Make Me Brighter

Sales and Discounts Oh My!

cleegiants — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Happy Thanksgiving! I don't know who will read this today; I for one am enjoying turkey and stuffing (myself). I used to be a little blase about Thanksgiving but it has become my favorite meal of the year. And my pants definitely feel it at the end! Okay, enough of food talk. Once you're ready, it's time to shop! Whether you do it online or brave the crowds tomorrow, there are a number of discounts to be had. Here are threethat are online, so no risk of being stuck in traffic or suffering a worse fate.

Lancome Friends and Family

Bobbi Brown - Save 20% at BobbiBrown.com

Smashbox, Save 20% online with the code SBFF9. They have some cute holiday sets and kits that would be a stea at 20% off. Also, if you've balked at the price of the primers, you can save some money now.

Also at Saks Fifth Avenue, if you spend $100 on beauty products, you'll receive $25 Saks gift card. Use code: BEAUTY9 online

Round 2 of Weddings: the Maid of Honor

cleegiants — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:30:00 -0700

I showed you the pictures from the wedding I did 2 weeks ago earlier, so here are the pictures from the wedding I did just a week ago. I have a few more pictures for you and I actually have more specific product names and colors. It was interesting to see how the makeup held up since the weather was H-O-T in the Bay Area this weekend. The church where the ceremony was held was air conditioned, but standing outside in the heat for any length of time would certainly cause the makeup to melt off!

First up is the Maid of Honor, the bride's sister Denise.

Before

I start the application process.

Applying false lashes

The eyelashes really made Denise's eyes pop.

Bah. I realize now that I didn't take a direct "after" picture of Denise's makeup. This was taken at the end of the evening though, so you can see that her makeup held up well!

Here's what I used:
Eyes: Urban Decay Primer Potion, MAC Eyeshadow in Shrrom: For the grays, I used this 4 pan Stila compact's light gray color (I don't have a name for it) and the dark gray is the dark gray in Lancome's 4Romance palette. Liner is Estee Lauder DoubleWear in Graphite
Face: Prepped face with Exuviance Matte Perfection, Exuviance Skin Caring Foundation, Make Up For Ever HD Powder, Nars Blush/Bronzer in Orgasm/Laguna
Lips: Oops...forgot this one. I think it's a Bobbi Brown lipstick I got for free somewhere.

Denise and her makeup artist.

Summer Makeup Essentials

cleegiants — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Happy Sunday! The Bay Area is experiencing some gorgeous, summer like weather this weekend. With the increase in temperature, now is a good time to discuss some changes to a makeup routine. Despite the warmer temperatures, don't feel that you have to swear off makeup, just consider the climate and feel free to experiment with some lighter, brighter colors.

First and foremost, sun protection. I don't care if you are stuck in an office all day - you MUST wear sunscreen. If your exposure to the sun is limited to a walk from your car to the office, slap on a minimum of SPF 15.
source
Now personally, Neutrogena as a brand has not worked for me as a facial sunscreen. I've used it a couple of times and my skin has had a weird reaction, turning red and bumpy. Most people seem to love it though, and as it's relatively affordable, It's a good buy. I do seem to be fine with the regular body lotions.

What I do use is this Purpose Redness Reducing SPF 30 lotion. For my dry skin, it has plenty of moisture and doesn't cause any bad reactions. It's also available at drugstores.

One final product is Lancome's UV Expert 20 with Mexoryl SX. Mexoryl is an ingredient designed to protect you against UVA rays. While it's important to protect yourself against both UVA and UVB rays, it's the UVA rays that penetrate beneath the skin, causing wrinkles and perhaps skin cancer. UV Expert provides protection against both, but the Mexoryl compound is unique to Lancome. It's $35 for 3.4 oz, so it's obviously not cheap.

One of the good things about the increased awareness about sun damage is that cosmetics companies are adding sun protection to many of their foundations. However, the heat can melt off makeup, so in most situations, powder will be your friend.

Bare Minerals is a foundation that people either seem to love or hate. I've expressed my love for them, I do think it works well for my skin. I do realize that it's $25 for a full jar though, so I've been trying out some drugstore mineral foundations. So far, my trials lead me to recommend L'Oreal Bare Naturale Mineral Foundation. At half the price, it provides a great amount of coverage, and is a worthy replacement for BE. It also comes with the brush, something Bare Minerals makes you pay for. The L'Oreal one is a little sitffer than Bare Minerals', but better than other drugstore brands'.

Another product that I will be trying in this summer heat is Clinque's Redness Solutions Instant Relief Mineral Powder.

Long name, instant results. I tried a sample of this on a day where I felt my skin a little flushed, and it did indeed get rid of my redness. It's said to help skin 'keep its cool'; something we can all hope for in the summer.

Bronzers abound in summer. If you can't actually go to Hawaii for a natural sun-kissed glow, fake it!

For only $1, this E.L.F. Bronzer is a lot of sun for a little price. Is it the longest lasting or the richest color ever? Probably not, but nobody will be able to tell the difference. It's fairly matte, so if you want a little bit of shimmer to highlight those fabulous cheekbones, you'll have to try something else. But who cares when it's only 1 buck?

Nars Bronzer in Laguna is a favorite of a lot of people. It has more shimmer than ELF's, but it's also $30. You do get a lot of product, so it should last you several summers.

Sorry for the blurry quality of this picture, but if you can find this bronzing duo from L'Oreal, it comes with both a bronzer and a blush, so you can use it year round.

The hot eyeshadow color for summer? Blue apparently. Remember these images from Nars and Yves St. Laurent?

How about Christian Dior and Laura Mercier?

If you're going to spend the day in a swimming pool, skip the eyeshadow and just swipe on some waterproof mascara. My faves?

Lipstick can be a hassle in the summer, plus lips need SPF as much as your skin. A tiinted lip moisturizer or a gloss give you some color, while keeping things light. Mac's Tendertones would be perfect for summer, but they were a limited edition, and are not currently available from MAC. You may be able to find them through online auction sites like eBay. Keep in mind that the original retail price was $14.50.

MAC currently has something similar called Tinted Lip Conditioners. The TLC's, as they're known, also have SPF 15, but there are not as many colors as Tendertones, plus they don't have the nice smell of the Tendertones.

So there are some of my recommendations for summer makeup. If you have any tips or tricks for staying gorgeous in the summer, share in the comments!

Love Looks

cleegiants — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:00:00 -0700

Ahh weddings. I love weddings for the most part. It's a celebration of love and the hope that these two people will live "happily ever after". I know that it'll take a ton of work and committment through bad times, but for that one day, everything in the world seems right. Despite the downturn in the economy, I know of quite a few couples getting married sometime this year or next, but (thankfully?) I'm not going to all of them. One of the things I'm looking forward to doing at some of these weddings is the makeup for members of the bridal party. I attended a weekend last weekend and while I didn't do the makeup for anyone in the bridal party, I did do a fellow guest's.

First up though, was the makeup at the bachelorret party. This was a time for experiment and since it would include dancing at a club, the chance to go more dramatic. I used ELF's dramatic lash kit on my friend and despite a couple of failed attempts to get the lashes to stick, I think it turned out well.

I'll do a post later on how to best apply falsh lashes, but for now, here are the finished makeup looks.

Love the full lashes! Most of the eyeshadow colors are MAC, although I forget the exact colors. I believe Woodwinked is definitely one of them.

And the full look. Coppery, bronze perfection. For some reason, I had a hard time finding a good lipstick match, so H. ended up using one of her own. It took a while to complete this look, so I didn't spend as much time on my makeup. Plus this picture is at the end of the night, but here I am with H. Her makeup help up nicely!

Now for the wedding look, I went for a nice smokey eye. Since it was an evening wedding, I knew it wouldn't be too out of place. It's a traditional smokey eye, using Stila's smokey eye palette. I also added a little bit of MAC in Scene to blend in some gray. MAC Feline eyeliner completes the smokey eye. Foundation is Make Up Forever HD Foundation and Powder with MAC Hello Kitty Powder in Tahitian Sand. Lovely!

This picture was taken right after dinner, so the lipstick has disappeared, but you can see the full face look.

Since I was wearing black and white, I went for a more neutral look with a stronger lip. My eyeshadow is the Lancome quad 4Romance, lips are patted with Lancome's PS Kiss.

My hair was not cooperating.

With a few more weddings coming up this summer, hopefully I'll have a lot more to share. Whether you're a bride, a bridesmaid, or a guest, I'll have something for you!

Brighter Beauty Anne Hathaway

cleegiants — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Ever since I saw Anne Hathaway on The Princess Diaries, I've been a fan of hers. Although she didn't win for Rachel Getting Married, her makeup is a winner in my book. One thing I love about Anne's look is that it features both a strong eye (look at those full brows) and reddish lip. Today's "rules" often dictate playing up one feature, not both. Anne proves that you can play up both the eyes and lips without looking like a clown.
All products used are Lancome
Eyes: Color Design Eye Shadow in Ciel du Soir on the eyelid, Le crayon Kohl in Black Ebony, Lancome Oscillation Mascara
Face: Blush Subtil in Sheer Amourose
Lip: Color Fever Lipstick in Brickhouse

Brighter Beauty Kate Winslet

cleegiants — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:00:00 -0800

For this blog, I'm not in the habit of highlighting celebrities. In today's over-exposed celebrities, people being famous for being famous, and creating heroes and idols out of movie stars, I am trying to limit my intake of celebrity gossip. Despite my intentions to avoid such news, I do try to stay on top of things to see what new and interesting beauty tips I can provide you with. Granted, I don't think I've done a good job of that, primarily because most of the treatments or products are too expensive.

With all that said, the Oscars are always good for some beautiful looks. Over the next few days, I'm going to try to highlight some of my favorite Oscar looks.

