PastAllReason, I totally agree with your sentiment below:
I also resolved my blush problems as in “how not to look like a clown” by buying eye shadow that is a matte sand colour from Revlon in one of their larger pans and using it for blush. Works well, giving a subtle highlighting effect, and has the added benefit of being one half the price of blush. Sometimes I even use it as a base eyeshadow emphasizing with a slightly darker colour in the earth tones in appropriate eye lid areas.
A lot of time, I don’t want to spend the time or effort to use four different eye shadows to line, contour, shape, whathaveyou. I use a large eyeshadow brush to apply a sweep of neutral blush (Neutrogena Soft Color blush is my current favorite) across my entire eyelid area, lightlyacross my cheeks, mascara, and a brighter shade of lipstick for a five minute routine.
My answer to “pale beyond pale” : I use an oil free neutragena sunblock (45 spf). It protects me from killer sun rays, and the finely ground titanium dioxide evens out my paleness. It gives a silky, non-shiney finish, and its way cheaper then foundation
Now about that slumber party we had scheduled for Monday… I figured we could start out with a pillow fight, then you guys can all have hot lesbian sex while I…
well, probably walk out of the room, or watch for a little bit out of curiosity.
I have Making Faces, Face Forward, and Kevyn Aucoin: A Beautiful Life and I really love them. I’ve had them a long time and I still look at them a lot. My favourite looks are when he did Amy Sedaris as Angie Dickenson in Police Woman, and Gwenyth Paltrow as Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde. Those are two of my favourite faces in reality, so seeing how he captured them amazes me every time! I love those books.
The only thing I use that isn’t marketed toward me is Just For Men beard dye. I use dark brown on my brows and brown/black on my lashes. I used to use a special brow tint from the beauty supply store but they stopped carrying it. They weren’t supposed to be selling it anyway. They had a huge sticker on it that said it was not to be used to dye the brows, even though inside it said it was eyebrow dye. :eek: I have noticed that beauty supply stores are pretty sketchy about selling things they aren’t supposed to sell.
I have the Revlon Colorstay mascara but I don’t like removing it. I also don’t like leaving it on because it irritates my eyes by day two. That’s why I dye. Plus it’s a timesaver.
I have an olive, Mediterranean complexion, and my stuff comes from nearer the dark end of the makeup spectrum than the light. For me, there is no “wrong” side of the color range, because I’m in the middle looking outward to both ends. My color shows that there is no definite dividing line between the so-called races. I bridge the gulf and I need makeup lines that do too.
The only makeup I buy if I can help it is the natural, organic sorts of products you find in places like Whole Foods. Burt’s Bees and Zia are my favorites. Both of them provide multiracial hues. Maybe the lack of race/color boundaries in these product lines goes along with their other values including no animal testing, and using natural products.
Burt’s Bees accommodates the widest range of skin colors, of any makeup product line that I use: it runs the entire gamut from the lightest to the darkest. Burt sells affordable stuff; Zia is toward the high end. (But it’s REALLY GOOD.)
I’m a dark complected Asian woman, and I usually use products marketed to Latinas. I can easily get away with oranges and deep reds without looking clownish. Paler shades like pinks do not work at all.
Mrs. Six is also Asian, but quite a bit lighter, and the products typically marketed to caucasian women work well on her. She can pull off pink lip gloss if she wants, but usually goes the more subtle route.
So I guess the answer to the OP is that neither of us uses producted marketed to Asians, not that there are many to begin with.
pokey, I had been thinking about buying Face Forwad by Kevyn Aucoin. Would you say it’s worth owning if you already have Making Faces?
I found the books of Bobbi Brown to be a good addition to Aucoins books. Bobbi Brown is more about practical, everyday looks, and throws in lots and lots of valuable practical info. Including tips like the ones offered by the girls in this thread, about using lipstick for blush, blush for eyeshadow, how to master the foundationthingy, etc.
Considering how so many women struggle with make-up every day, (and I wasn’t an exception) I liked to have a book that covers the basics. Most women still get their how to-info through flimsy articles in magazines, pushy saleswomen who want to sell you either the newest stuff, or what looks good on THEM (not you), or they find out what looks good by just stumbling through plain old trial and error.
The only drawback in Bobbi Brown’s books is that the photo’s aren’t very helpful. Most pics either show either Bobbi and her happy family (bleh!), or pictures of models with unhelpful captions like: “the right color can make a face come alive”. :rolleyes:
This thread on DIY eyebrow-tinting showed that USA-stores have outlawed DIY-dye for eyebrow&eyelashes for no good reason I can think of. That kind of dye is commonly sold in shops over here (Europe) and online and never causes problems. The vehemence with which it is warned against makes me think somebody, somewhere, had an ulterior motive in banning it from the shops.
