RSSCategory: Makeup
Goodbye, Lipliner
February 1, 2010
A line around the lips first seems like overkill. It’s too much paint and too much time. What if you could apply a transparent sealant around the lipline that sets a shape for everything to come, and didn’t let it smear?
Read moreProduct Review : Merle Norman Luxiva Timeless Age-Defying Makeup
December 21, 2009
My search for good quality AND colour in cosmetics, laid out intelligently so women could understand how to use them, led me to MN. I don’t use the skin products because they’re not at Beautypedia, but I relax that rule for makeup. It’s hard enough to get colour right. Timeless foundation has been a happy find.
Read moreTrue Summer’s Cool Rose Blush
December 13, 2009
True Summer skin is usually not colourful. By December, Fresh Plum’s dusty softness doesn’t perk it up enough. Bronzer looks crazy on True Summer skin in the hands of real-world women because it adds heat to skin that inherently has none. Months of Product Search may be over.
Read moreProduct Review : Estee Lauder Double Wear Lipstick
November 1, 2009
Gina said “this stuff does not move….SERIOUSLY it doesn’t feather, bleed, leak, run, walk, saunter, promenade….it is as sedentary as cream cheese on a knife that has gone through the dishwasher. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it…Lord have mercy! I am saved!”
She’s right, of course.
Product Review : Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick
September 30, 2009
A brighter, coloured lip is more than anti-aging. It also looks more interesting. More sophisticated. More confident. More creative. More exciting. More fearless. It is less safe and it gets noticed. That takes some getting used to so you don’t begin with the full face on Day 1. But is “Don’t notice me. Don’t make a fuss over me.” , really what you want to tell the world about you?
Read moreMakeup Model : Cool Winter
July 15, 2009
The more you work the particular strengths of your season, the more together your look will be. Winter is a season of stark clarity and respecting that will work the feeling best. If Spring bubbles, Summer flows, and Autumn glows. Winter gleams like platinum. This is not a season for fussy details. The colors are a little hard and the look is dramatic. There is no need to be shy with color intensity. The stronger the color, the healthier the season looks.
Read moreMakeup Palette Adjustment
June 30, 2009
Taji asked recently when we would see the photos of how PCA has changed my look. I haven’t had the time but I will soon.
In the meantime, you can see the difference in the makeup palettes I’m using these days. I’m amazed myself to see the two side-by-side. The right colours feel so natural that people tend to look at their old colours as someone they used to be. The change is as much internal as external.
Makeup Model : Clear Spring
June 28, 2009
This is the yellow undertone of Spring moving closer to the neutral line till it flips to its sister season of Clear Winter. Sometimes, the hair is so dark with very brown eyes that the person is mistakenly classifyied with the high contrast of Winters. Clear Spring is the only season outside of Winter that can pull off black clothing.
Read moreMakeup Model : Clear Winter
June 16, 2009
I get a lot of emails from women who know they’re Winter but don’t know which one. Good on them to know that there are 3 versions of each season. The Clear Winter (Sci\ART’s Bright Winter) is the bridge to Spring. That means that it still respects the deep, clear, dark colors of all Winters, and is predominantly cool, but it is just slightly warmed by yellow.
Read moreProduct Review : Clinique Repairwear SPF 15 Foundation
June 12, 2009
I wasn’t planning on buying foundation but I got overheated with the excitement of finding this color and formulation. And I’m still on a Winter Self-Discovery kick. And I had an afternoon alone. So what, you might say. Or, you might say, “3 hours?! In a row??” . I myself fit into the latter category.
I went to Sears to buy another tube of Estee Lauder Zero-Smudge mascara because my daughter appropriated mine. And I had a gift card, you see. So I wandered over to Clinique because they make some good, and more affordable, stuff and they had a GWP.
Their gifts are pretty good and free has a certain appeal that I’m certain you can understand, especially if you have teenagers. I wish they’d put some new lip products in those gifts. The ol’ Different Grape (this is a widely wearable color?), Apple Cider ( less wearable than A Different Grape), and Raspberry Glace (kind of boring), they’ve seen their day. I guess that among Clinique lipsticks, I really like the Butter Shine best, but I can see how not everyone would because it’s so creamy. I do like the choice of gifts, the various glosses, and how they’ve done a warm and cool option.
Clinique has a PWP offer right now of Summer Pinks or Summer Bronzes.
