Q&A - Volume I



Although I am not a makeup artist, I am an avid consumer and during my many years of buying/applying/thinking about makeup I seem to have collected some bits of advice.  My friends seem to go to me for beauty-related questions and I think it's helpful to put some of my responses in blog form.  Since I am not a professional, please take my advice with a grain of salt but also see if you can find anything of value to you in these posts. Hopefully you find it as interesting as my closest girl friends at least!

1. What's the point of the grey cast caused by many popular Korean BB creams?

This really is a question that applies to BB creams from Asia and specifically Korea.  It seems most BB creams that can be purchased in American drugstores or the majority of high-end BB creams as well act more as tinted with a stable tint that doesn't adjust as it comes in contact with the skin.  Korean BB creams act differently and many have a definite "grey cast" when they are first applied on the skin.  I can't be certain what the ingredient is that causes this strange color (titanium dioxide is my best guess) but what I do know is that I prefer these types of BB creams so much more than the tinted moisturizer that just have "BB" splashed on their label for marketing reasons.  That in itself could constitute an entire separate blog post but to get to the point of the question, I believe that Korean BB creams do adjust somewhat to skin tone and the greyness has an immediate brightening effect.  The grey kind of makes your face a little scary and stark at first, but then the other brightening effects of BB creams kick in.  As soon as the grey cast goes away (and it will) as the BB cream dries down, the finish becomes dewy and the color adjusts itself to be much more skin-toned.

Bottom line: the grey cast goes away and has an initial brightening effect but will eventually adjust to a color that is skin-like and natural.

2. What kind of neutral eye look should I pair with a bright lip?

I just bought a Rimmel Show Off Lip Lacquer in Stellar and the color is super bright. It's almost a neon coral red color that is so fun for Summer.  I could do a comparison between this and the NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream since they have similar formulas.   In any case, the bright color definitely pairs nicely with a neutral eye.  My choice for wearing this lipstick is actually another new purchase:  the Bareminerals The Epiphany duo from my last post.  I think my preference is to keep the eye look classic, not smoky for daytime.  This means winged liner, not smudged out liner.  For night, you can get away with a lot on your eyes if you're comfortable with that kind of look.  I think the tone of lip color is something to keep in mind as well.

Red: I think gold is an amazing color to make the color red easy to wear.  With a warm red, there's no way a true gold can go wrong.  If you wanted something less "holiday season" than that, try a light champagne-y gold.  It comes off as really classic and old Hollywood.  

Pink:  There's a lot of range with this shade, ranging from a purple-pink to a light bubblegum pink.  I like cool tones with pink shades, a nice taupey brown or a grey eye always seems to suit a pink lip.

Coral:  Strangely, I think coral lips really benefit from a similarly orange-toned eye look.  I think this is one lip where you can get away with a monochromatic look.  A reddish copper or true orange looks fun and fresh, especially for warmer weather.

3. Is there a nude lip liner out there that will suit every lip color?

A bit of a challenging question since I don't really wear lip liner.  Lisa Eldridge's color for the Boots line in Nude is very flattering and works well at perfecting your lips.  However, personally, I think lip liner is only really necessary for darker lip colors.  The whole concept is just too much work to match up every lip color you own.  I think red lips always benefit from having a liner but outside of that I wear lighter colors alone and darker colors usually as a stain.  In my opinion, I haven't found a "universal" lip liner.  

There'll be more posts like this in the future.  I think some questions may deserve their own post, for example a run-down of controversial ingredients in cosmetics, a breakdown of mask types and high/low end recommendations.  

Products Worth the Hype
[All purchased by me, or given as gifts from friends]

Inspiration strikes at the strangest times and I scrambled for my notebook and pen yesterday as I jotted down categories that I felt a comprehensive review series could be based off of.  None of these are original ideas, just categories that I can group parts of my makeup collection into that I think would be interesting to read.  Briefly I think the areas I can cover over the next couple of weeks include the one you are reading, it's counterpart "Products not Worth the Hype", "Products I'm on the Fence About", "Cult Products", and "Under-hyped Products".  Look forward to those and intermittent random posts as I feel inclined.

For the first category, I have two bases from different parts of the world raved about by girls spanning an even wider distance.  Included are a couple makeup brushes that have gotten nonstop attention recently.

