Am I in my 40s? Yes. Do I still love wearing glitter? Yes… Is there a way to reconcile both of these things without 1) trying too hard or 2) looking like I’m trying too hard?
Let’s find out, haha! 🙂
Last weekend I went to a Sunday lunch at a fancy brunch place in town with the new members of the moms group I belong to, and I was really excited to go because when do I ever dress up anymore and enjoy a meal that doesn’t involve me getting food on myself as I feed or pet a little animal?
Answer: hardly ever.
I wanted to do something that felt a little glamorous and special, but, you know, for lunch, so I still wanted it to be somewhat reserved.
This look took 10 minutes, and I can confirm that it only took 10 minutes because that’s exactly how much time I had to put on makeup before I had to leave the house.
Of course, the original plan was to take my time and enjoy the process, leisurely get ready (that’s half the fun of going out, right?), but as usual, even though I woke up super early and had a detailed checklist, everything came down to the wire.
I had to be out of the house by 11:15. At 10:45, I still hadn’t gotten dressed (which is another story, oy!) or done my makeup and hair.
So, yes, this look DOES come together really quickly, in case you were thinking, “Eh, I don’t have time for that!”
For the subtle shimmer, I used two of my current faves from the MAC Dazzleshadow line, which I patted on my lids with a finger. A few flecks fell onto my cheeks, but overall the fallout with these shadows is so minimal, and I usually just incorporate it into the look. 🙂
There was a split second when I thought about adding even MOAR glitter using a layer of MAC Baby Sparks Dazzleglass on top of the nude lip, but I didn’t want to deal with it wearing off unevenly as I ate lunch.
That, and I thought the matte lip would complement the glimmering skin.
This is one of those looks I’d also wear on a date, or to go sightseeing with friends or family, or on any other random Tuesday when I felt the urge to wear the sparkly stuff but didn’t want to “go big.”
TOOLS (products I used are in italic)
- A face primer (Urban Decay Urban Defense Complexion Primer)
- A dual-ended eye brush with a tapered blending brush on one end and a flat eyeshadow brush on the other (Chanel Blender/Shader Brush)
- Face brushes for applying and blending concealer, powder, blush and bronzer (Real Techniques Contour Brush, MAC 137S and MAC 133S)
- A brow gel (Hourglass Arch Brow Gel in Warm Brunette)
- A waterproof mascara (MAC In Extra Dimension Waterproof)
- A dark brown liner (MAC Coffee)
- A eyeshadow primer (MAC Prep + Prime 24-Hour)
- A glittery bronze eyeshadow and a glittery gold eyeshadow (MAC Dazzleshadows in Dazzle Style and Oh So Gilty)
- An under-eye concealer (Make Up For Ever HD Ultra Concealer in Y33, Y41)
- A powder to set your under-eye concealer, if you want/need to (NARS Light Reflecting Setting Powder)
- A liquid skin tint (Yves Saint Laurent Touche Eclat All-In-One Glow in BD 50)
- A face powder (MAC Mineralize Skinfinish Natural in Medium Golden)
- A matte bronzer (Chanel Les Beiges Healthy Glow Sheer Color in No. 40)
- An amber blush/and shimmery gold highlighter combo (Hourglass Strobe Lighting Blush in Brilliant Nude)
- A matte rosy brown liquid lipstick (MAC Retro Matte Lip Colour in Burnt Spice)
- A setting spray with subtle shimmer (MAC Fix+ in Goldlite)
STEPS
- Apply face primer and eye primer; air dry for a few minutes while you work on other parts of your makeup
- Curl your lashes, then coat with a thin layer of the waterproof mascara; after it dries, apply another layer or two for extra oomph
- Fill in your brows with the brow gel
- Line your lash lines and/or water lines with the brown eyeliner
- Sweep bronzer into your crease and along the lower lash lines
- Pat the bronze and gold glitter on your lids with a finger
- Apply and blend the sheer face tint, starting from the center of your face and blending outward
- Conceal any dark circles and/or any areas where you want more coverage with concealer
- Set concealer and face tint with powder
- Blend bronzer on your cheekbones, around the edge of your face, and across the bridge of your nose
- Mix the blush and highlighter together, and dust lightly on the apples of your cheeks
- Apply the rosy matte liquid lipstick to your lips
- Finish by misting your face with the setting spray
Now, have a wonderful lunch/rest of your day. Go forth with subtle shimmer. 🙂
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
You look beautiful! I love this kind of look.
Thanks, Sami. I love this kind of makeup, too. A little something-something but not too much, and easy to do to boot.
I hope you’re having a nice Tuesday so far. What have you been up to? Whatever it is I hope it involves some glitter 🙂
Your makeup looks flawless per usual, but I’m really drawn to your hair! The braid/low bun is so spring-appropriate
I have an upcoming brow appointment in Corte Madera and want to kill a few hours afterward in this part of the Bay that I rarely get to visit. What do you recommend, Karen? What do you like to do/eat (let’s be real) there? On that beauty note, what’s your best advice for growing out one’s brows? I know you’ve been on that journey!
