There are pretty much two makeup looks that women are sporting this decade, and that seems to be one of two extremes, which fits a great many shapes and sizes of face very well.  It also of course depends on one’s personality and preference.

However, you can also switch off between the two, especially if you have one of those versatile types of faces where you are conducive to lots of makeup, but also look pretty darn good going natural here and there as well.

Au naturel is minimalist – or at least it appears that way. Au naturel can be minimal eye makeup with a lot of help from a foundation and great concealer and blush, or if you have naturally great skin that has few blemishes, you can use a minimalist powder like Bare Minerals and a little blush and then apply your minimalist eye makeup.

I prefer to use a liquid foundation and solid concealer in the winter time, especially as I get older, because it gives my skin much better coverage and makes me look younger.  The summer, when I may have a little more natural color to my face, is when I can go a little more bare faced without looking “older”.

Usually the minimalist look uses very little eye makeup. This is the key to looking natural and minimally “made up”.  Usually there is mascara involved, and may be a light peach, brown or nude eyeshadow swept across the lids to create a bit of color and depth.  Eyeliner should be used sparingly if at all.

You may want to use a brown eyeshadow, swept under the lids with an eyeliner sponge.  This way, you don’t risk the solid, dramatic line that can be seen with an eyeliner pencil or liquid eyeliner.  I’ve found this technique to be very natural and flattering – plus it saves me my eyeliner pencils for when I really need them.

There should be no lipstick, only a tinted peach or light pink color on the lips with a little slick lip gloss applied over it for some sheen and volume.

With the “diva” look, you can have at it with all the fun colors in your repertoire.  You should use the liquid foundation for this look so that the skin isn’t overpowered by the eye makeup.  I don’t like to use lipstick with this look, as it can tend to look like too much, so rather I would just use a lip liner in a lighter shade.

Eye makeup may be applied generously, and usually three colors in a complimentary trio can be used, such as blues, purples, greys, browns, or greens.  The idea is to swipe the dark color on the deep part of the eyelid, the light color on the front of the lid, and on the top and the medium color on the corners for depth and drama.

You can follow with a powder or liquid liner, rimmed dramatically on the top and bottom lids, then smudged with a professional sponge.  Following with a little mascara is good too, but you need minimal mascara when you have lined the eyes so generously.

I love the holidays – for makeup buying that is.  It’s one of the few times that you see some of the coolest, most imaginative color sets in cosmetics. And they are dirt cheap too. So you can get a collection of twenty to one hundred eyeshadow colors, as well as other things like lip gloss, nail polish and other things, for a really good price.

I like this because it allows you to experiment with a variety of colors without blowing a ton of money for the privelege to do so.  That way, if you want to splurge on a similar color that is of a higher quality, you can do so without it being an epic fail and a waste of money since you already tested out the cheapo version.

Here’s what my review is about today.  ELF, otherwise known as Eyes Lips Face, is a really neat little cosmetics company that makes small versions of cosmetics for a really cheap price.

Their packaging and overhead is minimal, so they pass this cost savings on to you, the consumer, and allow you to try out a selection of colors without breaking the bank.  Their sizes may be a bit smaller, but it’s worth it for the money.

The real kicker? Their makeup is actually a pretty decent quality!  Now, don’t expect totally super saturated color like some more expensive brands, or the ability to stay put smack dab all day long, but they are really just as good as say a Revlon or a Cover Girl, at a fraction of the price.

They are available now at Target, which is where I got my great eyeshadow sampler. It has roughly 24 colors in it of eyeshadows which are all an earthy version of colors like purple, green, browns, greys, some blues, and some reddish and organgish or peachy colors.

I’ve tried quite a few of them already, and love them all. I’ve found they actually have pretty decent color saturation, meaning that you don’t have to apply and reapply a ton to get the right amount of color on your lids.

The colors themselves are fabulous, all being the earthy tones that I really like. They had this palette and another palette that was more vibrant and colorful, but more intense and a little more eighties themed.

How much was this awesome palette? A mere FIVE BUCKS.  I figured I might actually go back and get another one as I can see me wanting another when this one is drained of my favorite colors.

I’ ve been solely using this kit for about five days now and finding it immensely fun to mix the different colors and make a tricolor eye with new colors every day.  I’d highly recommend this for anyone who wants to experiment with colors without dropping a ton of dough!

It took me FOREVER to find the right sponge to apply my liquid foundation that I like to wear in the winter time when my skin is paler and I usually need more coverage on my face for blemishes and imperfections.  I like to wear Revlon Colorstay foundation in Buff, and it requires a really flexible and absorbent foundation sponge to apply.

I’ve tried applying foundation with my fingers, and it really just doesn’t give you the same airy, even coverage that a good sponge will give you.  You can also use a foundation brush, but these I’ve found are difficult to keep pliable and clean, whereas a sponge is a little more versatile, flexible, and easier to keep clean.

