Face of the Day (FOTD)

All Star Products for 3-Minute, No-Makeup Makeup

February 4th, 2020 by Karen 14 Comments

Some days you have 20 minutes to put on your makeup…and some days you only have three.

Yesterday was a “three” day for me. I had to drop off Connor at preschool in the morning before heading to the bakery, as usual, but because I was running late (I’d just finished making her lunch, and then I accidentally dropped EVERYTHING on the floor, ARRGHHH! It happened in slow motion, too! I’ve re-lived those sliced bananas falling to the ground about 20 times already.), I only had a sliver of time to transform myself from full-on two-month-turned zombie to quasi, two-days-dead semi-zombie. Three minutes, to be precise, and yes, I timed it, because without a timer, I’d never make it out the door on time.

I’ll be the first to admit that there isn’t anything glamorous or dramatic or life-changing about this makeup, but you know what? Sometimes I crave looks like this, like on the days when lunch falls on the ground (THOSE BANANAS ARE STILL HAUNTING ME), and the last thing I need is to be deeply challenged by my concealer or crease color.

If I were to compare this type of makeup to a hair style, it would be like running a brush through your hair, and putting it in a neat, low ponytail before donning a cute baseball cap. 🙂

The real MVP in this look: Charlotte Tilbury’s Hollywood Flawless Filter

I love and wear it ALL THE FREAKIN’ TIME (my shade is 5 Tan). This tinted moisturizer has very fine pearlescent particles that make your skin look dewy (but not oily), and it gives enough coverage to hide redness and ever-so-slightly diffuse pigmentation and freckles. It’s also still somewhat sheer and doesn’t look thick.

(You will not look like you’re wearing a mask.)

From a few feet away, most folks won’t even be able to tell you’re wearing makeup. They’ll just assume you have naturally flawless skin. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOOOOOOVE IT.

Other key players

What else is doing the heavy lifting here?

I’m also wearing two gel cheek products by Chantecaille — their Radiance Gel Bronzer and Hydrating Gel-Cream Blush in Happy. I mixed a few dots of both on the back of my hand and patted/blended the combo directly on my cheeks with fingers. Just like Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter, these two moderately pigmented products deposit natural-looking color and don’t look obvious or heavy, so they’re ideal for fresh-faced cheek color that lasts all day long.

I wear them all the time and love them to bits.

Eyes and lips

I did the bare minimum on my eyes and lips.

A quick lash curl and a couple layers of mascara (IT Cosmetics Superhero, a superstar for thickness and curl) and a dash of dark brown eyeliner on the upper waterline (just at the roots of the lashes) immediately opens up my eyes.

Next, I quickly filled in my brows with MAC Brun eyeshadow using an angled brush, then ran a clear brow gel through them. I like to do the clear brow gel last because it mellows any overly dark spots.

Last, but not least, I lined and filled in my lips with a nude liner, then topped them off with a glossy lip tint.

Done and DONE, in less than three minutes! 🙂

Isn’t it nice sometimes to just get your face on quickly so you can jump directly into your day?!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Smokey Eyes, Smudged Sparkly Eyeliner, and Why Clean Tapered Blending Brushes Are Your BFF

January 23rd, 2020 by Karen 18 Comments

smokey eyes sparkly lashlines — Back in my happy place!

Can I get a whoop-whoop from all my kindred spirits out there? — the makeup lovers who love rubbing freshly washed air-dried brushes ever-so-gently across their face, and love the fresh scent of those baby soft bristles? (Side note: If this describes you, I bet you also like sticking your face in clean laundry when it comes out of the dryer, too!)

The reason you’re staring at this bevy of brushes is because I built a big-@ss pile of dirty brushes I’d been needing to wash since — gulp! — before Thanksgiving. Weeks ago, I tucked them away in a corner of my office and kinda forgot.

WHOOPS!

Well, I washed them yesterday because the bakery has been closed this week. Apparently, no one comes in this time of year because many people are still on their New Year’s diets, but folks start to fall off the wagon toward the end of January.

