Thursday, March 24, 2011

How to Remove Smudges

I love watching other people apply makeup.  Everyone has a little different routine and technique and I always seem to learn something new... whether or not I use what I learned is a different story.  


Recently I watched a friend apply loose powder eye shadow as a liner.  Working with loose powder is dangerous business.  It never fails to sprinkle down my cheek as I'm applying it to my lids.  If it's pink or bronze, I may be assisting myself, saving a step of blush applying, but any other color is just messy.  


My trick for removal of unwanted makeup mistakes (ie: ever stabbed your nose with your mascara wand, taken your cat-wing eye liner too far, or colored outside your lip line by accident?) is to take my already moist foundation sponge at it.  Gently rubbing the foundation sponge on the mistake and pulling the mistake away from your face is my favorite trick yet.  With this tactic, you mustn't rub the mistake across your face.  The swooping away from your face motion is key and may take a few times to get it right!


What I saw my friend do, I wouldn't have thought of.  But it worked, witnessed with my own two eyes.  Powder shadow made her under eye resembled a bit of a raccoon.  She simply grabbed a cotton swab, moistened it (she used her tongue... I think there's something about a woman's saliva that may be the best cleaning agent out there!) and rolled the cotton swab over the dusty mess.  Voila!  Raccoon no more.  I think eye makeup remover may also work on the cotton swab for this technique.


What works for you?  Is there something you do before to prevent smudges?  Or a favorite fixing tactic?

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Bold and Beautiful

In case you live under a rock and haven't picked up a fashion magazine anytime recently, let me clue you in on something. This season is all about bright, bold colors. Orange is really hot, especially oranges that lean a little more to the coral side (ie: have some pinkish hues in them). Whether you're sporting bright lemon colored pumps or a pop of pink on your lips, you'll be sporting the trend of the season!


Being that it is St. Paddy's day, I will be sporting bright green eyelids today! Eye shadows are a bit more difficult to make opaque and therefore more difficult to make bold. A key to the eye-pop is to ensure you've got a base down before you apply color. For making a smoky eye, you'd want something more neutral, but not for when you're putting purple, green, blue, yellow, etc on your lids. For sure, as you're evening out the tone of your skin with your foundation, swipe your eyelids too. Seal it with your powder and then apply the shadow. To go one step bolder, pencil your lid in up to your crease with a white eye liner. I like to pat it a bit with the pad of my finger tip to make sure there aren't any definite lines. Then, once the white liner is smooth, go ahead and apply the color.


You can absolutely tell the difference! And the color turns out closer to the color it is in the container.


The eye on the right has a white base. I did all other makeup the same in this picture. Pop!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Hard as Nails

My newest love?  Revlon Top Speed Nail Polish.  La-Love it!


Here's the deal.  It's not like other quick drying nail polishes I've used in the past.  So far (I've only discovered it a few days ago), each coat stays wet long enough to even it out on your nail.  But a mere minute or two later when I inevitably smash my hand into something random, the stuff is hard as a rock!   


Awesome find for your funky fashionable three year old or for we clumsy adults alike!