Archives for 2013

Like Butter, These Bargain Glosses Make Everything Better: The $5 NYX Butter Glosses

February 13th, 2013 by Karen 23 Comments

NYX Butter Gloss Peaches and Cream — Wearing NYX Butter Gloss in Peaches and Cream ($5), one of 12 new Butter Glosses for spring 2013

Just in case you were wondering, if you wear one of the new $5 NYX Butter Glosses while eating cinnamon walnut French toast with a heaping scoop of butter, you will not — I REPEAT! — will not experience butter overload.

(As if there were such a thing.)

On my lips, each of these 12 new moisturizing, non-sticky lip glosses feel all smooth and slick like little sticks of butter…but they don’t taste or smell like butter (whew!)

Nope, more like brown sugar and vanilla, yum!

Yes, yum. 🙂

I’ve had mixed luck with NYX lip product flavors and scents in the past, know what I mean?

Not these though. As far as my nose and palate are concerned, NYX nailed these. On a sensory level, these Butter Glosses represent probably the best experience I’ve ever had from the line. Both the brown sugar and vanilla notes are faint, too, just barely there, and dissipate quickly after 1-2 minutes.

One swipe from the doe-foot applicator leaves behind a sheer layer of color and satiny shine, while a second layer ups the coverage to medium.

Either way, these don’t last all that long on my lips. Most of the time I get about an hour.

NYX Butter Gloss Product Shot — From the left: Strawberry Parfait, Eclair, Peaches and Cream, Merengue, Creme Brulee, Peach Cobbler, Tiramisu, Apple Strudel, Vanilla Cream Pie, Cherry Cheese Cake, Maple Blondie and Cherry Pie

NYX Butter Gloss Swatches — Swatches from the left: Strawberry Parfait, Eclair, Peaches and Cream, Merengue, Creme Brulee, Peach Cobbler, Tiramisu, Apple Strudel, Vanilla Cream Pie, Cherry Cheese Cake, Maple Blondie and Cherry Pie

NYX Butter Gloss Strawberry Parfait — Strawberry Parfait

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Milani Ultrafine Liquid Eye Liner: A Tricky Tip Barely Holds These Back, Thanks to a Fantastic High-Shine Finish and a Fabulous $7.49 Price

February 13th, 2013 by Karen 18 Comments

The five new Milani Ultrafine Liquid Eye Liners ($7.49 each!)

Can I steal you away this morning for a 15-minute break?

Yes? Cool! Follow me. I’ll drive. 🙂

You and I are SO hitting up that drugstore over there…

Wait — you say you have to fill out those TPS reports first (LAME)? Okay, well, you know where to find me. I’ll be in the beauty aisle, by the Milani stuff, ogling the new Ultrafine Liquid Eye Liners.

I can’t believe they’re less than $10! How did Milani manage to make them pigmented, waterproof (long-lasting), quick drying, AND give them such a high-shine finish?

Milani Ultra Fine Liquid Eye Liner 3 — From the lower left to the right: Black Vinyl, Black Gems, Sparkling Turquoise, Prismatic Purple and Emerald Glisten

Milani Ultra Fine Liquid Eye Liner 5 — Swatches from the left: Black Vinyl, Black Gems, Sparkling Turquoise, Prismatic Purple and Emerald Glisten

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MAC’s Let Me Pop Pro Longwear Paint Pot

February 13th, 2013 by Karen 7 Comments

MAC’s Let Me Pop ($18.50), one of eight new Pro Longwear Paint Pots available now at maccosmetics.com.

New Hot Spot

February 13th, 2013 by Karen 13 Comments

Tabs just discovered that he loves to sleep in the circular base of this side table. Cats are so weird!

Inspired by Illamasqua: A Black and White Speckled Cat Eye Face of the Day

February 12th, 2013 by Karen 46 Comments

Oh, that trip to Sephora the other day with all the dudes milling about? I forgot to mention that I didn’t leave the store empty handed.

Nope. I walked out of there with a scribe…

Scribe? The white liquid liner from Illamasqua?

From the makers of White-Out correction fluid, LOL! No, no, but it looks a little like that, doesn’t it?

I picked it up because of that speckled cat eye look Illamasqua did for their spring 2013 Imperfection collection. Ever since I saw that promo pic, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of dotted cat eyes with black and white…

This afternoon I decided to give it a try, and the first thing I did was line my upper lash lines with MAC Blacktrack Fluidline, because I wanted something with a matte finish to contrast with the liquid liner’s shine.

