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Updated: Apr 15, 2021 54 Comments · by

Coffee Break: Ita Kabuki Brush

Coffee Break

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What are your favorite brushes for contouring and other tasks, ladies — and are you loyal to one brand, or do you get different ones? I've always heard amazing things about this NARS brush for contouring, so I got one a few years ago — and I must say it works exactly how I want a contouring brush to work, giving me a light wash of color but in a very concentrated line. Some of the other contour brushes I've found were too easy to overdo it at the start (cut to me frantically trying to blend); other brushes were too big of a brushstroke. I should note that I don't get overly fancy with contouring, and only do it for “next level” makeup (not my fairly minimal daily makeup) — but I do notice that my very round face benefits by a bit of a contour at my temples, under my jaw, and (this is where I end up frantically blending if the initial brush is too dark), in the hollows of my cheeks. (I just suck in my cheeks to make a fishface and brush a line below where my blush with go.) The pictured brush is $55 and has 145 good reviews. NARS Ita Kabuki Brush

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Comments

  1. Eileen Fisher wardrobe

    I have a refined-type friend who looks like a million dollars in what I think is an 80% Eileen Fisher wardrobe. Friend is not that old (early 40s?) and has been doing this since she had kids in her 30s.

    I have a feeling that I can’t pull this off (too pear-shaped = sad version of Bay Area therapist vibe). Or that I’d have so many layers on that I’d resemble an office onion?

    Is this worth some mail-order roulette and does anyone have some advice on attempting this? I could see getting a capsule wardrobe to play with, but many of my fashion adventures are just another swing and a miss.

    • anon8

      Part of what makes her look so polished may be that her clothes are fit and tailored to her body type. Are there certain clothes you already have that make you feel fabulous? Build off of those instead of trying to re-create a look from someone else. There’s nothing wrong with having a uniform of certain types of clothes that make you look great. I would start with a couple of pairs of pants or jeans that work with your body type and go from there.

      For capsule wardrobe ideas, I like Wardrobe Oxygen and sometimes Cap Hill Style does some different outfit inspirations.

    • EB

      somewhat related question – I was in Dillards recently and noticed they have an Eileen Fisher section. Is their EF section any different than Nordstrom’s? EF seems kind of fancy for Dillards to me, but maybe?

    • Housecounsel

      I could never articulate it as well but yes, I, too, look like Bay Area therapist in Eileen Fisher. Is it my pear-ness? Maybe that’s it.

      • Coach Laura

        I would be frumpy in Eileen Fisher because I’m short.

        I recommend MMLafleur for a capsule wardrobe at a similar price point to Eileen.

        Go to one of their pop-up stores, see what you like. Order some and see what works. Then stalk Poshmark for “new with tags.”

    • Anonymous

      I am considered fairly fashionable and love EF! Maybe not 80% of my wardrobe, but a majority. Need to ensure you get the right sizes ( runs large) but the pieces are great. Wonderful for travel and mostly machine wash (no dryer).

  2. Anon

    How do you figure out how much you should be saving vs spending? Our household income is ~$160k pre-tax. Our house is fully paid off, and we put about $40k/year into retirement funds and $5k per year into a 529 for our child’s education. We have fixed annual expenses of $5k in property taxes and $20k for daycare. Beyond this though, our money just kind of…evaporates? We put about $4-5k every month on credit cards, which represents most, if not all, of our expenses not listed above. Some of it is intentional fun spending (travel, at a mid-range price point) but a lot of it is just daily costs of living – everything from car insurance to takeout food to new clothes for our child. On the one hand, I feel like we’re saving well for our income level and we don’t blow money on things – we very rarely buy unnecessary “stuff,” for example. But I can’t shake the feeling that we could be saving more and that we don’t need to be spending $5k/month (excluding housing, retirement and childcare) to live.

