Happy Twenty Fifteen

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season filled with spending time with loved ones and eating lots of good food.

At Electra Lane, we’re busy finding ways to make you feel as beautiful as you are by helping you master your beauty resolutions.  My personal goals include a renewed focus on skincare as well as streamlining my makeup routine, so here are a few things I picked up over the holidays to help me achieve those goals.

Just before Thanksgiving, I purchased Urban Decay’s Naked on the Run palette.

Thinking it would be a great travel palette, I found I wanted more variety and it ended up being too bulky with my other items.  Where this palette fits best into my routine is for touch-ups: it’s perfect for adding some color to your features throughout the day when all you have time for in the morning is tinted moisturizer, concealer, and mascara.

It’s probably psychological but RIGHT after turning 30, I noticed some things drooping changing on my face, specifically around my eyes.  I switched from my Kate Somerville exfoliator to a gentler version and added a retinol-infusing eye mask to my weekly at-home facial.

For a little, no pun intended, fun, I purchased these adorable, limited-edition Charlotte Tilbury mini lipsticks.  As a huge fan of trying something before committing to it, this was a great introduction into the K.I.S.S.I.N.G. lipsticks.  And they fit into the tiniest clutch.

Makeup-Free Day (Mostly)

I recently worked 16 days in a row.  When I had that 17^th day off, I had so much catching up to do that I didn’t even take a sip of water, so I certainly wasn’t focused on putting on makeup.  Still, the act of applying makeup is almost soothing for me, so I wanted to do a little something.  Thankfully, since I’ve started using Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare Alpha Beta Glow Pads on my face to camouflage my ghostly pallor, I didn’t need to apply anything else to my skin. Only a little concealer, bronzer, brows, eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and setting spray were used.  It took maybe five minutes to apply, but it was enough time to take a breath before tackling my day.

Smoky Eye Cheat

I recently went from my daytime eye – one shadow over the entire eye with a warm brown shadow in the crease – to a nighttime look for a performance by Shaping Sound (If you’re not familiar, Travis Wall (“So You Think You Can Dance”) gathered up his uber-talented buddies and formed an extraordinary dance company.  You can see them in Carrie Underwood’s “Something in the Water” video.). To fake a smoky eye on the fly, all I did was add a MAC pressed pigment  in Deeply Dashing over the lid.  Boom.

And, just because I totally geeked out, here’s me with Travis Wall and Jamie Goodwin.  No big deal…

Birthday Makeup - Part III

Since we’re finishing this birthday look today, here’s the grainy, back-of-the-cab photo from my birthday:

Yes that's a seatbelt...safety first...and we were having too much fun to stop and take photos of the makeup, and I didn’t remember until right before we got to the show…I know that’s not very blogger-like, but I feel like real life supersedes the one on-screen.

Since we've already covered eyes and skin, all we have left is the color: here is the video showing how to finish the look!

Products Used:

Highligher: MAC Prep + Prime Highlighter in Light Boost

Nose Contour: Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Skin Perfecting Micro-Powder in Dark

Luminizer: RMS Living Luminizer

Blush: Bobbi Brown Blush in Pale Pink

Lip Liner: MAC Lip Pencil in Subculture

Lipstick: Armani Rouge d’Armani Beige 100

Set Spray: Urban Decay All Nighter

Also, I'd like to say happy Veterans Day and THANK YOU to all those who honorably served!

Birthday Makeup - Part II

Now that our eyes are done, we move on to skin. So that the primer has time to soak in, I applied it before doing the eye makeup.  Also, for the sake of the video, I apply all of these products very quickly.  In real life, it takes me about 45 minutes to complete this look from start to finish – this leaves plenty of time to blend and let all of the products settle into the skin.  Otherwise, as you see in the video, the makeup gets streaky. Since we went out at night, I wanted soft, glowing skin that did not have too much color so as not to compete with the eyes. Check out the video here, and I’ll meet you next week for the final look.

Products Used:

Prep: Embryolisse Hydra-Mat

Foundation: Armani Luminous Silk in 6.5

Concealer: Amazing Cosmetics Amazing Concealer in Light Golden

Contour: Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Skin Perfecting Micro-Powder in Dark

Bronzer: Make Up For Ever Mat Bronze in 40

Setting Powder: Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Radiant Light