The Face Report

So, in Italy, I talked with Mormor and other family members about assorted skincare stuff, and it was fun, so because I feel like talking about something I like and care about instead of thinking about assorted school work or work work, I am going to talk about the stuff I use. I will also throw in a shoutout to Scarlett's superior makeup skills and her willingness to crash test about every cosmetic ever, which means I can say "okay, what stuff should I not live without," and she'll have an actual definitive answer, rather than saying "oh, gosh, I don't know, I guess some lip gloss?" Scarlett is indeed awesome.Item number one here is quite honestly a miracle product. I am skeptical of anything that promises miracles, which this basically does, and bought it more because it had small items that would be easy to pack for Italy than because I expected instantly perfect skin. However. I used this kit for two days, and my skin was pretty damn near perfect. It was unbelievable...I wouldn't have believed it unless the result was actually attached to my person. It's tough to pick one particular piece of the kit as a silver bullet, but the most drastic result came from the enclosed micro-peel system. There are three single-use peels included, and the result is instantaneous...your skin feels super, super smooth, and looks great. The cleanser is nice and really gets down deep into your pores. Then you have the three other pieces. The When Hope Is Not Enough serum (that would be the eyedropper bottle above) is full of nice vitamins and assorted other good stuff that helps soothe your skin, and the Hope In a Tube cream is a super-dense cream for your eyes. I am really lazy about using the HiaT because I a.) don't have substantial fine lines or wrinkles around my eyes and b.) don't particularly care about getting them, but it's a nice soothing cream, so if that's your thing, great. The Hope in a Bottle is a great blemish-zapping moisturizer that dispatches zits without consequently drying out the surrounding area (like heavily salicylic-acid based stuff does) and creating more zits. The kit is $78 and worth every penny. The bottles may be small, but you don't need a lot of any of them for each use, so they will last far longer than they look like they would.This is the first of many Scarlett recommendations - Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer. Take it from the lifeguard...you should always - ALWAYS - be wearing some kind of sunscreen outside. Yeah, I know, you only go from your car to work or whatever, yeah...I know. Still. You never know where the day will take you, so put the damn sunscreen on, male or female, light or dark skin, whatever. This particular one is awesome because it's very smooth and has just the right amount of coverage without looking cakey and gross. If you can even tell you're wearing it, I'll give you $5 of my own personal money. It's also a good indicator that I should go tanning more often, because the color I use is "porcelain." Oh, dear.


After the moisturizer goes on, I sometimes use this blush...I have pretty good coloring as it is, so sometimes I just don't really need it. This particular one is from Nars and the color is called "Orgasm," which seriously looks good on everyone. It's tough to accurately judge through a computer screen, but it's sort of a slightly peachy pink with a little bit of gold shimmer...very pretty, and miraculously cooperative with pretty much every skintone ever. This is not an exaggeration. I've seen it on white chicks, black chicks, latina chicks, asian chicks, you name it...fabulous on everyone. Don't ask me how it works...I assume magic.
This was the toughest piece for Scarlett to convince me of its value. This is the Dior 5-Colour eyeshadow, and it rings up at a frightening $52. However. You can have mine when you pry it out of my cold dead fingers, because it is fantastic. If every teenage girl attempting makeup was given one of these, there would be many less heinous makeup-growing-pains. Raise your hand if you're female and once wore shimmery blue eyeshadow up to your eyebrows. That's what I thought. In any case, these compacts are incredibly versatile - Dior has packaged ranges of color that allow you to mix and match to do day, evening, day-going-into-evening, and even those weird over-formal-lunch-meetings you have sometimes. It's easy to apply and stays put until you take it off. Worth it...even at $52.
After all those components get put on, I finish up with this mascara, which is DiorShow from Dior (surprise!). Scarlett says that the non-waterproof is actually her favorite (that's the one I have and I love it), and that the waterproof version goes on a little differently. As I mentioned before, Scarlett is my crashtest dummy, so I am just going on her opinion here, which is usually a winner.

These last two are brushes I use...both are super soft and awesome, except one costs a gajillion dollars (the Jane Iredale brush) and one was $10 at Brooks Pharmacy. Get the Posh one!