Manolo for the Beauty

I thought about doing a SAG Award red carpet post.  I thought about it for approximately 3.5 seconds, and then discarded it after looking at the celebrities and mostly saying, “Meh.”

Instead, I’ve got the results from last week’s voting, which was all about the one beauty item you would choose to have if you were stranded on a desert island.  We’ve got a very pragmatic bunch here at Manolo Beauty, as 42% of you chose moisturizer.  Mascara was next-highest in votes, with 22%, and it sharply dropped off from there, with 11% needing hair product.  I agree, though, that moisturizer is important, because if your face isn’t moisturized properly, you can put on all the makeup in the world, and it ain’t gonna look good.

Today, I’m curious as to what you’ve worn on your head.  As in, hair that isn’t yours. I remember my grandmother having a at least  two or three of them on styofoam heads in her closet, where I would look at them and get freaked out.  Today, I’m not sure that wigs are as popular as they once were.

All right, so Dior would have you believe that the next step in the evolution of mascaras is, wait for it, a spinning brush applicator.

For serious?

They are charging you over ten dollars more for the spinning brush as compared to the “old timey” non-spinning version of DiorShow.

For serious-er?

I know that some people may be truly passionate enough about their mascara to try this, but I’m going to put this one in the category of gimmick.  The advertising claims that the spinning brush will apply the mascara just like a professional makeup artist, but I’ve yet to see a professional makeup artist sit there and twirl the wand around and around and around.  I would describe it as sort of wiggle as they go up and maybe twirl just a bit rather than a constant rotating.  Have we become so lazy that we can’t rotate our own mascara wand?

I’ve always been skeptical of brands who tout the wand/brush as the big improvement, rather than the mascara itself.  Granted, a clunky wand/brush doesn’t make things easier, but it certainly isn’t the end of the world.  I’m trying to think of why a double helix brush would be ever so much better than a regular one, and I can’t think of a reason right now. But, it is also really late. Maybe it will come to me in a dream tonight. 

So, would you be willing to pay extra for a spinning brush? 

I wish they would just work on the formulas instead of the applicator.  You see, I want a waterproof mascara that won’t irritate my sensitive, contact-wearing eyes, makes my lashes fuller, longer, thicker, won’t ever flake or clump and goes on like a dream.

I’ll let you know when I find it.

My love for lipstick is well known, but in the past, I have tended to avoid lip gloss at all cost.  My thoughts on gloss are that it usually feels sticky and it goes away much too fast to make it worth buying over lipstick.

Well, Guerlain’s KissKiss Gloss has sort of changed that.  There was a Guerlain makeup artist at Sephora the day I went, and he convinced me to give the Gloss a try after I proclaimed my adoration for their MaxiShine  lipstick.  I even allowed him to apply it to my lips, which took a lot for me because I can get a little germphobic.

To my great surprise, he wasn’t lying when he said that it would not feel sticky.  I felt not one iota of stickiness and it imparted a beautiful, iridescent sheen to my previously applied Dior lipstick.  It made me want to buy it, and like the woman with a makeup obsession I am, I did.  I purchased #868, which is Opal Pearl and described as a shimmering opalescent pink.

Looking back, is $30 too pricey for a lip gloss? Probably.  Even though it’s the best lip gloss I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning, it’s still a lip gloss and it does wear off faster than any lipstick.

But I tell myself that since it was off a gift card, I wasn’t really wasting my own money.   

Right?

Uhhh, please tell me that rationalization isn’t a sign of addiction.

*Just so you know, all things I review on Things I Love were bought with my own funds.  If I were to receive a product for review, I would make it a point to let you know that I did not purchase it myself.

There’s a small little blurb of an article that claims Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe shave(d) their faces to make their skin look better and to exfoliate.

Deep dark secret time.

What I’m about to admit goes to show how much I love you guys.

I do this.

Now, I’ve got peach fuzz.  It’s blond, but there’s quite a bit of it.  When I was younger, it wasn’t really a big issue for me.  But when I hit my late twenties, it started to really, really bug me.  It seemed like my foundation wasn’t adhering to my face as well, and one day, feeling like a female Sasquatch, I put one of my husband’s disposable razors to my face and shaved from my cheekbones down to my neck.

I was immediately ashamed.

And then I looked in the mirror, saw how smooth and lovely my skin looked without the hair, and  I was hooked.  I vowed to keep doing it for as long as my hand was capable of holding a razor.

To me, it is not much different than dermaplaning, which is something fancy spas charge you a lot of money to do what is essentially the same thing.

I don’t use any gel or cream or soap because I have sensitive skin. I usually shave my face right after a shower, using warm water, and take it nice and slow. The razors I use also have no “moisturizing” strips on them, I’m always afraid they will irritate my skin. I have yet to cut myself.  I don’t feel that my hair grows back thicker, darker, or coarser (which is known to be a myth anyway, although that doesn’t seem to stop people from saying it).

I constantly get complimented on my skin, even though up until very recently, I’ve never used any kind of moisturizer or night cream on a regular basis.

Coincidence?

Maybe not.

Yes, this is what Galliano for Dior showed yesterday on the runway in Paris for his spring/summer 2011 collection.

For a runway, perfect.

For a night on the town, not so much.

Will we be seeing red lips straight into summer?

I don’t know.  For some reason, red does not say summer to me.

What do I know, though? Maybe every trip to the grocery store for the next six months will include painting on red eyebrows.  Or getting ready for every soccer game will require a dramatic red cat-eye. 

