No Raccoon Eye Video for My Mom

Recently I had a chance to visit my Mom in NYC and have dinner for her birthday. We got to chatting about makeup, and she was asking about how to put on eye makeup so it doesn't move around and streak downward to create that dreaded Raccoon Eye.

I realized that since I got serious about beauty blogging in March, I've been doing lots of research on this, and have come up with some pretty good tips and helpful products.

So here's my video on this.

Apologies if I'm whining too much about the heat in my office during the vid. Could have been a hot flash. Who knows?

Anyway, Mom--This one's for you!

And Lovely Readers, I hope you enjoy and I hope there are some pointers in here that help you out a bit on that never-ending quest to keep your makeup looking fresh all day long!

As always, please let me know how you liked this, and feel free to share in the comments below!

Let me know, too, if there's a particular product or technique you'd like to know more about. I feature lots of my drugstore favorites here. The only hard-to-find item is the OCC Lip Tar, which you should really check out. I got mine at The Makeup Show LA, but you can buy them online, too. I also love my Wet n' Wild palette. All those fun subtle shades with such strong pigmentation. This look is great for every day wear, too.

And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube Channel, and to this blog on Bloglovin, or in Google+, or in the RSS Feed Reader of your choice!

Happy Friday!

:)BeautyJones

Swatch Saturday: Crown Brush 180 Palette—Part 1 of 6

Oooh...pretty colors!

Crown Brush Palette Yellow Green Purple Square

Sometime in January I saw that Hautelook was having a sale on Crown Brush products, and they had this palette with a ridiculous amount of colors—180, for $38 (half off, or so).

Now, if you've read this blog before, you know how I love color—gorgeous eye-popping saturated color. So I bought it.

But since then I've really been blogging a lot, shopping a lot, went to The Makeup Show LA and saw the Inglot display there (gasp! ooh! aah!) So I was wondering, how good was this initial purchase, this Crown Brush palette.

You and me, we're going to find out, because I'm swatching every single shade in there, and you'll see the results.

And it will also be a catalog of how these colors look on my skin, so I can use it as reference later. Once I'm done, I'll do a roundup of all 6 squares that are in this palette.

While I'm thinking of it, here's a list of YouTube Beauty Gurus I find particularly great at bright color eye looks.  I'm linking you to a favorite color-focused tutorial video—one for each Bright Beauty:

• Pixiwoos. They don't do anything badly, these gorgeous Brits, and those pretty eyes of theirs with all that lovely eyelid space are great canvasses for color.
• Nikkietutorials. Nikkie is just so funny and adorable. Never miss her vids. And she's an amazingly creative and skilled makeup artist. Can't get enough.
• Vintageortacky. She's got looks for every Disney Princess. Love that! Her Inglot haul got me all excited about snagging me some of that! She's adorable, and so great at bright colors, pin-up looks, retro. Check out her MadMen looks, too! Milani's been giving her a lot of love, and she's been working all that product to show the rest of us how to maximize those drugstore finds. Yay, Cora!!!
• Lisa Eldridge. This lady is the Harrods of makeup artists. First class all the way. She just plain knows what she is doing in a big way. Kate Winslet red carpet look? No, she didn't recreate it for a video. She worked on Kate herself. I've linked you to a particularly pretty soft pastel candy-colored vid she posted recently.
• Smashinbeauty. What a face this girl has! And she knows how to play up her eyes with brilliant color. Red eye shadow? She does it and rocks it!
• Phyrra. Gotta mention her, because not only is she bold in makeup and hair, and she specializes in swatching really cool indie cosmetics, but her blog has some of the most useful posts I've found. Check out her How to Care for Colored Hair post. Awesomeballs!

Back to the Crown Blush palette: I swatched all of these over the Urban Decay Primer Potion, original formula.

Here are some photos, and I coded the colors on my hand and in the palette below, so it's easier to talk about all this.

The top left 4 colors, particularly the topmost leftmost one don't have a lot of ooph, aka pigmentation.
The yellow third row, second column is crazy shiny and pigmented, though. It's in the middle of this picture.

I think the speckled colors on the bottom are a bit of a cheat, because the speckles don't go too deep,
and once they wear off, you just have a color that is identical to another in the palette.
Except for the Y11 at the bottom. The basic shade stands on its own.

Numbered for Reference

Yellows and Greens featured here.

The Yellows and Greens:

• Y1, Y4, Y8 and Y10 are not so very very pigmented, and melt into my skin, but are still pretty.
• Y7 is wonderfully bright! 
• Y11 is a lovely goldenrod shade.
• G1 - Spring Green.
• G2 and G4 - Nice pale bright greens. St. Patty's Day all the way!
• G3 - Nice pigmentation! Forest Green.
• G5 - not as strong, but that could be because the gold tones tend to melt into my skin tone.
• G6 - Really Kelly Green and strong.  Fun!
• Love G7! Mermaid-ish beauty!
• G8 - Goldy Green. Sweet!
• G9 - the blue shimmer in this one could stand out more.

