From the time I was allowed to wear makeup…actually even before then, I have always longed to wear red lipstick.  I have always associated red lipstick with being a  grown up as well as as being sophisticated.  I have been experimenting with red lipsticks since I was sixteen years old and have never found a shade of red that I truly, madly, deeply loved and could not live without.  Either they were too light or dark, sometimes after a while the red would start looking bright pink on my lips or worse yet, orange. Sometimes they just had too much shine and I am not particularly keen on shiny red lips…my lips are not Angelina Jolie’s size, but they are still pretty full. Shiny red lips have a tendency to make me look cartoonish or worse yet, like the female Gremlin in Gremlins 2 (just Google it and you’ll see what I mean!)

So for about a decade into my makeup wearing stage I have tried numerous red lipsticks without success and had given up until just recently.  With red lipstick seemingly being the item du jour lately, my longing for that perfect shade of red returned, plus Valentine’s Day is right around the corner so visions of myself in a pink dress with red lips were swimming in my head. I decided to visit my happy place…also known to many as Sephora.

Before heading to Sephora I decided to do some research and Googled the best red lipsticks for my skin tone.  I had already tried a lot of the red lipsticks that came up in my search results, but for some reason had never given NARS a try. I wanted a matte red lipstick that would look great on my brown skin.It actually did not take me very long to find the lipstick I craved…OK actually it ended up being a lip pencil.  Once I tried NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Cruella I knew my search was finally over.  The Velvet Matte Lip Pencil is a lip pencil and lipstick combined into one very easy to apply crayon.  The color is absolutely beautiful and I do not need to line my lips before applying it nor does it bleed.  I love that there is absolutely no shine to this lip pencil so my lips end up with a velvety look and texture…almost like a rose.

Since I bought the lip pencil I have been wearing it on a consistent basis…not just out at night, but also during the day with just jeans and a t-shirt and my red lips never manage to look out of place.  I cannot wait to wear this on Valentine’s Day…with or without the pink dress I had in mind.  Oh and did I mention that I have since returned to Sephora and purchased the Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Bahama and Dolce Vita…methinks I have finally been cured of my addiction to lip glosses! If you have been struggling with finding the perfect red lipstick, I highly suggest to head to your nearest Sephora and give any one of the NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencils in red a try.

Gail Lewis

Gail is at times a model, most of the time a blogger, but always a beauty junkie.

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I have a friend named Felicia who can rock a red lipstick like nobody’s business. Have you secretly always wanted to wear red, but just didn’t think you could pull it off? I sure have. So when someone from Cake Plate Boutique approached me to review a line of cosmetics they carried in their Napa Valley store, I took the chance to ask her to pick a color she felt would best suit me. I was told 29 Cosmetics’ Wine Critic, a red, would look great on me. I took a big gulp and felt worried.

Wine Critic, from 29 Reserves Moisturizing Lipstick Collection (SPF20), utilizes grape seed extract, an anti-oxidant that smoothes, softens and prevents aging, straight from regional grapes. More powerful than Vitamin E and 20 times more efficient than Vitamin C, the extract is said to have the ability to keep lips looking young, vibrant, and stylishly smooth. Although, for me, the lipstick didn’t feel very moisturizing. Additionally, the colors are named in honor of the Napa Valley region–hence Wine Critic.

Wine Critic is rich and vibrant. I personally love it and there is something about wearing this color that just makes you feel sexy. Like most lipsticks, the color doesn’t stay put very long if you are eating/drinking.

Here’s a shot of me wearing it, what do you think?

29 Cosmetics can be found in-store at Cake Plate Boutique at 1000 Main Street in Downtown Napa.

*Disclosure

Shannon Nelson

Shannon Nelson launched A Girl's Gotta Spa! in 2005. She currently works with beauty brands as a social media consultant, freelance writes for magazines and is a public speaker at beauty industry conferences.

