Plays With Color

Beauty Blogs Backstage: August

August 22nd, 2010

Another month, another edition of Beauty Blogs Backstage.  This month, I interviewed Kay of Cosmeddicted, a blogger from Japan.  (She has already posted her interview of me…it can be found here.)

How did you get into beauty blogging?

Like many other people, I watch a lot of beauty related content on
youtube.  I started reading a few of the Asian girls’ blogs, and I
wanted to join the community.  I was surprised at how much the girls
in the UK/US knew about Japanese drugstore brands such as Kate, Visee,
and Canmake!

What color eyeshadow will we NEVERNEVERNEVER see you wear?  How
about nail color?

Oh dear, no promises there!  I’ll try everything. Reading other girls’
blogs has shown me that you CAN make any color work.  It’s all in the
application!  I never thought I’d wear blue eyeshadow, yet I’ve found
shades that work for me.  I have yet to try red or orange eyeshadow,
so I guess that’s going to come up next!
As for nail color, I’m horrible at painting my nails.  I am too rough
on my fingers and most nail polishes chip within 2 days.  Again, I’m
willing to try color!  I never thought I’d wear greige, but now I
think it looks lovely!  I’ve never tried a matte polish (I haven’t
seen that very often in Japan yet) so that would be great to try as
well!

What is the one line from Japan that you really think should get
more attention worldwide?

I don’t really think that there is any one line which does not have
much attention on the blogger community.  For color cosmetics, I think
the Asian blogger community has really increased global attention of
Japanese brands.  A good example is the Dejavu Fiber Wig Mascara.  I
never thought I’d see it listed on Sephora!
However, one line which does not get enough attention is Cezanne.
They are approximately the same price range (meaning DIRT CHEAP) and
quality as Canmake.  I see so many blog posts on the latest Canmake
goodies, but none on Cezanne.   Canmake has a famous Japanese model
promoting their products, plus they have an English website.  Cezanne
has neither and their marketing is a little bit old fashioned.  Their
younger range, Sweets Sweets, is a bit better both in the marketing
and in the color range.

What is your favorite scent for shower stuff/body lotion/etc.?  Do
you tend to use one scent year-round or change with the seasons?

I like floral, woodsy, and green scents.  A few examples that I like
from Bath and Body Works are Twilight Woods, Moonlight Path, and
Sensual Amber.  I change my scents more often than with the seasons!
I don’t use the same scent for more than a month because my nose gets
used to the scent and I get tired of it.  For B&BW things, I buy the
travel size shower gel, and change up the scent once that little
bottle is done.

When you take a trip to the US, what is the one thing you have to
make sure to eat while you’re here?

That depends where in the US I go.  I’ll eat what local people eat.  I
love a good deli sandwich, but if I’m going to Hawaii, I’ll be looking
forward to poi and mahi mahi.  I like fresh food which is lightly
flavored.

Do you have a go-to look that you wear every day, or do you change
it up quite a bit?  If you change it up, how do you decide what colors
you want to wear on a particular day?

My dilemma is that I need to wake up VERY early for work (between
5-5:30 AM) so I need a go-to look, yet I get bored using the same
things.  What I do to combat that is to rotate my makeup.  I’ll put
enough colors for 2 or 3 options in a makeup bag, and do my makeup
only using those products for 2 weeks.  After the 2 weeks are up, I’ll
replace them with other stuff from my stash.  This makes it easy to
decide what I’ll wear in the morning, yet I’ll still have a few
options, and I keep rediscovering my love for what I already own!
Right now, I like to wear Barry M Dazzle Dust in Tan on my lid with
MAC Carbon blended in my outer corner.  Easy and pretty!

What is one talent you wish you had, whether serious or goofy?

Growing out my nails and painting them.   As I mentioned briefly
above, I cannot stand my nails having more than a week’s worth of
growth on them, which is like 2 mm.  I’m so envious of all the lovely
nail art I see on blogs!

Thanks, Kay!

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FOTD: First day of work!

August 11th, 2010

Yesterday I had my employee orientation at Target, so I figured it was probably a good idea to look put together.  I actually put on foundation, so you get a full-face picture for once!

