Jack & Hill: A Beauty Blog - make-up, cosmetics, perfume, and the substance of style

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Inspired by Carmindy Airbrush Foundation

That's a lot of words for one little product. I didn't even know who Carmindy was, being far too loyal to the British original of Trinny and Susannah's What Not to Wear to tolerate the shrieky, very fake-seeming American version. It turns out that Carmindy is the makeup artist on that horrible show. And yet, she seems to have produced - with Sally Hansen - at least one very good product in a line called Natural Beauty. As the woman herself says of the collection:

I partnered with the Sally Hansen team to develop this breakthrough cosmetic line of the highest quality products at a price we can all afford. Natural Beauty is totally paraben-free and filled with natural anti-oxidants and botanicals. Each and every product works seamlessly together to deliver the flawless look and feel you have always wanted. You won't believe how fresh and light Natural Beauty is and how easy it is to apply.

She's not just spouting PR lines.

I tend to choose a tinted moisturizer with at least SPF 30 many days, which gives me sheer coverage. Sometimes I want to even out my skintone a bit more, which is when I opt for a proper foundation. Lately, I've been reaching more frequently for this one. (It offers no sun protection, so underneath I apply Neutrogena Age Shield Face with SPF 80.)

The word "airbrush" gives the sense that you'll be spraying your face with this stuff, and that it will Photoshop away all your imperfections. Instead, you spray the product into your hands, then blend it into your face. I don't know what the dispensing method has to do with why this foundation works so well, but it does. I don't feel I need much concealer (just under my eyes, to cover dark circles) when using it, yet it doesn't look cake-y or heavy.

At $13.50, I don't think you're going to find a better everyday option for foundation. (Trust me, I've shelled out many times that for the Vincent Longos of the world, and am very gunshy about returning.)

Skin mismatch

  Me & Mr. Claus 
  Originally uploaded by dynamist.

My face and chest are darker than my neck. My face is a bit darker than my chest. Even though my foundation matches my skin, I still always look to be wearing a mask in photographs.

Now, this doesn't bother me as much as it once did. But I do wonder if there's a solution. Suggestions welcome.

Ruby Woo

The risk you with a dramatic change of hair color is that none of your clothes or makeup will work with the new look. The Kiehl's tinted moisturizer I'd been using happily for months now suddenly looked a bit ruddy with my new blonde, as did my earthier lipsticks, so off to MAC I went, in search of some colors with a bit more, ah, va-voom.

First, all bottle blondes need a perfectly pitched red lipstick, and mine turns out to be Ruby Woo, a bluish red that goes on bone dry and has a true eggshell finish. Because it's so dry, it can be applied with precision, stays in place well and never comes off on my teeth, smears or feathers, so I do not end up looking like a crazy old lady. It's the rare red lipstick that I can completely forget I'm wearing.

Next, I found a perfect color match in MAC Studio Fix Fluid SPF 15 foundation in NC30, and it, too, has a retro matte finish without feeling dry on my dry skin. Where the Kiehl's had a pleasantly warming effect when my hair was cooler and darker, this has a yellow cast and curiously enough, looks buttery instead of sallow now that my hair has a yellow tint to it as well. (I have noticed that right after I take the big heat curlers out, my hair looks like nothing so much as a giant kernel of buttered popcorn.)

Finally, I found myself craving a true white eye shadow, to go with the creamy beige skin and red lips, so I picked up some eye shadow in White Frost. I have taken to using MAC Paint Pot in Bare Study, a nude with some shimmer, as an eyeshadow base, as it resists creasing and gives a little glint to the eye. This seems to be the new cult product, too, as it's currently sold out. I keep it below the crease, as a shiny browbone makes this look veer catastrophically into the 80s, then just dab the White Frost over the center of the lid as a white highlight.

That's Summer Look #1. From this picture I can see that I need a more defined brow to finish it off. Coming soon.

When Jackie met BECCA

I'd heard a lot of raves about Australian line BECCA (those shouty all-caps do grate, don't they?), so when the company's PR offered me some free products to try, I jumped at the chance. My conclusion: Great packaging, shame about the overpriced contents.

Here's a rundown:

I was disappointed by the mascara. I have naturally long, dark lashes, but even so, I would have expected a $19 product to do something for me. You couldn't even tell I had any mascara on - there was no discernible difference between my lashes before and after I applied a whole lot of product.

