Monday, Martha and Makeup

While I generally don’t love being at work (I so envy those of you who absolutely love your jobs), Monday are by far the worst – dragging your tired, weary body out of bed when all it wants is to pretend it’s still Sunday and hide under the covers. But I’ve decided to try to take it all in stride this week, as things really are looking pretty good – at least on the ABS front. Last week I got a lovely e-mail from the PR people over at Lancome letting me know that I’d been mentioned on the Lancome Blog – how cool is that?! That pretty much made my day.

As for today, I’m trying to brighten my mood by looking at Martha the Tangerine – named for Martha Stewart, the doyenne of all things domestic. I got bored sitting at my desk, and before you know it, Martha was born =P. Isn’t procrastination great?

And now for the makeup bit. I’ve settled into a bit of a makeup rut that I’m in the process of trying to shake off, but here’s the somewhat blah look I’ve been sporting for the past two weeks. Nothing spectacular but understated enough for work and simple enough that the clients don’t do a double-take. Details after the jump!






How To:

• Apply a sheer coat of Shiseido’s Hydro-Powder Eyeshadow in Violet Visions ($25) using your fingers for a light base shade.
• Top with Jill Stuart Jelly Eye Color in Moon Shadow ($24) to add some shimmer and depth.
• Line your waterline with Chanel Waterproof Liner in Vert Bronze ($26.50) – this is one of the first posts I ever made.
• Curl your lashes (I use my Shu Uemura eyelash curler) and top the whole look off with plenty of Kiss Me Heroine Make Volume & Curl Mascara ($11.70).
• On my lips I used Chanel Glossimer in Courtisane, released as part of the Fall 2009 Venice Collection. It’s such a gorgeous, shimmery punch of pink and pretty universally flattering.

I’m hoping your weekend was more exciting than mine. I spent most of Sunday playing around with makeup, rereading Breaking Dawn and finishing the Percy Jackson series. What have you been up to these past few days?

Winter Grape EOTD

Lately my EOTD’s seem to be few and far-between. I blame work – my office environment just isn’t fun-makeup-friendly, so it’s rare that I get to come up with fun new eye looks for you. I was feeling up for a little color this past weekend though so broke out some eyeshadows that have been feeling sorely neglected.

More photos and a mini tutorial after the jump!

• Apply an intensely pigmented purple shadow like Pure Luxe shadow in Grape all over the inner 2/3 of your eye, starting at your inner eye and working outwards. Grape is a serious stunner and has some amazing pigmentation to it – it’s a definite favorite of mine.

• Pick up a shimmery white shade (I used Smink’s Winterton) on a bbrush with a pointed narrow tip and sweep it along the inner third of your eye, over your purple. Blend well!

With Flash

Without Flash

• Apply MAC Smoke & Diamonds to your outer V and blend with the purple for a nice seamless finish.

• Top with mascara – I used my Jill Stuart here, which I’ve been meaning to review for you for ages. It holds a pretty amazing curl, doesn’t it?

This look was so vivid and fun in person ~ I really need to remember to check out more Pure Luxe products as they’ve really been impressing me so far. What fun looks have you been experimenting with over the past few weeks?

A Few Photos to Whet Your Appetite & A Quick Bal De Nuit EOTD

As many of you know, yesterday was a rather special night for me, and I chose to celebrate at DBGB Kitchen & Bar, one of my favorite new eateries. It’s nothing too fancy, just delicious simple food served in a great casual ambiance.

For our appetizers we ordered the Fried Egg Bourguignon (duck confit and cracklins, portobello mushroom, red wine and spicy greens) which was to die for (the SO and I were both tempted to order another), the Pate Campagnard (good but not great) and the Beef Bone Marrow (which comes with some delicious Katz’s pastrami).

No photos of the entrees as we were starving and forgot to take a photo before we devoured them, but in case you’re curious SO and I had the Sauteed Skate with Cauliflower Risotto and the House-Made Tagliolini Pasta. I absolutely love skate but it’s rarely done well, but DBGB’s was absolutely scrumptious and the risotto, with its beautiful baby cauliflower, was just heavenly. And don’t even get me started on the tagliolini – wild mushroom ragout, handmade pasta, spinach pistou, all topped with an egg yolk – warm comfort in a bowl!