Skin 79 Gold Label Super BB Cream 
This is one of those products that ignited the BB cream fever, for me at least.  It was the first true BB cream I've ever purchased and is an all-around fantastic base.  It looks natural, adapts to my skin tone, has light-medium coverage and blends out imperceptive-ly (just made that an adverb- GRAMMAR!)

Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum Foundation in 52
It's the closest thing I've found to the Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation in terms of finish, meaning it's barely detectable with a light-medium coverage.  It's hardly drugstore price in the U.S., but it's definitely worth checking out if you're not about to shell out for a very high end foundation but want similar results.

Real Techniques Buffing and Contour Brushes
Highly raved across the board by the blogging community, these synthetic hair brushes blend out products like a dream.  The Buffing Brush is my go-to for most foundations (except the very thin) and the Contour Brush has a myriad of uses.  Currently, I'm loving it for buffing powder around my T-zone area.

Maybelline Color Tattoo in Bad to the Bronze
As you saw a couple posts back, not all Color Tattoos are created equal.  However, this shade is cream eyeshadow perfection.  It's creamy, wears as well on me as a powder foundation and has enough pigmentation to be worn on it's own.  I very rarely find cream eyeshadows interesting enough to wear on their own but I'd make an exception for this one.

Wet n Wild ColorIcon Eyeshadow Palettes in Comfort Zone and Silent Treatment
These are soft, buttery pigmented shades that are easy to work with and come in a great selection of shades.  I think this is a strangely difficult combination to find in a drugstore eyeshadow but this formula is really top-notch.  For a fun variety of neutral and bright shades, check these out for $3-$5 each.

Real Techniques Base Shadow and Deluxe Crease Brushes
The eye counterparts to the last two face brushes I talked about, these brushes are an absolute must-have for me right now.  I use the Base Shadow Brush to apply and blend color effortlessly.  Something about the shape-how it's more tapered than the MAC 217 make me reach for this over my MAC brush every time.  I can say that I'd take a backup of this brush over the MAC 217 right now (crazy I know).  The Deluxe Crease Brush is an ideal brush for buffing into undereye concealer but I actually use it with a mineral foundation as a spot concealer and the combination is the best I have tried int terms of heavy-duty concealing.

Maybelline Baby Lips in Cherry Me and Grape Vine
I had the original Baby Lips at one point after a successful Secret Santa gift exchange.  The two that stood out to me in the end were these two, especially Cherry Me.  I think the sheer red is a perfect shade for any skin tone.  It's my go-to easy lip in the colder months.  Grape Vine is just as the name implies, a grape-y shade that doesn't go too vampy.  Both of these can be built up to a decent opacity so beware when applying these without a mirror.  These are moisturizing and smooth just like others have said.

Clarins Instant Light Natural Lip Perfector in 01 Rose Shimmer
This was floating around the British blogosphere for a while and I was pretty impressed with the reviews.  I picked one up and determined that this would become my handbag staple.  A light, balmy gloss with only a hint of tint, this is very comfortable to wear and actually leaves my lips feeling more moisturized after it wears off.  

An encore and an appearance of two products I couldn't put into their own category because there was only one of each!

Batiste Dry Shampoo in Original
Choose a scent that you like, spray into roots, go do makeup, brush out and voila- second day hair that looks presentable.  This is a lifesaver for oily skin girls like me and this is one of the best I've tried so far.  Very worth the hype.

Clarisonic Mia
You've heard enough about this I'm sure.  Basically, my rationale for including this product is that it is the only thing that actually minimizes the appearance of pores for me.  Blackheads are much less noticeable and there's pretty much no cleanser/treatment that has a similar result.  I see this more as a treatment rather than a daily use product.  

Hope you found that useful and stay tuned for more!

Spring Edit: Part Two

[Everything purchased by yours truly, or gifts from friends]

I should've probably updated this a bit sooner, but weekends seem to be my only down-time these days.  Ahh, c'est la vie.  So this week I'm coming at you with FACE! NAILS! SCENT! RANDOM EXTRAS! I hope that was exciting enough for you. Let's get started

Face products in the Spring center around oil-control and light textures.  With my oily skin there are way too many bases that feel heavy year-round but especially in the warmer months.  I stay away from traditional long-wearing formulas even if they claim long wear on oily skins just because they're uncomfortable.

My picks basically center around a darker bb cream and a couple oil-control products that happen to work nicely for my skin ("happen to" is an exaggeration, this was all very much researched).

