What Goes With Great Makeup?

Why, Great Jewelry, of course! Check out this wonderful site I just found with gorgeous jewelry at really reasonable prices. Finders Keepers has designer-inspired jewelry at prices we all can afford, plus lots of other good stuff. Just click on the banner above this post and have some fun. . . not to mention crossing a bunch of names off of your Christmas shopping list EARLY (which means prior to 6PM on Christmas Eve :)

Are You a Head Turner?

If you have trouble applying your eye makeup, you should be. If I’m no talking about how hot you are, then exactly what am I talking about? Simple. If you can’t maneuver your eye makeup tools, turn your head!

One of the things I hear most often when I suggest eyeliner and/or mascara to people at my counter is that they can’t apply it correctly because they can’t draw a straight line or maneuver the brush. Okay. Not everyone has a hand that’s rock solid steady, so. . . turn your head instead of your hand. Here's how:

Put your eyeliner of choice at the center of your lid, right down into the lash line. If you can, draw out to the outside corner. Now go to the inside corner and meet your line at center eye. Can’t do it? Turn your head. Plant your elbow on a hard surface, steady your hand on your cheek with your little finger, put your eyeliner at the center of your lie, right down into the lash line and, instead of drawing out and moving your hand, turn your head so the brush or pencil travels to the outside corner. Now move the eyeliner to the inside corner of your eye and, while keeping your hand as steady as you can, turn your head to meet the line in the center. NOTE: You do not need to reload your brush if you are using eyeliner other than a pencil. You want most of the eyeliner on the outside half of your eye. There is plenty left, believe me, to do the inner corner to center eye once you are done with the outer line.

To get your mascara on straight, balance once again with your elbow on a hard surface and your pinky on your cheek while staring into a mirror. Put the mascara brush under the center of your lashes and turn your head down a bit or “blink” down on it. If you can’t do this all along the eye, plant the brush where it is and turn your head, to the outside first and then move to the inner corner and meet up in the center. Your lashes will be coated and you won’t have those dots and dashes that tell the world you stink with a mascara wand. :)

Give it a try. You will see how easy this is. Like all things, though, it will take a little practice to get it exactly right. You can use the same technique on your lips, too. Just start at the center and turn your head to one side at a time. It’s easier to control your head than that ever-shaky hand of yours (and mine!).

Back Again

I have one word for this flu bug that's been running around. UGH!!!! Just finished with round two of antibiotics and all that. There will NOT be a Round 3. My lips to God's ears, eh? :)

Now on to more makeup!!!!

Strike a Pose. . . Vogue, Vogue, Vogue

Actually, I'm talking about the magazine, NOT the song. Sorry. :)

I got a copy of Vogue in the mail today. I never ordered it and I haven't looked at one of these in quite some time, so I eagerly grabbed it and trotted off with it for some elegant bathroom reading. The first thing that struck me is that it's about the size of an old Sears catalog! I kid you not. The index is on Page 204 and it proudly announces itself as a 798-page issue. This is pretty heavy reading! I have no idea how much this thing costs either, as the address label is over the box where the price would be. I'm sure the price matches the weighty look of this tome.

Admittedly, it's a little "young" and New Yorkish for my taste. Still, it is quite a feast for the eyes. Gorgeous photography, some good-looking articles, makeup looks to die for and TONS of advertising. If you want to know what's new and what's in, Vogue is the mag for you! And if you love Keira Knightley, this is definitely THE issue for you.

As soon as I get some serious time, I will be going through this gift page by page and reporting on it here. If you are the one who gifted me with this huge, beautiful and miraculous magazine, I have two words for you: THANK YOU!

Halle Berry Twisted My Arm!!!

I was in CVS picking up a prescription for my mother today and as I walk in, there it was, a HUGE display of Revlon Color Stay Mineral Lip Gloss with Halle's glorious picture on it, enticing me to buy, buy, buy. Yeah, I could've resisted, but I was weak from a week of lung and ear infections. They took advantage of me. It was a conspiracy, Halle's smile and Revlon offering Buy One Get One Free on all their makeup. I mean, come on, Halle + a BOGO??? What's a slightly demented makeup maven to do?

