It IS The Same Person!

Can you believe that the person on the right is the same as the person on the left? Thanks to our model, Sarah, photographer, Stephanie Olsen, www.stephanieolsen.com, the "classy lady" wig, and yours truly on makeup, this vintage workshop was a huge success! We can be anyone we want to be with a little help from our creative friends.

Bronzer, How Much Is Too Bronze?

Another rumored trend for spring/summer 2010: Fake tans are in, so long as the tan doesn't look too fake. But when do fake tans really look real? I don't get it. How can the beauty industry feed us this and continue getting away with this stuff? If anyone ever reads this blog, please promise yourself to keep your fake tanning to a "so you won't burn on vacation or first time out for the season" low, and behave yourself with your bronzer. Over bronzing and looking brown-orange was not, is not, and will never be in! Load up on the sun block, put your sun glasses and big floppy hat on, grab yourself a good book, a fruity drink, and enjoy the Vitamin D a-la Mother Nature.

Peach & Purple

According to rumors of the runways, peach and purple lips are in. I consider this to be disturbing personally for the following reasons. With regards to peach, my lips turn orange with any kind of coral and peach tone set to them, and with purple, it looks like I am half frozen. Blue lips would make me look completely frozen, so I hope the "blue lip" is a look that stays out of the mainstream trend cycle...forever.
Anyway, I will take my own advice and be sure to find some neutral colors in these peach and purple hues if I am so inclined to bother. Otherwise, I am sticking with my classic, neutral lip color that works. Oh, and here is a solution to a common problem...
You applied a lip color that pulled too much pink on you. Hope that you have an alternate lip color that is on the brown or "warm" side. Once you have found that brown based lip color, apply it directly over the pink! Do the same in reverse if you start off with too much brown or orange. Whenever blue based and brown based colors are mixed together, they neutralize each other. This can save you time from having to take off that awful pink color, and it can save you money because you don't have to run to the makeup counter (again) to buy "the perfect" color. You may have just created it, you makeup "artista".

Makeup Tips

It is difficult to think of beauty and makeup tips on a daily basis because like art, beauty is such a subjective area. If you are looking for the latest trends, there are multitudes of websites to visit every minute that will make you feel so terrible about yourself that you buy whatever it is they are selling, when all you wanted to know was what color eye shadow was "in". And so you come off those sites spending money you didn't need to with a false sense of security about yourself until the next trend comes along. Furthermore, due to the various decades making their comebacks about every 10 years or so, the trends are recycled from the past. I am seeing and hearing the very same things we were told back in the eighties, and, well, let's face it, just about thirty years has gone by. I just don't think my face and body can handle the hip trends of yesterday, laughed at just a few short years ago, and newly recycled the same way they did back when these trends were new. Now that I have confused myself, and maybe you too, here is the solution... Find your classic look, and IGNORE the trends! What looks good on others may not look good on you, so as to never feel left out, here is what you do...
1. Understand your natural skin tone, eye color, and hair color. Notice the "natural". We can change all of these things, of course, but finding your natural base colors is very important. Once you have determined if you look and feel better using or wearing brown based or blue based colors, the possibilities are endless. How do you know if brown based or blue based works for you? Hold up a piece of white paper or fabric close to your face. Hold up a piece of off-white or ivory paper or fabric on the other side. Does one make you look washed out? Does one make you "pop". Whichever makes you pop is the one. White equals blue based, and ivory equals brown based.
2. Understand that our skin changes every seven years, so what may have worked for us several years ago may certainly not work for us anymore. What we are doing now is going to change in a few years. So be cautious of these recycled trends that come along to haunt us!
Fortunately, there are so many neutral colors from clothing to beauty products to choose from, it's not too intimidating to find what works. Overwhelming maybe, but if you can turn it around and make it play time to search for your favorite colors, wouldn't that be so much better?
I know you can do this! Have a wonderful time finding your classic.

Makeup Tip Of The Day

Look polished in three easy steps...
1. Apply a tinted moisturizer. This allows the busy individual to moisturize and balance skin tone in one shot.
2. Choose to apply either mascara on the eyes or a cheek color that you love, or even a little bronzer on the "sun kissed" parts of your face.
3. Finish with your favorite lipstick or lip gloss.

A little goes a very long way, and application takes but a minute. What a nice return on your small investment of time you will receive.

Enjoy!