Face It with @MissCooooooool: Makeup tips for hot people who hate New Years Resolutions

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

MissCooooooool

Written by makeup artist @MissCooooooool

___________

This is not a list of resolutions.

I know. The new year started weeks ago. But it’s OK because this is NOT a list of resolutions.

There seems to be this collective sentiment that making resolutions is for the birds. That people who resolve to lose weight, be nice, complain less, and be more awesome at the start of the year will fall off the wagon by February. Sure, most people who make resolutions will not keep up with them, but personally I think that’s a symptom of society’s collective resistance to real change and growth (don’t get me started.) Goals are awesome. Taking a stance against making resolutions because it seems to be what everyone on your Twitter feed is doing is lame, but it seems to be how a lot of you feel so I’ll compromise.

I’ve made a list of beauty things that we as a collective makeup-loving group of beautiful people will NOT do in 2014. They are not-resolutions. It’s easy to follow because all you have to do is NOT do them. How’s that for a compromise, you Resolution-Grinches?

1. WE WILL NOT HAVE DIRTY FACES.

This is number one for a reason. I know too many bitties that don’t wash their faces daily and it hurts me. It breaks my heart. Do not go to bed wearing makeup. Do not forget to wash your face even if you didn’t wear makeup that day. Even if you didn’t wear makeup, the environment has been all up on your face. Wash that gunk off. I don’t care if it’s 4AM and you’ve been out drinking all night and all you want to do is fall asleep on your bathroom floor. Take 5 minutes to wash off that winged eyeliner. Your hungover self will feel that much better about life when you wake up with clean skin.

wash yo face. it's 2014. image from zimbio.com
wash yo face. it’s 2014. image from zimbio.com

2. WE WILL NOT FORGET TO MOISTURIZE.

Start and end your day by moisturizing your skin. And for the love of all that is good in this world, do not use your body lotion on your face. Buy a FACIAL moisturizer. The skin on your face and the skin on your body is very, very different; it must be treated as such. Moisturized skin not only looks better, but feels better, and will hold up better against aging in the long run. Makeup will look much better on well moisturized skin. Moisturized skin is oh so sexy. Imagine you’re a guy and you’re going in to kiss a girl, but you get distracted by the GIANT FLAKES OF DRY SKIN ON HER FACE. Mood killer.

3. WE WILL NOT GO OUT WITHOUT SPF.

Don’t ignore what dermatologists have been telling us about skin cancer and aging effects of the sun. Skin cancer is very real and trust me, having someone cut a chunk out of your skin is not a fun way to spend a day. Plus, fair skin is in, people! A cloudy winter day does not mean that you can get away without putting SPF on your face. There are tons of makeup products and moisturizers that come with SPF in them. My BB cream has SPF 35 and my foundation has SPF 10. Going to the beach? (Lulz, it’s January. I’ve forgotten what a beach looks like.) Goop on at least SPF 30 on your whole body.  And don’t even get me started on tanning beds. I’d rather have my pale skin be wrinkle free in my 40s than attempt to get a tan in my 20s. I’m Irish. I don’t tan and I’ve embraced it.

idiot. image via realclubresorts.com
idiot. image via realclubresorts.com

4. WE WILL NOT AVOID WASHING OUR MAKEUP BRUSHES.

Don’t go more than a week without washing your makeup brushes. Go to MAC, get their brush cleaner, and pick a day each week to thoroughly wash your brushes. Brushes perform better when they’re clean. Your brushes will last longer overall. I have brushes that are going strong after 5 years because I take great care of them. But the real reason you should be cleaning your brushes weekly is bacteria. You might as well apply your foundation with that nasty dish sponge you’ve been neglecting to throw out if you skip washing your makeup brushes. That shit’s gross.

5. WE WILL STOP TOUCHING, PICKING AT, SCRATCHING, AND MUCKING UP OUR FACES.

Don’t pick at your skin. I shouldn’t even have to explain why you shouldn’t. Just don’t. Your hands are gross, they touch gross things all day long. Keep them off your face. Wash your hands before you touch your face. Actually, just wash your hands all the time. It’s just good practice for, you know, avoiding illness and stuff. But it’s also super important for keeping your skin clear and happy. While I’m at it, wipe down your nasty cell phone and change your pillow cases weekly, at least. And as a side note: if you value your fingers in their unbroken state, don’t touch my face or anyone else’s for that matter.

this chick is nearing climax because she doesn't pick at her skin. AND YOU COULD TOO. image via sassisamblog.com
this chick is nearing climax because she doesn’t pick at her skin. AND YOU COULD TOO. image via sassisamblog.com

6. WE WILL NOT KEEP OUR MAKEUP IN THE BATHROOM.

This is a top peeve of mine. A friend of mine kept her makeup on top of her toilet, less than a foot away from where people took shits. Take a moment to think about that. Yuck. The bathroom is a wet, warm place. You know what likes all that steamy air more than you do? Bacteria. You might as well throw a bacteria party in your eyeshadows and gel eyeliners. Steam also breaks down makeup a lot faster than it would normally. Keep your makeup in your bedroom, away from the toilet and away from the steam.

