Makeup 101 - Lets Start with THE BASICS!

Okay my Beauties, I thought it would be a good idea to start with the basics with a little Makeup 101! In case you went running off to Walmart to try Drew Barrymore's new line, it might be a good idea to know how to care for it once you bring it home! 

So you do know you will need brushes for your eye shadow, concealer, blush and bronzers, right? Don't be scared it only sounds like a lot! Wait, I hope you didn't think one brush could be used for everything! Obviously after use, these things will be caked on with makeup so they will need to be cleaned. Brushes should be cleaned every one or two months depending on how often you apply makeup, using a brush cleaner or mild face soap, you can even use baby shampoo! Put a drop of cleaner, whichever you prefer in the palm of your hand, wet the brush and rub it in the soap in your hand, rinse and repeat until all traces of makeup are gone. Tip: hang brushes over edge of the counter to dry instead of on a paper towel. Drying on a paper towel can give your brushes that mildew smell and they can lose the shape of their bristles. I suggest washing every month if you wear make up everyday. In between cleanings you can use a spray brush cleaner, spray the brushes and dab them on a tissue. 

If you use sponges the inexpensive ones from CVS, Target, or say Ulta can be tossed after two or three uses tops. High quality ones can be washed a few times and reused several times before disposing.


Next up and this might be something you really didn't know! Make up actually has an expiration date! Yup it expires. Some might be obvious like mascara as you can see when it starts to dry out. But eye shadows, blush and powder foundations might not be so easy to figure out. So I took the guess work out for you. See deets after the pic...

Toss after Two (2) Years 
Liquid & Cream Foundation
Concealer
Powder
Eye Shadow
Powder Blush
Cream Blush
Moisturizer
Sunscreen
Face Cream

Toss after Twelve (12) to Eighteen (18) Months
Lipstick
Lip and eye Pencils

Toss after Six (6) Months
Mascara
Eye Cream

Stay tuned for next weeks topic skin care!! You think you know but you have no idea...or maybe you have an idea! :)

Have a makeup question or curious about a specific brand and you want more info? Email me at simplybeautifulbyjae@gmail.com. Its just that simple!

Until then Beauties,
K.I.S.S.

Jae

Drew Barrymore has "Flower" Power!

So to kick off my “blog makeover” Pun intended, I thought I would feature a new line that just hit stores! Today will be an introduction but I am hitting the store this weekend to pick up some of the items for review, I will be back with the run down on my Likes and Loves and possibly a “How to”! When I heard through a friend that Drew Barrymore was coming out with a make-up line, I instantly hit good ole’ Google to get my search on and low and behold there it was “Drew Barrymore to Debut new Cosmetic Line!” I was geeked, first let me say make-up gets me geeked, but I am a Drew Barrymore fan so I was a little excited, like it was a friend of mine. But lets’ be honest we know I make all my celeb favorites “friends in my head”!

  

 Ok getting down to the nitty gritty! Drew’s line is called Flower and the slogan is “Love the Way You Look”, Loves it! The line is being sold at Wal-Mart. Gold star for affordable!! The price point has the lowest item retailing at $5 and the highest at $15. Drew decided she wanted to create a line because, in her words she has been wearing makeup all her life, between film and fashion gigs she loved what makeup can do for you, and once she served as co-creative director for six years at Cover Girl, (who knew!!) she felt like when the contract ended, "it was like I had gone to college for six years and I wanted to know what I would do with my degree.” And hence Flower has blossomed! :)

Flower has over 100+ items for your Lips, Nails, Face and/or Eyes. She gives you options in lips whether you are a lipstick or gloss, matte or shiny girl. For face you can go light with coverage in a tinted moisturizer or the new rave a BB cream; Petra Tucker-Moss, senior director, product development and marketing at Maesa Group who partnered with Drew on the line, recently told WWD.com that Flowers BB cream is the real deal! She stated that “it is an actual treatment cream that addresses everything from blemishes to enlarged pores.” If you wanted to go for more coverage Flowers foundation WITH primer may be the way!

 It appears Drew and the Maesa Group made sure they had something to appeal to everyone’s preference. Me being the mascara girl that I am, I cannot wait to try her mascaras (two options!!) since I am always looking for backups to my backups! According to Drew B. “The Ultimate Mascara has three settings for the brush, so users can choose to enhance lashes’ length, thickness or curl — or all three.”

