Weekly Beauty Edit: 2016 Beauty Resolutions

I love January! Usually it means lots of cold and snow and I'm a cold and snow kind of girl. Chicago area is more like the tropics right now but I'm sure January and February will bring the snow. Snow is life as far as I'm concerned.  The other reason I love January is because it's time for fresh goals, lots of positivity, and the hustle of the holidays is gone.

Speaking of positivity and fresh goals, it's time to announce my 2016 Beauty Resolutions. I did fairly well with the 2015 Resolutions, here's a link to my results. Perhaps I will inspire you!  I find the key to NY Resolutions is to be very specific. Instead of saying you will drink more water, commit to drinking two glasses of water before noon. Makes sense? I find the same is true with beauty resolutions.

Here we go.....

Make it through the year without re-organizing my lipstick storage system
My two favorite categories of makeup are foundations and lipsticks. Lipsticks, however, slay me. How is it possible to walk past a lipstick display and not buy one...or two? This is inconceivable to me. I digress. I have reorganized my lipstick collection every year. I buy gadgets, I buy acrylic organizers, I buy stacking drawers, I buy dividers. Then I arrange them by color family, change my mind and arrange them by brand, change my mind and it all starts again. At some point last year, I bought two lipstick towers. Love them. Love. I'm ordering a few more and that is it. I'm done. I'm sticking with this system. Very easy to find lipstick and you can store 81 lipsticks in what I consider a tiny foot print. Organizing my glosses....that's another story and not part of this resolution.

Zahra Lipstick Tower

Whittle down my makeup up brush collection by half
Ouch, ouch, ouch. If someone asks me, I will tell them how many lipsticks I have. No problem sharing the number of foundations in my foundation drawer at this very moment. But I will not tell anyone how many makeup brushes I own. This may be the most difficult of my 2016 resolutions.

Wear my entire perfume collection 
The older I get, the wines I like are getting lighter and the perfumes I like are getting heavier. My favorite note has always been Lily of the Valley so to find myself liking oud is startling! Jessica McClintock (primary note is Lily of the Valley) has been in my collection since it launched in 1988. I remember it clearly because it was the year my first son was born. I still love it and wear it 4 days out of 7, some weeks it is 7 days out of 7. Tom Ford has introduced me to an entirely different genre (fancy word alert) of perfume. I detested his scents when he launched his fragrance line. Somehow, as he launched more and more scents and I kept sniffing, I found myself gravitating to them. I have enough sense to know that his scents are not mainstream which means I need to use caution for daytime. I work in an office. I like lots of fragrances but I have to move away from Jessica McClintock and Amazing Grace. I love my perfume collection but every morning, I reach for Jessica or Grace. Time to crack out of my shell.

No buying single powder shadows
Just as lipstick and foundation are my favorite categories, eye shadows are my least favorite category. I reach for my palettes every day or my cream shadows. Single shadows do nothing but take up space. Last year I tried to depot but that was the resolution I failed at so at the very least, this year I will not add to the collection. Earlier today I was at Walgreens and had a new L'oreal single in my hand, Cafe au Lait. Almost bought it. Girl!

No buying under makeup primer
In my humble opinion, primer is a bunch of hooey after the first couple of hours. Keep in mind, I have very oily skin. To me for my oily skin, foundation is the key along with setting powder. I have primers to mattify, blur pores, and increase longevity of foundation. Not falling for it any more.

Use Rogaine every day
Back in the saddle again. Enough said.

Do not wear the same lipstick two days in a row
One would think this is not difficult for me to do but, alas, it is. (was that another fancy word alert?) Yet, I wear the same lipstick three or four days in a row. This is not quite so serious as my perfume issue. I own about 10 perfumes. However, I own hundreds of lipsticks. Calm yourselves, I don't own hundreds of brushes....as long as you don't count eye shadow brushes. I crack myself up!

Get a handle on all my samples
The nice thing about samples is that they are sealed which means I can in fact give them away. My mother lives in an independent retirement community.  I might start leaving baskets of samples in the common area and also taking a bunch on Saturday mornings to the food pantry that serves our community. I know this sounds insane but it is very difficult to donate single use items to women's shelters unless you have dozens and dozens of the exact same, identical product. At least it is in DuPage county Illinois.

There you have it. Do you make beauty resolutions? Have I inspired you? Let me know!

Thank you for carving time out of your day to read my blog!

Cheers,

Lulu

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Weekly Beauty Edit: 2015 Beauty Resolutions Year End Report Card

In my most humble opinion, I deserve an A+.  However, if a B is indicative of "above average" then I will be happy with a B.  For the record, though, for pain and suffering alone I should get that A+.

The original post with my 2015 Beauty Resolutions can be found here. For those of you in a hurry, after all it is the Sunday before Christmas, here's a quick rundown:

1. Continue buying and sampling most every foundation I can get my hands on.
2. No buy on matte lipstick
3. Recommit to using Rogaine twice daily
4. Color my roots every three weeks
5. Resist cutting bangs
6. Depot all my single shadows into a Z palette
8 .No buy on eye liners
9. Commit to using lip liner or no buy on lip liners
10. Gently pat my face dry rather than rubbing it dry
11. No buy on body wash
12. Encourage women everywhere to wear lipstick daily

Let's break this down
Continue buying and sampling most every foundation I can get my hands on: Grade A
This was effortless. I actually had to hold myself back a bit. I think the older you get, the more important foundation becomes. For you it might mean wearing less of it or more of it but either way, do not settle for anything less than perfection after you hit 40.

