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There is a secret to creating lips that glisten and shimmer.

With just a few tips you can make your lips dance in the light. The techniques are a lot like those used for creating highlights, and contours with eyeshadow and eyeliner. The main idea is to use two shades of lipstick and two shades of lip liner. The versatility you get with using two colors also lets you shape your lips, making them a little fuller in just the right places, without looking like you just came from a clown convention.

The great thing is that you can use these tips whether you’re going for a fresh and natural look, or want to spice it up a little with rich, vibrant night-on-the-town colors. What you need are two lipstick colors that go together; a darker color and a lighter color. You also need two lip liner pencils that match the lipsticks your going to use.

For a fresh and natural look, select neutral colors and if you’re using warm colors on your eyes then stick to using warm colors on your lips.

Why Use Lip Liner Pencils?

Using a lip liner can look really gaudy if it’s put on in a way that makes it stand out. Choosing the color to match the lipstick as close as possible is essential to preventing this. But lip liners perform some important functions:

• They define the edge of the lips
• They are used to contour and make little lip shaping corrections
• They prevent your lipstick from bleeding around the edges

Lipstick Application

There are six basic steps to applying lipstick with this method. To add some contouring or shaping to your lips to make them fuller or narrower, you can use the contouring corrections discussed below first, but these are the basic steps:

1. Outline your lips using your dark lip liner pencil.
2. Fill in the lips with your dark lipstick which matches the pencil color you just applied.
3. Blot. Use a dry, lint free tissue. Press your lips over it like you’re biting into it, but be carful not to press so firmly that you smudge it.
4. Re-outline your lips using your light colored lip liner pencil.
5. Fill in using your light lipstick color
6. Blot again.

After you’re finished, and depending on how flat your lipstick is, you can apply some gloss to give them some extra sheen. Gloss can be used on vibrant or neutral colors.

Lip Contouring Corrections

If you want your lips to look fuller or you think they’re too wide you can create a contouring layer of color before applying your normal lipstick. Contouring or shaping is done by applying your dark and light colors plus an additional medium color in certain places around your lips. This contouring layer is put on first and then the basic lipstick application discussed above goes over top.

It might take some practice, so don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t turn out runway ready the first time. These are the different lip types and how you can make suttle corrections with a little contouring magic:

• Wide lips. Outline and shade the corners of your lips with a medium pencil. Be sure to stay inside the lipline. Outline the center of your lips, just outside the lipline using a light liner pencil. Apply the basic lipstick application. If you use gloss, apply it to the center of the mouth and not to the corners.
• Down-turned corners. On the inside of the lipline, outline your top lip using a medium liner pencil. Outline your bottom lip with a light pencil applied to the outside of your lipline. Then apply your basic lipstick as normal.
• Thin lips. Outline the outside of your lipline using a light liner pencil. Cover the outline with a medium colored lipstick. Blot. Apply basic makeup, but just the light color. Light colors and shiny lipsticks work well to bring more fullness to thin lips.
• One thin lip. If either you top or bottom lip is overly thin then use the thin lip correction on the thinner lip. Use a normal lipstick application on the other lip. Only apply gloss to the thinner lip and only if it is your bottom lip, otherwise don’t use gloss.

Note: Your lipline is the natural outline of your lips. By applying liner and lipstick to the outside of the lipline in certain areas, you are making these areas larger and fuller. By keeping your makeup inside the lipline, you keep certain areas smaller.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully you can see how using different shades and creating two or three layers can bring a richness to your lips. These little extras give your lips an extra dimension that brings them alive far more than just a swipe of your usual lipstick can.

Play around with the different techniques. Try different colors, both natural and vibrant, warm and cool. You’ll love the results you get using these professional techniques. It takes a bit more time and concentration, but that’s good. That’s just what you want to take your mind off things and ease your jitters if you’re getting ready for a big date.

Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway clash with comic hilarity in this movie. Meryl Streep’s Cruella De Vil styled fashion magazine editor is a show stealing performance. But Anne Hathaway steals some back with her carefully paced character arc that follows a young aspiring writer through her first job as Assistant to the Editor at the ficticious Runway Magazine.

