I was in Bed, Bath & Beyond buying a blender and in my new city their B, B & B has a huge cosmetics section, what? They had an even larger display calling my name-Volume, length and on sale mascara? Done and done. I bought both the blender and The Rocket mascara. I had high hopes for this mascara, I have enjoyed the Falsies Flared Mascara by Maybelline so I was sure that The Rocket would trump it. I was wrong. Whenever I buy a new mascara I always wipe off the wand on a tissue prior to use to remove excess product, I tried this and found my wand littered with tissue pieces. You see The Rocket wand has stiff, non-flexible bristles. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be a deal breaker, it could have been the key to mascara perfection but alas it deposited the mascara unevenly and gloppy, if I brushed through the lashes I could get some length, but volume looked like it was created via clumping, not a pretty look. Not one to give up, I was willing to go the extra mile for a mascara if the formula delivered so I tried the Flared brush with the formula but it was equally awkward and clumpy. I allowed the lashes to dry and I combed them out with my mascara comb, it just made my lashes look long and spindly.  It’s safe to say this is not something I will ever be purchasing again and won’t be recommending.

Have you tried this mascara before?  Is there a drug store brand mascara that you currently adore? My friend Rachel is loving the L’Oreal Voluminous Power 24 Hour mascara, she claims you can even work out in it!

I have mentioned many times that I deal with hyper pigmentation on my cheeks. I wish it were freckles but it honestly looks like dirt. I have tried many products and I have liked this Neutrogena product the best, but it’s still there and I rely on great concealer and avoiding the sun at all costs, thus my complexion is a bit on the off-green side as I am pale with yellow/green undertones, seriously without make-up I am a vision. When I was in Los Angeles last I was out with a make-up artist friend and I was asking/grilling her about color correctors when she suggested something out of left field, she suggested I use bronzer. I wasn’t sure if she understood what I was trying to do, but I persisted that I needed to camouflage the brown spots and she again suggested bronzer. “Use your concealer, your blush and then add the bronzer where the sun would hit you naturally, it will look like you are glowing and you won’t notice the hyper pigmentation.”  Since you don’t really need to twist my arm to get me to try a new beauty trick, I got her recommendation for a good bronzer (this one seems to work nicely for more pale complexions) and tried it in the shop. I realize now what I had been doing wrong with the bronzer prior which looked terrible and was why I never wore it.  I was first of all using the wrong colors, you want to get one that is less on the shimmer and more on the matte side. The Nars Laguna seems to be a nice universally loved color and it lasts forever (on Sephora it has nearly 2,000 five star reviews!).  Secondly, I would previously either use it like it was a blush or put it over my entire face, which both ways seemed to create a dullness and not that glow I thought I would get.  She had me put it on from the top of my cheek bones to the temple, around the hairline, down my nose and under the chin/jawline. This has to be done with a light touch so you look sun-kissed and not like you need a wash cloth.  I was pleasantly (and happily) surprised by the results. You don’t need to be hiding hyper pigmentation to use it, but it’s always fun to learn beauty tricks from the pros.  You can also use it for contouring, which I don’t have the full hang of but if you want to know what makes the celebs so darn good looking (besides genetics and good plastic surgery) it’s knowing how to contour properly. This is one of the best tutorials around for it.

RESOURCES:

How-to apply bronzer by Scott Barnes (he’s the genius behind J.Lo’s glow)

How-to apply bronzer for fair skin

Did any of you already know this trick? Do you have a bronzer that you love? Have you tried the contouring?  Any tips on how to perfect it?

P.S. I’m doing my first Besotted Brand giveaway since the move and it’s a big one! Enter to win here.

I have had a serious case of the uglies with all this cross country moving, stress, motion sickness and sleepless nights going on. I decided that I needed some serious help and surgery was not an option so I went to Sephora instead.  I had such success with the Make Up Forever HD Invisible foundation, that I decided to try their highly rated concealer. My usual favorite concealer was not cutting my new set of complexion disasters and I needed help stat.  I have to say this concealer is better than this one (which make-up artist and beauty editors adore and is very hard on the budget). I think Make Up Forever has created maybe one of the world’s most perfect concealers. It doesn’t crease, a little goes a long way; it covers blemishes, dark circles and even my hyper-pigmentation without being noticeable that you are wearing concealer. I have dry skin but my best friend has oily skin and has loved it as much as I have. I know having a great attitude helps with the way one is perceived but having a secret weapon concealer is just as good (maybe better).

