bluemonday

Blue Monday, Take 3: Laura Mercier’s Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eye Colour Quad

May 12th, 2014 by Karen 14 Comments

Laura Mercier Baked Eye Colour Quad in Summer in St. Tropez — Turning the idea of “blue Mondays” on its head!

Another Monday, another excuse to wear blue eyeshadow. And glitter. And false lashes. 🙂

Seriously, though, I can’t think a better day to bust out the blues.

For starters, there are a ton of ’em out there right now; they’ve been popping up in a bunch of the summer collections (like Lancome’s French Riviera, Tom Ford’s Unabashed and Urban Decay’s Electric Palette , just to name a few).

On top of that, I feel that if we’re going to have to put up with the oftentimes annoying nature of Mondays, we might as well have something fun happening on our lids.

Am I right?

Laura Mercier’s Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eye Colour Quad from the New Attitude summer 2014 collection ($44) has three such shades of fun blue — a sheer, pearlescent baby blue; a pigmented, satiny teal blue; and a sheer and shimmery dark royal blue.

Um…yeah, that’s a lot of blue, so if you feel the need to break it up a little, you could try mixing the bronze shade from the palette with the dark blue, which gets you a really cool purplish bronze.

That’s what I did today, popping it along my lower lash lines to contrast with the satiny teal I placed in the crease.

And because I still have those glittery eyes from that fashion show last week at the San Francisco Academy of Art University on my noodle, I swiped a small amount of glitter — Urban Decay’s Heavy Metal Glitter Liner in Spandex, which has flecks of blue and purple glitter — in the inner corners, figuring that the flickering sparkles would add a little splash to the eyes while tying together the blue on the lid with the purply bronze along the lower lash line.

A’ight then, here’s a breakdown…

Laura Mercier Summer in St. Tropez Baked Eye Colour Quad: Medium blue shade in the crease, bronze shade in the outer corner and the dark blue and bronze shades mixed together along the lower lash line.
Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner in Spandex: The inner portion of my lower lash line.
MAC Mylar Eyeshadow: On the brow bone, on the lids and in the inner corner.
Maybelline Eye Studio Gel Liner in Blackest Black: The upper lash lines.
Ardell 120 Demi Lashes: The false lashes I’m wearing on my upper lashes only.
MAC Deep Dark Brunette Fluidline Brow Gelcreme: Mah brows.

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Blue Monday, Take 2: A Face of the Day With the Tom Ford Unabashed Eye and Cheek Compact

May 5th, 2014 by Karen 22 Comments

In its former life, this ratty blue wig was part of a last-minute Halloween homage to Katy Perry. It has since evolved into one of Tabs’ favorite toys.

He stalks it, swats it and basically beats-it-the-eff-up whenever he’s “supervising” me in my office.

I should probably retire it already, seeing as how it’s clearly on its last legs, but I keep it around to startle my neighbors (a favorite pastime of mine) and take crazy-@ss pictures when the mood strikes.

‘K. Now, how about the same makeup look, but with a little less crazy? 🙂

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A Monday Face of the Day With the New Tom Ford Unabashed Eye and Cheek Compact

April 28th, 2014 by Karen 35 Comments

Tom Ford Unabashed Eye and Cheek Palette — Wearing Tom Ford’s new $95 Unabashed Eye and Cheek compact

The bright matte blue eyeshadow chilling in the corner of Tom Ford’s new summer eye and cheek compact is, well, unabashedly blue and comes, ironically, out of the blue, or so it seems to me.

Then again, maybe that was the point. The compact is called Unabashed, after all, and with a name like that, I guess it makes sense to have at least one outrageous color, methinks.

The bold electric blue looks like it wandered over from the Urban Decay counter and decided to kick it with TF for the summer, and it’s not one of those bait-and-switch blue eyeshadows, either — you know, the kind that scream from their pans, “Haaaay, look at me, playa!” only to apply all shy and sheer.

No way, this blue’s bright and bangin’ — perfect for bold blue eye looks, if you feel so inclined.

When I see blues like this one, my gut usually tells me to do a neutral lid and smudge the blue along my lower lash lines, or perhaps do a soft blue cat eye, but this morning my gut told me something else. It said, “Um, Karen, let the blue play with the other colors in the compact, OK?”

And I said, “Sure.” 🙂

The compact also includes a matte taupe eyeshadow, which looks a little like the taupe from She Wolf, only lighter; a glittery taupe; a shimmery golden peach blush; and a shimmery golden tan bronzer/highlighter.

I found out that if you layer the matte blue on top of the golden bronzer, it summons a dark and beautiful peacock feather teal.

COOL!

For my eyes…

Apply the bronzer/highlighter in the crease.
Sweep the matte blue into the lower crease.
Pat the matte taupe on the lids, then layer the glittery taupe on top (which I’ve applied here with a wet eyeshadow brush to intensify the glittery effect).
Line the upper lash line with Tom Ford’s Eye Defining Pen in Deeper.
Line the upper and lower water lines with Guerlain’s Black Jack Eye Pencil.
Smudge the matte taupe along the lower lash line.
Apply Katy Perry false lashes to my upper lashes.
And coat my lower lashes with Clinique Lash Power Feathering Mascara.

For the rest of the look, I swept the golden peach blush from the compact on my cheeks and applied the highlighter/bronzer on my upper cheekbones, down the bridge of my nose and on my Cupid’s bow.

I finished by applying a single layer of Tom Ford’s sumptuous Sable Smoke Lipstick (THE BEST high-end nude lippie, EVAH!) and topped it with a little NARS Striptease Lip Gloss.

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