So…I finally had time to wash this big-@ss pile of brushes, and I also had time to do the makeup love of my life: SMOKEY EYES.

A few things…

I always forget what a difference clean tapered blending brushes can make. Just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is what they look like:

tapered blending brush clean — It’s handy to have a few around.

Whenever I’m doing smokey looks, clean tapered blending brushes are very, very handy… At the very least, I like to keep two or three on deck. Having bristles that don’t have any eyeshadow on them is key because the clean brush hairs pick up/remove excess eyeshadow while also softening any hard edges, so everything looks that much smoother and more seamless.

Another thing? You’ll want to use the lightest touch while blending, and avoid pressing so hard that the bristles splay out (this just presses the powder into your pores, which makes it harder to sheer out your shadow). All you want is the very tip to lightly touch your lid.

smokey eyes tapered blending light touch — Please don’t smash your brush head into your crease.

smokey eyes sparkly lashlines unblended blneded — You know those pics of yourself online where you look crazy? YUP.

Last, but not least, always keep a clean tapered brush around for a last blending pass at the end. After you’ve done everything — base, blush, lips, the whole schebang — lightly blend your eyeshadow one last time, both on top of the lids and along the edges of the shadow to finalize the shape of your eye makeup.

It makes all the difference!

Makeup worn in this look

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A Triple Threat! — Blue Wings, Purple Waterlines and Peachy Glitter Eyes

January 9th, 2020 by Karen 9 Comments

Do I miss the days when I had hours and hours to whisk my eyeshadows into clouds of fluffy color?

Yes and no.

Yes, because I’m in awe of myself — literally in awe — for ever having the patience to do elaborate eye makeup once upon a time.

But also no, because banging out these quick 15-minute makeup looks before I leave for work at the bakery has taught me all kinds of creative tricks!

One thing I’ve been doing lately is combining different elements I’ve worn in various looks to come up with something new.

For this look, I incorporated three makeup elements I’ve been wearing across quite a few bakery-day looks lately.

A colorful lower waterline
Colorful cat eyeliner
Glitter

1. Work your waterline.

Lining your lower water line is an easy, low-stress way to add a pop of color to your look without committing to lots of intense blending. Here I’m wearing a dark purple liner, which is the same one I used in the aubergine look the other day.

2. Embrace your inner colorful cat eyeliner.

Not as low-stress as a colorful waterline because you have to map out your wings and line up the flicks evenly, which is never an easy task, but if you resolve to be cool with imperfection (I am these days… It’s a learning experience!), you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck. You can always keep it simple by using a single bright liner — pencil, liquid or an eyeshadow applied with a wet brush — or you can jooj it up by layering different products together. Here I’m wearing a blue liner, which I topped with a shimmery blue-green shadow mixed with a glittery black shadow.

3. Go for the glitter!

I know it isn’t for everyone, but in controlled amounts, glitter really adds a little something-something. I patted a peach glitter on my lids with a finger, and even though it ended up all over the place (hello, eyebrows!), I’m cool with it.

Key makeup worn in this look

Eyes: Maybelline Tatoo Gel Liner in Striking Navy (cat liner base) and ESUM Aubergine (lower waterline). MAC Now and Zen palette (I blended Soft Brown and Omega as a base, combined Tilt and Black Tie, and patted that on top of the blue liner before patting Honeylust on top for glitter.)

Cheeks: Hourglass Illume Sheer Color Trio in Sunset

Lips: MAC Velvet Teddy topped with Magically Delightful Lipglass

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Aubergine Eyes and Berry Lips

January 7th, 2020 by Karen 14 Comments

aubergine eyes berry lips — I did my eye makeup with just an eyeliner.

Your fun fact for the day about eggplant: While commonly thought of as a vegetable in cooking circles, eggplant (also known as aubergine), is technically a fruit — specifically, a berry.

And now you’re ready to conquer the botany stage on your next trivia night! (Lucky you.)

