Beauty

  • If only I could makeup my mind

    I headed to the mall on Friday armed with a limited amount of makeup knowledge and a Route 44 Diet Cherry Limeade from Sonic. I hadn’t really planned to make a stop at Sonic first, but that morning Caroline asked me if I’d come eat lunch with her at school and could I please bring her a Wacky Pack with a side of mozzarella sticks? And how do I say no to that?

    Especially when I know that she won’t eat all her tots or the mozzarella sticks and I can eat whatever is left over with no caloric consequences because every mama knows that the food you eat off your child’s plate doesn’t count towards any official calories.

    So I experienced all the entertainment and mouths full of missing teeth that the elementary school cafeteria has to offer and then grabbed my Cherry Limeade (and maybe a mozzarella stick) and left for the mall. Since Caroline eats lunch at 10:40 (absurd) I still had plenty of time to conduct my makeup research.

    Here’s what I ended up with:

    1. Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer

    I walked into Sephora already totally biased towards this product, mainly because Gulley loves it and I totally trust her opinion on these sorts of things. Plus, it got a lot of shout outs in the comments.

    I’d like to say that I’ve already used it and gotten countless compliments on my glowing complexion, but when you spend all weekend coaching soccer and laying on the couch in attempts to recover from aforementioned coaching experience, makeup doesn’t really seem necessary.

    But I loved it when I tried it in the store and the nude shade is perfect for my skin tone.

    2. Nars Bronzing Powder in Laguna

    Nars has a blush that people rave about (I’m not going to mention it by name because, MY WORD, at the google searches it would generate). Anyway, I tried it but felt like it looked too pinkish for my skin. I don’t really enjoy a pinkish hue as much as I like to look as if I just returned from a long weekend at some tropical resort.

    Even though if I’d just returned from a tropical resort I’d still be pale because Mamaw would wear her SPF 75 and oversized sunhat the entire time.

    So this is like I’ve been to the tropics and live in a world where a little bit of sun exposure doesn’t come with ugly consequences like basal cell carcinoma and brown sun spots.

    3. Cargo Blu-Ray High Definition Mattifier

    A reader named Sara emailed me about a year ago and told me about this product. I’ll admit I was hesitant to buy it because I generally believe that any sort of makeup primers are just a big scam to get you to spend more money.

    But on Friday I purchased my second tube of it because it absolutely makes a difference in how my skin looks. It evens out fine lines and covers your pores so your skin looks smoother even before you put on any kind of foundation. Or maybe I’m just seeing something I want to see and it’s just a placebo effect. Either way works for me.

    4. Benefit Big Beautiful Eyes Palette

    I wasn’t really looking for eyeshadow but I was walking through Macy’s after I left Sephora for other non-makeup related errands when the girl at the Benefit counter called me over and asked if she could do my eye makeup. It’s like she had a window into my soul.

    And so of course I said yes because I am committed to the research. Next thing I knew she’d made my eyes pop and sparkle and highlighted my brows and she’d done it all with just this little palette of eye makeup.

    What really sold me was when she showed me how I could use it to give myself a natural eye or a smoky eye depending on the occasion. Granted, I haven’t worn a smoky eye since I inadvertently got a little carried away with my Merle Norman palette of blues and purples back in 7th grade when I tried to match my eyes to my blue Izod shirt. But you never know when I might decide I want to sport a smoky eye at a PTO meeting or for a trip to HEB.

    So those were my four purchases of the day. I still need a good eyeliner but couldn’t make a decision and, truth be told, I was actually pretty happy with my Revlon ColorStay eyeliner before I got overzealous and broke it in half the other day.

    And the girl at Sephora and the one at Macy’s both tried to sell me on new mascara, but I’m a big fan of CoverGirl LashBlast Mascara. The price is right, I love the brush, and it doesn’t clump when I put it on. I’m sure I’d love DiorShow or one of those fancy battery-operated ones if I tried them, but since my family likes to eat and Santa Claus needs to show up next month I’m going with the whole ignorance is bliss thing.

    I also neglected to buy any sort of lipstick because I have approximately 84 tubes of various lip products floating around in the bottom of my makeup bag and countless others that I carry in a Ziploc sandwich bag in my purse. Gulley made fun of me for the Ziploc bag a while back and I tried to explain that it’s because I travel and need the Ziploc bag to get through security. Of course since I hadn’t been on a plane in about a month at the time, my explanation didn’t hold a lot of weight. What’s closer to the truth is that I’m lazy and don’t want to take the time to move all my lipgloss from the ultra classy Ziploc to a fabric makeup bag because can you even imagine the amount of energy and time that would take? How would I ever get those 30 seconds back?

