Tuesday, April 3, 2012

April Crepe

Hmmm, maybe this poor little blog needs a little more attention.  Or to be altogether abandoned.  Of course, frustrated novelist that I am, I will NOT be abandoning it anytime soon. :)  Therefore, I choose:  MORE ATTENTION!  And maybe today I will actually attempt PICTURES to go along with WORDS.  Yes, much more interesante, no?

Since this is a blog directed towards those of us for whom the first bloom of youth has probably turned tail and run, I would like to address the issue of crepy lids.  If you are reading this and have no clue what crepey lids are, please read on and prepare to be possibly distressed at what the future holds for you.  For those of you to whom crepey lids have already become a fact of life, I would like to tell you that there are definitely ways to work with them.  :)  Perhaps you have already discovered a few tips and tricks of your own.  If not, I hope that a few of these will give you some new tools with which to Fight.

But first I must digress a bit here and go on record with my belief that while we may develop some sags, bags, and wrinkles as we walk this Wonderful Path of Life, with those same sags, bags, and wrinkles come wonderful ((all right, to some of us, but, sadly, not to all)) insights and, hopefully, people, into our life, and therefore should not be looked upon with horror and dismay, but with pride and the knoweldge that we are becoming more and more wise and beautiful inside.  Truly.  Because if we don't look at life that way, we will all go madly and horribly insane!

So, on to Crepey Lids.  Contrary to what some (and some who are Quite Renowned) have to say about wearing shimmer-free colors on crepey lids, I have found that slight shimmer actually DETRACTS from the crepiness of my lids and makes me look younger and more alive.  Wearing 'flat' colors on MY eyelids definitely accentuates the wrinkles, and I have tossed all of my flat colors, or relegated them to usage in the crease of my eyelid ONLY.  A recent find that works beautifully for me is one of the new quads from the Ready line of Bare Escentuals.  I own The Truth, which consists of four lovely neutral shades:  Serendipitous is a light champagne shimmer; Magnetism is a medium taupe; Fate is my fave, a shimmery chocolate brown; and Apropos is a dark brown that is great for smudgy lining or adding depth to the crease.  (And herein lies a Painful Truth, ladies - us Old Broads should really stick to the Neutral Shades for optimal flattery.  Sorry.  True.)  Oh, dear, the pictures appear to be a tad blurry.  Please forgive the amateur attempt - hopefully I will improve my technique with time.  It probably gives one pause and makes one wonder what kind of advice I am giving when my photos are crap.  Oh, well, have faith.  I might not be the best photographer, but I'm not too bad at makeup application! :)

Here are the eyeshadows - from top, which is quite pale, we see Serendipitous; then Magnetism, Fate, and Apropos.  And, sorry, I guess we also see a freckle and some of my neighbor's backyard.....

In situ in the compact (please forgive the 'well loved' look of the compact):

By the way, I NEVER use the brushes that come in the compact - the poor excuse for brushes here look used because I just employed them to swab my arm with the swatches.  My favorite eyeshadow brushes are the Wet/Dry eyeshadow brushes from Bare Escentuals, although these particular Ready eyeshadows are not meant to be used wet, unlike the Bare Escentual shadows that are loose minerals in the pot.

As far as color application, I have found that applying the lightest shade on the lid IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.  Save the lightest shade for inner corners or browbone highlighting.  Really light shades on the lid CALL ATTENTION TO CREPINESS and should never be used there.  Use the medium or dark shades on the lid and you will be much happier with your look.

