perfect365 app

I choose what I do with my time wisely, and as I get older, time seems to fly by quicker than it did 10 years ago. Downloading apps and messing with photo manipulators are for people like Ahmed Angel (is this guy even real?) and emo chicks doing self-portraits in their bathroom. By chance I saw the Perfect 365 app floating around the interwebs and decided to give it a whirl.

Simply put, you upload a photo of your face looking straight ahead, wearing little or no makeup is probably the best way to go since you’re about to experiment with color. Then, you align the dots to your face the way it shows in a smaller example shot. Once the dots are all aligned, you can do things like “slenderize” your face, add blush colors, make your lashes longer and even make your eyes larger. With each tap of my screen, my face started to morph into what appears to be an anime porn character. It started to freak me out, so I stopped and published to my Twitter. You’re able to post your looks to Facebook, too! Show your friends how you look with purple eyes! Whee!

Ok, I guess I’m too old for this. On a positive note, it may help you decide what color contacts to buy next…

Two standout products I’ll mention this week are the Supergoop!’Gradual Self-Tanning’ Sunscreen Mousse SPF 20, and the amazing Jergens Natural Glow Healthy Complexion Daily Facial Moisturizer . What I totally love about these two products is that they don’t leave you with that nasty “tan mom” orange look where it looks obvious that you’re a fake baker. The Supergoop sunscreen/tanner has SPF 20 already in it, which is great, and it smells very pleasant. It is paraben-free, which is a MUST for any cosmetic or product you use on your body. I’ll say that in every post until it finally sinks in for everyone. Even my very own doctor says I should not use items with parabens in it because it will mess with my hormones and act as estrogen. The Supergoop tanner looks very natural, leaves no streaks or weird blotches. The price is a little steep; $38 for 5.7 oz. I normally don’t like to spend over $20 for tanners, but this one is pretty good.

You’re going to call me a hypocrite, but the Jergens Healthy Glow for the Face does have parabens. ::SIGH:: I was pretty upset about this, but it was to be expected since nearly everything contains this crap. It works wonders for my complexion though. It evens out my skin tone to this beautiful shade of light tan. I hardly need to wear foundation at all, and I can wear it under makeup and at night when I’m sleeping. I am on a search to find a paraben-free version, and I might just try the Supergoop on my face tonight to see the results. Luckily, companies are catching on to consumers’ needs and are removing parabens from their products. Hopefully Jergens will take note.

Santana Row Fashion Show on June 1st

I was invited to attend the annual Santana Row Fashion Show on June 1st (1 pm and 4 pm, tickets available here for $40). I cannot wait to go since I haven’t been to a fashion show since I was in one myself! I’ll be photographing some awesome new fashions and going to a grand opening of a new store, which I will be revealing on Saturday.
Fun times! Summer is always great for events like these!

Oh, and I will be posting on my @kristadior Twitter page, new sandals I got from Payless and a necklace from a much-hated celebrity fashion line. The necklace is amazeballs, so I didn’t care! See you next time!

Phillip Lim for Target

This week has already been pretty awesome. The announcement of the Phillip Lim collab with Target  made waves on Twitter. Existing on the internet are only sketches of what is yet to come on September 15th. I am excited for the dresses with boots! I’m already asking around to see who wants to line up with me to cover the madness of the event.. and hopefully buy a few things.

Target and I are going to work together a little bit on another post closer to the release date… ohhhh.. so excited to finally see some shots of this stuff instead of pencil drawings. Banana Republic also reached out to me today to share some secret images of what is to come for Fall. Not telling or showing anyone! Yet.

Also this week, our Fashionate blogger Ali Brooke shared her “Beauty Love of the Week” which was Bumble and Bumble’s Curl Conscious Reactivating Mist. This is something specifically for girls with curls who want to bring more bounce and life to their natural ringlets. Just reading about how good it sounds makes me want to have curly hair. I’ll settle with my wavy thick stuff. Be sure to let Ali know if you’re a fan of her favorite product!

Another Fashionate blogger, Greg K., shared with us his review on products he received from The Motley, an online men’s grooming retailer. He found a new favorite shaving cream, which he claims is better than the expensive Art of Shaving cream that everyone raves about. I just noticed that my local mall has an Art of Shaving store. I have no clue. Do people really shop in there?

I started off the week at Fashionate with a very cute post by Amanda about her fashionable tights collection. Must warn you though.. this post will make you want to buy EVERYTHING mentioned. Ughhh… I can’t afford all the cute tights in the world, but I want to try! My current tights collection is pretty damned boring. Mostly black and grey and a few fishnets. I need some neon in my life.

Products I’m loving this week:

My Inglot lipsticks… can we say HOT!?! I don’t have the packages in front of me but I ended up buying a shimmery nude, a hot orange and a matte coral. If you’re not familiar with Inglot, you need to be. This is rapidly becoming my favorite line of cosmetics because of the wide range of shades, the prices are insanely reasonable, and they seem to care about ingredients a little more than other color brands. There are several products that are paraben-free, and that makes me feel pretty good about purchasing.

Anything exciting going on in your life this week? @kristadior is who I am on Twitter, so come talk to me.

This week, I discovered some new drugstore gems. The first item is the Physician’s Formula Organic Wear mascara. Read my full review on this new favorite here —> http://yhoo.it/10fbOMy
I did receive the mascara from soap.com to try and I will have to say I really am impressed with it. The only thing that I recently found out, which was a kinda bummer, is that if you cry or get wet, that mascara runs pretty badly, and it STINGS. I was outside cooling my dog off with the water hose and I got some water on my eyes. The formula is all-natural with no chemicals, but why did it feel like acid was poured on my eyes when it was wet? Oh well, I will have to just be really careful around water when I wear it.

Another tidbit of news was the release and sell-out of the Rihanna MAC lipstick, RiRi Woo. I broke the news on our Y! Fashionate blog here —> RiRi Woo sells out in a matter of hours

I’ve been testing out boxes full of self-tanners, sunscreen and hair removal products. Reviews of my favorites will be coming soon. My legs are smooth, but really need some color! I’ll be self-tanning this week… hope I don’t turn into one of the Lohans.

So far, the Revlon ColorStay Whipped foundation is blowing my mind. More news on that to come as I try it out this week.

Yahoo! Fashionate blog team with Drew Barrymore

Unaware of the amazing adventure that would unfold before me, I ventured off to Beverly Hills California to the Lucky Magazine Fashion and Beauty Blogger event (aka LuckyFABB) with the Yahoo! Shopping blogger (and my close friend), Amanda Storey. With at least 6 makeup bags and 10 outfits between the two of us, we took off down the I-5 to Los Angeles, hoping, planning and praying that we would come back with great stories to tell. The trip did not fail us.

I’m already a huge fanboy of the Drew Barrymore Flower Beauty products for about a month now, and I’ve become extremely fond of the lipsticks, namely the Sweet Peony shade of soft pink with a hint of orange/coral. I own probably 200 lipstick tubes at home, and this one is probably my favorite of them all. I couldn’t wait to talk to Drew about her amazing cosmetics line and ask her how the heck she perfected this quality line at such an affordable price.

During the conference, she said she can’t live without concealer, and I totally agree! I am a fan of the Flower Beauty concealer, which is luxuriously textured with great coverage for those pesky dark circles. I’ve tried nearly everything from the line and it surprises me that the quality of this product is above and beyond any drugstore brand, with price points below most drugstore brands. It was said that all of the money goes into the product and packaging with little advertising, keeping the prices low on this product that can only be purchased in select Wal-mart stores or walmart.com.

I learned so much about the brand and love it even more with the knowledge I received directly from Drew and her PR and Marketing team. The best part was helping others at the event discover how great the products were with the testers available at the VIP event at FABB. With the help of social media and bloggers, the Flower Beauty line is quickly becoming public knowledge. Even my mother wanted to steal my beloved Sweet Peony lipstick from me… and my mom is a tough customer when it comes to makeup. She’s used the same stuff since I was a kid. I think I’ve converted her into a Flower fan!

Funnily enough, since I’ve been posting several Twitpics of me wearing Flower Beauty, one of the staff members of Flower Beauty recognized me! I’ve been that obsessed.

Me with Betsey Johnson

Meeting one of your idols is terrifying. I wanted to die when I found out Betsey Johnson was going to be at the FABB event. If I would have known beforehand she was showing up, I would have decked out with a sea of BJ accessories, which I own proudly. She was there in all of her blonde glory, dancing around the stage at 70 years young. She was at the event to talk about her new upcoming show on the Style Network and while she was previewing the promotional clip for the show, she was screaming “That’s MEEE”! as if she had never seen herself on television before in  her life. Good lord!

My all-time favorite part of her conversation on the stage was when she was talking about bloggers and the internet… when she called being on the internet “webbing”. So now, I’ve adopted the term “webbing” for anytime I am surfing the net. I think it totally fits.

Betsey if fun, motivational and just a ball of energy. I can’t wait to be 70 and wearing 5 inch fringe heels.

I saw Betsey at Day 2 of the FABB event. We took even more photos together and shared more laughs. We really didn’t have much to talk about, we just had fun and laughed.

Betsey’s fringe heels with pom-poms

That’s all I needed to know. She’s happy, she’s moving on with her fashion line despite the closing of her brick and mortar stores. She’s all I dreamed she would be. I have SO much more to say about the event, but I’ll leave you with this post first. These were the best highlights that sent me home a happy gal.

Amanda had hand made iconic celeb eyebrows from Spock to Marilyn Monroe (my favorite brows were Divine and Vampira) and we were lucky enough to show Betsey what they were all about. She just couldn’t put her iconic brows down!!!

Going back to my hometown Yahoo! campus to tell all of our adventures was thrilling. We can’t wait to go to Lucky FABB again next year. Who knows, we might have a booth next year!

Betsey Johnson wearing Amanda’s “Iconic Brows”

I decided it was totally time for me to get better with my social media interactions and start uploading my makeup looks. Not sure if I can promise to post daily since my “work face” is usually the same thing – brown eye shadow, glossy lips, neutral blush. I’ll try to spice things up more for my weekday face just for some variety.

Not sure why some photos post sideways or upside down. Really annoying!

Have a great weekend and see you all on the interwebs.
-Krista

Drew Barrymore Flower Collection

We all can’t help but love Drew Barrymore. From her provocative GUESS ads in the 90s to her adorable movies like 50 First Dates, she will definitely always be America’s Sweetheart. She’s inspired us in so many ways, including being a style icon and teaching us it is okay to be nice to extraterrestrial life forms.

Being involved with Lancome cosmetics and a CoverGirl since 2007, I’m sure she’s learned a thing or two about the cosmetics industry. She’s sat in the makeup chair on movie sets practically her entire life, and I’m sure she’s picked up a few tricks along the way. So what is she up to now?

Me wearing the Flower collection

Drew is a new mom, and actress, director, you name it, but she’s taken on yet another endeavor: her own cosmetics line. We’re not just talking a few lip glosses, either. The new cosmetics line that launched in February is simply named “Flower” and is only available at select Wal-Mart stores and Walmart.com. Flower can be found as a full display at Wal-Mart, and at my own local store, it was found right next to the CoverGirl display. The first impression was the packaging. Very clean, elegant and superb quality packaging. Made in America and no animal testing…something a lot of cosmetics lines cannot boast about. I will forewarn to those who are not fans of parabens: you will be disappointed. There are parabens found in several products that I’ll list below. Drew seems like a sensible gal, I think if a few of us submit our concerns about parabens, she might help to change the formula (I’ve seen this happen with other cosmetic companies). I wouldn’t mind paying a few bucks extra if better quality ingredients were used instead of parabens.

The price point is just about the same price point as L’Oreal cosmetics from the drugstores. The highest priced item in the line is the anti-aging foundation with primer, which runs only $14 for quite a large bottle with a pump. We’ll get into the specifics of the foundation later in the post.

Items purchased from Wal-Mart in Mountain View, CA:

• About Face Foundation – LF3 ($15)
• Secret Service Cover-Up – CU2 ($8)
• Win Some, Rouge Some Creme Blush – CB1 Pure Petunia ($8)
• Flower Ready Set Glow! Blush/Bronzer Duo – Gloriously Golden ($10)
• Color Play Creme Shadow – Good as Mari-Gold and Orchid-ing Around ($8 each)
• Flower Lash Knockout Volumizing Mascara - Intense Black ($7)
• Flower On Your Mark Liquid Eye Liner - Black ($7)
• Flower Kiss Stick High-Shine Lip Color - Tulips 2 Kiss You ($7)
• Flower Nail’d It Nail Lacquer – Fanatical Botanical ($5)
• Flower Shadow Play Eye Shadow Quad – Foxy Browns ($10)

Swatches of color:

Color Play Creme Shadow – Good as Mari-Gold and Orchid-ing Around

Pros: The packaging alone makes me want more of these creme shadows. I usually end up hating creme shadows due to creasing, but this product delivers highly-pigmented, smooth, shimmering color that doesn’t budge. I do use E.L.F Cosmetics E/S Primer first, which helps it hold a bit better.

Good as Mari-Gold is a perfect everyday “dab” on the lid and go color. Orchid-ing Around makes smokey eyes a snap and blends very well along with powder shadow, especially the Flower Quad powder shadows.

Cons: Contains parabens. Studies indicate that methylparaben applied on the skin may react with UVB, leading to increased skin aging and DNA damage. (From Wikipedia)
  Flower Kiss Stick High-Shine Lip Color - Tulips 2 Kiss You

Pros: The color is creamy, vibrant, long-lasting and top-notch quality. This opaque color gives you that “Barbie” lip look without being too garish. You can use this color applied with a fingertip to create a stain. I applied a peach shimmery gloss over the top (not pictured) and it looked absolutely stunning. I have worn this color every day this week and haven’t become bored of it yet!

Cons: Might be too bright for some, but there are other lipstick finishes available in the line that I haven’t tried yet.

Flower Shadow Play Eye Shadow Quad – Foxy Browns

Pros: I am a total sucker for quads, but I usually end up only using just two colors from the compact. With this quad, I’ve used them all, and frequently. Each neutral shade is superior in quality; a very fine and blendable texture, it looks airbrushed and flawless. Reminds me of the texture of the YSL quads that I’ve dreamed about owning for years.

The darker brown and taupe are both matte and the copper and beige shade are both shimmer.

Cons: Contains parabens.

Flower On Your Mark Liquid Eye Liner - Black

Pros: Soft black, not harsh. Easy to apply and was long-lasting.

Cons: For some, this liquid liner won’t look dramatic enough. The finish is a matte, soft black.

More reviews:

• About Face Foundation :
• Pros: A gel-like texture in a high-quality bottle with pump. Feels similar to the Chantecaille $72 foundation. The coverage is light to light-medium with a satin finish. It’s undetectable in natural light.
• Cons: With my oily skin, this foundation, although quality, didn’t stay on too well. I do use a mineral setting powder by Jane Iredale on top. The coverage was too sheer for what I am used to (Revlon ColorStay liquid).

• Secret Service Cover-Up – CU2:
• Pros: Nice texture, almost like a thicker version of the liquid foundation. The shade was in a pinker tone, and I like that for a brightening effect. Doesn’t cover acne as well as I hoped, this is more of a sheer concealer. Works well under the eyes.
• Cons: Contains parabens. Not pigmented enough to cover acne.

• Win Some, Rouge Some Creme Blush – CB1 Pure Petunia:
• Pros: The color is just adorable. Gives you that “dolly” look with a coral-pink pop of color. I use a foundation brush to apply this blush and it works very well. No shimmer!
• Cons: On my oily skin, it didn’t last through the entire day. That’s to be expected with most creme blushes on my skin. I may try this on the lips to see what it looks like with a gloss on top.
• Flower Ready Set Glow! Blush/Bronzer Duo – Gloriously Golden:Pros: Having blush and bronzer in one compact is very convenient. The no-shimmer bronzer and blush are easy to coordinate and look soft. I haven’t used much of this, so I’ll update this review as I go.
• Cons: Today I tried it out again, and I am not sure about the bronzer. I like to contour and highlight my face and this was a little too “natural” for me.
• Flower Lash Knockout Volumizing Mascara - Intense Black:
• Pros: The packaging caught me off-guard. It doesn’t really match the other Flower product packaging, but that shouldn’t be a concern. I LOVE this mascara. Very creamy, not at all clumpy, I was able to apply two coats with no issues. Doesn’t leave my lashes stiff.
• Cons: I am not a fan of the brush. I use another brush with this formula.
• Flower Nail’d It Nail Lacquer – Fanatical Botanical
• Pros: This color is exactly the same color my mom used to wear when I was a kid in the 80s. She told me it was expensive ($4) and made with crushed diamonds. I don’t remember what brand it was, but she wouldn’t let me use it! I saw the color and I had to have it. It’s very natural and feminine and since I hate my chubby fingers, this adds just a little happiness to my fingertips.  These polishes are getting rave reviews online, too.
• Cons: These colors are similar to Essie, which can be purchased at Target. I’m hoping the line expands with more nail color choices.

Disclosure: These products were purchased by my employer per my request to sample the cosmetic line for reviewing purposes.

My hair extensions were getting a bit tangled as I did bleach them a few weeks ago to get that ombre effect. I tried cutting the tips of the hair off a little bit, but the hair was still very dry and the wefts were already 6 months old. It was time to put fresh wefts in.

My hair started out with about 5 single self-installed wefts in the back of my head, dyed with Manic Panic InfraRed and bleached tips. I could see split ends forming at the tips and it was starting to be very hard to comb. I tried some thick conditioners and serums and after dong all that I decided it was time to just pull out my fresh pack of 18 inch blonde Bohyme remy hair and take it to someone to have it installed. I called around last Sunday and NO salons seem to be open on Sundays and Mondays. I looked to Yelp.com, as always, for reviews on good places to go for hair extensions in the Evergreen area of San Jose. With gas prices on the rise, I really don’t want to drive too far or fight with traffic to get my hair done.

I am through with trying to do self-installations of wefts, too. My arms get very tired and I’m standing in my bathroom for hours, struggling to position the hair, bead it in and hope that it doesn’t slip out during the next shampoo. I found a review on Yelp.com just by chance for Mr. Kato Hair Design, which just happened to be half a block from my house. (What are the odds?!) I called him up and we chatted about what I wanted to do with my hair. He seemed more than confident that he would be the guy for the job.

I went in on Saturday at 12 noon and he was ready for me right on the dot. I don’t think that has ever happened in a salon where the stylist wasn’t still working on someone for at least 15 more minutes while I wait… not that I mind at all when it does happen, but it is rare when you don’t have to wait at all. His client was done at least 5 minutes before noon and he was ready for me.. heated seat and all!

Mr. Kato is extremely professional and classy. He makes you feel important and he takes the time to really plan out and describe to you what he will perform on your hair. He started sewing in the wefts immediately and was a total pro. He worked efficiently and ever so swift, with no pain or tugs felt, I was truly impressed. He knows extensions, he is a master!

We started talking and found out we had a lot of common interests, like performing music! He opened up and we had a great discussion about Gibson guitars, celebrities,  and we both have music studios in our homes. He’s been in the biz since the early 70s, so trust me when I say he knows hair, and especially ethnic hair. I like to describe my hair as ethnic, since it is thick, wavy, frizzy and doesn’t react well to hair cuts (frizzes out even more). He suggested a few ethnic hair products to me that I could purchase at my local Sally’s at an extremely reasonable price. I will try those and review them for the blog. I appreciate his honesty and the fact he didn’t try to sell me something expensive at the salon.

I already love the quality of the Bohyme extensions from previous trials, so I couldn’t wait to see what it would look like added on this time around. The appointment lasted approx 2.5 hours, which is pretty good considering some of the crazy 5 hour appointments I’ve had in the past when having individual locs installed.