The tinted moisturizer is suitably sheer and provides SPF 25 protection, but is nothing to blog home about - especially not when it's priced in the $40 range.

I found the stick foundation quite drying and chalky. I like that it has SPF 30, but again, the price point is way too high for such a flawed product.

While it wouldn't be accurate to say that the compact concealer won me over, it was the best of the lot. I cannot get it to blend well, at least not easily. I would not pay $35 for this, even if it were twice the size.

Bottom line: If you're going to splash the cash on a department store line, go for one with more solid products or at least more fun packaging. Otherwise, you're better off opting for a more reasonably priced range.

MAC Flashtronic

Here, again, I thought I'd juxtapose the gorgeous MAC photography with the "real life" application. I tend to prefer excess and drama when it comes to makeup, and subtle shades usually go right beneath my radar, but something about this soft look actually thrills me.

The Mineralize eyeshadow is made up of four colors that swirl together under the brush--so even though the color is far from bold, it has pearly depth and interest. This also makes it possible to wear a single color and have a lot of contour (I must take better close-in shots to post later). This is Quarry, made up of "sky blue, olive, coral and beige veining."  The Mineralize Skinfinish on my cheeks is Gold Spill, put on with a loose brush and a light touch. The lipstick is Fast Lane ("mauve with silver pearl") from the Rush Metal line. I've been longing for a really wearable, sophisticated everyday lipstick combining creaminess, shine and pearl, and this is it--yes there is life after lip gloss.

If you like these, don't relegate them to the wish list, as they are special editions and won't be around forever. I would have walked right by every single one of these products in the store, and must thank MAC's PR department for the review samples.

If my skin tone looks particularly even, that's Nancy's Kiehl's Tinted Moisturizer, with a bit of MAC Studio Fix on the shiny bits. Along with MAC Zoom Lash mascara, and Stila Brown Definer, this is my new desert island kit, and outside the line of duty, I will likely be wearing this face pretty much every day until I am sick of myself.

MAC Attack

It seems the gorgeous creatures in the MAC PR department are reading your comments here, as they've just sent me all kinds of shiny, pretty things for review. I'll get to the subtle beauties later, but the first thing that caught my eye (literally as you can see) was the bright blue peacock-inspired summer eyeshadow from the C Shock line. I thought it would be fun to put the splendid MAC photography next to the "real life" application of the product, so here it is... I'm wearing three of the eye colors: the orangey-pinky Fab & Flashy on the lids, Bang on Blue for liner, and Passionate on the brow bone. My first effort looked more like the MAC ad, but not in a good way.  While taking it off, I discovered that it looked quite fetching at, ah, lower concentrations. The intensity of these pigments is really wonderful peeking out from under an eyelash.

I'm also wearing a mineral powder foundation from Beth Bender Beauty, which is far more wearable than some more popular mineral foundations I've tried.

See the green eyeshadow after the jump!

Foundation Iliad

The sequel to my foundation odyssey, in which I venture at last to the MAC store...

I have long shunned the MAC store, not because I don't like their products--I do--but because a publicist was once really snooty with me when I was writing for the LA Times, and I took it personally. But that was, what, ten years ago? And MAC is supposed to be some kind of foundation Valhalla. So, get over it, I said to myself. 

I did, and wound up with a matte black compact containing MAC Studio Fix, which happens to come in the exact shade of my skin (NC30). This means that I can be even more sparing in using it, and don't even have to cover my whole face with the stuff, which is tremendous, as there are plenty of days I just want to dab at my ruddy cheeks and no more. The texture is also fine enough that it blends down into the skin. I've been using it for a few weeks now and am still enamored. As I am with the Zoom Lash I bought on the same visit.

And the application lesson from the shopgirl at the MAC store was actually worth while for a change. I hesitate to call her a shopgirl, as all the female MAC makeup artists, male or female, look like drag divas doing Liza Minelli, who already looks like a drag diva. My diva was helpful without being schmoozy, and tipped me to setting the powder with a spritz of facial mist, then going over it again with the brush to make the matte effect more subtle. She didn't push the MAC finishing spray, and though it was nice enough, I am happily using Burt's Bees Cucumber Chamomile Complexion Mist for this purpose.