    • AnonInfinity

      I’m not sure there are perfect estimates for what you “should” be saving or spending, but one tool that has helped me immensely with this problem is YNAB. I set up various categories and goals to allocate to those categories every month, and it helps me be much more mindful with my spending. I wouldn’t blow money often before using YNAB, but sometimes I would spend on things in a way that didn’t align with my goals. So, I wouldn’t stop to think whether the $100 face cream was really what I wanted to spend my money on, or whether it was something I could spend my money on. Now sometimes I do choose to buy the $100 face cream, but that forces me to decide that I want the face cream more than I want the additional $100 in my clothing fund.

      There is a learning curve for the program, but if it’s really transformed the way I budget and think about money. If you want to use it, I recommend spending plenty of quality time with the website and then Nick True’s videos on YouTube.

      • Anon

        +1 – I use goodbudget but same principal. DH and I save so much more now that we’re forced to take things out of our “fun budgets” as we call them.

      • pugsnbourbon

        +1. I’d always had a lot of anxiety around money and spending. YNAB really made me confront that – but in a good way! We’ve been using it for about 18mos now and it’s really helped us grow our savings and be more mindful about our spending.

    • Abby

      I stress a lot about money unnecessarily. This is extreme, but in 2019 I started tracking our budget in excel after breaking down our spending in 2018 and being a little horrified at all of the numbers added up. I set limits but adjusted as time went on based on what was reasonable. I have a very good idea of where our money goes, and made decisions a few times based on where we were at (i.e. Let’s stay in instead of going out for dinner because we already spent $X for the month and we’re over budget).
      Figuring out where your money goes allowed me to cut expenses I truly didn’t care about, and would give you peace of mind that you’re doing all that you can, while living a lifestyle you enjoy.

    • Anonymous

      First off…figure out whether you really do need to be saving more…. what are your goals? ie how far are you from retirement, do you expect to contribute to college etc. Looking at these costs over time has really helped us balance out the feeling of needing to save, just for the sake of saving.

      Secondly — take a look at some of your big variable expenses and focus on keeping just ONE or TWO inline to a ‘reasonable’ target. For example, food (restaurant+groceries) is our biggest variable, so the easiest to control with some diligence. An expensive hobby was the 2nd. Lots of other ‘variable’ expenses are probably pretty predictable and difficult to change (ie gas, car insurance, etc)

      With those two changes together, we’ve made a huge difference in both our budget and our mindset.

    • Anon

      $5k a month for discriminatory spending seems really high to me. We have nowhere near that amount, but we also don’t have nearly that amount left after paying our mortgage and daycare. In fact, we seem to be saving a similar amount each year even though we still have a mortgage. In your situation, I would start tracking your spending and seeing where the money is going. Once you know where it is going, you can decide if that is how you want to be spending it. For example, maybe you are spending over $1k a month on restaurants. If you get value from that and really enjoy it, maybe it is worth it to you. Or maybe you don’t enjoy it and could significantly cut that amount.

    • nuqotw

      So you’re spending ~ 4500*12 + 5000 + 20000 = 79000 / year and saving ~40000+5000 = 45000/year? That sounds like a 36.3% savings rate. Back of the envelope, it seems reasonable to me. FWIW our HHI is a little lower than yours and our house isn’t paid off. And we have 2 kids in daycare. I think we spend about $4K/mo on things other than housing and child care. I am not concerned about our spending. Life is expensive. We live enough below our means that we feel secure about the present and future. (Okay, full disclosure, I *do* track every single little expense, a habit I started as a student without much income and cannot break even though I know it’s not really necessary now. It helps me sleep better.)

    • anon

      I have a similar HHI and a family of 3. We put about $6K per month on credit cards. About $1500 of that is health insurance and out-of-pocket medical expenses. The rest is utilities, insurance, other bills, gas, food, kids’ activities, stuff for home maintenance and repairs, furnishings, clothes, etc.–so probably similar to your budget on day-to-day (non-medical) expenses. No comment on whether this is how much we or anyone “should” spend though–we’re certainly not putting away 40% of our HHI for retirement.

    • Anon

      I’m in the same boat. I feel like our credit card bills are huge (although still within our means) for no good reason. We rarely eat out, never go to concerts, don’t buy many gifts for each other or for others, pay for our fun travel with points, etc., but I think it must be death by a thousand papercuts (miscellaneous coffee here, random Amazon purchase there). I need to sit down and figure it out more because it baffles my mind that our bills could be so high when our high rent is not even on the credit card.

      • Anon

        Wanted to add that I don’t wear makeup, I don’t get blowouts, I get my hair cut maybe 3 times a year at a place that costs $20, etc. – so sometimes it’s REALLY hard for me to figure out where the money is going. Whenever I do look at Mint, it’s like “Amazon” or “groceries” but still, how can it be literally thousands?

        • Go for it

          Life adds up! If you really want to know where it goes I recommend that you do an Excel spreadsheet for a month and get very, very detailed. For example health and beauty is a category …it’s good to know which part of that is paper products (toilet paper, tissues) then perhaps hair care, oral hygiene,
          personal hygiene ie, feminine & ahem gardening products, body stuff like lotions, razors, shave cream, soap.
          For me it was a real eye opener that prompted a decision regarding if my spending was in a comfortable place in that category.
          Once you’ve done it then you’ll get a benchmark for where you’d like the $ to go, and conversely not to.
          Another category to observe is food.Break out for groceries you cook, take out, and restaurants. This one reveals the level of pleasure in your life~ Often if take out is high and restaurants are low pleasure is lacking.
          Just some thoughts. YMMV.

    • OP

      Thanks all. I did a budget breakdown for January, which I think was a typical month spending-wise, and it was interesting. It was:
      $534 on restaurants
      $874 on groceries
      $147 on gas
      $275 on household (dishwasher repair)
      $409 on fitness (husband’s gym membership for the whole year)
      $425 on misc (mostly my camera repair)
      $973 on travel (plane tickets for a weekend visit to my husband’s parents in a couple months)
      $222 on kid’s clothing
      $100 on charity
      $462 on utilities
      $140 on cleaning service
      $195 on insurance
      $54 on entertainment
      $78 on gifts

      Some of the big expenses like travel were not surprising to me, but I was surprised we spent so much at restaurants and on groceries and that I spent so much on kid’s clothes (I think that was atypical, but it’s good to be mindful of it).

      • Anon

        My guess based on looking at this is that your bigger expenses that are eating up your budget are yearly or quarterly. With some of the budgeting apps, you can distribute something like your husband’s gym membership for the whole year– that may work for you. For us, we had a lot of these expenses, so budgeting for the whole year still did not help us make sure that we had enough money to pay a bunch of yearly expenses in April, etc. We have now tried to really cut down on these once a year expenses or just plan for them in the budget for a month.

        Another thing– you have a lot of miscellaneous one-off expenses– actually about a quarter of your budget. My guess is that these were not included in your initial budget, but they should be. (This is something I struggle with a lot.) Like if you are really trying to stick with a budget you either need to have a column for “miscellaneous” that would cover these repairs, or you need to be really strict about the fact that you spent $275 on a dishwasher repair means you need to spend less on eating out that month, etc.

        • OP

          We don’t really have a strict budget, which is part of the problem! We do try sort of vaguely to keep our credit card spending under $5k. A $275 dishwasher repair isn’t really big enough to affect our other spending, but the month we had to buy a new $1500 water heater we did intentionally cut back on discretionary spending so the total would stay in the same ballpark.

      • anon

        I’m pleased that you looked into the details of your actual spending. You will always have those “lumpy” expenditures (e.g. dish washer repair, travel). And they can add up!
        For our “fixed costs”, groceries and eating out were the largest category after housing/utilities.
        When we were living on one salary and needed to keep an eye on outflows, created weekly menu plan which we continue now. This encourages buying only what you need for the week and significantly reduced our food budget. As for dining out, we pared the frequency back – mostly because we knew what was on tap for dinner.
        A couple of thoughts:
        1. Since you run everything through your credit card, it may be useful to see a full year of spending. My credit card allows me to download the full years’ transactions into excel and I can group/sort do a deep dive (but I like that sort of thing) and know exactly where the money went. Which gives clarity for your true spending/ financial position.
        2. Assuming you spending is $79k a year (20k day care + 5k property taxes + 54k all other expenses {4500*12}, how does this compare with inflows? You indicated 160k pre-tax. Will assume the retirement & 529 savings of 45k is pretax contributions. This brings you down to $115k subtotal. Assuming a 35% total tax (fed/state/local/fica..) on the subtotal, your net cash take home is $75k. So it makes sense you are feeling some anxiety at each month end when money appears to evaporate.

