Every Day is National Lipstick Day

As a high school senior still learning my way around beauty, I committed a lot of faux pas. Lip gloss was my worst offense. I'm talking about dripping wet, sheer lip gloss...with sparkles. I thought I had it all figured out.

Fast forward 10 years. Lip gloss and I are on very different terms. I no longer finish half a tube in one application...and it no longer sparkles. And, today, the majority of my lip collection is actually made up of lipstick, which ten years ago, I didn't quite understand. It seemed too mature, dated even, with its opaque matte shades. I didn't have it figured out in the least.

I'm very happy lipstick found its way into my life, and on National Lipstick Day (and everyday), I'm celebrating it - for its iconography, for its ability to make a statement, for the way it can become a woman's trademark, whether she's a classic red, a lady-like nude or an ever-changing pout of vivids and bolds. And to help me celebrate, I asked some of my favorite ladies to put on their favorite lipstick and let me take their picture. Thank you, Larisa, Adriana, Edith, Lorena, Paloma and Shaday. Here's what happened:

Bite Beauty: Luminous Creme Lipstick in a Custom Shade 

Laura Mercier: Paint Wash Liquid Lip Colour in Petal Pink

 MAC: Amplified Creme Lipstick in Girl About Town

Maybelline: Color Sensational Lip Color in Red Revival 

 Lime Crime: Velvetine Liquid-to-Matte Lipstick in Black Velvet 

 Tom Ford: Lip Color Matte in Ruby Rush

MAC: Matte Lipstick in Candy Yum Yum 

Beauty Bites Volume 2

I'll keep the intro short, but to recap the week, I followed the conversation about the power of makeup, found out about a new beauty book I need and read about Gwyneth Paltrow's new venture.

Face Paint
Lisa Eldridge, one of the great makeup artists of our generation, is releasing a book and I'm itching to get my hands on it - I'm a sucker for a beautiful coffee table book. The book chronicles the history of makeup and the social history of women through makeup. It will be released October 13 and is already a #1 seller in Fashion on Amazon. You can preorder now, and in the meantime, follow Lisa's Instagram account and website for approachable beauty tutorials, a behind the scenes look at her work, and her cats.

#ThePowerOfMakeup

The conversation around makeup shaming is one I'm following. The idea that women wear makeup because of self-hatred, or worse, that women should avoid the topic of beauty altogether, is one that frustrates me. I obviously put on makeup because it makes me feel prettier, more powerful and even happier. If I didn't love myself as much as I do, I wouldn't wake up everyday and do that.

Advice from Grandma
...And on that note, I love this post by Marina Korosh on Into the Gloss that talks about the beauty advice her grandmother gave her: to never leave the house without putting on some makeup. I think it's clear that I'm a big proponent of caring about presentation. I got this from my mother, and many of the women in my family and always attributed this to being cultural - see Marina's second paragraph where she talks about her Latin friend's mom. I love knowing of other cultures that share in this same mindset.

Gwyneth Paltrow Beauty
My favorite person in the world (can't even type that with a straight face) - Gwyneth Paltrow - is releasing a beauty line. And of course, it's all organic, all natural, because ya' know, Gwyneth can't find a product that's as high-end as it is clean. I can think of a few, but I guess they're probably not up to her standards. So she's set out to start this line, which I doubt will include a sunscreen because the sun is natural and Gwyneth doesn't think anything that's natural can be bad for you. I'll be completely honest though, when this thing comes out...I want to test it.

Benefits of Coffee 

You're allowed one cup of coffee a day while pregnant. Most women swear it off cold-turkey, but I've continued to drink it daily, at about half the amount that I was having prior to becoming pregnant. I judge myself enough for this decision, so go easy on me. But, I need coffee to function. My job requires a lot of attention to detail. I've always known coffee has many benefits and beauty benefits, from fighting depression, to being a great source of antioxidants. This post from Byrdie Beauty sums it up pretty well. Now I definitely don't plan on kicking my caffeine habit.

Beauty Glutton

Why Beauty Glutton?

If you know me personally (I'm pretty sure you do because I'm certain my readership is still made up of friends and acquaintances - thank you, sincerely), this name just makes sense. You've seen me eat, you know I'm the office snulture, that I'm married to a chef. I love Beauty and the Fig. When I initially launched this blog and even now - because of Andres's name, because of our future baby whom we often refer to as Baby Fig, and because it has stayed with me for a while, and I rarely commit to things in such a way - I have a warm, fuzzy feeling for it.

But a few months ago, I got to thinking of how I wanted my voice to come through a little bit more in this blog. However small it is, I take pride in it and want it to loudly represent me and my addictive, gluttonous personality when it comes to everything in life, beauty and food being on top of the list. 

Welcome to Beauty Glutton.

This is at Mighty Cone on Barton Springs here in Austin. Go early, they always run out of shrimp.

Strawberry cupcake from Hey Cupcake. One of my favorites for almost a decade.

And more calories. Chilantro Kimchi Fries for Andres, but of course, he had to share.

Details for this post:

Lips are Lipstick Queen Silver Screen Lipstick in See Me  

Nails are True Isaac Mizrahi in White Out 
Skin is Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue in Ginger
Contour is Trestique Color & Contour Stick 
Eyebrows are Trestique's Brow Pencil in Espresso
Eyeshadow is Urban Decay Naked 3

Giambattista Valli x MAC

Remember Rihanna’s fluffy pink Grammy's dress that spurred memories of your quinceañera - if you were fabulous enough to have one - and that social media frenzy? Well, Giambattista Valli designed that epic gown, and he recently partnered with MAC and launched collection of lip colors inspired by his collections, all as amazing as that pink gown.

Unsurprisingly after the launch, the collection sold out almost immediately, and if you do a quick Google search, you’ll see them selling everywhere from Ebay to Amazon for more than face value. I was lucky enough to get my hands on two shades, Tats and Eugenie, and tested them out. The full collection features five matte shades including pale petal pink, Bianca B; the bright peach, Margherita; the vibrant fuchsia Tats; the rich, red Charlotte; and the deep cherry Eugenie.

MAC lipsticks never disappoint and these were no exception. The formula applies easily and with only one swipe, you get a big dose of color that lasts hours and withstands food and drink. My favorite thing about any MAC lip color, including the ones from this collection, is that feeling you get three hours after you’ve applied…the one where you purse your lips together, feel the product on your mouth and know it’s perfectly in place and you have nothing to worry about. And wearing a shade like Tats, you want that feeling.

Tats is essentially the perfect summer fuchsia, with just the right balance of blue and yellow undertones that make it work with any skin tone. Eugenie, if you like to break seasonal makeup rules, can also be worn to make a statement in summer, but the deep cherry and wine tones in this one are perfect for fall and winter. The next shade I’d like to get my hands on (if I can manage) is Margherita because you really can’t go wrong with peach anything in July.

Currently, the collection is fully sold out on Mac.com, but we can all cross our fingers and hope that the MAC gods hear our prayers. Either way, you can view the collection herehttp://www.maccosmetics.com/collections-giambattista-valli.

Beauty Bites

Because there's so much going on in my week, beauty-wise, I want to start sharing a weekly round up of my favorite pieces of beauty inspiration, whether industry articles and news, emerging trends, or up-and-coming brands. Beauty Bites will serve as a condensed, bite-sized recap of my week in beauty. And this week was a big one for me - I have tons of items in my queue for review and their arrivals could not have been more perfectly timed because I'm finally feeling like my energetic self again. Here's what been on my mind:

1. Perhaps the BIGGEST beauty news of the week (and in my heart likely the biggest beauty and cultural news of the decade), MAC announced it is officially launching a Selena Quintanilla collection. Selena's story was first of a Mexican-American icon, but now transcends across all Hispanic cultures and well into the non-Hispanic culture. From the moment that Change.org petition was created, I knew this collection would happen. And I can bet my MAC lipstick collection that it will be one of their best-selling. Hispanic women, after all, are the beauty industry's number one consumer.

