RSSCategory: Makeup
Makeup Counter Navigation
September 25, 2008
Navigation means the process of finding your way around. Usability means making sure something works well.
Don’t Make Me Think!
I read a great book. It is Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. Steve is a guy who gets paid to figure out if websites are easy enough for anyone, or at least the intended client, to navigate and use. But the intended client is anyone.
Usability seems easy enough, and it’s mostly common sense. The problem is that common sense is not all that common. Add to that the conflicts between the designer, the CEO, and everyone in between, and it makes for tortuous websites.
Steve describes us to ourselves. People view the internet like roadside signs that go zooming past them. If we’re looking for something on a page, the line that has our attention is the only thing on the page we see. We are in a hurry. And we’re coldblooded. We’re looking for something specific, not reading a book. If the page we land on doesn’t have what we want, we click away, often back to the Google Search page.
The internet is like being in a huge mall blindfolded, getting walked around, and having the blindfold whipped off for 10 seconds every 10 minutes. The challenge is in trying to figure out where you are and where the good stuff is. You know it’s there but have no idea how to get to it. Make it convoluted and no one will use it.
Websites that don’t work
The example I keep running into is the Clarins site. Tiny fonts. Can’t tell what’s clickable. Sadly, not enough is clickable. It used to be impossible to find the colors an eyeliner was available in. Now I can get there sometimes, but the swatches are too small. Does the cosmetics industry try these out on real women?
L’Oreal is even more difficult. If you type www.loreal.com, you’ll get taken to a to entire L’Oreal arsenal. There’s this freakishly annoying flickering hand for a cursor (why? is it just my computer?) and the interface is forever loading something. If you’re really on the ball and type www.lorealparis.com, you’re redirected to www.lorealparisusa.com , and wait a long time for something to appear, if it ever does. The pages take a long time to load. Once you’re in, it’s ok, though there will be ads, but you really need a will to stay with it that long.
This is not easy for consumers. They’d even spray you with perfume if they could. It would be a multi-sensorial experience, like walking into a Hollister store, and just as hard to find what you want.
Universal principles
A makeup collection is no different. They sabotage themselves by making makeup counters so complicated that many women avoid them, just like so many websites. Could the marketing be intentional to confuse us and unload more product? Without knowing what they want and what suits them, many women would not venture near a makeup counter.
We walk past islands and islands of displays. They are all clamoring for our time and attention, just like so many neon signs on the highway. It’s intimidating and a little depressing.
In many cases, the easiest choice to make is none, even if there has been an attempt to organize the parade, like at Clinique and MAC. Nobody wants remote controls with 55 buttons. It is not an accident that Google’s main page is mostly white. They asked people what they wanted and they listened to what they were told. We love them all the more for it.
The collections in many Sephora stores might as well be in alphabetical order. If a company makes 5 kinds of lip gloss, the difference between each should be spelled out somewhere obvious (this would be you, MAC). Bobbi Brown, possibly the most real-life-friendly line out there from a color perspective (and if you ignore the prices), has 60 black lipstick cases all turned upside down and no corresponding color swatch anywhere. Now am I really going to turn over each one to find a color I like?
When the pink, orange, and neon lipsticks are all mixed together, the thought balloon over your head says “Who would wear this? Is this the one meant for me? Is it supposed to go with something else? Why didn’t they put the Out There stuff out there?”
What Women Want
Women don’t need 40 lipsticks. We hate that we have that many because 30 of them at least represent mistakes or impulsive purchases. We’d trade them all for 3 that we know look great. We don’t have time (nor confidence, quite often) for eye makeup designs involving 4 different colors, regardless of how well they go together.
What we want are 3 (give or take) colors in each of the blush, eyeshadow, and lip color categories that we know look great on us. These would be the shades made for our coloring that we would reach for every day.
You could walk up to a display, quickly find what’s appropriate for your coloring (or get assistance in doing so), and trust that you would never, ever look silly. The colors would suit you, look true and believable on your face, and would be coordinated to belong in the same color families. Shopping really would be a breeze.
Like well-designed website navigation, you should not have to break a sweat to see where you are and where you want to go. That thinking should be done for you. I maintain that it’s not that hard.
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The internet is like being in a huge mall blindfolded, getting walked around, and having the blindfold whipped off for 10 seconds every 10 minutes. The challenge is in trying to figure out where you are and where the good stuff is. You know it’s there but have no idea how to get to it. Make it convoluted and no one will use it.
A makeup collection is no different.