Lauren Weisberger wears a smile with a certain naive innocence, but behind it she has a wonderfully wicked sense of humor. She also has a real life connection to her book (now a film), The Devil Wears Prada. Lauren’s first job as Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Magazine in Manhattan gave her everything she needed to imitate life with art - a world of stiletto heels, Starbucks, and uncompromising demands. Luckily, she made it out alive, and with her humor intact.

Whether you’ve read the best-selling book or not, the movie makers, according to Lauren have found a way to make every joke funnier. Not a small task, but one easily achieved with actors such as Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt and Adrian Grenier filling out the cast. And then of course there’s Sex and the City director David Frankel and Oscar-winning producer Wendy Finerman.

Guaranteed, the clothes horse in everyone will appreciate the endless entourage of styles that are as sharp as the wit. The Devil Wears Prada is a good comedy with a lesson about values, how to lose them, and how to find your way back to them again.

The best line repeated incessantly in the movie … THAT’S, all.

Find out more at Amazon: The Devil Wears Prada

About the size of an iPod nano, the Zeno pushes the bacteria that cause acne into a state of heat shock, killing them with it’s microprocessor controlled thermal unit.

It’s about time someone invented a clean, stylish, take-anywhere gadget that fights acne. And Tyrell, the creators of the Zeno, have done a great job. The buzz is that it works great, clearing up the significant effects of pimples within twenty four hours. It’s not surprising then that this cool little gadget won the coveted Allure Best of Beauty award. To see how Tyrell’s trademarked technology works, it’s important to first understand how acne happens.

What Causes Acne

There are some special medical conditions that can cause acne but 90% of the time it is caused by the natural bacteria present on your skin. When this bacteria gets into your pores and the pores get blocked, you get acne. A good skin care regimen can help eliminate or reduce acne, but you still might have problems if you have really dry or oily skin.

Pore blockage occurs when dry skin sheds itself or when the natural oils (sebum) your skin produces are excessive. There are a lot of other factors that can contribute to the problem as well. Some of those factors are diet, humidity, pollution and heredity.

How The Zeno Fights Acne

When you place the Zeno’s treatment tip against a blemish, it’s processor tracks the temperature of your skin and continuously adjusts the temperature it applies to your skin. This way, it applies enough heat to kill acne causing bacteria, but it won’t burn your skin.

The makers of the Zeno say that a couple treatments of two and a half minutes each are enough to effectively kill most of the bacteria. Within twenty four hours, most acne blemishes in their clinical studies were significantly cleared up. The only side effect they encountered was a slight temporary redness of the skin sometimes following a treatment.

More about the Zeno

It’s hand-held, rechargable, and fits easily in your purse or your pocket. You can get the Zeno at Amazon where it comes with a bunch of replacement tip cartridges.

Spending the holidays with your family is something most people look forward to. And then there are a few who dread the very thought of it. Have you ever asked “your parents are coming here this year?” with a tone that made it sound like “there’s a meteor headed towards Earth and we’re all going to die?”.

There are inlaws whose sole purpose in life is to take you to the edge of insanity. There are the parents who never felt you were good enough to marry their baby. There is the brother-in-law whose life was the inspiration for You, Me and Dupree. There is the little sister-in-law whose personal mission is digging up dirt about you. Or making it up if necessary.

As much as you might like to spend the entire holiday liquored up, there are some better options that don’t involve building a protective shield out of martini olives. You can bulletproof yourself from all the crazy inlaw antics easily with just a little planning. Here’s how:

Plan Some Away Time

Try to get away for a few hours each day or even most of the day once in awhile. Put together an event schedule for yourself that includes visiting friends, getting out to do some charity work, shopping and whatever else you can think of. The key is to enjoy these little breaks and not spend them fuming over the fact that you’re least favorite in-law berated everything you prepared for dinner or put the cat in the dishwasher.

This is always a little risky, but you could try planning some away time for your in-laws. Or try taking them shopping with you. Hey, it’s a big mall. You got separated, forgot they were with you and left them there. It happens … wink wink

Kill Them With Kindness

Adversarial people love poking at others to get a reaction. If you give them a different reaction than what they’re looking for you can shut down their tactics. Get yourself into the playing stupid zone. No matter what they say or do, be nice and pour it on thick. Do extra little things to be helpful like washing and drying their favorite wool sweater. It looked a little big on them anyway.

