Happy Sunday, everyone! After a rainy Saturday, it is bright and lively out here in San Francisco today, with clear blue skies and LOTS of red & gold for the Niners football game. Since I’m not a huge sports fan, I decided to patronize my favorite neighborhood cafe to blog. I am super excited to share my look today because I’m trying out some new tricks! As you can imagine, yesterday was a lazy day… besides my rainy jog in the park, I spent the rest of the day in bed eating chocolate, watching back to back to back episodes of the Sing-Off (an a cappella competition show) and, of course, perusing Pinterest and Youtube for some style inspirations… and boy, did I find some fun inspiration!
Here are some snaps of the look. A young, fun and easy style to rock!
For face, I wanted something young and fresh, and to me, this means clear and glowing skin, big eyes, and pink cheeks. Today, I used tinted moisturizer (Peter Thomas Roth in Light), concealer (NARS) and highlighter (Benefit) to achieve the good skin part. Then I applied a cream blush (Becca) with my fingertips. Then a little eyeliner on waterlines and mascara (Mabelline) for the eyes. On lip, I put any residual blush onto my lips, then topped it with some lip balm (Perricone SUPER). Voila!
For hair, I watched a simple tutorial on youtube by LuxyHair… I LOVE their vlog because they’re so creative, talented and know how to break it down into simple steps for their not-so-dexterous followers like me. Some of their looks don’t translate on my hair since it is very slippery and I have lots of it, but this very low-maintenance fishtail braid + beanie was very easy. I have been practicing my fishtail braid technique and it has definitely become easier for me, but my hair is at a very awkward length and it tends to fall apart easily. For this look, messy works very well so I am okay with that. Oh, and one tip I learned from The Beauty Department (Lauren Conrad’s Blog…wow she managed to stay relevant after ‘The Hills’) is to use a thin elastic to create a neat pony tail at the base of the braid (fishtail, french, dutch… doesn’t matter) and when you finish, you can cut it out or hide it, then be left with a much neater look.
Here’s my V-shaped nail look. I was watching a tutorial by Jin Soon, a nail artist whose lacquers will be sold at Sephora. She created this beautiful gradient red design, with the color getting darker with each V toward the tip of the nail. I opted for a very simple design inspired by the more complicated look. As you can tell, I have swiped my gold to create a V, and filled in the blank areas above the bare triangle. I absolutely love this gold color next to a bare nail, because I think it brings out the pink of the natural nail. If I had less shaky hands, I would always wear a gold french manicure over a bare nail, but since I don’t, this is a nice alternative. Also, as you can probably see, my nails are incredibly short, since I don’t want any breaking (the shellac SNAFU…), but GOOD NEWS: my nails are much stronger. I just realized this particular style is not going to be affected by my natural nail growth, BONUS POINTS!!! I think I’m out of the post-shellac woods.
And here’s my view from this side of the computer. I’m at the cafe right drinking a cup of lemon tea. As usual (I KNOW THIS HAPPENS TO YOU TOO, OKAY) I had to take off my waist belt because it was getting a little tight after those fruit tarts, and I had to take off my ring chunk to get some typing done. Also relevant, it is Britney Spears’ album Baby One More Time’s 15TH BIRTHDAY…it came out in 1999! So, do yourself a favor like me and treat yourself to some late 90’s nostalgia. With that, have a great week and enjoy the album!
Xoxo
Trace
Trace in the Place 