Dang, it’s hot out here in Nor Cal today! It must be in the low 80s. That, or I’m just not at all used to the warmer weather yet.

To hurry up and get into the spirit of swimming pools and water parks, I thought I’d bust out a few of the new waterproof Make Up For Ever Aqua Shadows ($20 each) for my makeup today.

The Aqua Shadows, which are available now at Sephora, are a new line of long-lasting waterproof eyeshadow crayons. They come in 12 smudge-resistant shades designed to resist fading and creasing just as much as they resist water (more on that in a minute).

Apply, count to five (or 10, to be safe), and then bring on the water!

A few things about the Make Up For Ever Aqua Shadows…

• Easy does it with these. My lids turn into cake central when I over-apply.
• From my experience, they live up to the “Aqua” in their name, resisting water like our resident tabby cat. They also last all day long for me, but I do get some creasing when I wear them without an eye primer.
• They feel drier and thicker than some of the other shadow pencils I’ve tried, like Urban Decay’s 24/7 Glide-On Eyeshadow Pencils and the NARS Soft Touch Shadow Pencils, and take a little more time and effort to blend.

For this look, I also used a few other Make Up For Ever favorites that I recently noticed at Sephora — the Compact Shine On Powder highlighter ($30; comes in two shades), Sculpting Blush ($25; available in four shades) and Mat Bronze bronzing powder ($32; available in two shades).

Make Up For Ever Aqua Shadows from the left: 30E (a pearly pink beige), 26E (a pearly peach) and 4E (a matte taupe gray), $20 each

Make Up For Ever Sculpting Blush in 10, $25
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Wearing Make Up For Ever Rouge Artist Natural in Soft Fuchsia

Although I’m running on fumes right now, I feel surprisingly perky for having only gotten three hours of sleep.

Those must have been three spectacular hours… Or maybe I should credit these new $19 Rouge Artist Natural Lipsticks from Make Up For Ever, which are packed with so much vibrant pigment that they’re lifting me up like shots of espresso today, BAM!

Dropping next month at Make Up For Ever Boutiques and Sephora stores in a massive array of 50 creamy, moisturizing shades, they’re also spread out across three different finishes in satin, iridescent and diamond. All 50 colors are coming to MUFE boutiques, but Sephora stores and sephora.com will only be getting 18 of the shades (I’m not sure which ones).

From the left: N31 Soft Fuchsia, N45 Red and N4 Pink Beige

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Over the past two years, Pantone, makers of those pretty color sample books that designers and other creative pros have used for decades to standardize colors, has been surveying insiders at New York Fashion Week and summarizing seasonal color trends into their highly-anticipated spring and fall Fashion Color Reports.

The spring 2012 edition identifies 10 shades currently climbing up the color popularity charts. They range from natural tones to pastels, and all the way to bold brights.

Make Up For Ever can help color lovers stay on the cutting edge and implement the trendy shades in Pantone’s latest Color Report. All of the pieces here are part of the brand’s permanent line, and available now at Sephora stores and also online.

For Solar Power and Cabaret, try Eyeshadow in #71 (left) and Eye Shadow in #58 (right), $19 each

For Bellflower, try Rouge Artist Intense in #15, $19
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Why, yes. The silky smooth texture and all-day wear time (both on my lash and water lines) of Make Up For Ever’s new $18 Aqua Eyes in Gypsy are rocking my hot pink argyle socks off, but that’s not what I love most about this limited edition liner.

The fresh brewed coffee color of this rich matte brown makes it neutral enough to work with the cool and warm colors in my shadow stash, and I think that’s pretty sweet. Greens, blues, golds, bronzes, beiges and even purples — Gypsy digs ‘em all — and it even works well as a base for smokey eye looks with black and/or gray.

Aqua Eye Pencil in Gypsy and the La Bohème palette
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Hard to believe now after 20-some-odd years of wearing lipstick that there was a time when I was actually kind of afraid of the stuff.

Before walking home after the spring dance in junior high, I was one of those girls frantically removing forbidden eyeliner and Lip Smackers in the bathroom, but by freshman year, I’d gotten the OK from Mom to start wearing makeup legitimately.

My first fully authorized lipstick was a tube of Clinique Raspberry Glacè, and while I was thrilled to have my very own tube of “fancy” lipstick, I couldn’t just apply it straight from the tube… No, I thought that made it look too opaque and heavy, which drew too much attention to my braces, so I was forever dabbing and blotting Raspberry Glacè to get that lightly stained lip look I liked so much.

Now, if the two new limited edition Make Up For Ever Rouge Artist Natural Lipsticks from the La Bohème Spring collection ($19 each) had been around back then, I probably would have tucked Raspberry Glacè away into the recesses of my Liz Claiborne purse and opted instead for either reddish coral Folk or peachy beige Bohème for touch-ups at my locker between classes.

Both of these sheer, slick and hydrating lipsticks apply with a gossamer veil of color and shine and have a classic powdery rose flavor and scent that I like. For gals who fear the look of heavy, thick lipsticks (like I did at one time), I fancy them in a way as lipstick training wheels.

Limited edition packaging!
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