7. WE WILL NOT BE AFRAID TO TRY BOLD LOOKS.

I first tried purple eyeshadow in 6th grade. But all the catty bitches in school were not having it (I saw you bitties whispering about me.) I didn’t care what they had to say, it looked fucking awesome. You want to try blue eyeshadow? I can show you some great looks with electric blue and teal. My next adventure is going to be colored eyebrows, specifically purple eyebrows. (Stanley Tucci in Catching Fire has it goin’ on!) Wear that orange lipstick with pride because you look great. I know some of you might be a bit gun shy with new looks, so I’ll do a post on how to balance bright and bold so you end up looking fierce and not like a clown.

SO HOT
SO HOT image via lovethispic.com

 8. WE WILL NOT FUCK UP OUR EYEBROWS.

Look in the mirror. Do your eyebrows resemble a textbook drawing of sperm? You’ve overplucked. Can you barely see your eyebrows? You need to seek help. Did you shave your eyebrows and get them tattooed on? Stop reading because you are too far gone and I can’t help you. I always recommend that girls find a really good eyebrow waxer/threader and have them shape their brows and then just pluck the strays as they come in to keep a nice shape. Even if your brows are a good shape, don’t underestimate the power of an eyebrow pencil. Well groomed brows can transform your face for the better. I could go on and on about eyebrows so I’ll be doing a post on brows very soon.

Don't end up like this poor dog. image via tumblr
Don’t end up like this poor dog. image via tumblr

9. WE WILL NOT FEEL UGLY.

It kills me when women (and even men) say they look and feel ugly. As cliché as it is to say this, everyone is beautiful. My years of practice with makeup and beauty has lead me to notice and really see everyone’s unique beauty. My goal is to teach people how to use makeup to play up what they have, bring out their specialness, not to adhere to society’s “standards of beauty.” You cannot look like her just like she cannot look like you, so why are you comparing yourself to her? Own your own look. I want to help people shine in their own way.

7 Questions in Heaven with Christopher Michael Jensen

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

7 Questions CMJ

Meet Christopher Michael Jensen, a Twin Cities rapper here to tell you about his favorite three male-named actor, his musical evolution and the grossest thing that’s ever happened to him on a stage.

1. Why did you start making music?

I started really getting into hip hop when I was 13 back in 2000 around the time Napster first came out and my 17-year-old brother was playing a lot of hip hop around me. He was kind of doing some silly rap stuff with his friends, and then I just kind of started writing silly rap stuff, too, just for fun, I guess. Then my brother installed this music program on our family’s computer called ACID that his friend had where you could make beats with pre-existing loop packages. Once I started messing around with that, I started recording songs with our home computer mic. I rapped in front of people for the first time live when I was in 8th grade at my brother’s SnoDaze high school talent show with him and his friends. I just sort of stuck with it, and after a couple years started taking it more seriously. I made a handful of homemade albums. This whole time, too, I just kept digging more and more into hip hop with my brother, buying and downloading all of the classic albums, exploring the underground, going to shows, and learning about the history of the culture. I just became obsessed with it more and more as time went on, so it only made sense that that would become my main thing. It allowed me to express anything I wanted to, so that was really big for me. It seemed like you could do anything with the sound of the music and beats, too, which felt really freeing and exciting to me. The possibilities with hip hop I thought were limitless.

2. If you could be any other three male named celebrity (Johnathan Taylor Thomas, Neil Patrick Harris, etc.), who would it be and why?

