Ladies’ Choice: Beauty Essentials for Every Occasion is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Best Beauty Products for Glamorous City Nights is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Gilded smoky eyes. Use a cream shadow instead of powder; they cake less in the hot weather. Use your finger to blend the shadow on your eyes so you can get a wash of color then add dark brown liner at the outer edges and smudge. We like Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Cream Shadow in Burnished and Tarina Tarantino Eye Dream Hyperliner in Puppeteer.

Orange lipgloss. If you haven't noticed, orange is kind of having a big moment. Tackle the trend this weekend by applying a lipgloss in the hot color--it's lighter than lipstick, which is better for the heat, and will give your lips a juicy look. We like Revlon Lipgloss in Firecracker for its non-sticky formula.

Fuchsia fingernails. Hot pink is a bright, whimsical color that's just what you need to add a little pep to your favorite bikini. We love Chanel Riviera because it isn't too bright or too Barbie, or Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Back to the Fuchsia, a cheaper (and more available) option.

A beach-inspired fragrance. We're cautious about spritzing on one of these for work since it might inspire some serious mental vacations, but a beachy fragrance is a perfect sexy, summer weekend scent that will stand up to the heat. Try Acqua di Parma Mandorlo di Sicilia, a subtle, fruity scent inspired by the landscape of Siciliy.

A colorful headscarf. A scarf is a stylish way to shield your hair from the sun or dress-up post-pool hair. Select one that's narrow and long enough to tie around your head and still have the ends hang down. You can leave the ends loose or take the following tip inspired by the hair-plus-scarf-braid from the Spring/Summer Hermes campaign: Pull your hair into a ponytail and tie the scarf into a tight knot around the base (for this, the scarf needs to be long enough so the two ends are as long as your hair). Divide the hair into three sections, with the scarf in two of them; then braid. At the bottom, tie the scarf into a double knot, and you're done.

RELATED LINKS:
Daily Beauty Reporter: A New Inspiration for Smoky Eyes
Daily Beauty Reporter: 4 Ways to Escape (When Vacation Isn't an Option)
11 Five-Minute Summer Hair Ideas

PHOTO: COURTESY OF ACQUA DI PARMA

View full post on Daily Beauty Reporter

5 Beauty Ideas to Try This Weekend is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

While the trend has gone mainstream in countries like Japan and Singapore, it's only just emerging here, with more and more YouTube message boards popping up, helping spread the word on where to buy circle lenses. We suggest taking a safer route to getting the wide-eyed look: Dab a bit of shimmer cream in the little hollows at the inner corners of the eyes and blend with a cotton swab. We like Lorac Oil-Free Luminzier in Pearl for pale skin, or Gold for medium to dark complexions. This trick not only makes your eyes look larger, but also brighten them up in two seconds flat—and that's nothing to bat an eye at.

Related Links:
Daily Beauty Reporter: Lady Gaga Goes Bare
Allure's 9 Simple Steps to Younger-Looking Eyes

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

View full post on Daily Beauty Reporter

Circle Lenses: A Hazardous New Beauty Trend is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Beauty Top 5: The Best Lash-Lengthening Mascaras is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Yesterday, Allure's beauty department met for four hours of smudging and smearing—for the first of several meetings to test eye shadow, lipstick, nail polishes, fragrances, and candles to determine which products should win 2010 Best of Beauty Awards. Yes, this is a pretty cool job, but one of the hazards? We tried on hundreds of lipsticks and had to clean and blot our lips between each one; needless to say, our lips were on fire by the end of the day! Here's an inside look at how we get our Best of Beauty issue ready.

Makeup:
The challenge is to find shades that look good on fair, medium, and dark skin. We test everything on staffers with different skin tones, because what looks pretty on our beauty editor's olive skin might look terrible on my pale complexion. A few key things we've discovered over years of testing makeup:

• Brown and beige eyeshadows are usually most flattering when they have a little shimmer. Otherwise, they can look muddy or washed-out.
• Purple is one of the most universally flattering colored shadows—it looks good on all skin tones and really brightens the eyes (it brings out green and gold flecks in your irises).
• A lipstick's formula is just as important as the color. Yesterday we came across a line with the most beautiful shades—but the formula really drags over your lips as you apply it. You want something smooth and softening, and easy to apply.
• The hardest category to find one universal shade is nude lipstick. For this reason, we often name two nude lipstick winners: one for fair skin (which needs a pinkish nude) and one for medium and dark skin (which needs a caramel undertone).