But the look is stunning nonetheless. Love it.

Due to the Golden Globes coverage, last week’s poll went on brief hiatus.  But it’s baaa-aack!

I wanted to know how important it was to you that your beauty products contain natural/organic ingredients, and 60% said that it was a nice bonus, but not essential.  21% of you don’t really care one way or the other, and 18% view it as very important.  For me, it’s fine if the product happens to contain natural/organic stuff, but it’s not something I actively seek out in products.  If it works well, it seems I don’t care what’s in it as long as it delivers the results I’m looking for.

Today’s poll is one of those “if you were stranded on a desert island” kind of questions…  Although I’m not going to include soap as a choice because I sort of view soap as a necessity, not a luxury.  Uh, I hope you feel the same.

photo credit: Michael Braun

When you think of a classic American beauty, Grace Kelly is one of the first women who come to mind.  Well, my mind, anyway.  Born to a wealthy family, she began modeling, went on to acting, and finally managed to become a princess.  After scrolling through hundreds of photos of her, I am convinced that it was almost impossible for her to take anything other than a beautiful photograph.  She has no “bad” side.

Gorgeous and elegant.

Making wet hair look like a perfect accessory.

Doing pensive in a way that most of us can only dream of.

Flawless.

Cool and classic.

How could I not include a photo with her in the wedding dress, one of my all-time favorites?

Aging beautifully. And I want her jewelry.

Taken in 1982, and is actually one of my favorites due to the genuine smile.

The delightful Nomi asks:

I’m in my early 50s, and I’ve never learned to use eye makeup at all. I played with it a little in high school (never eyeliner though!), but as I got into my 20s I just didn’t have time, plus it felt yucky. Those two factors have never changed for me. Should I even bother, now?

That totally depends.

Do you feel as if using eye makeup is something you should be doing rather than want to be doing?

There will be a slight learning curve at first, but you could get a shadow trio that would make things really easy for you as far as knowing what to apply where.  You know, mid-shade on the lid, darker shade in the crease, and lightest color on the brow.  Or you could just go for a bunch of colors and experiment. They’ve even got ones that talk to you!  Time will be a factor, but like most things, the more you practice, the quicker you will get.

As for the makeup feeling yucky, I’m going to say that  the shadows that are being produced nowadays are formulated differently than the ones you used in high school.  Shadows are now pretty much whisper-light, although sensory issues differ from person to person.

That being said, have you been wistfully eyeing shadow colors and wishing you could join the party?  Or are you feeling pressure from outside sources and sort of reluctantly thinking you should add eye makeup to your repertoire?

If wearing eye makeup makes you uncomfortable, then there’s just no good reason to do it.  If you don’t have the time or more importantly, don’t want to make the time, then it’s probably not going to work if you feel resentful about frittering away with a palette when you could be doing other things.  But if you’d like to play around with some color and see how it feels, I’m all for that too. 

Do whatever makes you feel the most confident, and the most comfortable, and once you’ve made the decision, go with it and don’t second-guess yourself! 

I’m going to open this up to the peanut gallery, what say the wise ladies of the Manolosphere?

I was present for the initial arrival of Hello Kitty on our shores. 

Yes, I am that old.

While everyone else was sporting Hello Kitty (and Little Twin Star) pencil cases and lunchboxes, I failed to be impressed.  My third grade self was certain that this whole Japanese cartoon craze was a flash in the pan.  So much so that when my mom offered to buy me a Hello Kitty lunchbox, I stuck with my metal one depicting mathematical measurements.  NO, I WASN’T A NERD. I swear. 

Sanrio certainly has had the last laugh, as Hello Kitty has gone on to become one of the most iconic characters in the world.  And even though it still isn’t really up my alley, I would be remiss if I did not point out that Sephora has released an exclusive, Doll up for a lot less with Sephora’s new Sale picks!brand new collection with Hello Kitty.  It features everything from lip balm to fragrance.  Here are a few things from that collection that look interesting to me.

 Apple Balm

All right, I admit I’m kind of a sucker for the packaging on this one.

Hello Kitty Apple Cheeks

Working off the same concept as NARS The Multiple, I might be tempted to try it.

Hello Kitty Brush Set with Collectible Container

IF I was a Hello Kitty fan, I would not be able to resist that container.  Even as someone who is not a fan, it is extremely cute.  The brushes supposedly suck, though.

Are you a Hello Kitty fan?  And would you be willing to purchase these to fulfill your cute requirement?

But it doesn’t necessarily mean he will look good.

However, that wasn’t the case at the latest Vivienne Westwood show, where all the male models with their perfect hair and bone structure, wore lipstick. Most of them sported deep red, but kudos the makeup artists for matching the scarf on the skull sweater outfit perfectly.

At Tom and Lorenzo, the site where I lifted the pictures from, a bunch of commenters are freaking out about the whole lipstick thang.

Really?

For whatever reason, men in makeup gives me not a moment of pause, especially at something like a fashion show.  But that could be due to the fact that I was born and raised in Southern California, and there are plenty of weird things to see here, to which men with lip rouge pale in comparison. 

The entire point of a fashion show is to get people talking and push boundaries and all that.  Men in lipstick is hardly groundbreaking.

Men wore makeup for a very long time, and only in the past hundred years or so has it gone out of fashion. Well, I’m always one for equal opportunity beauty and I think it’s just a matter of time before the pendulum swings back the other way. 

There are certainly worse things in the world than men wearing makeup.

Those drop-crotch pants, for one.