Product Reviews

Should You Say Eye Do to Eyeko Makeup?

November 28th, 2014 by Karen 22 Comments

Bangs and a British accent are partly responsible for attracting me to Eyeko makeup.

I desperately wanted to believe that lining my eyes, coating my lashes and filling in my brows with Eyeko products would summon the powers of makeup magic, so that suddenly, one misty morning, I’d awaken with fab fringe and a bangin’ British accent like Alexa Chun, the stylish model/TV presenter/writer and face of the Eyeko brand.

Hey, man, you never know… Stranger things have happened. 🙂

If, one day, I’m pimpin’ Lloyd Christmas hair in my pictures and start a post with, “I fancy a pasty this morning and a spot of tea!” you’ll know the deal.

I’ve been using some of Eyeko’s permanent collection products lately — a couple of their liquid liners, a mascara and a brow filler — and here are a few thoughts…

Visual Eyes Liquid Eyeliner ($19)

This waterproof liquid liner’s thin, flexible felt tip says “meow!” to the part of me that loves kitten flicks and skinny lines (it’s a BIG part). It’s preternaturally precise, but I have to make quite a few passes with it to get the color fully opaque, and that’s a bit of a bummer.

I’ve been using Mocha, the brown shade, but it’s also available in Ebony and Marine.

Eyeko products from the left: Brow liner, Eye Do Liquid Eyeliner, Visual Eyes Liquid Eyeliner, Me & My Shadow in Charcoal and Eye Do Mascara — From the left: Brow liner, Eye Do Liquid Eyeliner, Visual Eyes Liquid Eyeliner, Me & My Shadow in Charcoal and Eye Do Mascara

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Kerastase Carre Lissant Hairstyle Touch-Up Sheets for Hair Do the Dryer Sheet Dance to Fight Frizz

November 26th, 2014 by Karen 18 Comments

Tonight, in Urban Legends of the Beauty World…

Long, long ago in a town, far, far away, a girl did something unfathomable!

It was the night of the big winter semi-formal, and she was getting ready at home. Her date — a cutie, of course — was on his way to pick her up, but her hair was a frizzy mess.

Ding-dong! The doorbell rang downstairs.

In a moment of random panic/fortuitous kismet, the girl grabbed an old dryer sheet from the trash and ran it over the top layers of her hair.

Miraculously, her wild, wayward strands were smoothed! Huzzah!

Or so the story goes…

Well, Kerastase is taking that idea and making it less MacGyver-ish, and more hair-friendly, with their new fancy-schmancy Carre Lissant Hairstyle Touch-Up Sheets ($28.50 for a box of 50).

They’re basically the same idea. Each sheet contains a waxy-feeling, smoothing product to fix fly-aways and frizz, but instead of scenting your mop with Eau de Snuggle Bear, they leave behind a soothing lavender fragrance.

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Tantalizing Trios Await! With the Transformative bareMinerals Ready Convertible Eyeshadow Palette, You Can Take It With You

November 25th, 2014 by Karen 10 Comments

This new $39 Ready Convertible Eyeshadow Palette by bareminerals is a lot like the last Transformers movie…except without the fast-twitch camera cuts, ear-splitting explosions and, ya know, robots.

OK, so now that I’ve thought about it more…it’s actually nothing at all like the last Transformers movie.

But it is like the slogan. 🙂 “More than meets the eye.”

With 12 full-size shimmery eyeshadows that you can pop in and out, this holiday set is something of a quick-change artist. The idea is to place three colors into the smaller mini-palette in the middle of the bigger palette, which you can then slide out and take along with you — you know, for touchups, booty calls, impromptu acts of makeup artistry in airport bathrooms, etc.

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Tag, You’re It, Girl! Go Cremesheen Crazy for Less With the $39.50 The It Girl Trio by It Cosmetics

November 25th, 2014 by Karen 11 Comments

It Cosmetics The It Girl Set Under the Mistletoe — Wearing Under the Mistletoe gloss from the new $39.50 The It Girl Set by It Cosmetics

And here I was, thinking that in order to be an “it girl,” I was going to have to travel to a parallel universe, one where it’s hip to have spinach stuck in your teeth (And it’s always the teeth on the upper left side… Why?!), wear clothes covered in three pounds of cat hair and have an overabundance of hair roots in desperate need of a dye job.

Not so. If the new $39.50 The It Girl Set by cruelty-free It Cosmetics has any say in the matter, all of us can be it girls (or boys!) together.

It Cosmetics The It Girl, $39.50 — The It Girl, by It Cosmetics ($39.50)

“Power to the it girls!” she shouted, before reading the names of the limited edition shades in the three-piece set aloud.

Her feline sidekick appeared disinterested.

“Listen, Tabs,” the girl continued. “There’s pale pink Snow Bunny, pinkish brown Joy to the World and berry Under the Mistletoe. Which of these my-lips-but-better colors do you like best on me?”

The cat sneezed, then spontaneously licked his paw.

“Anyone? Bueller?”

Tabs may not have an opinion on these three sheer, creamy glosses (he’s partial to bling, after all, and none of them are vibrant or sparkly), but I bet RyGos would. 🙂 Because he’s fabulous like that, obvs.

