Smoke Is On Your Eyes

"I can never get it to last!  How do you get it to stay on?" a lot of my friends ask me, after I have "done" their eyes...  If you know me, you know that I'm a fan of eyeliner.

I like smokey, sultry-looking eyes.  Even with no other makeup on, nothing works like some eyeliner!!  The beach, the mountains, waking up, working out, getting off of a plane, 3 am and everywhere in between, keep the eyes going!  If your eyes are defined, then you have a focal point, a place for someone to start when they look at your face, instead of all your features washing out into mediocrity .  This look isn't for everyone, I agree.  But, I like it and you can, too!  Just own it.

This is what I use: L'Oreal HIP Gel eyeliner and Pixi Eye Color Sealer.  I have tried them all, and have a whole drawer full to show for it!  You can spend $30-$50 on the high-end stuff.  I have before and I do for other cosmetic items, but for my smokey-eye look, I have found nothing works like these two items combined.  The Eye Colour Sealer is a tad bit pricey, but lasts forever.  You can find both of these items at Target!

Don't use the brush provided by L'Oreal.  Put a few drops of the Pixi Sealer into the gel eyeliner, mix with a good round-tipped eyeshadow brush ~ Viola!  You got yourself some long-lasting eye definer!  The eyeliner gel is already moist, but the sealer causes it to last.  Get the liner to the consistency of a magic marker.  Test it on the back of your hand first.

Don't try to get a hard, tight mean line.  Use a soft, broad stroke.  Be brave.  Brush it under the lid and a little in the arch of your eyebrow.  If you put on too much, that's fine.  Just use a q-tip to swipe off the extra.

When you go with this look, don't use much other makeup!  No piling on of foundation, opaque lipstick and blush.  Let the eyes carry your look!  You will see a lot of smokey-eye looks with both upper and lower shadow... I actually prefer to leave the upper lid bare or with just a bit of pale, shimmering shadow.

Go with a a bit of concealer where needed, brush on some powder and blush just at the apples of your cheeks.  Use a sheer lip gloss or pale color!   A stroke of mascara on upper lashes only during the day.  For evening hours, add a little bit of mascara to the lower lashes.

Wrap Bracelets

Boho meets elegance.  My sister-in-law had one on.  It caught my eye!  The more I looked, the more I loved....then I asked her "how much?"

Well...I'm sure there will be a knock-off soon at Tar-jay???  One can dream...

The Eat Every Two-Hours Diet

While meeting with a friend the other day, his phone alarm went off.  He showed me the text alert: "2 hrs. Eat #3"  What in the world?  "This is the way I'm losing all the weight!" he tells me, while asking the coffee barrister to please wash a green pear that has suddenly appeared in his hand. 

The diet makes sense, really.  If you keep your food intake continual and regular by eating small amounts frequently, your body metabolism should go up.  The science behind it has something to do with fat stores and whether or not your body feels like it needs to "save up" fat for a potential famine (long period of growling hunger).  So, if you happen to be washed ashore on a deserted island within the next 4-5 hours, you will have the stored up energy your stomach has so politely kept for you!   By quelling your hunger every 2 hours, the body feels like "Oh, plenty to eat today, I don't have to store this energy up, because I seem to be getting food all the time!"  You then become a lean, fat-burning machine.

My enthusiastic dieting friend explained that he divides his day up into two-hour intervals, coming out with a total number of "eats" per day.  I don't exactly remember how many "eats" he got to have, but my guess is that it would vary, depending on the length of your day.

I had always had the facts of this dieting method in the back of my brain, somewhere.  Just not the part about militantly eating at the two-hour mark every time.  I thought I might give it a whirl, already determining if my phone had an alarm application to go off every two hours and how would I be able have nutritious snacks on my person at all times, etc.

I furthered my research by going to the libr- no!!!!  THE INTERNET!  I googled "two-hour diet".  My search returned mostly results pertaining to eating every three hours.  I discovered a book entitled The 3-Hour Diet by Jorge Cruise.  According to Jorge, "The secret lies in eating the "right foods" every 3 hours to stabilize your blood sugar, which controls your appetite. This steadies your moods and boosts your energy all day long.  Proper timing helps increase energy levels, alertness, muscle mass and, most importantly, helps reduce abdominal fat. In as little as two weeks, individuals who eat frequent, small meals are able to reduce cortisol levels by more than 17 percent. Truly amazing, isn’t it? Just imagine what a lifetime of eating this way will do for you."  If you go here, you can watch skinny fit Jorge as he hyper-ly energetically tells us about how to get rid of belly fat by keeping your insulin levels low.  Evidently the diet is working fabulously for Jorge!

The High Heel Conundrum

more often than not, i'm finding the old saying "all fashion ends in excess" to be very true!  lately, this rule seems to especially apply to shoes.  venture into a local shoe store or go online to find a pair of nice high-heeled shoes.  there you have it!  you must take your pick between five-inch nose bleeders or scuff-along-the-floor flats.  to me, this is just not much of a choice!  where are the mid-sized heels?  where are the 3-inchers?  i'm guessing these are just not enough of a fashion STATEMENT these days!

being tall, as in long-tall-sally, i can't get away with wearing such high heels - unless nobody stands near me, especially in a picture.  nobody!  i scare dogs and small children in catwalk heels!

flats....well, do you remember pop eye's olive oyl?   'nuff said.

