Its Fashion Flash Monday and this week the host is Kari of Fab Over Forty.  This great site has some of the best make-up videos on the web.  Recently  she uploaded a smokey eye tutorial where I finally learned  the ultimate  way to apply mascara.  I never knew  that the goal  is to  get definition at the roots of the lashes.   Following these instructions made my eyes pop!  Kari also has an extensive review of  spring make-up colors and which  work best  when you’re over 40. 

And if you ever  thought about starting  your own  beauty line, you should read  Lessons of a Lipstick Queen by Poppy King.  When she was  still a teenager in Australia, King  came up with a lipstick line that  had interesting colors in a matte formulation.  Through creative marketing and sheer determination, King built her lipstick into a multimillion-dollar brand.  She shares her journey, offering advice and tips to other would-be entrepreneurs.  For example she offers advice on the best ways to get  finanacing  and do’s and don’ts of working with the media and how to be successful at cold calling.  King  is especially effective when  she  deals with the inner critic and insecurities that  accompany any enterrprise.  She shares  her own anecdotes of self doubts and discoveries  in a way that offers both guidence and comfort.

But perhaps the  most important part of the book  looks at how to bounce back  when  plan A fails.  After several years of great success, King ran into problems with her partners, and  her once vibrant  company began to collapse.  King reinvented herself, came to the US and went to work as VP for creative marketing  for Prescriptives, a  line for Estee Lauder.  Most business books focus on the upward journey and  how to  build a brand.  Lessons of a Lipstick Queen  looks at both sides of a journey and how  to keep going.