eBates and Low-buys and Hauls, oh my!

Hi internet! Hope you're well and enjoyed yourself on Mother's Day. I'm actually not a huge fan of Mother's Day. Either I'm feeling guilty or I'm making someone else feel guilty. Bah, humbug, say I.

I've come up with three ways to celebrate Mother's Day that don't involve getting dressed up or eating brunch. Two of these are sushi and superhero movies, so maybe you're not interested. The third is shopping for frivolous items that I can pretend are presents from a strangely girly and extravagant set of children.

I mean, yes, I would have loved it if my kids had noticed that I'm running dangerously low on Estee Lauder Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia eau de parfum and decided to replenish my supply. That would have been thoughtful. But it's not going to happen while they're unemployed full-time students whose distance from home precludes taking regular inventories of my perfume stash.

So, yeah. I buy myself Mother's Day presents. But this is not mere extravagance; this is shopping as a form of sport. My so-called "smart shopper" characteristics rise to the fore as I figure out how to get a great deal on the presents I'm buying for myself.

This year I discovered that because it's their anniversary, eBates is offering massive rebates this week--I'm talking 15 percent. And Neiman Marcus is offering gift cards with purchases, so I was angling for one of those, too. Also, I discovered that eBates is offering a $50 rebate with a $250 Neiman Marcus purchase--not sure about that one, but fingers and toes crossed that I scored that as well.

Math? Sure. A $250 purchase would net a $67 eBates check, a $50 NM gift card and possibly an additional $50 eBates rebate.

What did I buy? Mostly, I got skincare.

I got a Chantecaille retinol night creme.

Chantecaille Retinol Intense +

 I've tried the prescription-only product and didn't react well to it, so I thought I'd restart my Retinol Journey™ with a product that pinky swears it's gentle. 

Clinique Moisture Surge Extended Thirst

I also got a jar of Clinique Moisture Surge, which I discovered (N.B. marketing people at Clinique) through a sample. You know that feeling when you spritz yourself with Evian in a can? This creme is like that feeling made three dimensional. Honestly, it's like water-in-a-can-in-a-jar.

I've also been using this Estee Lauder Essence after cleansing, before moisturizing. Again, from a sample. (Who knew samples made you buy shit?) I like it and have gone through about half my little bottle.

Micro Essence Skin Activating Treatment Lotion, 150 mL

This product is Estee Lauder trying to embrace Asian skincare. In fact, I believe they started by marketing it only in Asia. I'm not sure whether this product contains sufficient amounts of miraculous skin care ingredients, but I'm all about the hydration these days, and like adding a layer of moisture under my moisturizer.

Clinique Lid Smoothie Eye Shadow

I also picked out a creme eyeshadow. I'm experimenting with makeup minimalism (BWAHAHAHA no really) and my latest eye look is using my finger to apply the lid shade from Wet n Wild's Walking on Eggshells trio just to the lid. I thought it might be nice to get a similar product in a tube, for ease of transport. So I got this.

Plus it has anti-oxidants!!!

Come to think of it, I suppose it's meet and right that I bought this stuff for myself. If the climax of my family's celebration had been "Happy Mother's Day--here's something for your wrinkles!" things wouldn't have gone particularly well.

(GWPs and free samples were also involved, but I'll spare you.)

Those Goddamned Too Faced dessert-themed palettes—another rant by Auntie Haul

You know the old Amish saying: "We are too soon old and too late smart." Well, that about sums me up.

Example: I've finally realized that really, really popular, best-selling, holy grail palettes tend to attain that status by appealing to the mean. If your skin tone is markedly lighter or darker than the mean, there is an excellent chance that the colors won't work for you.

Most palettes produced in the post-Urban Decay Naked palette world include light, medium, and deep shades of beige and brown that are used to contour the eye socket. (You know the drill: medium on the lid; dark in the crease; light under the brow bone.)

Exhibit A: a smoky eye

Because the smoky eye has been the reigning eye look for about the past decade, neutral palettes also tend to include at least one very deep shade. Here, it's blended on top of the eyeliner and into the crease, then smoked out to give that soft, gradient look.

To do this, you need a transition shade. This is the color you apply in and above the crease to help the dark shade blend seamlessly into your highlight. In the picture above, you can see it being used above the crease color and under the browbone highlight shade.

