Today I wore Especially Escada ($84 for a 2-ounce bottle).
It’s like cutting class and going to the beach with your girlfriends — carefree, happy and feminine.
Official fragrance notes: pear, rose, ambrette seeds, ylang ylang and musk.
by Karen 3 Comments
Today I wore Especially Escada ($84 for a 2-ounce bottle).
It’s like cutting class and going to the beach with your girlfriends — carefree, happy and feminine.
Official fragrance notes: pear, rose, ambrette seeds, ylang ylang and musk.
by Karen 23 Comments
As much as I like the idea of working beside Vampire Pam behind the bar at Fangtasia this fall, sometimes the look — the stilettos and skin-tight leather from head to toe, the super serious smokey eyes, and the jewel-toned shadow shades — is a little too, well, much for me.
So, this afternoon, I hit the pause button on the kinds of rich colors and intense shades we’ve been seeing a lot for fall, and spent a little time with the dainty, nice nudes in the new Dolce & Gabbana Lace collection.
The 10-piece release is all about bronzed skin and nude lips and nails, and the packaging? — oh, the packaging…
I just lurve lace. 🙂 I kinda wish all of Dolce & Gabbana’s makeup had this same limited-edition packaging.
Here’s a quick peek at three pieces from the collection…
From the left: Intenseyes Black Intensity Mascara ($31), Ultra Shine Gloss in Perfection ($32) and Intense Nail Lacquer in Pink ($22)
If you’re getting married soon, consider classic, soft pink Intense Nail Lacquer in Pink ($22) for your tips or toes. Creamy, smooth and semi-sheer, it’s a little like Essie’s Ballet Slippers, but much, much smoother.
I’m wearing two coats here, but I’m sure I could have gotten away with one. Yes, the color isn’t altogether unique, but I think it’s perfectly executed.
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: A
Two coats of Intense Nail Lacquer in Pink
On my lips, creamy beige Ultra-Shine Lipgloss in Perfection ($32) feels thick, but not sticky, and it has Dolce & Gabbana’s signature rose flavor and scent. It’s one of the smoothest beige glosses I’ve ever tried, and I can totally see it cruising down a red carpet below a shimmery gray smokey eye.
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: B
Ultra Shine Gloss in Perfection swatch
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by Karen 42 Comments
Even if you feel like your previous attempts at eye makeup left you looking like a horror movie zombie clown (been there, done that!), trust me, babe, you can do today’s easy cat eye makeup look.
Because it relies on forgiving neutrals, as opposed to saturated brights, and doesn’t require extensive blending or complex brushwork, it’s a great confidence builder. Perfect for when you want a quick, elegant eye look easy to dress up or down.
Before we get started, let’s go over the products we’ll use…
From the left: MAC 217 Blending Brush, MAC 239 Eye Shader Brush, MAC 266 Small Angle Brush, Dior 3-Couleurs Glow Palette in 651 Nude Glow
Like last time, these are only suggestions, so feel free to substitute any similar colors you already have. As you browse through your collection, look for 1) a neutral (beige, brown, peach, taupe, gray, etc.) powder eyeshadow, ideally one within a few shades of your natural skin tone; 2) a complementing glittery shadow; and 3) a black, brown or gray shadow for the cat eye itself.
(Note: For this cat eye look, I find that soft powder shadows are easier to work with than eyeliners. The shadows don’t look as intense as liners, and you don’t have to worry as much about buffing out the edges.)
I’ll be using the new Dior 3-Couleurs Glow Palette in 651 Nude Glow because it has a good selection of shades for this particular look, but you could also use shadows like NARS Cyprus, MAC Soba, MAC Patina, or MAC Arena as your main neutral; NARS Night Star for your shimmer/glitter shadow and something like MAC Carbon for your darker shadow shade.
Okay, here we go! Let’s get started. 🙂
First — and this is really only the first step if you have oily eyelids — starting with a primer can really help extend the wear time of your shadows. If it’s not a problem for you, you can skip ahead.
Now, using a flat eye shader brush like the MAC 239, pat your main neutral shadow, which for me is the darker golden brown shimmery shade in the upper left of the Dior palette, on your lids starting at the lash line and slowly working up into the crease.
