Beauty Tips for Ministers

Bare Escentuals: A Rant

You know what? I am just going to reverse my opinion of last year when I said I liked Bare Escentuals and recommended it to you. Consider this a retraction: I HATE Bare Escentuals.

I have been trying to work with Bare Escentuals for a year now and I just can’t do it. No matter how much I exfoliate and moisturize before applying it, and no matter how little of the product I use, it just looks like a powdery mask. My eyes recede into my head like a chubby, suburban version of Skeletor and I have to apply two additional brightening products just to resemble a living human again — all that before applying blush! And the color, which I went back to Sephora to have corrected after the first gal gave me THE WRONG SHADE, is now TOO PALE.

Make-up should NOT look like it’s resting on the top of my skin. No matter how artfully and minimally I apply BE, that’s all it ever looks like.

Also, this product is a MESS. Tap, swirl, buff — buff, tap, swirl — whatever it is, the powder gets EVERYWHERE and it’s a huge MESS, and it gets on my SKIRTS and my PANTS. I HATE THAT. So there I am tapping, swirling and buffing and powder is flying everywhere, including into the cat’s asthmatic lungs, and who NEEDS that?

This product also ITCHES. They say it’s all natural but excuse me, it’s made of minerals and I am NOT A ROCK, okay, so this isn’t exactly “natural” for my skin. My skin is made of SKIN and tapping, swirling and buffing crushed up ROCKS into it is not natural! I question your truth in advertising, Bare Escentuals! Plus, how much do I hate picking off the little pieces of the blush brush that inevitably get left on my face after all that buffing and blending? I HATE IT, okay? I just hate it.

After applying a face full of Bare Escentuals, I find that I can’t even wear lipstick because if I do, I wind up looking like a drag queen. And that is just SO WRONG.

So darlings, thank you for listening because I really had to get that off of my chest. I hate to throw away my Bare Escentuals but I fear I must, for it just makes me very frustrated.

Now for the next question: what to use instead? I’ve tried dozens of different foundations over the past years and haven’t found anything to really love except for a Trish McEvoy product (Even Skin Foundation) I got as a very special deal but which usually costs some insane amount of money. [I just checked. It's $55!!! And even though it lasted me at least six months, holy cow!! - PB] It’s sheer with great coverage and I can’t seem to replicate the effect with any other product. I await your tips with thanks and an itchy face.

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Product Reviews: Liquid Eyeliner and Stick Make-Up

Suppose you don’t want to wear a whole face of make-up, but would like to even out red or blotchy spots before you head out the door. This is my own preference, as I tend to look way too pale with a whole face of any kind of make-up, especially Bare Escentuals (darn it, too, because I really like that stuff). I wear full make-up on Sundays and when my skin looks particularly dull and awful, but otherwise I try to keep it minimal.

I was therefore very pleased to find Mac Studio Stick SPF 15, a great product that I apply in four swipes across my face:
1. to even out red next to my nose
2. center of chin
3. between the eyebrows where it can get blotchy

I blend it out with a medium-sized make-up brush and I’m good to go.

This product comes in a whole slew of shades, so you’re bound to find one that matches you perfectly. And it stays on, making it worth the price in my book.
(Please remember, ladies and gents, that SPF 15 in your make-up hardly offers any protection from UVA/UVB rays, and wear an actual SPF product every day, typically as a moisturizer or however you work it.)

Second, we have Maybelline’s Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner…

…a great buy for less than $6. Liquid eyeliner is a dramatic look and not for everyone, but I rely on it for days I’ll be gone for many hours and won’t have time to reapply, blend and mess with regular pencil eyeliner.
I own liquid eyeliner in black, brown and blue, using brown on typical days (black can be too harsh, and you don’t want to wind up looking like Amy Winehouse). Blue is definitely not for beginners, as it can make you look like an 8th grader who just got her first amateur make-over for the Homecoming Dance (“ohmigod, Ginny, this blue eyeliner will make you look so totally hot and it will totally match your dress!!”).

The Maybelline waterproof liner has been a blessing these past humid summer Sundays when I would spend all day going from church service to church service, clapping, praying, singing my heart out, and sweating. I constantly feared a Tammy Faye Bakker (of blessed memory) situation, but this Maybelline stuff doesn’t budge no matter how damp I get. They apparently make an even MORE waterproof liquid eyeliner but unless you’re in Esther Williams’ line of work, I don’t think you need it.

And speaking of Miss Esther Williams (also of blessed memory), wouldn’t you just LOVE to know how the heck they kept her looking so gorgeous, take after take, underwater? How come she never looks all pruney and bedraggled? She just swims toward the camera with shiny red lipstick and a big beautiful smile. What a Hollywood goddess. Honestly. Now I want to go watch “Neptune’s Daughter.”