Then, I did the white dots using Illamasqua Scribe, and finished with some black dots using Milani’s new Ultrafine Liquid Eye Liner in Black Vinyl.

Give it a try! — and if you do, um, save your mascara for the very last step. I made the mistake of doing my dots last and ended up with white liner all over my mascara…

Yup, hot mess.

I was already wearing two coats of Chanel Le Volume and didn’t want to make matters worse, so to clean up the white on my lashes, I painted over it with the black Milani liquid liner I used for the dots (Black Vinyl).
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New Sephora Exclusives From NARS and Make Up For Ever, One of Them in Technicolor and the Other Inspired by Eve

February 12th, 2013 by Karen 24 Comments

The new Make Up For Ever Technicolor Palette ($45), available now exclusively at Sephora

Seriously, dude, I go to Petco so often that when I see the Friskies delivery guy there restocking the gravy display, he gives me the “What’s up?” nod in the cat food aisle.

Like we’re buds. Because we see each other so often. 🙂

In my town, one of the upsides of frequenting the local Petco on behalf of my famously demanding feline employer is that there’s a Sephora right next door.

I know! It’s makeup/cat lady heaven…

So whenever Tabs sends me on a gravy run, I try to swing by Sephora (but please don’t tell Tabs, because I don’t want to hear his speech about personal errands on company time, blah, blah, blah…).

Yesterday Miss Thang (Tabs) was running low on Science Diet, Gravy and Greenies, so after restocking at Petco, I wandered next door to the Sephora to quickly look around, and check if the new Hourglass Ambients had arrived yet (nope!).

It was weird… Most of the time when I visit Sephora, I usually see a few guys either trailing their girlfriends/wives or waiting up near the front of the store with their noses buried in their phones, but yesterday, they were everywhere! — wandering the aisles like lost cattle, most of them with blank looks on their faces.

That’s when I realized: Valentine’s Day. I think there was some present shopping going on there…

Most of the dudes, bless their hearts, looked completely clueless, too. I thought, “Let me help you!” LOL! But I was under a tight schedule and had to get back to the office to give Tabs his daily full-body shiatsu massage.

If I had been able to offer assistance, I would have steered the dudes toward the new $45 Technicolor palette from Make Up For Ever first, with its eight powder shadows, four of them brights and four of them neutrals.

My inner film buff likes the inspiration behind it — the era in cinema when movies were transitioning from black and white to color, circa the 1930s — while my practical side loves that MUFE included classic black, brown, beige and white shades to go with the electric yellow, green, blue and purple.

So flexible! Plus, it comes with a step-by-step tutorial and two eye brushes.

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Unsung Makeup Heroes: Bobbi Brown Jet Long-Wear Eye Pencil

February 12th, 2013 by Karen 18 Comments

I panic a little when I can’t find my stick of Bobbi Brown Jet.

Okay, a lot. I panic a lot. And based on the fact that Jet is almost always out of stock when I stop by a Bobbi counter, I’m probably not the only one.

Jet, a deep, true black long-wearing gel liner in pencil form, has a flat matte finish and sells for $24 as part of Bobbi’s permanent line.

That may sound like a lot for a basic black eye liner, but seriously — Jet is anything but basic. I think it’s easily the best black pencil liner available on any counter now.

The long-running Unsung Heroes series features some of my favorite permanent collection products from a variety of bodacious beauty brands. 🙂

Why do I like it so much?

Because it gets great, great mileage. Like a Prius times 12. We’re talkin’ crazy good wear time on my lash and water lines.

Over the years, I’ve worn (and stockpiled) dozens of black liners, and Jet is the only one that consistently lasts 16 or more hours for me (yes, some days are REALLY long) without getting patchy or breaking up throughout those infernal, eternal days. When it’s on, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Whenever some cruel twist of fate/scheduling forces me to start my day well before dawn (when even the chickens are still snoring) I grab Jet.

Sometimes I’ll see some very minor smudging around hour 12 (!), but still — hour 12? That’s impressive.

And it’s super easy to apply. Jet’s silky, soft formula coasts along my lash and water lines like a private jet at 30,000 feet, and one swipe delivers a dark, dramatic black line.

For smudgier looks, I’ll buff out the edges before Jet sets, which usually takes around 3-4 minutes.

Where Jet doesn’t rock my boat is in super blended looks with powder eye shadows; for instance, when I use an eye pencil as a base for smokey eyes. In those cases, when I need maybe 10-15 minutes to manipulate my products, Jet simply sets too fast.

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February 12th, 2013 by Karen 11 Comments