And what’s a special occasion without dessert? While I love DBGB’s ice cream sundaes, I decided to try something different and got the Souffle Chaud which is a Grand Marnier souffle with creme anglaise that takes ten minutes as it’s prepared to order. It was hot, sugary, creamy, fluffy, and simply decadent.

As for my makeup, I decided to keep it simple and elegant by doing a quick look using my Guerlain Bal de Nuit holiday quad.

I used the soft ivory shade all over my lid and the taupe shade alng my outer V, then piled on the mascara and I was good to go! I wore Chanel Narcisse on my cheeks (I can’t thank Nicole enough for this, it’s seriously the most versatile blush I own), highlighted using Guerlain’s Perles Imperiales Meteorites, and my much-cherished Sensai Lipstick in Hitoume.

How was your Tuesday? Do anything interesting? 🙂

DEX Harlem Nights Sapphire EOTD (Quick & Dirty)

I wanted to give you a quick look at what DEX’s Harlem Nights Sapphire looks like on, but didn’t really have the time to be neat or precise so I hope you’ll excuse the messiness going on here! I used the same two products on my eyelid and lower lash line: Harlem Nights Sapphire and my trusty L’Oreal HiP Color Chrome Eyeliner in Silver Lightning.

The How To: I first applied my Silver Lightning pencil to both my waterline and upper lash area (up to the crease). I then lined the outer half of my waterline using Harlem Nights Sapphire and also tapped just the tiniest bit (this stuff is crazy pigmented so you need to use a light hand) onto my upper eyelid on top of the silver liner for a shimmery look. I topped everything off with my new Jill Stuart mascara and I’m detecting a little spideriness going on.

Hope you can look past the messiness to see the beauty of the products!

Quick Make-up Touch-up @ L’Oreal Paris!

I had the opportunity to stop by the L’Oreal Paris New York offices today and part of my day included getting a quick (literally all of 3 minutes or so) makeup touch-up by one of the super sweet L’Oreal makeup artists. I had an absolutely amazing time learning tips and tricks about at-home hair color (which I’ll of course be sharing with you), ways to improve the blog, new launches from L’Oreal Paris, and so so much more!

The artist used all HIP products on my eyes, but sadly I didn’t have a chance to catch the shade names. And please excuse the creasing, it’s been a very very very long day! I’ll be reviewing a few of the HIP liners for you soon, but I just had to mention that so far I’m absolutely loving them! There’s this silver shade (the remnants of which you can see on my eye) that seriously looks like molten liquid metal ~ simply amazing!

Editing to add that one trick I did learn was using a white (non-shimmery) shadow along the inner contours of my eyes. You can sort of see it in the shot where my eyes are fully open, but the effect was much more pronounced in person and I really loved how it gave my eye area more depth and brightness at the same time!

Quick Colour Wave EOTD

Don’t mind the foundation on my contacts – just one of the perils of airbrushing your foundation.

Many of you had asked for a FOTD using the products I recently hauled from MAC (see complete haul HERE) and while I’m not entirely happy with this one, I figured it was worth posting just so that you can get a decent idea of what the shades look like on.

You can see Crest the Wave on the inner corners of my eyes, and Colour Matter along my lower lash line. I won’t go into my whole usual spiel of what I used to create this look as I think it’s kind of ugly =X. This may be TMI, but it’s a certain time of the month for me, so maybe I’m just feeling horribly moody and pessimistic though.

Peacock Feather EOTD Using MAC Graphic Garden Palette

The Step by Step Breakdown (for more details on the palette itself click HERE):

• Apply an eyeshadow base (I used a Motives by Loren Ridinger cream eyeshadow here) all over you lid to help the colors adhere and to prevent creasing.
• Use a small, dense brush (like MAC’s 239 Eye Shader) to pick up some Wild Wisteria and apply it over your base on the inner half of your eyes, extending up towards the crease.
• Use a finner-tipped brush (like MAC’s 219 Pencil Brush) to apply Botanical Blue on the outer half of your eyelid up towards the crease, extending the color to make a sideways V shape on both eyes.
• Use a medium-sized brush (like MAC’s 213 Fluff Brush) to pick up a good amount of Linear Lilac and pat it onto the center of your eyelid, concentrating on the area below the crease.
• Now blend away along the contours of your crease using a blending brush like MAC’s 217. I like to go in one direction, from the inner corners outwards.