Get The Goods On Them

Guaranteed, your inlaws have secrets they don’t want anyone to know about. Especially you.

Pay attention. Look fo little clues. Dig deep into the things they don’t like talking about. Once the find the ammunition you need you can hold them hostage with it or start firing back.

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

Okay, everything here is all meant to be in good fun. The truth is, most of the time people don’t get along because they don’t understand one another. Don’t sweat it. Be yourself. Keep an open mind and give your crazy inlaws some time to get comfortable with the idea that you’re part of the family now.

Do you wish you were an expert gift shopper? Have trouble figuring out what the right gift is for someone? Has it turned you into a giftcard guru? The answer is simple. Good gift shoppers don’t ask questions, they answer them. If you can answer one of the following questions, you can find the perfect gift for anyone:

1. What do they love? Everyone has hobbies or passionate pursuits. Anything that encourages someone to follow their passion makes a great gift. Whatever they are totally into, look for the newest thing or accessory that just came out, or an old hard to find item. You might find a great book on the subject or tickets to an event. You might even find a gift that supports their passion by taking it into a new direction.
2. What do you love about them? Every person on the planet has their own unique set of quirks and character traits. This is more about what you see in them than what they see in themselves. If there is something they always say or do, you can find a gift that reflects that. Answer this question and you will always find a very special gift for someone. It’s the kind of gift that makes a person say “I don’t know why you got me this … but I love it!“. After you explain why you chose that particular thing, they love it even more. And they have some new insight into themselves.
3. What do they need? When you go over to someone’s house, if there’s something they never have or have enough of, that’s a great gift idea. The things they always borrow from you … great gift idea. In both cases you’ll find something practical, usable and both of you will have a good laugh. Maybe they don’t need a particular thing but they could use your particular talents to get something done. You can step in and volunteer your time and services with a custom gift certificate that they can cash in to you.
4. What do you think they would love? Sometimes you can’t answer a question specifically and the best thing to do is stop looking for something. Browse around with a clear and open mind and trust that feeling you get when you see something you think they would love. It’s always easier to find something when you’re not looking for it because it could be anything.
5. I’ve failed. Now what? When everything else fails, think gift card. The secret to giving gift cards is to get one at a store the person shops at often or can’t afford to shop at. And don’t just put it in a card. Wrap it up in a little package with some little extra thing - a gizmo, doodad, knick-knack, trinket, stuffy or whatever that’s cool, cute, or funny.

Finding a great gift idea is all about knowing the person you’re buying for. Sometimes we get disconnected because our busy lives get in the way. Get connected. Stay connected. The most valuable thing in our lives is not a thing at all. It’s the people.

The holiday season is particularly hard on some families who are already struggling to stay afloat. Sometimes it’s because of unemployment or under-employment in forgotten neighborhoods and communities. Sometimes serious medical problems wipe a family’s savings out and force them into debt.

One of the easiest and best things you can do to help people is to donate food to your local food bank. There are a lot of important charities that tackle different problems but one thing everyone in need can benefit from is food. It’s the kind of gift that can give people hope and take one more worry off their shoulders. Even if you can only afford to make a small donation, every little bit is needed and appreciated.

Find A Food Bank In Your Area

Each of these sites can give you information about food banks in your city, how to donate food or cash, and how you can get involved and volunteer some time to help people who really rely on these organizations to feed their families:

• USA: secondharvest.org
• Canada: Canadian Association of Food Banks
• UK: fareshare
• Australia: foodbank.org.au
• A great international organization is UNICEF

In addition to food banks, many churches have food collection and distribution programs or fund raising programs to help those in need. And check your local supermarket - a lot of them have donation bins, and you can buy some extra canned goods while you do your grocery shopping and donate them on your way out.

Other Ways To Give A Helping Hand

• Donate blood.
• Roll up that big pile of change you’ve been saving and donate it to a good cause.
• Get your family and friends involved and make a commitment together to raise money or volunteer your time.
• Do your spring cleanup now and find a charity that takes donations of clothing and furniture.

If you commit just one day this month to helping others, you’ll make a world of difference to someone.

