Karen, Author at Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup - Page 1030 of 1879

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A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict

Karen

Outfit of the Day: A Fitted French Connection Banded Cap Sleeve Minidress for a Special Night Out

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french connection banded cap sleeve minidress

LOL! No, I’m not rolling out to Trader Joe’s dressed like this. 🙂 Tomorrow I’m going out to dinner with El Hub for our sixth wedding anniversary, and I’m trying to figure out what to wear.

I’m thinking it would be a good time to finally take my birthday dress out for a spin, the French Connection Banded Cap Sleeve Minidress in Grey Steel I scored on deep discount at Nordstrom last month.

french connection banded cap sleeve minidress

One of the reasons I like the dress is because it’s similar to this $780 (!) Herve Leger, which is way, way out of my budget.

The French Connection version regularly goes for about $180 — still a lot — but if you can snag it on sale like I did…

Wait — you can! It’s on sale right now at both nordstrom.com and frenchconnection.com.

french connection banded cap sleeve minidress
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These Essence Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadows Could Teach a Class in Perseverance, But Could Use Some Help Blending In

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essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow

“Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Be on the lookout for cheap makeup thrills. Repeat, cheap makeup thrills.

“Suspect was last seen shimmering on eyelids for $2.99. I repeat, $2.99. Over.”

With the Essence Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadows, shimmery, long-lasting color is just 299 pennies away.

These pigmented cream shadows are great for quick washes of shimmery color, and they cling like crazy to my skin. On my combination dry/oily lids, I get from 7-8 hours with primer and 5-6 without.

Not bad for $2.99, but I think they’d be even better if it weren’t for a few things…

The texture

Seems a little hit or miss. Of the four shades I’ve tried, 09 For Fairies feels the best — almost like a mousse. It’s soft and fluffy and just glides across my lids.

The other three shades, however, 01 Coppy Right (great name!), 02 Glammy Goes To, and 07 JM-ME Blue, feel denser and drier to me, which makes them a tad tougher to blend and apply.

Blending

I’d hoped to be able to easily blend a few of these colors together in the same looks, but they have a tense relationship… The colors don’t transition well, or at least easily, into each other.

If all I’m doing is softening the edges of a single shade on my lids, no problem — the blending goes a little better — but they’re still not as easy to blend as a MAC Paint Pot or Benefit Creaseless Cream (although they’re an awful lot less expensive).

Layering

Tricky! Apply a milligram too much, and these begin to appear heavy and caked, and almost too metallic. For me with these, one thin, single layer works best.

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow
From the left: 02 Glammy Goes To, 09 For Fairies, 01 Coppy Right and 07 JM-ME Blue

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow swatches
From the left: 01 Coppy Right, 02 Glammy Goes To, 07 JM-ME Blue and 09 For Fairies

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow
Wearing 01 Coppy Right
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Need a Lift? Score Lashes That Soar Sky High With the New Too Faced Lash Injection Extreme Tubing Mascara

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too faced cosmetics lash injection extreme volume tubing mascara

It occurred to me this morning as I was dressing up my lashes with a layer of Too Faced Lash Injection Extreme Volume Tubing Mascara that I could (and often do) spend entire days playing with eye makeup.

Entire days.

A few hours patting primer here, a few more drawling liner there, shadow blending, blending, blending, and then the sun sets behind Novato’s verdant hills in the distance…

Of course, I do take breaks for tabby play time and pasta (of course!). 🙂

Naturally, good chunks of time are devoted to applying mascara, since my natural lashes are a little on the uninspiring side, and I feel like my eyes look much bigger and brighter when I’ve lifted, curled and lengthened my lashes.

My latest lash love stars Too Faced Lash Injection Extreme Volume Tubing Mascara.

Whew! Now that’s a mouthful.

Too Faced reformulated their old-school mascara of the same name and gave it a new outfit. It’s $21 and available in a single shade called Black.

If you’re unfamiliar with tubing mascaras, no, they are not named after the popular pastime that usually involves bodies of water and coolers filled with adult beverages. They’re named after the way the formulas encapsulate lashes forming tubes that surround each hair to extend and thicken them.

Brands often claim that tubing mascaras are particularly great for humid climates as they resist flaking and smudging.

I never gave the original Lash Injection a try, so I don’t know how it compares to the new one, but Too Faced says that it’s much improved. Version 2.0 is supposed to stretch and lengthen lashes better than before.

How does it fare? Well, like a push-up bra for my fringe! Two coats of the waterproof formula applied with the included brush (in the style of a DiorShow brush) boosts my lashes with lift and length.

The formula does a pretty good job holding the curl, too, keeping it firm but flexible, and I don’t detect any smears of flakes, not even at the end of the day.

too faced cosmetics lash injection extreme volume tubing mascara before and after
Before (top) and after two coats (bottom)
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It’s My Latest Love’s Time to Shine: L’Oreal’s New Paris Infallible Never Fail Lacquer Liner 24H in Blackest Black

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LOreal Infallible Never Fail Lacquer Liner

Not to get all Real World confessional on you, but can you keep a secret…?

I’ve been holding it in so long that I’m going to explode if I don’t tell someone!

Here goes… Deep breath, Karen.

I’ve been cheating on the love of my life, and I don’t plan to stop any time soon.

Wait — did you think I was talking about El Hub? Oh, gawd no. I’m stuck on that man like cheese on macaroni. I’m referring to my other love, my favorite black gel liner in the whole wide world, also known as MAC Fluidline in Blacktrack.

I don’t know why I did it… Boredom, perhaps. Blacktrack and I have been rolling deep since 2007, and despite dalliances with many other gel liners along the way, I’ve always, always come home to Blacktrack. I think it’s just the smoothest, longest-wearing, darkest black gel liner around.

But then my eyes wandered to a new gel liner last week called L’Oreal Paris Infallible Never Fail Lacquer Liner 24H in Blackest Black ($9.95), looking all mysterious in its little pot, and I couldn’t restrain myself.

It actually reminds me of Fluidline in some ways. Both of them deliver smooth, dark lines, either sharp or smudgy, on my lash and water lines in just a swipe or two.

L’Oreal claims Blackest Black is able to last 24 hours, but after spending time with it for a while, I sense a bit of beauty bravado there. I get more like 6 hours along my water lines and 9-12 along my lash lines when I wear it without a primer on my combination dry/oily lids.

Not too shabby, cocoa tabby, and again, comparable to Blacktrack.

So what’s the attraction? Why haven’t I been picking up one of the five pots of Blacktrack scattered around the house (no, seriously!)?

Two words: glossy finish.

LOreal Infallible Never Fail Lacquer Liner
Each pot of Infallible Lacquer Liner comes with a brush, which works surprisingly well!

LOreal Infallible Never Fail Lacquer Liner Swatch
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The Ultimate Moisturizer for Lazy Lasses! ELF Milk & Honey Lotion Wipes Wipe Out Dry Skin in 30 Seconds or Less

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elf lotion wipes review

Saw the new Spider-Man movie last night (loved Andrew Garfield as Spidey!), but there’s a creature in the movie, a scaly reptilian beast, that reminded me of my shins.

Yes, I believe I’m on the verge of a dry skin crisis, one brought on by professional exhaustion.

You see, ever since his movie career started taking off, Tabs has been working me to the bone.

On the one hand, it’s good overtime, but by bedtime, I’ve been so exhausted that I haven’t been wanting to moisturize my bod after my shower, so I’ve been skipping the lotion and crawling straight into bed, ashy legs and all (please don’t tell my mom).

I come from a long line of dry skin sufferers… Growing up, lotion was revered in our house like it was manna from heaven, and if I had a penny for every time I got lectured about applying lotion on my legs before going outside to play, well, I’d have a few hundred extra pennies right now.

Segue to ELF’s new $3 Milk & Honey Lotion Wipes. Yes, babe: wipes. 🙂

They’re like makeup remover wipes, except instead of containing makeup remover, they’re soaked with a lightweight liquid moisturizer.

They come 16 wipes to a pack, each of them infused with helpful hydrating ingredients like aloe, cocoa butter, vitamin E, soy, gingko biloba, coconut milk and sweet almond oil.
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