It Cosmetics The It Girl Set glosses from the left: Snow Bunny, Joy to the World and Under the Mistletoe — From the left: Snow Bunny, Joy to the World, and Under the Mistletoe

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Shorty Schwing My Way: theBalm’s Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner Loves Ladies Who Pine for Precise Lines

November 21st, 2014 by Karen 15 Comments

theBalm Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner (4) — Wearing theBalm Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner ($17) on my upper lash lines

Winged eyeliner: making my life harder since the dawn of time.

Seriously, though, why does winged liner, particularly winged liquid liner, make me want to scream into a pillow?

The worst is that moment when the teeny wing you wanted — just a small kitten flick — suddenly morphs into a huge, oversized bat wing that reaches all the way up to your temples, and you have no control over the situation whatsoever.

It’s as if the universe invented winged liner primarily to mock us.

Well, universe, screw you and your plans for makeup mayhem, ’cause I just started using theBalm’s Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner ($17), and I am no longer clutching my chair and rocking back and forth. 🙂

theBalm Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner (3) — LOL, the box! This is kind of what it’s like to hang out with my friends Jen and Cindy.

You might think that a look with thin liquid liner and a tiny kitten flick would be easy, seeing as how you’re not using a ton of product, but oh! — those skinny lines and tiny wings are like the makeup equivalent of open heart surgery. They’re just hard, man.

But Schwing is all about control. The felt tip draws skinny matte black lines with the precision of a fine-tipped calligraphy pen. Hugging lash lines is easy.

theBalm Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner (2) — theBalm Schwing Black Liquid Eyeliner ($17)

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The Sonia Kashuk Holiday 2014 Collection Proves It’s the Golden Age of Luxurious, Affordable Makeup

November 19th, 2014 by Karen 16 Comments

Sonia Kashuk’s Art Deco-inspired holiday 2014 collection might give you ideas…

…ideas like, “Whee! Look at me! I’m a flapper in The Great Gatsby, and I’m doing the Charleston!” Then you start dancing around your office, but you pull an inner thigh muscle when you kick a little higher than you should have, and from that day forward, you rue the day you danced the Charleston in your office without properly stretching beforehand.

The Sonia Kashuk Eye Palette in Deco Starlet ($19.99)

Just an FYI! 🙂

Sonia’s latest limited edition collection does make me want to kick up my heels, it’s true. The seven pieces look totally expensive, but all but one of them are less than $20 each.

Sonia Kashuk Nude Lip Palette in Jazzed Up Nudes — The Nude Lip Palette in Jazzed Up Nudes ($19.99)

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Is Kat Von D’s Star Studded Eyeshadow Book a Beauty Bestseller?

November 18th, 2014 by Karen 21 Comments

Kat Von D Star Studded Eyeshadow Book — Wearing colors from Kat Von D’s new limited edition Star Studded Eyeshadow Book ($55) on my eyes

The first time I saw Kat Von D’s new $55 Star Studded Eyeshadow Book, all cloaked in black with that star pattern on the outside, I thought, “Ooh! It looks like something Slash would wear on his wedding day.”

Imagine my surprise when I opened it and found 24 uber-organized eyeshadows grouped into efficient color-coordinated quads.

I dunno… Chaos just strikes me as more rock ‘n’ roll, ya know?

Each of the four-color subsections includes a base, lid, crease and accent shade, like something you might find over at a more formal, buttoned-up line like Trish McEvoy, but don’t let that fool you — these shadows still have major rawr.

There’s also a helluva lot more glitter. 🙂

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Step Right Up to the bareMinerals Kissing Booth 6-Piece Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss Collection: A Carnival of Glassy, Sheer Color

November 18th, 2014 by Karen 15 Comments

bareMinerals Kissing Booth marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Jezebel — bareMinerals Kissing Booth Collection Marvelous Moxie Lipgloss in Jezebel

Thanks, bareMinerals, for inspiring my latest list with your new $26 Kissing Booth Lipgloss Collection.

I’m calling it “Carnival Attractions That I Absolutely Never Want to Operate.”

At the top of the list, the kissing booth, which, yeah, probably isn’t a good fit for the girl who freaked-the-eff-out when she found out that her (now ex) boyfriend was using her toothbrush (EWWWWWWW!).

Can you imagine the germs exchanged during one afternoon at a kissing booth? Um…no thank you.

Carnival Attractions That I Absolutely Never Want to Operate

The kissing booth — Yuck! I don’t know where those lips have been!

The Ferris wheel — People freaking out in buckets a hundred feet off the ground? I can’t… I just can’t.

The milk bottle baseball game — Oh, hell to the no. How much do you want to bet someone would hit me with a ball?

The carousel/merry-go-round — Make it stop! The music is driving me nuts…

Now, if I could insist that there were only two customers at my kissing booth, El Hub and Tabs (who would get nose kisses, of course), then cool. 🙂 And I’d also want these Kissing Booth Collection glosses around, because their sheer pigments wouldn’t leave bright smooch marks behind.

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