Mendi A.
I would like to see a blog about the truth regarding sunscreen and how it’s allegedly preventing us from getting enough Vitamin D from sunlight, which is causing all sorts of different problems for people, some of whom I personally know (low Vit. D). The different info is really getting confusing. I want to protect my skin from damage and wrinkles, especially my face, but am I also hurting myself in other ways by doing so?

My team and I have written extensively about this issue. The articles are all on PaulasChoice.com. Click here for our article on Vitamin D and Sun Exposure. 

Kate B.
I would like a blog on how you defend your condemnation of alcohol and witch hazel in skin products to alternate-medicine people (like Dr. Weil) who vociferously promote them.

I’ve searched Dr. Weil’s website and he doesn’t seem to like alcohol, either. He has pages explaining it can be a causative factor for cancer, erectile dysfunction, dementia, osteoporosis, dry skin, and on and on.

For what I’ve written, there is nothing to defend; I am merely reiterating what the research shows is true for this ingredient. The studies we have cited on PaulasChoice.com for alcohol makes it abundantly clear that alcohol (in the form of denatured alcohol, benzyl alcohol, SD alcohol, and ethanol) causes irritation, free radical damage, cell death, and dryness. A martini isn’t a health food for your body any more than it is for skin. Alcohol is also a poor antibacterial agent for acne (the bacteria that causes acne isn’t on the surface of skin it’s in the pore and alcohol can’t penetrate that deep into skin), and because of the irritation it causes, it stimulates oil production directly in the pore.

The problem with witch hazel is that it can be a skin irritant when used daily and is often stabilized in alcohol.

Lisa D.
Color trends. I know how you feel about blue eye shadow but the group that grew up wearing it is now in charge and color is just as popular as ever. Is there any color(s) you find appropriate or have you changed your mind about blue at all?

Actually, the people developing makeup products are younger than you can ever imagine. They are not the baby boomers. Kids run the cosmetics industry when it comes to marketing and those are the people making decisions about the products being sold.

In terms of colors, I have never changed my viewpoint about blue or other pastel, overly obvious colors. But the fashion world has supported that viewpoint month after month, year after year. You only have to look at the makeup worn by celebrities when they are on the red carpet, or models in fashion magazines in ads for clothing companies, or the makeup on the cover girls on magazines—they aren’t wearing blue, purple, pink, orange, red, burgundy, or mauve eyeshadows. The neutral brown, tan, beige, charcoal shades are, and always have been, the best options for the eyes.

Kyra M.
I’d love to read about how and where Paula’s Choice is giving back to the community. Where does Paula see the greatest need?

At Paula’s Choice our mission is to take brilliant care of your skin, whether you use our products or someone else’s, but we also strive to do all we can to be of service to the community. There is no need that isn’t important. All any of us can do is be involved, donate our money and/or time and care, regardless of the cause. Paula’s Choice commitment to give in this way comes from our hearts and we are honored to participate in this effort.

Paula’s Choice and I personally and proudly support:

American Cancer Society
American Humane Society
American Red Cross (Disaster Relief Fund)
ASPCA
DAWN (Domestic Abuse Women’s Network)
Dress for Success Seattle (a division of the YWCA)
Habitat for Humanity
Humane Society of the United States
Juvenile Diabetes Foundation
Save the Children Federation, Inc.
Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
United Negro College Fund
YWCA

My Cosmetics Cop Team’s most recent Online Radio Show was all about makeup tips to help you look young, healthy, and vibrant. Doing the weekly radio show has been a kick and we’re thrilled to have so many listeners and callers! Because this particular show was so popular and we didn’t have enough time to go over every tip and product recommendation, we decided to publish the information on our blog. We hope you find this information helpful—and that you’ll tune in to the radio show because we have some wonderful topics coming up, each designed to keep you beautifully informed!

Makeup Don’ts

• Don’t neglect skin care or try to cover up skin problems with makeup instead of treating them! No matter how good any individual makeup product is, it will only look as good as the skin it’s applied to. Skin must be smooth and free of dry, flaky patches or yucky, clogged pores. Using makeup to conceal what you don’t like about your skin is the wrong approach.

• Don’t forget to check your eyebrows: Overly drawn on, penciled in like a waxy line, or overly sparse brows are not what you want to see. These mistakes can make someone who is 25 years old look much older.

• When you tweeze or wax your brows there is a fine line between natural and softly shaped, and a fake, overly arched look. If you’re not sure how to groom your eyebrows, make an appointment at a salon that specializes in brow shaping and enhancing (but have them provide an outline of what they want to do; you don’t want to have your brows stripped away).

There are some interesting brow makeup products to consider. Some of the Cosmetics Cop Team’s favorites include:

o Billion Dollar Brows Brow Powder
o Origins Fill in the Blanks Eyebrow Enhancer (this is a brow pencil)
o Maybelline New York Define-a-Brow Eyebrow Pencil
o Sephora Arch-It Brow Kit (comes with great instructions and tools for shaping your brows at home)

• Don’t forget to check your makeup in a magnifying mirror: What you can’t see, you can’t fix, especially makeup settling into lines around the eye and folds along the mouth. A little powder applied directly over the line, blending upwards and out, can keep everything in place, but you have to see it up close to get it done right. Have your sponge and/or brushes ready so you can quickly blend or diffuse any mistakes. Magnifying makeup mirrors can be purchased in most drugstores, Bed Bath & Beyond, and beauty supply stores such as Sally Beauty.

• Avoid overly greasy moisturizers around the eyes, as they are a slip-up waiting to happen. It will encourage concealers and foundations to travel right into the very lines you want to hide. If you feel you need an extra-emollient moisturizer around your eyes, do it at night after you’ve removed your makeup, and use lighter-weight products during the day.

• Don’t forget to downplay shiny makeup during daylight hours: Extra shine or glitter is fine at night, but during the day no matter what your age it just looks overdone, kind of like wearing a sequined gown to the office. Exception: there are many “radiance-boosting” makeup products that forgo obvious, distracting shine in favor of creating a subtle luminosity. Examples of our favorites in this category include:

o Clinique Fresh Bloom Allover Colour (great for the cheek area)
o Lancome Color Ideal Illuminateur Sheer Highlighting Pressed Powder (great for all over use)
o Lorac Oil-Free Luminizer (ideal mixed with your foundation for a subtle glow)
o Jane Shimmering Bronzer (brilliant as bronzer and the “strips” of color also work as eyeshadow)

• Don’t forget to be careful with gloss: Too much gloss can look like you’re drooling, instead of a luminescent glow of color over your lips. Also be very careful with glossy, slick, or creamy lipsticks; if you have lines around your mouth, these will bleed quickly and won’t last past mid-morning before a touch-up is needed.

Again, check in a good magnifying mirror during the day, because for some women, it takes a bit of time for lipsticks or glosses to feather into lines around the mouth. You can also stick with softer colors from some of the best lipsticks we’ve found for comfortable, long wear—and they don’t feather into lines around the mouth! Our favorites:

o Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Lipstick
o M.A.C. Lipsticks (Matte or Satin—the color range is huge)
o Rimmel Lasting Finish Intense Wear Lipstick
o Revlon Matte or Super Lustrous Lipsticks (the latter offering a staggering range of 70+ shades)

Makeup Dos

• Pay attention to your smile! Whiter teeth make you look healthy and vibrant. Even if your skin isn’t glowing, if your teeth do, it adds incredible brightness and beauty to your face. Since Paula’s Choice launched our Brighten Up 2-Minute Teeth Whitener we have all become fastidious about our smiles! And our customers agree: This product has become the best-selling item Paula’s Choice has ever launched!

• Dark lipstick is, well, dark. By definition when something is dark it isn’t bright and glowing. Soft color is a sexy, glowing look any time of day. Red can work too, and it makes a dramatic statement, just keep it on the brighter side as opposed to a deep magenta shade (and definitely not purple or anything in the brown family). Some of our favorite red lipsticks include:

o NARS Lipstick in Fire Down Below, or Jungle Red
o Laura Mercier Lip Crème in Truly Red
o Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Cherries in the Snow, or Fire & Ice
o Estee Lauder Double Wear in Stay Scarlet

• Think soft color with blushes and eyeshadows, but nothing too pastel-ish. Do a split-face makeup application on yourself to test different looks and see which one gives you the soft celebrity or cover girl look you want to achieve.

• Make sure the intensity of your blush complements your skin tone. If you have fair to light skin, pale pink, rose, or peach shades are always going to be more flattering than deep berry or plum shades, which can make the cheek area look bruised. In contrast, women with medium to tan skin tones can look gorgeous with berry or plum-hued blush. The Cosmetics Cop Team has some favorite powder blushes, and they are:

o American Beauty Blush Perfect Cheek Color (this line is sold at Kohl’s)
o Jane Blushing Cheeks Blush
o L’Oreal True Match Blush

• Color balance is important. In other words, if you are wearing a pinkish lipstick or gloss tone your blush should be in a similar color family. It’s sort of like if you are wearing a pink skirt and orange top: under most circumstances, these strong colors can clash. It can sometimes work, but be careful. High contrast makeup can look glaring, and if you’re thinking young, vibrant and healthy, stick with related tones.

• Soft glowing (not shiny or glittery) foundations, blushes, and powders used carefully can add a beautiful dimension to skin, but you have to be careful. Shine all over can be distracting, but placed in the center of the face (not the nose) and along the blush area and chin can eradicate dull skin. Of course great skin care is more important, but getting some help from your makeup is the best of both worlds.

• Ignore the recommendations to use cream blush. The reason you don’t see cream blush very often at the counters is because it is hard to use. When you blend it on, you’re generally wiping off the foundation and powder you just applied. It also tends to slip and fade more during the day and it is harder to control. Given how soft and beautiful blushes are these days you can achieve a sheer, creamy look without a cream blush and get better, faster results. If you must have a creamy-type blush, stick with cream-to-powder formulas such as:

o Revlon Cream Blush
o Clinique Blushwear Cream Stick
o Studio Gear Naturalism Cream-to-Powder Blush (sold at Ulta)

• Do use blush! Forgoing blush is a mistake. It would be like not wearing a blouse with your skirt, you’d be naked on top. Same thing with blush, don’t leave your cheeks naked.

• Eyeliner applied close to the lashes with a soft brown or charcoal brown shade can look beautiful by enhancing the lashes and framing the eye. If the outer corners of your eyes have begun to droop, make sure the eyeliner turns up ever-so-slightly so you don’t emphasize the drooping. For the lower lash line, use a softer color than you did for your upper lash line. For example, if your upper lash line is lined with black, use a dark gray or even a soft taupe for the lower lash line. Black all around the eye can look too harsh and take away from the soft, even-handed look you’re going for. Powder eyeshadows work great as eyeliner, and those from M.A.C., Shu Uemura, Sephora’s own brand, and Trish McEvoy offer wonderful options.

• Test makeup primers. Some formulations smooth out skin and help create a glowing, but not shiny, look to your makeup. You want a primer that enhances your skin tone while also giving your skin the ingredients it needs to look and feel healthy. Some of our favorites include:

o Giorgio Armani Light Master Primer
o Jan Marini Age Intervention Prime Face Primer
o M.A.C. Prep + Prime Line Filler
o Victoria’s Secret Airbrush FX Face Primer SPF 20

You can also apply any well-formulated serum in lieu of primer. With a well-formulated serum you can be sure you’re getting the benefit a primer provides, plus critical antiaging ingredients skin needs to repair itself and resist wrinkles. Paula’s Choice offers three Antioxidant Concentrates that are brilliant options for use as a “foundation primer with benefits.”

• Blend, blend, and blend again. Don’t use emollient/greasy concealers on blemishes. Do use a lightweight, flesh-tone (that means no yellow, orange, or lavender tones) concealer that is a shade or two lighter than your foundation.

Now that you know what to do and what to avoid, we hope your makeup application and the look you’re going for will be easier than ever to achieve! Here’s to beautiful days ahead—and using makeup to enhance your best features rather than covering them up! For complete reviews of the products mentioned above, visit Beautypedia.com.