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Product Reviews

The Wacoal 854191 Strapless Push-Up Bra: The Best Damn Strapless Bra I’ve Ever Worn

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What do you get when you combine the words “phenomenal” and “strapless bra” in the same sentence? Well, besides a good laugh? Because that was always the case until I found the subject of this afternoon’s post.

I don’t know how you feel about ’em, but strapless bras for me have always been exercises in misery. Oh, the many times I’ve ducked into bathrooms to hoist up a strapless bra that has somehow worked its way around my belly button…

But lo, magic exists! Just when I began to believe I’d never find a good strapless bra, like it would forever be my personal chupacabra, I discovered the Wacoal 854191 Strapless Push-Up Bra, also known as “the most phenomenal strapless bra I’ve ever worn.”


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Phyto 7 Daily Hydrating Botanical Cream Brought My Brittle Hair Back from the Brink

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One day, while I was cruising the wares at a Pure Beauty store, I happened upon a sales associate with the longest, shiniest, healthiest looking hair I’d seen in years.

It, and the fact that it belonged to a dude, left me speechless for an unusually long pause…

When my brain rebooted, I asked the boy how he got such a fly mane, and he pointed me to the Phyto 7.

Phyto 7 Daily Hydrating Botanical Cream ($26) contains a blend of seven plant extracts — calendula, sage, burdock, willow, soybean, rosemary and althea — pit together for their hydrating and replenishing properties. By maintaining optimum moisture levels, it’s supposed to make hair look smoother, softer and shinier from the very first application.

When I started using this lightweight leave-in conditioner, Google was still in beta. It was more than a decade ago, and I was looking for something to revitalize and repair my dry, brittle hair, which had taken a lot of abuse from heat styling. This was back when I was using a blow dryer every other day to straighten my naturally wavy hair, and it had left me with about a million split ends.

I started applying it to my hair after shampooing and conditioning, and I think it brought my mop back from the brink.

Today I thought, any product worth coming back to again and again over a 10-year period is well worth a special shout-out, and so here it is. 🙂

Directions for use

  1. After shampooing, apply to towel-dried or dry hair.
  2. Place a pea-sized amount of cream into your hand, and apply all over the hair, paying special attention to the ends.
  3. Massage in until fully absorbed, and then style hair as usual.

NOTE: Do not rinse


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Have You Red Anything About the Five Pigmented Lipsticks in the New Dolce & Gabbana Ruby Collection? Would You Like To?

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Wearing Dolce & Gabbana Ruby Collection Classic Cream Lipstick in Ruby

Rodeos everywhere are banning the new Dolce & Gabbana Ruby collection because its five Classic Cream Lipsticks have all the bulls seeing red! 🙂

No two ways about it — these festive and flirty lippies are for ladies who like red, and they’re jam packed with so much rich red pigment that they’re driving up the price of stop signs nationwide!

LOL! Okay, I’ll stop with the jokes. But seriously, these are really red.

They’re $37 each, which is $7 more than usual for one of Dolce & Gabbana’s Classic Creams; the markup pays for their dazzling limited edition Ruby attire.

With these, Dolce & Gabbana essentially created a nuanced wardrobe of red for a five-day week. The first time I swatched them on the back of my hand, I thought they looked too similar, but I could see their differences more clearly once I got them on my lips.

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Swatches from the left: Classic Cream Lipsticks in Ruby, Ultra, Scarlett, Iconic and Devil

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Lipstick in Scarlett
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Oh, It’s Cool — I’m Referring to the New Dolce & Gabbana Femme Fatale Eyeshadow, Of Course

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Sound the alarm and man the battlements, fellow Dolce die-hards, because it looks like someone raided the treasure room!

But wait — from the look of things, they didn’t escape with much. In fact, they appear to have left us something instead, the new quad in the Dolce & Gabbana Ruby holiday collection, an apparent tribute to those of us with a thing for cool-toned taupes and browns.

Like other precious stones, this gem commands a high price, in this case $75, but within its limited edition ruby packaging reside four easy-to-blend powders almost incapable of fallout. The matte grayish brown, shimmery violet taupe, sheer matte black and shimmery white are capable of looking elegantly dressed down one minute, like in the neutral look I’m wearing here, and more exhilarating and dramatic the next, by using the black shade to “smoke it out.”

I feel like the Ruby collection really revolves around the five red lipsticks in the release, which I think are served well by the accompanying blush in Peach and this quad. And the quad doesn’t bestow so much color to the eyes that they end up overwhelming the rest of the look.

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I Draw the Line at Soft Edges with Golden Chanel Ligne Extreme in Or

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I felt a sudden gold rush the first time Chanel’s Ligne Extreme in Or touched my lids!

Team Coco developed this $32 liquid liner, part of Chanel’s holiday 2011 affair, to draw crisp, intensely golden lines with a single stroke, and they bestowed upon it a water-resistant formula to help it last through wintery downpours.

We’ve played together a couple of times over the past two weeks, but the last time things got a tad tense… Or, which means “gold” en français, has a tendency to over-apply.

It has a consistency on the thicker side for liquid liners, but patting or swiping away any excess from the brush before bringing it my eye definitely helps. As long as I remember to do that every time, I’m able to draw fairly smooth, even lines with it — albeit lines with softer edges than I’m used to from most liquid liners. It seems that the combination of a thick formula and a delicate brush make drawing super crisp lines with it a challenge, at least for me.