I’ve got aubergine on my mind because one thing that Santa so kindly brought me for Christmas is the aubergine-colored Athleta workout top I’m wearing in these pics, so I did this combo the other day with aubergine eyes and berry lips.

When you want to do easy eye makeup, pencil liner is your BFF.

For the eye makeup, I used one of my favorite quickie techniques. I grabbed a long-wearing pencil eyeliner (ESUM Aubergine), applied a layer on my lids, and then buffed out the edges to mimic the effect of eyeshadow. I did this a few times to build up the color in the areas where I wanted more depth — the lash line and outer third — so that my hooded eyes would look more deeply set. Then, I lined my upper and lower waterlines and smudged the liner along my lower lash line to balance out the heaviness on the lids.

Finish with a couple coats of mascara on your lashes, and you’re done!

What you’ll need to look for in your liner

Ideally, you’ll want a liner that’s soft enough to blend with a brush, but you don’t want one that’s too smudgy, because then it’ll just move around on your bare lids and disappear. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you don’t want one that dries too quickly, because then you won’t have enough playtime to blend.

On top of all that, it also has to stick to your waterlines (and feel comfortable on there, too).

For this technique, I really the MAC Eye Kohls in Powersurge and Teddy (Costa Riche is a good one, too, but I’ve noticed that it tends to move a lot unless I set it with a powder). The Laura Mercier Kohls are excellent, too. Try the Stormy Grey shade!

aubergine eyes berry lips 2 — Key products worn in this look: ESUM Aubergine liner, Clinique Plum Pop blush and NARS Vivien lipstick

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Ringing in the New Year With Warm Browns and a Splash of Blue on the Waterline

January 1st, 2020 by Karen 12 Comments

urban decay stay naked threeesome in naked swatches — There’s a 100% chance I’m wearing pajamas right now.

First, hello and welcome to 2020, my friend! 😊 Hope you’re having a happy new year so far!

Second, I know there must be a scientifically explainable reason why warm orange browns look sooooo good with blues (is it because orange and blue are on opposite sides of the color wheel?), and my left brain knows this, yet when I see the two colors happening on my face, my right brain steps in and is like, GIRL, YES. My heart begins to flutter, and I get that tingly crazy makeup lady feeling in my toes! It’s one of those electric color combinations I love to wear.

I wore the combo yesterday to work at the bakery, where, speaking of color, I made the most beautiful blush pink buttercream frosting. Check it…

View this post on Instagram

Made the most beautiful blush-colored buttercream frosting at the bakery today! I would love this as an opaque pastel nail polish. 💅🏽 😍 Also, watching the frosting get fluffier is the most satisfying thing.🦄

A post shared by Karen | Makeup and Beauty Blog (@karenmbb) on Dec 30, 2019 at 9:19pm PST

I KNOW. I’m going to shop my nail polish stash for a similar opaque pale pink today.

But first, back to the warm browns and blue…

I knocked this out in about 10 minutes yesterday because, basically, it’s just a neutral look with a slice of color on the lower waterline.

If you’re wearing something like this and going about your business, most people won’t be able to tell that you’re wearing blue liner, but ya know, if I were to run into you at TJ’s and we’re chatting about the Mini Brie Bites, if you’ve got blue liner on like this, then I’m gonna be like, “BABES, whatcha got there? Tell me about this business on your waterline.”

This blue, by the way, is one of my MAC favorites. It’s called Take the Plunge, and it’s one of the Technakohls (which I love for the waterline because they don’t move), but (SAD PANDA) I just looked on the MAC website, and it appears to be missing in action. So, if you can’t find it, try something like Urban Decay Mainline, or really any of the dark blue/teal 24/7 Glide-Ons. Basically, if it’s a dark blue/teal, you’re good!

If you struggle to get bright colors to look bold on your waterline, you’re not alone. It’s common for blues like this to look muddy, especially if you wear liner on your upper lash line or upper waterline, because they can get mixed in with the blue and tone it down.

So here’s whatcha do…
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