They didn't have my color on the front display so I ventured back to the regular Revlon wall. They had more colors. I selected my desired two and then. . . right next to Revlon was Almay. Guess what? They were offering Buy One Get One Free, too. All right, all right. I caved. Two BOGOs on the Almay and then the Revlon BOGO and I was one happy camper! Especially since I had a coupon to knock another $4 off. I got almost $60 worth of makeup for $23. Oh frabulous day! :)

What started it all is that I've been on a lip gloss kick for the past two months or so. I love lip gloss. I have thin lips and they don't get any fatter with age (just Botox). Glossy lips always look more voluptuous and younger. The trouble is, most lip gloss doesn't stay on. Now they have "stay-on" lip gloss, "plumping" lip gloss and other types of lip gloss. I'm scarfing up as many as I can and I promise you a review in the next couple of days.

So if you happen to see me obsessively applying lip gloss with a mad gleam in my eyes, blame Halle Berry. It's her fault!!! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

Got ELF?

Yeah, I know I already posted tonight, but I just HAD to tell you about ELF, more properly E.L.F. or Eyes, Lips, Face.

Do you need makeup and don't have a lot of $$$? Would you like to try some new looks, but don't want to spend a lot? Got teen girls stealing your makeup? Then aim your browser at: http://www.eyeslipsface.com . Everything's ONE DOLLAR!!! Yes, you read that correctly. $1. Okay, I'm lying. The minerals aren't $1 each, but everything else sure is!!! You get free shipping with a $75 order, but you would need a U-haul truck to get a $75 order in from the mailbox. Regular shipping is about $6 or $7, so get your family and friends together, make one big order and split it.

Awhile back, I found an E.L.F. rack at the local K-Mart. It was always empty. Gee, wonder why? Then one day I found an eye pencil on there, so I bought it. $1, WITH the sharpener! That's when I went to the web site and got seriously blown away. My first order was $28 with shipping. I got 22 products! And once you sign up, you will get coupons in your e-mail box. You can even get a button to put on your tool bar which will pop up when new sales and savings are available.

One caveat here: This is not the same quality makeup you will get from a major line, i.e. Lancome, Lauder, Arden, Clarins, etc. in a department store. There's a reason you pay those prices. Howsumever. . . it's great stuff for a buck a pop!

I haven't tried their minerals yet, but will on my next order. Stay Tuned!

That Cheek Shading Technique

Yes, I know I promised you this eons ago. Mea culpa. Here it is now. I've been diligently searching for clip art I can use to demonstrate, but I can't find anything suitable right now. You'll have to deal with my words. It's relatively easy. If you have questions, contact me via this blog, K?

Before I start, I should mention that this technique is excellent for round and square faces or if you've put on a little weight in the cheek area. Also, it's good for doing a look on an oval or narrow face where you are specifically trying to accentuate your cheekbones. If your face is too narrow and it's not for a special effect, it won't look good. I'll deal with thinner faces in a later post.

Okay. Here we go. You know how everybody tells you to suck in your cheeks and place your blush there? Well, I want you to suck in your cheeks, but instead of your blush, use a dark shade of makeup, a bronzer or brown eyeshadow. (Color is color, folks. I use lots of things in places where they're technically not supposed to be. :) I use a medium shade of bronzer on my medium-light olive skin. The darker color should be applied in a straight line, directly in the hollow created by the sucking-in (is that a word?). The best brush for this is an angled blusher brush, but use what you have for now. When you're done, you should like someone punched you in the face. Your cheeks should visibly sink in.

Now take your favorite blush color on a regular blusher brush. Start under the center of your eye and sweep up towards the hairline by the top of your ear. Smile to make sure you have blush on the apples of your cheeks. Now bring the blush down OVER the bronzer or whatever you used to shade. Yeah, I know it looks like too much right now. Trust me and hang on.

