Makeup Wars: My Favorite Spring Makeup Trend

Product Provided for Review

Today for Makeup Wars we've decided to show you our favorite spring makeup trends, straight from the Runway (or in my case, the Red Carpet/X Factor). Yes, I fully admit that I thought Cece Frey was a tad kooky when I watched the X Factor with her constant painting of leopard print on her face (and on occasion, her legs). But, obviously my girl Mila can do no wrong!

I tried my own version of this (on the left) and tried to be more subtle with it, but looking at the pictures, what was I thinking? Can leopard on your face ever be subtle??? No. Obviously not. Especially since I had made it purple! I made a little photoshop on the right showing that really, I should have gone big. Go big or go home! I think of this as a temple makeup accent, that goes down a little and has a subtle hugging (but not really wrapping) around the eye.

To create this look, I used a few liquid eye liners, the Ultrafine Liquid Eye Liner that Milani had sent me for review. I used purple, let it dry a little, and then added the black wrap around with black liner. It dried quickly, the color was vibrant and didn't want to budge once applied! But, it was easy to remove with cleanser and a wash cloth.






Milani

14

Get the Look: Mila Kunis at the Oz the Great and Powerful Premiere

I was very excited to see what my biggest girl crush, Mila Kunis, would look like at the premiere of her new movie, “OZ the Great and Powerful”. Obviously, the answer was amazing! Her makeup was much lighter than her usual smoky eye (which she wears in much of the previews), so it was really nice to see her in a light eye look for once. Her look was created by Tracey Levy for Laura Mercier.

Face
1. Mila’s skin was prepped with with RéVive Intensité Moisture Serum Extrême, followed by Laura Mercier Foundation Primer. At this time, she also prepped Mila’s lips with Laura Mercier Lip Silk.
2. Then, she applied Laura Mercier Oil-Free Suprême Foundation in Sunny Beige to even the surface of Kunis’ skin. She used a touch of Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage in SC-3 around her nose and under her eyes to conceal imperfections.
3. Next, she dusted Laura Mercier Invisible Loose Setting Powder in Universal on the skin and used a touch of Laura Mercier Secret Brightening Powder #2 to set the under-eye area.
4. Levy then contoured Mila’s cheek bones using Laura Mercier Bronzing Powder in Golden Bronze and dusted the powder on her neck and chest to give her a glow from head-to-toe.
5. She used Laura Mercier Shimmer Bloc in Pink Mosaic to highlight the upper cheek bones and to provide a light dusting of shimmer.
6. Then,she applied Laura Mercier Second Skin Cheek Colour in Rose Petal on the upper apples of Mila’s cheeks and blended the shade with the existing shimmer.

Eyes
1. Levy applied Laura Mercier Eye Canvas in EC-2 to ensure that Mila’s eye makeup would last the entire evening.
2. Next, she contoured her eye crease lightly with Laura Mercier Matte Eye Colour in Café au Lait for a bit of depth.
3. Laura Mercier Caviar Stick Eye Colour in Rose Gold was used as a highlight on the lids.
4. Levy then used Laura Mercier Crème Eye Liner in Noir and Violet to line Mila’s eyes “for a bit of drama.” She also applied Laura Mercier Tightline Cake Eye liner in Black Ebony along the lash line.
5. Next, she filled in Kunis’ eyebrows with Laura Mercier Eye Brow Pencil in Deep Blonde and set them with Laura Mercier Eye Brow Gel.
6. Levy added the final touch of by applying two coats of Laura Mercier Faux Lash Mascara to Mila’s top and bottom lashes.

Lips
1. Levy applied another coat of Laura Mercier Lip Silk to the lips to give a final boost of moisture.
2. She then lightly lined Mila’s lips with Laura Mercier Lip Pencil in Natural and filled in the lips with Laura Mercier Crème Smooth Lip Colour in Angelic.
3. She completed the look with a swipe of Laura Mercier Lip Glacé in Sparkling.


Laura Mercier

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Urban Decay's Theodora Palette: Furthering my Mila Kunis Obsession...

So, my Mila Kunis obsession (have you noticed that yet? I need to stop watching Friends with Benefits on TV, it makes the whole thing worse).... The new Wizard of Oz movie is making it WAY worse. I really want to see it, and Mila just looks amazing in the previews. Shocker.

