Tuesday, July 31, 2012

No Coloring Outside the Lines!

My love for shoes is somewhat legendary.  In my own head anyway.  But the one thing that never fails to brighten a blue mood is a new lipstick.  If you think my shoe collection is impressive, you should see my lipstick collection.  Sephora's got nothing on this chick!

It blows my mind that women stick to one or two shades.  All the time?  Every day?  Yup!  I have a dear friend who has worn the same single shade of lipstick every day for as long as I've known her...a solid eleventy twenty years at least.  One color.  Shoot, sometimes I wear multiple colors in one DAY.  Different moods, different colors.

My problem is I never bother to buy lip pencils to match all those various and sundry lipsticks.  Gah, too much work!  Matching?  Who has time?  Gimme my lipstick and let me go!

Behold, my new bestie....

Nars Velvet Gloss Lip Pencil

Or, if you prefer matte....

Nars Velvet Matte Lip Pencil

I'm in love!  Rich saturated color.  Creamy texture.  Non-drying.  Just the right amount of gloss.  (meaning you don't look like you were in a hands-free pork chop eating contest)  No need for separate liner.  Everything your lips need in one fat little crayon!

Yes, they're a little pricey, but totally worth it.  I've been using them almost non-stop (I have 4 so far) for about 2 months and have only had to re-sharpen one so far.  So the crayons last a long, long time.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Search for the Perfect Red

I've been coloring my hair red for about 8 years now.  Yup, your beloved Minxy is actually a blonde by nature.  Yeah, yeah, can it with the blonde jokes.

Anyway, for most of that 8 years I've been coloring it myself.  I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my hair.  No matter how much I might love a color job, walking out of a salon with a not-quite-covered hairline or whatever sends me into orbit.

Aside from my "issues" I found that stylists always pushed toward more subtle or "natural" looking shades of red.  Yeah, yeah, been there done that...it's not me.  I want drop-dead, stop you in your tracks, wowzers Red.  Yup, Red with a capital R.

I've tried coppery reds, violet-ish reds, ruby reds....even one I affectionately dubbed Russian Stripper Red.  I've used drugstore color and played around with professional product.  Even mixing both.  I'm the Dr. Frankenstein of hair color!

Alas, the search for the Perfect Red continues.  I've come close.  In fact, the color I have now is one of the closest (more on that in another post) I've come to it.  So I thought I would share my experience and the knowledge I've gained over the years.  There is a LOT of educational information available out there in the internetz!

Also, as those who know me well would attest, I am a product whore.  I'll try just about anything if I think it might possibly work!  So in addition to chronicling my hair color adventure, I'm also going to start "reviewing" products I've tried, good and bad.

"Serious" blogging has always been a failure for me, so maybe doing something fun will work.  Guess we'll see!