Missha Make Up Fix

This doesn't do much in terms of oil-control, even though there is powder that you shake up that are supposed to set your makeup.  What I find it useful for is the times when I over-powder my face.  This usually doesn't happen with the loose powder I use but Rimmel Stay Matte powder can sometimes leave my skin looking too matte.  In the Spring, there's nothing worse than seeing a heavy, cakey complexion so mist away my friends, even though I'm pretty sure this has no real added benefits to my skin.

Bareminerals Mineral Veil in Translucent

Given to me on a couple occasions by friends, this doesn't seem to be a hit with them but I like it for a very natural finish to any foundation I wear.  It doesn't add color but it adds a slightly silky finish to any base I wear.  I like to apply this around my nose and chin with the Real Techniques Contour Brush because the smaller shape fits the curves of my face better than a big powder brush. 

Nanoce BB Moist Cream in 02

This was also given to me by a friend who thought this shade was too dark.  It is a bit darker than any of the other BB creams I own but I'd say it would still suit someone in the NC-25ish range.  Because this is a Japanese BB cream, it has more of a traditional tinted moisturizer texture and finish.  It doesn't have a very dewy finish and is easy to set with a powder for a more matte than usual BB cream finish.  

Nail polish for me is an essential.  I think it's fun to wear whatever color you want any season of the year, but I definitely gravitate towards these shades in the Spring.

2% Milk on the nails, 3 coats

Sephora by OPI in Havana Dreams

I initially bought this polish to pair underneath the next nail polish in the picture, but I ended up loving it on it's own.  A milky baby blue polish with good staying power, it does need 3 coats for completely opaque coverage but the result is so worth it.  

Revlon in Whimsical

I bought this hoping it was a dupe for a Deborah Lippmann polish and it turned out to be a great polish.  It has a sheer baby blue base with sparse blue and pink glitters and is a relatively conservative glitter to wear.  I think the name suits this polish and I know I wear it a lot in the Spring.

Wet n Wild in 2% Milk

This was an emergency purchase.  I had on Essie's Turquoise and Caicos but needed a more conservative nail color pronto.  This was my pick and I have been obsessed with it since.  It's a pretty unassuming shade of pinky-nude that looks very elegant and polished (hehe) on the nails.  It isn't super opaque but I prefer that in a nude nail shade.  I prefer this so more than Essie's Fiji.

This portion of the post will be entitled, "A Study in Contrasts, or A Study in Pink."  I hope someone gets the Sherlock reference.

Bath and Body Works Honey Sweetheart

Why do I choose to smell like a tween?  I couldn't tell you why honestly, but something about this sugary sweet scent appealed to me.  If you guys guessed packaging, you'd definitely be half right.  I love the scent of honey in most body products but this is probably not going to smell like honey at all to you.  Bath and Body Works has conflicting scent descriptions but I think "sugared violets" would be somewhat accurate.  My best attempt at a description would be "that scent that the popular girl in your middle school always wore that smelled like sweet flowers."  So, basically, sweet and flora and pre-teen.  Not really my comfort zone actually but it doesn't linger very long because it's a body splash so that's also why I am ok with liking it so much.

Chanel Chance Eau Tendre

It is the total opposite of Honey Sweetheart (my guilty pleasure) in almost every way.  A very fresh but mature floral with a hint of grapefruit, this is really a stand-out scent that lasts a long time and is the only Chanel scent I could be comfortable wearing.  The main note is Jasmine Absolute, or as I like to call it, jasmine.  If you love the scent of white florals, but want a younger perfume, this is the one for you.  It has the slightest hint of pink grapefruit, but after having finished DKNY Be Delicious Spring Blossom, I can say this is definitely more floral.  

Lastly, we have random extras I can't help but use repeatedly in Spring.

Ello Percy water bottle

This is a glass water bottle that looks super cool and fits in my cup holder. That is all you need to know to know why it's amazing.

The Body Shop Shower Gel in Pink Grapefruit

The picture came out pretty dark but it's not really a hard-to-find product so I'm sure you've all seen it.  I'm not someone who likes taking showers in the morning so citrus scents have always been kind of a no no for me.  This one is invigorating and fresh and it instantly perks me up.  I reserve it for after morning yoga sessions.

There you have it folks!  Long-winded and not too informative.  Will try to get better at this.