No buy on matte lipstick: Grade A-
I love the look of full lips with a bold, matte lipstick. Problem one is that my lips are not full. I wanted to get injections before Christmas but that's not happening due to a never ending dental issue. Second issue is that not only do I have small lips but they are also very lined. They are not dry, only deeply lined. Small, wrinkly, lined lips do not do well wearing matte lipstick. Good new is that technology moves quickly in mobile phones AND matte lipstick! Matte lipsticks have come a long way in the short span of a year. I think they were "the" biggest beauty trend of 2015, even surpassing contouring.  Within the last month, I bought a few matte lipstick and have to say, I was very happy with them, Kat Von D and Revlon's new HD one.  They did not magnify my wrinkly lips. After I finally get the injections, I'm going hog holly wild on matte lipstick.

Recommit to applying Rogaine twice daily:  Grade C-
Why is this so darn hard for me to keep up with? I have no idea. If you were to ask me about my number one beauty concern, it would be my thinning hair. I started the year off great, slacked a bit in the Summer but quickly got back on the wagon. In October I ran out of Rogaine. I'd look right at it in the hair care aisle but not buy it. This will be a repeat on my 2016 Beauty Resolution list.

Color my roots every three weeks: Grade A
Done and done. Not much else to say. Maybe I went 4 weeks a couple times this year but this is still an A in my book. Coloring my roots is my most dreaded beauty routine and I routinely stretched it to 5 weeks in 2014. 3 weeks is perfect.

Resist cutting bangs:  Grade A
As I was writing my 2015 list, I had huge doubt I would keep this resolution. No one is more shocked than me that I made it an entire year without cutting bangs. Granted, there are 10 days left in the year....

Depot all my single shadows into a Z Palette: Grade D

I took the easy way out and gave away most of my single shadows.  Of those I have left, which is still quite a few, I only depotted maybe 25% of them. I'm not putting this exact resolution on my 2016 but I will have a related resolution. Depotting is simply not going to happen unless I hire someone. Help Wanted: Shadow Depotter.

No buy on eye liners: Grade A
I had to think really hard about this to ensure I'm being truthful about giving myself an A. To my knowledge and memory, I did not buy any eye liner this year. I did buy kits and liners are sometimes part of a kit but I think I'm being fair by saying that doesn't count. I wasn't about to not buy a great kit because one of the items was a liner. I've given quite a few of my pencil liners away which made me and the recipients happy.

Commit to using lip liner or no buy on lip liner: Grade A
This girl took the no buy route. I might have bought a couple of lip liners, I have a vague memory of buying Urban Decay lip liners but can't find them in my collection. I may have given them away or returned them. Or was that 2014? When did the UD Revolution lipsticks launch? Maybe it was 2014. Why a no buy on lip liners? I don't use them but yet would buy them. I don't have an issue with lipsticks that bleed. If one does bleed, it gets tossed or returned. I've tried to slightly over line my lips to give the illusion of fuller lips. Um, no. I don't use lip liners.

Gently pat my face dry rather than rubbing it raw: Grade A
This took quite a bit of re-training on my part. At one point, I had to put a note on my towel rack to remind myself. Even after almost a year of good behavior, I still will catch myself rubbing the towel on my face. On the up side, at least I catch myself in the act! This was a tough one for me.

No buy on body wash: Grade B+
Holy smokes, Sweet Mary Mother of all Things in the Shower, this was the absolute hardest, worst, most painful resolution. The struggle is real! The struggle was weekly, 52 weeks of the year. Every Bath and Body Works order, every trip to Walgreens, every trip to the grocery store, shower gels would call my name. I'd pick them up, pat them, talk to them and lust. Their fragrance would slowly reach my olfactory senses. A tear would spill down my cheek as I placed the bottle back on the shelf promising to come back for it on January 1, 2016. Some of you dream about chocolate cake, I dream about shower gel. In 2015 temptation won a handful of times. One was a Shamu sized philosophy Lemon Custard in 64 oz. Yes, half a gallon. The other really big fall was again, philosophy. They offered a 12 piece collection in 4 oz bottle. For Pete's sake, 12 scents in one purchase. And 4 oz bottles are so stinkin' cute. Around Easter, I bought a tiny candy scented bottle at Ulta. I will NEVER make this resolution again. Ever. Am I making myself perfectly clear?

Encourage women everywhere to wear lipstick: Grade A-
I've learned that telling complete strangers they would look better wearing lipstick is not always a smart thing to do. I've also learned that even friends don't want to hear the truth. Why does anyone want to look.....fragile, sickly, plain, angry,void of life? How flipping hard is it to swipe something on your lips???? Sheesh. Buy a tinted lip balm which you can apply without a mirror. If I hear that they'd rather let their natural beauty shine through, let me be the first to tell you....don't hold your breath waiting to be blinded by that shine. Live a little! Put some lipstick on. I get it that mascara can smudge, blush is easily overdone, foundation does take time but tinted lip balm is boom and it's on.

I like New Year Resolutions. I start to plan my "life" resolutions late in October, make a list and whittle it down to my top 5. I've been doing this for well over 20 years. Over the course of 20 years, I believe I have kept 80% of my resolutions all through the year and beyond. As silly as it sounds, they have a lot to do with who I am, both personally and professionally. The Beauty Resolution are much more frivolous but I did make them thoughtfully and did intend to do my best to keep them. I scored 100% on my 2015 personal resolutions.  Giving myself a "B" on my Beauty Resolutions makes me darn proud.

Cheers,

Lulu

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