5 Products for All-Day Makeup

Hello hello! I recently had a great question and decided to just turn my answer into a blog post (I promise I read all your emails and comments!). As you may recall, I'm usually out of my house around 9 in the morning and I don't get back until at least after 5, but now that I have meetings to go to sometimes I'm gone from home all day. That means that I have to put a little effort into my makeup choices to make sure that I'm not showing up to my evening meetings looking like a hot mess. Even if you don't work after class, you can still use a few of these tips for special occasions like internship interviews.

Related: Internship Interview Prep

Moisturizer 

This is a tip that my dermatologist gave me back in high school! If you don't start out your makeup routine with moisturizer then your skin might have an issue with your makeup and everything will start to fall apart from there. If you have dry skin and skip moisturizer, your foundation can dry out your skin and then it can get to be itchy and cakey. If you have oily skin and skip moisturizer, your face may actually go into oil overdrive and produce even more oil thinking that your face is dried out, so this is kinda fighting fire with fire. My derm swears by Cetaphil so that's what I've been using every day for the past like decade. I get the one with a little SPF built in because I'd like to avoid cancer thankyouverymuch.

Primer

So I used to think that since I was using moisturizer I wouldn't need primer, until I got my makeup done once and I mentioned how I don't use primer and the girl looked at me as if I said I didn't wear deodorant haha. As you can imagine, now I wear primer too. Last year I was checking out at Sephora and saw a little travel size of the Smashbox color correcting primer and decided to try it out since I've heard a lot about it and I loved it! I felt like my foundation went on so much smoother and it stayed on longer. When that ran out, I decided to just get the Smashbox photo finish primer since I don't really have a problem with redness in my skin so the color correcting wasn't necessary for me. 

On another level, I can't recommend eyelid primer enough! It makes your eyeshadow pop because it brightens your eyelid underneath and evens out the colors from veins on your eyelid. Since I started using it, my eyeshadow is so much smoother and it doesn't crease anymore. And it really helps your eyeshadow last all day without rubbing off after lunch. This plus makeup setting spray will keep your makeup looking the same at 8pm as it did at 8am.

Foundation

Nothing against "drugstore makeup," but I've found that you really do get what you pay for when going to more "professional makeup." I've been using Makeup Forever for a few years now and have noticed that it doesn't rub off as much as when I used a $10 foundation. It's definitely worth it to go in to Sephora and have them help you pick a shade because when I first tried to pick it myself apparently I didn't match my undertones and ended up with a shade that made me look sickly. One of my friends uses Kat Von D and really likes it, if you want to go with a slightly cheaper option. 

Lip Stains

When I was growing up, lip stains were only used for pageants and proms and lipsticks were more of the everyday makeup item. But thanks to Instagram, obviously lip stains are like the shit now. I personally prefer them because I hate how lipsticks will wear off and just leave a lip liner-like ring around my lips as if it's the 90's or something. One thing I have noticed is that they can sometimes dry out your lips so it'll really help if you put on lip balm before the lip stain. And if you lips are dry after you've already put on a lip stain, using a balm on it might make it have a sticky, tacky feeling so I just kiss a napkin and that usually helps. I know it sounds like too much thought, but I really think lip stains are so worth it since they last so much longer than regular lipstick. My absolute favorite is Kylie in Mary Jo K for a perfect red (if you like Mac's Ruby Woo, you'll like this). I know Kylie lip stains sound expensive but if you can get by without the lip liner then you can just get the lipstick and not the lip kit and save like $12! Another one of my favorites is Clueless by ColourPop because it's the perfect neutral color and is pretty cheap. One of my friends also wears Jeffree Star and she loves it. 

Setting Powder and Spray

To be honest with y'all, if I have no plans for after work then I skip the setting powder step just to save time. But on the days where I have a meeting at 6 and want to still look presentable, I'll use this. I love Jaclyn Hill videos but one time I tried using as much powder that she did to "bake" my face and I looked like I had really weird tan lines because it was just too white for me. So if you're a novice makeup user like myself then here's what you can do. Instead of using a beauty blender and packing that on, use a really big fluffy brush and you'll get a lot less powder. It probably doesn't work as well as baking but the setting powder really does help! I use the It Cosmetics setting powder and really like it. It's also nice to have on before you do your eyes so that if you accidentally get mascara smudged you can take that off without ruining everyone.

If I had to pick just one thing off this list and say get this it would be setting spray. One of my coworkers when I was in college introduced me to Urban Decay setting spray and this stuff is life changing! If you have the problem of your makeup coming off on your phone after a call then you'll love this. If you really need your makeup to last all day, spray this on your brushes right before you apply eyeshadow and blush and it will really stay put. Just a little tip though, wait a few seconds after spraying it before you use the wet brush so you don't get too much eyeshadow caked on. But this with a moisturized face, primer, quality foundation, and setting powder has been enough that I could workout in the evenings and still have my makeup last. 

let's be friends!

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Legal Memo Tips

Hi 1L's! If you're stress procrastinating then you've come to the write (ha) place! I know many of  you are dying over your memos, so this post is for you! Unfortunately for me, when I transferred I didn't have enough Legal Writing credits so I got to take it again last semester. Last year when I got my grade for my memo and did pretty well so I figured I'd again share my small expertise and also toot my own horn because I'm pretty excited. As some of you may know, this actually was my second memo to turn in so I feel like I've learned enough to share some tips with y'all.

Related: What to expect on your first legal memo

Researching for your memo

I'm not going to spend too much time going over this because I bet your professor has probably bored you senseless over how to do legal research. But I do have a few tips. One is try to find a law review article over the subject of your memo or even the main case of your memo. This is a shortcut to find lots of relevant cases and have them already explained and analyzed for your.

Most likely your memo will be an objective memo where essentially a higher-up attorney is trying to decide whether or not to take the case, and if they do, how they should proceed. Because of this, you'll want to make sure you give them all of the good and all of the bad information. Say you found a case that you could use to show that your client was definitely acting in self defense when she shot her husband because he was attacking her. That's good for your case, yes, but you should also see if there were any cases that held differently. 

So check to see if there any distinguishing subsequent cases to the one you found, because you don't want to blindside your boss by missing another case that said it definitely wasn't self defense because she took too long after the attack to shoot him. A strong memo has just as many "this is why we might lose" arguments as it has "this is why we should win."

Organizing your cases

For me, this always ends up taking forever. I'm talking I spend like 2-3 hours just figuring out the order of my arguments. First, you'll need to come up with your 3-4 main arguments. Then you'll need to take the cases that you've already found and figure out which ones best fit each argument. After that, rank your arguments strongest to weakest. I suggest you write them in the order of strongest, strong, weakest, stronger so that you begin and end on your two strongest points but bury your weakest one in the middle. 

Whatever order your cases end up in, you'll need to think of how each case connects to the one before and the one after it. This can get hard because sometimes a case relates a little bit to two other cases, but it won't fit in to the order of your arguments, so you have to do a little re-arragning. It's really important, though, because doing this helps make your memo flow in one direction rather than jump around from argument to argument. 

Make strong arguments

Try to find cases with similar facts, and then discuss their relevant facts, what the court decided on those facts (the holding) and why the court decided that way (the reasoning). Make sure that you also discuss the similarities between your case and the old cases, the differences between your case and the old cases, the facts that support your client's and their opponent's arguments, reasons that support your client's and their opponent's arguments, and what will happen if your court applies the law of that case to your case. You should also try to figure out what the opposing counsel will argue and come up with a rebuttal. 

Have a check list

Here's my typical checklist.

• Met page minimum
• Didn't exceed page maximum
• Met case minimum
• Didn't exceed case maximum
• Formatted to correct font type, font size, headings, page numbering, and paragraph order
• Every sentence has a cite after it, if it needs it
• Period after Id.
• Every case is italicized or underlined
• Consistency in either italicizing or underlining cases (not both)
• Statute not statue
• No apostrophes—can't, won't, didn't, it's, could've, should've....
• Add weird party names or jurisdictions to dictionary to make sure they're not auto-corrected 
• Auto-correct hasn't superscripted any st, rd, or th in numbers (like 1st)
• All present tense when talking about current case
• No we
• No our
• No your
• Each paragraph transitions from the one before it and to the one after it
• Each paragraph reflects the overall issue

let's be friends!

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