Hmmm. I actually Googled three-named male celebrities because I couldn’t think of a lot off the top of my head. Then I came across James Earl Jones and Billy Dee Williams. Star Wars is probably my favorite movie series of all time, so it seems only fitting that I should probably be one of them. Lando Calrissian’s cool, but Darth Vader is sort of the most epic villain of all time, so maybe James Earl Jones. On the other hand, Lando ended up being the one responsible for destroying the second Death Star, which in turn saved most of the main iconic characters from getting blown up on Endor’s second moon, so I would be a pretty big hero in the mythology of Star Wars if I was Billy Dee Williams. Then again, Vader killed Emperor Palpatine, which ended the Galactic Empire, so maybe that was a bigger deal. Alright, James Earl Jones. Yeah, let’s go with him.

james earl jones

3. Describe the music scene where you live.

There’s constantly something going on in the music scene in the Twin Cities. If you want to, you can almost always go to a show somewhere every night of the week. The amount of rappers and artists here is ridiculous, too. It’s crazy, because I just happened to be from the same city that has such a rich hip hop history and is really, really renowned all over the country, and even the world, for it’s great hip hop. Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Eyedea, Doomtree, and others really blazed a trail for independent hip hop, and so now this town is sort of a mecca for it. What’s interesting is I think a lot of people who do rap in the scene kind of got into hip hop because of discovering sort of this “alternative” hip hop that Minneapolis is so known for kind of putting on the map, but I was already rapping before I even knew who Atmosphere and Rhymesayers were, so I already had it in my mind that I wanted to be a rapper. Where I was geographically was just lucky. I worked on music and performed at like talent shows and school events throughout high school, but it wasn’t until I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2009 that I was really like “okay, now I can focus all of my attention on really getting out there in the actual scene and doing music full time.” By that point, I was 22 so I knew I had to start busting my ass to make as many connections as possible and really figure out what networking and doing shows in the scene was all about. The first few people I met in the local scene I learned a lot from in terms of kind of how a show is put together, how promotion works, etc. I used to go to a lot of open mics, too. Once I sort of got plugged in a little bit, I spent as much time trying to put all the pieces together. At the end of the summer of 2011 is when I really fell in with a group of people that were extremely passionate about just living hip hop 24/7, hanging out and freestyling, partying with other artists, going to shows together, and it was that family dynamic I found in the music scene that literally changed my whole life. The community in this scene, or at least pockets of it, are really like a family. I’ve seen some ugliness in the scene, too, but any negative experiences I have come across are far outweighed by the tremendous energy that exists in the Twin Cities hip hop scene to just have fun, connect, and make amazing things happen – there’s truly nothing like it. Virtually all of my friends these days are in this community and that has made a tremendous difference in my day to day life. Not to sound pretentious, but I actually have a hard time explaining it to people who are on the outside and don’t live in this world. It’s very, very unique. Hip hop and just music and art in general are like the core of what bind us all together, so we all share that common factor. It’s beautiful.

4. Who is the one artist dead or alive you would want to feature on a track?

eminem

There’s a lot of people I love and admire in not just hip hop, but all genres of music. But if I had to pick just one, it would probably be Eminem because he’s my favorite emcee of all time, starting way back from when I first started rapping. I spent years scouring the Internet to literally get MP3’s of every song he ever made or did a guest appearance on, and there’s a LOT of those. I dissected his lyricism and rhymes more than any other rapper growing up, and that’s saying something since I pride myself on the expansiveness of my music library. He is a master rap technician with just an unbelievable ability with words, rhyme patterns, and flows. Plus there’s just so many angles of him as an artist that I love: the darkness, the sense of humor, the ability to make songs with so many different kinds of emotions, the anger, the weirdness…I just adore Eminem. For him to leave the kind of mark he has on hip hop and culture in general is something that I really aspire to do myself in my own way.

5. I know as an artist your favorite song probably changes a lot. But if you had to pick, which of your songs is your favorite right in this moment and why?

We’re talking about my own songs, right? Probably “Tie-Dye Sky.” That’s the one that’s gotten the most attention from people it seems like, and the one that’s been the most visible. That track has a really interesting beat produced by Megan Hamilton that speeds up as it progresses, and then sort of slows down again later, and that’s actually pretty uncommon for a rap song to change tempo like that, so it’s unique in that way. Lyrically, I was able to do a lot of cool things with it in terms of flows and rhyming, and it covers a lot of different feelings and emotions, so it sort of encapsulates a bunch of things about me and my life. It also has a chorus I really like where I get to sing, which is something I like to do a lot in my music in addition to just rapping all the time. I know a lot of people who have been really moved and inspired by that track and its message, too, so that’s really touching to me. I couldn’t be prouder of that whole song honestly, and the video I made for it with Elliot Malcolm blew me away when I first saw the final cut of it. Very dear to me, indeed.

6. What is one common theme throughout your lyrical content?

Trying to find happiness in life when faced with so much depression and feelings of loneliness. Being your own person and really trying to follow your dreams and making them a reality despite the odds and not settling for less than that. That’s something that’s been in my raps pretty much since the beginning, mainly because I try to infuse my own feelings and life experiences into my music a lot of the time, and that’s something I’ve had to wrestle with internally for years and years.