Now, regarding lining:  younger women would not understand this, but those of us for whom Mother Nature has given us the Gift of Wisdom will understand:  It is nearly impossible at some point to draw a smooth, straight line in all one swipe across your lashline.  However, it IS possible to give the smooth, straight line LOOK if you draw the line a little bit at a time, and here are some helpful tools to have when you attempt this:



The pen on top is from Tarte, the multiplEYE, which I own in black.  It has an extremely narrow tip and is pretty good for lining crepey lids, although I find the color a tad wimpy and often need to go over the line a few times for real 'oomph'.  (And, BTW, black is not necessarily to be avoided by us Old Broads - used wisely, it can be a wonderful look!)  The pen on the bottom is from Buxom, in dark brown, and it is my current favorite.  The tip is a cunning design that is quite rigid (the Tarte product is more flexible, and, for that reason, more difficult to control) and can be used to make very thin lines, very thick lines, and lines somewhere in-between.  The color goes on very saturated the first time, and all in all, I think this is one of the best 'liquid' eyeliner products I have ever used.  (And for those of you who don't know me, I have a 'slight' makeup addiction and my collection is embarassingly HUGE, so I have mostly likely tried more than the average woman......or maybe three average women.)  Here is a close-up (albeit somewhat blurred) pic of the tips, with the Tarte product on the top and the Buxom product on the bottom:


To apply one of these eyeliners, first start with the color eyeshadow you are going to use, and top with your choice of eyeliner - I do not line my entire eye, but only about the outer two thirds, sometimes only the outer half.  Using your magnifying mirror (YES, ladies, USE ONE - it's the only way to really see what you are doing!), start at the center of your eye and work your way in small strokes to the outer edge.  If necessary, go back and extend the line a bit more toward the inner corner of the eye, but you usually don't want to go the entire way to the corner unless you are working on a very dramatic evening look or you are REALLY adept with the liner and can fade it to nothing at the end.  (Which you are more likely to be able to do with the aid of your magnifying mirror!)  You will see that lining your eyes calls attention to them, but will not make you look like a Kardashian (unless your goal is to look like a Kardashian, and then I would direct you to one of the many YouTube videos of Kim having her makeup applied).  But I digress.  Get as close to your lashline with the liner as humanly possible.  The best way to do this is to almost be aiming for the teeny, tiny spaces in between your lashes.  Yes.  Go there.  You will be very happy you did.  It's close to 'tightlining' without the rigamarole of flipping your eyelid half inside out.  But maybe we can address tightlining another time, as it is a pretty cool tool for Old Broads - NO CREPE ON THE INNER RIMS OF THE EYES......erm, well, at least I can say that as a fiftysomething - who knows what horrors await, say, as a ninetysomething?  Hopefully I can address that when I come to it in thirtysome years.  :)

Finish up with a light coat of mascara.  I used to omit mascara but realized that my eyes just didn't look the way I wanted them to without it.  My current faves are Bare Escentuals Flawless Definition Volumizing mascara and Hello Lashes from It Cosmetics.  The BE mascara is probably the one I reach for most, but Hello Lashes is nice for a change, although the formula is very 'wet' and I feel that it makes my lashes clump together more than I would like.  However, it has an interesting (although not totally unique) brush, with one end being a little ball, with which you are supposed to get 'every single last lash'.  Beware!  This little end is also good for smearing gobs of mascara in places you did not intend it to be, but as long as you have a reasonably steady hand, you're good to go.

An added afterthought:  Bet some of you are wondering about eyeshadow primers.  I have tried a *cough* few of them myself.  I found some of them to make my eyelid crepiness actually - OMG - WORSE - sorry to have to name this one, because I actually love LG herself, but Laura Geller's Eye Spackle was a 'no go' for me.  Some of the rest of you might like it quite a bit, and I really like her Face Spackle, but the only eyelid/shadow primers that seem to work/look good on my fiftysomething lids are - drumroll, please - the Bare Escentuals color eyeshadow primers.  I love the ones in shades of brown/taupe, whereas my twentysomething daughter loves the pink/yellow ones.  Aaah, in the Crepe Against No Crepe battle, the darker shades win out again - stick with Bronzed Twig or Toasted Almond for your best look.  And, honestly, I'm not sure that they smooth the Crepe out too much, but the colors are pretty, and they last all day loooong.  :)

So that this doesn't turn into my very first novel, I will close for today, although I realize that I might have delivered a tad less than I promised........I bet some of you were hoping I was going to share the Secret of Total Obliteration of Crepey Eyelids, and I merely offered a few of my own, stolen-from-other-sources makeup tips.

Next time I think I will address lips.  I love a good pop of color on the lips! :)

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