Makeup and Beauty Blog: Makeup Reviews, Beauty Tips and Drugstore Beauty Finds

Anyone else terrified by goats? I know I can’t be the only one. They’ve got those creepy horizontal pupils that look ready to teleport you across the River Styx, and at the petting zoo they’re always really naughty; they walk right up and try to snatch the food from my hands or chew on my t-shirt or shoelaces.

Anti-goat bias initially made me reluctant to give the Shu Uemura 7.5EX brush ($35) much love. The word “goat” (strike one) is etched into the brush’s handle, and the white, fan-shaped brush head is made from — you guessed it — goat hair (strike two). I’m glad I was able to overlook my problem with goats, though, because the 7.5EX deserves love.

MAC Fafi Fashion Frenzy blush on the left, Hipness Blush on the right

Soft and luxurious, the bristles of Shu’s 7.5EX brush feel nothing like the dirty, coarse hair of goats at the petting zoo. The Shu Uemura Web site describes the 7.5EX brush as having a “light” touch, meaning that when you use it to apply powders, the color applies sheer, not intense. Not just for blush, this InStyle Best of Beauty Buy can also be used to blend or to dust away loose powder.

This morning I was in a hurry but wanted to wear a bright blue-pink blush. I know from experience that if I rush while using a regular blush brush, I end up with scary-clown-who-haunts-children’s-nightmares cheeks, so I grabbed the 7.5EX brush instead.

Wearing a big, goofy smile (the goofy part is key!), I applied MAC Fafi’s Fashion Frenzy to the apples of my cheeks, lightly drawing color upward at an angle toward my ears. With just a few swipes my cheeks looked pinched and flushed. I can’t wait to use this brush with my other bright cheek shades, MAC’s Dollymix (hot pink) and Frankly Scarlet (bright red).

If you have a few bright blushes in your color collection that you don’t use enough, give them another try with the 7.5EX, a brush designed for powdered products. Blush newbies who have a tendency to use too much color might dig it too because its fanned bristles make it almost impossible to over-apply color.

Don’t be afraid to go bold with your blush colors. With the 7.5EX in your arsenal, go forth and be bright!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

It’s Valentine’s Day, 1998. I get no roses; I get no candy. What I do get is a kickboxing class and time alone with a punching bag in a stinky karate studio down the street from my house.

Twice a week I was taking a kickboxing class with 30 other women, punching and kicking the air to a techno soundtrack. That was all fine, but far and away my favorite part of class was when they brought out the heavy punching bag.

Fresh out of a bad relationship, I derived great joy from pretending that the bag was my ex. In class on Valentine’s night, I beat that bag with reckless abandon. “You’ll never get the best of me, bastard!” Punch, punch, kick, kick. By the end of class, dripping in sweat, I had punched my knuckles raw. Happy Valentine’s Day to me!

This Valentine’s Day, if your date for the evening is with the gym or a punching bag (try it sometime), you might as well look cute. Work it out with these road-tested gym makeup tips:

Paint it Black, Vol. 1

1. Clinique Lash Power Mascara Long-Wearing Formula ($14, available in February). Thank you, makeup gods, for bringing this mascara to the US! Designed for humid weather and only previously available in Asia, Lash Power is the ultra-marathoner of all mascara formulas. It won’t streak, run or smudge, not even through sweat, tears, rain, humidity or a dip in the pool. It is the Terminator of all mascaras.
   
   I’ve been wearing it on my heavy duty cardio workouts at the gym. Even after 60 minutes of sweat it hasn’t even begun to streak or smear.
   
   What’s the secret? The formula responds to heat. It comes off with very warm water (39 degrees C/103 degrees F). All you do is dab a cotton pad soaked in warm water, and it cleans right up.
2. Lancome Potion of Love Lip Stain in Ruby Kisses ($18.50). You don’t have to be in love to wear Lancome’s Potion of Love Lip Stain. With its felt-tip pen applicator, it’s kinda like a Magic Marker for your lips. Lip stains apply like watercolor paints. They’re more watery than lipsticks or glosses. Potion of Love isn’t shiny, either, so it gives my lips a natural, flushed look with just a hint of ruby red tint.
   
   Best of all, the formula isn’t the least bit sticky, which is handy when I’m on the treadmill and the overhead fans blow my hair all over the place. I can’t stand it when stray ponytail hairs get stuck to my lipgloss. With Potion of Love Lip Stain that’s not a problem.
3. Elizabeth Arden Flawless Finish Maximum Coverage Concealer ($18). This cream concealer has a natural finish and lasts through an entire 90-minute dance class without budging. If I’m in a hurry, I dab it on my dark circles with warm fingers et voila — my dark circles disappear faster than an ex-boyfriend did with half my CD collection (that bastard).
4. MAC Blot Pressed Powder ($20). You’ve finished your workout and plan to drop by the juice bar for a quick snack to tide you over before dinner. I know you’ve worked hard, but you can’t leave the gym looking like a complete wreck, girl. Sorry!
5. Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler ($19). Lash Power isn’t a great thickener, but it does create long, natural looking lashes. To use it, I have to curl my stick-straight lashes first, and that’s where the Shu Uemura Eyelash Curler enters the picture. It doesn’t pinch my lashes, and the tension is just right. Sometimes with other lash curlers you get this very hard, sort of angled curl. Shu’s curler doesn’t do that. It produces a very natural, soft curl.