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Peace On Earth and Necklace Length

Aloha, Pigeons! Happy third Sunday in Advent! Are you on the Hope, Joy, Peace or Love candle? PeaceBang has noticed that there’s a lot of liturgical freedom in how we assign meaning to our little candles. Ours are pink and purple, which just CLASH with the red-beribboned greenery in the sanctuary and trouble PeaceBang’s soul until she remember that God is so not into things being too matchy-matchy.

PeaceBang is slogging through this Advent, loving her life but dragging her feet a wee bit until she gets totally done with her end-of-semester academic work. The Great Hard Drive Crisis of 2006 is by no means over, and she still has no internet access from home, which is a lousy inconvenience. Some files have been resurrected from the dead, but not the most beloved worship files, which are probably in Vegas right now squandering their inheritances, getting drunk and consorting with unsavories. When they come home — as I pray that they will — I shall see them from a distance and like the father in the parable, I shall cry,

“My prodigal files that were lost are found! Kill the fatted calf and let us rejoice!”

And then the older files will huff and puff with the unfairness of it all and stand against the wall with their arms folded indignantly, refusing to partake of the festivities.

But MEANWHILE, it really does warm the cockles of my heart (even though I’m not sure that girls have cockles) to have ordered some necessaries from Sephora.com and to know that you, my dear readers, have financed these gifties.

Because of your generosity, I will soon be able to do a product review of Bare Escentuals face powder (Sheer Veil) and Philosophy Coconut Milk body and hair wash (like, can you really shampoo with this stuff?). PeaceBang is all about the yummy coconut-smelling products this winter. I know it’s just a trick of the fragrance, but they just seem so extra-richly moisturizing. So thank you again for supporting the ongoing work of this ministry. My Favorite Male Product Tester is also getting some goodies in his stocking whose results we will be able to learn in God’s due time. Isn’t that the meaning of Christmas, after all? Peace on Earth, Good Skin Care Products To Men?
Or did I get that just a bit wrong, somehow?

FINALLY, and this is quite the hot little tip: PeaceBang has noticed that big pendant necklaces are all the rage and has been trying to rock the look but hasn’t succeeded. She gamely piles on necklaces trying for just the right combo but mostly succeeds only in looking like a deranged art teacher or a very eccentric dowager. She keeps trying, however. And based on advice from Real Simple magazine which advised that you should wear this type of necklace quite long — like right around your rib cage — she can tell you with great assurance as of yesterday that longer IS better. If you have an ample bazoom, the length elongates you. If you don’t have an ample bazoom, it’s still a much chic-er length than the usual mid-chest look.

Hint to Boston-area shoppers: Jasmine Sola is having a FANTASTIC sale on long, terribly fashionable necklaces this VERY MOMENT. If you get there soon you can buy two necklaces for well under the price of one, and isn’t that happy news for girls in the do-gooder professions?

The Baby Jesus is being born just a week from now! Do you think if I bring him frankincense and myrrh, he would do something about my flat, flat hair so that it’s nice and bouncy for Christmas Eve services?

(Actually, if I’m going to pray for a Christmas miracle, it will be that the “new” hard drive furnished by Dell lasts through next fiscal year when I can buy myself a MAC and not have to deal with viruses again. I will not have to talk to someone in India when I need tech support, but can drive right over to the Apple store in the mall and get actual real, live face-to-face human help for my techno-woes. Lord, hear my prayer!)

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Rev. Gets Revved-Up By Revver-Upper

Rev. Gets Reved-Up By Revver-Upper
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Do you remember when I last went to Sephora and, like a bonehead, tried on obviously filthy, germ-infested mascara with a clean applicator and wound up with an enormous eye infection?

Well, if you thought *that* was funny (and admit it, you did), hear ye, hear ye:

We had a little break from our conference programming on Saturday afternoon, so BITB* and I went to Sephora to seek out a glorious skin product called Vanilla Shea Souffle by Carol’s Daughter:

http://www.carolsdaughter.com/prodinfo.asp?number=13-1178&dept=1048

They didn’t have it. Disconsolate, I went to spritz my face with a little spray bottle called “Skin Rev-er Upper” from the Bare Escentuals display. It was a dry, cold day and my complexion needed a lift.

Trouble is, the product I aimed at my face wasn’t a gentle spray at all, but a goopy serum. It shot right past the side of my face and hit the wall behind me, dripping down the wall in an obscene mess. The remnants in my hair were reminiscent of that infamous scene from “Something About Mary.”

BITB and I went into paroxysms of laughter and were utterly unable to move for minutes, so doubled over were we by the whole ridiculous event. I wish I could tell you something about this product, but all I can say is that it smells unpleasant and it looks very unattractive dripping down the wall.

Honest to God, do I get combat pay for this??

*= Boy In The Bands
http://static.flickr.com/101/290205587_5767b0f7f5.jpg“>

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