    Anyway, in the interest of knowledge and frugality, I’ll share with you that I’m a huge fan of CoverGirl Lipslicks in Daring. It’s a great color and it’s cheap. I own no less than six tubes of it because I keep losing them and finding them again. It’s my prodigal lipcolor.

    And there you have it. I realize on the scale of boring to moderately interesting that this entire post would fail to register, but y’all were so helpful with all your suggestions that I felt like you deserved to know how it all turned out.

    You should also know that the downside to makeup experimentation is that my face is breaking out like I’m a thirteen year old with a mouth full of chocolate and braces.

    Of course it could also just be PMS.

    But I believe it’s directly related to having my face covered with more makeup in a two-hour time frame than it usually sees in a week.

    Unless I get all dolled up to deliver Sonic at 10:40 a.m. to the school cafeteria.

  • I don’t know much

    It’s a shame y’all don’t have any opinions about makeup.

    All I can say is if you have an hour or two to spare, the comments on yesterday’s post are SOLID GOLD. I don’t even know where to begin but I adore all the input. If I were Estee Lauder I would invite you all to my home in the Hamptons so we could discuss the pros and cons of various products all weekend long. Of course since Estee has gone to that big cosmetics counter in the sky, I guess I’d prefer to be her granddaughter, Aerin. My only regret is that I didn’t ask everyone to state their skin type so I’d know all the various skin issues represented. Live and learn. As Max Factor used to say, “The beauty business is tricky”.

    (I have no idea if there was actually ever anyone named Max Factor or if he said that, but it sounds good.)

    Last night I took the time to read each and every comment. I made copious notes. I clicked on links. I ate three small bags of M&M’s from the Halloween candy bag. I read reviews on websites.

    It turns out that many, MANY, of you are big fans of Bare Escentuals. It was the hands down winner for the most shout outs.

    I actually used Bare Escentuals for about a year and liked it. The problem is that I have dry skin. The kind of skin that would make the Sahara desert feel like a tropical rainforest. I ultimately decided that the Bare Escentuals products weren’t the right fit for my skin, although they did provide great coverage and I loved that it felt as if I weren’t wearing any makeup at all.

    The bottom line is I’m planning to spend most of my Friday morning at Sephora. It’s all in the name of research. Selfless research. I kind of have an idea about some of the products I’m interested in but I’ll provide a full report on Monday.

    In other news, the mighty Rainbows have their last game on Saturday and I’ll be coaching solo since P has some hunting obligations to fulfill down in South Texas. I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing until Caroline let me know her thoughts on the way to soccer practice yesterday.

    Thoughts on Soccer from Big Mama on Vimeo.

    I guess we’ve officially passed the stage where she thinks I know everything. If we ever went through that stage to begin with.

    The important thing is I’ll be able to tell her all about the best products to have in your makeup bag and that’s SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT AND LIFE-CHANGING than the difference between a corner kick and a goal kick.

    The winner of the Tiny Prints giveaway is posted over on my giveaway page. Make sure you click over and check it out. There’s also a special offer for those of you who entered and didn’t win. Oh I do love a consolation prize.

  • Because there’s no such thing as natural beauty

    I have a group of girlfriends that have gotten together once a month for dinner for the last three and a half years. We call ourselves Birthday Club, even though there are only 6 of us so, as our husbands like to point out, the math doesn’t really add up. But we are like the government and don’t allow arbitrary numbers to stand in the way of what we want. Not to mention, it’s not like we’re going out 1.2 trillion times a year because that would be an excessive number.

    Anyway, last night was Birthday Club. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we met at Chuy’s because why, oh why, are we going to a chain Mexican restaurant when we live in the Mexican food capital of the world? Actually, Mexico is probably the Mexican food capital of the world but they have an advantage because if you’re visiting Mexico then technically you’re eating Mexican food even if you’re eating a cheeseburger and fries.

    But we went to Chuy’s because it’s a fairly convenient location, they have excellent queso and some jalapeno ranch dip that is totally worth all the 30 Day Shred workouts that it will take to work it off.

    We covered our usual array of topics in no particular order: Shopping, marriage, kids, shopping, reality television and life in general. However there was one question that I meant to ask and I completely forgot all about it once I got there and got engrossed in the fact that one of them had just bought the cutest jacket from a boutique located inside a carwash. Needless to say, my car is getting washed later today.