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Bejeweled for Less with LORAC’s New Bejeweled Gloss Set of Six Glosses for $25

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LORAC Holiday 2011 Bejeweled Gloss

LORAC Bejeweled Gloss for Holiday 2011I must say, LORAC certainly knows how to get the attention of this lipgloss-lovin’ lass.

The six colorful, sparkly glosses in the $25 Bejeweled Lip Gloss Collection, the company’s latest limited edition lipgloss-palooza, don’t just look good; they feel great, too, with a non-sticky, slippery texture that’s just the right thickness for me.

These are the kinds of glosses I’ll reach for when I feel like wearing a bit of glitter on my lips but don’t necessarily want to shimmer in direct sunlight as brightly as Vampire Edward does.

New for the holidays, they deliver sheer-to-medium pigmentation in a long-wearing, hydrating lip formula with a faint brown sugar flavor and scent that I like.

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They remind me of another fab holiday lipgloss, that one also a good value — the Anastasia Kisses on My List kit — except with more pigment and sparkle, to boot.

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Dolce & Gabbana Ruby Collection Blush in Peach: The Pit in This Peach Is a Beautiful Jewel

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If it weren’t for Dolce & Gabbana’s new $55 Ruby Blush in Peach, I’d feel (and kinda look) like a long lost member of the Village People in this coat.

One of seven limited edition pieces in Dolce & Gabbana’s new holiday 2011 collection (coming soon), the matte peachy pink blush evokes a timeless elegance more fitting of shift dresses, structured pocketbooks and patent-leather high heels than faux furs, feathers and Y.M.C.A.

Can’t you just see it with a crisp cat eye and a rich red lip?

SWOON! 🙂

The Dolce & Gabbana Ruby collection for holiday 2011 includes…

(Full reviews and pretty pictures coming soon!)

  • Ruby Lipsticks in Devil 220, Scarlett 195, Ultra 190, Ruby 180 and Iconic 210 ($37 each)
  • Ruby Eyeshadow in Femme Fatale 100 ($75)
  • Ruby Blush in Peach 20 ($55)

Dolce fans might recognize the packaging; it’s the same bejeweled compact from last year’s lovely Lip Jewels. Sure, it tacks $11 on top of Dolce’s already hefty $44 blush price, but it sure is an unmistakeable design.

Gaudy? Maybe, yeah, a little, but I think it’s gorgeous. Like a piece of art resting on a makeup counter (and almost as spendy).

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4 Fast Reviews of Pricey New Skincare Products from SK-II, Lancôme, Estée Lauder and Josie Maran

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4 Skincare Product Reviews

Here are some of the skincare products I’ve put through the old testing ringer lately. Most of them are fairly new, like released within the past couple of months or so, but one of them, Josie’s Argan Cleansing Oil, came out back in summer.

The Cleansing Oil also happens to be the only one of these that sells for less than $80, so these are things up in the premium category, which, one would hope, means that they’re all incredibly awesome, right?

Let’s find out. 🙂

SK-II Skin Signature Eye Cream ($110 for a 0.5-oz. jar)

Luxury line SK-II is hooked on Pitera. It’s the brand’s signature ingredient, and it appears in everything across their entire line.

So what is Pitera?

In the company’s words, it’s a “…singular blend of vitamins, amino acids, minerals and organic acids that work together to help restore the appearance of your skin’s outer layers, by enabling the skin’s natural surface rejuvenation process to function at its prime.”

Ok, but what is it?

Well, it’s derived from yeast fermentation, and its history traces back about 30 years to a Japanese saké brewery…

No, fo’ reals! That’s when a scientist noticed that the hands of workers at the brewery looked surprisingly beautiful and young. A bunch of research later, a team of scientists that had been trying to get to the bottom of it think they figured out why, and they packaged up the secret formula and called it Pitera.

SK-II touts it as a “miracle water” used to regenerate, hydrate and restore balance to skin, and it’s in their new Signature Eye Cream, which hit counters last month.

It costs an arm and a leg, but it’s probably one of the most hydrating high-end eye creams I’ve ever tried. I’m serious — it’s crazy moisturizing! And it layers well beneath makeup, too.

I’m still waiting to see proof of its purported power to eliminate under-eye circles and firm the skin, but my normally parched eye area feels hella hydrated when I’m using this and looks fresh and dewy all day long.

For straight up moisture, this stuff is tops. Of course, it’s also brutally expensive.
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: A-

Estée Lauder Resilience Lift Night Firming/Sculpting Face and Neck Creme ($80 for a 1.7-oz. jar)

The actual application of Estée Lauder Resilience Lift Night brings me great joy. There’s something so sweet, soothing and comforting about the rosy apple scent that reminds me of hugging my mom.

Part of the line’s new Lift Firming/Sculpt Collection of moisturizers and treatments, it’s not the most moisturizing cream I’ve ever used, but I sure do like the fluffy texture and the scent.

It’s supposed to tighten and firm aging skin; that’s the big selling point, but I haven’t really noticed much in either respect. I do like slathering it on at night, though, as part of my bedtime ritual, on account of the scent, the texture, how quickly it absorbs and because it doesn’t leave behind a sticky layer of goo.
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: B
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