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by makeup artist and TIA contributor, Kristen Arnett

Red lipstick looks amazing on women of all ages and complexions.

No matter where my makeup brushes have landed, in whatever country or on whatever occasion, women will often lean in to ask about how to wear red lips. I don’t blame them because it’s the one classic makeup staple that will never go out of style, because it makes women, all women, look hot.

While confessing a desire to wear red, women often follow with hesitation, usually accompanied by the pervasive phrase, “I want to wear red, but I don’t want to look like a hooker.”  For extra emphasis sometimes they’ll say, “an old hooker.”  Oh, you all are so funny! No worries, hooker red isn’t what we are aiming for, and unless you have the outfit to match, don’t concern yourselves with being confused with a lady of the night.

The truth is if you aren’t used to red, it can seem terribly audacious, as if you are asking to attract a lot of attention.  But what fun is life if we are always playing it safe?  It just takes some guts and spunk to pull off a bold red mouth. Think of pinup bombshells like Dita Von Teese and Marilyn Monroe, and rocker Gwen Stefani, who are all elegant, sexy and empowered in their own ways.

What’s even better is this vibrant hue has no age limit. Last year I had the privilege of doing Zelda Kaplan’s makeup for a portrait commemorating her 94^th birthday.  As a famous New York socialite, party-goer, and do-gooder, Zelda’s incredible spirit and her signature red lips are her accessories for every outfit. She refuses to be seen without them and they may just be the secret to her looking young, fabulous and being the life of every party.

Zelda Kaplan: proof that red lips know no age

No matter how light or dark your skin, or what tone your hair is, there is a red out there for you! It’s just a matter of deciding which type of red you like, and trying a few on until you get it right.

The sales people at the department store aren’t going to know what “your” red shade is unless you first decide on your “red style.”  Everyone in retail knows that most women say they want change, but they just buy a different version of their safe color over again.  So no sales person is going to push, because she doesn’t want to lose a sale or have you come back to return it.

Let’s figure out your red style.  What sort of reds are you attracted to?  Are you a classic gal who needs a brighter red, like a bathing beauty from the 50s? Are you a more vampy type that steers towards something more sultry and dark? Which type of women have you seen with red mouth who you admire?  Mine tends to be a fantastical image of a graceful Parisian woman riding around on her bike with a baguette in the basket, wearing a cream colored coat and a silk scarf blowing in the wind.  Once you have the style of red you’d like to wear, you then have to do the legwork and apply a variety of shades until you find the one that works for you.

Red lipstick rules:

1. The more fine lines you have around your mouth, the more you need to use a lip liner.  (See the Lip liner is your frienemy article).

2. You must be willing to conceal ALL redness on your face (other than on the cheeks) and blue under the eyes, and powder your t-zone well.

3. Wearing red is high maintenance so you will have to do touch ups throughout the day/night.

Once you have that perfect red tube in your hands, put it on!  Give yourself a bit of time to get used to it, wear it around, feel empowered and sexy – just because you can!  After all, it’s just a little makeup. You can wipe it off and be back to your safe self anytime you please. Life is short.  Have fun!

For more honest reviews and information about beauty and personal care products, visit Truthinaging.com

Marta Wohrle

I was born in England in 1960. A former journalist and recovering consultant, I now work in the online and digital media space. I have never tried Botox. I founded Accord Media in 2008 to publish Truth In Aging with a mission to offer truthful and unbiased guidance to people seeking to improve their physical health and appearance through skin care, hair care, health and beauty products, and salon and clinical treatments. A publishing industry veteran, I try to bring a uniquely curious, honest voice to consumer journalism through my web sites.

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Thanks to the brilliant idea of my friend Karla Sugar, I’m once again contributing to the auction going on at BeautyBloggers.org to benefit Doctors Without Borders. Last year we raised $5K and this year we have already topped that amount and the auction has only been live for a few days! There are so many great beauty bloggers involved and if you want to pick up an awesome beauty treat at a steal AND help a really great charity, definitely head over and check it out!