The transition shade should be four or five shades darker than your complexion. The problem is that if you're super pale, many palettes include transition shades that are far too dark.

Exhibit B: The stupid palette that cost me $50

In the picture above, I'm assuming that Milk Chocolate, the matte light brown shade in the middle of the top row, is the transition shade. Another candidate would be Salted Caramel, with is the first shadow in the middle row, all the way to the left. It's matte, with a soft, almost velvety texture, but it's a very warm brown that pulls weirdly yellow on me.

The other colors seem like they'd be fun, and I guess if you're judging merely from the palette's adherence to its theme, they're great. I mean, with names like Cherry Cordial, Candied Violet, and Marzipan, the whole thing is as well thought out as a ride at Disney World. It's just that the colors are mostly very dark and too shimmery/sparkly and basically WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Hype, Falling For

I wasn't thinking. I fell like a ton of bricks for the hype. Hundreds of five-star reviews and YouTube raves will do that. So, what insanely valuable lesson have I learned from this?

First, stick to what works. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, allow me to draw your attention to exhibit C., a Too Faced palette that dates to the Jurassic period, before Too Faced started turning their makeup into candy. A palette with a transition shade that works for the ghostly pale moi.

My ancient Too Faced Natural Eyes palette

The middle shade in the top row, Velvet Revolver, is my perfect transition shade. I love it to death and wish it weren't so ridiculously tiny.

So, having learned this expensive (and embarrassingly obvious) lesson, guess what I'm not tempted by? Not even a little bit?

Too Faced's Chocolate Bon Bon palette, released in December, 2015:

And Too Faced's Sweet Peach palette, which was just released, and—speaking of hype—is already sold out.

TL:DR

Sell me one cutesy-themed unwearable eye shadow palette, shame on you. Sell me more than one--sell me a endless flood of the goddamned things? Shame on me.

Review: Chanel Illusion d'Ombre in Rivière from the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.

Like the rest of the Chanel products offered by Nordstrom for their Anniversary Sale, Rivière was originally sold exclusively in Asia. It was enthusiastically reviewed on Café Makeup and The Non-Blonde, so I made a beeline to the sale to buy it.

Rivière is a beautiful minty blue-green shade. It's silvery-shimmery with a very pearly finish. I know that women of a certain age are supposed to be careful about pearly finishes and totally avoid glitter, but I think a little bling close to the lashes or a light wash on the lid is appropriate, and the good news is that with this creme/gel formula, the pearliness stays put. It doesn't go all Urban Decay and wander off, only to end up highlighting my crinkles.

The texture is a very fluffy gel//creme, unique to Chanel, which can be applied as a shadow, a liner, or a liner that is blended out for a beautiful smoky eye.

The little pot comes with a small synthetic brush, so you have the option of using the brush or applying the shadow with your fingers.

The bottom of the pot and the little brush

Staying power is good; I use concealer as my eyeshadow base, and the Illusion d'Ombre shadows last all day on me.

Chanel Rivière swatched heavily on my inner arm. Please forgive the terrible lighting! The weather hasn't been cooperative this week, so I had to take the picture indoors on a cloudy day.

My reaction to this color? Definitely mixed. I love the idea of a blue-green color; it's a nice change from my usual beiges, and I find that teal eyeshadow brings out the green in my hazel eyes.

But I find this shade almost magically impossible to apply evenly. Rivière is much more pastel than the Illusions d'Ombres I've tried, and I'm finding it hard to figure out how much to apply. It's hard to apply enough so that it shows, but not so much that it balls up on my eyelid. 

I'm also having difficulty imagining whom this shadow would flatter. I think if you're very fair-skinned and look good in pastel shades of makeup, this shade might be beautiful on you. But I'm fair, and I had difficulty making the shadow show.

I fully intend to keep playing with this shade, and I'll also try it on my daughter, who patiently lets me use her as a guinea pig. But for the moment, I can't recommend this shadow.

Also? Chanel prices are always ridiculous, but the Illusion d'Ombre Riviere eye shadow costs $36. For that price, I say it's not worth the money. Illusion d'Ombre shadows are wonderful, and I definitely recommend them--just not this shade. 

