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Drugstore Beauty Finds

A $10 Makeup Look: Smokey Taupe, Brown and Violet Eyes with Lilac Lips

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Here’s a full face — eyes and lips — for $8.91

How low can you go? (Sing it!) How lo-oh can you go? Okay, so I had a lot of fun last week trying to put together a makeup look for less than $10, and I think I did an okay job. The whole shebang came to a whopping $9.85, but I think I can do better. 🙂

I gave it another go, this time shooting for something 1) cheaper and 2) more dramatic. I paired smokey taupe/brown/violet eyes with lilac lips. Again, the products are all from N.Y.C New York Color because, obvs, they’re really inexpensive, cruelty-free, and altogether not half bad.


NYC New York Color products from bottom to top: Ultra Last Lipstick in Lilac Dream ($1.89), Brow/Eye Liner Pencil in Jet Black ($1.14), Metro Quartet Eye Shadow in Chelsea Chic ($3.99). Also used in this look but not pictured: NYC New York Color Lengthening Mascara in Jet Black ($1.89)

Since the eyes AND lips are pretty colorful in this look, I kept the cheeks bare (don’t want to overwhelm passers by, LOL!), but a nice blush probably wouldn’t have hurt.

If you decide to give something like this a try but feel that the lilac lips are way too much, you could swap ’em out for something a little quieter, like perhaps a light peach gloss (maybe the $6 Sally Hansen Diamond 12-Hour Lip Treatment in Flawless?).
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Sheers to You, JK Jemma Kidd: The Signature Shadow Palette and Air Kiss Duo Sure Are Sheer

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JK Jemma Kidd Signature Shadows on eyes and Air Kiss Duo Lipgloss in Rendezvous on lips

Don’t you love a bargain? JK Jemma Kidd cranks out a lot of ’em, but if the brand’s new $9.99 JK Signature Shadows and JK Air Kiss Duo had the word “bargain” stamped across the front of their packaging, it would be in very, very sheer ink.

I spotted these a couple weeks ago and was immediately reminded of MAC.

At first glance, don’t the powdered eyeshadows in the Signature Shadow palette look kinda like the colors in the MAC Royal Assets Warm Eyes Palette (Antiquitease Collection)? And Sassy, the pink Air Kiss gloss, looks a little like MAC Nymphette Lipglass, while Rendezvous, a shimmery plummy taupe, looks like it could be MAC Spite’s sparkly cousin.

I thought, “$10 dupes for MAC!?” But, alas, Jemma was just Kidd-ing with these colors. I definitely think these are lovely in their own softly understated way, but if you’re on the market for MAC-like pigments, these may not be what you’re looking for.
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Saturday Surfing, and The Quest for a Dynamite Drugstore Concealer

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Doctor Fealgud, it’s a Code Brown! The patient needs a cup of coffee, stat! She’s going into a decaffeinated stupor!

With cream and sugar, doctor! WITH CREAM AND SUGAR!

Howzit, ladies? Ye olde mental motor blew a head gasket this morning because I was up late last night watching the new Harry Potter movie.

I won’t post any spoilers (outside of the comments) today, but I will say that this one scared me more than the other ones did. If you’ve seen it, let me what you thought in the comments. I didn’t read the book, and I’d also like to hear what someone who read it has to say. I’ve read some mixed reviews.

Weird… You wouldn’t think that sitting relatively still in a movie theater for a few hours could be as tiring as it appears to have been, judging by my dark circles this morning, but it gives me an excuse, like so many things do, to try new makeup.

I’ve been trying to find a good drugstore concealer, and I picked up this one by Almay last week called Smart Shade with SPF 20 ($9) in Medium. It’s the darkest of the three shades it comes in.

The company claims these change color to match your skin tone when they’re applied. The Medium shade definitely does darken as you work it in, but I can’t tell if it’s just darkening as it dries, or actually responding to my skin tone… Either way, it sure is neat to see it change color on the skin.

