Wearing Clarins Instant Smooth Crystal Lip Balm in Crystal Rose ($26) on my lips

I am no fortune teller.

No way, no how. I’ve never picked the winning lottery numbers, haven’t foreseen any major historical events, and I did not divine my evolution into a cat lady…although really, in hindsight, that one I should have seen comin’.

I can’t tell you if that guy/gal you’re dating is THE one (I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!), but I can tell you this: if you plan to spend any time with these Clarins Instant Smooth Crystal Lip Balms this summer, you’ll be spending much of it swiping these balms back and forth across your lips. Back, back, forth and forth, as the song goes.

The Instant Smooth Crystal Lip Balms from the left in Crystal Rose, Crystal Gold Plum and Crystal Mandarin (not pictured: Crystal Berry)

Yeah, these four new limited edition tinted lip balms require some serious swiping. A LOT of swiping. I think it has to do with the tinted inner core.

Released with the Clarins Splendours Colour Collection for summer, Crystal Rose, Crystal Mandarin, Crystal Gold Plum and Crystal Berry ($26 each) each have a yummy-looking tinted inner core surrounded by a transparent balm.

Don’t they look cool and almost good enough to eat?

Mmm… Like lipstick gummies.

I’ve been wearing and liking three of the four shades this week. Like a fancier, more pigmented species of Burt’s Bees lip balm, they have a lightweight but heavy-duty moisturizing formula that also packs a peck of shine. Non-sticky, they last around 2-3 hours for me.

Thing is, they also take a bit of work to wield. Lots of that swiping I mentioned, as in swiping the lipstick across my lips at least 5-6 times to evenly apply the colors.

From the left, that’s Crystal Rose, Crystal Mandarin and Crystal Gold Plum

I think there’s something up with that tinted inner core, like it’s a different texture than the softer outer balm. With the first pass across my lower lip, the swipe ends up patchy and uneven…

Gold Plum

Wearing the Dolce & Gabbana Contrasts Eyeshadow Quad

contrast n. |kon-trast|
noun
1 The state of being strikingly different from something else, typically something in juxtaposition or close association : tabs has been unusually nice to me today, in startling contrast to his behavior yesterday.

contrast v. |kon-trast|
verb
2 Differ strikingly : contrast my hair today with my hair of the 1990s, and be like whoa!

Do you ever think about how you got your name, or do you know the actual story?

Dolce & Gabbana’s Contrasts Eyeshadow quad has me thinking about names…

I was named after the actress Karen Black, but my mom almost named me Stephanie, which I can’t even begin to imagine… Not that I don’t like the name. I do. It’s just that when I look in the mirror, I don’t see a Stephanie, Steph or Steffie. Nope. Does not compute.

Funny, though, that last weekend I met a gal at the Bliss Spa who said that she didn’t think I looked like a Karen. She thought maybe a Leah, Leilani or a Lorelei. Something with an L, and I can kinda see that. Definitely more than Stephanie.

Anywho, I think whoever named Dolce & Gabbana’s Constrasts quad knocked it out of the park, since it really is strikingly different from the other everyday quads in my stash of staples.

If I could, I’d give that gal/guy a banana split with extra scoops of ice cream, whipped cream and cherries, because they nailed it!

And then, if he/she wanted, I’d go running with them, so we could burn off the calories and talk more about Constrasts.

The long-running Unsung Heroes series features some of my favorite permanent collection products from a variety of bodacious beauty brands.

This quad is a total workhorse, one I could easily see myself wearing daily, and yet it’s unlike the usual brown/beige/taupe/gray neutral suspects we see a lot.

Starting with the colors, ohmigosh! Inside the golden compact hides four potently pigmented powder shadows that you can easily take from day to night — a golden pinkish peach (a favorite for dusting all over my lids when I’m in a hurry because it brightens everything up), a pinkish beige, a warm purple and a plummy dark chocolate.

Versatile and flattering on many different skin tones, and just hella pretty.

From the left: shimmery golden pink, shimmery pinkish beige, shimmery plum and shimmery plummy brown (looks like a MAC Teddy in eye shadow form)

I was searching through old pictures this morning and found these shots of Tabs from 2008, which was just about the time he decided to make me his full-time assistant.

It was the tail-end of his kitten-hood. He’s a little smaller in these pics and still has his baby face.

The little paws! How I miss those days.

The lighting in these snaps is funkytown, I know. I was still figuring out how to use a camera properly. The best photography advice I can give? Shoot every day and make a lot of mistakes. You’ll eventually figure stuff out.

Note to the young people of the world! You probably don’t want to cut your own hair and then take pics… (me, circa 1990)

Yes, I have cut my own hair, and yes, it was disastrous.

During the darkest period of my hair bear days, a friend told me that she cut her own bangs, and she made it sound really, really easy. “Just cut different pieces unevenly from your bangs. Do it! You’ll love it!”

Um…

The reason for the uneven pieces was that when you pumped up your hair with hairspray, a curling iron and a blow dryer to get it to stand up, the choppiness would better recreate the appearance of a wall of hair cresting like a huge wave.

The higher, the better, of course.

I grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen and went to town, cutting random pieces of different lengths from my bangs. There was absolutely no rhyme or reason to it, just chop, chop, chop.

By the time I finished, my head looked awful, because my hair was also very wavy at the time, and when you cut wavy hair without any regard for the curl pattern, you end up with a hot mess.

Things got a little better when I pumped it up, which disguised the choppiness somewhat, and I really did end up with something resembling the look I wanted of a wave cresting on my head.

I don’t know… It was still pretty terrible, especially when I’d let it air dry and do it’s own thing. I looked like a reject from The Muppet Show.

How about you? Have you ever cut your own hair?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Wearing MAC Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow in Brownluxe ($40) on my eyes

What do you get when you put pearls in a particle accelerator?

I’ll tell you what you get — undersea oysters solving nuclear fusion equations, Ford Fusions with strands of pearls dripping from their rear-view mirrors, fusion cuisine that combines Asian flavors, and knitting (and purling!).

In other words, awesomeness. You get a whole lot of awesomeness.

You may also get MAC, as in the six new MAC Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow palettes ($40 each) in MAC’s newest eye shadow formulation to join the permanent line. Powder shadows that feel like creams, they can be worn dry for a soft, sparkling finish, or wet for something shiny and metallic.

All six of the MAC Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadows

Lawd, I think I may have accidentally inhaled a little too much stray glitter playing with these palettes… The stuff was flying all over the place!

It was kind of weird, truth be told.

I expected these, with their soft, creamy texture, to glide effortlessly across my skin and blend together with a few swift swipes, and most of them did just that. With the palettes comprised primarily of satins and metallics, like Smokeluxe, Brownluxe and Greenluxe, I didn’t have any trubs at all. They were coo’.

When I applied Brownluxe, my heart skipped as I watched the shadow skate across my skin. My 217 barely had to do any work to smooth away every last line.

I actually had to stop myself from over-blending, as the colors melted together like good fondue.

Mmm, cheese…

Bleuluxe

Brownluxe