Plus, you don’t have to spend a ton of money on a sponge, you just keep it for a couple weeks and toss it, whereas you probably are making a fairly significant purchase when you buy a foundation brush – as much as $30 to $40 for a really good one.

A sponge also tends to get better with age. You can still use them and clean them over and over until they start to shred. Because they soak up so much of the foundation (and mine soaks up a bit of water too, read on), they become so saturated that they get just the right amount of foundation on the sponge going forward, giving you the best coverage without a lot of caking or too much of a layered look.

I like the sponges that are part latex because they are much more flexible and absorbent than the cheaper ones that the foundation just “sits on top of”. Think of seasoning a sponge like you season a pan. You have to use it a few times and really soak it for it to start working well and blending well.

I like to put a little bit of cold water on my sponge before I dip it in to my foundation and sheer moisturizer, like Revlon Skinlights luminizing lotion.  This way, it tends to go on more shearly and you avoid that caked on appearance.

You may end up paying a little more for the flexible, higher quality makeup sponges, but you will be paid back in spades with the excellent results you get in the application of your foundation.

One of my favorite things to do that really adds a fresh, sexy look is to use a good foundation primer or a shimmery, dewy look glow lotion. This means either one that you buy yourself, or one that you can actually mix yourself fairly easily.  Of course, it’s not going to be the exact same results as some of the ritzier, more professional formulas out there, but it’s close enough.

If you want to add that glow to your face without glomming on the makeup, then make a do it yourself “glotion”.  Start with a tiny amount of foundation and perhaps some reflective particles of blush or a powder with a skin tone.  Mix these with about a dime size of regular facial moisturizing lotion .

The moisturizing effect of the lotion along with the light refracting effect of the blush or powder particles (usually a dusty mineral) will help the face appear dewy and healthy, with a bit of a glowy look to it – without looking overly made up. To add an even more sheer look, try wetting down your makeup sponge/applicator a bit with water before applying.

Another way to get that fresh, sexy look in your makeup is to use light colors and browns for your eyes. Greys, blues and purples tend to make the face look a bit more austere and cool while browns work for just about any complexion and warm things up.

I like to take my palette of brown eyeshadow and dip my eyelining sponge into it and line the tops of my eyelids as well as the bottom. This way, it’s not too drawn on, and it has a more warm, smudged and natural look to it, creating a more ethereal look that is a bit harder to pinpoint as straight up makeup.

I also like to take a light pink blush and apply it to the apples of my cheeks, my chin, and forehead to make my skin appear more flushed. Remember, color is always appealing and beautiful, so if you haven’t seen the sun for 6 months, fake it with makeup.

I stay away from lipstick and stick to sheer colored lip balms. I don’t have a whole lot of lips to work with, and I tend to look ridiculous with lipstick on because it just draws attention to the thinness of my lips too much. So instead I use a sheerly pink or purplish tinted balm.

This creates a bit of sheen as well as a bit of color and make my lips show up instead of washing out against my skin.  Flushed cheeks and lips are the two keys to looking alive and sexy.  If you choose only two things to do, those are probably the best.

I wanted to take a little bit to talk about some beauty products that I consider must-haves for the summer time. Especially for this particular summer, which happens to be a very hot one for many people.

East coast, west coast, you name it. We are ALL having some pretty severe heat and humidity waves, and it’s taking a toll not only on our bodies but also on our looks!

One of the biggest essentials for me this summer has been a great anti frizz hair serum or cream. I’m currently using the L’Oreal sulfate free line of anti frizz cream.

I like it, but I find that it works much better when I use what feels like too much to me. I’m not big on putting a ton of gunk in my hair because I don’t like it to feel weighed down, but with this stuff, it’s a light and watery enough cream that my hair doesn’t feel disgusting with more than usual in it.

I notice that if I am liberal with the application, my hair tends to fall more into it’s correct place when I blow it dry. It’s not the type of product that I feel I need to wait a day to get good results in other words. My hair actually looks decent when I blow it dry (well, most of the time!)

The second must-have beauty product for the summer time (any summer time, not just hot sticky ones) is a self tanner. At least a good one for the face and legs. Other than that, I’m finding that I really can’t stand to put self tanners on my belly and other body parts, so I rely on the sun or a tanning booth for that (yes, I do tan occasionally, I believe it can actually be constructive if you use it correctly).

I like to give my face color especially and give it that sun kissed glow. I hate having a white face or a face that looks ashen or unhealthy in the summer time, and self tanner helps me get that look without tanning it with the sun.

My face is one body part I still refuse to expose to the sunlight, as I definitely notice sun damage almost instantly when I do nowadays.

Now, for my last summer time essential beauty tool. Blush. I used to not be big on blush at all. However, I find that if you use it sparingly, it can really add some healthy looking color to your face.