I’m always drawn to foundation. It fascinates me for some reason. There’s a sticky spot in my head for all those nuances of beige. My own skin issues are,
-lines under eyes,
- a lot of pigment discolorations on sides of face,
-large pores on nose,
but the skin is pretty smooth in the sense of not-bumpy.
Foundation these days is astounding in the number of finishes available and even the more complete coverage products look and feel pretty good. So I started looking for a foundation with heavier coverage that might still look believable with a face full, and would allow for less coverage in some places and much more in others. Although we all need a darker skin-tone concealer (for imperfections on the skin) along with the lighter one (for shadows), I feel unlikely to begin mixing 2 concealers to arrive at my perfect shades. Even if I did, I don’t have time to dot concealer on a hundred little spots. What if foundation alone could cover well enough to hide those pigment spots?
Decades ago, foundation used to be too pink. Eventually, I think makeup artists convinced cosmetic companies that skin is actually more yellow than it is pink. Now, I wonder if a lot of products are too yellow. The salespeople tell you that they make it that way to diminish redness. Well, ok, but you’re not supposed to see the yellow tones. Your skin becomes a different color than your ears. I see skin as kind of grayish, but maybe that’s because mine is. I freely admit that I have no experience matching foundation to anybody but myself. Does anyone remember Club Monaco makeup? Monica Lewinsky wore it, just to date it for you. Those were neutral foundation colors.
I found Repairwear in Fair Neutral 03 and Neutral 05. Micaela, the very nice Clinique saleswoman who has worked at our counter for years and knows me to be weird, contesting, and hard-to-please but does a great job of pretending I’m a normal client, gave me a sample. I’m thrilled to see they’re taking a page from the MAC book and doing this now; must have all been at the same staff meeting. You should get a sample too. It’s very hard to get a sense of this foundation, or any foundation, at the store. Like mascara, it can only be tested in your own bathroom.
What happened was this. I tried it on, just the smallest bit, as Micaela advised. She said clients who buy it love it and don’t buy another bottle for ages. Your initial impression is “No way, this is too masky”. But once it’s all spread out, after about 10 seconds, dayam, it looks good. It feels a little bit heavy if you get too much on, but your skin seems rather perfect. Maybe a little too perfect, but I can get with the drama easily. This is not the formulation to begin with if you’re leery of the artificiality of foundation.
Pick a Saturday when you have a lot of time. Apply it as you usually do your foundation. Realize immediately the coverage is more dense than you expected and the only way to make it look real is by wiping it off which will make your skin red and uneven. Rinse it all off instead. Wait 10 minutes.
Begin again. Use ¼ your usual amount of foundation. 1 pump of the bottle is about right for your face. Apply it on the side of your hand and from there, put little dots all over your face and start blending them together. You have lots of time to work it around. The sunscreen in it doesn’t sting so it can go on eyelids and at the inside corners of eyes.
Take a little more off your hand and dab it, or stipple with your foundation brush, over pigment irregularities. It covers very well without looking cakey. If you have larger pores, drive the foundation brush into them end-on, with a little more foundation, and they’ll go away. Only the thinnest coverage goes under the eyes, as with any foundation, mostly just to blend away the concealer lines.
It is supposed to dry matte, and it does an ok job of it. You will need powder. I don’t need more touchups during the day than I normally would. I think the product looks a little “tired” at the end of the day, after a couple of powder re-applications. If I were going out at night, I’d wash it off and reapply. Luckily, I have no night life besides chauffering to soccer games so … if it ain’t my problem, … it ain’t a problem!
I start with Clinique’s All About Eyes concealer in Light Neutral, fabulous in its own right, and paint it in the usual places, the darker shadows. I don’t even blend it in, just paint it on with a lipstick brush. Wait 2 minutes and it will dry looking like Indian paint. The foundation brush will blend it for you but don’t smear. Keep your foundation brush strokes feathery, light, and quick. You want the concealer to stay where you put it.
Don’t buy makeup without visiting Paula Begoun’s group at Beautypedia. You’ll get another opinion and a better sense of what’s in this product than I can give you. You’ll learn whether it deserves Clinique’s “anti-aging”, or even better “de-aging”, label.
Unbelievable someone could have so much to say about foundation.
-->Your initial impression is “No way, this is too masky”. But once it’s all spread out, after about 10 seconds, dayam, it looks good. It feels a little bit heavy if you get too much on, but your skin seems rather perfect. Maybe a little too perfect, but I can get with the drama easily. This is not the formulation to begin with if you’re leery of the artificiality of foundation.
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