I couldn't resist:

in search of..... the perfect leather jacket

...specifically a black (or dark brown) leather jacket, and i'm not talking eighties bombers' jacket.  ahh, those jackets of yesteryear only served to make me look like the michelin tire man...a little bit like a pair of legs with a large black bee-hive on top.  today, of course, "eighties are back"(...yea, whatever.)  not so much for me.

i'm looking for the perfect blend between tailored and feminine; detailed yet sleek.  one that is versatile and looks great with anything from a pair of jeans to a cocktail dress.  i prefer a soft, buffed leather instead of the thick, shiny stuff.  the leather-jacket-look has always been a bit of a gamble!  there is a very fine line between chic, lady-like versus edgy, rocker-girl here.  the idea, according to louloumagazine.com, "...is to look sexy and nonchalant. Look like a million bucks effortlessly."

according to this article in about.com,  "leather is relatively easy to care for if you take preventative measures. store it so it can breathe (no plastic!), wipe off spills and dirt on smooth leather with a damp cloth, regularly brush suedes and nubucks. fix hem problems with a touch of rubber cement. for major cleaning, avoid at-home products (especially waxes and other items that clog up leather pores); find a leather cleaning specialist."

here are some ideas.  what do you think?  ...or do you practice the "just-say-no philosophy" with this look?  LOL

heidi klum goes to india

heidi klum went to india and came back with some new color ideas and designs.  still jet-lagged and dizzy from various indian spices, she sat down to create an inspired group of exotic beauty products.  she was just dying to start the new makeup line! after begging and pleading with them, victoria's secret company finally let her do it! ...  well, this probably isn't exactly the way it happened, but....

some items of interest are:

• purple mascara
• glittery purple eyeliner

the rest- same-ole, same-ole...  :)  check out the video!

(what i would really like to know is where she got that dress and those bracelets!)

bosu and i are now friends

it happened the other day, while narrowing my workout class choices down to fit my schedule... which basically means the day had gone by way too fast and well, i had not yet worked out!! horrors! it became obvious that the only class that i could get to was BOSU!!! ughh.... cue beethoven here.

what is a bosu? sounds perhaps like a japanese food or maybe a massage?  a bosu is a piece of equipment that is incorporated into a fitness workout.  much like it's cousin "the stability ball", the bosu is inflated and is supposed to help strengthen the body's core and assist in obtaining greater balance...the difference is that the bosu is a half-ball, with a hard plastic base. (some would even say "hemisphere", but why get so technical?)

now, i have had other opportunities to become acquainted with the bosu....usually for floor work, such as sit-ups, crunches, or planks, but for an entire class? ...how boring would THAT be?

apparently, a guy named david weck invented the device and started making these things out of his father's garage to sell.  BOSU stands for "both sides up" or "both sides utilized", depending upon whether you are referring to the product or the "philosophy of BOSU".   the first athletic team to train using the bosu was the u.s. ski team!

well, i discovered that yes, you can workout out for an entire hour with a bosu! ...and yes, you will like working out with it!  do you remember how much fun it was to try to jump on a pogo stick or learn hoola hoop?  the boso turns a regular, run-of-the mill aerobic class into something slightly tricky and challenging. the trick is that instead of the floor or a regular aerobic step, you do most all of the normal exercising on the BOSU! ...even running in place!  i could almost say the workout was fun! (almost...) :)

cool, cool site. put make-up on over and over, without having to wash your face!! (...or buy it.)

it's a little amazing how much time I have spent on this site!  I guess I can make myself feel a little better by knowing that it would have taken me over a week to drive to all of the stores and actually try the makeup out on my own face!  LOL!  this site has me even reconsidering colored contacts!(probably not really...but it's a fun thought!) 

try it out yourself!  go crazy.  all you have to do is give them an email address and a passcode.  after you get started, just be sure to edit your privacy settings.  choose whether or not you want your makeover to be private or public.  who knows!?  you may want to show the world your gorgeous new face!!

TAAZ.com : Virtual Makeover. Real Beauty. (for Halloween!) teehee

Before

After

the workout discovery

ballet and tap throughout grade school, followed by a brief anti-social period of teen weirdness and then onto jane fonda cassette tapes in college, i have always tried to "workout".

i dabbled back and forth with fitness.  having always been tall and relatively thin, i never worried a whole lot about it.  every once in while, I would see pictures of myself and think, "hmmmm, what's up with that crappy posture?"  or "who is that ....oh, that's me!" 

during my first pregnancy, i enrolled in a "prenatal" exercise class.  the whole, yes-i'm-pregnant-and-i'm-still-working-out thing had not yet "caught on" at the time, it was the early 90's.  but, being always on the cutting edge of what's exactly acceptable and normal, i leafed through my prenatal materials, and, upon finding the number for the downtown YMCA, enrolled my moody, bloated self into a class. the whole process was rather empowering!  at the end of the 6-8 week class, i found myself missing the group comradery , the music and the energy!  i enrolled for a second class before my daughter was born.

after the birth of my daughter, i discovered a fitness class that met in a church fellowship hall and incorporated contemporary christian music into the routine.  i loved it!  the class was called "body and soul".  it met twice a week in the evenings.  i enlisted the help of my younger siblings, who at the time were young, full of energy and not-yet-tired-parents of their own offspring.  they eagerly agreed to drive the half hour out to the boondocks, where i lived, so that i could eagerly drive my spandex-ed, post-pregnant body to the first presbyterian church for a workout!

this lasted for a little while, maybe a year or so.  soon, LIFE caught onto the fact that i was actually working out on a regular basis and put the breaks on that....

stay tuned for more of my amazing discovery of the wonderful world of fitness and how it is the main activity, aside from plastic surgery, that can totally change your appearance and overall confident attitude!!

elements of beauty

this is my how i would like to outline the five basic elements of beauty in this blog:

• frame - our bodies, our shapes.
• interior - what's inside. not just our organs, etc...what about our spirits, minds, feelings, emotions?
• canvas - skin! it covers our entire body!
• paint - cosmetics, perfume - how do we accentuate our good points, camouflage the bad ones?
• curtains - our individual style. clothing, fashion!