Google could turn YouTube into the biggest cable tv company in the world. TV that you can watch, interact with, and where all your favorite shows are waiting - ready to view according to YOUR schedule.

With this video Daniel, one of the main characters in the popular lonelygirl15 story invited fans to get involved in the story. He asked them to post their advice in the lonelygirl15 forums on whether he and Bree should meet a person named Jonas who has offered to help them.

Currently the story follows Bree and Daniel on the run as they are chased by a mysterious religious group that Bree’s family belonged to. The new twist is designed to get fans involved in directing where the story goes next. It shows how powerful the internet is as a medium for interactivity. And it shows how interactive programs over the internet could be the next evolutionary step for reality TV. Traditional phone in your vote shows like American Idol should take notice.

But then, so should anyone with a webcam and a great idea for a YouTube TV series of their own.

One of the biggest secrets in the fashion industry is applying makeup to create a fresh and natural look. Neutral colors and the right techniques will accent and highlight everything just right. The result is a natural, beautiful look that’s perfect day or night, in photographs or face to face.

After you’ve done some tweezing and classic eyebrow shaping or worked in a few eyebrow shaping tricks to get them just right it’s time to look at putting on some eye shadow and eye liner. It’s all about choosing the right colors and applying them in the right places to give your eyes nice contours and a healthy glow.

Choosing Your Makeup Colors

Foundation: A lot of women just throw on some lipstick and a little eyecolor as part of their daily routine. Perfectly fine, especially if you’ve got healthy, radiant skin. If you feel like going the extra mile and applying a foundation, then test out a few and find one that matches your skin color exactly. Keep the application light. Nothing looks worse than caked on foundation.

Eye shadow: You want three different colors; a light color, a dark color, and a medium color. They should have the same tone and stick to the more natural looking neutral colors. You can experimant with more vibrant colors once you’ve mastered the fresh and natural look. Warmer colors look great anytime and photograph the best. Cooler colors are best reserved for a special night out on the town when you want a more vivacious look.

Eyeliner: Two colors; a medium color and a light color. Stay away from dark colors when you’re going for “fresh and natural”. Most people only use one eyeliner color and two colors of eyeshadow. The extra color for each is what is going to give your style that extra little bit of giddyup. The pros don’t use pencils or liquid. They use eyeliners that are solid little cakes that you mix with water to make into liquid. It’s not as quick but it gives you a lot of control when you mix it yourself.

Applying Eyeliner

Start with eyeliner because you don’t want to try and apply it after you’ve dusted on your eye shadow. You can always touch it up after applying your eye shadow.

Use your medium colored eyeliner and apply it around the outside two thirds of your eyes, top and bottom.

Use your light eyeliner and apply it around the inner one third of your eyes. Blend it in gently where it meets the medium eyeliner. The light liner’s job is too brighten up your eyes after the medium color has defined and outlined them.

Applying Eye Shadow

Once your eyeliner is set, it’s time to pull out the eyeshadow brush. Really good brushs are so soft they feel like air on your skin. Good quality makeup brushes make blending in your colors naturally a lot easier than trying to work with hard brushes.

Apply a gentle wash of your lightest color from your eyelashes to your eyebrows. Brush up and away from the center of your face and blend the color out really well on either side.

Next, apply your darkest color to the crease at the top of your eyelid. This is the trickiest part of eye makeup. Blend the eye shadow really well and keep it narrower on the inside.

Finally, apply your medium accent color from your eyelashes to the crease. Concentrate this color on the outside half of the eye and blend it in well with your light base towards the inside corners of your eyes.

Touch Ups

If you’ve washed out your eye liner after applying your shadowing then touch it up a bit. Be really careful with any kind of touch-ups or reworking because it can quickly turn into a mess or get to the point where your makeup is too thick to look natural. Then the best thing to do is just wash it all off and start over.

Add a little bit of eyebrow color and some mascara for a bolder look if you want. Just remember, sometimes less is more.

That’s it! Classic. Fresh. Natural. Beautiful.

It happens every year. There are always a handful of families who lose everything due to a fire caused by Christmas lights. Here are some tips for buying and stringing up your lights with safety in mind.

Big light displays are nice, but all those Christmas lights add to the strain on the energy infrastructure so be thoughtful and conservative with your energy use.