P.S. I am out of my mind excited that Smashbox has a new CC cream!  I still have some BB creams to use up, but this new CC cream shall be my next purchase (I have been very happy with their BB creams and have bought three tubes since it launched, it’s a great product). Have you tried it yet?

When I went off on my 10 day scouting trip to the West Coast last month I had all my beauty accoutrements in place that I have been using with success out here in the boonies.  When I landed in L.A. I realized immediately I was going to need the ‘harder’ stuff.  I don’t know if it was all night travel, airplane cabin pressure or what have you, but my skin was looking a little worse for wear.  I knew I was meeting a lot of people for the first time and I didn’t want to scare them off so I made a quick a.m. pit stop at Sephora. I am not a big foundation fan, I have a problem with texture, I believe a lot of you that like the BB creams have the same issue;  I just don’t want to feel anything heavy, sticky or make-up like on my visage, but I needed to cover all the multitude of problems that had cropped up on that cross country/no sleep flight.  I asked a few make-up artists what they would recommend and it seemed a resounding double thumbs up for a new product on the market from Make up For Ever–Their HD Foundation.  The HD stands for High Definition and what it does is allow a camera to get right up in your face and your skin will still look natural (ie. texture, it’s real skin!), the same holds true for the human eye, your skin will look like skin, such a novel idea!  The consistency of the product is also very light, for some it might be too light, it has the consistency of water, which means you will need to use sparingly and build and also be careful.  I wouldn’t be using this on the commuter train into work, this is in front of your bathroom sink mirror use only. I like to apply all my face coverage (that includes BB creams) with a brush.  I am notoriously heavy handed so a brush prevents me from looking like the actress from the former Drew Carey show. I picked up my brushes from Ulta, they were a great price for the quality, these brushes are amazing, they leave a beautiful finished look and you won’t look like you are wearing much make-up (even if you are).  Yes, using brushes means that you will most likely use more product, but for me it’s a fair trade to not go out looking like a lady of the night. In the beginning using a brush may seem like it’s more time consuming but I can get my make-up on and my brushes cleaned in mere minutes, it’s really about practice. So, what are my thoughts on the HD Make-up?  I love it!  For a foundation it’s amazing, it doesn’t feel heavy and it works very well with my dry skin. I don’t know how it would work on an oilier complexion, but it should work great on normal skin.  It’s easy to use (if you are near a sink), it covers extremely well and you can build coverage. It covered my blemishes from travel and hyper pigmentation without a problem. I didn’t feel ‘masky’ wearing it and it lasted the entire day for me (I did wear a light mineral powder with it if I knew I was going to be gone all day).  You could mix this with your BB cream if you wanted more coverage than your BB cream may give you.

Have any of you tried this product?  What are your thoughts?  It is a bit spendy, but I don’t use a lot so I think it works out per use and there’s currently nothing like it on the Drug Store front that would be comparable.

I live with a fitness professional and lifelong athlete, I on the hand am a lapsed athlete and fitness procrastinator. I used to be a long distance runner and once my knees and hips would not cooperate anymore I quit cold turkey. I hadn’t exercised in years until recently, my husband had finally broken me down and got me to start again. We have been doing a TRX  suspension band type work-out which I am really enjoying and now I have decided to dip my toe into exploring other options. One discipline keeps coming up (and a lot of you have mentioned it in one form or another) and it’s the ballet barre method. When Sarah of Truly Smitten Instagrammed her copy of Ballet Beautiful I had to research more. Professional ballerina Mary Helen Bowers is behind the movement and if I could look like her I am totally in, you?  Bowers offers multiple ways to get started on her program from DVD’s to on-line streaming classes to the most innovative which is the remote live-classes. I can’t even get into how genius I think this is.  Bowers will teach her class remotely, you can be anywhere in the world near your computer and she will be able to correct your form, give you feedback and of course it would be nice to have the moral support to know you are not working out alone–brilliant! I definitely would like to try one of the live remote classes one day but I think I might just try a couple of the on-line streaming classes first to see if I can even do the exercises being the exercise novice that I have become. How about you?  Have any of you tried Ballet Beautiful? I know a few of you are doing versions of the barre method I am anxious to here your feedback on this!

P.S. How gorgeous is this girl? I can’t even get over it!