Makeup artist Jillian Dempsey (Patrick Dempsey's wife) used Lancome La Base Pro primer to prepare the face.
Eyes: Avon Pro Eyeshadow Trio in Ice Shimmer and Lancome Brow Expert in Naturel on the brows. Avon Pro Mascara in Black.
Lips: Lancome Color Fever Lipstick in Old Flame

Congrats on a well-deserved Oscar win Kate!

Makeup Brushes - Foundation and Concealer

cleegiants — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:30:00 -0800

Of all my brushes, I've spent the most on my foundation brushes. Like I said earlier, I'm not spending 100s, but in comparison to my $1-10 brushes, plopping down $30 for one brush can seem high. Since I wear foundation every day I appear in public, it's an important tool.

Clockwise from the left: Lancome Foundation Brush #2; Bare Escentuals Concealer Brush; Giorgio Armani Blender Brush (travel size); Eco Tools Concealer Brush

The Lancome foundation brush gets the most use - anytime I'm using liquid foundation, it's used. I can't tell what's it's made from, but I"m 99% sure it's synthetic. I should wash my foundation brush more often than I do, which is about 1x a month. Should really be 1x a week. Bad girl. You'll know that it needs washing when the foundation doesn't spread smoothly, or becomes streaky. Otherwise, it does a great job of helping the foundation blend into my face. It retails for $33.

The Armani brush is limited to just the Armani Foundation I have (Luminous Silk, review coming). The SA told me that the Luminous Silk Foundation (LSF) has some micro-fil tthing that necessitates the use of a brush, which I'm all for; plus I'd heard good things about the foundation, thus I thought I'd give it a try. Also, because of the foundation's ingredients, it's recommended that you wash it dishwashing liquid! Who knew? While unconventional, dishwashing liquid is readily available and it's cheap. The full size brush is $47, but I got mine in a set with the foundation, and it's travel sized.

I don't use the concealer brushes that often. If I'm going to a special event and want to get the red areas by my nose, I'll use a concealer brush, but it's not a staple in my arsenal. The BE brush is $20, Eco Tools comes in with set of 5 brushes for $14.99

Clockwise from left: BE Flawless Application Brush; Lancome Brush; BE Handy Buki Brush
For mineral foundations, these are the three brushes I use. The BE brushes came in the starter kit, along with the concealer brush mentioned above and the Bare Minerals foundations. I think the brushes are good for the money, although they seem to shed a couple hairs every time I wash them. Supposedly, the Handy Buki brush is for "smaller areas", but I find it works fine all over the face; maybe it takes a little longer for the 'swirl, tap, buff' to happen, but what's a couple extra seconds. The Flawless Application Brush is used primarily for BE's Mineral Veil, though I suspect it would be fine for other powders. It's hard to swirlp, tap, buff with this brush, but I find it's not as important with powder as foundation.
Mineral foundation is more popular than ever, so for all my drugstore purchases of mineral foundations, I use the Lancome Brush at the top. Honestly, I have no idea how much this brush costs, or what it's intended for, since it was part of a gift with purchase. It's closest to this brush on the Lancome website. $56? I'll take free. And yes, it does work with mineral foundations. Not to soft, not too hard, just right.

All right, enough of the goldilocks references.

Catch up on other posts about brushes:
Natural vs. Synethic
My Personal Collection

Lipstick Combos Again

cleegiants — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:00:00 -0800

I have another batch of lipsticks to show you; apparently I have a lot of lipsticks.

Lancome Le Rouge Absolu: Beach Flame

Beach Flame + MAC Soft & Slow

Estee Lauder Pure Color: Pink Parfait

Pink Parfait + Nars: Female Trouble

Lady in Waiting Look

cleegiants — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Remember my post about waiting in line for the job fair last week? As I promised, here is the makeup I used. Since I'm in a more 'creative' field, I thought I would do something slightly more dramatic than neutral; hence the light smokiness. The lip is a neutral color, without gloss, as I'd prefer to have the focus on the but on the quality of my resume than on the sheen of my lips!

I Used:
Eyes: Urban Decay Primer Potion, Victoria's Secret Beauty Rush Lumnious Shadow: Laguna Peach; MAC Eyeshadows: Grain, Scene, Smoke+Diamonds, Lancome Defining+Brightening Eye Pencil Duo: Miami Midnight (black end)
Face: Maybelline Dream Liquid Mousse: Pure Beige, Laura Mercier Translucent Face Powder, Nars Blush/Bronzer: Orgasm/Laguna
Lips: Prescriptives Colorscope Lipstick: Champagne

For the eye makeup, Laguna Peach adds a bit of shimmer that doesn't show up in the picture. You would be fine using just Grain or any other neutral shadow.

See the full look after the break

Lipstick combos

cleegiants — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:30:00 -0800

I mentioned in an earlier post that I usually combine lipstick with some sort of lipgloss, so here are a few pictures.

Stil Lip Glaze Stick: Starfruit + Smashbox Gloss: Stunning

The following 2 are pictures are lip glosses from Smashbox. Combined with Maybelline Lipstick in Plum Wine

Lancome Juicy Tubes: Fifth Avenue Frosting + Maybelline Lipstick

Nars Dolce Vita Lipstick

More combos after the break