Urban Decay is one of the companies with product tie-ins, and of course they've opted to create a couple of amazing palettes! I have the Theodora Palette, which is a good fit for my coloring. I admit that I still want the Glinda palette anyways, which would have worked better with my lighter hair.

You can see that this palette comes with a lot of colors. Obviously you wouldn't use all of them at once, but with so many neutrals here and some great accent colors there are so many possibilities!

Broken basically blends into my skin so well that you can't see it here. Beware and Bewitch are both matte, while there is subtle shimmer in West. I'm not so sure about that gold in Spell (it's not really gold, more of a bright taxi cab yellow to me), but the shimmery black is perfect for lining your eyes! Soooo pretty! And while I initially wasn't a huge fan of the greens in Jealous (they are a bit lighter than I though would be flattering), I've since seen my friend Phyrra's Theodora Eye Look Tutorial and I'm sold! I've used the darker green to line under my eyes (with the lighter green under the lash line and close to my inner corner) and it really is really pretty in person.

The palette also comes with a black eye liner, the 24/7 pencil in Zero. The pencil is a little bit soft for lining inside of my water line, but it is very deep black and it smudges really easily into my lash line.

The palette also comes with Theodora, a glossy red creme. It is in a pencil, but Urban Decay's High-Gloss Lip Colors are more of a gloss-lipstick hybrid. It has a lot of pigment, isn't sticky but it also really shiny.

I grabbed the only other UD High-Gloss Lip Color that I own to compare, because I thought it look suspiciously like Theodora. F-Bomb is also a creamy red, though in the pencil it is a tad warmer, lighter (aka- more orange) and less shiny. On my arm (and on my lips) I really couldn't tell a difference. If I was forcing myself to say something was different, maybe Theodora is a bit more red. But, they're pretty close!

The palette comes with directions for recreating Mila's look, so I had to try it! I'm not usually a girl that likes to wing her shadow up on to her browbone like it shows. I don't really know what landmarks to stop at, and I don't think it looks good on me. Some of that is definitely user error! So, I was a bit nervous using such dark colors on my eyes like this.

Once I had the look done, it was a bit much for a day look. In person the eyes were darker, and with my hair, my fair skin and the dark eyes the red lips were definitely wrong. I needed a nude lip for sure! If I had a darker complexion (like Mila) then the eyes would have less contrast and the red lip wouldn't be so dramatic. I do like the red lip, just not with this combination.


Some of my friends have posted about these palettes as well, check out what they had to say!

Theodora
Beauty and Fashion Tech's Theodora Review
Phyrra's Theodora Review, also a great Theodora Eye Look Tutorial

Glinda
Beauty and Fashion Tech's Glinda Review
Phyrra's Glinda Review


Urban Decay

13

My New Darker Hair: Lots of Adjustments!

Earlier today in my Valentine's day look you may have caught a sneak peek at my new hair. I started thinking about going darker recently (hello, Mila Kunis obsession) and during my Live Styling Event, Joey thought that "darker and richer" would be better for me.

So, last week I went from (very grown out) highlighted light brown/blondish hair to...

This new darker auburn color. You may have seen some of my sneak peek pictures on my Instagram, and I think these 2 pics from there are probably the best representation of how my hair really looks. It is a bit darker and redder than I had thought I'd be going, but once my stylist, Heather, and I had the hair color book in front of us, we both picked the same little hair swatch. It's a bit redder now than it was on the swatch, but she said it would fade a little with the first few washings (this is a demi-permanent color). This color is also very similar to my mom's natural hair color (though, this is a bit darker) so that is likely why it works so well for me.

I'm finally starting to recognize myself when I look in the mirror (rather than still thinking "who is that??"). I'm just trying to figure out all of the other adjustments that such a drastic change in hair color results in.

First, while I have about 20 foundations, I've noticed that all but about 1 (which I'm wearing in that right instagram pic above) are about 1/2 shade too dark and a bit too yellow. While this wasn't really noticeable with good blending before, it's really obvious now with darker hair. I think that's the main reason I felt like I looked a bit plastic in the pics earlier today. My hair was curled a bit strange (it looks better as 2nd day hair with this cut/color), my foundation color was a bit too yellow... you get the idea.

