Office to Hors d'oeuvres

At this day & age we are busy women! We are working, we are moms, and home makers! We are super women! How are we supposed to do all this and look/feel pretty? What if after work you want to go out for appetizers or a cocktail? Wheres the time to get ready for that!? Sometimes it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day. Sometimes it seems like the 8/9 hours we are at work drag then the 3/4 hours you have for yourself after work go by too quick! Think about it, you leave your job, (if you have kids) pick up kids from school/daycare, feed them and then all of a sudden its 8 o'clock and you're getting them ready to settle down and for bed. By 9 your whooped! That's a lot of zipping around. After a long week you decide to get a sitter and go out Friday night after work with girlfriends for food and drinks. You still have to pick up your child and bring them home, but you want to be sure to maximize your 'me' time. You want to look hot and you want to feel beautiful but you think to yourself "no one has time for that!"

Here's the thing, you do! Most women wear at least a little makeup to work. Then, almost all of those women say their makeup doesn't stay put until the time they get home. There are ways to make it stay all day. You have to give your skin a little love under your makeup and there a few finishing touches that you can do once you are finished your makeup.

Prep & Prime!
In your makeup drawer, bag, box, or whatever you keep your makeup in. It is important to have 2 things: face primer and eye primer.

They might come in a pot like I have

They may come with an applicator/wand

Or they may even come in this ever so popular tube

Why bother priming your eyelid? Putting a primer as a base before eyeshadow does 3 things:

It evens out your skin tone, it helps your eyeshadow apply brighter and stay put far longer, and it helps your eyeshadow not crease (creasing is the worst)

Face primers may do many tricks! Face primers can correct skin discolorations: most common redness & dark spots. They will smooth out your skins texture. Some may make you look airbrushed and poreless. They can conceal minor fine lines. Some face primers even illuminate your skin giving you a glow from within look. Not only do they do all these fabulously wonderful tricks, they also help your makeup go on smoothly and last much longer!

You've now preped and primed your little hear away and you apply your daily essentials concealer, foundation, mascara, maybe a little blush or bronzer, a little natural eyeshadow, maybe some eyeliner to brighten up tired eyes, touched up brows, applied mascara, and lipstick or lipgloss and you're out the door. NOT SO FAST MISSY! There is one last step some know about it but it is not common enough with working babes: Set your makeup! This last quick and easy step is a makeup saver.

Spray it on or dust it on just dont forget to use it. The mist feels nice and refreshing and acts like a mega hold hairspray but for your face (no, its not sticky) Setting powder will also do the trick. Setting powder does just that-sets your makeup & locks it in. I personally double up, I use setting powder and then spray to double makesure it stays all day! Doing both is not necessary however. As long as you set your makeup somehow,  you are good to go!

There are only 3 things that you need in your purse for touch ups during the day essentially:

1. Eyeliner if you are wearing it directly on your water line; your nude, your black, your
2. brown pencil, whatever it is you are wearing.
3. Your lipstick or lipgloss (whichever you are wearing)
4. Your bronzer or blush (again choose your poison)

BAM! its Friday

5:00 Finally rolls around and your makeup is still on point! You are lookin' good girlfriend! Maybe not 'out to dinner' good but you are still (for the most part) perfectly primped. You pick up your little love, bring them home, and you have 10 minutes before the sitter gets there. What will make the most impact? Those peepers! Dressing up your eyes can make you look like a new woman. Your face makeup and day eyeshadow should still be in tact so all you need to do is add some deeper hues. We all have some sort of eyeshadow pallet in our makeup, it doesn't matter what brand it is, as long as the basics are covered you are a-o-k!

In the morning you most likely used a natural color maybe a few shades lighter, something bright and awake looking. You may have emphasised your crease with a shade a few tones darker than your skin. Whatever you did, if you used primer it should still all be there! What you need to do now is grab the darkest color in the pallet and lightly start at your outer corner with an angled brush or if you only have a normal shadow brush be sure to slant it just a smidgen for that winged effect. starting from the outer corner work your way to the middle applying less pressure so there is a fade effect and the center of your lid still as bright color. Again, at the outer corner grab some more of the deeper hue and start tracing your crease. This time you will trace your entire crease but still applying less and less pressure until you get to the inside corner. A fluffy lid brush is good to have on hand to blend this look all together (gently) so that you have no hard lines. Lastly it is nice to apply black liquid liner along your upper lash line if you haven't already, and if necessary touch up mascara. Now Mama is out the door!