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.

Five Looks - Smokey Eye/Nude Lip

For the fourth of five makeup looks to master (you can see the others here, here and here), allow me to introduce The Smokey Eye/Nude Lip - this is my favorite look of all time.  It also tends to be the one brides ask for the most, but then feel it’s too much for their wedding day once they see it on.  If you want to emphasize your eyes, remember that you can do that with any color of shadow, not just dark colors. While there are endless variations of a smoky eye, this is the way I teach it: prep the eye lids with a little concealer and a very slight dusting of powder or skin-colored shadow.  Pick three complementary colors in light, medium, and dark shades: dark brown, medium brown, and light brown…or plum, light brown, and gold…whatever.  Take an eyeliner the same color as your darkest shadow, line your top lashes, then smudge with your finger and apply the darkest color directly on top of the liner – not the entire lid.  Swipe the medium shade right in your crease, and the lightest shade over the medium color up to your brow bone.  Add another layer of liner close to the lashes, then apply mascara.  Clean up any “fallout” from the shadow underneath your eyes, and finish your makeup, ending with a natural lip.  It sounds like a lot of work, but I promise once you get the hang of it and know right were to put everything, it will go quickly.  You can see a demo here.