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

NUDESTIX Gel Colour Lip + Cheek Balm: These Glossy, Pigmented Pencils Do Double-Duty

July 20th, 2016 by Karen 15 Comments

nudestix gel color — Four of the eight NUDESTIX Gel Color Lip + Cheek Balms ($24 each)

I had a dream the other night that I left these NUDESTIX Gel Colours out on my desk, and a toddler-sized Connor Claire found them and used them to draw all over my office walls.

But like, honestly, I wasn’t even mad at her, because I thought, “Girl, you’ve got good taste! If I were a kid, I’d probably do the same thing. BRAVO.”

These NUDESIX Gel Colours came out a while back (late spring/early summer, I believe) in eight $24 shades.

They may look like standard-issue lip pencils, but naaaah — they’re much more than that. With these you get an uber-moisturizing, long-lasting, easy-to-blend lip balm (my dry lips totes approve) with a shiny gel finish, and they also double as blush.

nudestix gel color rebel — NUDESTIX Gel Color Lip + Cheek Balm in Rebel (my fave!)

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Future Lady Nerd

July 19th, 2016 by Karen 17 Comments

GURRRRL, you know I had to do it. When I saw the words, “Future Lady Nerd,” at Target, it took me less than two seconds to get that onesie in my cart.

These cute baby clothes are by a new brand — well, new to me — called Baby Cat & Jack.

I’d never seen them at the Target by my house before, and target.com says they don’t even launch until August, so I guess this store got them in early.

They feel really soft and sturdy and pretty well made. And they’re affordable. The onesies are $4.99, and the set with the top and pants is $10.

So often when I see onesies with sayings on them for girls, they’re things like “Born to shop!” which, yeah, not the most inspiring message, but I can get behind something that promotes future lady nerdiness. 🙂 If Connor wants to be an astronaut on one of the first missions to Mars, I’m in total support of that (although I’d miss her terribly if she were 40 million miles away in space, waaah!).

I ended up getting the “Morning Person” onesie because Connor is, like her daddy, a total morning person, and I also got the other set with the — what is that, a bear? Or a cat? I couldn’t resist the print and the matching pants with the ears and the eyelashes on the knees.

Yet another baby outfit I wish I could find in adult sizes. That list is getting alarmingly long, LOL!

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

The Day in Beauty Vol. 23: MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Blush…and One of the Best Movies of 2016!

July 19th, 2016 by Karen 15 Comments

mac bangin brilliant blushes — The five new MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Blushes ($16 each)

Why are the $16 MAC Bangin’ Brilliant Powder Blushes in eyeshadow pots?

For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. I’ve picked one of them up assuming it was a shadow at least half a dozen times. Like the matte red, Never Say Never? — call me crazy, but I kinda wanna put it in my crease.

I dunno… Sometimes I think red smokey eyes can look super cool, but maybe I’ve been spending too much time on Instagram lately.

LOL!

These are so bright and so juicy that they remind me of summer fruit.

Mmm… Watermelon…

These five new blushes have joined the MAC permanent line, along with the rest of the Bangin’ Brilliant band, and after spending the past few weeks with them, I think they compare well to my regular MAC daily blush musts, which are Gingerly and Blushbaby, at the moment, in terms of wear time (they last all day long) and blendability (although you do need to use them with the right tools, but I’ll get to that in a few).

Where they definitely differ is size, obvi, and intensity.

I don’t know how MAC did it, but they made these even MORE vibrant than the boldest and brightest MAC blushes around, which is really super cool. I just wish they came in the regular 0.21-oz. $22 MAC blush pans.

These may cost a little less at $16, but they’re also much smaller (0.05 ounces). Technically, though, since you’ll probably need to use so very little, a small pan like this could still last a year or two, depending on how often you wear it.

But that part of me that likes to buy toilet paper in bulk at Costco still wishes they were bigger, man.

mac bangin brilliant blush swatches — From the left: MAC Never Say Never, News Flash, Bright Response, Bright Pink and Saucy Miss

Lately I’ve been liking very minimal cheek color, so because these are so intense, and because the pans are on the smaller side (which makes it kind of hard to load up a regular-sized blush brush with them…but really, I probably wouldn’t use a blush brush with them anyway because I only need to use a tiny amount, and a big brush head would be excessive), I use a small duo fibre face brush with them instead.