Links for a lazy weekend II

So, the week is over, and both my children have their learner's permits. I will not go into the drama that that particular accomplishment entailed ... suffice to say that I'm having a well-deserved beer and looking forward to some relaxation, grilling, hanging out with friends, and a matinée of a couple of restored Méliès films. If you're trying to have a relaxing weekend, too, try pairing the following posts with your beverage of choice.

If you ever want to work up the nerve to wear anything ... a mohawk, say, or a cute blouse from H&M, or a pair of shorts because even though you're middle-aged, it's pretty effing hot out--and you need a pep talk--read this post by Eve at xoJane.

Just in time for beauty bloggers and others of you heading to New York for BlogHer, Xiao of Messy Wands has written a guide to makeup shopping in Manhattan.

I thought being middle-aged means everything I know is wrong. But can it be true? Matching lips and fingertips are back in style? Somehow I find that comforting.

Elizabeth Arden is one of those brands that I routinely write off as old lady and boring. Leave it to the British Beauty Blogger to convince me to take a second look. I mean, eye shadows that provide anti-aging benefits? Genius.

Katherine of Not Dressed as Lamb shared her thoughts on aging. Here's a teaser:

I won't kid myself that I have Cameron's legs, Thandie's beautiful skin tone or Dita's tiny waist, but I won't even consider comfort without style until Gwyneth does.

Vanessa of NessasaryMakeup gives a fantastic step-by-step tutorial on doing a dramatic smoky eye.  (She also has a nice chart of where to apply eye shadows.)

Want to get into meditation but don't have time? And anyway, meditation would take away from the time you spend looking at pretty things? Check out Chanel makeup director Peter Philip's latest video. Shiny!

I'll work on some more reviews of my Nordstrom anniversary goodies.

Meanwhile, Mesdames et mademoiselles, cultivez vos jardins!

Yves St. Laurent to offer an exclusive eyeshadow quad on Facebook [UPDATED]

On Thursday,  July 19, YSL will release a new, limited-edition eye shadow palette, "Devoted to Fans," on Facebook. 

The "Devoted to Fans" quad was produced to thank YSL's Facebook fans. YSL claims that this palette is "the first exclusive entirely digital product for Facebook fans." 

Only 1650 pieces will be produced world-wide, with 500 of these available in the United States. No word yet on price or what the logistics of the sale will be, although you have to have "liked" YSL to be able to buy the palette.

Do I need yet another eye shadow quad? No, I do not. Do I predict a crazy stampede? Yes, I do. Am I fascinated by major high-end cosmetics companies not just marketing, but actually selling cosmetics on Facebook? You bet.

UPDATE: OK, here's the scoop. The quad costs $55. It's sold through YvesSaintLaurent.com. To get it, you have to "Like" Yves Saint Laurent Fragrances and Beauty on Facebook. Then click through the icon of the palette and it will take you to the YSL site.

Review: Chanel's Rives Eye Shadow quad (35)

I came home from Nordstrom with the complete Anniversary Exclusive collections from Chanel, Dior, and Bobbi Brown. I'm planning on reviewing every item between now and August 6, the last day of the sale. Nordstrom card holders have early access to the sale, which doesn't start officially until July 20.

Chanel Rives 35 indoors by lamplight

I thought I'd start by reviewing the Chanel beauty exclusives, because they received the least amount of press. This collection wasn't pictured in the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale catalog, and I've heard that some Nordstroms only received half a dozen or so of each item.

The Chanel Rives 35 eye quad, originally available only in Asia as part of this spring's Fleur de Lotus collection, is the unloved stepchild of the collection. It hasn't generated much buzz, even among Chanel fans.

Rives features four shades of brown and a white. Even die-hard Chanel fanatics are probably wondering whether it would be worth it to buy Yet Another Chanel Neutral Eye Quad. Are these colors unique and special enough to justify Chanel's ridiculous prices?

I'm a huge fan of neutral eye shadows--I really prefer them for those of us past our first youth. They're universally flattering, and they can be light and subtle or dark and dramatic.  As a result, I've accumulated a scary number of neutral Chanel quads.

Poppy's Chanel eye quads.