    Okay, back to the point. In the last two days I have run out of all my makeup essentials. My tinted moisturizer is almost empty, I used the last of my bronzer getting ready last night, and my eyeliner broke in half and cannot be salvaged. In what is an unprecedented circumstance, my entire makeup bag is in need of an overhaul. Sure I could just go out and buy the same stuff I had before, but what if I’m missing out on something great?

    I don’t want to spend my life wrapped in a Neutrogena tinted moisturizer bubble and miss out on a blessing that could cover my uneven complexion and make me appear fresh faced and impossibly dewy. (I really don’t like the word dewy, but I’m keeping it there because I can’t think of a better word right now)

    So before I just run off to the drugstore or the department store or Sephora all willy nilly, I’d love to know what makeup products you use and love. Like the ones you truly love. I don’t want to know about the lipstick that you kind of like but could live without or the mascara that’s just okay. I want to know the products you can’t live without. The ones you will buy over and over again because they are worth the money.

    I will anxiously await your input, but in the meantime I’m planning on staying home all day and avoiding mirrors because the world isn’t ready to see my winter skin without a little bit of bronzer.

  • My makeup bag overfloweth

    This weekend has left me with what we in the industry refer to as writer’s block.

    I have no idea what I mean when I say “industry”. Blog industry? Mom industry? The National Federation of Backhouse Painters Industry? The Women with Severe PMS Industry? People Who Procrastinate and Watch the Grammys Industry?

    Whatever. I am struggling with the words.

    So I’m pulling out a fascinating topic. Beauty products. Specifically the top ten beauty products that are currently my can’t-live-without items. This list rotates from time to time because I believe a true beauty regimen is like a shark; you have to keep moving or you will die.

    Or at least have deep wrinkles and age spots.

    And I don’t really know if that’s true about the sharks but I heard it one time and it made a lasting impression.

    1. Oil of Olay Microdermabrasion & Peel System

    I am a huge believer in microdermabrasion. It has rescued me from a vast wasteland of sun damage in the form of large freckles, otherwise known as age spots. I’ve tried other brands, but I think this one is the best.

    Of course maybe it’s just because it makes my whole face heat up which gives the illusion of effectiveness.

    2. Hummingbird Farms Lavender Lotion

    If you ignore everything else on this list, do not ignore this. I have really dry skin and, therefore, a lotion obsession. Actually, it’s more of a passion.

    After discovering this miracle in a bottle two years ago, I cannot live without it. It is literally the only thing that keeps my hands from cracking and peeling during the winter and it smells much like I imagine heaven will smell.

    I am totally addicted. All other lotion is dead to me.

    3. Oil of Olay Regenerist Night Cream

    I decided to try this after I saw it in a magazine article that compared it to La Mer. And as much as I’d love to try La Mer, I believe that flawless skin would be pointless if I couldn’t afford to pay the light bill because no one could see me.

    Anyway, this moisturizer feels so good when I put it on and, while I don’t know if I look like I’ve had a mini-face lift each morning, it has definitely diminished the size of the wrinkles in my forehead that used to greet me in the mirror at the beginning of each new day.

    4. Neutrogena Healthy Skin Enhancer

    This is the greatest invention ever for busy women everywhere. It’s sheer coverage, spf 20, and moisturizer with retinol all in one convenient package.

    It’s genius. Sheer genius.

    Neutrogena? Call me if you’d like to use that as your marketing slogan. Or maybe you already use it. Whatever.

    5. Cover Girl Lash Blast Mascara

    I’ve talked about this before and it is a big deal that I am still committed to it after a year. Mascara monogamy has never been my strong suit.

    It goes on great, lasts all day, and it’s cheap.

    6. Physicians Formula Bronzer

    Let’s just say wintertime + my face = pasty white.

    I will give you a small piece of advice. Don’t overdo the bronzer or you will have what I refer to as “white neck syndrome” and in photographs you could look like a big, tan, floating head hovering above a body.

    Hypothetically speaking.

    7. Aussie Hi-Hold Hi-Shine Hairspray

    I bought this hairspray at Target a while back because I saw the purple Aussie bottle and became completely nostalgic for all the good times I had with my Aussie Sprunch Spray from 1986-1990.

    Also, it was only $2.99.

    As it turns out, I really like it. It has a decent amount of hold, even in humidity, and makes my hair look a little shinier than usual.

    Plus, I am a total sucker for that grape smell. Hello 1987, I have missed you.

    8. Olive oil and castor oil

    Last spring, I asked y’all for your best beauty secrets and a few different people mentioned this. Needless to say, I was completely intrigued and had to try it immediately.

