My entire morning routine has now whittled down to a liberating, 1-minute enterprise:
tinted SPF moisturizer and
cream blush (both Stila) and
gloss (Benefit), with some gradual self-tanner thrown in every few days. That's it!
More from Luckymag.com:
3 Steps to False LashesSneak Preview Today--When it Sells Out: Covergirl LashBlastLength!Video: False eyelashes, made easy
We in the beauty department are rabid,
fanatical proponents of the Covergirl mascaras—
Lash Exact,
VolumeExact,
LashBlast—and await the release of new iterations the way
Twihards anticipate
New Moon. The latest, LashBlastLength,* doesn't actually roll into drugstores until September, but for a limited time starting today, they can be bought
here.*Not a half hour after I put it on, another beauty editor accosted me at an event: "Tell me. You got extensions, didn't you. Tell me the TRUTH."
Speaking of
Ms. Roncal, the reason it occurred to me to ask her to guest-blog in the first place was because I've been obsessing over her
Evercolor Shadow Stick, which is incredibly long-wearing (she calls it her "tattoo in a stick") and acts like primer, eye shadow, eyeliner and a brush all in one (and you know
I know good eye makeup). For day, I just run the shadow stick like normal eyeliner; to smoke it up, I use my finger to blur the line. Once the shadow sets, it'll be there until you decide to take it off. Seriously.
Amazzzzing. Has anyone else tried it or another Mally Beauty item?
-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor
More from Luckymag.com:
Celebrity Product Rave: Mally Roncal of Mally BeautySale at Space.NK! Starts today!The Best Flatiron Ever?
Reader
ersatzkat in our comments section:
"I
found a drugstore brand called Gosh while vacationing in Dublin this
spring--lovely eyeliners, not super-cheap but reasonable and cool
colors."
... And I was off: It's a well-documented fact that
I love a foreign beauty product, and so I fell into a rabbit hole of Web searching and learned that the line
is actually Danish and makes all manner of awesomely unsmudgeable eyeliners (among MANY other things—nail polish, blush, primer, etc.). Even better, there's a North America website,
with e-commerce: Word on the street (the
Makeup Alley Street) is that the
Velvet Touch waterproof liner is killer. Ten bucks—not bad.
So, readers: Any other Gosh* favorites?
*Simone speculates that perhaps the Danes pronounce it "Gauche"?
—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor
Wet n Wild is one of my very favorite cosmetic brands—is anyone else with me? And it's not just because their products are so awesomely inexpensive: The makeup is excellent quality, particularly the eye shadows (both powder and cream) and any of their several face-luminizing products. Right now I’m into the
Ultimate Expressions Eyeshadow Palette in Sand Castle, which is a set of 8 incredible neutrals—they're sort of all you need, right? So fantastic for day, obviously, but night-time too: lately I’ve been doing a chocolate-y, dark brown smoky eye instead of my usual black (speaking of which,
this $4 liner from last week would complete the look perfectly, no?).
-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor
P.S. For super-easy neutral makeup tips,
click here.
Reader Erin Martin from Los Angeles, CA writes:
“I recently discovered this amazing wand from Laura Mercier, and I LOVE it. Just a small wipe under my eye makeup brightens my perpetual dark circles. It's also great as a highlighting wand for adding subtle shimmer to the eyes, cheekbones, etc. It’s my favorite thing in my makeup bag. Try it!”
Want to rave about a fantastic product on our blog? Email us at beautydept@luckymag.com
Not content with supplying perfect brows to every celebrity in Hollywood,
Anastasia Soare, the brow queen, is shifting her focus to eyelashes: She's just introduced an irresistibly lash-fattening and smudge-resistant
mascara from Italy -- and was so blown away by
Latisse, the prescription lash-growing treatment, that she's become an official spokesperson for the brand. "I've never had lashes this long in my life!" she exclaimed when I met her last week at
Gansevoort South. "I used to squeeze my lash curler once; now I have to squeeze it three times just to work my way out to the ends!"
Even more happifying: If you
register at Latisse.com, the company will automatically donate $5 to the
Make-a-Wish foundation -- the famous organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. Takes two seconds, totally worth it.
-- Jennifer Scruby, contributing editor, Miami
A recent discussion raged between my fellow editors when I announced that I had located my
Nars Himalayas eye shadow that I wore to my junior prom.A It became clear that none of us knew the answer to this very pressing question.
The
FDA website has its theories:A Foundation should only be kept up to six months.A Concealers with wand applicators should be discarded after six months because wands are highly likely to grow bacteria.A Mascara shouldA be thrown out after 3 months—again because of the wand and the proximity to your eye.A Lipsticks, pressed powders, and lip/eye pencils are deemed legit for up to a year.
The FDA notes that cosmetics that have been improperly stored (exposed to high temperatures, sunlight, or opened for too long) may expire far before their actual expiration date.A My thing is to pay close attention to the consistency of the product.A If it changes in any way—it’s probably a good idea to toss it.A I think we could all use a spring cleaning of the makeup drawer—or if you love products as much as we do—makeup closet!
-Rachel Siegel, fashion assistant
breakdown of the actual products that makeup artist Jeanne Van Phue used on set. Obviously, I’m going to focus on
Robert Pattinson and
Kristen Stewart because--as all Twihards agree--they belong together! Even
in blog posts! I will not, however, be discussing that Nikki Reed. (Confused? Read the archived
Twilight coverage on the super-insider-y-awesome website
Lainey Gossip).
Kristen wore brown contacts so her eyes would match their description in the book, while Rob
ert wore both golden and black contacts to be consistent with the “Are you wearing contacts?” scene.
There you have it: the hottest vampires ever and how they got that way. I’ve seen Twilight at least eight times--you?
-Cat Marnell, associate beauty editor
No matter what your
favorite mascara, makeup
artists are pretty much all on the same page when it comes to the right way to
apply it: You’re supposed to
wiggle the brush in right at the base of the lashes, they say, so it gets extra-extra-extra dark at the lashline, in a liquid liner sort of way. The beef I have with this application technique is
that as soon as I dutifully work the brush into the roots, the bristles of the mascara wand
go all the way through my lashes—as bristles are wont to do—and I get a weird morse-code tattoo
of mascara smears on my eyelid. Sexy.
The other day I met with the awesome Max Factor makeup artist Jake Bailey, and voiced my complaint. He pulled out a
Max Factor 2000 Calorie Extreme mascara in Extreme Blackout
(N.B.: GO OUT AND BUY THIS RIGHT NOW. IT IS KILLER), took my business card from the table, put the card over my eyelid so the bottom edge was right at the lashline, and then wiggled the crap out of the mascara brush. Then he took the card away—perfect, unsmudgy, coal-black, crazy-awesome-super-thick lashes. The business card looked less good, but that's a professional sacrifice I'm willing to make.
—Cristina Mueller, senior beauty editor
*For more eye makeup tips click
here.
Not content with supplying perfect brows to every celebrity in Hollywood, Anastasia Soare, the brow queen, is shifting her focus to eyelashes: She's just introduced an irresistibly lash-fattening and smudge-resistant mascara from Italy -- and was so blown away by Latisse, the prescription lash-growing treatment, that she's become an official spokesperson for the brand. "I've never had lashes this long in my life!" she exclaimed when I met her last week at Gansevoort South. "I used to squeeze my lash curler once; now I have to squeeze it three times just to work my way out to the ends!" 