My head feels tender now, but I know that shall pass. My hair looks like a zillion bucks.. and the iPhone photo above doesn’t do it any justice whatsoever. He double-wefted each piece, so it is a lot thicker than it was before.

So excited about my business trip next month.. my hair will definitely attract some attention and I’ll be photo-ready! Next weekend, I’m starting my facials with a woman named Zhee, also a Yelp.com find. I’ll take more photos of my hair later, and with a better camera!

Ok, no joke, I did NOT laugh when I watched this YouTube video of this girl who burned her pretty hair off with a clipless curling iron. BUT.. I sucked in so much wind, I think I swallowed a moth. Horrifying! I am not sure what in the world happened, but oddly enough, I just watched another YouTube video of a girl curling her hair with a clipless iron and it turned out freaking amazing. She didn’t hold the hair in place for 20 seconds like the girl in this video did, but she did it very quickly and mentioned that the iron was extremely hot. Super scary! I still want an iron like this… hehe. Maybe I should film myself while using it in hopes my hair will burst into flames so I can become an internet sensation.. what do you think?

While being busy after moving into a new house, I finally decided my hair needed much change. I’ve been sporting a Little Mermaid red do’ for quite a while, and although I totally loved the bright color (Vampire red from Manic Panic), I have been inspired by ombre hair dye styles using black and blonde. It would be pretty impossible for me to go black and blonde at this point, so I decided to do black, red to white… well… didn’t happen, but I do like what resulted.

My hair was already red.. bright red. I have half weft extensions in the back of my head and individuals on top. I have thick shoulder length hair, and I didn’t want to put bleach on the real hair, so I placed Joico Vero blue powder bleach with 30 mixed with 40 vol. peroxide on the ends of my hair, about 7 or 8 inches of it. I folded foil around the bleach-covered hair (the bleach gets very  hot, so I took the foil off for the last 30 min) for about 80 minutes. I could see the existing red dye bubbling off, but it did not remove completely. My hair was left a very bright hot pink when the bleach was done. I washed the bleach out and left my hair damp.

I purchased Manic Panic in Raven (black) and Manic Panic in InfraRed (medium-dark orange red). I applied the Raven shade mixed with a little of the InfraRed starting at the crown and working my way down, just past my ear. I applied just InfraRed just past where I applied Raven and down into the bleached area about an inch down, leaving about 6 inches of bleached hair untouched. I left that on my head (wrapped my head carefully in plastic wrap without moving it.. don’t let the colors touch) for about 2 hours. Watched Downton Abbey while I waited. =)

All I had to do next is rinse my hair. During the rinsing process, the colors bleed into each other. The black bleeds into the red and the red bleeds down into the bleached area. To my surprise, my hair didn’t look black at all, it looked like a very dark burgundy with a lot of the InfraRed streaking throughout. The InfraRed stayed true to color on the medium lengths, but the bleached area turned mauve… a result of mixing with the undertones of the InfraRed and black a bit.

The great thing about doing ombre on extensions is that you don’t have to ruin your real hair with bleach. Yes, you do take a risk ruining hair you had to pay for, but at least you’ll be out a few hundred dollars instead of waiting two years for your hair to grow back.

I do want to also mention that I used no Photoshop in this photo, but I did use a Nikon D3100 with the stock lens. Here is the camera info:

Exposure 0.4
Aperture f/10.0
Focal Length 18 mm
Focal Length 18.3 mm
ISO Speed 1600
Flash No Flash
Lens 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

Makeup info:

Skincare: Cindy Crawford Meaningful Beauty
Foundation: Revlon ColorStay liquid foundation for combo/oily
Powder: Jane Iredale loose mineral foundation
Brows: Jordana brow pencil
Eyeshadow: MAC Cranberry with MAC Brule highlight under brow.
Liners: Sephora liquid liner (Eggplant) and inner rims lined with Make Up For Ever Aqua Eyes in Black.
Cheeks: Tarte Cheek Stain in True Love. I also applied on lips and topped with a light coral sheer gloss from Boots.