T. LeClerc Poudre Libre en Banane

I have a confession: I LOVE face powder. Love Love Lovey Love Love. It softens colors, smooths the complexion, helps blending, erases mistakes, sets the makeup, on and on. It’s a wonder product! Yet I find most women simply wonder “What am I supposed to do with this?” Let me assure you: Once you get the right formulation and learn to use it the right way, you too will be a convert. As I have stated before I am planning a series of video tutorials and probably one of my first ones will be using powder correctly but in the meantime in The Basics we will cover some of the best powders out there and what makes a powder one of the best. NOTE: I am really only talking about loose powders in this article. Yes, I know many of you are more used to pressed powders. Pressed powders are great for touching up, but they are not the wonder product that is loose powder. If you are really fixated on pressed powder, most of these brands make pressed powder versions of these loose powder products. I invite you, however, to allow loose powder to sweep you off of your feet… Continue reading →

Technorati Tags: alison raffaele, alison raffaele cosmetics, ben nye, bobbi brown, bobbi brown cosmetics, make up for ever, mufe, shu uemura, smashbox, smashbox cosmetics, sonia kashuk, sonia kashuk cosmetics, t leclerc

Like This? Share It

Hide Sites

Bare Escentuals Matte Mineral Foundation Powder in Deepest Deep - the shade I use on myself

Ah foundation… to Foundation or not Foundation. That is the question. Well the correct answer, in my ever so humble opinion, is a resounding: It Depends. It depends on a variety of factors, actually. Is this for everyday or for photography? If it is for photography what type of photography and what type of finish do you want? If it is for everyday what type of skin do you have and what kind of coverage do you need? Then there is the issue of matching the color properly. No two women are exactly the same coloring yet manufacturers can only produce so many colors in a line, and for years women of color were left out completely (fortunately those days are long over and most lines include shades for all women). No wonder so many women have a hard time picking the right foundation! Well, I am here to share what I know in the hope that it will help you make a better choice on your next foundation purchase. The right makeup will make the world think you have fabulously perfect skin, even if you – like myself – do not. Also, I am focusing on true foundations, not tinted moisturizers. Personally, I think a Foundation is a better purchase because when you want fuller coverage you have it, but if you want more of a tinted moisturizer all you have to do is mix any of the below (except for the Powder foundation) with the moisturizer of your choice and voila! You now have a perfect color match Tinted Moisturizer. Continue reading →

Technorati Tags: bare escentuals, face atelier, Iman, iman cosmetics, l'oreal, nars, nars cosmetics, shu uemura, smashbox, smashbox cosmetics, stila, stila cosmetics, youngblood cosmetics

Like This? Share It

Hide Sites

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I was recently in the Bay for over a week for work and business (and some leisure ). While I was up there, I had more time than usual, so I decided to do something I’d thought about for a while, and that is to find the “happening” beauty spots in the San Francisco Bay.

Well. I tell ya. I was initially a little disappointed, particularly with San Francisco. Being the hip, “West Coast New York” that it is, I was expected to find my hip, funky little ‘off the beaten path’ stores. Instead, I was surprised to find mostly the same large beauty chains that one can find in most cities. I’m sure the hip little stores do exist and I’ll try finding them again on future trips. What I did find in visiting the big stores, however, was that these stores often carry brands and products that other stores in the chain might not. Here then is what I found on my first SF Bay beauty excursion; Continue reading →

Technorati Tags: 100% pure, bath and body works, Beauty Travelogue, benefit, benefit cosmetics, jo malone, keihls, kryolan, Mac, mac cosmetics, makeup, peets coffee, sephora, Shoppin', shu uemura, victoria's secret

Like This? Share It

Hide Sites

In major “get it while you can” news, L’Oreal is apparently pulling the plug on the Shu Uemura line in the United States. When they changed the formulation of the Nobara creme foundation – which was one of the best foundations ever produced – and then when Mr. Uemura passed away, you just knew something was happening and it wouldn’t be long before the bottom fell out.

Shu Uemura – whether recognized in the States or not – is one of the best cosmetics lines ever. As long as the product quality remains the same, one way or another I will find these products and keep them in my kit.

Technorati Tags: makeup, shu uemura

Like This? Share It

Hide Sites

So if you read my “Top Ten Makeup Products Without Which I Would Die” post, you know that one of the top ten is Shu Uemura’s Nobara creme foundation. I also mentioned in that post that the Nobara was no longer listed on the Shu Uemura website and that Nordstrom’s had it as “Temporarily Out of Stock” which is usually the mark of death for a beauty product. Well, Rumor Has It that Nobara as we knew it has, in fact, been discontinued. “Word on the street” is that it will be back, reformulated (sigh!) and in a Stick format. As I mentioned in Top Ten, stick creme foundations are great for consumers as they’re compact, easier to work with and often not quite as pigmented as the type of creme foundation that pros use. It’s that last line that concerns me. The Shu Uemura cosmetics line was sold to L’Oreal in 2004 and it has pretty much my one exception to the I Do Not Buy L’Oreal Products rule that I keep. At the time of the sale they were keeping the line in it’s original state as Mr. Uemura created it (as such Shu Uemura has been a cruelty free line whereas L’Oreal products are not necessarily). Based on this change with the Nobara foundation, it seems now that they are making more of a move towards being a consumer line. That would be highly, highly unfortunate. Heaven help us all if they ever changed/discontinued the Cleansing Oils or the Depsea Water!

Obviously, none of this is set in stone. They may well be taking the same exact Nobara formula and putting it in a stick format and calling it a day. That would be great! For now, we shall have to wait and see…

Technorati Tags: makeup, shu uemura

Like This? Share It

Hide Sites

As a makeup enthusiast and product junkie I love knowing what’s new in makeup-landia; what the trends are, what the hot new brands are, etc. As a makeup artist, however, I have to temper my enthusiasm with what works. Sometimes all you have 10-15 minutes to do the job and it needs to look like you spent an hour. This is where your Stand By products come in. No time for experimentation; I need to reach in, grab a product, and know exactly what it’s going to do. If you’re an aspiring artist, take note as many of these products are unilaterally loved by makeup artists all over. Makeup aficionados take note as many of these products are what artists are actually using, even when they say they’re using something else.

Here then are my Top Ten products: Continue reading →

Technorati Tags: benefit, bobbi brown, burts bees, cinema secrets, cosmetics, graftobian, Iman, kryolan, make up for ever, malin and goetz, nars, sephora, shu uemura, skindinavia, smashbox, stila, target, three custom colors

Like This? Share It

Hide Sites