The First 4 Ways To Modify Makeup For Age
September 23, 2008
--> We’d all like the skin we had when we were 20. We’d like the skin we had when we were 5, if it comes right down to it. But that’s not the deal.
Makeup that looks fabulous changes with age just as everything else does. Your face is not the same as it was 20 years ago. It’s better. Your character is beginning to shine through. The makeup can take a back seat.
Unrivaled Products 2 : Hydrating Treatment Cream
September 12, 2008
This is one beautiful cream. In the article Unrivaled Products 1: Beta Hydroxy Acid Gel, 3 unrivaled skin care products for alluded to. This article will focus on the second item in the list. It appears among the 3 because of its incredible performance for the price.
As with all products made by Paula’s Choice, you can accept certain things as guaranteed. The formulation is state-of-the-art. The inclusion of high levels of ingredients known today to be of great benefit to the health and appearance of skin is certain. You won’t sweat over the price. No animal testing takes place at any stage of the development of the product.
What you get with Hydrating Treatment Cream is a medium weight moisturizer that glides over the skin. It is so soft and smooth, not too rich, and completely non-greasy. It is the perfect all-purpose moisturizer. I use it every night on face/neck/upper chest/ and arms.
I have used it around my eyes, though I now use the Skin Recovery Moisturizer as an eye cream (take a look at the article The Best Eye Cream), only because I figure “the more emollient, the better; maybe it will keep the lines away longer”. Wishful thinking maybe, but I’ll use any ammunition I can get. Also, because the Skin Recovery is thicker, it doesn’t migrate into my eyes when I’m reading before bed, if I’ve gotten some too close to the eyelid margin.
Since Hydrating has been my favorite cream for so many years, I’ve devised a couple other uses for it along the way. Both take advantage of the cream’s ability to form a very thin, weightless film.
Line softener
I never use powder anywhere under my eyes because the drying effect accentuates the wrinkles there. But, really, any product in that area seems to make the skin more prone to creasing, even concealer or foundation.
After your makeup is on, put a tiny bit of this cream, like the size of a sesame seed, on the end of your 2 ring fingers. Smudge it round till it becomes a film, then tap it (with an up and down motion only) on the whole region at the outside of the eye just to the top edge of the cheekbone, and extending a little to the inside corner if the skin is lined there too. Can you see a marvelous, instant line-softening effect?
Placement of Hydrating Treatment Cream
The area looks moist. Light shines off the top of the cheekbone without shimmer or frost, just to accentuate it a little. It still blends perfectly with the rest of the face. The makeup previously applied under the eye does not crease any more easily, or at all. In fact, I will do this process several times a day, especially in winter. It works incredibly well.
Make your own cream eyeshadows
I use very few cream eyeshadows. I’ve never really found one I like enough to buy till very recently, though I do think the gleam is attractive… but it has to be a gleam. If it’s shimmery, unless the skin of your upper lids is very tight, it will only make the looser skin there more obvious. Most cream shadows are either too frosty, don’t blend out without some tugging, or don’t last well.
Here is a way of making a powder shadow have that moist appearance of cream.
So apply your regular eyeshadow. Just as you did above, spread a small amount of Hydrating Treatment Cream between 2 fingers just to create a thin film. Now tap the cream over the eyeshadow. You really want a very, very thin film. The gleam will look very much like a cream eyeshadow application. The makeup doesn’t crease any more easily than before. Isn’t that good?
Less is always more
You wouldn’t do both of these methods on the same day or you could risk looking a little greasy. But, really, both effects are so subtle and real-looking that even together, they would not be overpowering. Both bring light to the eye, soften the skin so it seems to crease less (or less noticeably), and give an appearance of tight glowing skin.
Cool products multi-tasking. Love it.
-->This is one beautiful cream. In the article Unrivaled Products 1: Beta Hydroxy Acid Gel, 3 unrivaled skin care products for alluded to. This article will focus on the second item in the list. It appears among the 3 because of its incredible performance for the price.
Read moreConcealer : Ben Nye Neutralizer Crayon Should Be Famous
September 10, 2008
-->Concealer makes such a difference on mature faces. It’s just amazing how much you can do with the stuff. I think it’s the most under-utilized beauty weapon.
By now, we all have some shadowed areas and some discolored areas. There are many women our age who really don’t need foundation, but I don’t know one who doesn’t look better with a little concealer.
Product Review : Lise Watier Plumpissimo La Base and Le Gloss
August 17, 2008
This is a pretty good product, but buy it for the right reason.
Lise Watier Plumpissimo Lip Gloss
I bought it to satisfy my fetish for the perfect bronze-peach gloss. To spend $20 on lip gloss, the product has to be special or I have to be feeling weak. In this case, it was both.
