By Melissa Stephans

Am I the only person in Los Angeles without fake breasts?  Possibly.

At times–usually during a night on the town–I notice the hoards of artificially enhanced women around me and begin to feel like a 12-year-old girl waiting to grow.  I  try to compensate in other ways–by having better style, makeup, and conversation than your average Angeleno.  Though I’ve fought the good fight, I’m officially worn out and have decided to get Falsies…

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As you guys can probably gather from my past posts, I’m somewhat of a mascara fiend. I have different ones for different occasions and will analyze and over-analyze them to a point of exhaustion on their varying subtleties.

One of my favorites is Dior’s DiorShow Blackout Mascara. Dior makes some fabulous ones, including their original DiorShow (my only gripe about that one is the wand is so thick that I have on occasion totally poked myself with it…not fun). The other thing is the price tag ($24), and some can argue that since you should be replacing yours often (every 2-3 months depending on how much you use) it’s pretty economical to go with a great drugstore brand.

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So, this is my very own original cat eye trick. I started doing this a couple years ago when I didn’t have a lot of time getting ready for work. I also didn’t want to put on a lot of makeup on (I abhore those black streaks when I’m washing my face before bed), so I came up with a quick way where you actually wear less makeup and can still make a noticeable difference. All you need is your favorite mascara, and maybe some liner if you really want to do a little more. I never read anyone else doing it before, so I can go ahead and copyright it, k? K.

I noticed when I read makeup artists applying fake lashes, a lot of them would cut them and add only a short strip to the outer end of their clients lids. Taking the same idea,

1) Apply mascara on ONLY the outermost lashes. It will highlight only those lashes and will noticeably lift them from your other lashes.

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As much as I like talking makeup, I love doing makeup too. Which is probably why my darling friend Ayesha S. asking me to do her makeup last October for her engagement. I was so excited to oblige, but I still get a little nervous when I’m asked to do it for these big occasions. Luckily, Ayesha (like the other brides I’ve done for pre-wedding parties) was really laidback and open to letting me experiment a little. Since she was going to be the center of attention, I liked her idea of doing a smokey liner and still making her eyes pop with accents of whites and lighter grays. I wanted to keep the rest of her makeup light enough so she can save the dramatics for her wedding.

I think she may have found a new favorite lip gloss from the one I used on her that day, which is a barely-there cross between a nude and light mauve color from Vincent Longo’s Lip Vinyl lip gloss collection called “Divine” ($24).

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