2. Feeling self-important and more attractive to men, overcompensating for being forced to hide their bodies and seeing opting out of it as unacceptable to society - all reasons the Iranian women photographed by Iranian photojournalist Mona Hoobehfekr give for wearing makeup. There's a big conversation happening online about why women choose to wear makeup - a conversation I'm very interested in. And the answer is repeatedly "for ourselves." Women are choosing to deny makeup is worn as a means to please others. But this photo series is extremely honest and while women in Iran are products of very different circumstances than many of us, at the end of the day, their reasons for wearing makeup are strikingly similar to our own, regardless of upbringing or circumstance. Yes, we choose to put on our best blushed, lipglossed and mascaraed faced for ourselves and because many of us just enjoy the thrill of makeup, but the confidence it gives us really stems from our knowledge that others see us in a certain light, and that we present others our best selves. As comfortable as I feel with myself, even without makeup, I can't help but see myself in these women.

3. I've been receiving lots of products to test, from established and new brands, but I particularly love seeing what up-and-coming brands have to offer. This week I received a package from tréStiQue, a recently launched company whose mission is to simplify our beauty routines through easy, practical and travel friendly products. I'll be testing and writing about these on The LV Guide and here soon, but in the meantime, check out their site. I can definitely say the products made a great first impression.

4. MUJI is one of my favorite places to shop for makeup storage and beauty tools. Their acrylic boxes are the prettiest way to store makeup and an affordable option to the Clear Cube. I have a growing tower of these on my makeup table. Most recently, I fell in love with the cut cotton at their SOHO store in New York and ended up ordering several bags of the stuff online. It's super soft - much softer than anything you can find at your pharmacy, and about the same price - and is unbleached. Check out MUJI's US site for storage options, tools, cotton and other skincare/beauty items. And, though not beauty items, their gel pens and notebooks are also pretty neat.

5. Every Monday, Origins hosts a #MaskMonday contest on their Instagram page. It's one I'm always encouraging my friends to participate in because all you have to do is snap a photo of your Sunday or Monday Origins mask routine (you know you're doing it), share it with @originasusa tagging #MaskMonday and #OriginsSweeps, and you could win three of their best-selling masks. I won this contest a few months back, and received the Clear Improvement Charcoal Mask, the Drink Up Intensive Overnight Mask and the GinZing Refreshing Face Mask, all masks I use religiously and continue to purchase. Consider this a friendly reminder to participate this week!

A Brief Hiatus

I've been on a brief hiatus from writing, reviewing, sharing my thoughts on beauty on here. For the past three months I've fallen off the Beauty and the Fig grid, and most of my writing continued to live on LillianaVazquez.com in the weekly Vanity Report.

In mid April, we found out we were having a baby, and everything since has been one very happy, but exhausted blur. Work and other events, combined with my lack of energy (but mostly my complete lack of energy) forced me to sadly set aside my posts, week after week. Almost four months into my pregnancy and just into my second trimester, my energy is returning and I'm back to talk about everything I haven't shared the past few months. Most recently, I had the opportunity to test and review Urban Decay's new AfterGlow 8-Hour blushes. These come in some gorgeous candy-like shades that apply more naturally than you'd expect, and live up to their name - they stay put. Read the full review here.

And on a recent work trip to New York, I finally had the chance to meet Lilliana Vazquez (whom I've been writing for for almost five months now), in person. She was just as fun as I imagined her to be, a petite little thing that packs a lot of power. She invited me to come backstage on the Today Show as she prepped herself and her models for her segment on swimsuit trends for summer, and she really just gets. shit. done. And she manages to look perfect at 7:00 am.

In my next posts, I'm sharing more makeup reviews (just received some amazing new items), and I'll also be sharing some about my pregnancy beauty regimen changes, my dry pregnancy skin (pregnancy just takes it out of you), and new products I am and will continue to use in my routine as my pregnancy progresses. How many times can I say "pregnancy?" Oh, and it's a boy!