RSSCategory: Makeup
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 edge of the eyelid.
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?
Be careful to stay at least 1/2″ or so away from the eyelid margin because the cream can wander into your eyes. While not painful, it blurs vision a little and will cause eyeliner and mascara to smudge more than usual.
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.
15% Off All SPF Products At Paula’s Choice
June 5, 2008
Does everyone know that sun products are on sale at Paula’s Choice for the month of June ? That includes any product with an SPF, not just sunscreens. We’re talking foundations, pressed powders, and one of the lip products.
Not only that, each order includes 15 free sample packets. 15 !! My kind of sale.
LIPLINER IS SO EASY…EXCEPT FOR ONE THING
May 20, 2008
I know what you’re picturing : the awful dark line after the lipstick has worn off.
No, no. Don’t go there. Those are memories from another decade. If that happens anymore, it must be intentional. There is no other reason to look that way.
Read more-
A Greener Tea
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