I hate to say this, but I find the Rives quad unique. Some of the Chanel neutral shades are a bit murky (Prèlude and Enigma, I'm looking at you) but the shades in Rives are sheer, straightforward browns with a beautiful shimmer and without a hint of plum or gray. I think they'd work with every eye color and skin tone, whether your complexion was warm, neutral, or cool.

As with most Chanel quads, pigment varies from shade to shade. In general, the finish is sheer and the shades are blendable. The lighter shades are meant to be used as a wash and don't leave a lot of pigment. The white looks chalky in the pan, but applies as a wash of sheer, shimmery lightness. The darkest shade is designed to be used as a liner and is much more heavily pigmented.

With makeup fanatics, it's a cliche that the applicators that come packaged with eye shadow and blushes are complete garbage, and should be immediately pitched. This is especially true of sponge-tipped applicators. And it's true that the small, hard black sponge-tipped applicators that come in American Chanel quads are horrible.

However, I got my best results applying these shadows with the plush sponge-tipped applicators they came with. I use a silicone-based concealer as a primer, and I find that other, very pigmented shadows (e.g., Urban Decay or MAC) grab the primer so hard that they become difficult to blend. Not these shadows. They're so soft, it's like working with confectioner's sugar. They blended beautifully when I applied them onto primed eyelids with the sponge-tipped applicators.

Swatches

Here they are in the early morning light. I applied concealer first. For the left four stripes, I used a brush to apply. I started with the lightest shade and worked my way up to the darkest. Unfortunately, the white shade doesn't show at all. You can only see a hint of the shimmer.

Chanel Rives 35 quad, applied over primer (left) with a brush, and (right) with the sponge-tipped applicator

The four stripes on the right are swatched fairly heavily with the sponge-tip. As you can see, the white shade shows up much better.

Here's the quad, outdoors in morning light. The sun has finally come out enough to reveal some of the shimmer.

In this picture, I swatched all four shades on the paper, so again, it's impossible to see the white.

It's rare that I use all four shades in a quad, but these shades work beautifully together.

To buy, or not to buy

Rives is much prettier, less murky, and works better with my fair skin and hazel eyes than either Prèlude, Enigma, or Dunes. This quad is definitely worth a buy--if you're comfortable paying $58 for four eye shadows, and don't, like some people I know, already own 5,000 shades of brown eye shadow.

I don't know whether these are going to sell out, so if you're interested, call Nordstrom. The pre-sale started July 11th; the sale officially starts July 20th and ends August 6th.

---

Elsewhere:


The entire Fleur de Lotus collection is previewed on Rouge Deluxe.


Another review, from a Singapore beauty blogger.

I've just invented a new acronym, NASII, which stands for Nordstrom Anniversary Sale induced insanity

OK, it doesn't look like much--NASII--but it's pronounced nay-see to rhyme with crazy, which is pretty much how I acted.

So let me get you up to speed.

First of all, until July 20th, the Anniversary Sale is only available to Nordstrom card holders. You can't even access that section of their website without typing in the last four digits of your Nordstrom credit card number.

I wanted to grab some pictures and maybe find out whether Nordstrom was actually offering Chanel's formerly-exclusive-to-Asia Fleur de Lotus collection, so I dug through my box of rarely-used credit cards, looking for my Nordstrom card. And I couldn't find it.

Because I was a makeup hoor* on a mission, I called customer service, where I was told that they had no record of my having a card. So I applied for a new one.

Then, after a visit to the gym, where my daughter hummed a little hum and pedaled 20 miles on a stationary bike without breaking a sweat and I was reduced to a limp, sweaty, incoherent rag by my personal trainer, we cleaned up our act, fueled ourselves with Mocha smoothies (caffeine and protein FTW!) and headed to the Nordstrom at Old Orchard mall.

Where I promptly lost. my. mind. I've shopped the Anniversary Sale online, but this scene was beyond exciting. It was electric. Not ridiculously crowded, and with lots of sales associates ready and willing to help out. But with sections of the store draped off as seductive little private shopping enclaves, it's very easy to lose it.

Don't believe me? Well, see these collections?

Dior

Chanel

Bobbi Brown

I bought every single item.

And then escaped to the relative sanity of the shoe department. And yes, I understand the irony of calling the shoe department of the department store that sells more shoes than any other--during a sale where merchandise is marked down 30 percent--sane.