My auction items are from MAC Venomous Villains. These are new and unused, although the cases may have a few fingerprints on them since I had to take them out of the box to snap a picture.

The items included are:

• Briar Rose Beauty Powder (from Maleficent/Sleeping Beauty)
• Violetta lipstick (Amplified Creme, from Maleficent/Sleeping Beauty)
• Toxic Tale lipstick (Satin, from the Evil Queen/Snow White)
• Hot House lipglass (from the Evil Queen/Snow White)

At the time of this post, the highest bid is only $68 for these limited edition items…know someone this would make a good gift for? Check it out at BeautyBloggers.org; the auction lasts until December 12th!

Ps. For more great holiday gift ideas, make sure to check out A Girl’s Gotta Spa! Holiday Gift Guide!

Shannon Nelson

Shannon Nelson launched A Girl's Gotta Spa! in 2005. She currently works with beauty brands as a social media consultant, freelance writes for magazines and is a public speaker at beauty industry conferences.

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The Mulleavy sisters, aka the masterminds behind Rodarte, don’t normally need any help conjuring up genius show-stopping ideas, but for their Spring 2012 RTW show, they called on a little classic inspiration. Van Gogh’s tell-tale swirly stars adorned the show’s impressionist-inspired spring line, and the painter’s influence didn’t end there! The show’s beauty looks also called the Starry Night treatment, with smoldering midnight smoky eyes that seemed to peer right into the audience’s soul and make us covet everything that walked the catwalk!

Get a similarly sultry look with NYX Eyeshadow in Frosted Ocean, a sparkly midnight blue, and line eyes with a navy glitter pencil like Pop Beauty Glitz Blitz Eyeliner in Blue Beam. Additionally, the models’ hair got a sexy wet textured look (you can too by styling damp hair with Oribe Creme For Style), and cheeks were given just the faintest dewy glow (don’t want to upstage the eyes!) with a mauve cream blush like Estee Lauder Signature Satin Creme Blush in Mauve Light. And don’t forget to finish the look with matching navy nails, thanks to Deborah Lippmann’s Lady Sings the Blues!

- Alex Gambardella

Guest beauty post for A Girl’s Gotta Spa! from my friends at TheFind.com.

*Photo Credit: Style.com

Shannon Nelson

Shannon Nelson launched A Girl's Gotta Spa! in 2005. She currently works with beauty brands as a social media consultant, freelance writes for magazines and is a public speaker at beauty industry conferences.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

If you’re a sucker for testing new, up-and-coming beauty brands, you’re definitely due to take a bite of Bite Beauty! Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of the show-stopping lip-focused company; the Canada-based brand isn’t only a newcomer to the Sephora shelves – it’s a brand-new company!

Sold exclusively at Sephora, Bite seeks to infuse all the most natural and healthiest ingredients around like shea butter, superfoods, and antioxidants to pamper your pucker while refusing to skimp on highly-pigmented, long-lasting color. After all, when it comes to lipstick, what good is a moisture-packed product that doesn’t actually deliver in the color department? Can’t decide which color to try, or can’t decide if you want to commit? No problem! Their 5-piece set of Luminous Creme Lipsticks lets you dabble in all sorts of shades, from shimmering champagne to sultry plum, with three multi-flattering hues in between. For only $25 for a set of 5 (one regular-sized lipstick is $24!), this is a must-have value set for any lipstick addict!

- Alex Gambardella

Guest beauty post from my friends at TheFind.com.

Shannon Nelson

Shannon Nelson launched A Girl's Gotta Spa! in 2005. She currently works with beauty brands as a social media consultant, freelance writes for magazines and is a public speaker at beauty industry conferences.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

Other than having a day off for Labor Day, there are plenty of reasons to dread the month of September. Going back to school, chilly fall weather, the end of carefree summer beach days, etc. However, renowned photography, filmmaker, and all-around bad-ass artist Cindy Sherman, along with MAC Cosmetics, may turn your autumn blues around!

