The sun is shining. Let me repeat that again: the sun is shining. After the December we had here - snow, rain, high winds, avalanches, floods, landslides, and all of it overcast and grey even for the Pacific Northwest - this is absolutely amazing. So instead of redesigning the site, I'm off to go take a nice long walk...after posting the look I came up with, and a tool-rave.

I wanted something simple and soft, so I picked Bare Escentuals' Magnetize (from the Pure Moxie collection) as the contour color and looked through the oranges for an all-over shade. I picked one that looked like a nice, soft, peachy-pink with no shimmer and found out that I'd grabbed Bare Escentuals' Soft Focus Pure. So far, so good. Something shimmery for the browbone, which always needs just a tiny bit of highlighting...something else peach. Grab, check the color name...Bare Escentuals Mardi Gras (from the Wish You Were Here: New Orleans collection.) I applied Magnetize first, applying it wet onto the outer lid. It looked awfully light for a contour shade, so I looked in the greens again and pulled out Make Up For Ever's Star Powder #929 (Bronze Khaki), and applied it with a slightly damp brush over Magnetize. Much better...maybe a little too glam, though. I used Bare Escentuals' Retractable Soft Focus Eye Shadow Brush, halfway-extended, to buff the contour shade just a little bit, and soften the edges slightly. Then I applied Soft Focus Pure, dry, lash to brow; and damp-applied Mardi Gras just below the browbone, mid-eye. I applied TSS' Plum gel liner on the upper and lower lids, and added a light dusting of Bare Escentuals' Brocade atop the gel liner.

Just a quick comment on the Soft Focus Eye Retractable Brush: I love this brush. Love, love, love, love. First off, it's retractable. Travels without being dinged. Second, it's soft-focus...so lots of bristles, and round (not flat). Third...again with the retractable. That means that if you extend this all the way, you've got your standard soft eye shadow brush. Retract the bristles about halfway, youv'e got a nice softer-focus stippling and buffing tool. Retract them until you've got just the last 1/5 of the bristles extended, and you've got a decent fine-control tool for patting shadow into place. Now, many of the Bare Escentuals brushes have equivalents elsewhere, or can be picked up on Ebay for less than standalone retail, or you can buy from one of Bare Escentuals' suppliers (for some of the brushes, at least) not have the words "Bare Escentuals" stamped on the side of the brush, and yet get the exact same brush for a fraction of the cost. I'm not wild about Bare Escentuals brushes, simply because they cost so very much. Sure, they're good quality, but not quite that much, for pity's sake. This brush is the exception to that rule. I bought five backups of this brush so that I would never, ever be without this brush. I bought three more and gave them as gifts (Mom-thing, relative, friend) because this is such a wonderful brush. And thus far it's only available through CueVeeSee or occasionally through EvilBay. If anyone knows where else I might get this wondrous brush, please let me know. And if you've been on the fence about buying it for yourself...give it a whirl. It combines the utility of (in BE terms) the Soft Focus Shadow Brush, the Eye Buki Brush, and the Heavenly Eye Brush.

Third bit of coolness: if you're looking for an additional makeup site/forum to visit, check out Queen Majyk's just-launched forum, The Majyk.

And that's it from me. I'm off to enjoy the sun before the clouds realize that they missed a spot, and cover us back up again.

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