Make-up from Au Naturale

I recently decided to start replacing some of my dodgy China-made makeup from Ulta with potentially less toxic versions.

After doing some research online, I ended up making a small purchase from a Wisconsin-based company called Au Naturale.

Au Naturale boasts a line that is organic, nontoxic, paraben-free, non nano (I confess to not knowing what that means), vegan, and cruelty-free. It is made in the USA.

My package arrived yesterday with more paper and plastic than one might expect from an "all-natural" makeup line (although not more than standard makeup, truth be told); however, the products themselves are remarkably beautiful and effective, comparable in every way to all the mainstream varieties I've tried over the years.

One of the more unique offerings from Au Naturale is their sample-sizes of every powder foundation, blush, and powder eyeshadow, each a steal at $3! It's so nice to be able to try out different colors before making a commitment. The amount of product in each sample is generous; I estimate that each sample will last me well through the summer. There's just something so appealing about small pots of product - the novelty of makeup is much of why I love it so!

Here is what I bought this go-around:

Lip Liner in Primrose, $18 - This is a lovely rose-colored liner that I plan to wear as lipstick. It's very subtle and basically just enhances my own natural lip color for a more polished look.

Sample: Blusher in Pink Lady, $3 - Pink Lady has some brownish undertones and sparkly flecks for a more natural and glowing look. I was expecting something a little more sheer, but I'll have fun with this one until it runs out.

Sample: Powder Foundation in Sand, $3 - This was the most pleasant surprise. Applied with my Shiseido foundation brush, it offers beautiful coverage, especially on the redness around my nose and on my chin. At the same time, it's weightless and doesn't make me look like I'm wearing either powder or foundation! What a coup!

This shipment also came with a free sample size of powder eyeshadow in Wild Indigo. As I'm not really a blue eyeshadow kind of girl, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this one! Either I'll work up my nerve to try it out or pass it on to a friend.

For information about nontoxic makeup, I visited the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetics Database: www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Au Naturale Cosmetics are available at www.aunaturaleglow.com.

Are you going to see "Before Midnight"?

In anticipation of Before Midnight hitting theaters (Friday!), I re-watched the accidental prequels, Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) - that they would be a trio of movies each nine years apart in real and cinematic time was apparently completely unintentional.

I love these movies. First there are the settings: Vienna, Paris, and now Greece. Then there's the dialogue: intelligent without being pretentious, seemingly spontaneous and improvised, even though I read that every word and gesture in each movie was highly scripted.

And then there's Ethan Hawke, on whom I've had a massive crush since 1992 (Dead Poets Society - anyone?), and which persisted even when he looked really scruffy and grungy in Reality Bites, a movie which I saw in the theaters but didn't really "get" until years later (lots of cultural references that went totally over my head at the time).

Anyway. Despite some disappointing reviews (where's the tension now that you know they're together?), I can't wait to see Before Midnight - Jesse and Celine feel like a real love story despite so many improbabilities; such a collusion of serendipity, fate, and romance is pretty out there.

The director Richard Linklater has said that he didn't want any of the films to feel of a particular time, but when I watch Before Sunrise, I can't help but be transported back to 1995 - the grungier fashions, the music, what it felt like to be really young and ambitious with lots of ideas and opinions, a general direction, but without any guarantees that I'd actually get where I was headed.

And then in Before Sunset, I'm reminded how unsettled adult life can feel even with a house and a job and a life partner, or as E.H. said in this interview with The Guardian, "what a meandering road adulthood is".

When I watch the trailer for Before Sunrise, I appreciate how we're all getting older. Celine is a little rounder, Jesse is starting to look a little like Micky Rourke, and everyone's just trying to make it work with their partner, even if he/she does sometimes resort to being "the Mayor of Crazytown".

Just for nostalgia's sake, here are all three trailers together, I'd love to hear if you plan on seeing the most recent installment of the Celine/Jesse love/life story!

book review: Maisie Dobbs

I'm coming at this series backwards. There are ten Maisie Dobbs books, and I just read the most recent, Leaving Everything Most Loved.

Are you familiar with Maisie Dobbs? One of my good friends introduced me to this series about a psychologist and private investigator living in post-World War I England, and I'm so, so glad!

There's a lot I know about Maisie that I gleaned from reading about the series elsewhere, things that were alluded to in the book and that I would have known had I gone about reading in order (ahem). But not knowing Maisie's complete backstory didn't diminish my enjoyment of this story - not at all!

For the better part of a year, I've been looking for a book along the lines of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand which is probably my favorite book from the last, I don't know, five years say.

Something British and - this is where you can see why I had such trouble - as quaint and provincial as it was worldly and broad in scope. In other words, a small English setting with lots going on, characters to root for, and words that transport while also transcending: an escape with universal truths.

In Leaving Everything Most Loved, protagonist Maisie is charged with solving the murders of two Indian women against the backdrop of prejudice, a taboo love story, and her own personal stories-within-a-story that leave no doubt that there will be an eleventh book in this series.

If you're looking for a quick but engrossing springtime read, this is it!

If you'd like to read more about the Jacqueline Winspear, her author page is: www.jacquelinewinspear.com

She also keeps a blog where she writes mostly about the real women who lived during Maisie's time:
www.maisiedobbs.com

Tomorrow: Can you guess which movie I'm dying to see?