Last week I got a MacBook Pro, and mentioned that this week I’d write about it for my post. Look at that, I just did. I’m ecstatic, let’s move on.
On the first day of my Intro to Drawing class my professor made us draw straight lines freehand for the entire class period. As she looked over my shoulder she remarked “well, it’s all uphill from here for you, isn’t it?” I somehow made it out of art school without being able to draw a straight line on a page.
Imagine, then, my difficulty with the base of my eyelashes. My eyes are nicely shaped, but they are a little small and squinty for my taste. From a distance, without eyeliner and mascara, I look like pair of lips on a blank face. I am a master at the application of mascara, but I have been searching for an eyeliner I couldn’t screw up since I was fifteen. For a long time I went with a subtle brown, smudged all to hell to conceal my inability to apply it correctly. Later, envious of my friend Heidi’s perfect, thin black lines with the slight cat-eye flick at the corners that made her look demure but saucy, I picked up some liquid black. Determined that practice makes perfect, I went around looking like Amy Winehouse for longer than I should have. She, at least, has the excuse of crack addiction.
Long story short, I recently found Smashbox, a cosmetics company that makes many fine products and the most amazing eyeliner I have ever used. It’s a cream, which would normally scare the bejeezus out of someone with my oily skin. It’s all about the brush, wide and flat. Load it up with a touch of your favorite color and (to use Smashbox’s terminology) “walk” it across the base of your lashes. Flawless! You can smudge it or let it set in a line. Defying all makeup logic it stays! The flat little brush makes it simple to do the little corner flick I’ve sought in vain all this time. I can do both eyes in seconds.
It’s pricey, sure, but I’ll be using the same $20 brush as long as they keep making this stuff (and they’d better), and I can’t see running through this generous pot anytime soon. For the commitment wary, they even make tiny sampler palettes. I can have my everyday brown and bust out the sparkly green when the mood is right. Worth absolutely every penny.
First, let me start by saying whatever stupid 70-pound bang-ed
hipster it was that decided red lipstick should be de rigueur again
should be shot. Some of us have strawberry blonde hair and
pinkish-white skin with freckles, and unless you've got Carine Roitfeld
assisting in your bathroom every morning, scarlet lips can be tough to
pull off. In my accursed existence as a pastey, I have gone through
more tubes than Terri Schiavo searching for a color that doesn't make
me look like Krusty The Clown after bobbing for cherries in a bowl of
spaghetti sauce, and the intense pigment of red lipsticks usually makes
for a drier formulation and allows a lot less wiggle room for those of
use who can't paint in a straight line. 
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