I also have noticed that my eye makeup now seems to somehow disappear with this darker hair! I need to break out some new and darker colors, get a new foundation (I already ran to ULTA this morning to do that) and I need to be a bit heavier/darker in my shadow application.

I'm looking back at pics of a few of my favorite brunettes for makeup ideas.

Obviously Mila was the biggest inspiration for this look, so I'm going to be rocking a lot more and darker smoky eyes! I think I need to buy the LORAC Pro Palette now, it's perfect for a Mila eye.

@15minbeauty you should totally channel Emma Stone...she always has fantastic makeup!

— Kim Porter (@MakeupbyKimP) January 30, 2013

Kim Porter, one of my fave makeup artists (look for a great wedding makeup post from her very soon) thought I should look to Emma Stone for some inspiration. I don't have Emma's amazing light eyes, but her hair color is closer than Mila's to mine now, and Kim is right! Emma is always flawless. The key seems to be always having more color somewhere, a lippie or an eye... there can't be a bare eye and a nude lippie, I look blah that way.

Finally, the last of my favorite brunettes, Jen and Emily. Definitely time to start playing up my eyes a little darker!

Have you made any drastic changes in hair color? What tips do you have for me?

15

TRESemmé Live Styling: 10 Minutes with A Stylist to Ask Anything You Want!

Recently, it seems like many companies are offering great on-line exclusives to help with their products. My new favorite is definitely the TRESemmé Live Styling.

During the month of January, when you buy 2 TRESemmé products at a participating Walgreens, you'll get a code for a free Live Styling session. The sessions take place over webcam with a professional TRESemmé stylist at the TRESemmé LiveStyling site. You can talk to the stylist about pretty much anything, and when I tried out the service yesterday, it was definitely 10 minutes well spent!

I decided that I'd use my 10 minutes to get another opinion on a few things I've been thinking a lot about.

1. Hair color. I had light brown hair growing up, it easily got blonde highlights when I spent too much time in the sun, but now that I'm older it is that strange in between brown that isn't great and needs something added for a little oomph. I've done highlights (and then by default, blonde when I had too many highlights), I went dark once on a whim and it lasted about a week... I fully admit to being jealous of my sister's hair, which is a natural bright red. Clairol doesn't even make her color, you can't dye hair that color and have it look good. My sister's hair looks goooood. Really.

Anyways, with my pale coloring it is easy for me to look washed out, but I'm wondering if the highlights aren't the way to go. Especially after my Mila Kunis love and talking to Giada, I've been thinking about going darker. Though I dream of the day that someone pro tells me to go red like my sister (hasn't happened yet).

2. I had bangs growing up, and after seeing so many cute versions on Pinterest, I admit to thinking about them again. Especially after Sherry from Young House Love cut herself some amazing blunt bangs.

Anyways, I felt like this was the perfect chance to get the opinion of an expert who isn't emotionally tied to my hair at all. Completely objective.



My TRESemmé stylist was Joey, a New Yorker who was blunt and to the point, but really seemed to think about my questions and give me great advice. 10 minutes doesn't sound like long, but he packed a lot of helpful advice into those 10 minutes!

First we talked about my hair in general. He said my long layers (which I had curled similar to the pic above) were perfect. He had me turn around some so he could see the back, and he said he had nothing to add to the cut. He had me put some hair over my forehead to approximate bangs, thought about it some and said it really wasn't working for him. Which was a little bit of a relief, since I wasn't excited about styling bangs, but I see a pic of Zooey and I want them!

Next, we talked about my color. I am definitely way overdue for new color. I was due in November, but I had a big test for work, then I did a huge amount of work in late November and most of December... blah blah blah... I have my next hair appointment in 3 weeks, the earliest I could squeeze it in. Yikes! Hence my "accidental" ombre look. And split ends.

He didn't like the lighter color so much on me, though admitted some of that could be because the color is old. He said it looks a bit washed out, and looking at my skin tone, he thinks I need darker, richer color. Definitely brunette! I played around with photoshop some, you can see (kind of) how a darker color would work on me. I stole that brown from Giada's hair, and while it doesn't work as a flat color due to photoshop, you can see that the darker kind of works! I have a few weeks to get used to the idea so I don't shock my system. But, hearing that he thought it would work for me was nice and really helped me decide that I will be going darker.