    I went to the drugstore and armed myself with some Stridex pads just in case things went awry and I found myself in some serious need of breakout medication.

    But y’all, it totally works. I use the oil-cleansing method about 2-3 times a week and it makes my face feel so good. I highly recommend it.

    Okay, so you shouldn’t be surprised that I’m ending the list at eight. I would so love to add two more things to make it an even ten, but my mind has never been more blank.

    Which probably means I should add some Omega 3 Fish Oil-type thing to my beauty regimen because my brain function might need more help than my eyelashes.

    I’d love to hear about any great beauty finds that you’ve recently discovered because knowledge is power and so is a good moisturizer.

  • Beauty secrets

    I kind of got the impression from the 100+ comments on my post about my Nanny’s birthday party, that y’all are interested in two critical pieces of information.

    1. What is Nanny’s skincare regimen and has she made some sort of lucrative deal with God? And if so, how can you get in on that action?

    2. What does that cat eat and does it include a growth hormone cocktail?

    I can’t help y’all with the cat. It’s a Persian and it consists primarily of fur. If I had to guess, I’d say that if you shaved it bald it would look like a ferret.

    It would also quit hacking up hairballs.

    But Nanny read all your comments and has agreed to share her skincare secrets. However, I feel compelled to let you know that you can rest assured she has withheld some piece of information in here somewhere because she never gives away all her secrets.

    It’s like the recipes for her cinnamon cake or her fudge. I can come close to duplicating them, but something is still missing.

    This is the email that Nanny sent me (cut and pasted word for word):

    “My complexion care began at an early age – like when I was about 13. We didn’t have clothes dryers back in those days so we had miles of clothes lines where we hung the wash out to dry. Maybe it had something to do with my growing taller, but it became my turn to hang the laundry out to dry.

    Now, the wash consisted of tons clothes and sheets (so many that I still have nightmares about them). I feel certain that is why I hate Mondays to this day. Everyone knew that Mondays were ‘wash day’.

    I say that to say this: My Mama who had the most beautiful skin in Texas allowed absolutely no sun to come in contact with her baby’s precious skin—-ever! Bonnets were worn from birth forward. Matter of fact, all girl babies were probably born wearing them.

    However, she did try to train me in the sharing of chores with my siblings. So, there I went with a basket of freshly washed clothes and sheets. I had to wear a big bonnet with ‘slate’ that extended at least 12 inches out from my face. Not one ray of sunshine was permitted on my face.

    Beyond the bonnet, I was required to wear long stockings pulled up on my arms all the way to my shoulders. These ‘arm’ stockings were pinned to my blouse along the shoulder seams.

    My skin never had a freckle – much less a tan. I never learned to swim – same reason, no sun! To this day I am terribly afraid of the water. However, I called my daughters bluff by ‘teaching’ them both how to swim just by coaching from the sidelines.

    But, that is another story, and I won’t digress further – as my granddaughter, Big Mama, tends to do.

    As I mentioned before, my Mother had gorgeous skin so she taught me proper skincare. No soap (too drying) – I think Witch Hazel (an herb or shrub of some sort I think) ointment cleaned and was a good night cream. No moisturizer, just powder when I was a teenager.

    Later she introduced me to Ponds cream. Yes, it has been around a long time, and it is still good.

    By the time I was a senior in high school, a line of makeup came out called Luziers. I had everything a girl at that time could ever want in order to look good and take care of her skin. I used it for years while my girls were growing up.

    Whenever I was running late, and friends would ask where I was, Big Bob got a kick out of saying, “Oh, she’s still home sitting in front of the mirror fighting with ‘them’ Luziers.” He could be such a smart aleck sometimes!

    Sometime during the late 50’s or early ’60’s, someone introduced me to Avon products. It was nice to have sales and delivery right to to your home.

    Through the years, I have tried various brands of this and that. Currently, I am using Abolene cleansing cream, Oil of Olay intensive night cream ($9 at Walgreens), sometimes EB5 as advertised by Penneys, Loreal foundation.

    The one big extravagance that I adopted thirty years ago is Alexandra de Markoff daytime moisturizer. It is expensive but one bottle lasts forever and is worth its weight in gold.

    If I stay in a dry climate for 3-4 weeks, I come home and keep my skin covered in Vaseline as much as possible. A little uncomfortable – but again, it can work magic.”

    Can I just laugh about her reference to staying in a “dry climate”? She lives in Beaumont, TX. Everywhere else in the world is considered a “dry climate” compared to Beaumont, including Houston.