• Line your underyes with Urban Decay’s 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Electric, and then use Zero right along the waterline for a little more depth.

This look is waaaaaaaay brighter than anything I’d normally go for, and I think I caused my mother some serious mental trauma when she saw me walking out of the house wearing eyeshadow this vibrant, but I personally loved it and thought it was a ton of fun once I got over feeling a little self-conscious. What do you think?

Some Purple Fun to Lift Me Out of the Doldrums

I know this isn’t the most work-appropriate EOTD I’ve done, but I’ve been feeling really blah these past few days. You know how it is – it’s a certain time of the month, people are being extra aggravating, nothing seems to be going right. I figured some semi-bright (this is the brightest look I figured I could get away with) eye makeup would perk me up and I think it’s already starting to work!

EYES:

• I was feeling uninspired this morning so originally planned to just wear my YSL Water Resistant Eyeshadow in Amethyst Grey (for the millionth time – see my review HERE) on its own. Good thing since it makes an amazing base! I used my finger to apply this all over my eyelids.

• I shook some Pure Luxe shadow in Amethyst onto the sample jar lid, swirled my Sephora smudger brush around in it to pick up the color, tapped off the excess and applied it to the inner half of my eye.
• Repeated the process with Pure Luxe shadow in Dusk and applied to the outer half of my eye.

Amethyst is in the top row, second from the left. Dusk is the right-most swatch in the top row.

• And then blended away!
• I topped the whole look off with two coats of Urban Decay’s Skyscraper Multi-Benefit Mascara which I’ll hopefully be reviewing for you soon.

LIPS:

• For a hassle-free long-lasting look I slicked on some Revlon ColorStay Soft & Smooth Lipcolor in Pink Indulgence.

I’ve been in a bit of a gray rut lately so it was nice to break away from that and to get some color back into my looks. The YSL Water Resistant Eyeshadow in Amethyst Grey really made an amazing base, and if you own this I highly suggest trying it out as a primer. The smokiness of it really brings out the vibrancy of whatever shadows you layer on top, and I definitely noticed that Pure Luxe Amethyst looked prettier than ever over this.

And for those of you interested in the Revlon lipstick (I’ll be reviewing it soon) it’s currently available at Walgreens for 40% off, bringing it to $4 and change = dirt cheap! It’s a really nice light pink that’s super long wearing without being drying for the lips — I’m really loving it!

Yves Saint Laurent Water-Resistant Eyeshadow in Shade 2 Amethyst Grey Review & Swatches

Yves Saint Laurent Water-Resistant Eyeshadow/Fard Lumiere Aquaresistant ($28.50)
Yves Saint Laurent FARD LUMIÈRE AQUARÉSISTANT Water-Resistant Eye Shadow dresses the eyelids with long-lasting, luminous, and water-resistant color. The aqueous-gel texture feels fresh upon application and dries down to a shimmering veil of color that can be layered for a look that’s as intense as you desire. The air-tight pot keeps the formula moist so that every application looks fresh and luminous.

Not to be gross, but I quite easily have the oiliest eyelids known to man. I’m talking oiliness that eats through any and all shadows, primers, liners, mascaras, and anything else you could think of to apply to the eye area. So when it’s comes to claims of budge-proof, smudge-proof eye products I’m always simultaneously intrigued and skeptical.

I’ve been testing out YSL’s Water-Resistant Eyeshadow in Shade #2 Amethyst Grey during the hot, humid, and overall stinky weather we’ve been having as of late. Read on to find out how it holds up!

Photo with no flash. See the photo below to get a pretty good idea of what Amethyst Grey looks like in person.