After using it a few times this week, I think it’s time to set it aside and get back to shopping. I mean, it’s easy to blend, and I like the color changing aspect, but the Medium shade is lighter than I expected and has pinkish beige undertones that lend a gray cast to my skin. Plus, the coverage is just way too sheer for this brown girl.

If you get real deal Holyfield dark circles, you’ll probably need something more opaque, but if you have good luck with beige/pink face products and only need mild coverage, it’s probably worth a try.

Before you Tom Cruise outta here, we can’t let those good waves go to waste. Are you up for a little Saturday Surfing with me?

Saturday Surfing: Sites I Surfed Today


Via Milo Minousky’s Munchkinland

Have fun today. 🙂 Tabs says hi.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

$7 Almay Intense I-Color Trios Take the Guesswork Out of Eyeshadow Matching

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karen of makeup and beauty blog reviews almay intense i-color review browns 001 2

Gosh, I haven’t worn any Almay makeup since — when was that? 1992?

I vaguely remember buying something from the line at a Thrifty’s where I cruised for makeup after school. There was something about the products looking kinda stiff and serious that I still remember today. It wasn’t the kind of makeup my friends and I were wearing to school. It was the stuff “grownups” were wearing to work in tall gray office buildings downtown.

But that was literally decades ago, and the line’s changed a lot over the past few years, becoming, dare I say, cooler. Or, maybe I’ve just gotten older, heh. 🙂

I like the new Almay’s easy, breezy vibe. Think Rite-Aid meets Trish McEvoy at the Bobbi Brown counter. It’s a “we take the guesswork out of it for ya!” approach to drugstore makeup, and apparently the line is also hypoallergenic and cruelty free, which Tabs describes as “hella dope” (his words).

Almay stepped up their color game, too, adding groovy shades like the purple from the Almay Intense I-Color Powder Shadow Trio in Browns 001 ($7).

Browns 001 is one of 12 Almay trios with coordinating, reasonably long-lasting shades handpicked to intensify different eye colors. It has a shimmery, sheer purple for lids, a shimmery brown for the crease, and a frosty beige for highlighting — the three of them picked to enhance chocolate peepers.

almay intense i-color review browns 001
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Ready, Set, Save! The $2 N.Y.C. New York Color Ultra Last Lipsticks

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karen from makeup and beauty blog reviews nyc new york color ultra last lipstick in sugar plum
Wearing N.Y.C. New York Color Ultra Last Lipstick in Sugar Plum

I seriously cannot believe these NYC New York Color Ultra Last LipWear lipsticks are just $2. TWO DOLLARS!

Like Trader Joe’s Two-Buck Chuck, (I think) these are worth way more than their price implies. I’m talkin’ hidden drugstore gems.

I didn’t expect much from the three tubes I bought on a whim last weekend, but what a pleasant surprise. Opaque, pretty colors, a smooth texture, a hydrating formula and a high-shine finish? WOW!

Wear time’s been pretty good (about five hours), and they’ve been able to withstand gin-n-juice sips of water, but they don’t really tolerate meals.

Tabs gives ’em two paws way up for being both drugstore AND cruelty-free, and I give them two thumbs up for not having an (ob)noxious taste or scent (I’m talking to YOU, NYX Beautiful).

To top it all off, they come in 20 shades! The perfectly named Berry Rich is my favorite of the three I got. It makes lips sing sonnets paired with purple eye looks.

But here’s the thing…the bullet’s gotta go. It doesn’t screw all the way down, so the sticks jut out of the tubes; consequently, I keep nicking the sides of the bullets when I put the caps back on, grrr…
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Does the New NYX Eyebrow Marker Score High Marks?

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karen of makeup and beauty blog reviews the nyx eyebrow marker
Wearing NYX Eyebrow Marker in Deep

“NYX wants to mark their territory on your eyebrows…”

Wait, did I really just write that? 🙂

Ouch! Okay, let’s try that again. How about, “Does NYX deserve high marks for their new Eyebrow Marker ($9.75)”?

Available in two shades — Medium (a light brown) and Deep (a medium brown) — the new felt-tip pen lives to fill in sparse eyebrows with a liquid/ink that dries to a matte finish.

Since I have dark hair, I went with the Deep shade, but after the first time I brought it to my brows, I almost set it right back down. Why? Because it’s so sheer — like surprisingly sheer.

Thankfully, it layers well, getting progressively darker with each one. For me, four layers results in a shade that pretty closely matches the color of my hair.

NYX bills Eyebrow Marker as a long-wearing product, and I’ll go along with that, although I wouldn’t wear it to a spinning class. Overall, I think it holds up fairly well under normal conditions and very light sweating (NOTE: it turns slightly gray as it fades), especially if multiple layers are used.

Once it’s dry, it doesn’t smear at all, and I rubbed at it pretty well to test. When it comes time to remove, a little soap and water does the trick.

Now that Eyebrow Marker and I have gotten to know each other, we probably won’t hang out every day. Don’t laugh :), but for the life of me I can’t evenly fill in my left eyebrow with it. Doing my right brow is easy enough (maybe because I’m right handed), but the left is a different story — and it’s an awkward, uncomfortable tale. If you’re more coordinated than I am, and there’s a good chance you are, you’ll probably have better luck with it than I did. Or perhaps if you have better penmanship, LOL!

nyx eyebrow marker review pens
NYX Eyebrow Maker in Medium (top) and Deep (bottom)

nyx eyebrow marker review felt tip
Deep (left) and Medium (right)
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When You Open NYX Casting Call, You May Go Gray: The NYX 10 Color Eyeshadow Palette in Casting Call

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I was really hoping my recent run-in with the NYX Velvet Rope Palette was a harbinger of really rad NYX things to come, but the company’s 10 Color Eyeshadow Palette in Casting Call ($9.75) totally nixed that theory.

With 10 mostly shimmery (there’s one very sheer matte black) powder shadows in shades of gray, silver and one lonely bronze, it’s one of four new palettes recently added to NYX’s “The Runway Collection.”

If you think you’ve seen this palette before…you may have. Are you thinking of the NYX Winter in Moscow Palette ($20)? It had a very similar vibe.

These are colors that would probably look their best on lighter lovelies, with the nuances of the different grays appearing more pronounced than they do on my NC 35 skin. Unfortunately, of the nine shadows I tried on my lids (I didn’t try one of the lighter frosty grays), all of them went on patchy and uneven, so texture may be an issue with these.

I think it was smart of NYX to include a bronze that can work as either a highlighter or a crease color, if for no better reason than to liven up this sea of gray.


NYX Winter in Moscow Palette (left) and Casting Call (right)
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Smell Ya Later, NYX Mega Shine Lip Gloss in Beautiful

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Oh, Beautiful, why do you tease? Yeah, I’m talking to you NYX Mega Shine Lip Gloss in Beautiful ($5.50).

nyx mega shine lip gloss review swatches photos beautiful

It’s not just the newest of 61 colors in the Mega Shine line; it’s also the first NYX gloss I’ve ever tried.

The line gets raves for texture, color payoff, shade selection and price, and I’ve had great luck with NYX lately, so I had crazy high hopes for their glosses.

Maybe too high.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Beautiful’s color and texture — a subtle shimmery pink on the lips, medium weight texture, not too thick or sticky on the lips — but I just can’t hang with the scent. It’s like a preschool nurse’s office, part cherry cough syrup and plastic with a hint of Play Doh (for warmth and complexity), and it even has a little of the same flavor, too.

I tried to stick it out and leave it on my lips to test for wear time this afternoon, but I gave up after about 10 minutes. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Still, it sure looks pretty, doesn’t it? I bet it would look killer with smokey eyes… Maybe if I pinch my nose. 🙂


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