    I can attest to the generous use of Abolene cleansing cream. It is one of the smells of my childhood. Any night I spent with Nanny ended with us watching Johnny Carson while she coated her face with Abolene and then wiped it off with a soft cloth.

    She was also a pioneer of a product that’s now called Frownies, although I believe in those days they were called Wings.

    Or maybe I just called them Wings because when I tried just now to Google “Wings” all that came up was a list of feminine products.

    I never understood why someone would sleep with something pasted on their forehead, but now that I wake up with eight different creases in my forehead every morning, it seems a perfectly logical thing to do.

    So there you have it. How to look fab at 90.

    Of course I’ll also need a time machine to erase all the summers I spent baking in the sun.

    There are some things that even Abolene can’t wash away.

  • Edition 32: Fashion Friday (now with beauty tips!)

    You know why I love y’all? Because you make me feel less alone.

    And even though I’ve never seen another woman at my neighborhood pool wearing a large hat in an attempt to both protect her face and hide her mustache, I now know that there are others out there with my same issues.

    I just wish you lived closer so we could start some kind of support group. We could all sit around with our cream bleach on our upper lip and talk about how beauty was so much easier when we were fourteen and only had to worry about what flavor of Bonne Bell to use.

    Or if our mamas noticed how much blue eyeshadow we had on as we headed to the mall on Friday night.

    I have a million fashion questions to answer in my inbox and, frankly, it is stressing me out. However, I feel that the skincare issue is an important one, so that’s what I’m addressing today.

    Plus, to be perfectly honest, I haven’t really seen any great clothes online lately. It’s kind of all the same stuff over and over again. Time to break out the fall fashions just in time for July.

    Anyway, my mustache-eliminating regimen is a two-fold process.

    1. I have had great success with Loreal’s Revitalift Micro-dermabrasion products. I use it about 2-3 times a week and after a few weeks, my skin looks noticeably better. This product alone helps significantly in reducing the appearance of the brown spots.

    However, I am a believer in maximizing your efforts.

    Otherwise known as being obsessive-compulsive.

    Especially where age spots are concerned.

    2. The other product that saved my life and my dignity during the horrible summer of horrendous mustache face was a bleaching cream with 2% hydroquinone. I can’t seem to find the brand that I used, but the key is to look for a product with 2% hydroquinone and use it faithfully twice a day.

    It requires time and patience. Neither of which are really my gift.

    Also, some people have a reaction to hydroquinone so use it sparingly at first to make sure that your skin can tolerate it and, for the love of everything, don’t use it on the days you do the micro-dermabrasion. It’s more than one face can handle. I don’t want any hate email about how hydroquinone ruined your life, so I’m handing out a warning right here and now.

    Remember, I’m not a dermatologist. I just play one on the blog.

    The biggest key to project mustache/age spot elimination success is to keep the sun completely off your face. Stock up on heavy-duty sunscreen and wear a big hat.

    Speaking of hats, here are a few cute ones that I’ve found to assist me in both style and sun prevention efforts. I wear this hot pink one on an almost daily basis and on the plus side, there is no way the lifeguards won’t see me if I’m drowning.

    I also like this one and this cowboy hat.

    Here are a few other really cute, practical options.

    Or you could always go with this option, but if you do please don’t tell me about it. Just put on your Vans and keep moving.

    On another skincare note, I received an email from a reader named Kristi who asked me what kind of foundation I use. She was looking for “something that can take the heat, look flawless (on flawed skin), and be good for my combination, easily prone to adult acne, face” and asked me for recommendations. She’s been using Bare Minerals and isn’t thrilled with the coverage.

    I recently switched from Bare Minerals for the same reason. I love how it feels, but wasn’t always satisfied with the coverage. My current foundation is by Laura Mercier and while I like the coverage, it feels too heavy in the summer heat and humidity.

    So, do y’all have any good foundation recommendations? What product provides good coverage yet doesn’t feel too heavy? What about tinted moisturizers? Any luck with those?

    I promise I’ll actually post about fashion next Friday, but I felt like the beauty issues had to be addressed. After all, fashion comes and goes, but your face is with you forever.

    Much like a four-year-old who senses you are on the phone.

    Hope y’all have a great Friday!

    Oh, and don’t forget to head over to the LifeWay All-Access blog. There’s some good stuff going on over there and I have a new post up today.

    **Edited to add: I fixed the link to the hot pink hat. Sorry about that. I was multi-tasking and put up the wrong link.