Manolo for the Beauty

I’m trying to decide how I feel about this.

I’ve always considered Jennifer Lopez to be a very beautiful woman.  How could one not?  She’s got gorgeous hair, fantastic skin, and a killer bod.

On one hand, I think it is rather awesome that they chose someone who is over the age of 40 and not some dewy-faced young thing.  Because the young things, they can’t help but be dewy, bless their hearts.  But for a 41 year old to look dewy, now that takes some effort.  Unless you are like me and have naturally oily skin, and then it just takes forgetting to apply powder.  But still, it doesn’t look quite the same.

And yet, I don’t have warm feelings for Ms. Lopez.  She’s never come across as authentic to me, and she almost always seems to have her bitchface on.  Or maybe the Fug Girls have irrevocably clouded my judgement, I don’t know.  

And yet again, it is very nice to see some diversity on the cover, is it not?

What say you?  Yay or nay for Jennifer?  Or am I just being naive and it is all about whose publicist does the best job?

Some of you may have noticed an option in this weeks Beauty Poll that addressed the blue nail polish the model was wearing, rather than the orange makeup trend.

Every time I look at this site, my eyes actually gloss right over that orange eyeshadow and go directly to the nails. 

I became, uh, a little obessessed about it.

I thought it would be the perfect color for my little tootsies as Easter is just around the corner.

Luckily for me, the credits on the photo are rather large, and I was easily able to tell the color was from my fave nail polish company, OPI.

And yee-haw, after searching for a while, I finally found the color!   I was almost ready to peg the color as “Breathe Life” after seeing it on the OPI website, but thanks to the numerous nail polish review sites, I was able to see that Breathe Life has a shimmer, whereas this one is totally flat.

It is called “I Vant to be A-Lone Star” and it is part of the Texas collection.  In my completely unprofessional opinion, I think this color would look lovely on almost any skin tone.

Me vant!

Readers of this blog will remember back in the beginning of March, I had quite the bit of hair-related angst going on, as evidenced by this Monday Beauty Poll.  Based on the overwhelming positive votes given to a fairly drastic hair change, on March 4 I entered my salon and entrusted my new hairstyle to my longtime stylist.

I had no idea what she was going to do, I just told her to chop a bunch of hair off and that I knew she would do me right.  My hair had been long, all one length, and I told her she could layer it, which was a big deal for me.  My only requirement was that I needed enough length to put it up in a ponytail.

When she did the dramatic chair turnaround a la What Not to Wear, I really didn’t know if I liked it or not.  It was choppy, much shorter, and it was a look I had never seen on myself.  It also didn’t help that she styled it to look a bit like Jennifer Aniston’s hair on Friends, which I disliked.   I walked out of the salon slightly traumatized, reminding myself that it was, after all, only hair.  I reassured myself that it would grow back in no time.

But then the next day I washed it out, styled it myself, and eventually I discovered that I loved my new haircut.  Like really REALLY loved it.  It made me look younger, it had tons of movement, and my husband even liked it just as much as my old style.

Then, on March 23, along came goddamn Brooklyn Decker.

“BROOKLYN DECKER CUTS HAIR!” screamed all of the headlines.  I’m not a big peruser of Sports Illustrated, so I didn’t really know who she was, but I looked at the photo of her and gasped.

She had MY HAIR.

Oh sure, the back of hers is a bit shorter, but from the front, our hair looks exactly the same.  The color is pretty close too, except hers is a bit lighter.

Except I did it first!

But nobody except my friends and family know that.  The people at the grocery store don’t know.  Nor the people at the bank, or the restaurant.

So of course, now everybody thinks that I, the 40 year old mother of two, copied the young bikini model’s haircut in order to breathe some vitality into my decrepit lifestyle.

Curse you, Brooklyn Decker!  It wasn’t enough that you were born genetically blessed, are married to a multimillionaire sports figure, and are now pursuing a serious acting career.

Oh no, you had to go and snatch this poor suburban housewife’s moment away from her in your perfectly manicured hands.  People now look at me and think, oh, how cute she looks with Brooklyn Decker’s haircut.

Thanks a lot.

Bitch.

Poor Wynonna Judd.  A full 74% of you put the ix-nay on her orange and red hair.  At least, I’m assuming that’s what people were reacting to, not necessarily the makeup.  Although that was no great shakes, either.  I’ve never followed the country music scene, and so have no idea of what trials and tribulations may have led to her hair color choice, but I actually kind of liked it, in a very noncommittal type of way. 

I’ve been trying to ignore the trend I’m going to ask you about this week, but it just doesn’t seem to want to go away.  Which probably makes me a horrible beauty blogger. So if a lot of you respond positively, I just might have to dig up some good examples on how to carry it off.  Although there are definitely some skin tones that have a big advantage with this color.

Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid, or Iman to you, is a Somali-born model.  It took Wikipedia for me to find that her father was a former Somali ambassador to Saudi Arabia and her mother was a doctor.  She was discovered by a fashion photographer while attending university in Kenya.  The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Iman is on my personal list of the five most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. 

Aside from her gorgeousness, she is an accomplished businesswoman who founded her own makeup line, and is well known for her charity work on behalf of her native country and the Children’s Defense Fund. 

Oh yeah, and she’s married to some singer.  David whatshisface.

Well, I have in the distant past applied self-tanner, but quickly regretted it.  This was back in the late 80’s when it  became time for prom, and my strapless (Jessica McClintock!) dress was not looking good with the farmer tan I had going.  However, it was not a joke that most of the self-tanners at that time turned you various shades of orange, depending on the brand.  I don’t think I could have been a bigger 80’s cliche, and I’ve got my prom picture as proof.

I think at one point about five years ago, I attempted to use a daily self tanning lotion (like this) to erase some color discrepancy between my legs and my feet, but gave up after about five days.  Which to me, doesn’t count.

I have never, ever placed myself in a tanning booth, and I promise that no matter how ghostly pale I might look, I never will.  It always sounded a bit extreme to me, and it has indeed been found to be hazardous to your health, in more ways than one.

Maybe it’s because I’m outdoors quite a bit.  Maybe it’s because I am blessed with a somewhat olive skin tone that tans in two seconds flat, even when wearing the strongest sunscreen possible.

But after a lifetime of living by the beach and tanning purposefully, I have now decided I don’t really care if I’m tan or not.   If I’ve inadvertently aquired a tan, fine.  If I don’t, that’s OK too.   But I guess I am lucky that I pretty much always have some color, and have what I consider to be a perma-tan from the aforementioned years of serious tanning. 

Do you fake your tan?  Do you even need to fake a tan? Are you a baker or a bottler?

It seems I am in the very tiny minority of people who don’t like Hourglass Femme Rouge Lipstick.

I got it because I tried it on my hand (see: phobias about applying lipstick in stores) at my local Sephora and the Sephora employee could not stop gushing about how popular it was and how wonderful it was.

I didn’t purchase it that day, but I recently ordered the same shade I had sampled in the store.  I had liked Edition, touted to be a “soft neutral pink shimmer,” and hey, it certainly looked good on my hand. 

I had also read the glowing reviews around the ‘net and I truly wanted to love this lipstick because I am simply a lipstick collecter and was excited to have found a new (to me) brand.

Unfortunately, when I put it on my lips, I vainly tried to find shimmer, but there was absolutely no shimmer to be found.   It didn’t glide on smoothly at all, and instead of hydrating my lips, dried them out terribly.  The color didn’t last long and I have bought drugstore lipstick at a third of the price that made me happier.

To say I was disappointed is a vast understatement.  Maybe I got a bad batch, but the purty but very heavy tube (which I believe is due to the refillable color cartridge) is going back ASAP.

Last week I asked how brand loyal you were, and only 20% of you said that you were totally loyal once you found something you like.  I’m assuming you will continue using it until the manufacturer decides to stop making it.  Which is horrendous when it happens, isn’t it?  10% confessed to being eternal optimists, and 68% said you fall somewhere in between, depending on the product.

I admit to being a horrible brand-hopper.  The only thing I’ve stuck with is my Bare Escentuals makeup, and other than that, everything else is up for grabs. 

Now, last night they held the Country Music Awards, and instead of me being all opinion-y about it, I thought I would throw a look over to you and see what you thought about it.

Not just for lips any more!  I’m always a big fan of beauty products that can multi-task, and this product, which has been around in commercial form since 1870, fits the bill nicely.  Women have been using it as a cosmetic aid for at least a century.

And just for clarification, I’m talking about the product that is 100% pure petroleum jelly. Which could technically be another brand other than Vaseline, but let’s face it, Vaseline is the most famous.

Vaseline can be used for:

• Removing eye makeup.
• Moisturizing the face, including the eye area.
• Eyelashes in lieu of mascara.
• Some people swear that if they apply Vaseline to their lashes at night, it makes them grow thicker.  Haven’t tried this one.
• A brow-tamer.
• Mixing with pigments or eye shadows to give them a nice sheen.
• Moisturizing and strengthening nails and cuticles.
• Softening feet.
• Keeping elbows and knees from looking dry and ashy.
• Mixing with a lipstick for an instant blush.
• Making split ends not look quite as split, although nothing cures split ends except cutting them off.
• Mixing with sugar to make a scrub.
• A natural looking eye enhancer when used alone on the lid.
• Mixing with your regular lotion to make it last a bit longer.

Now you know why it is sold in such a big tub!

Did I miss any?