I like the MAC 199 Small Duo Fibre Face Brush ($35). It’s small and fits these pans better than a big blush brush does. I just lightly swirl the brush head in one of the pans, tap most of it off, then buff, ever-so-gently, like whisker kisses on my cheeks.

Then I grab the biggest powder brush I can find and gently run that over my cheeks to slightly take the edge off. The end result looks very natural.

Since these are so bright, I assumed I would look like a resident of crazy clown town, but that totally wasn’t the case! I’ve been wearing the orange shade, Bright Response, on the regular, and it’s completely doable.

But hey, if you are all about the “too much,” that’s cool too. You can easily get there with these blushes.

mac bright response blush — Wearing MAC Bright Response

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The New NARS Sculpting Multiples: Twice as Nice and Coming Soon to Sephora

July 18th, 2016 by Karen 15 Comments

The new $39 NARS Sculpting Multiples are twice as nice, because you get, not one, but two shades in each stick — two shades of creamy NARS Mutiple goodness, which you can wear on your eyes, your cheeks, your lips, or to sculpt and highlight yo’ face.

A regular single NARS Mulitple stick also sells for $39, so these are double-your-pleasure duos.

One of the shades in each duo is a lighter shade for highlighting, and the other is a darker shade for contouring.

I’m not really a big contour-er (is that a word?), but if you are, that’s what the darker shades are for. Me? I’m more about the highlight (although I will also play with the countour shades too). 🙂

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The Best in Beauty From the Boot: The GIVEAWAY Edition! ($148 Value)

July 18th, 2016 by Carolina Braina 51 Comments

*** Thank you for entering, everyone!***
The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations, Becky! (@beekeyperuk). You’re the lucky makeup lover. 🙂 Enjoy your prize.

If you thought that Italians were only good at making cars that cost more than houses, drool-inducing food, shoes, colosseums, towers, and thousand-year-old churches…

Well, I hope my Best in Beauty From the Boot series here on Makeup and Beauty Blog during Karen’s maternity leave showed you that we may also know a thing or two about makeup.

It’s forming neat and tidy queues (there are literally no queues in Italy; just messy groups of people ruled by “survival of the fittest,” LOL), yielding the right-of-way to vehicles or pedestrians, and parking within the lines that we struggle with, and I guess you can blame that on our national artistic soul. I mean, artists do have a reputation for not conforming to rules, right? No one’s perfect. 🙂

But let’s focus on the good things that my country has to offer (always focus on the good!).

You know, I was taught to share the best things in life with friends and family, and I wish I could share some of the things that Italy is known for with you, like homemade lasagna, Valentino pumps, shiny Lamborghinis, or magnificent colosseums…but for shipping and budgetary reasons, it looks like I’m not going to be able to do that.

SORRAY!

How about a whole lot of UH-MAZING Italian makeup instead?!

IT’S GIVEAWAY TIME!

I’ve partnered with Karen to give away this handpicked prize package of some of my favorite Italian makeup (a $148/€134 value) to one lucky reader. I really think you’ll love these products.

PRIZE

I’ve talked about most of these items in my Best in Beauty From the Boot series over the past few months since Connor Claire was born.

Here’s everything you’ll get in the prize:

NABLA Eyeshadow Pan in Caramel
NABLA Eyeshadow Pan in Rust
NABLA Eyeshadow Pan in Desire
NABLA Eyeshadow Pan in Sandy
NABLA Eyeshadow Pan in Glitz
NABLA Eyeshadow Pan in Water Dream
NABLA Liberty Magnetic Palette
NABLA Diva Crime Lipstick in Alter Ego
NEVE Cosmetics Blush Garden in Tuesday Rose
Collistar TWIST Ultra-Shiny Eyeshadow in 106 Bronze
MADINA Exact Color Lipstick
MADINA Prisma Blush in 03
MADINA Prisma Allover Highlighter in 01
Deborah 24ORE Color Mat Eyeliner in 10 Bamboo
PUPA I’M Lipstick in 301 Poppy
WYCON Long-Lasting Liquid Lipstick in 20 Sweet Strawberry

If you’d like to sample some of the best makeup that Italy has to offer, enter this Instagram giveaway now!

TO ENTER

Follow me, @carol_in_a_page, on Instagram
Post a picture of one of your favorite pieces of makeup in the whole, wide universe, and include #winbeautyfromtheboot
When you’re done, come back here and leave a comment on this blog post to let me know. The deadline to enter is midnight (PST) on Sunday, July 31st.

