Corinna B's World
makeup, beauty, fashion, travel

Party Time!

Woo Hoo!!!
It’s party season!

As you check out your social calender for the party hearty month of December, I want you to start thinking about your make up wardrobe, and how you will do your make up for the different events.

Because you see, not all parties are created equal. And just as the clothes you wear to different types of party are quite different, so is the make up that goes with them.
Your look for a black tie event is different from the look for a cocktail party. The office Christmas party has a different vibe from the pre-Christmas drinks with the girls/cookie exchange/neighborhood Christmas fest. You with me here?

So lets take the next few days and break down the different events on your list, and what is appropriate make up-wise for each one.

Eeany meany miney mo. Lets start with the office party.

This one requires some thought.

These are the people that see you every day. If you suddenly show up with a huge makeup, when you don’t wear much on a regular work day, chances are you won’t look fab, you’ll just look odd. The key here is to just create a look that is fresh and pretty and lively.

First up: Avoid this guy at all costs!

Polish up your regular daily look. You are officially banned from wearing brown for the rest of the month.
Assuming you’ll be going directly from work to the event, you’ll need a relatively quick and easy
routine to get all glorious.

YSL Touche Eclat dabbed and patted under the eyes will wake your look up and bring back some vibrancy.

I cannot live without it.

Make sure your foundation is looking good and even.


A dual finish compact such as Make Up Forever Duo Matte or MAC Studio Fix applied with a triangle sponge is a high speed repair job.

With brown off the table for now, start looking at soft shimmery shades of shadow. I love delicate pink based shadows as they tend to be skin tone friendly and don’t dominate the face. Silvers and greys can be good, but aren’t flattering to that many skin tones.
MAC All That Glitters is lovely on most.

Don’t go for a heavily lined eye. Keep it soft and demure.


Use a soft, fresh and slightly warm blush. Something that is not too noticeable – we don’t want to see stripes of bold color. I love cream blushes as they give a slight sheen to the skin. Using a highlighter or luminizer (such as Nars, The Multiple in Copacabana) high on the cheekbone will help the skin to look alive.

Groom your brows.

If you’re going to do a red lip, keep your eyes soft and to a minimum – otherwise your eyes and lips will be competing for attention.
Avoid dark lip shades. Christmas parties are about bright and vibrant.
I adore the MAC lipglosses. They are fabulous quality, don’t ball up on the lip, and aren’t too porno-shiney.
Go to the MAC counter and check them out. They have tons of lovely colors, that can really brighten your look without overwhelming your face.
Viva Glam VI is universally lovely on everyone, so if you’re at a loss, try that one.
Make sure you look polished, professional and put together. You never know who is watching, and what opportunities for promotion are around the corner. Although its fun, don’t drink too much – keep yourself in check. Save your wild partying for another occasion. Not the work Christmas party!

Check out the lovely K.K. Her make up is always perfect. And she owns it, it doesn’t own her.

Thanksgiving Makeup

So I’ve had so many people asking me about how to do their makeup for Thanksgiving with the fam, or more specifically with the fam-in-law.

The most interesting thread here being the difficult to outright evil mother-in-law.
So prevalent – who knew???

I’ve been coaching a couple of friends through this particular trauma, and my main words of advice are: she may have the venom, but you have youth on your side.
Want to deliver the ultimate smackdown? Look absolutely fabulous. Completely and utterly gorgeous. Ha! That’s where its at!

Now in most cases when its Thanksgiving with the fam, you don’t want to look overdone, or like you’ve gone to too much trouble. So the name of the game is effortless beauty. And here’s how you’re going to do it:

First up and always its the skin care equation. You need to keep your skin looking hydrated and glowing. I recommend steaming your skin morning of or night before, with a great serum on, like Rhonda Allison’s amazing Pumpkin E Serum.
Make sure you are well exfoliated too. I love enzyme masks for gently removing dead skin and leaving your skin looking robust and gorgeous.
Tons of water (especially if you are traveling), vitamins, good food and oodles of moisturizer leading into the big day.

Jen knows a thing or two about great skin, and she’s always toting the smart water, so you should too..

Can’t live without it!

On the day, spritz some of MAC’s amazing Fix+ with Rose Water onto your face. The rose water is so soothing and calming to the skin.

I absolutely swear by Makeup Forever’s HD primer. It’s going to provide the perfect base for your foundation to adhere to, and has stability like no other, which translates to your foundation not moving during the day.

Keep your foundation light and sheer. Remember, we want to look effortless and lovely, not overly made up.

