Curious Soul

I've been trying desperately to get out of my makeupless funk lately, so I decided to ask some of the fabulous Madd Style fans for color suggestions for my latest tutorial.  Soul Dust was number one on the list.

Here I'll pair it with Curiouser and Curiouser from the Alice in Wonderland collection, as well as Giggleberry.

Assemble your brushes. Top to bottom: fluffy shadow brush, tapered crease brush, angled shadow brush, fluffy blending brush.

Assemble your products! Top to bottom: IT Cosmetics "Hello Lashes" mascara, UD Psychadelic Sister liner, UD Perversion liner, MSC Optimus Primer, Curiouser & Curiouser, Soul Dust, Giggle Berry, and NYX shadow base in white.

Apply your primer and base to a nice clean eye.  Remember, if it's been a bit since you've washed your face, a wet wipe is a good way to just touch up and remove the oil that may have accumulated since your shower in the morning.

Tight line your lower lashline with Psychadelic Sister.

Grab your Soul Dust. This is such an awesome color. As you can tell, it's a lovely blue with a red color shift and red sparkle. It's hard to capture on camera, but trust me, it's amazeballs.

Apply with your fluffy shadow brush by patting it on to the inner 3/4th of your lid. You can kind of see the red shift of the Soul Dust in this photo.

Grab that tapered crease brush! Grab that Curiouser & Curiouser! Curiouser & Curiouser is a lovely plummy purple with aqua sparkles. Also, I love this brush, it's so incredibly versatile and it's synthetic, too!

Pat C&C on the outer corner of your eye, and cut that crease with it. If you enlarge this photo, you can see the aqua sparks.

Use your fluffy blender to gently, gently blend C&C into Soul Dust.

With your tapered shadow brush, you want to apply Giggle Berry with a gentle sweeping motion from your tear duct to your brow as a highlight. Don't blend it down into C&C much at all.

You'll notice that after blending, the aqua in C&C really plays off the Soul Dust, and the pink in Giggle Berry brings out the red. 

You're also going to put a little bit of Perversion over the Psychadelic Sister at this point, just to tone it down a bit. 

Add your mascara...

Glance over at the dog...

And Voila! An awesome multi-dimensional look with some kick ass colors!

Crunchy without the woo.

 "I was deep in the woo for a little while. I wanted that home birth for theoretical baby number three, right down to researching medical texts for instructions on abating post-partum hemorrhage for Pater Pueri so that he could keep me from bleeding out if I needed it. And then someone I know (on the internet,) had a tragic, tragic home birth. It opened my eyes. It made me realize that the quiet, serene home birth I envisioned for myself was just that - for myself. It was selfish, it was stupid, and above all, it was putting my child last."  


Those were my words, above, after reading through the blog "Hurt by Homebirth." (http://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com)

There's a lot of drama on the interwebz right now between that nutball Gina over at The Feminist Breeder, and Dr. Amy Tuteur. I won't lie - I side with Dr. Amy.

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a midwife. I wanted to be an ARNP with a midwifery bridge, working with a like-minded high-risk OB to help women who wouldn't otherwise receive the gentler care they would have had their pregnancies been low-risk.  I wanted to be a medwife.  I dreamed of starting that particular model of medwifery and opening up a whole new world, a new niche, a new experience.

The sociopolitical climate of the world of midwifery right now has suspended those dreams, though, forever to be tucked back into the recesses of my box of hopes and dreams, someday to be realized but not now.

I also firmly believe in vaccinations, medication, and western medicine.

This leaves the conundrum for many... how do we find the balance between our crunchy urges and the woo that is so prevalent? How do we keep from getting wrapped up in the woo and the brainwashing, mob mentality that is running roughshod over the birth and baby/child community?

The answer is not simple. It's willpower. It's research. It's taking sides and standing tall and firm, no matter how unpopular it may make you with certain friends.

I'm still a crunchy mom. I believe in extended breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping, extended rear-facing car seating, and eating as locally, organically, and healthfully as possible within one's means. I'm anti-circumcision, I cloth diapered, I recycle and upcycle, I garden sustainably.  But I also acknowledge the bad that comes with the good, and I acknowledge that every decision comes at a cost.

All I ask of you, whether I've gained or lost my popularity with you from this post, is that you consider the same.

Dark Cupid - red and black look

So, the request was recently made for a red and black look. I agonized over what direction I wanted to take this in.. go superdark and goth, make it smokey, more red than black... Finally, I decided on a smoky black with red.

This WILL be a glasses tutorial.

Assemble your products. IT cosmetics mascara, NYX Shadow base in white (Quick note here - you reall need a black base for this look, but I don't have one and desperately need base, so this had to do.)UD 24/7 in Perversion, and MSC Optimus Primer, Ruby, Winter Rose, and Stormhold Ruby.

Glasses! Brushes! Top to bottom: fluffy shadow brush, medium angled shadow brush, sharply tapered pencil brush, medium contouring brush, large contouring brush, fluffy medium shadow brush.

Put on your primer and base.  I used just a touch of base, because I really didn't want the colors of this to be changed, I just needed that little extra "stick" for these colors

Line your waterline with UD 24/7.

Pick up some Winter Rose with your medium contour brush.

Pat liberally into your duct area.

Time for some Ruby. Pick up a good amount on the angle of the brush.

Apply to 2/3's of your lid, extending above your natural crease.

With your stiff, tapered pencil brush, pick up a good amount of Stormhold Ruby.

Keep your medium shadow brush on hand.

Do the same with your large contour brush.

DRAW IN your Stormhold Ruby.  Don't worry, it's a hot mess at first.

Use your shadow brush to gently bring in the sStormhold Ruby and distribute it on to the outer 1/3rd of your lids and into the crease.

You want your end result to look like so.

Add your glasses, and you're ready for a sexy valentine's night out!

Zombiegasm: A tutorial

What's this, you say? Halloween is over?  You don't need Halloween to have Zombies!!!  Blarggghhhh!!! Braiiinnnssss!!!!!

On to business.

Assemble your products. NYX Shadow base in white, MSC Graveyard Garden from the Alice in Zombieland collection, The Zed Word, and You've Got Red on You (the last two from the Shaun of the Dead collection,) MSC Optimus Primer, UD Perversion liner, and IT Cosmetics mascara.

Assemble your brushes. Lash comb, Floofy blending brush, tapered crease brush, domed shadow brush, and angled shadow brush.

Start with a clean face! Since it's midnight, I used a baby wipe on my whole face (including lids,) to just wipe away any oil or goop from the day.

Now apply your Optimus Primer and NYX Shadow base, in that order.

Line your lower lash line with UD Perversion. You want a medium-thickness line.

Tap out a bit of The Zed Word and pick it up on your angled shadow brush.

Apply The Zed Word to your ducts, bringing it gently down to your lower lash line.  Please note, this color is a light champagne with a pink shift, so it's hard to photograph.

Next, take You've Got Red On You and pick it up with your tapered crease brush.  I rarely use this brush for my crease, instead preferring to use it to create mid-lid columns.

About those columns.  Mid lid with a good amount of coverage. Like, expect a little fall-out.

Now, using your domed shadow brush, pick up some Graveyard Garden. (LOL, I typed "Gravetard garden" twice.) Again, you want enough on your brush to create a deep coverage on your lid.

Apply with a slight curve on the outside of your lid.  Don't worry about it being messy.  That's what fingertips and blending are for. Oh, and I promise you, everyone who works with loose pigments has eyeballs that look like this before they begin to blend and clean up.  It's inevitable.

With your floofy brush, pick up a bit more of The Zed Word.  This time you're going to pick up quite a bit, since you're going to use it to blend out those columns, as well as a brow highlight.

Bring it up from your duct up to the brow, and then blend down.  After you've softened the top of those columns, you want to use a light windshield-wiper motion to blend You've Got Red On You into Graveyard Garden.  GG is a blurple anyway, but that spot between the two is going to turn out to be this beautiful deep purple.  Again, difficult to capture.

An attempt to catch The Zed Word.  It failed.

A better, if yellowish, look at the blending.

Finally! A good shot of that purple and The Zed Word!

Add your mascara...

Put your glasses on, and voila! You're set!

As the new year comes to fruition...

I bid 2012 a joyous adieu. 2012 saw a lot of things... the end to a toxic, dangerous relationship; new health issues with the kids; heartbreak and loss.

There were good moments to be sure, but the majority of the year was spent in unhappiness.

So, it is with a glass-half-full attitude that I sit with Kinder Major and await 2013.

I don't have gargantuan hopes for 2013, just the small dream that it will bring happiness and peace.

Blessings to you, readers, and Happy New Year!

Squeee! New work from Ninette Swann!!!

My new favorite contemporary romance author Ninette Swann has just released a new novel in time for Christmas!

I've had a chance to sneak-peak read it, and let me tell you, guys.. it's awesome.  Ninette's best work to date for sure.

Go, pick it up, read it for the holidays! You won't be disappointed!

Finding Home by Ninette Swann!

Nothing I can say or do.

Helplessness. That is how I feel right now. Helpless, angry, heartbroken, and frightened.

I have nothing to say or do to bring comfort to those families who lost their babies today. I had nothing to say or do when it happened in Columbine or any other school, either.

But I find myself angry, and wishing desperately that I could.

I want to hold each grieving parent, I want to place flowers at the childrens' graves. I want to go back in time, do something, some ripple, to make this have not happened.

I don't know why this has affected me so deeply. Perhaps because I live with the potential mortality of my children on a daily basis, and school is one of the things that provides me a sense of normalcy in our lives that are in constant upheaval.  This event makes me remember that even normal isn't safe sometimes.

Parents, friends, teachers, know my heart and my thoughts are with you. All of you, past and terribly present.