The Cindy Sherman for MAC collection hits shelves September 29th and draws inspiration from three kooky characters or “faces,” each of which has their own color story with corresponding lipsticks, shadows, and pigments to match. With such an impressive variety of colors and finishes, from pastels to neons and mattes to ultra-shimmers, this collection hopes to inspire makeup collectors to create their own larger-than-life looks while still leaving plenty of room for your own imagination as the artist! I love the sensible-yet-chic khaki green and navy pigments as well as the color-rich fuchsias and oranges, but I’ll have to see the collection in person before I decide if they’re worth the splurge! One thing’s for sure — this much-anticipated collection won’t last long!

- Alex Gambardella

Guest beauty post for A Girl’s Gotta Spa! from my friends at TheFind.com.

Shannon Nelson

Shannon Nelson launched A Girl's Gotta Spa! in 2005. She currently works with beauty brands as a social media consultant, freelance writes for magazines and is a public speaker at beauty industry conferences.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

I am so excited about this brand that I am just going to start off by saying I have found my new obsession and it is called Eyeko.  I have honestly not been this excited about makeup in a really long time…if ever.  Normally when it comes to makeup I am all about the lip glosses, but I am excited about EVERYTHING from Eyeko.  I have actually only tried their Fat Balm for lips and cheeks, the Liptastik Glossy Lip Pen and the Graffiti Eyeliner Pen, but if these three are any indication of how their makeup  perform then I want to try every single product from Eyeko.

In my experience, whenever a product is touted as a lip or cheek anything, it normally works best on either the lip or the cheek, but never both…not true of the Eyeko Fat Balm in Strawberry.  The balm looked great on my cheeks (it’s a sheer pink that gave my cheeks a really natural looking flush)and managed to stay put after a walk down Lincoln Road in South Beach, Miami on a 96 degree day.  When applied to my lips, it felt very moisturizing, not heavy and also stayed on my lips in the Miami heat and humidity.  The color on my lips was a natural shade of pink with just a touch of gloss…not super shiny at all, just very soft and pretty…I guess dewy and fresh would be good words to use.

I have been dying to try one of the brighter shades of pink glosses and lipsticks this summer but have not been able to find one that was flattering on my skin tone until I came across the Eyeko Liptastik Glossy Lip Pen in Loud Mouth.  The lip pen is a lip liner, color and gloss all in one.  Loud mouth is a vibrant pink that very weirdly manages to look both vibrant and soft on the lips.  It is a great blend of a gloss, liner and a lipstick…not as heavy as a lipstick, but also lasts much longer than a gloss.  I am sure it is not intended to be used as a blush, but I did use it as such and I loved it. I love that it functions as so many different things because I can definitely leave my entire makeup bag behind and just carry the lip pen around in a teeny clutch.

I normally shy away from liquid liner…or eye liner for the most part, unless a professional is doing it because it is such a pain for me to apply.  I can never seem to get both eyes to look the same and will normally remove everything and forgo the liner altogether, which is a huge bummer because I love the Sophia Loren/Eva Mendes bombshell/cat eye look, I just can never get it right with the liquid liners I’ve tried.  This struggle is all over now because the Eyeko Graffiti Eyeliner Pen in jet black was really easy for me to use. I managed to control the eyeliner pen during my entire eye lining application…a first.  The liner also stayed put (again in the Miami heat and humidity) until I used makeup remover.  I loved that on the Eyeko website they give tips on how to best apply the eye pen because I definitely needed it and it made things a lot easier for me.

On the Eyeko website it says that Eyeko means love in Japanese so here’s my stab at speaking Japanese…with a bit of English thrown in, I absolutely eyeko Eyeko! I forgot to mention how incredibly affordable every product from Eyeko is…so go forth and get the love, spread the love and maybe…big maybe, share the love.

Gail Lewis

Gail is at times a model, most of the time a blogger, but always a beauty junkie.