This was before I did anything to my hair, obviously.  (Not that I do much to my hair for the most part.)  Holy crap, I photograph young, even with full makeup!  Probably getting my eyebrows done at some point will help with that, because they need serious help.  The beauty school down the road does waxing, so I may splurge after my first paycheck.  I’m afraid to shape them on my own, so if I get them done and then actually KEEP UP with the plucking, I’ll feel much better groomed.

Here’s what I used:

  • L’Oreal True Match foundation in n1 Soft Ivory.  This is summer.  I haven’t been completely religious about SPF on my face, so I’m a bit on the dark side for me.  What am I supposed to do when winter rolls around?  (I’m actually better about SPF in the winter, because it’s in my moisturizer, and it’s actually quite easy to skip moisturizer in the summer with my skin.)
  • Wet N Wild Ultimate Minerals Loose Blush in Barely Peach.  I’m not good at blush, so I never go heavy with it.
  • Detrivore eyeshadow primer
  • Sassy Minerals Logical Choice on lids
  • Sassy Minerals Caffeinated on outer corners and crease
  • Victoria’s Secret matte shadow in Bunny on browbones
  • Urban Decay 24/7 eyeliner in Lucky, lightly on upper lashlines and more heavily on lower lashlines–I felt I needed a bit of a pop, and this provided it.
  • Cover Girl Lash Blast Length in Very Black on curled lashes
  • MAC Slimshine in Bare.  How I wish they hadn’t discontinued this product!

And a couple of eye closeups:

My left inner corner always looks crease-y in photographs.  It must be the face I make when I’m taking self portraits–I’ll work on that, promise!

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(T)NOTD: How I saved my boring pedicure.

August 10th, 2010

A few days ago, I did my toenails with OPI Designer Series in Treasure, which in the bottle is a pretty standard orange.  I was actually fairly excited to try it, because I’ve heard such good things about the OPI Designer Series line, and the swatches of all the colors that I’d seen online were really fun.  I have a weakness for holographic colors, I’ll admit.

This one was such a disappointment.  Maybe it’s the particular bottle I have, but it wasn’t anything special.  Just plain old orange.  A bit metallic, but that’s it.  It was really sheer, so it took me more coats than I usually feel like doing on the toenails for opacity.  Whatever.  I decided I wasn’t going to bother to post about it.

Then yesterday I did my fingernails with You Just Wait by Sinful Colors (which, incidentally, is putting the song “Just You Wait” from My Fair Lady into my head) and I realized that not only was this a nice color on its own, but it would make a GREAT layering polish.  I looked at my toes.  I looked at the bottle.  I looked at my toes again.  Next thing I knew I was taking a picture of my feet after putting a coat of YJW on one foot.

MUCH better.  The pink base of YJW sent the orange more into peach territory, and the green flash looks amazing against the orange.  I’ll have to take it off Thursday night anyway (going to a wedding Friday, and my dress is yellow, black, and white), but I’m happy enough with it that it’ll last until then.  (Yes, I did the left foot after I took this picture.)

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NOTD: Sinful Colors You Just Wait

August 9th, 2010

With the Walgreens coupon for this week (you can read about it on Nouveau Cheap if you haven’t seen it yourself), I decided it was a good time to actually use one of my Sinful Colors polishes to make sure I want more.  I’d just like to say that I will be splurging $3 (well, $3.12 after tax) on 3 new polishes at some point this week!  The one I used today was pretty darn sheer–I did 4 coats and still have some VNL–but the formula was fairly easy to work with even with the sheerness.  No streaking, and the brush was fairly easy to control, even with my left hand.

This is You Just Wait, a pale pink with golden green duochrome.  I used my Finger Paints base coat and my Poshé quick dry top coat.  This picture is fairly color accurate, maybe a bit on the dull side since it was so cloudy, but I had a heck of a time capturing the green flashes.  My camera kept interpreting it as gold.  This picture is the closest I got:

See, down on the ring finger? That’s almost green!