As luck would have it, I was contacted a week later by a MAC publicist who was as sweet as cotton candy, so now I feel thoroughly chastened--but mostly just really happy to have a new foundation to love.

Foundation odyssey

I like powder foundation, even though my skin is dry, for the soft, blurring matte effect I associate with movie stars from the 40s and 50s.  It may clash with my 70s hair, but what the heck. I recently broke my much loved and abused Tarte Provacateur Compact, and was tempted to go buy another, but decided that as a responsible beauty blogger I should get out and try new things, if only for the edification of you, dear reader.

So off to Sephora I went, where I suckered myself into buying a Bare Escentuals mineral makeup kit for $60. I reasoned that the brush set justified the price, though I already own a top of the line kabuki brush from Valerie Beverly Hills and don't need another. As I left the store I felt that the stuff was laid on a little thick, but thought it was just because I had let the shopgirl "do" me.  But even at home using a lighter hand, I didn't like the way this wore--too chalky, too heavy, and a bit itchy.  So I took it back.

For a while I made do with an astonishingly nice Rimmel powder foundation that I bought for $4.99 from Target, where I also picked up one by Sonia Kashuk for $8.99, drawn to the cool white packaging that looks like something Barbara Bain would have carried on Space 1999, but unfortunately the product made me look like I'd dusted my nose with Gold Medal Baking Flour.

Tomorrow I'll post the thrilling conclusion to the story...

Kiehl's Ultra Facial Tinted Moisturizer SPF 15

Guest blogger Nancy Rommelmann writes...

At the risk of having Jack convene some sort of cosmetic intervention, you are looking at my entire cache of make-up. Oh, I have a few eyeshadows in the sorts of colors with which you'd paint a nursery, as well as a bunch of lip-glosses Hill gave me last year, but I don't really use them. Nor, I am half-sorry to report, did my lipstick idyll work out. But last week, in preparation for interviewing one of my two favorite authors, I decided that, as much as I needed to finish his latest book, I needed some tinted moisturizer.

I looked, first, at the boutiquey sort of make-up store that carries five brands only and where the clinicians are sure any one of them will work on you. None of them did, and after having a chirpy girl smear and buff and dab me with five different bases for 45 minutes, and after trying to assess them in what I can only call hideous lighting, I left feeling ratty and ugly. It was raining; my hair started to frizz. I just wanted to go home, but across the street I saw Kiehl's, a store I've always liked because the products strike me as industrial and precise.

The woman at Kiehl's handed me a bottle of Ultra Facial Tinted Moisturizer, the only kind they carry. I put it on myself, and though she told me it looked really great, I wasn't so sure, still feeling as I was a little raw and nasty. I did not buy it, though as I drove home, I looked in the rearview mirror, and thought, huh; not bad.

"Wow, mom, you look really great," said my daughter Tafv, 17 and not one to equivocate about beauty products. I told her, I'd tried on some make-up, but hadn't bought it...

"Why not?" she asked. I had no good answer.

The next afternoon, I went back and bought it. It's lovely; super-smooth, and idiotically easy to apply, as in, I squirt a little blob on my fingers and rub it on my face. Total time: 14 seconds. It gives a nice glow, and does not look like make-up at all. I wore it during the interview, which went so well, we went out for drinks afterward. Confidence in a bottle.

Also so-far great and from Kiehl's: the sample they gave me of Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Concentrate, which makes my face feel as though it's made of baby powder.

Tarte Smooth Operator SPF 20: Quickie Review

Tarte Smooth Operator SPF 20 gives excellent coverage, lightweight and non-cakey but not so sheer that you can't see the point of wearing it. You don't need much of this product to even out your skin tone and prepare your canvas for the rest of your make-up. I've tried Veil, a light beige with pink undertones for medium complexions, and Disguise, a light beige with yellow undertones for medium complexions, and have found each of them to be suitable for my skin. (I'd normally steer well clear of anything with pink undertones for my face.)

Plus, its SPF 20 makes it a godsend when I've completely blanked out and forgotten to apply sunblock; having to wash off a layer of foundation is not only annoying and time-consuming, but chafes my anti-waste sensibilities.

Tarte Smooth Operator has replaced MAC Studio Fix Fluid SPF 15 for me most days, and I pair it with Stila Eye Concealer or DuWop Surface under the eyes.