The giveaway is open to readers worldwide, but the prize will ship from me here in Italy, so if you win and you live outside the EU, you’ll be responsible for paying taxes and duties when the prize arrives.

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Makeup and Beauty Blog Monday Poll, Vol. 432

July 18th, 2016 by Karen 31 Comments

You might be wondering, “So what in tarnation is this Monday Poll thing anyway!?”

Well, it isn’t exactly a poll. It’s more of a constantly evolving (devolving?), somewhat random list of questions I’ve been putting out to readers every Monday morning for the past NINE (!) years. (It’s like a kickstart for your brain.) I’ve always enjoyed reading your answers in the comments, and I hope you enjoy reading mine.

What did you have for lunch yesterday?
Dim sum! I haven’t had it in a long time, but my friend Cindy suggested it, so we went to this place in the city yesterday for lunch.

If you haven’t had dim sum before, it’s kind of like tapas, but Chinese style, and they bring them to your table on little carts. There are lots of savory dishes, like different kinds of dumplings — little bite-sized things like potstickers with different wrappings and meats and vegetables and spices inside — and also some sweet treats, too, like fried, sugary dough balls. Yum.

Do you understand this whole Pokémon GO phenomenon?
So, Pokémon is yellow, right? That yellow, cheeky-looking animated… What is he? Or she? Is she a cat? Or a squirrel? I have no idea…

Which way do you part your hair?
On the right so that my side-swept bangs swoop to the left, but I think I might be doing it wrong, because I’ve been falling asleep lately with wet hair, and when I wake up, my hair is sort of parting itself the opposite way.

Have you ever attended Comic-Con?
No, but I’ve wanted to for years. I actually got tickets to San Diego Comic-Con in 2008, I think it was, but something came up. I don’t even remember what it was now, but I ended up not being able to go.

One of these days…

Pigtails on adults: a do or a don’t?
Ooh! I think they’re really cute, but they have to be low pigtails… When they’re too high, I think they look too Baby Spice (for me).

When there’s something strange in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?
Um…the Ghostbusters? Really, though, if there was a ghost in my house, I’d call a realtor (and a priest).

Yeah, I saw Exorcist. I know where this is headed. I’m NOT messing around.

Your turn. 🙂 Just copy and paste the following questions into a comment with your answers. I look forward to reading ’em!

1. What did you have for lunch yesterday?
2. Do you understand this whole Pokémon GO phenomenon?
3. Which way do you part your hair?
4. Have you ever attended Comic-Con?
5. Pigtails on adults: a do or a don’t?
6. When there’s something strange in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?

Good morning and happy Monday! I’m a sleepy girl today, friend… I didn’t get any sleep last night. I just couldn’t turn off my brain. Does that ever happen to you?

What do you have going on this week?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Sundays With Tabs the Cat, Makeup and Beauty Blog Mascot, Vol. 406

July 17th, 2016 by Karen 17 Comments

My best feline friend circa 2008 — My best feline friend, circa 2007-2008

We really don’t know how old Tabs is.

Our best guess is that he’s about 11, or 10.

Our vet thinks that’s about right, but we don’t really know. He looked like he was near the end of his kittenhood when he first came into our life as a stray, and that was around 2007.

He was a kitty model right from the start, as you can tell. He took to the camera right away.

2008

He also lavished me with lurvies from the start. He’s always loved hanging out.

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The Day in Beauty Vol. 22: A Sofa Search and a Meeting With Prince Char-Mint

July 16th, 2016 by Karen 36 Comments

Good morning, gorgeous! Happy Saturday to ya. I hope you woke up with a big smile on your face.

I’m smiling at the moment because I’m looking at freshly painted nails.

YEAH!

I just did my paws with Sally Hansen’s Miracle gel in Prince Char-mint because, obviously, I needed another mint polish in my life. LOL! I’m all about those mint shades.

Prince Char-mint is from the seven-piece Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Summer 2016 collection. There are some pinks in the collection, a peach, a couple of reds, and this bright and cheerful creamy mint, which I’m all about.

I talk about the Sally Hansen Miracle Gels all the time (sorry) because you know I love them. They’re a fantastically good deal for $10 each, so if you’re ever, like, just kickin’ it at the drugstore, looking at candy, emergency ice cream or greeting cards, and you decide that you want to treat yourself to something in the beauty aisle, but you don’t want to spend all of your lunch money on a single nail polish, they’re great. They dry quick, too (about 10 minutes), and last about a week before chips (which is good for me).

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