Month: September 2013

Makeup Removers and Me

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One thing you might notice on your journey into eye makeup doom exploration is that straight up facial cleanser won’t do it any more. You might emerge from splashing your face with water, dejected at the many, many, many glitters and smudgy crap left on your eyelids. Waterproof mascara, for example, is the bane of my makeup existence. But, don’t despair! Makeup removers are here to help. LANEIGE EYE AND LIP WATERPROOF REMOVER I don’t have a lot of makeup remover experience because I found my HG eye makeup remover early on. Laneige is a Korean brand that has recently turned cruelty-free. I was able to try a sample that Sarie scored for me, and I bought a full size after I used that up. It took me a while to repurchase this because they used to not be CF. This is a super-gentle and super-effective eye makeup remover. It does wonders on stubborn, stain-y lip colors, too. I use this on my eye and lip makeup, following it up with a facial cleanser, if …

Mascara Magic

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Or, how I make the most out of my short, uncurlable lashes. It’s been a point raised on this blog a couple of times—Why don’t you ever wear mascara? I used to go and do this extra step, but for reasons of laziness (mascaras are the worst to remove when you are tired and want to go to bed), and frustration, I haven’t been bothering. Lately, I’ve found quite the perfect solution for me. While it won’t give me va-va-voom lashes or any sort of volume that would make me want to stop trying falsies, this subtle definition is good enough for me. Are you ready? STEP ONE: CURL YOUR LASHES A bit of a given, but humor me. The Eye of Horus Mascara, I find, actually works better on my uncurled lashes, but the effect is just pretty, fluttery natural lashes. My favorite curler is by shu uemura. STEP TWO: TAKE A WATERPROOF MASCARA Waterproof mascaras tend to hold a curl much, much better. If that’s not the case for you, feel free to …

GRWM: Brow Routine + LMdB Couches de Couleur

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No one really asked for this, LOL, but I figured I’d show you anyway. Here’s a Get Ready With Me Video, in which I show you how I do my brows. I have fairly thick brows that don’t actually need much help, but they’re less substantial than I’d like them to be. I posted my brow products here, but for this post, I’ll be using my most-used item—The Body Shop Brow & Liner Kit in 02. I’ve also demonstrated Le Métier de Beauté’s Couches de Couleur method, which essentially requires you to layer on each tier of a Kaleidoscope Eye Kit (from top to bottom), in this case Northern Lights, on your eye. This creates optimal balance and contrast, due to each color’s “temperature,” and the idea is to bring attention to your actual eye and eye color, rather than the makeup. The Le Métier de Beauté signature application technique is comprised of four hues that are able to give maximum contrast to the wearer’s eye. Known as the “Couches de Couleur” (layering of color), …

Shopping for an End-All, Be-All Eye Palette: What to Look For

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If you’re on a tight budget and looking for an eye palette to meet most, if not all, of your needs, here are a few tips I can share with you. I’ll be basing it off of my Basic Eye Diagram & Go-To Eyeshadow Technique, and the premise that you are looking for a palette to use for everyday. I’ll be demonstrating this using the Urban Decay Naked 2 ($50), NARS And God Created the Woman ($65 for a set), Laura Mercier’s Artist Palette for Eyes (LE), and theBalm’s Nude ‘Tude ($36), under the assumption that you want a more or less neutral palette. I chose all of these palettes because they are either still available/permanent, or they’re LE palettes that have shades that are mostly permanent. BASE COLOR The base color is what you would put all over your mobile eye lid (area under the crease). Usually it’s a light to midtone color, but obviously you can go darker for night/smokier/sultrier looks. I split the swatches into three photos since they wouldn’t fit on …

Illamasqua Precision Ink in Wisdom

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The Illamasqua Precision Ink in Wisdom is a product that I wish I used more. I ordered it a few months ago and I’m a little ashamed to admit that it hasn’t seen the outside world that much yet because it got lost in all of my makeup hoarding recent acquisitions. From Sephora: This long-wearing liquid liner comes with a fine tip that allows for defined application, making it perfect for creating a defined eye—or even painting designs on the body. The waterproof formula dries within seconds and stays true for hours. So, I want to bring your attention to the tip. It’s awesome for application because it’s quite stiff, so it doesn’t really flex much and bend all over the place. You can’t get a super fine line with it, but it’s a thin enough line for me, and I’ve found that I prefer this type of applicator over the thin, bendy brushes from the likes of e.l.f.’s liquid eyeliner (review) or Le Métier de Beauté’s Indelible Inks (review). I love this so much! …

Stash Shopping No. 4b

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Here’s a semi-new stash. I decided to keep the eye products in rotation, because I’d like to play with them some more. I just added some more transitional lipsticks into the mix, in preparation for Fall. Which we don’t really have here, but still. To see more details on last week’s stash, click here. Here’s a photo of it: Here are the lipsticks I added for use this week. Seems like a lot, but let’s see which ones I’ll actually use: Swatched from L-R: MAC Impassioned, Flower Beauty in Ginger Lily, YSL Rouge Volupté Shine in Rose in Tension, Shiseido Lacquer Rouge in RD305, Guerlain Rouge G L’Extrait in Gourmandise I picked dark brights and deeper neutrals, if that makes sense. What’s on your to-use list this week?

How to Elongate Your Eyes with Makeup

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This is perhaps my favorite way to do my eyes. 🙂 I like making them appear squintier and longer, because I feel like they make me look more feminine and girl-like. LOL. I just like how this technique makes me eye look! Sineady from The Makeup Chair actually already posted a helpful tutorial, which I mostly followed, resulting into this eye look: The trick is to make a gradation from a super light, shimmery shade on the inner corner, into a deep, dark color on the outer corner. The idea is to put the lighter shade in the inner area, to pull your eyes apart. Concentrating the dark shade or the shadow on your outer area will make it look like your eye is receding, thus elongating them. Easy enough to remember, right? 🙂 I used the Le Métier de Beauté Mélange Palette (reviewed here) for this look, but you can obviously use any shades that you may already have. 1. Take a shimmery cream or off-white color (Nylon Stocking) and apply that on the …