Frugal Friday!

Who says great makeup has always be expensive? When you can save $7 on this product or $15 on that, it really adds up! Here are some of my favorite products that tend to compete with my professional products for a "place on the face"!!!

This concealer really holds it's own against expensive top brands.
L'Oreal Visible Lift spf 20.
An spf for the eye area? SOLD!





Revlon Colorstay lipliner in Nude
Revlon Colorstay Mineral Lipglaze in Continuous Pink #525.
I'm loving these lips at the moment! I can wear with my "bare"
face or glam with my smokey eye!

Have a great weekend!

XO Kate

Life in a picture!

His ads always make me wish I could be living in them!
How about you?!




XO Kate

Oops! I forgot my....

Makeup brushes!!!!
Here I am on vacation and the first evening I go to start my beautifying ritual and I discover I have gone and forgot my makeup brushes! I mean what is a makeup artist suppose to do?! Well it was time to dig deep, very very deep into my bag of tricks.
So what did I have to work with? A makeup sponge and q-tips. Wow, yup that's it!

Here goes my new routine!




Moisturize then primer.
Apply concealer with finger tips.
Powder foundation with makeup brush. Blend well!
Using 1 side of the sponge, contour any needed areas.
Switch to another side to apply powder blush. (I was lucky I brought my cream blush also!)
*now this part takes a little more planning:
With q-tip start with your lightest color all over lid
Use other side for the brows if needed.
Then move onto your medium color (at this time you can use a fun accent color.)
Finish with that same side for the dark color to contour and define crease. (all 3 eyeshadows used with the 1 side of q-tip)
Apply any eyeliner and follow up by using other side of q-tip to blend the liner.
*The key to getting this to look its best under the conditions is to BLEND BLEND BLEND!!!!
Finish with any highlights using a fingertip.

And the final look!




This has really been a blessing in disguise as I have really needed to tap into some creativity and through that I have experimented more with my own eyes! Something I usually save for the people I'm working on...not usually myself!

Hope this helps you should you find yourself in a similar situation!

XO Kate

Let's get this color started!

With all this drab weather and mountains of snow hanging around here in Pittsburgh I needed a little color in my life! Well on my eyes anyway!
Eyeshadow is always fun to experiment with, especially with the thousand of colors out there! I wanted to share an easy, beginner way to add some fun color to your eyes.




First apply a light neutral shade all over lid and brow bone like MAC Shroom.
Next apply Aquadisiac all over lid, inner corner and then with #266 angle brush, sweep the same color through the bottom lash line.
I then swept MAC eyeshadow in bronze on the outer corner to contour the eye.
Apply your black or black-brown eyeliner on the outer lashline and through the bottom waterline.
Finish off with 2 coats of a great mascara and just feel your mood lift!

XO Kate

I'm heading into retro glam!

In preparation for an upcoming shoot I thought I'd give the burgundy lip color a test run. The shoot is a 1930's style look at a "Grand" Pittsburgh location! Do to limited time that I will have to change between an authentic 30's look and a more modern take on 30's glam, I need a way to quickly update it. The solution? A dab of Moth to Flame dazzleglass by MAC applied to the center bottom and top lip.

The key is to get the line very crisp since it's such a dark color...and here's how it goes!

Cover the lips and slightly outside lip line with concealer or medium coverage foundation.

Outline lips with Plum lipliner from Bobbi Brown (make sure its even and symmetrical)

Apply L'Oreal #746 Pure Burgundy* all over lips, blot and apply again.

Go back with your concealer/foundation with a small brush and define the outer lipline.

(this will help clean up and even any 'mistakes')

To finish and bring this lip up to date apply the gloss to center of lips.

*This is on the lighter side of burgundies since myself and the model are blonde. Darker hair and skin tones can go even deeper into the raisin family of colors.

So go retro glam for your next night out with the girls or for that hot date for Valentine's Day!

Come back for the all the looks from my shoot in the next few weeks!

XO Kate

You know Andy....

Because every Pittsburgher should have this book! Andy Warhol is one we claim as our own. We bread him in this town so on my coffee table he will stay!
I am truly inspired by his work and life on so many levels.
Let him inspire you too!

Kate XO

Pittsburgh makes an appearance in WWD!!!

I was way excited today when I opened my Thursday issue of Women's Wear Daily and saw that Pittsburgh had made an appearance in it! While Pittsburgh is an amazing place for art and history sometimes we get swept up in the category of a "fashion-lacking" city!
It was great to see that the article was covering denim and pricing, which is thought of for the young and fashion conscience crowd!


While the denim industry is listening to us by what we are willing to pay for a great pair jeans, local denim store owners are speaking up!


Lawrence Scott, owner of Pittsburgh Jeans Company and Candice Gallagher owner of Billie Jeans in Cranberry Twp. are interviewed as saying "When the customers are refusing to pay over $250 for jeans, (especially ones that are torn and shredded and look like they need to go straight for the trash!) we don't keep an inventory like they used to. And manufactures take notice!'



So what price range will get you a noticibly great pair of jeans? Scott and Gallagher agree it's in the $100-$175 range.



As for me...my favorite brands are J Brand and William Rast. You can immediately feel the quality of the denim and the fit couldn't be more flattering!



*High five to the Burgh!!!*



XO Kate