Again, I have not seen the line for myself but I will do a review and get back to you all, my biggest hope not so much for me but for my future clientele *wink*, is that she gives a good choice in tones for the face coverage, as this can be a challenge for women of color.

So stay tuned for the review but if any of you have checked it out, share your thoughts in my comments section!

Until next time ladies,
K.I.S.S. (Keeping it So Simple)
Jae

Coming Soon!! "Simply Beautiful by Jae"....

A friend once told me sometimes the things we desire won’t come to us in the form of that everyday job, at least not initially anyway! So it takes us getting out and sometimes that means getting out of our own way! We have to volunteer, get a part time job, or get a hobby. For me it was a part time job! Well two part time jobs! I think I spoke about how I LOVE make-up in some blog some time ago, well I went back to Sephora to get my “fix”, this along with many a conversation with coworkers on my make-up and skin-care routines has landed me here: blogging about what’s in, what’s easy, and  what’s simple! So here I intend to share new make-up I love and how I wear it to achieve the simple yet fun looks I wear on a regular basis. From all of this a brain child was born in the form of “Simply Beautiful by Jae…”! Where this will go, the possibilities have now become endless!!  Stay tuned for more details.

New things Coming!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! "Heeeellllo 2013" (*in my Carrie from Sex in the City, "hello Lover" voice*) I know it has been awhile but I am back & better than ever! Well, let me tell it! But if I don’t who will?! Anywho, this blog is about to experience an extreme makeover. Changing the formatting just a bit, instead of my daily rants of “flights of fancy”, I decided to make this home to my dreams & aspirations, which in the last year have pretty much smacked me in the face with several “Aha moments”.  So over the next few weeks, and starting today you will see the evolution begin. It will be all things Candle & Home Décor related to Make-Up, Make-Up, & more Make-Up and of course a random thought here & there from yours truly! So I hope to gain a new readership all while being entertaining and bringing you information you can use! So stay tuned and Welcome, to the New!!

Ode to My Sisters.....

I have not written in awhile but overall my life is a blessed one. I am a bit sad right now but I find strength in my sisters this week. I have been blessed to have met and called many my friends, I have also let some of them go and at this point in my life I now realize how necessary although hard it is. However, I am so very fortunate to say I sit amongst a very elite, strong, awesome group of women in my sister circle whom I affectionately call My Sisters! As we pull together to give strength for one of our sisters fighting the biggest battle of her life we are reminded of the good times we share and no matter how many years go by or who lives where. We remain as close as ever, we pull together when necessary, to laugh to cry but to most importantly support. In this circle age doesn't matter only your commitment to be unified in a judge free zone that only requires you to laugh, pray, support and make a good dish oh and dare I say it be able to keep up with the conversation of 8 other women or should I say pass the salad dressing bottle! :)

I love my sisters very much and I just needed it to be put out there to my few followers, literally! How important it is to surround yourself with positive women. Not to discredit those others I call friends you mean the world to me as well, but today in honor of My Big Sister Shelly this goes out to my SISTERS!

Love you all...Meka, Shelly, Tiya, Yvonne, Moe, M-Hud, Mocha & Za

xoxo

Live life simple and on purpose!
Jae aka Lil Sis

Keeping America Beautiful

Random Funny...

