This piece on xoVain, “Lipsticks Are My Cigarettes,” has got me making a Target list! I want that orange one! I hardly ever buy drugstore lipstick, so I’m interested in giving them a shot.
Author Archives: Sarah Cosper
Sick Girl
And then I sing, “SICK GIRL! NAHH NAHH NAHH NAHH SICK GIRL SHE’S A SICK GIRL WE’RE ALL SICK GIRLS!”
Because you can’t run from your past, you guys. And sometimes your past includes Social Distortion, and that’s OK. Plus, I’ve been sick, and on sizzurp, so I make a lot of funny jokes.
I’m finally on the actual road to recovery now. My voice still sounds sexy-froggier than usual, but that’s fun, so it can stay. It’s been really helpful in my Zooey impressions. I fucking kill at that cotton commercial song.
This is me stalling around because I don’t have anything right now!
The only product I’ve tested this week was a new toothbrush. I had to throw my old toothbrush away because it had been in my mouth, of all places.
Like, I finally emerged from my blankets after a week, and the whole operation has fallen apart! My hair is a mess, my legs are hairy, my mustache is twirlable, I haven’t even been able to bring myself to make full eye contact with my eyebrows. Even my glasses are really dirty?!
I feel like I’ve hit beauty rock bottom. I’m starting from scratch here. Dudes don’t understand how much work it takes to maintain all this stuff. I mean, really, one week of disregard for my appearance, and the whole racket goes feral. Where do I start? Probably with my legs, right? Get my razor all good and clogged. Thanks to my black soap, the only thing still working right is my skin. Which is super unusual, since usually when I get sick, I break out pretty bad. And why not? Days of sweating, and rolling my dirty head around my pillow equals chin zits. I usually get crazy dry patches around my mouth and nose from Kleenex and stuff too, and that’s not a problem either. That’s the worst part, right? Not only were you sick, but now you feel like you have to tell people, “It’s not mocos! It’s just dry skin!”
I’m still steering clear of my lipsticks and anything else I could cross contaminate for the next couple days. I can show you guys some cool polish. I’ll be doing that soon.
But, how about this?! If you guys have any questions or need any beauty advice, LIFE ADVICE, send your queries my way! I’ll even keep you anonymous if you want. Leave comments, use the contact form, sext me, come to me in a dream, however you want to do it! I’ll start answering questions here on the site.
Riri Hearts MAC Winners!
And the winners are……
Karisa Hermawan
and
Irina Bykhovski
CONGRATULATIONS, LADIES!!!
Emails have been sent to notify the winners!
Thanks so much to everyone who entered and shared. It was a lot of fun, and we’ll do another giveaway soon!
MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Foundation
1981 – These dirty birds brought me into the world.
2005 – I have more recent photos, but their dogs are hilarious.
My mom looks like Mexican Mary J. Blige, my dad looks like if Harold Ramis and William Shatner had a baby. There are a lot of great things about being biracial. Having a crazy skin tone that’s hard to match isn’t one of them.
They* say in a thousand years everyone will look like me. That by then, everybody will have humped each other into one race, and we’ll all be sort of brown. I think these are some science facts I heard. It seems right to me.
Those beautiful, caramel colored, future people are lucky because MAKE UP FOR EVER HD Foundation exists. They’ve already totally nailed our hard to match olive skin tone. Everyone is always trying to make me so pink! Or, so yellow! Or, so pale! I’m like, weirdly pale, but also brown. I often feel like I’m settling with the color of my foundations and powders. They’ll seem right at first, but soon I’ll feel like I’m looking really flushed, or like my jaw doesn’t match my neck. That’s really tough for someone who thinks about makeup as much as I do. Like, I have enough to worry about in photos. I don’t need this too!
Until the time comes that there’s the need for only one foundation color, MAKE UP FOR EVER has 26 shades available, to cover a wide range of skin tones. This foundation has really great, buildable coverage that leaves a soft, flawless finish. I apply it, a couple pumps at a time, off the back of my hand, using my Sigma Beauty F80 Flat Kabuki brush, from the center of my face, out. I love it because it blends beautifully, and evens out my skin without totally covering my moles and freckles. I don’t want a totally flat face, you know? It doesn’t settle into lines and creases, and it doesn’t get gross or cakey looking throughout the day. It also works on different skin types, and ages. I’m more dry/combination, but my mom is very oily and she uses it too. Her skin tone is also very hard to match, and she was able to find a foundation that worked for her out of their line. That’s really saying something. My mom has been looking for a good match for, like, her entire life.