        • OP

          Our total tax rate appears to quite a bit less than 35% (state income tax is low and we have deductions besides retirement, including a dependent care FSA which is deducted before FICA taxes) and it looks like our gross pay was actually $165k in 2019, so I don’t think we’re spending more than we’re bringing in. But you’re right that we’re not really saving much beyond our retirement and 529 savings. We have a healthy emergency fund, so I don’t know that I’m nervous so much as just feeling like $50-60k/year is quite a lot of money to be spending without knowing where it’s going. It was interesting to see the breakdown and I think I’ll do that for every month in 2020 so if nothing else I have a better sense of where our money is going overall.

    • Ellen

      It sounds like you know alot more about your spending then I do. I have been told to save as much as you can whatever is available in the bank after you have put away an emergency fund. Dad says he has put away $50,000 for me, and after I max out my 401k, he takes the rests and invests it for me in the Merill Lynch stock market account. I have to go home around President’s day to give Dad all of these financial statements and IRS forms to fill out, so I will show him your note, but I think you are doing fine. YAY for you!

  3. Monday blues

    Ugh Monday … I had g y n laparoscopic surgery almost 4 weeks ago and woke up to find that I got my first p e r i o d post-operation (one week later than my normal cycle). Didn’t fully realize how awful it would be – cramps, heavier flow, fatigue/crankiness, super small clot.
    Commiseration or first-hand experiences welcome.

    • Anonymous

      Yep, had this happen after laparoscopic surgery for endo last fall. The pain for that first post-surgery period was way worse than any of my regular periods had been.

  4. Anonymous in the Southeast

    I was laid off a few weeks ago and am networking in a town that I recently relocated to (for the job where my position was eliminated). I am so encouraged by the people in my new town and their willingness to network with a complete stranger or mutual contact. I have such a networking meeting coming up with someone who is extremely well connected and basically emailed that they know people at every place in town, so think about the orgs I want to connect with.

    This feels like a Godsend – how do I not blow it? How do I prepare well? I’ve got an hour with this person…

    • Anon

      Have a specific ask. Tell me you’re interested in underwater sculpture of marine mammals, and I will think of everyone I know who’s connected to water, art, and animals. Tell me, “Oh, anything, just something in management/law,” it’s going to be so much harder for me to think of my contacts who might be able to help you.

    • Anon

      Yes. I had something similar (a meeting with a friend working in Private Equity who knew a lot of startups) and I went in without a list of specific startups I wanted to work at. I had some vague parameters (type of role I wanted) but not a list of companies. So the discussion veered into brainstorming (them helping me narrow down what I wanted to do) and though they connected me with some folks later, it was slow and didn’t result in any leads for me. Tl;dr be as specific as you can get. If possible have your first and second choices listed out.

  5. Horse Crazy

    I just had foot surgery, and I have a hard cast coming up to just below my knee. I have a job interview next Friday, and I’m trying to figure out what I can and should wear. I’m not really able to go shopping before then, so I’d like to wear something I already own (or maybe can buy online, but I’m not looking to spend a lot of money). Is a pencil skirt, top, and blazer ok? My normal interview look is a pantsuit, but none of my dress pants will fit over my cast. Is a dress and blazer too casual? And I guess I’ll have to get a pair of flats that are acceptable for an interview – I normally wear heels, but I certainly can’t while I’m on crutches. Sigh…I really really want and need this job, but I wish the interview was a few weeks later.