Some years ago I became obsessed with eye shadow. My mom used to tell me you would be surprised how much better you feel when you put on some makeup.  I promise it wasn't meant in a shallow way! Of course it started with CVS brands, Loreal, Covergirl. Then the occasional treat to MAC with mom. When I worked at Sephora I took that love to another level when I began to experiment with other high end brands. Over the years my collection has been depleted with those less than great brands and replaced with some tried and true added in. I had so many that I could afford to keep spares in my purse or in the car as well as under the bathroom sink. Now you might be wondering why would I keep makeup in the car, well you never know. Sometimes I have au naturale days where makeup is just not a necessity, but by mid day something could pop up and I may feel the need to splash on a little color. So one Christmas a friend of mine bought me this set that had 2 different palettes in it with 2 different tones of colors. One with pinks and purples(my fave eye shadow colors) and a more neutral with browns and greens and tan, perfect for the car. So fast forward to last weekend when I decided after running a few errands, that I was going to take an impromptu trip to Philly to see the family, out of pure boredom and missing the nephew & niece. I knew I would be seeing other people, and thought I should probably spruce myself up a bit. While I sat on Baltimore/Washington Parkway in a bit of traffic I soon remembered that I had my "spares" in the console. So I pulled out my lovely green/tan palette and quickly remembered the blush in it was broken up. Now I had been meaning to dump the broken pieces for some time now so that I would not spill them on me. So as I drove at a leisurely pace (kids don't try this at home) I thought, "why don't I just dump it out now". If anyone is on litter patrol for the highway please stop reading now! Let me give them a minute to look away or log out! OK so where was I, oh yes I turned to stick the palette out the window, dumping only the the broken pieces of blush and I guess with all the construction happening along 295, Mother Nature thought it could use a little sprucing up! No sooner did I reach my hand out the window, did MN snatch the whole palette out my hand! I kid you not she snatched that sucker so fast, all I could do was Gasp! I immediately looked in my rear view to make sure the driver behind me was not suddenly hit with a smokey eye! It really was hilarious, although as much of a favorite the pinks and purples were losing them as a casualty would have hurt less since, the natural one gets more eye play. So after I finished dabbing a little light shade of purple on my eyes. I simply wrote it off, after all we all must do our part in keeping america beautiful right? Well we can check Baltimore/Washington Parkway off the list, thanks to me it feels a little more prettier today.

Jae

Love...

I have come to see that this one little four letter word has so much power. I thought today of how I grew up not seeing it outwardly expressed. I knew love in relationships to just mean two people who are always together as a couple. Let me explain, I don't ever remember hearing my grandparents say they loved each other but they were together and I just knew they loved each other. My Poppi took care of my Gram by being the breadwinner, and in return she raised the kids and took care of home. Poppi had his favorite chair and his favorite drink and every night he sat in it and my Gram bought him his dinner, my Gram never worked and she didn't drive. He took her anywhere she needed to go and that was how I saw their love. I saw both my uncles in relationships with my aunts. I never heard them express their love either they were just there, together. I see my mother and father's relationship a little differently because, I saw "signs" of love there. Flowers sent on a regular basis, the home from work kiss, the words in cards on holidays and birthdays. But to say I grew up in what was an overflow of love would be wrong. My Dad wasn't a man of many words but my mom knew he loved her, and because my mom knew, I just knew it existed. Today I find myself feeling in love, and although I am also still learning what that really means in relation to just loving someone. I am finding it to be a very controlling emotion. Sometimes it has a hold on me and I wish it would let go, and I only say that because I don't know what to do with it sometimes. Like I would love to take it and put it in my back pocket, or in the inside zipper of my pocketbook. Somewhere it is easy to get to but still out of the way. I thought this morning about how I know people in my life love me without them constantly needing to show me yet, in relationships I feel like it has to be constant for me to believe it is really there. Why is it not enough for a person who doesn't express his emotions often to say it, not only that he loves you but that he is in love with you? Why does he need to wear it on a t-shirt, or sing it in a love song (yes that is an Alicia Keys song!)? And when life gets in the way of the everyday carefree world we would love to exist in all the time, does that mean he means it any less because he wasn't able to show it when you thought he should? 

I am challenging myself to own up to this Love I am feeling by taking everything else I thought it was out of the  equation. Meaning my too many to name Romantic Movie collection, or the "love" I see expressed among my friends relationships or even the Love I saw or didn't see growing up. As with everything else in my life I want to define my "love" for me. I have loved before, although not a long list it has been there and each time it has taken the previous love to another level. As with everything else, I want to be in the moment with Love, I don't want to wonder about Love in 2 months or even 2 weeks. I just want to appreciate it today.

I had a conversation about it today and the statement was am I sure its that since I really don't have anything else to compare it to? Since it is the first time its really been expressed to me in this way, clearly am I sure its not just because of that reason. My first thought, No its Love. My second thought some hours later, yup still love. I decided that whatever it turns out to be a month from now, a year from now or even 10 years from now whether I am still in it or not, it is and will always be Love.