I like to swipe a bit on my forehead, my cheeks (under the bone, that’s how it looks best on me, on the apple of my cheeks tends to make me look strange, decide how it looks best on you, it could be different).

I like that it give that instant color and a little bit of definition and depth as well.  It goes great with a nice self-tan on the face also. I like to use a pinkish color as I find this gives the healthiest, freshest look. I stay away from peaches.

Of the popular over the counter cosmetics that you can buy at any drugstore or department store, I really like L’Oreal the best, and then Revlon the second best. I like L’Oreal because they brought deep pigments to the picture in drugstore brand in their HIP line, and I’ve loved their mascara now for almost two decades.

I used L’Oreal’s liquid eyeliner for a few years, and I like it fine. I thought the felt tip on the applicator could have been a little thinner to give a more precise line if you didn’t want it too thick,  but other than that I liked the way it wore (besides a little smudging here and there), and I like the color options.

The other day, I noticed that I was running so low on the brown liquid liner that it was starting to look diluted in color and was watered down, so I decided to buy a new brown liquid liner.

This time I went with Revlon Colorstay liquid brown eyeliner. It was actually almost two bucks cheaper than the same L’Oreal liner that I had just run out of, so I thought what the heck. Even if I hated it, I wouldn’t be out that much money and if I liked it, I may have found a less expensive liquid liner to use.

So I tried it out yesterday for the first time, and I really really like it!  It has a nice color to it, a darker brown, and it came out exceptionally even and smooth looking. It wore all day long like a champ without running at all. It also gave me a very precise line because of how thin the tip was.

I believe this is a felt tip as well, not a brush, and that’s what I liked about the L’Oreal version too, except I like the Revlon one even better because it gives you more control over the thickness of the line you want to create. Typically, you only use liquid eyeliner on the top of your eyelids, not on the bottom.

I like to use the brown liquid liner for the daytime because I feel like black is a little too dramatic and harsh for the daytime.  This gave me a very nice, casual look. I only lightly line my bottom lash line with a brown pencil liner, and smudge it a bit when I use liquid on the lid, so that the top looks more dramatic and stands out more.

In comparison to the L’Oreal liquid liner, I give Revlon the better review, hands down.

I finally found what I think is the best eyebrow liner I’ve ever had. I like it because it doesn’t make me look like Charlie Chaplin when I put it on. It’s subtle, yet it gives my brows great definition and a great arch. All with a very natural looking color that blends well with my complexion.

And I was swayed to try a shade darker the last time I went to the MAC counter, which I definitely regret. I plan to return this new one though. The girl at the counter told me that what I was using was too light, and recommended that I go a shade darker, to their next darker liner, since I was actually currently using their lightest one which was apparently made for blondes and people with sandy blonde hair.

I have brunette hair. It’s darker in the winter of course, but it is lighter in the summer.  So, I decided to bite and took her up on the darker color. She said I could return it if I didn’t like it and thought it was too dark, so I figured she’s a makeup artist, she knows.

Sometimes you should really listen to yourself and your own tolerances and preferences when it comes to makeup though. Sometimes even the “professionals” can’t tell you what looks right on you – it’s all up to you and your comfort level.

So as soon as I got out to my car, I tried the newer darker brow liner color, and I thought it was way too dark for my taste. My eybrows definitely looked a little too dark and a little too “drawn on” – like I mentioned earlier, like Charlie Chaplin, or stage makeup, and that’s not at all in my comfort zone.

This is a perfect example where I should have stuck to my guns and kept with the lighter one which I knew I really liked, but I was swayed because I thought what someone else told me had to be right.

I tried many, many brow liners before I found the one I love. It often does take a lot of trial and error to find a brow liner that you really love and that really matches your skin tone as well as your haircolor. But once you do, it’s pretty much priceless since eyebrows really frame your entire face and can either make or break your makeup look.

Remember the days when only supermodels hawked the products of the large cosmetics and beauty product companies?  The likes of Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell, Christie Brinkley, and last but not least Cindy Crawford used to be the faces behind some of the biggest cosmetics giants.

Some time in the late nineties though, that all changed. The day of the “supermodel” was almost over, except for it seems, Gisele Bundchen who seems to still have a stronghold as the most famous supermodel of this millennium. 

Now, famous actresses have replaced the supermodel as the faces of choice for many big designers and cosmetics products.  Some of the actresses who have worked as faces for Revlon, for example, include Jessica Alba, Halle Berry and Eva Mendes. 

The exotic actresses showed off their perfect bone structure and great sense of style in Revlon makeup, where you can see their pictures on television and in the department stores where these products are sold. 

In this day and age of tabloid fascination and an almost unhealthy obsession with the idea of celebrity, actresses have totally replaced models as the desired faces of a product.  It seems to work too, since most of the women chosen are known as some of the most beautiful and intriguing actresses out there.