Featuring Blues and Purples. Some of Yellows on left.

The Purples and Blues:

• B1 and B2 don't look so very different from one another.
• B3 makes me think of flying Pan Am when I was a kid on my way to Bermuda, so that one is winning!
• B4 - love that hint of purple in the periwinkle
• B5 is really cool, with that magenta tone within the sky blue. I don't think the magenta will last more than a few swipes, though.
• P1 - really interesting shimmery pale vapor blue silver
• P2 - Very nice pale lavender blue
• P3, P4, P5 don't look so different on my skin as they do in the palette, and the glitter in P3 and P4 isn't fine milled or plentiful enough to have much of an impact. But that could work for some subtle violet eye looks, I guess.

The palette looks like this closed.

Even after two makeup removing wipes and a night of sleep—it's now Sunday—these colors are still on my hand. Hmmm.... The pigments aren't super strong but they stain.  Harrumph!

Still stained with the colors

So far so good. Seems like these shades are nice and usable. Just need some space on my bathroom counter for this gigundo palette.

What do you think? Do you own this one? Do you have the BH ones? How does this one stack up for you so far?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this post fun, useful, diverting, stimulating, and other good things.

Let me know what you think by commenting below. Cheers!

:)BeautyJones

@BeautyJonesToo
https://www.facebook.com/BeautyJonesToo

Face of the Day a la Madmen - The Luscious Red Lip

Red Lip, Neutral Eye, Liner with a Flick, MADMEN!

We had to catch up on Madmen before the Season 5 premiere, and halfway through the Sunday Netflix marathon, I knew I had to do the red lip thing Monday. Christina Hendricks as Joan can really rock a vivid lip. What's nice about the early to mid 60s is there are lots of options available, including hot pink and tangerine. But I have to say, doing the bright lip at work, or for any extended period of time anywhere, takes some effort. Touch-ups, and touch-ups and touch-ups.

Do my lips look smaller?

Bright lipstick is supposed to make your lips look smaller, and so thin-lipped ladies like myself are supposed to avoid it.  But I kind of like the way it looks.  There's nothing more feminine and ladylike than a red lip.

And Revlon still has some great red shades. I'm wearing Super Lustrous Créme Certainly Red #740. Here are some others they still sell, and the years they launched. Pretty cool stuff.

I already own Fire and Ice because of its famous ad campaigns over the years. Below is a sample. Certainly Red is wearable for me because it's a bluer red -- it doesn't make my slightly dingy teeth look worse. (Okay, maybe not so "slightly.") But I love Fire and Ice...its brilliant candy-apple splashiness.

I think I bought Cherries in the Snow once when I was in high school, but that was the early 80s, and Madonna hadn't yet brought back the red lip. I just liked it--that hint of fuchsia in the deep red tone. I want to rock it now, and Love that Pink, and Hot Coral. The touch ups are worth the effort.

Cherries in the Snow Ad

In a red lip I feel like my elegant and lovely Mom, my Granny in a big hat playing shuffleboard on the deck of an Alcoa freighter, my Aunt Diana chain-smoking and leaving that perfect ring of red on every filter in that stacked up ashtray. So gloriously female.

I had a friend in New York who was working for the Metropolitan Museum of Art when Diana Vreeland was directing the Diaghilev Costume Exhibit. Apparently she decided the catalog, the opening rooms, most of the exhibit should be done in rich, true red, because, as she said,

"Red is the only neutral color."

Here's what I used:

Face:

• Embryolisse Lait-Créme Concentré 24 Hour Cream
• Skin79 Super Beblesh Balm
• Coty Loose Powder

La Femme Blushes

 Cheeks:

• La Femme Blush in Coral 

NYX Butt Naked Palette Eyes

Eyes:

• Urban Decay Primer Potion
• NYX Butt Naked Palette--top left lightest all over lid; middle row second from right taupe; brown bottom row, second from right, along lash line
• Anastasia brow wax, powder duo in blonde, and using Petite Arch brow stencil -- this is magic to shape your brows!

• HIP black gel eyeliner tight-lined under upper lashes, along upper lashes, with a little flick at outer edges, and drawn along lower lashes about a third of the way
• Anastasia double ended nude pencil along lower water line, to open the eye. Do these people make a product I don't like?  Not so far!
• Stila Lash Visor Waterproof mascara in black.

Do I feel bold enough to wear Fire and Ice to work next week? I hope so!

Now go have fun, Lovelies!