7. What’s the grossest thing that’s ever happened during a live show?

I can’t think of anything TOO gross, but you know what’s just gross in general? Tonsil rocks. You know, those white particles that form in the back of your throat that sometimes you cough up? If you smear them they have like THE most putrid smell, too. There’s been a few times where I’ve been rapping during shows and I get kind of dehydrated and those things get spit up in my mouth and it’s nasty. So there you go. 🙂

5 reasons the polar vortex is the best thing to happen to winter

Posted on by 20poorandfabulous

polar-vortex-cold-weather-USA-11

I am LOVING the polar vortex. Do nothing and eat a bunch? I didn’t know it was so cold in HEAVEN. Here’s why I’m having the time of my life.

1. Lay in bed and watch Netflix ALL DAY

Are you kidding me? Is this my birthday, Christmas, AND Halloween combined? Check it: Lay in bed, wear whatever crazy combination of sweaters, hot pants and fun socks your heart desires. Throw on a tiara if you want. Paint your face up like Heath Ledger in that Batman movie (I know it’s the Dark Knight u shoulda seen ur face) or like Gaga in her “Applause” video. Scare your roommates with said faces, and then after a good stabbing laugh, invite them into the living room for an afternoon of Netflix. Pick the most disgusting guilty pleasure shows that have ever existed to man and watch them, like Bridalplasty or The Swan. Or maybe you like really good things and don’t waste your time watching the worst humans alive compete for plastic surgery (u suck but whatever). I hear Breaking Bad is good. Also MELROSE PLACE has all the murder, love triangles and personality disorders you could EVER dream of.

You’ve been gifted HAVING to stay indoors under blankets and watch TV. Don’t fuck it up by doing anything else, like productive shit. PRAISE BE TO ARCTICA, GOD OF POLAR WINDS, UNLIMITED STREAMING AND EARLY BED TIMES.

2. Eat whatever you want images

It’s a polar vortex outside! Are you kidding me! High temperatures are in the high -10s! YOU EAT THAT FROZEN PIZZA. You eat it good, and eat it by yourself. After that, eat a bag of chips. Then ice cream. Then an apple because you should eat one healthy thing at least sometimes. But most importantly eat whatever you want because you might need those calories when your ’03 Ford Taurus hits black ice on the highway and sends you careening over the side of a bridge only to be caught in the strong and sexy limbs of a frozen tree. Yes you’re STRANDED  in a car, stuck in a tree, and even though you’ve survived a harrowing once-in-a-lifetime experience, your dad is still gonna KILL YOU for playing Candy Crush while driving. But at least you ate enough pizza and chips beforehand to be able to survive falling off a bridge in a car and being saved by a tree. You’ll be a Facebook star for like 5 hours (suck it, people with cute kids)!!  Pretty sure that’s called living the dream.

3. FUR

Um, if there’s any time to bust out that fur coat your politically incorrect yet fabulously stylish grandmother gave you before she moved into some old person orgy center in Florida, it’s now. I don’t care what that vegan says on Facebook (why are you facebook friends with a vegan). WERK DAT FUR OR DIE A BITING DEATH IN THE FRIGID ELEMENTS.

you could look THIS fabulous in the polar vortex. you kno you wanna
you could look THIS fabulous in the polar vortex. you kno you wanna. GAGA YAAAAAS

4. Social obligations are nil

You know what? You DON’T have to go to your ex-roommate’s new roommate’s boyfriend’s free rock show tonight. Maybe your car battery seriously isn’t working, or maybe it is buuuuuuut there’s no need to push it. Maybe it’s too cold out to find parking and then walk 5 blocks in the hip part of town for drinks because frostbite really DOES set in after 5 minutes! Maybe you’re an alien working for a galactic organization hell bent on taking over Earth and the subzero temperatures don’t affect you. But who’s to say you don’t deserve a couple of quiet nights in? YOU DESERVE IT.

Guilt-free stay-ins? THANKS POLAR VORTEX!!!!

5. Bonding time

The polar vortex is a GREAT way for some extra bonding time with your roommates. Get to know the person who smells your shit in the morning a little better. Do they like Katy Perry? Do they “get” performance art? Have they ever murdered anyone on purpose? Who did they vote for in the last People’s Choice Awards? Throw a pizza in the oven, pop a stale 40, and open up those floodgates, baby.

this is you during the winter vortex. you've never looked happier.
this is you during the winter vortex. you’ve never looked happier.

THANKS POLAR VORTEX!!!