• Use outdoor lights outdoors and indoor lights indoors.
• Buy a reputable brand and make sure the package is marked with UL or CSA certification. This means the lights have been manufactured according to proper electrical specifications that have been checked by an independent organization.
• Throw the lights away if the cord is frayed, has cracks in the insulation, or is badly kinked.
• Replace burnt out and broken bulbs as soon as possible. Burnt bulbs put more load on the remaining bulbs and can cause them to overheat.
• Keep your lights away from any flamable materials like curtains.
• Be careful not to puncture the insulation with nails, screws, pins or sharp edges or corners.
• All the bulbs should be sticking straight out away from the wiring. Don’t let them rest on the wiring where they could burn through it.
• Artificial trees should be made from fire resistant materials.
• Real trees need to be watered everyday or they can get very dry and become a serious fire hazard. It’s good to keep the temperature around a real tree lower because heat saps moisture away from the tree. Don’t set your tree up next to heating vents or other heat sources. If there are a lot of needles falling from the tree then it’s gotten too dry and has become a fire hazard. This happens especially when it’s been cut too soon and set up for too long.
• If you are running light strings or extension cords out a window or doorway then make sure it can’t be closed to damage the cord.
• Always plug your lights into a powerbar with it’s own breaker. Never plug more than three strings of lights into each other, into the same wall socket, or different wall sockets that are on the same breaker, especially in older houses where the wiring could be old. Check the light wires once in a while and make sure thay aren’t warm at all. If they are, the circuit is overloaded.
• Turn the lights off when unattended, especially if you have pets or small children. Turn them off before you go to bed - you won’t see them anyway.
• Small miniature bulbs are safer than the old fashioned large bulbs. They use the least electricity, and generate the least heat. They’ll save you a couple bucks on the electrical bill too.
• Check all your smoke detectors and buy that home fire extinguisher you’ve been thinking about.
• Have a family fire drill. Write down the plan and practice it.
• Don’t put candles on your tree, or near your tree, or anywhere near anything remotely flamable.

And most important, have a safe and wonderful holiday!

Shine up your dancing shoes and crank the bass up to eleven.

Gwen Stefani has released her second solo album The Sweet Escape and it’s a seriously surreal circus. As it should be. And before you even start wondering, yes, the Harajuku Girls (Love, Angel, Music, Baby) will be on tour with Gwen for this album. The album is full of earth moving bass woven into string arrangements and everything AND the kitchen sink.

For twenty years Gwen Stefani has been crafting her acid imagination into hits, first with No Doubt and now on her own. Even her new baby in May with husband Gavin Rossdale hasn’t slowed her down. It’s just made her wind it up with the sound of music.

Here’s a track run-through:

1. Wind It Up. Yodeling ala The Sound of Music with a hiphop vibe. This song is going to throw you for a loop when you first hear it - and it’s going to make for a crazy live show during the tour. The only question is, can the Harajuku Girls yodel?
2. The Sweet Escape. The title song featuring Akon. You can almost smell the beach in the groove. Put the top down and cruise the strip. 
3. Orange County Girl. Another great cruisin’ groove and a personal reflection from Gwen. Wait until the sun is just starting to set and the street lights spark up before you push play.
4. Early Winter. This song ends the cruisin’ vibe with a nice after dark mellow out. Well, mellow in the Stefani universe.
5. Now That You Got It. If this song doesn’t take over your body and make you stand up and dance then nothing will.
6. 4 In The Morning. Pop?
7. Yummy. (Featuring Pharrell) As odd and eclectic as it gets … without yodeling. A great clubbing song, not for dancing, but for swaying and smoozing.
8. Fluorescent. More pop? 4 in the morning is better. This song doesn’t quite grab you. There’s something missing and it’s just too generic sounding.
9. Breakin’ Up. The death metal synthesizers overdriving the background will create some sense of urgency. Immediately!!
10. Don’t Get It Twisted. The circus we all know and love.
11. U Started It. A nice upbeat tune. And another pop song but with more “Gwen” than the other pop songs on the album.
12. Wonderful Life. Another reflection. A wonderful life? Absolutely it is.

Find out more at Amazon: Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape

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