I have some makeup pictures to post later–a very subtle eye look using my wee MAC collection.  Doing the look just made me want more MAC shadows.

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EOTD: The dangers of overblending

July 26th, 2010

The other day I was watching YouTube videos, and came across a burgundy and purple eye look that I wanted to do my own version of.  (I *think* it was by Tiffany D, but I watched enough videos that I can’t be sure.)  Unfortunately, I was so thorough with my blending brush that the burgundy sort of took over.  Further into unfortunate territory, burgundy on its own is not the best color for me.  It flatters the green in my eyes, but my skin looks really tired.

Eyes only today, and my closed-eye picture is only one eye, because I couldn’t size it any smaller and still show the colors properly (that’s how much I blended!)

Closeup picture:

See, you can barely see that there are three colors going on there!  (Also, ignore that shadow on the left that looks like creasing.  It’s about 3 hours later, and the shadow has not, in actuality, creased at all.)  This photo seems a lot duller in color than I thought it was when I cropped and saved it, but I could be crazy.

Colors I used:

  • Detrivore primer (I finally have the hang of using this without having it crease!)
  • Aromaleigh Rocks! nightshift – inner 2/3 of the lid
  • Aromaleigh Rocks! stillinhollywood – outer 2/3 of the lid (yup, that gives me some overlap in the middle)
  • Aromaleigh Rocks! pleasuredome – outer corner into the crease, lower lashline (I should have used this one wet, because I got mostly sparkle, and it went all over the place)
  • Fyrinnae Nijiro – inner corner and browbone
  • Urban Decay 24/7 liner in 1999 (can’t really see it, unfortunately)
  • CG Lash Blast length in black

My next look should be something pastelly, after all this dark stuff the past couple of times!

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FOTD: I was bored last night.

July 25th, 2010

I was bored last night and I decided to play.  My friend Jen told me to do blue when I was being wobbly in our chat about not being able to decide, so naturally I did what she asked!  (Please forgive the hair…my bangs need a serious trim, and everything was just extra limp yesterday too.)

I put some lipstick on after I took this picture, but my lips were so dry that it did not look good at all.  (It was the right color for the eye makeup, but it was a matte lippie, so it really showed my flaky lips.)

A couple of closeups on the eyes and details after the jump–naturally, the best picture of the makeup had my glasses right in the way, so that’s why I’m giving a couple of closeups.

Read the rest of this entry »

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NOTD: Treasure goes with anything.

July 24th, 2010

I’ve figured out that I have a fairly neutral skintone, but it leans just a smidge to the warm side.  I look okay in silver jewelry, but somehow I figured that gray nail polish just Would Not Do.  That doesn’t stop me from wanting to wear it, though–in fact, being the contrary creature that I am, I want to wear it even more!  I decided today that Hidden Treasure might warm it up just enough to make it work.

For the record, I was wrong.  At least this particular gray works on its own, no Hidden Treasure necessary.

This is Zoya Harley, described on their website as “Light concrete gray base with subtle flecks of silver, gold and copper shimmer.”  (It’s also described as being in warm-toned, so maybe that’s why it works.)  The formula on this was great.  I sometimes have trouble with Zoyas being too thin and sometimes pooling around the cuticle, but this one gave me no grief.  This is 2 coats, no top coat in this picture because I decided I wanted a coat of HT anyway.  Here’s what that did:

It’s still pretty lovely.  As a point of interest, this is probably the best job I’ve ever done on my fingernails with respect to coloring inside the lines.  (I still have to work on not dinging the drying nail polish, whether it’s on the desk or the brush when I’m working on my other hand.)  I haven’t had to scrape any polish off my skin yet!  I have a few bits on my skin, but they’re minor enough that they’ll take care of themselves the next couple of times I was my hands.  Write this day on the calendar, folks!

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Beauty Blogs Backstage: July edition

July 21st, 2010

Beauty Blogs Backstage continues!  This month, I had the chance to interview Tara of Cherry Bomb Beauty.  (ETA: If you’d like to read my interview, Tara has posted it here.)

If you had to choose just one drugstore line to use for the rest of your life, what would it be?  How about a department store line?