After your workout, brush out your hair and dab a little bit of MAC Blot Pressed Powder to hide the shine. You never know when you’ll bump into Mr. or Ms. Right at the juice bar.

Paint it Black is part of a series of posts highlighting pink and black products for Valentine’s Day.

Aren’t you glad tomorrow is Friday? I’ve got a ton of laundry to do tonight before another big rain storm arrives. Tomorrow I was supposed to have coffee with my friend, Jen, and get my hair did (my roots are way past the point of being socially acceptable). Unfortunately, I’d rather stay warm and dry at home than drive very far in the rain, so it looks like dark roots remain in my immediate future.

Stay cute (and dry!) my friend.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

For years, the only brushes in my life were toothbrushes, hairbrushes and random brushes with destiny. I was content using the sad lil’ sponge applicators and teeny standard issue brushes that came with eyeshadows and blush. When I look back at my pictures from high school and college (aka, “the brush drought years”) my makeup didn’t look bad … but it definitely didn’t look good, either. My application was splotchy, and there was no blending to be had within a three-mile radius. *Cringes*

Fast forward a few years: it was 2002; I bought a few basic MAC brushes (252, 266, 217, 224, 129, 190) on a whim and my makeup life changed forever. ‘Twas a whole new world for your girl. Now, I love brushes so much that I’ve looked beyond MAC into other brush lines as well, and there are a lot of great brushes out there!

Product: Billy B’s Master Paint Brush Collection
Price: $249
Use: To apply makeup on eyes, face and lips
Makeup and Beauty Blog Rating: A-

Makeup artist Billy B’s Master Paint Brush Collection is one such line of fantastic brushes. It offers excellent quality at an affordable price. With all the brushes you need for eyes, face and lips, at $249, Billy’s set of 13 brushes is one of the best values around. I know that $249 seems like a lot of duckets, but it breaks down to about $20 per brush, comparable to MAC eye brushes averaging $25 dollars each.

I know it; you know it too. Yes, brushes can get expensive, but the right makeup brush can mean the difference between looking hella broke or looking super hot.

Why a new line of brushes?

Billy created the set when he got tired of tweaking brushes to suit his needs. “I would find them [brushes] in the oddest places,” says Billy, “like a drugstore in Paris or some out-of-the-way beauty supply in Mississippi. I’d modify them with little cuticle scissors and stuff. And when I lost them I’d be so frustrated.” So he decided to make his own brushes from scratch.

What makes Billy’s brushes different?

The quality of the brush heads (the actual brush part of the brush) is what make this set outstanding. The bristles are so soft to the touch, not scratchy at all. The eye brushes feel great against my lids, and they’re actually softer than some of the MAC eye brushes that I own.

Billy gave a lot of thought to the design of each brush, and it shows in their performance. Take the eye brushes, for example. They are the standout performers in the set. With their domed shape and full brush heads, each applies color smoothly and evenly, making it so easy for me to layer and blend eyeshadows. Whether I’m doing a simple eye look with two eye shadows, or a complicated one with five, I find myself constantly reaching for numbers six, eight, 12 and 13.

I love number 12 for smudging eye liner at the lash line (a job previously given to my MAC 219 pencil brush). Number 12 and the MAC 219 look nothing alike. The 12 is angled and thin, and the MAC 219 is stubby and pointed, but Billy’s number 12 does the job better. When I use the MAC 219 to smudge liner, the brush head feels rough and scratchy and so big and bulky that I often just end up smudging the liner completely away. Billy’s number 12 is smaller, thinner and softer than the 219, giving me more control and making it easier to create subtle fades and transitions of color, even with thin lines.

One last eye brush side note: Ya’ll know I’ve got a borderline scary obsession with the MAC flat angled 266 brush (BOW DOWN!). Billy’s equivalent to MAC’s 266 is his 11. While it does a decent job of filling in my brows, I am not giving up my 266 any time soon. Score one for MAC.

A unique brush head design…

What I appreciate most about Billy’s brushes are their smaller brush heads, a concept quite different than most of the brushes currently on the market. Billy believes that many of the brushes out there are just too big for a woman’s small face. He’s well known in the industry for being a master of fine detail, and he wanted to create smaller brush heads that would be able to handle finer detail work, especially around the nose and eyes. “If you’re really doing beautiful makeup,” says Billy, “then obviously detail is important. A gigantic brush isn’t going to fit into the corners by your nostrils. It’s getting powder into your hairline and on your hair and on your clothes and on your lashes.”

Light, short handles…

While I’m not crazy about the short birchwood handles, I do appreciate the reason behind their design. Billy spends a lot of time flying between New York and LA (celeb clients he services include Mary J. Blige — Holla! — and Paula Abdul), so he needed brushes that wouldn’t add extra weight to his makeup kit.

Billy’s Paint Brushes are available online at www.billybbeauty.com.

Do you have a brush obsession? What can’t you live without?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen