Saturday Surfing, December 1st, 2018

Hello, friend! Happy December Caturday ❄️?? to ya.

You know, just when I think I’ve seen it all among the pantheon of makeup tips and now it’s just the same bevy of basic tips recycled and repackaged for the quadrillionth time and I stop expecting to ever see anybody ever add anything new to the beauty news cycle, ever, I stumble upon something I’ve never tried before, and sometimes it rocks my world.

Two words: reverse foundation.

It’s a new (I think) base technique, and I gave it a try for the first time the other day. It’s where you start by applying cream products to your skin first while it’s bare (contour, if you wear it, blush and then highlighter), let them set, and then do a sheer foundation on top.

Girl, it is game-changing.

Blowing my mind right now

The idea is that by layering the foundation on top of the contour/blush/highlighter products, everything blends together so seamlessly and naturally that it looks like you’re wearing the perfect amount of makeup. I tried it and took pics the other day, and I think the subtlety of the effect gets a little lost in photographs, but it looks really, really good in real life, especially outdoors in full sun.

Try it sometime!

I’ve been even more into “real life” makeup than usual lately because of a late-night vortex I got sucked into on Facebook called Celebrity Close-Up. It’s a page that posts zoomed-in pics of celebs wearing makeup, and OH, MY GOSH, it’s a revelation. I mean, I take a lot of closeup pics of myself for the blog, and I’m know that many things can influence the way a particular look will look in real life, like the direction of the light source, the color temperature of the lighting, the finishes you’re wearing, the makeup brands themselves, how much water you’ve been drinking, and the techniques and tools you’re using, and the same looks can look cake-y one minute and natural the next, but to see celebs without any filtering or airbrushing is pretty eye-opening.

I have to say that whoever is handling Kiera Knightly’s, Lupita Nyong’o’s and Kristen Stewart’s makeup is a freaking genius (hmm, I wonder if it’s Lisa Eldgridge’s work?), because up close all of them are wearing breathtaking full-coverage makeup, but it doesn’t look heavy at all.

On that note, this weekend’s reading…

• This post talks about some of the different approaches to natural-looking, or “no-makeup,” makeup, including this year’s new-ish “boy beat” trend.

  First, what’s the trend and who defines it? And if you can’t see a “no-makeup” makeup product on your skin, does that mean the product is doing what it’s supposed to do?? I’m so confused…

• One of the biggest beauty trends right now is vegan makeup, and it’s poised to blow up into a $20.8 billion business by 2025.

• Toddlers: the newest market for makeup. Stila’s former chief product development officer just launched a new makeup line called Petite ‘N Pretty for girls as young as four years old.

  About this, part of me thinks, “It’s all in good fun, Karen. TAKE A CHILL PILL,” because my mom let me have Lip Smackers when I was a kid, but another part of me is also super uncomfortable with the idea of kids being shown that they need to do things to their faces.

• Cats in literature? It’s a long tail… (Badum-tss!)
• This writer decided to find out what would happen if all of the makeup she had to work with was food, and yes, in case you were wondering, there *was* a dry spaghetti noodle involved.
• A breakdown of how moisturizers work
• Fave read of the week: The Joy of having a bare face
• I’m sorry I had to subject you to this, but I can’t be the only person haunted by this MAC brush manicure.
• This 39-year-old cat lover became a millionaire by inventing a contraption that potty trains cats.

This dude makes udon noodles from scratch while he hangs out with his cats!

Modern day cat ladies tend to the kitties that live in the ruins of Rome.

Ooh, I wanna try this.

And I want to try this too (I’m a little obsessed with Pixiwoo at the moment).

OK, now I’m off to go wash my brushes because I haven’t done a deep clean in weeks. I’ve just been wiping the same ones off on a paper towel and hoping for the best. #keepingitreal!

Man, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to make it through the day, you know? LOL! ?

You have a good weekend, OK?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen