Makeup

Eye Wanna! Eye Gotta! Have Benefit’s Two New Annie and Maggie Collection Kits for Fall

July 19th, 2011 by Karen 58 Comments

Benefit’s two new fall eye palettes aren’t just relying on good looks. They’re also travel-sized and perfect for your purse.

Remember those Annie and Maggie Sunday Funday and Scene Queen kits Benefit released last fall? These two new limited edition Eye Wanna! and Eye Gotta! kits ($36 each) have that same kind of convenience in mind, except this time around, the kits keep everything focused on the eyes.

Each one comes with three Benefit Velvet Eyeshadows and two Creaseless Creams, and all of the colors are new to the line.

If you’re in the mood for cool colors or perhaps a bold look, take a peek at the cool-toned blues, taupes and pinks in the Eye Wanna! kit; if, however, you prefer warmer greens, browns and plums for everyday wear, the Eye Gotta! kit might be more your style.

The Eye Wanna! kit includes…

Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Static — A frosty silvery taupe
Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Airbrush — A cool light pink with a sheen finish
Velvet Eyeshadow in Skyline — A cool cornflower blue with a sheen finish
Velvet Eyeshadow in Inked — A dark sapphire blue with blacked undertones and a sheen finish
Velvet Eyeshadow in Deco — A matte plum with a hint of red

The Eye Gotta! kit includes…

Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Flash — A frosty golden peach (kinda like a cream version of MAC Ricepaper)
Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Foiled — A frosty taupe with a touch of plum
Velvet Eyeshadow in Spiced — A shimmery, warm golden bronzy brown (really reminds me of Deeper from the new Urban Decay 15-Year Anniversary Palette)
Velvet Eyeshadow in Purple Haze — A warm plum with tiny flecks of golden glitter
Velvet Eyeshadow in Canopy — A golden khaki with a subtle sheen (my favorite!)

A couple of the Creaseless Creams have a high-shine, frosty finish that borders on loud, but layering the other shadows on top of ’em is one way to tone them down.

As for the powder eyeshadows, they’re my favorite things about these kits. Smoother and softer than Marshmallow Fluff. 🙂 Ah… They practically melt into my skin.

Eye Gotta! kit

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New Hourglass Film Noir Lash Lacquer Nails the Color, But the Formula Could Use Some Help

July 18th, 2011 by Karen 43 Comments

hourglass film noir lash lacquer

Hourglass Film Noir Lash Lacquer sure is interesting. I’ll give it that.

In my ceaseless pursuit of products to transform my mousy, stage-fright fringe into the lash equivalent of Cher on tour (complete with crazy wigs and pyrotechnics), I’ve tried a lot of different mascaras, but I can safely say I’ve never tried one quite like this.

Here's lookin' at you, kid Lash Lacquer comes in a single shade, inky black Kohl. Not quite a mascara, Hourglass says it does for lashes what top coat does for nails (at least one of the things), giving them an almost wet look that’s supposed to ramp up the intensity of bare lashes and other mascaras when layered on top. Ya know, the old false lash look.

Basically, it’s supposed to perform like a thickening, jet black liquid mascara top coat that you apply with a brush. The brush, incidentally, looks like a nail polish brush, and it’s supposed to be used kinda like one, too, held horizontally, with each lash painted one by one.

For the most dramatic affect, pair it with a lengthening mascara, rather than a thickening mascara. I tried it with several lengthening mascaras (including Hourglass Film Noir), and basically got same effect with all of them. In these pictures I applied it over one layer of my current lengthening mascara crush, Urban Decay Cannonball.

hourglass film noir lash lacquer

hourglass film noir lash lacquer brush
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Great Wear Time and Hydration Give $8 L’Oreal Le Gloss the Win

July 17th, 2011 by Karen 35 Comments

Okay, so you know those new L’Oreal Colour Riche Le Glosses?

Um…kind of awesome.

They come in 16 colors across a wide range of finishes and different levels of coverage, and they feel fantastic on my lips — smooth, comfy and non-sticky. They also have a very faint vanilla flavor and scent.

L’Oreal gave them argan oil, omega 3’s and vitamin E to condition lips, and I gotta say, these are among the most moisturizing drugstore glosses I’ve ever worn.

I was surprised by how long the color lasts. Wear time is great for a non-sticky gloss. I get about three hours out of them, and they’re even able to survive a snack and a glass of water.

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More Pigment and I Would Have Been Swept Away by These L’Oreal One Sweep Sculpting Blush Duos

July 15th, 2011 by Karen 17 Comments

Interesting, but is it a gimmick or actually an imaginative innovation? Either way, I gotta give it up to L’Oreal for at least trying something new. The contoured brush that comes with each of the four One Sweep Sculpting Blush Duos ($12.95 each) is designed to define and brighten cheeks at the exact same time.

Wait — how’s that?

Well, the compacts for Poppy, Nectar, Flush and Posh come with both a cheek blush and a sculpting powder (to define the cheek bones), as well as a special U-shaped brush to pick up and deposit both products in the same sweep.

Running the concave brush across the pan parallel to the center line loads it up with both colors, one on each side. I was fairly sure I’d end up with striped cheeks (how ’80s!), but the doohickey surprisingly worked.

Sort of.

Nectar (left) and Posh Chic (right)

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Undertones Don’t Interfere with Long-Lasting L’Oreal Extra-Intense Liquid Pencil Eyeliner in Carbon Black

July 15th, 2011 by Karen 19 Comments

Four-leaf clovers, true love, pink diamonds and double rainbows all seem commonplace compared to eyeliners in dark, true black. The landscape is littered with supposedly black liners that, once they’re applied to skin, turn out to have undertones like green, brown and gray.

To put it mildly…that’s annoying, but it’s not a problem for L’Oreal’s new Extra-Intense Carbon Black Liquid Pencil Eyeliner ($9), an honest-to-goodness true black.

This enchanting ebony eyeliner doesn’t just skip on the funky undertones; it also skims across my lash and water lines with ease, where it lasts 10 straight hours, even through a few tears.

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Tarte Glow Your Way to Gorgeous Helped Me Face My Day

July 14th, 2011 by Karen 41 Comments

tarte glow your way to gorgeous

Well, hello, glow! How nice of you to visit. 🙂 Waking up was tough this morning, and I got up feeling frazzled and a little run down.

I decided that some shimmer was in order because it usually picks me up, but since I hadn’t had any coffee yet and wasn’t firing on all cylinders, I knew I should stick to something simple. I reached for Tarte’s new Glow Your Way to Gorgeous Kit ($55, available now exclusively on QVC.com), an eight-piece set with makeup for eyes, lips and cheeks in shades of pink, peach and plum. In addition to makeup, it comes with a couple of brushes and a full-coverage concealer — handy, by the way, when you stay up too late watching brainless reality TV (The Challenge: Rivals on MTV, anyone?) and get up the next morning with KILLER dark circles.

tarte glow your way to gorgeous

Amazonian Clay Blush in Peaceful
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It’s the Creasing with Too Faced Exotic Color Intense Eye Shadow in Cop a Teal That Makes Me Blue

July 14th, 2011 by Karen 44 Comments

One of my favorite things about makeup is how we’re not just allowed to let our moods, whims and temporary obsessions influence our color choices and techniques; we’re actually encouraged to. Heck, that’s a big part of the whole shebang, and along those lines, I’ve been feeling blue…

Not blue in a bad way. Just blue.

I don’t really know why or what triggered it, but for some reason I’ve been liking blue even more than usual, especially blue eyeshadows, which is why I had sky high hopes for $18 Exotic Color Intense Eye Shadow in Cop a Teal, one of 12 shades from Too Faced Cosmetics.

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Too Faced Shadow Insurance Lemon Drop Eyeshadow Primer Wants to Wipe Out Red

July 13th, 2011 by Karen 39 Comments

I’ve been on a culinary kick lately, ya know, cooking more than usual, because as much as I love the frozen food aisle at Trader Joe’s, I think I’ve hit my upper limit for microwaveable bean burritos this year. And all of the time I’ve been racking up at the stove has also led to a startling discovery: lemon zest — the scrapings you get from running a lemon against a grater — that stuff is the muthu truckin’ shiz!

It contains all of these aromatic, flavorful oils that make it a great seasoning for dishes like fish, pasta, salad, and pretty much anything and everything else I’ve been adding it to lately.

I bet if I’m not careful, what is still just a zesty infatuation could explode into a full-blown lemon zest addiction.

And then what? Where would I be?

Oh, I know — probably thinking about lemon zest while I play with the new Too Faced Shadow Insurance Lemon Drop Color Correcting Eye Shadow Primer ($18). 🙂

It’s basically a pale lemon yellow version of the original Too Faced Shadow Insurance, a creamy eyeshadow primer designed to offset discolorations on the lids and extend the wear time of eyeshadows applied atop it.

I’ve long liked the regular version, even though the idea of it isn’t that revolutionary anymore. As far as similar lemony/yellow primers, Benefit makes one called Lemon Aid ($20) that didn’t really work for me, so I wanted Lemon Drop to rock. Plus, I kinda the name. The yellow tints are designed to neutralize redness in the skin.

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