L’Oreal is another drugstore brand that has used actresses as their “face”.  Eva Longoria and Sarah Jessica Parker for example, have shown off their locks for their hair color line.  Even the actress from Lost (one of my favorite shows), Evangeline Lilly did some ads for L’Oreal haircolor with her famous glossy brunette locks.

L’Oreal even has a small line of eyeshadow quads that represent colors that were chosen for actresses and other women in the spotlight complexions.  Gwen Stefani has done some work for them, bringing in the quirkier, younger set of hipsters, and Mila Jovavich, who is an actress now but started out her career as exclusively a model, has done a lot of pitches for them.

I also heard that Elizabeth Banks, the fresh faced girl next door actress who has done a great job in comedies as well as dramas (even playing Laura Bush in the Oliver Stone Bush movie), is tapped to be one of their spokesmodels, so L’Oreal has run quite the gamut when it comes to hiring diverse spokeswomen who target women in virtually every walk of life.

The latest news is that Sex and the City’s Kim Catrall with be the spokesmodel for the Oil of Olay line of anti aging and anti wrinkle creams and products.

Little girls love dressing up and want to look grown up long before mom and dad are ready for it.  When girls hit the preteen years, and often before that, they are in a big hurry to start wearing makeup.  Usually, the makeup starts with a clear or slightly tinted lip gloss.

Walmart is targeting this trend and has a full line of cosmetics starting in their stores specifically for girls in their tween years called geoGirl.  The geoGirl line of makeup contains all natural ingredients.

The price range for this line of cosmetics is lower with most items costing $4.00 to $6.00.  The products featured include lip gloss, light pink blushes, eye shadow and mascara.  Since these products are aimed at the tween market, the product names are based on texting phrases such as BCNU for “be seeing you”.

Target is also in on the younger tween cosmetic marketing with their line called Hello Kitty cosmetics.  Their Hello Kitty line of makeup features nail polish, lip gloss, eye shadows and also gift sets.  Target’s Hello Kitty cosmetics range in price from $2.00 to $10.00 per item.

Retailers are looking to have special lines of makeup aimed at the tween consumers because they are increasingly spending more each year on cosmetic products.  Another area of marketing for the tween to teen years is the young boys who are spending more on personal care items.

This trend has caused companies such as Axe to add scented deodorant sprays and similar items to their product selections.

Depending on which parent you talk to, there is mixed reaction to pushing makeup lines to younger and younger consumers.  The fear is that this trend puts too much emphasis on physical appearance and body image.

Other parents feel as if a little lip gloss is no cause for alarm.  If girls are 11 or 12 years old and just starting to wear a little light makeup, that is much different than a girl of 8 wearing lots of heavy makeup.

When it’s all said and done, no matter what the retail cosmetic industry is pushing, it’s up to mom and dad’s discretion what is approriate and okay at what age in their home.

Heck, I myself have been known to purchase a little Mary Kate and Ashley makeup here and there – they have fun colors sometimes. Quality sometimes so-so, but colors are cute!

I’ve definitely found my favorite new eyebrow liner.  I actually sort of found it by accident. I wasn’t even shopping for a new brow liner because I thought the one I had was ok – not the best and most perfect match, but it was ok enough to keep.

I actually was shopping with a gift card my husband had gotten me for the Macy’s where they have a newer MAC counter by where I live, specifically for me to get makeup with.  He knew I was in need of a few new things, and it was the perfect gift since he had no idea what I liked when it comes to makeup.

My plan was actually to get some new brown shades of eyeshadow – just singles, and to also pick up a new tube of the Lip Glass colored lip gloss, which is great because it lasts a long time and comes in pretty colors.  Other than that, I wasn’t really looking to try or buy anything else.

I usually will try on the colors before I buy them, so I had one of their makeup artists do a natural smudgy brown look on my eyes.  The makeup artist took out a brow liner too, to help shape my brows and complete the look since I went in there au naturelle.

The brow pencil is a push up style pencil that is very skinny at the top so that you can “draw” on your brows like you’re drawing on one hair at a time, with quick, short, upward strokes where ever your eyebrows thin out a bit naturally.  For me, this is the outer brow, more toward the sides of my face, from over zealous plucking when I was in my early twenties and micro brows were in.

It’s a very light color, almost a taupe color, but it blends PERFECTLY with my eyebrows, never looking reddish or too dark like a lot of the other eyebrow pencils and fillers I bought used to look.

The only drawback to the MAC eyebrow pencil is that it does go down quickly. Just one application wears the pencil down to the nub again, so you have to constantly be clicking it back up again each time you use it.

The girl did tell me that was an issue with the brow pencil, so she recommended I buy a backup since you can’t tell when they’re out. She was right, I love it AND I want to go buy a backup now for when it is gone!