Here comes the real trick. Take a light highlight color (I use white eye shadow. . . GASP, HORROR, SHOCK) and either with a brush or with your fingers (I use my fingers :), make another line right across the bottom of the bronzer shading. The white shading should be in a similar straight line shape as the bronzer when originally applied. (NOTE to darker complected ladies: White may not work for you and could make you look pasty. Choose ivory or beige or makeup 3-4 shades lighter than your skin tone or a highlighting eye shadow. You may have to experiment a little to get just the right color.)

Now take a big fluffy powder brush and load it up with loose face powder that matches your skin tone. Dust it off on a tissue so you don't get a big gob of the stuff on your face and. . . BLEND, BLEND, BLEND!!!!! Stroke from the center towards the ear. Cover all colors. Blend until all you see is your face subtly thinner with no demarcation lines. You should not be able to see where each color stops and starts. If you can, keep blending.

EXTRA TIP!!! Got double, triple or more chins? After you put the initial bronzer stripe in the hollows of your cheeks and your brush has only a little bit of bronzer left, stroke it under your chin from ear to ear. This has to be done gently. If you get too much on, you're going to see a brown line. Remember, you can always powder it down if you get too much on. It's easier, though, to add more than to subtract later.

Go ahead. Try it! It may take you a few tries to get it right but I guarantee you round and square ladies will love it!

She's B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-k

Sorry to leave everyone hanging. Sick kids, life intervening and then getting the same creeping crud as the kids had me down for the count. I'm still not back to my usual, but I'm working on it.

So get set to be bombarded with several posts over the next few days. You know you'll like it.

We Interrupt This Blog. . .

. . . to bring you one of those stories about "life and warpaint." You'll like it. Promise.

It's Picture Day at school. It's 7:00 a.m. There is a soft knock at my door. It's The Surprise. If you read the blurb under this Blog's title (above), you will note that I have teenagers at home. The Surprise was a gift I received in my early 40s. The Surprise is now a teenager. And it's a girl. The Surprise has bright golden red hair, a face full of freckles and huge blue eyes. The Surprise is also makeup crazy. Gee, wherever could she have gotten that from? :) (Did I mention it's a GURL???)

She wants me to do her makeup for pictures. Why? Didn't I teach her to do it herself? Well, as a good MMM (Makeup Maven Mom), I certainly tried. However, The Surprise's makeup drug of choice is a black eye pencil, used liberally all over her face. Most of the time, she looks like she's been in a fight and lost. Yes, it makes me cringe, but what's a mother to do? I can't stop her from borrowing eye makeup (NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU VALUE YOUR EYESIGHT!!!) in the bathroom at school and turning into Twiggy circa 1967. So we struck a deal.

School pictures are expensive. I pay for the pictures. When they come back to me, if you look like the Target dog, except with black rings around your eyes instead of red, you pay me back for them. Easy. Simple. Yes, you have the option of not having your pictures taken. ("Mom, you can't be serious!!!")

The night before pictures, she hadn't made up her mind yet, whether to get pictures according to my rules or not. She stopped into my job (the makeup department of a large department store) and looked around. One of my cohorts in color crime spotted her. The Surprise related her tale of woe and what to do on the morrow. My cohort took her to her own counter and made her up, very soft and pretty. She came back to me and asked if it would be all right to get her pictures taken like this. I heartily agreed. We purchased the makeup and she went home to practice.

When I got home very late that night, she was in tears. She couldn't do it. Could I recreate "the look?" She knew I would have to get up early. My much-needed morning sleep when I work late would be forfeit. "Mom, puhleeze, can you do it like this? Pretty PUHLEEZE???" Okay, okay. Call me a soft touch MMM.

So there's the 7:00 a.m. tap on my bedroom door. The Surprise is dressed and ready for her makeover. We have half an hour. I dutifully recreate the makeup application from the night before in soft shades of purples with very thin lines around her eyes, mascara, light blush and lip gloss. She looks good. (MMM breaks arm patting self on back here :) I tell her the makeup lessons will begin when she gets home. She agrees. She pinky swears she will learn how to do it correctly. She kisses me good-bye and literally floats out the door, singing on her way to the school bus.

The torch has been passed. By the way, do any of you know if black eye pencils can be put down the garbage disposal? bwahahahahahaha