Author: Carina

Drugstore Finds: Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter

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Every time I explore the vast world of beauty blogging, I chance upon random things that people seem to always rave about. One such thing is the Revlon ColorBurst Lip Butter. (Sidenote: Between purchasing two Revlon Lip Butters and writing this, I have actually encountered another brand of lip butter—Korres! So now, what I’m wondering is who came up with it first? Also, is it a “thing,” like lipstick or lip gloss is a “thing,” or is it a “thing” like NARS Soft Touch Shadow Pencils are a “thing”? Another thing: is lip butters the proper plural form?) Last Sunday, the Revlon counter was on sale, so my sister and I were picking out products. She had been looking for “Pink in the Afternoon,” which is apparently a Hepburn shade from Breakfast at Tiffany’s or something like that. And I was just nosing around and looking for a lip butter because I’d seen someone on YouTube rave about it. Lip Butter is sort of a lipstick balm, an in betweener in the land of tinted …

October Favorites

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Maybe kind of late, but still helpful, I think. There’s not a lot I can say about my October favorites, because while I did hoard towards the end of the month, I only got to use most of them extensively in November, pre-makeup ban*. Here are a few stand-outs that I have loved last month. 1. Guerlain Écrin 4 Coueleurs Eyeshadow in Turandot (Reviewed here) Turandot is part of Guerlain’s Holiday 2012 collection. It’s a “Écrin 4 Coueleurs Eyeshadow,” which is just a fancy way of saying “eyeshadow quad.” How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Actually, it’s not all that complicated. It’s an upstanding palette, with a very warm and neutral overall look, but all the individual shades are still quite different from each other. There’s a pretty shimmery goldenrod, a rust-rose satin pink, a matte deep mauve, and a shimmery dark grey-brown, all rolled into one delicious pocket-sized wonder, mmm. How happy am I that this isn’t limited edition? Very. 2. Bronzer No specific brand—just the wonder of bronzer in …

MLBB Find: NARS Lipstick in Pago Pago

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Ever since I got my first NARS sheer lipstick (Vendanges! ♥) about a year or so ago, I meant to go back for another. It took me a while, huh? I remember learning about Pago Pago from fleurdeforce‘s YouTube video and vowed to look for it the next time I found myself at a NARS counter. NARS Pago Pago is named after the capital of American Samoa. It’s a somewhat frosty coral pink neutral and is part of NARS Sheer Lipstick line. There’s not a lot I can say in terms of pigmentation, but I do think it brightens up my lips in a really great way. NARS describes it as a “shimmering pink,” which is pretty accurate. I bought this without swatching it, because it was the last tube at the NARS counter, where they had no testers for it anymore. It’s not a limited edition shade (it was introduced in the Fall 2011 collection, I believe), so I don’t know why I didn’t just make myself wait for a restock. But, because I …

FOTD + OOTD: Yummy Umami

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This is not how I looked like, after sampling one (or three) Umami burgers. It just so happens that I’m prone to making such faces. The burgers were quite good, actually, but that’s another tale for another time. Angry Face of the Day. This is just here because it shows off the mauvey-ness of my makeup the most. On my face: Face: Ahava Light Foundation, The Body Shop Tea Tree Oil Pore Minimiser, Guerlain Météorites (Perles d’Azur) Eyes: Benefit Lemon Aid, The Body Shop Tea Tree Oil Concealer, bareMinerals A Vision in Velvet (Satin Gold, Velvet Mauve, Velvet Vanilla), Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura Painting Liner (Blackish Satin Purple), The Body Shop Brow Kit, Majolica Majorca Lash Expander Frame Plus 12 Cheeks: NARS Illuminator (Orgasm), Revlon Color Stay Mineral BLush (Roseberry) Lips: NARS Sheer Lipstick (Vendanges) This was my outfit for the day! As you can see, I am quite an awkward individual (with funny proportions), which explains the surprise displayed by people who know me in real life, upon learning about this recent beauty …

Made-Up History: The Birth of Venus

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Made-Up History (get it?) will be a series of translations of art (for now) onto makeup. It merges two growing loves, one old and one new, which is why I have resolved to do it. In the process, I hope to get better at both, but I guess this really works out my makeup muscle more. Today, I chose to do Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus or “Nascita di Venere,” which is a very famous painting. We saw this in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy about two months ago, and I was completely enamored by it. The Birth of Venus presents a scene—the goddess of love stepping ashore on a shell—and is the sort of story that unfurls the more you look at it. In the 1350s, Christianity was prevalent in places like Florence. In Siena, war was attributed to the town’s reverence for a statue of Venus, a sort of idolatry that someone warned was forbidden by their faith. This followed the destruction of the Sienese statue, as Venus was then regarded …

EOTD: Something Out of Nothing

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Here is today’s EOTD featuring the Avon True Color Quad in Sandy Corals (reviewed here) and my new favorite weapon, Majolica Majorca Lash Expander Frame Plus 12! I have practically no relationship with mascara, because I never understood how to use it. Every time I tried one on, my lashes would look the same and I’d end up with black brush imprints on my lid or under eye area. I never knew I wanted lusher lashes until now! Luckily, my mom had an extra bottle because of a sale purchase a few months ago. So now, I have my own. 🙂 It’s got a two-sided applicator, one side a comb and the other a coil. I haven’t used it all that much to master application, though. There’s a slight blue-grey tinge to it that I don’t mind and actually enjoy quite a bit. It’s also a fibre-based formula, which has fibres that stick to your lashes, helping to elongate them. At first, I thought they were hairs from my mom’s lashes! Here’s my whole FOTD, …

Makeup Raves from the Unlikeliest Or, Why This Blog Exists

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I have had apprehensions about this descent into makeup madness, especially about actually writing about cosmetics and other girly things. It’s partly because it was a foreign sort of obsession, in that it was far removed from things I usually liked. Also, I didn’t really know all that much about it yet, so I didn’t know if I “deserved” to talk about it like I was an expert. Mainly though, I shied away from the idea because there’s a certain stigma associated with “frivolous” endeavors like this. I suppose things that focus on physicality and vanity, instead of “nobler pursuits” like literature, culture, art or whatever else people think falls in that category. I finally put this blog up less than a month ago because makeup made me happy. That’s the simplest reason there is. It made me happy to talk about it and to share the great and not-so-great things I’ve tried. I liked writing about makeup and discovering new things about it. Since it’s not a conversation staple with people I hang out …