I broke one of my personal makeup-buying rules here because I bought the product in the evening. After 4PM, the light is so flattering with its softer yellow wavelengths that many borderline products will look good. If something looks good in AM lighting, with its harsher, bluer wavelengths, then it will look good anytime. An exception would be choosing lip color that will be worn in the evening, where you need deeper pigments for it to be visible.
This product comes in 5 colors. They are each very good, all pure, pretty colors. Good pigments are hard to find cheap. I bought Bronze but there are 5 others. They all shimmer. It takes a day’s search to find great lipgloss without glitter. I’m not versed in sparkle technology, but there are those glosses where the glitter complements the color of the gloss and seems to enrich it (like Chanel’s Glossimers) and others that just create a white/gray 1960’s frost effect ( I see Cover Girl Wet Slicks here). This one is somewhere between the two but leaning more to the good side depending on which color you buy.
I like a product that is creamy, not oily/slippery/thin/watery. Though this gloss feels more oily when applied, it has decent durability. It is scented of orange and cinnamon, but mildly so IMO. I guess this is what is supposed to do the plumping, but I’ve written before ( in Product Review : Maybelline Volume XL Seduction Lip Plumper) that I don’t think plumping products based on tingle work, at least not so as anyone else would notice. Either that or I have un-plumpable lips which is entirely possible. This gloss came out 3 months ago. I’m not sure why. The whole lip plumping thing has been done, unless someone comes out with a new gimmick.
I don’t care for brush applicators. You’d think they would work well, like a built-in lipbrush, but they don’t. With time and use, the bristles start going off in all directions and it’s just a mess. In this case, the bristles are quite long, perhaps to avoid that problem. Problem is the brush feels too long and the bristles are a little floppy and hard to control. I still like sponge-tips best, especially with gloss, the beauty of which is that precision is not necessary.
La Base is an accompanying product with the same type of brush application. It is positioned to “redefine contours, enhance lips, and hold lipstick color longer”. Once again, I must have uncooperative lips. Though it is very comfortable, I would not agree that it accomplished any of the above goals. It is also $20.
I don’t dislike Plumpissimo. I’ll use it all up and have gotten compliments. The reason-to-buy here is the color.
Because I love hearing what other women think, and appreciate nothing better than an honest review, here are some opinions from others, at I’m A Beauty Geek, Chick Advisor , and Kiss and Makeup.
-->This is a pretty good product, but buy it for the right reason.
I bought it to satisfy my fetish for the perfect bronze-peach gloss. To spend $20 on lip gloss, the product has to be special or I have to be feeling weak. In this case, it was both.
Mid-Summer Bronzers For Light To Medium Skin
July 13, 2008
Back in June, I posted an article featuring 2 Beautiful Bronzers For Early Summer. They are just as gorgeous now as they were then, but many of us have a little more color in our skin now. We’ve been wearing brighter colored clothes. We’re staying up later in the evenings and enjoying the deeper saturated colors of mid and late summer.
Read moreThe Best Gloss To Soften Your Bright Lipsticks
July 11, 2008
I have accumulated way too much lipstick over the years. Much of this is due to my ongoing search for the perfect neutral. A color that looked good at the store somehow always looks too strong at 9AM, or when I see myself in pictures. The basic color might be quite good, but I wish it were softer and more sheer.
Read moreYour Perfect Colors
June 24, 2008
V.1 of this article was written 8 months ago. I’ve changed it a little because I used a picture that didn’t belong to me. Back then, I didn’t understand copyright regulations on the internet. I took the picture down of course. I took down the entire article. It was a chance to think about what I wrote again. I am more certain than ever that what is written below is correct.
Back in 1981, Carole Jackson wrote a great book called Color Me Beautiful. This is an amazing book. The information contained on those pages is still right on.
2 Beautiful Bronzers for Early Summer
June 13, 2008
As soon as warm weather arrives, we want a little more color on our face. It looks great and it’s a lovely way to celebrate the prospect of several months of summer. In Canada, it matters.
Bronzer is the best way to get that color. I think it’s also the most attractive. You can put it where you want it and never look burned. A real tan just looks old these days.
Product Review : Aveda Lip Tint SPF 15
June 9, 2008
By far my favorite Aveda product is the makeup. The pigments are lovely, the colors, for the most part, are very wearable though the whole collection looks shinier every time I look at it.
They make 2 makeup products that are luminary. The first is the sheer tinted foundation with sunscreen, called Inner Light Tinted Moisture SPF 15.
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A Greener Tea
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