Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup

MAC Surf Baby Swatches

May 5th, 2011 by Karen 33 Comments

mac surf baby swatches

Grab your boards, wahines, ’cause it’s time to charge some waves and check out swatches from the upcoming MAC Surf Baby collection.

Let me know if anything moves you. 🙂

MAC Surf Baby Swatches with the flash on NC40 skin

mac surf baby swatches Skin Sheen Bronzer Stick in Billionaire Bronze
From left to right: Skin Sheen Bronzer Stick in Billionaire Bronze, Tan-Tint and Gilty Bronze

mac surf baby swatches suntint
Suntints in Full of Grace, Lilt of Lily and Pink Tinge

mac surf baby swatches Studio Careblend
Studio Careblend/Pressed Powders in Lush-Light Bronze and Gold-Go-Lightly

mac surf baby swatches lipsticks
Lipsticks in Bust Out!; Mocha and Naturally Eccentric

mac surf baby swatches lipglasses
Lipglasses in Girl On Board, Krazy Kahuna and Strange Potion
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MAC Surf Baby Product Pictures!

May 5th, 2011 by Karen 19 Comments

MAC Surf Baby

Surf’s up, MAC Surf Babies!

Just some quick product pictures of the upcoming MAC Surf Baby Collection, which rides onto counters May 26 in North America (internationally, some time in May). 🙂

MAC Surf Baby Skin Sheen Bronzer Stick
Skin Sheen Bronzer Sticks

MAC Surf Baby Skin Sheen Bronzer Stick
From left to right: Skin Sheen Bronzer Sticks in Billionaire Bronze, Tan-Tint and Gilty Bronze
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MAC Surf Baby Eyeshadows

May 5th, 2011 by Karen 5 Comments

MAC Surf Baby Eyeshadows, $15.50 each ($18.50 CDN).

Swatches coming soon!

MAC Surf Baby Cheek Powder

May 5th, 2011 by Karen 7 Comments

MAC Surf Baby Cheek Powder, $28 ($32 CDN). Available in North America on May 26; internationally in May.

Swatches coming soon…

$5 TRESemmÃ© Tres Two Extra Hold Hairspray Brings Back Aqua Net Memories for Me

May 5th, 2011 by Karen 18 Comments

TRESemme Tres Two Hairspray

I was really hoping my run of good luck with drugstore haircare products would continue when I gave TRESemmÃ©’s Tres Two Extra Hold Hairspray a try. It’s supposed to offer excellent hold, frizz control and 24-hour humidity resistance without leaving hair crunchy or stiff. All good things, and I was mostly interested in seeing how well it controlled fly-away hairs.

As soon as I caught my first whiff of the stuff, I knew things weren’t working out. It has that classic old-school hairspray scent — like the way high school bathrooms used to smell during the Aqua Net years.

Ingredients

Alcohol Denat., Hydrofluorocarbon 152A, VA/Crotonates, Vinyl Neodecanoate Copolymer, Octylacrylamide, Acrylates, Butylaminoethyl Methacrylate Copolymer, Aminomethyl Propanol, Dimethyl Stearamine, Fragrance (Parfum), Linalool, Limonene, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Amyl Cinnamal, Hexyl Cinnamal, Citronellol, Geraniol

But if I pinch my nose, I like almost everything else about it — the price ($5 for a big 11-oz. can), how soft and shiny it leaves my hair, how it retains the volume in my style and how it doesn’t flake when I run a brush through it.
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If Essie Summer 2011 Comes Calling, I’ll Be at the Beach

May 4th, 2011 by Karen 51 Comments

essie summer 2011

Yesterday I dug out my old surfing wetsuit and tried to put it on. No. Such. Luck. Not without a gallon of Crisco and a whole lot of prayer.

Le sigh…

I haven’t surfed up here in years, but I’m starting to get desperate. Since I don’t see a tropical trip on the horizon, either I brave these frigid waters again, or I dry up like a land-locked fish.

And the Essie Summer 2011 Color Me Braziliant Collection (six colors; $8 each) is only making things worse. It arrives in June, right around the time I’d love to be out galavanting on a beach vacation.

essie summer 2011
From the left: Brazilliant, Smooth Sailing and Meet Me at Sunset

Inspired by the daring, sexy beaches of Brazil, the collection, with its corals, reds and hot pinks, is also peppered with pretty splashes of light green and blue. I can’t remember seeing a more summery collection from Essie in a while.