Try to concentrate more of the color near the lash line than the crease, as this creates the gradient/transition effect, and also gives the eye more depth, and the overall look more polish.
While you’re still holding the same brush, take the leftover product, and run it along your lower lash line.
Then, grab a domed blending brush like the MAC 217, and gently buff the edges, further diffusing the color, by running the brush along your brow bone…
by Karen 20 Comments
Source: The Polished Mommy
Trying to get good looks at the stylin’ manis and pedis on the female athletes at the 2012 Olympics in London is like a sport in and of itself! One minute I’m rooting for Dana Vollmer to break the world record in the 100-meter butterfly, next minute I’m screaming “Pan down! Pan down! Pan down!” at the TV to see her fierce fingers and toes.
Poor El Hub… Thank goodness I married a man with the patience to sit through my long, drawn out soliloquies on nail art and other beauty trends in international athletics, LOL!
And the athletes aren’t the only ones getting in on the action. People around the world are celebrating the London Olympics with their own gold medal-worthy manis.
Here’s a look at some of them. If you’ve seen others that you really like, please share them in the comments. 🙂
Source: The Daily Nail Blog
Source: 10 Blank Canvases
Source: The Daily Nail Blog
by Karen 4 Comments
Today I wore Flora by Gucci Glorious Mandarin ($100; available now online at gucci.com).
It’s refreshing and bright, and kind of reminds me wearing a orange ruffled silk dress on a warm summer day.
Official fragrance notes…
Top notes: Mandarin and peony
Middle notes: Jasmine and pina colada (yum!)
Bottom notes: Ambergris, white musk and creamy wood
by Karen 4 Comments
Some bits from the new Dolce & Gabbana Lace collection, new for fall 2012 and available now at Saks Fifth Avenue stores and online.
From the left: Intenseyes Black Intensity Mascara ($31), Ultra Shine Gloss in Perfection ($32) and Intense Nail Lacquer in Pink ($22).
Isn’t the packaging sweet? I’m such a sucker for lace patterns. 🙂
by Karen 21 Comments
Darn this weird skin allergy! I’d planned to take pics for another easy eye makeup tutorial this afternoon (cat eyes!), but then I broke out in hives all over my left eyelid.
Weird.
They’ve since gone away, but I wasn’t taking any chances on eye makeup today. I decided to get my daily beauty fix the mani/pedi way.
The jewel-toned polishes in Zoya’s new 15-piece fall 2012 collection, available now online at artofbeauty.com, are spread out among three sub-collections — shimmery Diva, creamy Designer and sheer Gloss.
Separately, the bottles, which are all full size, sell for $8 each, or $48 as part of the two six-piece Diva and Designer sets. The three-piece Gloss set sells for $24.
Bummer that you don’t get a little discount for buying the sets…
In each of these pics, I’m wearing two coats.
From the left: Zoya Designer collection shades in Evvie, Noot and Natty
From the left: Zoya Designer collection shades in Raven, Toni and Monica
Zoya Diva collection shades in Suri, Daul and Feifei
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by Karen 36 Comments
One could probably pen a trilogy of Tolkien-ian proportions on the fantabulousness of MAC’s soft and smudgy $15 Eye Kohl in Tarnish, a blackened forest green pencil eyeliner, but because you have pretty nails to paint, diva pets to assist and [INSERT SNACK FOOD OF CHOICE] to nom, I’m gonna try to break it down for you, bullet point-style. 🙂
I’d even go so far as to call this blackened green, with its hint of sheen, universally flattering.
It’s like a pigment power-up! Whether your eyes are brown, blue, green, hazel, grey or violet (mine are dark brown with a navy blue ring around the edge of the iris), MAC Tarnish turns up the natural color of your eyes, making blue eyes appear bluer, brown eyes browner, green eyes greener — you get the idea.
To showcase your eyes by enhancing their natural color, apply Tarnish along your lash or water lines (or both, which I like to do).
If black eyeliners and other super dark shades are just too stark for you, here comes Tarnish to the rescue!
I think the forest green tones really help to soften the color, making for a noticeably less dramatic liner look than basic black.
Tarnish on NC42 skin
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