The Packaging: I must say that I love the sleek square packaging YSL’s got going on here. The screw top makes for an air-tight seal, ensuring that the product within doesn’t end up all dry and desiccated, and the lucite-like bottom gives the product a refreshing, cooling look to it which goes along with the whole theme of a light, fresh-feeling shadow that meant to hold up to splashing in the water. The brush that comes with this shadow stinks though, which was expected.

Close-up of Amethyst Grey in the pot.

The Color: Based upon Sephora’s swatch I was expecting a light lavendery amthyst hue with just a hint of underlying gray to it, and so was really disappointed upon opening up my pot to see this quivering blob of dark taupey gray matter looking back at me. But once I got past my initial chagrin, I succumbed to the prettiness that is Amethyst Grey. The shade is comprised of a light to medium grey with flashes of lilac that really makes for a beautiful, soft daytime smoky look, and the color really is buildable from just the sheerest wash of gray to a more pigmented lavender/grey with much more depth to it. Amethyst Grey has some soft shimmer and sheen to it and makes for an entirely appropriate work look.

Swatch of Amethyst Grey – it’s tough to capture on camera because of the sheen.

The Formula: YSL’s Fard Lumiere Aquaresistants are rather pricey at $30+ after tax, but the formula is spot on and really lives up to its name. Once dry this water-resistant formula truly resists all any smearing, smudging, creasing, and other unpleasantness all day and night without the aid of any base or primer.

The texture of Fard Lumiere is akin to a light whipped eyeshadow, albeit a bit more liquidy that I’d expected, and it applies easily and blends well using a smudge brush (or pretty much any dense brush you have lying around). I checked my eyelids periodically throughout the day and there wasn’t a crease to be seen for the 15 hours that I wore this — pretty remarkable I’d say!

I took a photo of my eye with only the YSL shadow in Amethyst Grey on so you can get an idea of what this looks like on the eye, although as I mentioned it’s very hard to capture and not nearly as nice on film as it is in person:

And while I liked the look I felt that it was lacking a little extra oomph so I topped it with my Jill Stuart Jelly Eye Color in Moon Shadow (review HERE) which is essentially a much lighter, much much sparklier version of Amethyst Grey for some added fun:

The Conclusion: While YSL’s Water-Resistant Eyeshadow wasn’t 100% what I was expecting it to be, I’m really loving the formula and the ease of use. Most morning I just don’t have time to apply an eyelid primer and then eyeshadow, nor do I have the energy to be checking on my eye makeup throughout the day to ensure that it isn’t creasing, so YSL’s new waterproof release kills to birds with one stone. While the shade range is disappointingly limited (four in all), I highly recommend these if you’re looking for some long-lasting color this summer!

Falsie Fun!

I know I’ve been terribly naughty, neglecting the blog the way that I have been, but I promise to be better! It’s not that I don’t love you ~ I literally just got home from the office a few minutes about and it’s almost 11 pm =X.

Is anyone watching the QVC beauty special that’s on tonight starting at 10pm? I heard that they’re going to have some amazing deals on some fabulous products. So sad I missed out on most of it already!

But back on topic, this is a quick and dirty look I did on Friday for a night out with friends. It’s a bit on the sloppy side, but I swear it looked pretty hot in person!

I was dying to try out the new falsies that my gorgeous friend Cathy had given me, so I picked up some DUO glue (my previous tube went bad and smelled like rotting fish) from Walgreens and went at it. I decided to try out the tinted/dark kind as I always end up making a mess with the clear kind, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I really love the tinted DUO glue.

The falsies are demis (a half strip) which I love since they don’t overwhelm the shape/size of my Asian eyes. I decided to keep everything else simple with some liner and silver shadow to really make the lashes pop, and I paired the eyes with my MAC lipstick in Calironia Dreamin’, which really can’t be beat when it comes to the perfect pale pink lippy to pair with a smokey eye.

And since tonight seems to be all about rambling incoherently (sorry for the terrible writing!) and bouncing from topic to topic, here’s a bottle of Mountain’s Dew’s World of Warcraft soda–it’s fruit punch flavored I believe! I’ll proudly to admit that I’ll drink pretty much anything blue, and the whole WoW aspect of it kinda appeals to me. I blame the SO who was obsessed with this game for the longest time!