Hi Katie,
If you’re in the mood for salad or a sandwich Blue Barn is my fave spot to have lunch in Corte Madera:
https://www.makeupandbeautyblog.com/hair/herbal-essences-naked-stylers/
https://www.makeupandbeautyblog.com/daily-photo/new-favorite-lunch-spot-blue-barn-marin-restaurant-in-corte-madera/
There’s also a Sephora, Barnes & Noble, Athleta and Crate & Barrel there too!
There’s a pretty good mall a five-minute drive away called The Village at Corte Madera. I usually hit up Nordstrom (WITH A TOM FORD COUNTER!!!), Anthropologie, Pottery Barn. Sometimes I go into Aveda and smell everything they have on the shelf, haha!
Farmshop in Larkspur (not too far away, about a 10-minute drive) in nice too if you’re in the mood for a sit-down meal. There’s a SpaceNK in the same shopping complex too.
So brows… You just gotta be patient. For me it took about a year for them to really fill out. I used a lot of full-coverage cream concealer to kinda hide the wonky areas that were growing out, and even then you could still tell that something wasn’t quite right. LOL It takes a while but it’s so worth it! I know now there’s things out there to help speed up the process but I’ve never used any of them myself.
When is your brow appointment? If I’m around maybe we can meet up for lunch.
Thank you for the local recommendations, Karen! The appointment’s weeks out, so I can email you about meeting up closer to then because that day is mostly a question mark for me 🙂
And thank you for the moral support with growing out my brows! I needed to hear that. The reason why I have the appointment in the first place is because I unintentionally haven’t touched my brows since the beginning of the year and they’re at the point where professional perspective/intervention is best lol! I’m hoping that, if I’ve gone this long without touching them, I can grow them out fuller for a year
Sure! Just let me know. 🙂
It’s surprisingly REALLY hard to grow out brows and I remember it seeming to take longer than it actually did, but once they’ve grown in you’re going to be so happy. I did a lot of filling in of the shape that I wanted, then blocking off the areas that were out of control (because seriously… I didn’t touch them at all!) with NARS concealer (the one in the pot). It wasn’t perfect but it worked well enough!
Oh, I forgot… If you’re in the mood to do some sight seeing downtown Mill Valley is cute. They have some smaller stores and it’s very picturesque.
How is that hairstyle even humanly possible in 5 minutes?? So chic!
You are a wizard!
Hi Suz,
If you know how to dutch braid and have a bunch of bobby pins around it’s really fast and easy. I let the braid and the bun be purposefully messy, but like to keep the front and the sides neat (I spray hairspray into my palms and run it along the strands to smooth flyaways down), that way it doesn’t look too-too messy.
The major part of the equation, i.e. braiding skills, is where I am sorely lacking, especially on my own hair. I have been able to concoct lumpy-looking french braids, but dutch ones ended up morphing into french within a couple of inches. It all ends up looking pretty tragic…
I love your tip about getting a good amount of texturizing spray or dry shampoo up in the mix! Those strands gotta get some grip!
So the key for me is to NOT look in the mirror when I’m braiding. I know, sounds weird, but if I’m just concentrating on the motions and not looking into the mirror it’s so much easier.
The beauty with this particular style is that your dutch braid can be as messy as can be! As long as you keep the sides and top a little neat and tame the flyaways around your face, everything else can basically be a hot mess. LOL!
eeeek you look so gorgeous! what a fun lunch <3
Hi Tiffany,
It’s been a while! I hope you and the girls are doing well.
I honestly don’t know how you manage two little ones… I can barely handle one!
Gorgeous look, and I love the hair! My hair is so fine and slippery, it does not like to do braids without a lot of effort.
You gotta get a texturizing spray up in the mix, girl! I use one when my hair is too “clean” and has no grip. It’s the key to getting the braids to stay in place.
That looks like a fun club, hope you enjoy it! I would’ve chosen the frittata also, looks amazing! And you look stunning as usual!
Thanks, Rachel. I’m hoping that I’ll make some new friends, and so will Connor!
How was your day? Good, I hope. I did the first gardening for the season this evening. I cleaned out the old planters and decided which of the new plants will go in what. Got some snapdragons, marigolds, salvia, cosmos and a fuchsia!
My day was good. Went to the Wes Anderson movie “Isle of Dogs”. It was really cute! Those flowers sound beautiful, and they sound conducive to bees! I think when I plant my tomatoes along the garage I will throw in some native flowers to promote extra pollination.
Sounds like a fun evening! I miss mid-week nights at the movies.
So, for some reason we get a lot of hummingbirds on the deck! (The bees not so much… They’re happy to hang out in the rosemary bushes in the front yard). I’m hoping to the hummingbirds to hang out with the salvia and snapdragons, which always seem to do the trick.
What kind of tomatoes do you typically plant? We usually do cherry tomatoes, because El Hub likes the idea of having lots of small tomatoes around in bulk. lol!
Oooh hummingbirds are fun! I have enough room for 8 tomato plants and I’m still deciding if I want to order fancy ones from Burpee’s or just get a couple 4 packs at whatever nursery pops up. But definitely some cherry tomatoes and early girls. Yummy, can’t wait!
This is the first place I’ve lived where I see hummingbirlds regularly, and it’s one of the reasons why I’ve come to love this town. 🙂
Ooh, how about heirlooms? We grew them one year but got discouraged when the plant only grew a handful of them.
A really lovely and subtle look. I get my daily “talk to adults” fix at work, but I can see how hard that must be when you are working from home.
I love this look. Your skin looks so perfect! I am officially jealous. And I really love the hair, too. Did you do it yourself? I could never do braids like that in my daughter’s hair and I don’t have long enough hair to braid.
I did do the hair! It took all but five minutes, about a half a pound of dry shampoo and lots of prayer, LOL! I was running so late and was extra hot from working out, and this was the least of the “mean piano teacher” options I could come up with (I’m convinced when I wear my hair up I look like a mean piano teacher).
Lol. Sorry, but I don’t think you could ever look like a mean piano teacher. Isn’t dry shampoo the best thing on the planet? Why hasn’t the person who invented it received a Nobel? What type of dry shampoo do you use?
Dry shampoo is a game changer. When I spray it on my roots I feel like a phoenix rising from the ashes!
So, I’ve been using R+Co’s for a while, but it’s something you’re either gonna love or hate because the powder is super fine, so if you like a lot of grit, it’s gonna let you down. Of course Oribe’s is amazing, but ugh, so $$$. If I didn’t have to start paying for pre-school in a few months I’d be using Oribe on the regular, for sure. I have a couple of tubes of Elizabeth & James Nirvana Black to use up (I got them on sale a year or two ago) stashed away in a closet; it’s really great and smells divine. Before the dry shampoo category blew up I was a Rene Furterer devotee for many, many years. I still love that one but don’t use it as often.
Which ones are your faves?
I guess I should try the R&Co. one, since I don’t like a lot of grit. I have super fine hair, so a fine powder is ok by me. I had no idea there was an Elizabeth & James Nirvana Black one. I would love that one because I actually like the perfume. Half the time I don’t like dry shampoo or hair products because I don’t like the way they smell. My stylist used something for volume on my hair last time I was in the salon and it took me three straight days of washing my hair to get the smell out.
I just use the Klorane Oat dry shampoo. Comes in small cans, doesn’t really smell like much, does an OK job. Doesn’t give a lot of volume and you kinda gotta leave it in for a while before you brush it out if you want it to absorb oils.
I’m kinda torn because I hate spending big bucks on hair care products. I used to love this L’Oreal shampoo called EverCreme for dry hair. It cleaned well, didn’t dry my hair out and didn’t weigh it down. Then they changed the formula and it’s not as moisturizing. So I’ve been mixing the new formula with some Shea Moisture shampoo because as much as the Shea shampoo is moisturizing, it really weighs down my fine hair and makes it limp.
Korlane is good! Dependable and gets the job done. I quit using it because there are other options for me that don’t leave a visible cast on my roots.
Here’s the review of the Elizabeth & James dry shampoo from a while back. They also have Nirvana White, which smells pretty too.
Which Shea Moisture shampoo do you use?
There’s more than one type of Shea Moisture shampoo? The only one I found at my drugstore was the coconut oil daily hydration one.
Ooh, Nirvana White dry shampoo would be pretty for the summer. I always feel like N Black is a cold weather scent.
Salt and pepper hair with Cruella de Ville white streaks up front, so light color powder doesn’t really show up in my roots.
You looked beautiful and I hope you had fun.
Friendships are tough at any age but especially I think in the 30s and 40s.
I tried to join a couple of mom groups when my teenager was a tiny little man but I never felt like I fit in. They were always stay at homes and I was always working so much. They felt weird about complaining about stuff around me because they knew how much I worked outside the home. I wasn’t envious of them because my husband was staying home with our son and I loved my job. But the whole thing was weird.
Anyway, I wish you good luck with the whole friendship thing.
You’re looking extra gorgeous in these pictures, Karen!
I’m sorry to swear at you but, you are the freaking queen of putting yourself out there! I’m amazed at how you’ve prioritized that and I just can’t imagine anyone not immediately loving you when they meet you! 🙂 I think it’s hard for everyone to connect to new people, especially in this crazy digital age. I hope you’re not getting discouraged because you’re 100% awesome and anyone would be blessed to have you as a friend. 🙂