Beauty
Beauty Chat! Big Cats for Chantecaille and the Rise of the Instagram Face

Beauty Chat! Big Cats for Chantecaille and the Rise of the Instagram Face

I like big cats and I cannot lie!

By the way, if you sang those words to yourself with the melody from “Baby Got Back,” PROPS.

Big cats, specifically black jaguars and cougars, decorate the newest fall eyeshadow palettes by Chantecaille. As a feline enthusiast, all I have to say is MEOW!

I’m intrigued by the blue and bronze shadows in the Black Jaguar palette ($75). I’ve been into luminous lids lately, and the colors and finishes seem purr-fect for glowing lids with a soft swish of liner.

The neutrals in the Cougar collection palette (also $75) look so chic, though. I know I’d reach for it often, although I’m not sure how the shades would translate on tan skin — might be a touch too light.

If you had to choose between the two, which one would you take home? I’m going to put both in my cart, along with a jar of Future Skin which I’ve wanted for ages, just for fun.

There are also four gorgeous new Lip Chics, too. I think I would like either of the shades from the Cougar Collection. Both Prairie Smoke (a mocha nude) and Yarrow (a peachy nude), look like colors I would love.

Side note, it’s cray how makeup pricing has increased with the times. Back in 2010 a Lip Chic was $30! Now it’s $48.

On another beauty note, I read a story about the rise of “Instagram Face” in the “New Yorker” this morning, and it bummed me out.

Apparently the accessibility of fillers combined with little-to-no recovery time plus the Instagram algorithm are changing how women want to look, and there’s a movement toward everyone looking like the same “sexy baby tiger” on social media.

How do you feel about this?

I want to be diplomatic about it because hey, if it’s what you like and you have the means, do your thang, right?

But I can’t help but feel sad reading this story because I can also see myself as a young, impressionable preteen or teen, and I know this relentless messaging would make me feel bad about myself.

I realize wearing makeup, changing you hair color, getting a perm or shaving your legs is also altering one’s appearance to fit into a certain idea, but filling in your brows with a pencil to enhance them doesn’t seem as extreme as spending thousands on filler to look like every other Kim K. clone on Insta.

Anywho, these are the beauty-related things that are on my mind right now.

Unrelated, but I didn’t realize it was Thursday until, like, 8 in the morning! Been a crazy week. Connor already caught her first cold of the school year and nobody in our house has been sleeping well.

I’m off to buy chicken soup and Vicks (the Filipino mom’s cure for everything).

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen