Greasy to Glam

I have a lot going on Saturdays, and my days start early. Ideally, I’d like to get up late, take a long, hot shower, let my hair dry in the sun as I read a book and sip endless cups of coffee. This is not how my day starts. I get up at 6. I am out of the house by 7:15. I come home mid-afternoon, sometimes later.

And to be perfectly honest, I don’t always feel like staying up later on Friday night or getting up earlier on Saturday morning to wash my hair. This Saturday was one of those days. In fact, I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 6:30, and by that time I needed to rush out the door. The problem was that my hair was a greasy mess.

That’s when I sprayed in a good dose of Bumble & Bumble’s Hair Powder. Hair powder absorbs your hair’s natural oils, leaving you looking like you had a fresh wash. I went from greasy to glam in a matter of minutes.

I know life comes at everyone too quickly sometimes. We all have late nights and early mornings, and these are the days that are just right for hair powder.

Lashes to Dye For

As a pale-lashed beauty blogger, I should have known about lash tinting a long time ago. As it happens, I didn’t decide to get my lashes tinted until two months ago, after my brow waxing wonder woman started telling me about the miracle of lash tinting. She promised it would make my lashes long and dark. I was headed to Hawaii for two weeks, and the prospect of dark lashes without mascara streaming down my face after swimming sounded heavenly.

Lash tinting takes about twenty minutes. The first step is to apply a petroleum-based product and a protective sheet around the eye area. Although you are supposed to keep your eyes closed throughout the whole process, these preventative measures stop you from having black-rimmed eyes if your eyes do happen to fly open during the process.

Carefully (or one would hope), the aesthetician will apply the lash dye. Then, take a deep, calming breath, relax into the bed, and wait. One may experience occasionally stinging, but on the beauty-is-pain scale, the stinging is minimal.

After twenty minutes or so, the aesthetician will remove the lash dye, leaving you with dark, stunning lashes that will sustain ocean water with ease. And there really is nothing better than waking up in the morning and seeing yourself with the look of a full coat of mascara without the raccoon rings under your eyes from, sigh, sleeping in your make-up yet again.

Last tinting should cost you around $30, and it will last you 4-6 weeks.

Clear Skin...Finally!

Long time readers of this blog know that I've struggled for years with acne. The battle started when I moved cross-country, and I've tried just about everything to clear my skin up.

Last summer, I was needlessly referred out-of-network to have a dermatologist look at a vein in my leg (don't worry - nothing wrong!), but the meeting with this dermatologist turned out to be fate. I asked him about my relentless acne, and he suggested Clenzinderm. The nurse swore it had cleared her face in about a week.

I told her I had nothing to lose by trying something new, but I wasn't going to bank on anything. I had tried everything from Clearasil to every product in Sephora to nutritional supplements to prayers, and so far, nothing had given me clear skin. She again promised Clenziderm would be the answer to my prayers.

She was right. I've waited some time to write this post because I wanted to confirm that Clenziderm was more than a short-term solution. I've been using it since July, and I can now fairly say that it works. I can count the number of pimples I've had since using the product on one hand (that's less than on a month).

Clenziderm has fielded a number of my typical acne triggers with grace and ease. Travel usually triggers my skin to panic. It doesn't know how to adjust to long airplane rides in recycled air, new climates, or new food. Yet, since using Clenziderm, I've visited muggy Minnesota in August (and then again in icy January), the desert, and the ocean. My skin didn't even seem to notice.

This is such a huge shift for me. I visited Minnesota in August of 2008, and a girlfriend of mine posted photos on Facebook in which I look broken out with the chicken pox. Literally. And while visiting the desert several years ago, my skin was so upset that I had to use three hydrating masks a day just to keep my skin from feeling tight and itchy. I can't believe the ease with which I've been able to jetset around the globe.

Stress is another trigger for my skin, and between the holidays, travel, and trying to find time to do everything in the midst of holidays and travel, I've definitely been feeling a bit stressed. Again, my skin hasn't taken the brunt of the stress with a major breakout (leading, of course, to new stress).

How does Clenziderm work differently from other acne medications? Benzoyl peroxide is usually the active ingredient in acne solutions, and Clenziderm has a solubilized (basically, a liquid) form of benzoyl peroxide that can penetrate your skin more deeply. Where something like Clearasil uses benzoyl peroxide on the surface of your skin, Clenziderm penetrates to deeper layers of skin, killing acne before it shows up as unsightly zits.

Clenziderm is only available via your dermatologist (or, yes, you can get it on Amazon). If you have suffered from chronic acne and are looking for a final solution, Clenziderm might just be the trick you need.