Remember last year’s release with it’s dainty purples, pinks, corals and that shot of kelly green? I loved that collection, but I felt it also could have passed for something from spring (which is fine).

But with Braziliant, I didn’t give spring a second thought. These are bikini, beach and summer shades all the way. If last year’s collection was a demure girl in a floral dress sipping tea from a dainty cup, this year’s is that same girl hanging out at the beach in a beaded bandeau bikini. And she’s not afraid to wink at that Adonis with a surfboard.

essie summer 2011
From the left: Too Too Hot, Super Bossa Nova and Absolutely Shore

While there are lots of classic Essie cream finishes in Summer 2011, the collection also plays with glitter and pearl effects. It’s not as out there/full-on crazy as the neons from 2008 and 2009 (LOVE!), but still, it’s nice to see the line doing something I didn’t expect.

Some of the colors look so edgy, I think they’d pass for China Glaze, like Smooth Sailing, a blue topaz with silver glitter; and Super Bossa Nova, a hot pink with pink and purple glitter. I also see it in Braziliant, with its pink, orange and purple pearl pigment shifts. Cool.

Essie’s polishes have always performed pretty consistently for me. Two coats and I’m good, but I should note that the two shades I was looking forward to the most, Braziliant and Meet Me at Sunset, did leave some streaks, and with them I needed three coats to achieve the opaque look I like. The rest of the collection, however, looked great with two.

I only put these on yesterday afternoon, so I haven’t tested for wear time yet, but with other Essie polishes, as long as I use a sturdy base and top coat, I get at least seven days out of them with minimal chipping.

Here’s a look at the swatches. Let me know if you see something you like. 🙂

essie summer 2011 Meet me at sunset smooth sailing brazilliant
From the left: Brazilliant, Smooth Sailing and Meet Me at Sunset

essie summer 2011 brazilliant
Brazilliant
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Doing Laundry Just Got Cooler at This Laundromat: New Tocca Laundry Delicate Fine Fiber Wash

May 4th, 2011 by Karen 16 Comments

tocca laundry wash

It seems so obvious now, but I think I just figured out the real reason why Tabs has always preferred to sleep on the floor instead of the bed. The second I put fresh sheets down washed with the new Tocca Laundry Delicate Fine Fiber Wash, he was like, “Wow, this bed is AWESOME!” He couldn’t wait to roll around on the duvet cover and brush his cheeks on the pillows. Apparently, he has a taste for the finer things, and drugstore laundry detergents just won’t do.

I should have known. I love Tocca, too. The brand is known for their Italian-styled perfumes and candles, but maybe that’s about to change. I started collecting their scents about a year ago, and now I’m hopelessly addicted to a few (I’m in love, love, LOVE with Bianca, in particular).

I can say with 100% certainty that I’ve never been this excited to do laundry in my life. 🙂

The new Laundry Washes are based on four fragrances from Tocca’s collection of perfumes — Stella, Cleopatra, Florence and Touch. They’re sold either individually, as 8-oz. bottles for $15 apiece, or together in the $22 Delicato da Viaggio Laundry Travel Set, which includes smaller 2-oz. bottles of all four scents.

tocca laundry 4

The perfume versions of Stella, Cleopatra and Florence have been in my rotation for a while, and compared to those perfumes, I find the Laundry Washes to have crisper scents. Tocca turned down the warm base notes and turned up the fruity florals at the middle and top. To me, the resulting washes seem brighter and more citrusy.

Stella, my favorite of the four, reminds me of blood oranges (strong citrus notes, as well as lily and freesia). I also really like Florence, with its gardenia, violet and Italian bergamot; and Touch, which reminds me of Hawaiian tiare flowers. My least favorite of the bunch, Cleopatra, which Tocca describes as a grapefruit and cucumber scent, smells more like gum balls to me (odd)!

Tocca designed these detergents for delicates, either washed by hand or using the delicate cycle on a washing machine. The directions call for using five cap-fulls per machine load, or the equivalent of about a quarter of each of the smaller 2-oz. bottles (YIKES!). If you plan to hand wash a small number of items in the sink, however, one or two cap-fulls should suffice.

So far, I’ve used these to wash the bedding, a couple of sweaters, my pajamas and some random underthings in the machine. No really serious stains like grass, dirt or oil to test them against, but I did wash a couple of sweaty, funky-smelling sports bras and socks, and the Washes also took care of those.

tocca laundry bag
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