Keep the colors you are using soft, beautiful, and skin tone friendly. A very soft glow of blush, just kissing your cheeks, a tiny dab of highlighter on the cheekbone.

I adore a smudge of burgundy on the eye – again a very soft touch. Try MAC eyeshadow in Sketch, (pictured) or Twinks (a little more shimmery).
If you have blue or green eyes these shadows will enhance them like no other!

Make sure your mascara is smooth and defined, and not clumpy. And if you’re using eyeliner it MUST be soft and smudgy – no hard lines!!

A soft, lovely mouth is so alluring. Avoid the bolder colors – they are too hard to wear, and breakdown looking not so fab. Dark shades can make your lips look thin and angry, and our goal is soft and youthful…

So, exfoliate them, make sure your lips are smooth and hydrated, and try something soft and delicious like the Pink Ribbon Collection from Bobbi Brown. (these are part of a breast cancer research campaign, so you’re saving the boobies while wowing the kisser).

Lastly, go easy on the alcohol. It’ll dry your skin out, make it flushed, and will take away your strategic advantage.

And as a final note, no matter what nonsense she pulls, smile, be gracious and lovely, and don’t let on that you’re getting frazzled. Maintain grace and dignity & you will own the day!

Work it sistas!!!

xo

C

Eyeshadow Tips

This past weekend at the races when I was tearing around full speed in the golf cart (sayonara hairdo! – Trashed it!!!) my fabulous hostess told me she has no idea what to do with her eye makeup, and wasn’t really sure where to start.

I hear that so often from readers, twitter peeps and facebookers. So while I was watching the cars rip through turn four and come tearing past me up the straightaway into the banks of turn one, in those moments where I could actually catch my breath, I gave it some thought.

And here are some tips I came up with to get you started:

1. Apply foundation to your eyelids (just a thin veil will do it)
Use your foundation to create a blank canvas to work from.


2. Powder the eyelids well. This is really crucial. Most women complain that their eye makeup moves during the day, and is either mostly gone, or sitting in creases by the afternoon.
My favorite powder is HD Powder by MakeUp Forever. It is super sheer and fine, sets the foundation and then disappears into the skin.
Use a triangle sponge, and make sure you get right up into the lashline to set and dry your foundation and concealer. Otherwise your eye liner isn’t going to stay anywhere near where you want it!3. Use an eyeshadow primer. This is going to give the shadows something to bind with, and gives extra staying power. You only need a tiny amount, and it takes seconds to apply.

4. Choose shadow colors that work well together. For your basic eyeshadow wardrobe avoid big colors, go easy on greys, maybe stay away from blacks til you have your technique down.
Without falling down the rabbit hole of brown eyeshadows (yawn!) utilize colors that are skin tone friendly.

5. Use quality eyeshadow brushes! I, of course, recommend the CorinnaB line. The important thing here is to have brushes that enable you to control the placement of the color, and not have it flicking around all over the place.
Make sure you tap off the excess color before you start putting it on your lid.

6. Utilize a fan brush. Particles of shadow will drop under the eye area, and you need to be sweeping them away with a fan brush before they start soaking in and making your under eye look bruised & messy.

7. Blend, blend, blend! Take a clean brush and really blend through the colors you have applied. The graduation from one color to the next should be seamless. No one really wants to know how many shades you’re using, regardless of the look you’re going after.

8. Master your eyeliner! I often see a lovely eyemakeup ruined by hard black liner ringing the eyes. If your liner is too severe all anyone is going to see when they look at you is hard dark lines. If you are using a pencil, draw a softer line and then smudge it out with a taklon liner or a smudger brush dipped into a similar color powder eyeshadow to soften and seal it.

Taklon liner
Smudger

9. Change it up from day to night. Even if you just learn (and perfect!) two looks, get yourself a day look and an evening look. Sometimes evening can just be making your daytime look a little smokier, a little softer, a little more sultry.

10. Take control of your mascara! Curl your lashes, and then use a quality mascara that isn’t old and dried out. Most mascaras need changing every 8 – 10 weeks, as they start to dry out. Don’t pump your mascara wand – it puts air into the mascara and dries it out quickly.
If it’s getting flakey or clumpy, its time to ace it out and get a new one.
My personal faves? Diorshow Blackout and Julie Hewett (it has rose oil in it, which is super conditioning. I wear it every day.)


For those of you who are new to the blog, there are tons of eye makeup tutorials on here. Just scroll through the archives.
There are also video tutorials on my youtube channel, CorinnaBMakeup, and loads more coming!

I hope this helps!

xo

C

(oh, and J? you are an absolute blast to hang out with! Y’all ROCK sista!!!)

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