Gel Eyeliner (yet again)

About one hundred years ago, we were having a discussion on this blog about gel eyeliners. I promised to try out my new MAC gel eyeliner and get back to you ASAP. I didn't follow through on the ASAP part, but I did try the gel eyeliner, and I'm here now to report that it's wonderful. It's right on par with the Bobbi Brown gel eyeliner I originally recommended.

I used a deep plum eyeliner (I actually used it with my non-Halloween look in the previous post). It dried quickly and stayed in place the rest of the day. It's easy to apply as thick or thin a line as you want.

MAC's gel eyeliner is $15, and Bobbi Brown's is $21, so MAC is definitely the better deal and they have a wider variety of colors. I still haven't tried the Clinique liner that Erin recommended, but that's my next step when I am next at the Clinique counter.

Halloween Is Over

Did anyone else buy make-up especially for Halloween? I was an 80s pop star for Halloween, and, of course, I couldn't be an 80s anything without blue eyeshadow. I popped into MAC for some blue eyeshadow, where Kristen (my stunning MAC-anista) played with a dark blue and smoky black eye to go with my Halloween costume.

The color was impeccable, and I wish I could share with you the looks I received when I popped into White House Black Market next. I was definitely the brightest thing in there.

The blue eyeshadow was perfect for Halloween, but the next morning I still woke up with a full pot of blue eyeshadow, one I didn't want to waste now that Halloween was over. I mulled over how to wear it stylishly, finally deciding on a day when I felt bright eyeshadow would compliment my outfit.

I started with a soft, muted purple from The Body Shop over my whole lid. I took a darker purple in the crease of my eye, and I ended the look by applying the blue in the outer corners of my eye.

I liked the look. The blue added to the pallate without becoming overpowering. I hope to use it often and find other ways to wear it before next Halloween.

Does anyone else have Halloween make-up they aren't sure how to use? Let's help each other find ways to use these seemingly-useless looks.

Phenomenal

After a girlfriend told me she loved Givenchy's new Phenomen'eyes mascara, I decided it was worth a shot. I sort-of liked the look of the wand, and I wondered how it would work on my eyes.

My girlfriend was right. This is a great mascara. The small ball at the end of the wand is especially great for those hard-to-snag lower lashes and the lashes on the inner corner of my eyes. I'm surprised no one has come up with something like this sooner, and I would definitely recommend it to friends and blog readers. It's still not my favorite mascara, but it isn't one I regret buying, and as I become more adept at the wand, I may like it even more. At $28 this would make a great stocking stuffer.

Reader Question: Shu Uemura Painting Liner

I had someone write to ask if I knew anything about Shu Uemura Painting Liners. At the time I didn't, but they sounded fun, so I decided to investigate. I ordered the product online in gold, and I wanted to give it a fair shake by using it a couple times before writing a review (hence the delay - sorry, Julie!).

The first time I used the eye liner was to attend a friend's wedding. The liner comes in a pot, and in order to use it properly, you need an eye liner brush. I have Bobbi Brown's Ultra Thin Eye Liner brush that I purchased along with a pot of Bobbi Brown eye liner. I was having an off-night and applying make-up as if it were my first day of junior high school. So when the liner traveled onto my lashes in the evening (even my husband pointed it out, so you know it was a lot of liner on my lashes), I figured it could be user error.

I tried again several days later. I used my ultra thin eye liner brush, but the line I created didn't turn out ultra thin. It was smudgy, and I had eye liner in a lot of places I didn't want it by the time I was finished. Fortunately, by the time I left the bathroom, it had dispersed so evenly all around my entire eye area, that I didn't have to worry about a smudgy line. I just had sparkly gold eyes. I wasn't impressed.

This morning I gave one final go at it. I think I've found a way to make it work. I applied it before my eye shadow (with my liner brush again, and then swept the eye shadow over it, hoping it would keep it in place. In fact, I do have a nice sparkly line around the rims of my eyes, although some of it has traveled to other parts of my general eye area. That isn't a bad thing since I purchased a sparkly gold color, but it would be a bad thing if I had purchased black or brown.

Overall, I don't think it's a terrible product. I just don't think it's a great product. I've been very happy with my Bobbi Brown Gel Eyeliner. With my thin eyeliner brush, I can create a very tiny, straight line. Bobbi Brown does not have the colorful pallette that Shu Uemura has, and her products are not going to be sparkly either. If you are looking for a neutral color, however, I believe that's the way to go. For those of you who want to be a little more daring with your eye liner, I am planning to explore the gel eyeliner option MAC has next week.

Stay posted. And if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at explorefashion@gmail.com