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As the weather warms up and we’re slowly but surely getting enticed to brave the sunny outdoors for summery activities, it’s always important to make sure to be adequately protected from the sun. And while it may be easy to remember slathering on SPF for all your vital exposed skin, it’s also important to give proper attention to extra-sensitive areas like your lips! Having chapped lips is one of the #1 summer beauty woes (not to mention that fact that it makes sipping salt-rimmed margaritas much more painful than necessary!), and lets face it — regular gloss often just doesn’t cut it when it comes to providing the moisturizing power you need.

My quick remedy is usually to layer balm and gloss to make sure I have my bases covered, but why not opt for a multi-tasking gloss-balm hybrid that shines while it soothes and protects? Perfect for girls who want a little sheen and color, don’t want to skimp on protection, and also want to lighten the load in their purse, these balm glosses are bound to be your #1 beauty must-have for the summer!

From left to right: Anastasia Hydrafull Gloss, Philosophy Kiss Me Very Emollient Lip Balm, By Terry Rose Balm Gloss, Clinique Superbalm Moisturizing Gloss, and Givenchy Gelée D’Interdit Smoothing Gloss Balm.

- Alex Gambardella

*Guest beauty post for A Girl’s Gotta Spa! from my friends at TheFind.com.

Shannon Nelson

Shannon Nelson launched A Girl's Gotta Spa! in 2005. She currently works with beauty brands as a social media consultant, freelance writes for magazines and is a public speaker at beauty industry conferences.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

New makeup…I don’t know if there exists two words in the English dictionary (when combined together of course) that elicits  more minor shivers…and goosebumps than the prospect of trying out new makeup for the first time.  Usually whenever I purchase a new item I can barely wait to get home and rip off the tags…or rip open that bag of chips or cookies in the car, but with new makeup, opening the packaging is a ritual.  No ripping open anything here, I relish the moment when I can sit quietly and slowly open each item, test it on the back of my hands and the inside of my wrists and sniff it before actually applying it where it’s really supposed to be applied (I said ritual.)

So why when I received my brand spanking new package of Rain Cosmetics did I forgo my ritual and revert to ripping it open like it contained boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mints. Simply put, I had not encountered a line of cosmetics (not since Tarte anyway) with such a fun, simple name.  I am also kind of  insane about rain (as in the kind you go singing in) and the packaging is very chic…I love the metallic baby blue color of the containers. New makeup called Rain in pretty packaging….it was just too much.

The first two items to make their debut in my ritual were my two new lipglosses, the Gloss Of Fame in Berry Manilow and the Sexy Extreme Gloss in Magic.  They are both very pretty, flattering, soft pinks but the Magic Gloss has a lot more shine and shimmer and they both smell heavenly.  The Berry Manilow Gloss has a faint vanilla scent and the Magic Gloss has a very light berry scent.

Next up was the Glam Lipstick in Showgirl, a dark wine colored long-lasting lipstick that doesn’t really smell like anything besides…well lipstick, but the color is very glam indeed…definitely a “night out” shade.  For a lipstick it feels very moisturizing …probably because it contains mango butter, grape seed oil and vitamin E.  I loved that it  felt like I was wearing a balm instead of lipstick.

Lastly to conclude my ritual, I tried the Glowing Blush in Burlesque, a tan/peachy shade that did in fact make my cheeks look like they were glowing.  I did have a moment of confusion with the blush because for some odd reason I assumed it was a cream to powder blush so at first I applied it with my fingers…it worked but did not look as good as it did once applied with a brush.

I enjoyed my ritual so much, I was pretty bummed once I had tried my products.  The only two negatives were that I wish there were descriptions of  colors for each product on the Rain Cosmetics site and also…there I was sitting on the couch with glam lips and glowing cheeks with absolutely no place to go…

Gail Lewis

Gail is at times a model, most of the time a blogger, but always a beauty junkie.

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