Saturday Surfing, February 10th, 2018

To quote a great connoisseur of round, crisp cakes, “COOKIES!” And by the way, is it just me, or has Cookie Monster gotten a lot more… What’s the word? (Oh, the irony here.) Articulate? I feel like he’s expanded his vocabulary a great deal over the years.

In other news… I’m still baking my way through 2018! Last night I made chocolate chip cookies.

But I can’t keep too many in the house because I’ll eat them all, so most of them go to friends and neighbors…

Most of them. 🙂

I used a new recipe, too. I’m usually a Toll House chocolate chips girl, but I grabbed a bag of Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips a few days ago and followed the recipe on the back.

They turned out pretty well! — although, I think I’ll add a touch more salt next time… Ooh! Maybe I’ll sprinkle sea salt flakes on top of them.

I love that contrast of salty and sweet. I’m also going to “up” the walnut ratio. I only used one cup, per the instructions, but I’m thinking they could have been nuttier… LOL. Heck, we all could be a little nuttier, amirite?

Side note/Bay Area trivial trivia: Everybody here says “GEAR-AR-delly.” For the love of all silky Maine Coon kitties, please, please, please do not say “jee-rar-dah-lee.” I went to school with somebody who always said “jee-rar-dah-lee,” and she insisted that it was right.

I was like, “Look, girly, you’re from Southern California. I don’t tell you about Hollywood and sunshine, but I’m from the Bay Area. GET IT RIGHT.”

LOL!

OK, enough about chocolate (for now). Let’s discuss other delicious and interesting things, like…

• I’m endlessly fascinated by people and their relationship with makeup. In this Yale Herald piece, student author and makeup lover Max Himpe writes that “Ranks of men wear makeup. We do it in the day and at night; publicly and privately; silently and loudly. It’s worn daily or yearly or instinctively, on- and off-stage. We use makeup to conceal flaws, enhance features, as decoration or even as artistry. There is no one way; the parameters are endless. Some of us know other men who wear makeup. We all wish we knew more.” VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE.
• Fashion designer/Project Runway alumnus Christian Siriano is partnering with e.l.f. for a limited edition makeup collection that launches today. Everything in the collection is less than $20, and there’s a LOT of color — like hot pink packaging and an eyeshadow palette packed with brights (green and teal, what?!), among other things.

  I’m kinda surprised, in a good way. I loved the season he starred on PR, and even though I haven’t followed him closely since then, I always thought that if he were to do a beauty collab, it would be something along the lines of what Victoria Beckham did with Estée Lauder — high end, exclusive, lots and lots of black packaging.

  I wonder if he’s going to branch out and release some makeup on his own.

• Are you following the Winter Olympics? If you are, you might catch a glimpse this traveling squad of 230 young North Korean women handpicked to act as a sort of international cheerleading squad — except without the back handsprings and basket tosses — to support the North Korean athletes.

  The members are mostly students from upper-class families in Pyongyang, and they travel abroad on behalf of the regime during special occasions.

• Backstage at Fashion Week is a good place to glimpse products that will be launching soon, and MAC recently revealed that a new line of 24-Hour Studio Fix concealers will be launching this summer. The full-coverage liquid concealer will come in 34 shades and include a tube with a doe foot.

  I’m down for full-coverage concealer, homie, but I hope they aren’t TOO matte, you know? I don’t mind matte concealer on my cheeks, chin and around my nose, but they’re usually a no-go under my eyes, where they often add about 20 years to my face.

  Still looking forward to them, though! Studio Fix is one of my old-school MAC faves.

• Behold! This bevy of majestic Maine Coon cats! *swoons*

  These felines sport seriously silky shampoo commercial-caliber manes.

If cats could text, this is a good representation of how pretty much every conversation would go down.

While we’re on the subject of cats, I’m intrigued by this cat bag carrier. Of course, Tabs would only want one if it were Louis Vuitton or Chanel.

100 years of lip looks

OK, babes, I hope you have a wonderful Caturday. Talk to you soon. Bye. 🙂

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen