How young is too young?

from Tulsa World

Parents agree there is no right age to wear makeup. Julie Austin's daughters know that less is more, especially when it comes to makeup. "Every once in a while, they put it on very lightly to go out," such as when the family goes to restaurants on the weekend, Austin said. "It has to be pretty toned down." But they do very well with it; they know what looks good and what doesn't, she said. Her girls have been practicing since they were little, probably as young as age 2. Now, her girls are ages 8 and 11.

For many parents, it's a watershed moment. For others, it's no big deal. But what is the right age for girls to start wearing makeup? "It's something we never put a guard on," said Austin, who has bought her "very girly-girl" daughters play makeup, as well as cosmetics by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. It's not like they're wearing Lancome or Chanel yet. "When I was growing up, it wasn't a big issue for me," said Noelle Roso, also a mother of two girls -- one is 15, the other is 18. They started wearing makeup in about sixth or seventh grade.

"Generations of girls have grown up playing with makeup," said Rachel Wagner, founder and director of Rachel Wagner Etiquette and Protocol in Tulsa. She does corporate and dining etiquette training, as well as international protocol briefing and individual coaching. Wagner remembers playing with her mom's and grandmother's makeup, which is "all fine and good." But today, it seems that girls are wearing makeup sooner, and not just at play time.

"People are questioning if that's good or not," Wagner said. Today, more and more girls are accompanying their mothers to makeup counters. And more and more options are available for cosmetics, she said, from department store lines and mass-market retailers to stores devoted to all things beauty-enhancing, such as Ulta and the soon-to-open Sephora at Woodland Hills Mall. Plus, girls may emulate characters they see on TV shows, or musicians and celebrities in magazines and videos.

ri "I don't see anything inherently wrong with any of this," Wagner said. But she's concerned about the marketing message to girls, like it's "they need to wear makeup to be accepted." From the time they're about 5 or 6 years old, most girls are usually interested in wearing makeup, Lynda King said. A beauty consultant at the Lancome counter in Dillard's Promenade, King has definitely noticed an increase in young girls coming in with their mothers or friends to the store's cosmetics counters.

They usually start out wearing nail polish and lip gloss, she said. By the time they reach the tween years, girls start experimenting with mascara and eye shadow. But back to that question we asked earlier: What age is most appropriate? That, according to everyone we talked to here, is up to the parents. "It's a leap into part of the teenage years, a rite of passage," Wagner said. And the time a girl is ready to take that leap is up to her guardians. "As a parent, it's all about the approach," said Austin, who monitors her girls' makeup times. "If you make a big deal out of something . . . they're going to want to know why."

The key is to have "teachable moments with your kids vs. a lecture," said Wagner, a mother of two young adult daughters. Let's say your daughter brings home a fashion maga zine and is curious about the makeup, Wagner said. You can sit down with her, flip through the magazine and point out various products, explaining each item's purpose and how it should be applied.

During these teachable moments, you can also talk about getting to know people for their inner beauty, not just what's on the outside, Wagner said. Through these kind of talks, you may find your daughter is more open to your opinion -- that you're with her, not against her. ou can also schedule a makeover at a cosmetics counter, Wagner and King both recommended. This way, your daughter can learn how to apply makeup from a professional. An added bonus is that it's potential bonding time between you and child.

Just don't rush your kids into wearing it, Roso said. "Sometimes we're guilty of pushing our kids to grow up too fast," Roso said of parents in general. "It's important to let kids take their time -- let kids be kids." In addition to allowing them to play and practice with makeup, Austin also bought her daughters books from American Girl, which offer how-to tips, she said.

If it ever happened that Austin's daughters were wearing makeup to stick out in a crowd or attract a boy, though, then she'd have her guard up. But for now, her daughters are having fun with makeup, throwing pretend fashion shows and fixing their hair -- you know, being girly girls.

Bargain Bonanza - A Savings Makeover for BuyBeauty - 15% off Every Order of Makeup, Perfume & Moisturizer

from Beauty Buy

Last week, a horrible thing happened to me, and it left me feeling vulnerable and exposed - I ran out of eyeliner!

A day without eyeliner is like the day the music died. Never let this happen to you when you stock up on your favorite cosmetics, fragrances, and other beauty supplies from BuyBeauty. And keep more green in your wallet when you use the coupon by February 27 for 15% off every order!

Bat Those Luscious Lashes Like You Mean Business

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Backstage Beauty - Stila at Marchese Beauty Breakdown

from Temptalia

Beauty Backstage by Stila: For four seasons, Marchesa has turned to stila cosmetics to complement their Hollywood-worthy designs with just the right makeup looks. Headlining makeup artist Talia Shobrook used lush, rich hues to complete the gilded splendor of the Marchesa collection.

Inspired by the iconography of the 16th Century, Marchesa’s fall collection evokes the excess and elegance of the Golden Age. Drawing on the drama of the Spanish Armada, the designs embody the clash of lavish Spanish style and Elizabethan renaissance in an era marked by legendary monarchs. Shobrook captured the concept in a dramatic look that modernizes Elizabethan stylization, with dreamy, angelic complexions to reflect the soft, flowing quality of the collection.

stila offers you quick how-tos so that you can capture this majestic fall makeup style:

Step one: skin
The look for skin is matte and pale. Begin by applying stila sheer pressed powder. Then, apply stila perfecting concealer to areas that require more coverage.

Step two: eyes
Neutral tones contour and accentuate a smoky eye framed with dramatic lashes and brows. Apply stila eye shadow in chinois to brow bones. Next, apply stila eye shadow in bouquet and kamet to the creases of your eyelids and your bottom lash line. Line the lower outer rim kajal liner in smoky quartz. Then sweep multi-effect mascara in brown over lashes and apply multi-effect mascara in black to tips of lashes. Finally, fill in brows with brow set.

Step three: cheeks
Cheeks are natural but flushed for high contrast with pale skin. Use new cherry crush lip and cheek stain to create a bright flush against pale skin. Apply to fingertips to the high apples of the cheeks, blending out until the color diffuses into a soft stain.

Step four: lips
Lip color is shiny and saturated against matte skin and eyes. Apply cherry crush lip and cheek stain directly to lips for rosy color with a slick sheen. Next, dab SPF 20 lipstick in caicos over cherry crush with fingertips to finish the look.

Beauty Blogs Come of Age: Swag, Please!

MASCARA MADE ME DO IT
Tia Williams blogs Shake Your Beauty.

By KAYLEEN SCHAEFER

TWO years ago, when beauty bloggers called makeup companies to request free samples, many calls went unreturned. “Bloggers’ inquiries for products started out as an annoyance,” said Alison Brod, whose namesake public relations firm represents the Laura Mercier and philosophy brands. “It was a cost for our clients. It didn’t seem fair that anyone could say whatever they wanted about a product and have an audience.”

But in the last year or so, as more women turn to blogs for advice on bronzers or facial scrubs, and magazines like Allure and Glamour have started their own beauty blogs, the cosmetics industry has stopped seeing bloggers as bottom feeders. “It would be foolish to ignore them,” said Ms. Brod, who recently hired an employee whose job is to get bloggers to write about clients. The same bloggers who once begged for samples are now being sent the latest lip glosses and perfumes, all the free makeup they want and, in some cases, what many beauty editors commonly refer to as swag — luxurious presents to keep them happy, like designer purses or all-expenses-paid trips to Paris.

For years, beauty editors at many magazines took perks, and some still do. Others must follow ethics policies, corporate limits on how expensive a gift an employee can accept. (The cap varies from $50 to $500.) Nadine Haobsh, a beauty editor turned blogger, said, “Christmas this year at my apartment, giftwise, was reminiscent of the old days.” Cosmetics companies sent her purses, overnight bags, fashion books, gift cards and perfume for mentioning their brands on her blog, Jolie in NYC. In 2005, Seventeen offered Ms. Haobsh the post of beauty editor, then rescinded it after finding out about her blog, and how she bragged about accepting lavish gifts. Now that she blogs full time, she receives from 20 to 50 products every week. And recently, the chief executive of a beauty firm in San Francisco called to invite her to lunch in her office overlooking the city.

“She wanted to meet me in person because her office was buzzing about my support for her brand on my blog,” said Ms. Haobsh, who recently agreed to promote an anti-aging skin care line called In An Instant in an infomercial. In the last six months, beauty companies have also begun to plan trips and events specifically for bloggers and online editors. Chanel flew 15 of them from all over the world to Paris for a meeting with its master perfumer, Jacques Polge, and a tour of Coco Chanel’s apartment at 31, rue Cambon.

Matrix, a hair care brand, held a gathering at the Royalton Hotel in New York for about 50 bloggers, sending them home with as many shampoos and styling gels as they could carry. And Space NK, a beauty apothecary, had a party in New York, treating the 40 attendees to $50 gift cards. There is no reliable way to count the number of beauty blogs, said Julie Fredrickson, a founder of Coutorture, a network of 240 beauty and fashion blogs and Web sites; she estimated there are thousands.