Finally, we had 3 minutes left, so I asked for some styling tips. I'm going to try them out (with pics!) this afternoon and I'll share my results with you probably on Monday.

Joey really squeezed a lot into 10 minutes. This was definitely worth my time! Here's how you can get an appointment of your own:

• During the month of January, when you buy 2 TRESemmé products at Walgreens, you will receive a coupon with a unique code that can be redeemed for a free 10-minute consultation with a stylist.

• Take your code over to TRESemmé Live Styling to schedule your appointment. Times are available between Jan. 7, 2013-March 29, 2013, Monday-Friday from 11a-7p EST, on a first come first serve basis.

• You'll need a computer with a webcam and internet, obviously. It is best if you have great natural light so they can see your skin tone and hair color accurately.

• I recommend a head set if you have one. Mine (from my iPhone) was out in the car, but we did have some feedback issues because Joey was coming through my speaker and then back into my mic. Definitely use a head set!

• Have an idea of what you want to talk about. We went through a lot of info in just 10 minutes, Joey had some product recommendations for me (I didn't know TRES makes a hair protectant spray! It's on my shopping list now.), and we talked about a lot more than I thought we would have time to do. So, have a bunch of topics and some paper to write things down so you won't forget.

If you have an appointment, let me know how it goes!

TRESemmé Live Styling
Sponsored post

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Formal Looks: Mila Kunis at the SAG Awards

Mila's amazing smokey eye was done by makeup artist Tracey Levy for Lancôme.

Face
• Teint Miracle Lit-from-Within Makeup
• Blush Subtil in Sheer Amourose

Eye
• Color Design 5 Pan Palette in Midnight Rush
• Color Design Eye Shadow in Volcano
• Le Crayon Khôl EyeLiner in Black
• Hypnôse Drama Mascara in Excessive Black

Lips
• L’Absolu Rouge Lipstick in Rich Cashmere
• La Laque Fever Lipshine in Hotness


Drybar owner Alli Webb has some great tips on how to achieve Mila's romantic curls!

• Dry your hair using a medium-sized round brush (always start in the front!) and don't worry if your hair is a tad frizzy when you are done. Your 1 inch curling iron will smooth it all out.

• Take one inch sections and work all the way around your head - I recommend sectioning your hair into 4 large pieces and curling one section at a time so you don't miss any hair!

• Curl away from your face, on both sides. End with a light spray shine and twist


The Dry Bar
Lancome

Image courtesy of Lancome, Wire Image

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Formal Looks: Mila Kunis Golden Globes 2011

Makeup
Lancome Celebrity makeup artist Tracey Levy made up The Black Swan’s Mila Kunis for the Golden Globes this year. Her goal was to have Mila look fresh and effortless, with a touch of Audrey Hepburn.

Face
Teint Miracle Lit-from-Within Foundation
Blush Subtil in Sheer Amourose

Eyes
Color Design 5 Pan Palette in Coral Crush
Color Design 5 Pan Palette in Teal Fury
Hypnôse Drama Mascara in Excessive Black

Lips
L’Absolu Nu in Coral Ribbon


Hair
Mila's french twist was done by TRESemmé Celebrity Stylist, Mara Roszak, who shared the steps to recreating the style on your own. Just Jared has some more pics of Mila at the Golden Globes.

• Spray TRESemmé Naturals Finishing Spray on damp hair and rough blow dry to add body
• Section off top half of hair and apply TRESemmé 24 Hour Body Root Boost Spray to give hair lift at the crown
• Blow dry top section, pin curling from front to back to add wave and texture
• Pull the bottom section of the hair back tightly and gather as if you are creating a ponytail
• Twist hair upward starting at the nape of the neck and insert pins in a crisscross pattern at the crease
• Undo pin curls on top section and tease at the root
• Brush top section backward and tuck underneath French twist
• To set hair and provide a lasting hold, spray TRESemmé TRES Two Extra Hold Hairspray
• Finally, to soften the look, gently loosen hair around hairline and ears

TRESemmé
Lancome

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