Archives for December 2010

Cast Your Vote for Best Makeup or Beauty Product (Overall) of the Year

December 30th, 2010 by Karen 55 Comments

Cast your vote for the best overall makeup or beauty product of 2010

And now, ladies, it’s that time in the show when Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry, lookin’ hotter than any two people should be allowed to look, take the stage to announce the biggest award of the evening…

Best Makeup or Beauty Product of the Year!

LOL! 🙂

What was your pick for the overall Best Makeup or Beauty Product of 2010? Be it drugstore, high-end, hair care, fragrance, lip product, palette or tool, which product gets your personal People’s Choice Award in the overall Makeup and Beauty category? It can be a product you already voted for in the drugstore, makeup collection or skin care categories, or it can be something that didn’t quite fall into one of those three (a fragrance, hair care product, shadow quad, lippie or anything else).

This one’s a toughie, isn’t it? I can’t decide. I loved so many things — Panthera Mascara, MAC Pro Longwear Concealer, NARS Pro Prime Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base, Benefit Bella Bamba, Urban Decay Afterglow Glide-On Cheek Tint… The list goes on and on!

Which makeup or beauty product stood out to you as the overall best of the year? Cast your vote in the comments.

Make sure I don’t miss your vote by including it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Makeup or Beauty Product. That’ll make it easier for me to tally the entries and share the results. After you’ve made your nomination, let me know why you picked that one product over everything else.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. And if you haven’t already, don’t forget to cast your vote for Best Makeup Collection of the Year, Best Skin Care of the Year and Best Drugstore Product of the Year. Let your voice be heard!

Cast Your Vote for Best Drugstore Product of the Year

December 30th, 2010 by Karen 75 Comments

Cast your vote for the best drugstore product of 2010

Drugstore beauty kicked bargain booty in 2010, and the greatness covered the gamut from affordable makeup to skin care to hair products to tools. NYX, Sonia Kashuk, Rimmel, NYC and wet N wild were just a handful of 2010’s affordable overachievers, and they made this bargain huntress dance her “I’m saving MONEY!” dance more than a few times this year (looks like a cross between the robot and the snake).

With big budget retailers like Target expanding their cosmetics departments, the definition of drugstore continues to change. Traditional drugstores like Rite Aid, CVS and Walgreens have bargain competition now, and that’s great news for us.

If your fave budget beauty product came out in 2010, give it your vote. Which drugstore product (Target counts too!) stood out to you as the best of the year? Tell the world in the comments. 🙂

Make sure I don’t miss your vote by including it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Drugstore Product. That’ll make it easier for me to tally the entries and share the results. After you’ve made your nomination, let me know why you picked that one product over everything else.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Help Shape the Future of Makeup and Beauty Blog By Taking This Quick Survey

December 29th, 2010 by Karen 13 Comments

Hi, ladies. I’ve been thinking about redesigning the layout of the blog (the equivalent of giving her a new outfit), and I know you have a great eye for design. I would really appreciate your feedback. Can you spare a few minutes to take a quick redesign survey (eight questions)?

Any feedback, suggestions, wishes or ideas that you have are welcome. I can’t promise to put every suggestion into place, but I can promise to read everything you have to say.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Cast Your Vote for Best Skin Care Product of the Year

December 29th, 2010 by Karen 43 Comments

Cast your vote for the best skin care product of 2010

Skin care products continued to flood the market, counters and store shelves in 2010 because, well, great skin is always in. A few rose to holy grail status, but most quickly faded into the vast nadir of beauty product oblivion.

Two of my top skin-tastic products of the year — Clinique Even Better Clinical Dark Spot Corrector (reduces dark spots to even skin tone on the face, hands and chest) and Korres Quercetin & Oak Eye Cream (I apply a layer of this rich, hydrating superstar beneath my eye makeup) — are now fixtures in my daily skin care routine.

Which one is my favorite? Hmm…that’s a toughie, but I have to go with my little angel from Korres.

Now it’s your turn! Which new skin care product rocked your skin and your world this year? Drugstore or department — doesn’t matter, just as long as it debuted in 2010. Cast your vote in the comments. 🙂

Make sure I don’t miss your vote by including it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Skin Care Product. That’ll make it easier for me to tally the entries and share the results. After you’ve made your nomination, let me know why it got your vote.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