Before choosing which blogs to target, companies consider whether a Web site has a fresh look and frequent postings as well as comments from engaged readers. Misspellings are considered a blemish. Generally, beauty companies are not stingy with the $200 face creams they distribute. Ms. Brod said her firm sends products to about 50 bloggers. Kerry Diamond, Lancôme's vice president for public relations and communications, said they work with “dozens and dozens.”

The bloggers may sound as if they’re staging sit-ins at Sephora while waiting for the next eye shadow palate from NARS, but they are likely to be at home anticipating the latest U.P.S. delivery from a MAC publicist. “Most of the bloggers call themselves beauty addicts, and maybe they were, but that girl quickly realizes that this is about notoriety and freebies,” Ms. Fredrickson said. “Maybe before people started sending out products, it wasn’t, but that’s not something we should romanticize anymore.”

There is a danger that, as more bloggers are treated to five-course lunches by Prescriptives, the unbiased product reviews they once weren’t afraid to publish could disappear. Already, “people get really scared,” said Ms. Fredrickson. “I get e-mails all of the time from bloggers saying: ‘I tested this product and I don’t like it. What do I do?’ ” Some bloggers refuse to bite the hand that gives them perfume. “If I don’t like a product, I try to approach it sensitively since I don’t want to defame a company’s good name or hurt their business by slandering their product,” said Kristen Kelly, whose blog, BeautyAddict, gets 3,500 unique visitors daily.

Others simply censor themselves if they find that a face cream makes them break out. “If I hate it, I won’t write about it,” said Tia Williams, who writes a blog called Shake Your Beauty, which has 2,500 visitors each day. Air-bombing the sites with samples can result in similar-sounding posts that smack of promotion. “In the last couple of weeks we all covered Prevage Anti-Aging Night Cream by Elizabeth Arden and Allergan,” Ms. Kelly said. “It’s pretty clear that the samples were sent out by the company.” Ms. Kelly, who is a marketing manager for a consulting firm and keeps her site as a hobby, was overjoyed in 2006 when she first received free samples. Since then she has met with representatives from Estée Lauder, L’Oréal and Lancôme. After attending a Lancôme party in New York, where she had her eyes lined in blue by a makeup artist, she posted a post-makeover picture of herself hoisting a flute of Champagne.

Like most beauty bloggers, Ms. Kelly said she does not identify a product she reviews as a freebie, and does not have a policy about accepting swag from publicists. Still, she said she tries hard not to lose the relatable tone that made women turn to her for advice. “I don’t want them to perceive me as someone who is better,” she said. “I would never want to do one of those posts where people write ‘I got this huge goody bag and I’m dancing around my house and so happy about it.’ ”

Some bloggers aren’t as humble. After Victoria’s Secret paid for Ms. Williams to fly from New York to Los Angeles with a planeload of other bloggers and online editors for what was billed as a “Supermodel P.J. Party,” she posted a breathless account. Ms. Williams used to be the beauty director of Teen People, which forbid employees to accept gifts worth more than $500. But as a blogger, she was not obligated to decline the free silk pajamas or her stay (paid for by Victoria’s Secret) at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Marjorie Asturias-Lochlaer, who reads four beauty blogs daily, including Jolie in NYC, didn’t realize until about a month ago that many bloggers don’t buy the majority of the makeup they test. Ms. Asturias-Lochlaer, 35, of Grand Junction, Colo., learned how widespread the practice was when a Lancôme publicist commented on her site, My Inner French Girl, “We are in LOVE with your blog!”

Ms. Asturias-Lochlaer’s blog isn’t even about makeup, but, according to the representative, it appealed to Lancôme because of its French-girl theme. Ms. Asturias-Lochlaer ended up accepting about $500 worth of Lancôme goods but disclosed this windfall to readers. “The last thing I want to is destroy their trust by transferring my loyalty to a corporate entity,” she said. “I’m not a beauty whore.” Freebies are inspiring — you guessed it — more women to start blogs. After reading about Kristen Kelly’s glamorous evening at that Lancôme party, Christina Yang Hull, 27, a parenting-products publicist in Norwalk, Conn., started Bonbons in the Bath, partly to get makeup samples. “It seemed neat that Kristen was going to these things and getting her makeup done and being part of this world even though she didn’t work at a magazine,” she said. “She wrote a blog.”