I know that when I’m buying foundation I end up with prescriptives, MAC or Benefit, because they’re they only ones who make colours yellow enough for my skin, my Malaysian friend keeps telling me to go to Kuala Lumpar where I would have my pick!
I have a few of their things, but over all it is way over the top for me.
I spend hundreds of dollars to buy make up that looks like I’m not wearing any.
My husbdand laughs when I buy lipstick:“lemme guess, it’s a pink brown color, just like the other 50 tubes you have”.
Another uber white chick here! I hate the look of foundation that doesn’t match or cakes up and looks even worse so I went the other way to tinted moisturizers. I get a bit of color and some lovely moisture in winter furnace air. I first tried L’occitane shea butter tinted moisture ($19) but they only come in 3 colors - brown, orange and white. I really like the white but there is no color there so I just got some Burt’s Bees tinted in the Light because it has more color and is cheaper ($15). All of this available eventually on ebay unused if you want to try it for cheap.
Ok, here is a question - has anyone successfully tried the green tinted foundations or moisturizers (Murad or Physician’s Formula) to correct for redness? I haven’t noticed much difference. The logic is sound but the reality is otherwise.
By the way, I just checked on ebay and there are new unused tubes of Burt’s Bees tinted moisturizer in at least half of the tints for about $6 + shipping. Wish I’d known that!
Half of my life has been spent in the search for the “perfect” red lipstick. I’ve never heard of Black Opal. Where do you buy it??? I must have it…now…right now…
I think so. If you want to treat yourself. I really enjoy it. It has more of the same but if you enjoy the other one. A Beautiful Life wasn’t so exciting. I had a gift card when I bought it. It’s not bad, but I could live without it. His very first one is kind of boring too.
One good thing about Kevyn’s books is that it really drove the point home to me that glamour photos are fake, fake, fake. I love how even in the celebrity “before” photos not one of the celebs is without makeup. All his “regular” girl models have these revealing “before” pictures where they look like laundry day, but his celebs all have a full face of makeup in their before :rolleyes:
My SIL has one of the Bobbi Brown books and I read it while visiting a couple of years ago. I should get it from the library again. I remember it being one of those, like Kevyn’s where they never really give you any concrete tips. I’m really not that creative with makeup. A lot of tips are common sense. I never really seem to learn any application tips from any of these books. I really love to look at beautiful makeup and I like makeup history, but I don’t play with makeup as much as I used to and I don’t have as much makeup around to play with as I used to.
I actually also really love Paula Begoun and I seem to constantly refer to her books. I’m not a big fan of her as a makeup artist but as a consumer advocate she’s my hero. I can never say enough about her.
Bobbi Brown makes a persuading case for yellow facepowder. She says it suits 95% of (Caucasian) skin tones. Maybe yellow works differently then the concealers in green and purple.
Is Black Opal a department store line or is that something I can pick up without breaking my budget? I am tired of cognac and natural lipsticks too. I did find a really pretty true red at Chanel, but it didn’t have staying power.
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Black Opal is a drugstore brand, and I believe it’s cheaper than stuff like Revlon, though I’m not sure. I’ve bought some of their eyeshadows and lip products before, and really love them (I’m paler than pale). I always find that even the “red” lipsticks marketed to us paler wimmin are always too pink for my skintone, and I end up looking like a hooker (minus the heart of gold) when it wears off and starts to look bright, flourescent pink.
Personally, I find some of the hair products that are marketed to Black women work well for my hair. It’s gotten really brittle from dyeing it too much, and I don’t want to cut it off yet, so those are very moisturizing and a lot richer than the other products.
I’ve seen the Shisedo (I know I spelled that wrong, but am too lazy to check) products in Sephora, but haven’t tried any of them yet. Grrr…I hate working near that store, I always want to go down there on my lunchbreak and spend obscene amounts of money on make-up and various girly products.
I’ve been using makeup (except for foundation) that is marketed to women with much darker skin than mine.
I have very very pale skin - but it is a very pale olive, I always joke that my skin color is somewhere between sallow & enemic, and to top it off my hair has alot of red in it (which isn’t just hair dye). I lighten my hair from a medium auburn to a strawberry blond to reduce the contrast between my hair & skin, but my eyebrows & lashes are jet black so I never wear shaddow and gave up eyeliner about 3 years ago, so in order to create a balance my lips look best in deep burgundy, wine or copper. Instead of blush I use a bronzer because it is translucent - but none of the colors I apply are recomended for pale redheads - but when you throw hungarian decent & yellow instead of pink undertones the colors work.
There seems to be something in the cosmetic industry where they think pale skin requires tonnes of pink, but that doesn’t work on everyone.