I don't know about you, but I blame my trainer.

Swatches and reviews to come. 


* Deliberately misspelled in a feeble attempt to clean up my act.

Chanel Collection Byzance Fall 2011 makeup collection

This spring, I spent a while kicking myself for not having gotten my mitts on Chanel's Ombres Perlées eyeshadow palette while it was still available. The colors looked perfect for hazel eyes.

So I went all Scarlet O'Hara and shook my fist at the sky and declared that as God was my witness, I was never going to miss the opportunity to score a Chanel limited edition cosmetic ever again.

So when I discovered the fall collection was up at Chanel.com, I ordered pretty much every limited edition color they had. Want to see?

Let's start with the lips.


Somebody really needs to get rid of that ancient Shellac manicure

I got a Rouge Allure in Rouge Byzantin, the lip pencil in Rose Cuivre, and a LE Glossimer in Braise (158).

As you can see, the Byzantin Rouge Allure is almost fuschia. After so many years of my-lips-but-better pinky brown glosses, it looks ... very bright. I'm trying not to freak out over it. After all, Sandra Bullock wore hot pink lipstick the night she won her Oscar. And Taylor Swift always wears bright lipstick. Which means the bright lipstick trend will work its way into the general public as sure as rain rises up the legs of my jeans. And for "general public" read "women of a certain age." Yes, even us.

(Deep breath. It's OK. You start small. You apply the lipstick, blot it to tone down the color, then add a little gloss.)

On the other hand, Braise is a much more wearable sheer light red--very lightly brown-red, actually--with gold microglitter.

The lip pencil is from the regular collection. It's not a LE, but I thought it would look good under the Glossimer. And it does.

OK, let's talk eyes. I also got the limited-edition eye shadow quad in Topkapi with four shades: a warm medium brown, a light taupe, a dark chocolate matte brown, and a gold.



Here it is swatched. As you can see, all the shades are quite shimmery, except for the chocolate brown.

I'm not going to pretend that these are basic, every day colors, but I can easily imagine getting a lot of use out of all the colors (well, except for the gold. I'm not Mr. T.) But the gold looks beautiful as a highlight on the inside corner of the eye, in the center of the lid, or under the bottom lashes.



I also got two shades of the Illusion D'Ombre cream eyeshadow. I must say, I can't wait to play with these. They are so gorgeous, and they have a wonderful mousse-like texture (actually, I'm sure this is what the Maybelline Dream Mousse eyeshadows were like.)

I got Epatant, the dark, charcoal green pictured above, and Illusoire, a deep plum. I forgot to take a picture of Illusoire, so here's the photograph from the Chanel website.

In this picture, I had just lightly touched my finger to each shade to swatch them.


 Illusoire on top, Epatant on the bottom

As you can see, these shades can be quite subtle and lovely.

The makeup artist at the Chanel boutique in Chicago showed me some of the Illusion D'Ombre shades applied with a brush, and they are gorgeous. Really incredible looking. (I was very taken with Ebloui, a lighter shade of mauve-lilac, but I didn't buy it.)

There are two limited-edition shades of powder blusher: Joues Contrast Rouge in Rouge and Or. Which means red and gold. And they are:



Here's a close-up of each shade:

Amazingly enough, they can be quite subtle. Especially for colors that look like two-thirds of a traffic light, No, really. I first applied them to my hand with my Lancome skunk brush and I couldn't even see the colors. I went over my original application using the brushes that came in the compact, and the colors were still pretty subtle. Finally I went all out, applying the gold shade and then lots of red on top, for a full-on scarlet fever look. And even then, it's not as clown-like as you'd think.

Finally, I bought a bottle of Peridot nail polish. Lately, Chanel polishes always seem to start a crazy lemming rush, and I wanted to grab a bottle before they were sold out. (In fact, now that I think about it, I was inspired to hit the Chanel website in the first place because I saw a bottle of Peridot for sale on ebay for some ridiculous amount of money--$45 or so.)

The picture in the eBay auction was what you'd expect a polish called Peridot to look like--a light yellow-green. In actuality, the polish flashes teal and gold and is never actually stays still long enough to look green, if that makes sense. I don't know whether I'll ever want to wear it; I may exchange it for a bottle of Quartz, which looks like Particulière with very fine shimmer.

At any rate, I tried to give you a sense of what Peridot polish looks like:

But I finally decided I needed to let you see the bottle in action. So here you go--my first mini video review.

To sum up, I'd say the entire collection is drop-dead gorgeous, but not every product is worth buying. Illusions Dombre are definitely worth a look; so is the Topkapi Quad, if you don't already have a ton of brown, beige, and gold shadows. The gold shadow is gorgeous and can be applied lightly or sponged on for a very dramatic effect. The nail polishes are interesting, and I'd suggest taking a look at Graphite, a medium gray with lots of silver microglitter, or Quartz, a taupey-beigey brown with tiny particles of micro glitter. Both are probably more wearable than Peridot. The limited edition blushes are interesting, and if you're a real makeup maven, you'll want to add these unique shades to your collection, but as for wearability and general usefulness. And the lipsticks are beautiful, but probably not worth getting.

(Just watch as a huge lemming rush starts over gold blush and fuschia lipstick!)

Is Urban Decay seriously trying to bring back body glitter? Seriously?

Because I am a famous beauty and style blogger as well as a compulsive shopper, I don't just get the usual email from online retailers. I also get flooded with PR pitches as well as newsletters from every beauty and style board I've ever joined. Which means that every time a new product comes out, I'm going to hear about it at least three times.

Which is three times more than I want to hear about Urban Decay's "new" highlighting product.

I remember when I first moved to the suburbs and had to deal with massive numbers of trick or treaters. At the end of the night, there were a few bold teenagers who were willing to risk being told they were too old to go trick or treating.

I was happy to see them, because it meant I'd be able to dump the last of the candy--less for the kids who just showed up, more for the kids who had made at least some effort to dress up, even if it was just a quick insta-costume.

Now, ten years ago, the insta-costume for teenaged girls was to put a couple of flocks of baby butterfly clips in their hair and smear on a lot of body glitter.

Can it be 2000 again already?

If you can stand to spend the 1:30, watch this video as one of the co-founders of Urban Decay applies sparkly highlighter all over a young woman whose smooth, perfect skin makes her look like a Bratz Doll, albeit slightly more animated.

http://www.urbandecay.com/index.cfm?LID=NEW2766

Ladies, I know you're not even tempted. Just use this video as an object lesson, and continue to say no to glitter.

I swear, if I wake up screaming in the night, it'll be because I had a nightmare about being caught in public with glitter down the middle of my nose. And on my neck. And sternum.

Urban Decay, you have a lot to answer for. I mean, come on--weren't you just selling all that glittery makeup, like eight years ago? Like I'm going to fall for that played out shiznit.

Lucky for you, your pencil eyeliners are the bomb-diggity.

Finally!--an Urban Decay palette for grown-ups.

Urban Decay makes some of the nicest eye shadows out there: the colors are gorgeous, and the texture is soft and blendable. I've loved them for years, and over the years, I somehow managed to accumulate a bunch of UD palettes.

It took a while, but I finally realized that Urban Decay eye shadows are too glittery and/or shimmery, and most of them aren't appropriate for a woman of a certain age. It also finally dawned on me that UD repackages the same colors in their palettes over and over again.

It was time for me to back away from the UD palettes. (Or buy them as presents for my daughter.)

But I just found out from The Best Things in Beauty that in July, Urban Decay will be releasing a new set of shadows in neutral shades. They look really gorgeous, and six of the twelve shades will be new!

The collection will include Sin, Naked, Sidecar (which formerly appeared in the Book of Shadows, Volume 1) Half Baked, Smog, and Toasted and the followed new shades:

1. Virgin--Satin chamois
2. Buck--Matte nutmeg
3. Darkhorse--Bronze patina
4. Hustle--Plum brown satin
5. Creep--Onyx with gold sparkle
6. Gunmetal--Gunmetal gray with silver glitter

The Naked palette will sell for $44 and will include a double-ended 24/7 pencil in Zero (black) and Whiskey (brown).

Thanks to The Best Things in Beauty's Charlestongirl and Tavia of Chic Profile for the head's up.

Eye shadow as contour: the theory

I'm probably getting really repetitive on the subject of neutral eyeshadow, but Sephora keeps filling my mailbox with catalogs showing models wearing truly outlandish colors--glittery turquoise stripes were featured in the latest--so it doesn't look as though I'll be shutting up any time soon.

So I'll say it again: neutral eye shadows are fantastic on women of a certain age. They do what eye shadow is supposed to do; shadow and sculpt the eyes to make them look bigger, brighter, and more expressive.

They do this by contouring the eye area. Now, it took me a long time to accept the fact that I was going to talk about using eye makeup to contour the eye area, because the old school notions of contouring seem hopelessly out of date.

You know what I mean when I talk about contouring the face with makeup, right? It's a makeup technique where you apply lighter makeup where you want a feature to appear higher or more prominent, and darker makeup where you want a feature to appear deeper or less prominent.

It's frequently used to make noses appear straighter and narrower, or make cheekbones look more prominent. But here's the thing about contouring: it's hard to make it look natural. It was first used in stage makeup, where the audience is very far away from the actors. Then it was used in black and white movies and stills, where you have dramatic lighting and a general aura of glamorous artificiality. But even then, makeup artists had to know what they were doing. Back then--and right now--when you shade and highlight an area, it's all about blending and soft, subtle shades.

As an example of what I'm talking about, take Marlene Dietrich. Her entire face was nothing but makeup and lighting. Here's a photograph of her standing next to Josef von Sternberg, the director who made her a star.

Notice the fairly flat planes of her face. Now look at her with von Sternberg's trademark lighting and a full face of contoured makeup:

I'm not a makeup artist, and I don't know how to do stage or film makeup, but it's pretty clear that Dietrich is wearing way more makeup than even the average Hollywood star of the 1930s--and they wore plenty.

Check out the contouring. I'm no expert, but I can see that a lighter shade of foundation is blended down the middle of her nose, with a darker shade along the side. In the first picture, it looks like she's wearing highlighter under her eyes, and in the second, it's obvious that the artist used rouge to contour her cheekbones (a trick that works very well in black and white photography, but is much less successful in color photographs or real life.)

Take at Dietrich's eye makeup. Her eyebrows are the stuff of legend, so we won't discuss them, except to warn you not to emulate her. Although tweezing her eyebrows off and drawing them on again much higher up did give Dietrich a much larger area in which to apply eyeshadow.

And what eyeshadow! She's wearing a medium shade from the lash line all the way up to the brows, with a lighter shade on the eyelid and a highlighting shade in the inner corner and in a narrow line under the eye. Her crease is shaded much darker. Her eyes are very wide set, and that, added to the increased height of her brow area, means the makeup artist could apply a ton of dark shadow in the U-shaped crease to the back wedge. Her eyes were big to begin with, but the eyeshadow makes them incredible.

And Dietrich was doing this before eyeshadow was commercially available. Instead, she or her makeup artist used soot mixed with baby oil or petroleum jelly.

There, now. Aren't you ashamed that you're not taking full advantage of the lovely, hygienic ready-made shades now available in stores?

Next on The Beauty Boomer: What I Do, or, I know Poppy Buxom, and she's no Marlene Dietrich.


Elsewhere on the web:

For more on makeup in films, see the article on makeup in Film Reference


For how to look more like Marlene Dietrich, go this article in Suite 101

What do you mean, women don't like using maps?

Hi internet! Listen, I know I've been neglecting you shamefully lately. But I have excuses. Many, in fact.

Mr. Buxom, also known as "Counselor Whup Ass" has been out of town
ruthlessly horsewhipping Intelletual Property scofflaws
at a trial, and I've been the only parent to help with my wonderful, talented children--children whose talents involve lots of driving around and listening to music and cramming for exams and shopping for camp clothes, not to mention the camps themselves. Plus the usual groceries, laundry, cooking, mopping up spills and teenaged angst and what not.

Then there's all that volunteer bullshit I'm always whining about (see tags) like my own talented musical performances and the desktop publishing I'm doing for a non-profit even as we speak. In fact, I'm only here because I'm waiting on some proofs.

But what has suffered? MY BLOG, thank you very much. And MY READERS.

