Every Fall I get the urge to dye my hair a bit darker, wear darker lipstick, and sort of update my look to go with the season. I am not sure if this should still happen in LA, a city where you can pretty much maintain a sun-kissed look all year long. The one thing that closed the deal for me this morning and firmly secured my desire to go darker was this fashionable woman I saw in Sephora. She had this great dark hair and was wearing deep plum lipstick. She was channeling a Kardashian-sister look (I LOVE their deep, dark hair color.) I promptly purchased a deeper brown color from Clairol Perfect Ten. I have used this brand of hair color before, and I am a fan because it works quickly and smells almost nice, unlike most hair color. For me, dying my hair a darker color means a trip to the drugstore, not the salon. I am lucky because my hair is pretty porous, so it literally drinks in color in a very even manner. It looks professional, even when I do it myself. So now my hair looks great- it is super shiny, and I have taken to curling my hair right after blowing it dry so that it maintains body and shine, even after sleeping on it. The color is dark, but I think with the right makeup I can pull this off for a few months.

I have been, and am presently, sitting in the Red Carpet Club at LAX. I have been doing this for about 8 hours now, and it all started with the crazy assumption that my family and I would jump on an earlier flight and go standby to Phoenix. Through what can only be described as several Griswald-esque, worst-day-ever scenarios, we managed to get onto almost every flight leaving LAX for Phoenix today and somehow managed to, one way or another, not make it on the planes. The reasons why leave me frustrated and angered, so I will suffice it to say that I am by no means looking or feeling my best at this juncture, having entertained a rambunctious, and I will say crazed, 2-year old for the entire day while trying not to annoy the many business travelers attempting to conduct business via cell phone in our proximity. (That was an awful run on, but I am at a point where I sincerely don’t care.) Ugh! Anyway, I feel compelled to share that the one activity that kept said 2-year old happy for more than 5 minutes was the rigorous pouring through of my cosmetic bag. She calls it “mo-kock” and she is, I fear, already as fascinated by beauty products as her dear mom. She took out the blush, touched a brush to it, and applied it to my cheeks. She took out my “princess” sparkle eye shadow and put that on my eyelids (and arms and neck) and ran around like a wild woman with my lipstick crying “my lip, my lip.” I am bewildered by her love of cosmetics, but she is my child after all. And as I sit here now, watching her about to give up on Peter Pan on her portable DVD player, I am entertaining the idea of pulling out that makeup bag and letting her go to town for the next hour and a half.

I received a tip from reader Jenn about Urban Decay’s Eyeshadow Primer. She raved about how it made her eyeshadow last and last. I am a huge fan of eyeshadow base and have become somewhat of a connoisseur through trial and error. I find many companies use silicon-based primers that sort of matte-out the eyelid and do serve as a great base, but aren’t super long-wearing. I have been using Bobbi Brown’s cream eyeshadow in Vanilla as a base, and I like this, but it imparts too much of a pale color to the eyelid, and it mixes with the shadow color, in a sense detracting from the shadow color. All this is to say that I come to the Urban Decay primer with much experience and awareness of the genre and must say that I fully agree with Jenn and love this product. Eyeshadow stays put until you take it off- and is crease-less. Also, the primer if not too sheer. It has a little hint of color that makes the lid appear a bit brightened. A win, win in the primer world. Love it.