Nail Polish:
We first eliminate anything obviously unattractive (too much iridescence; brushes that glop color all over your skin), then we start painting the shades on our fingertips. Once we've selected between five to ten colors in each category (red, pink, nude, and bright), we enlist the help of our interns: They paint each of our narrowed-down options in one category on each of their nails, and then we pick without knowing which brand it is. This helps us compare reds with reds, pinks with pinks, and so on.

Fragrance:
This is the category that inspires the most animated banter among us, since fragrance is such a personal thing. What might smell sexy to one person reminds another of "a cleaning solution" or "a man's deodorant." So when we find a scent that our entire beauty department loves, we know it's a winner. We first smell the scents by spraying the fragrance into the cap (a good way to get a general feeling for a fragrance), and then on paper scent strips. Once we like a scent that way, we test it on the skin. It's amazing how different a fragrance can smell on paper versus on skin—or even on one person's skin versus another. After you smell a certain number of scents, you start losing the ability to smell them properly or tell one from another. So we always bring a couple packets of coffee grounds to the meeting to smell between fragrances; they're like a palate cleanser for your nose.

Candles:
The tough thing about choosing the winning candle is to find one that a) smells good, but also b) looks good. Sometimes you get an amazing fragrance but it's in a container you'd never want to display—and vice versa. The other thing is to make sure the scent isn't overpowering or, on the other end of the spectrum, barely existent, and that it doesn't smell like a Christmas tree or cinnamon cookie.

Stay tuned for all our picks (plus many, many more that the entire staff of the magazine participates in testing, such as hair volumizers, skin creams, lip balms, and more) in the October issue!

RELATED LINKS:
Allure's Best of Beauty Begins!
Best of Beauty: Nails
Best of Beauty: Scents

View full post on Daily Beauty Reporter

Behind The Scenes: Best of Beauty Testing is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Beauty It List: Summer Makeup and Body Care Products is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

— For an especially sultry look, apply the liner before hopping into the shower.

— Tip! Smoky eyes don't always need to involve black eyeliner.

— Get wild and crazy (sorry) and throw some purple into the mix.

— And if your application skills aren't what they should be, try a kit.

RELATED LINKS:
11 New Sexy (and Speedy) Makeup Tricks
11 Beauty Lessons We Learned From Megan Fox
Silver Smoke: Get the Allure Look
Kristen Stewart: Get the Allure Look

PHOTO: MICHAEL CAULFIELD/WIREIMAGE

View full post on Daily Beauty Reporter

Steve Martin’s Outrageous Beauty Demands is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Roll with it. According to pros like Guido, old-school hot rollers can give hair a softer, more polished wave than curling irons. Roll sections of hair (each should be about as wide as the hot roller) around, from the ends all the way up to the scalp. Once the rollers have cooled, gently brush out your curls to help soften the look. Try Remington Colossal Curls .

Red lips. LeClerq's lipcolor fits summer's bright, trendy shades. Orange-red lipsticks, such as Elizabeth Arden Color Intrigue Effects Lipstick in Poppy Cream, are great for the dramatic look. If you'd like less color, just blot until the shade looks like a stain (a trick we've picked up from makeup artist Dick Page).

Ditch the pallor. Tone down LeClerq's paled-out complexion in favor of more flattering dewy skin. Try an illuminating foundation, such as Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation. Makeup artist Brigitte Reiss-Andersen suggests going for a shade that's a little warmer than your own skin tone.

RELATED LINKS:
8 Hair and Makeup Tricks Inspired by Twilight
Daily Beauty Reporter: New Moon Hair Secrets
Daily Beauty Reporter: How to Pull Off Summer's Bright Lip Colors

PHOTO: JOHN P. JOHNSON/ HBO

View full post on Daily Beauty Reporter

True Blood Beauty is a post from: Fytuba Makeup

Counter Culture: Celebrities’ Travel-Ready Beauty Products is a post from: Fytuba Makeup