MAC Mickey Contractor Collection: Swatches and Pictures

December 29th, 2010 by Karen 90 Comments

mac mickey contractor swatches

Heya, ladies. Here are swatches and photos of 15 pieces from the new MAC Mickey Contractor Collection. I’ll have face and lip shots coming soon, but for now, take a look at the colors and let me know if there’s anything that strikes your fancy. 🙂

mac mickey contractor all

mac mickey contractor quad
Eyeshadow X 4 in Athma clockwise from shimmery gold bottom pan at the bottom: Vivha, Jaan, Folie and Carbon

mac mickey contractor eyeshadows
Eyeshadows from green pan on lower left: Oomph, Saffron, Marvel and Rani

mac mickey contractor fluidline
Fluidline in Siahi (left) and Ivy (right)
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Making It Big in Bollywood with the MAC Mickey Contractor Collection

December 29th, 2010 by Karen 20 Comments

mac mickey contractor

You might not know this, but Tabs and I are BIG Bollywood stars. Yeah, I don’t know how he got into it, but my obsession with B-wood developed over countless hours spent watching music videos on Namaste America back in the ’90s, usually after I’d get home late from dancing. I couldn’t understand what the singers were saying, but that didn’t matter to me. I was too busy drooling over the colorful costumes, exotic makeup and dizzying choreography.

Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked about the upcoming MAC Mickey Contractor collection, which scoots across North American dance floors and makeup counters January 6 (and internationally some time the same month). The 27-piece release for face, eyes, lips and cheeks, handpicked by MAC Director of Makeup Artistry for India Mickey Contractor, includes limited edition products, as well as repromoted items from MAC’s permanent line.

Thematically the collection is based on Bollywood cinema. It’s a look characterized by performance products — which I’m taking to mean products able to withstand hours of dancing under bright stage lights — natural skin tones and little accents of exotic color. These are products that should then, by that definition, be able to last through a full day of dancing on the set, AND the afterparty.
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Cast Your Vote for Best Makeup Collection of the Year

December 29th, 2010 by Karen 63 Comments

Your vote for best makeup collection of the year

Another year, another gaggle of gorgeous (and some not so gorgeous) makeup collections. There sure were some doozies this year. Innovative products, imaginative color palettes and provocative imagery propelled several ahead of the pack.

Some, like the MAC Fabulous Felines collection, really resonated with me and my cat lady soul (didn’t the three color stories for Felines make such perfectly good sense?). It also introduced me to the awesome MAC Superslick Liquid Eye Liners. Tabs and I still purr when we think about the Fab Felines release…

I also went coco for the chocolate browns and playful pinks in the Chanel Les Tentations de Chanel Holiday 2010 collection, but I think I still preferred Fab Felines overall.

Which collection stood out to you as the best of the year? Cast your vote in the comments. 🙂

Make sure I don’t miss your vote by including it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Makeup Collection. That’ll make it easier for me to tally the entries and share the results. After you’ve made your nomination, let me know why you picked that one collection over everything else.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Bobbi Brown’s Two Pretty Powerful Palettes Pack Plenty of Pink to Spare

December 28th, 2010 by Karen 20 Comments

Does going au natural always mean you have to go naked?

Not according to Bobbi Brown.

Next month, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of her Pretty Powerful campaign, which turned the tables on makeup modeling by turning real women into makeup models, the queen o’ neutrals is launching two new multipurpose palettes with products for eyes, lips and cheeks.

This season, I was inspired to ask my friends — not models — to be the faces for my new campaign. They’re pretty to begin with, but with just a few simple tweaks, they look their absolute, most confident best. That’s pretty powerful.
— Bobbi Brown

The purpose of the two palettes, the first called Pretty and the other one Powerful, was to put a pink twist on Bobbi’s signature natural nudes. She packed both of them with universally flattering shades, and all I have to say is HALLELUJAH! You know I love ya, Bobs, but there’s only so much brown, beige and gray a girl can take. 🙂

I’ve always loved a natural look, but that doesn’t have to mean nude color, and it certainly doesn’t mean washed-out color. The Pretty Powerful Palettes are filled with pink tones that range from soft to warm and even a shot of bright to create a healthy look, because nothing is more beautiful to me than a healthy complexion.
— Bobbi Brown

bobbi brown pretty powerful palette closed
The top of the Powerful palette shown here is black with pink typography; the Pretty one is pink on top with black typography

Both palettes are limited edition, which is a bummer. I don’t ever want to say bye to this packaging. I adore the casual handwritten font on the outside. I think it really sets the right tone considering the products inside. They’re a combination of new and repromoted colors — four neutral powder eye shadows, one powder blush and three lip colors.

The Pretty palette has a selection of lighter and cooler pinks, while the Powerful one broadcasts bolder and warmer shades. I’ve been wearing the products in the slightly more dramatic (well, dramatic for Bobbi) Powerful palette for a couple of days now, and I think I know what kind of girl might like them a lot; she falls for sheer eye makeup and likes to pair it with bold cheeks and lips.
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