I would definitely choose Revlon for the drugstore brand. I haven’t used a lot of their products, but I really loved their colorstay eyeliner and concealer so I would trust that their other products are of the same quality. As far as department store I would probably choose MAC; part of me wanted to go with NARS but I’ve used a lot more MAC products. Their line is fabulous and I love the Back To MAC program.

What is your favorite work-appropriate nail polish?

I absolutely adore OPI’s Italian Love Affair. I’m not a fan of neutral colors especially brown. As much as I would love to wear hot pink, it’s not always work-appropriate. Italian Love Affair allows me to have the flirty look of pink, but it’s subtle enough to still look elegant.

If you could only eat the cuisine from one culture for the rest of your life, which culture would it be?

I would have to say Italian. It tastes amazing whether it is homemade or made in a restaurant.

What is your favorite scent for shower products? Does this change seasonally, or do you use the same thing year-round?

My all time favorite scent for shower products is coconut and I use it all year round. It’s kind of funny, I don’t like the taste of coconut at all, but I don’t think I could ever get tired of the smell.

What eye makeup color will you never wear?  How about lip color?

I think I’ve tried just about every eye color imaginable. Although some colors look really great when blended with other colors I wouldn’t wear yellow, orange, or red alone. I feel like it would just make me look sick. I wouldn’t wear a brown lip color at all. It’s just not my style.

You have the opportunity to have dinner with the historical figure of your choice.  Who is it and why?

I would want to have dinner with John F. Kennedy because I’ve heard such great things about him. I think it would be an honor to sit down and talk to a man that could have potentially changed the path of the United States. Plus, he was really handsome so I wouldn’t mind looking at him if we ran out of things to talk about.

What is your favorite recent find?  It can be either a new product or something that’s just new-to-you, I’m not picky!

My newest find is NARS’s lip gloss in Turkish Delight; although it is pricey the color payoff is gorgeous! It is the perfect bubblegum pink. I also love that the gloss doesn’t make my lips feel sticky. I hate that feeling!

Thanks for answering my questions, Tara!  (And thanks again, LiAnn, for putting the exchange together!)

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Swatching, swatching, swatching….

July 19th, 2010

I haven’t been wearing makeup for the past few weeks, because it’s been Too Darn Hot. (That song has been stuck in my head for just about as long.) I haven’t changed my toenail polish from the Talullah/Hidden Treasure combo because I’ve been lazy and it still looks good.  I have, however, swatched my entire Sassy Minerals sample collection over Pixie Epoxy for you.  (Well, all of the shimmery Sassy Minerals.)  It makes me wonder why I don’t use them very often, because the colors are lovely, much more complex than they look in the jar.  All pictures can be clicked for embiggenment (and I’d quite recommend doing so, especially on the picture of the liners, because the smaller pictures don’t show the sparkle as well as they could).

I’d have to say my favorites are Solar Flare, Elusive (purple sparkle!), Break the Silence, Flash of Brilliance, and of course Gasoline Rainbow.

Now, question for you: Which of these colors would you combine for a look for my dark green eyes?  I’m ready to try something new, and I don’t trust my color-combining skill, sad to say!

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(T)NOTD: Tallulah (and some Treasure!)

July 4th, 2010

My toenails have been pink for the past couple of weeks, boring enough that I didn’t bother photographing, and it was time for something else.  Yesterday, I decided it was the perfect weekend for BLUE!

This is Zoya Tallulah.  Two coats.  It’s thin enough that I’m realizing I should have buffed my big toenail, but whatever.

Then, on the way home from my boyfriend’s parents’ house, I needed to stop at the drugstore to pick up some new insoles for some dress shoes his mom gave me, and I decided to take a random look at the makeup displays.

They had not one, but two bottles of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure!  Oh yes, one came home with me.  If I’d had the cash, they both would have.  Guess I only had to go an hour away from home to find one.

It looks pretty good over Tallulah.  I tried a thick coat on one foot, and a thin coat on the other.  Both looked good:

I’m seeing why it’s so popular!

If you have Hidden Treasure, what’s your favorite color to put it over?

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