You don’t have to wear a powder over this foundation, I often don’t. But, if you want to, you can just use a light dusting of translucent powder.
I wanted to show you guys a photo. But, since I’ve had bronchitis for 5 days, I look really terrible right now. Like, really, I don’t even remember when I last washed my hair. Soooo….I went through my photos and found one that showed my face really close.
I don’t look anything like that right now. And, it’s so embarrassing that I just have all these photos of my own posed face readily available. For whatever occasion! The judgmental way the dog looks at me when I’m in front of the lights, taking a thousand barely different pictures of myself, is enough to know that I should be ashamed.
But you know what I’m not ashamed of? How awesome my skin looks since I started using this foundation.
*Scientists? Worried racists? I swear I read this somewhere.
Neutrogena Clear Face Sunscreen Lotion
WHOA, YOU GUYS.
I got super down with the sickness all of a sudden.
GPOY
Before I took up my new lot in life as Typhoid Sarah, I was having a great time as Swimming In Everyone’s Pools Sarah. I randomly grabbed this sunscreen lotion on a beer and cake run to the grocery store one morning, and it was the the third best decision I’d made that day. After the decisions to buy beer and cake.
Usually, I hate putting sunblock on my face. It feels sticky disgusting, and it will often make me break out. This sunscreen lotion was really different! It went on almost like a regular moisturizer with sunblock. I mean, you could tell it was a little more than that, but not much. More importantly, once it absorbed, it felt breathable, and my face wasn’t gritty or gross. I was able to float around, pina colada in hand, without feeling like a zit was feeding on a sunblock/pool water/sweat stew.
I used this several times last week, and I was really thrilled with it every time. I’d be out of the pool, and my skin would feel soft and smooth instead of dry and dirty. It was true to its “break-out free” promise, and even though I was in the sun for hours and hours, my color barely changed. That kind of sucks. But, I know that means it was working.
I bought mine at the grocery store, and I saw it on display at Target yesterday, so it’s really easy to find. Make sure to wait about 10 minutes after applying before getting in the pool, and don’t forget to reapply after you’ve been in the water for a while!
Right now, my bottle is gathering dust while I waste away. I fear I shall be bedridden forever. That would make Rowdy really happy since she’s always trying to entice me back into bed for naps and snuggles and whatnot.
Get this, and swim for me! Don’t take your health for granted!
I sound like my grandma.
That lipstick makes you look cheap. And why are you wearing your hair like that anyways? But, what do I know? You never call or come to visit anyways.
Rihanna Hearts MAC Giveaway!
It’s finally time for the Rihanna Hearts MAC giveaway! I’m really excited about this, especially now that the lipsticks I have to give away are sold out.
The Lab Bunny: I sit on the internet for hours to buy lipstick so you don’t have to!
I have one (1) tube of Riri Woo, and one (1) tube of Riri Boy, there will be two (2) winners, chosen randomly. The contest runs from today, 7/8, until Sunday evening, 7/14, at 11:59 PM. The winners will be announced next Monday!
Enter, share, cross your fingers and toes! Good luck!
[contesthopper contest=”459″]
Mario Badescu Rose Hips Nourishing Oil
Putting oil directly onto your face to improve your skin seems counterintuitive. The first time I tried a face oil, I was a teenager, and I was having some pizza face problems. My mom took me to the Clarins counter, the lady suggested their Lotus Face Treatment Oil, and I was suspicious. Oil to clear up my zits? Right, lady. Why don’t I just eat french fries and chocolate while I’m at it? (Back then, chocolate and french fries were often blamed for acne in Seventeen advice columns. This is pretty much bullshit.)
It took a minute to get the hang of it, and I did, fo sho, make a greasy mess most of the time, but it worked! My skin cleared up.
After that experience, Mario Badescu Rose Hips Nourishing Oil wasn’t gonna scare me off with the dreaded “o” word. I know what’s up. Now, “oil” can join “orgasm,” “oreo,” and “oral” on my list of O WORDS THAT ARE GOOD FOR YOU.