    • CHL

      What industry is it? I work in corporate banking and it while candidates usually wear a suit, I think what you’re describing is totally fine. If you are in touch with the recruiter before hand, you could mention that you’d usually wear a suit but you have an injury so you’re hoping it will be appropriate. Here, the recruiter would tell the manager that you were aware of the suit-norm and it would be fine. But we also have people just interview in dresses and blazers as well.

    • LaurenB

      I think either the pencil skirt or dress and blazer is fine, and you can also say (if you feel it warrants) “I’m normally a bit more dressed up, but with this foot …” and of course people will be sympathetic and understand the situation.

    • Anonymous

      What about folding up the leg of the suit pant and pinning it? That looks intentional and obviously people will know why you did it? The other options sound fine as well. Whatever you do, make sure you feel confident.

      • Amused

        I think OP indicated that she can’t put on pants over her cast, so this answer kind of cracked me up… I’m now envisioning someone wearing one pants leg with one completely nekkid leg and a wad of folded up pants in between! Hahaha

  6. Horse Crazy

    I have a job interview next Friday, and I’m trying to figure out what I should wear. The catch is that I had foot surgery recently, and I will be in a hard cast that comes up to my knee. My normal interview look is a suit with pants and heels, but none of my pants will fit over the cast, and I can’t wear heels on crutches. Is a skirt, top, blazer, and flats ok, or a dress, blazer, and flats? I am unable to go shopping before the interview, so I’d like to wear something I own or can buy online, but I’m not looking to spend a lot of money. I don’t have any nice flats – can anyone recommend some interview-worthy, comfortable flats under $100?

    • Anonymous

      Honestly, I wouldn’t spend that much money on flats right now unless you otherwise wanted them/would wear them. Just plain black ones that are new (i.e., not scuffed or scratched) would be fine in your situation with a massive cast. Often Target has some that might work.

      • Belle Boyd

        I second this, but only because while you may need flats after you get your cast off, what you end up buying for everyday wear is going to depend a lot on what is comfortable/what you can wear while your foot continues to heal. Put your money there instead of putting it into flats for now.

        Good luck! And I’ve found that most interviewers are really sympathetic and wonderful about injuries — I’m the one with the wrist brace who is also interviewing these days.

        • Horse Crazy

          Thank you both! That makes sense – I just looked on Target’s website and they have flats for $14.99 – I think I’ll just grab a pair of those (it also makes sense because I only need one flat at the moment lol). And Belle, good luck to you, too!!

    • The original Scarlett

      Outside of an extremely formal company or industry, I think that’s absolutely fine. And fwiw, I have never noticed what someone wears to interviews outside of something really extreme or fabulous.

  7. Anonymous

    I have a furniture set in my bedroom and am trying to figure out if I can add a new piece of furniture NOT from the set. We’re adding a TV and had thought about putting a horizontal dresser below the TV, but it’ll be $3K+ to have one made to match my set, so I’m eyeing cheaper options. WWYD?

    • Anon

      Of course you can. The trick is to go noticeably different. Trying to match and failing is the worst. I recommend grabbing a piece you like off FB marketplace for a hundred or so and painting it your favorite color.

      • anon

        Is there a wood furniture store near you where they can custom-paint a plain piece for you? I have located one near every place I have lived–it can be a little tough because small mom and pop type places usually don’t advertise, but it is the most cost effective way to get a cute bookcase or other accent piece. I really like my bright yellow bookcase, but I also had a piece dark stained once to avoid a matchy-matchy look. I suggest searching for “wood furniture” in your area on Google maps and seeing what comes up.

      • Anon

        +1 go with something that is obviously not meant to go with the set. Maybe place with materials so go with something with heavy metal accents or gold+glass or mirrored inlays instead of solid wood. Or even a painted Wood to bring in more colors from your room (I am loving navy and dark green furniture pieces right now).

    • Senior Attorney

      I like to mix painted furniture with wood furniture. Either that, or maybe some kind of metal piece to go under the TV.

      Mixed is a much fresher look than all matching.

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