, my lanta! — to live in a constant state of soreness… But it’s a good sore, ya know?
One of my neighbors is an instructor and a personal trainer, and the studio is in her garage, so I just walk down there for an hour of sweet, sweaty torture.
There’s a woman in the class in her 50s who I swear needs to be my BFF. She comes dressed in black from head to toe with her hair in a perfect high bun, and she works out wearing a full face of makeup. And she likes to make naughty jokes. 🙂 Oh, and homegirl goes HAWD when she planks, whereas I just end up laying there sadly on the floor ready to pass out.
On that note, these Champion Double Dry Sports Bras are the sh*t. They’re soft, comfortable and keep me dry when I’m sweating up a storm. Plus, they never chafe or irritate my skin. When I work out, I layer two of them to keep “the girls” firmly in place.
They’re usually $25 each, but they’re on sale for $19.99-$21.99 right now at Kohls.
I picked up a bottle of $11 L’Oreal Root Cover Up Temporary Gray Concealer Spray in Dark Brown a couple months ago at le drugstore to cover my roots because I was running low on my fave Rita Hazan Root Concealer and couldn’t make it to Sephora before it closed (#beautygirlproblems), and yay! — I like it. It gets the job done, and it costs half as much as the Rita Hazan spray, which is still my number one, though, because I think it does work a little better (it’s more pigmented and doesn’t leave my hair as stiff as the L’Oreal one does).