This lightweight and fast absorbing oil is full of vitamin C, so it brightens as well as hydrates. It reduces scaliness and improves texture. I’ve been using it for a couple months now (except for the week I was testing the black soap alone), and combined with my Fresh Soy Cleanser and my black soap, my skin is the best its been in recent memory.
The first time I used it, I was confused by the consistency. It’s not oily at all. It’s practically watery. It was so not what I was expecting, that I thought for sure someone had tried to pull the old switcheroo on me, and I was like, “DAMN YOU, ULTAAAAAA!!!” But, after some furious late night, towel clad Googling, I figured out that nobody had pulled a fast one on me. I was just suspicious, as usual. I always think neighborhood teens are stealing my magazines too.
In the evenings, after cleansing in the shower, I put 4-5 drops onto the back of my hand, and apply it to my face that way – it’s easier than trying to wrangle it on your fingertips. You can wear it under your regular moisturizer, too. I’ve been using it under my Cetaphil moisturizer, and they’re a really nice combination together.
And, hey! If you get it at Ulta right now, you can get a free deluxe sample of the Mario Badescu Drying Cream. That little jar is enough to last you forever! BONUS.
A Farewell to Nails
I have to trim off these beautiful babies today. They’ve turned against me in a spectacular fashion.
Color: Fastlane by Floss Gloss
I lost a nail, on my left hand, pulling up my wet bathing suit the other night. It snapped straight across, and up so high, I couldn’t pull it off. I tried to wait until I got home to handle it, but it was so blindingly painful every time I accidentally touched it, I broke down and used someone else’s unclean nail scissors to cut it off. HORRIFYING! That’s an esthetician’s nightmare right there. You can’t unlearn all that cross contamination stuff.
Two of my other nails are on the verge of a similar fate. I can see they’ve already tried to split across the middle, but not at the edges. One of my thumbs, just this morning, broke beyond my patching abilities. That’s pretty gruesome stuff.
They gots ta go! I’m sad, but I don’t think I’m the one who’s going to miss them the most.
Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner
Please don’t mail me and tell me that’s not Robert Smith. I know it’s not. I’ve been crying to “Disintegration” for 20 years now, for fuck’s sake.
I wanted to start sharing some of my long time favorite products with you guys. There are so many options out there, and great buys aren’t limited to what’s new right now. I’ve been painting my face for a long time, and I have some tried and true faves that I love to recommend.
I love a 60’s cat eye so much, if I could only choose one eye look to do for the rest of my life, it would be that.
I love a 60’s cat eye so much, I based my wedding day makeup on Priscilla Presley.
Ohhhh, ‘Scilla, baby!
Wedding day liner, lower right corner
Liquid liner didn’t come easy for me. I started messing with it when I was about 16, and it was pretty much a disaster every time I tried to put it on. I would literally cry tears of frustration and just, like, despair, when I’d slowly and carefully line my entire eye, just to totally mangle the wing; or, I’d do one perfect eye, and then the other eye would refuse to match up, no matter how many times I’d try to wipe it off and fix it. Or, worst of all, I’d get two reasonably presentable eyes, but I’d open them before the liner was completely dry, and my entire eye would be ruined.
I persisted though. And through my hours of careful training, my hand grew steadier and my lines grew smoother. Now, I can draw on a gracefully swooped wing in seconds. That’s not to say everything always goes great, it doesn’t. In fact, just the other day I had to redraw one wing several times before it would match. Sometimes, your face just won’t cooperate, you know?
Amazon, $17
I’ve been through several different brands and types of liquid liner, and this one from Stila is my hands down, favorite. Last time I was in the market for a new liner, I looked at several other marker-like liners, and none of them had a tip so fine as this one. That super fine, pointy tip is what puts this liner over the top for me. It makes it so easy to fill in tiny spots between lashes, and to draw a precise point on my wings. If I want to make the line thicker, I just take a more parallel angle with the pen, and it’s perfect. It dries fast, so I don’t open my eyes and ruin everything, but not so fast that I can’t quickly fix a mistake. The pen is easy to control, and it’s comfortable to hold. The liner itself is good and dark, and it doesn’t skip or tug.
A lot of liquid liners will dry kind of shiny, and this one is no exception. If it’s particularly noticeable, I’ll dip a fine brush in some matte black shadow and go over the line.
I wore this liner on my wedding day, so you know it’s good. I was not playing games that day.
It’s usually $20, but as of right now, Amazon has it for $17.