Well, listen, readers--one of the things that has been vexing me has been my printer's inability to scan anything. I had all these pictures I wanted to show you, and the stupid HP All-in-one had become a Part-in-one. And then, a couple of weeks ago, it even balked at printing and morphed into the world's largest paperweight. So I did the smart thing. I checked out the reviews of the HP PhotoSmart C4280 All-In-One printer on Amazon. And I discovered that's it's not me; it's HP.

So I bought a new printer. And I just scanned my first scan! Voila:

Now, other than playing with the new printer, why the scan?

It's to even the playing ground. Because a lot of the time, makeup instructions are written by makeup fanatics for makeup fanatics. I mean, I love MakeupAlley, but with all the talk about the back wedge,  tightlining, and waterlining, those women aren't speaking English.  If you aren't all makeup, all the time, you won't know what they're talking about.

Even makeup fanatics who write books forget to talk down to their readers. Where's Makeup for Dummies when you need it?

But Gentle Reader(s), this is Makeup for Dummies. And I promise, I'll never forget to talk down to you.

So check out this map. Study it. Learn the terminology. Refer back to it. Copy it onto the top of your left hand with a Sharpie. Tattoo it to the small of your back. Be the ball, Danny.

And get ready for Eye Shadow 101.

Ten Things

Blackbird posted recently about ten things that have been good at the office. I'm coming down with something, so at the moment, my office is my king sized bed--but I have 10 good things to tell you about:

1. On the personal front, in the last two weeks, I've survived: a trip to the dentist, two school concerts, three annual meetings, three non-annual meeting-related ladies' luncheons, a Girl Scout's Cadet's flying up ceremony, an engagement party, and Mother's Day. Internet, that is a LOT of irreproachably ladylike behavior from the somewhat loud, obnoxious, and irreverent likes of me.

2. Jen Lancaster's latest book, My Fair Lazy, came out on May 5, and it's already a best-seller. I appear as a character in this book, which means I'm even more famous than I was a month ago. You'll be glad to hear that fame hasn't made some kind of monster of me. I'm pretty humble about the whole thing. But not so humble that I wouldn't want to make sure that the internet realizes Jen didn't actually make me up.

3. Physician's Formula matte eyeshadow quads are rocking my world. They're dirt cheap and the quality is excellent. They're so soft, subtle, blendable, and fun to play with that I'm doing a full-on three-shades-of-eyeshadow dealio every day--even when the only time I see another human being is when I'm wheeling out the recycling bin.

4. Milani has a retractable lip pencil that has stolen the crown from my previous faves, Chanel Nude and Prestige Angora. It's creamier, more of a my-lips-but-better-shade, and I don't have to sharpen it. Mind you, I don't wear it as a liner. I use it all over my lips as a base for gloss. And at $3.49, it's cheap, cheap, cheap.

5. I snagged this pair of Fly London purple Mary Janes on Amazon for something like $50. They are so comfortable! Who cares if my daughter asked me why I always wear such silly shoes? And anyway, it could have been worse. I could have clicked over to Gravity Pope and bought these:

so really, I don't know what her problem is.

6. The Garnier Nutritioniste moisturizer that I love so much that I'm on my fourth bottle? And was afraid had been discontinued? Has NOT been discontinued. The packaging was re-designed. I snagged five bottles of the old design for $2.49 each. (Although the shipping costs were a heinous $14.50.)

7. Lancome's Divine Lasting Curves curling mascara actually works. It is perfect for keeping in my makeup bag, because who wants to carry around an eyelash curler? (This is a rhetorical question being asked by the woman who found three eyelash curlers in her bag the last time she cleaned it out.)

8. Lancome also has an eyeshadow that I got recently as a GWP and just adore. So should you if you have hazel//green eyes. The shade is  called Designer. It's a olive green shade with lots of shimmer--but it's incredibly subtle. I know I'm a strong advocate of a basic, neutral eye shadow, but this stuff goes on sheer and is much more subtle than it looks.

9. Kari at Fabulous Over Forty has called my attention to a root touch-up product that comes packaged like a marker pen. I can't wait to head to Ulta to try it. This sounds like a perfect product for those EEK MY ROOTS ARE SHOWING days.

10. I've accumulated a bunch of neutral eyeshadow quads to tell you about soon. I promise. (When I'm not lying here on my bed of pain, that is.) And some of them are really nice!