Karen, Author at Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup - Page 1331 of 1879

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

A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict

Karen

Two Ways to Win $50 in Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush

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  • WINNER: The giveaway is closed now, and the winner is Lisa! Congratulations, Lisa! If you entered but didn’t win this time around, keep trying, and click here to enter any ongoing giveaways before you jet. 🙂

Two ways to win $50 in Tarte blushes

Good morning and happy Saturday, young lady. 🙂 I hope you slept well. I’m pretty stoked about this morning’s giveaway because it features two of my favorite new blushes for spring (or for any other time).

They come to us straight from the Amazon! Okay, not exactly… They’re from the fantastic Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush line of products made with clay from the Amazon, and not only do Blushing Bride (a shimmery rosy plum with flecks of golden glitter) and Tipsy (a matte coral) apply with intense pigmentation, they’re also cruelty free and last all day long.


Blushing Bride


Tipsy

Now without further ado, it’s…

A Makeup and Beauty Blog Giveaway!

  • One (1) Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Tipsy (a $25 value)
  • One (1) Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Blushing Bride (a $25 value)

  • There are two ways to enter, and you can do both of them for two chances to win. First, you can enter by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post, a comment about anything at all, like, have you ever had to wear a uniform to work? Do you have any pictures on your desk? Do you have a favorite beauty product from Tarte? Or would you ever wear flip-flops to work? — you get the idea.
  • Second, you can enter by following me on twitter Twitter @karenmbb and retweeting (RT) the following message:
    • Follow @karenmbb and RT to Win $50 in Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush http://bit.ly/edQDp3

  • The deadline to enter is Sunday, March 6, 2011 at 11:59PM (PT).
  • Entrants must enter using a valid email address and/or Twitter account to win.
  • A maximum of two (2) entries per person — one within the comments at the bottom of this post, and a second entry via Twitter addressed to me @karenmbb.
  • Contest is open to individuals of any country who have reached the age of majority according to their local laws (18 in the United States with these exceptions: Alabama and Nebraska, 19; Mississippi, 21).
  • Tabs and I (heretofore referred to as “T-Money and K-Dawg”) will select one (1) winner at random from the entries either left in the comments at the bottom of this blog post or addressed to @karenmbb on Twitter.
  • The winner will be announced here within 48 hours of the deadline.
  • Void where prohibited by law.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

  • WINNER: The giveaway is closed now, and the winner is Lisa! Congratulations, Lisa! If you entered but didn’t win this time around, keep trying, and click here to enter any ongoing giveaways before you jet. 🙂

Pacifica Took Me There with Tuscan Blood Orange

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Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange Take Me There Gift Set

El Hub and I are coming up on our five-year wedding anniversary (this July!), so I’ve been dropping a lot of hints around him lately about trips I’d love to take and things I’d like to do.


I keep setting these books where I know he’ll see them…

A romantic love trip to Italy would be a dream come true. I’ve been doing a little daydreaming planning on the side (just in case), but it’s hard to narrow things down when a place has so much to see and do.

One of the products I’ve been playing with lately is named after one of them: Tuscany. I’ve been extra enamored with the area this week. ABC Family shares some of the blame for airing Under the Tuscan Sun.

The rest of it goes to the sweet little Pacifica Take Me There set in Tuscan Blood Orange ($18). It comes with travel-size versions of Pacifica’s Tuscan Blood Orange Body Butter and Body Wash, and a full-size version of their Roll-On Perfume. The scent is a spicy blend of orange (blood and mandarin), strawberry and raspberry notes — bubbly, sparkling and fresh. Every time I catch a whiff of it, I get a burst of energy, and my mood gets a boost. Oh, and like all of Pacifica products, these three are cruelty free. 🙂

My skin craves a lot of moisture, and both the Body Wash and Body Butter do a fabulous job satisfying its thirst.

And the Roll-On Perfume is a nice touch… I keep it in my purse and apply it throughout the day to my neck and wrists.

Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange Take Me There Gift Set

Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange Take Me There Gift Set
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Givenchy Naivement Couture: Le Prisme Eyes in Candide Garden

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Givenchy Naivement Couture Le Prisme Eyes in Candide Garden ($56), available now at Sephora. What say you?

Givenchy Naivement Couture Le Prisme Eyes in Candide Garden

For more details on the Givenchy Couture Collection, check out…

Givenchy Naivement Couture Rouge Interdit Lipstick in Candide Tangerine

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Givenchy Naivement Couture Rouge Interdit Lipstick in Candide Tangerine ($29), available now at Sephora.

Would you wear this color? I’m going through an orange lipstick phase right now so my answer is YES, YES, YES!

For more details on the Givenchy Couture Collection, check out…

What’s the Price of Perfection? About $6.50, Thanks to Covergirl Lip Perfection Lipstick

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Cover Girl Lip Perfection Lipstick
Covergirl Lip Perfection Lipstick in Darling on lips

This spring is shaping up to be a memorable one for drugstore lippies, with lips (and wallets) everywhere doing the dance of money-saving joy. First, the long-wearing $10 L’Oreal Infallible Le Rouge lipsticks left their mark; then, the buttery $6 NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams leaned in for a kiss.

But the newest girl in town is a moisturizing lipstick from Covergirl. It boasts a lightweight texture, bold (yet still budget-friendly) color and comes in a whopping 44 shades. Covergirl’s new $6.50 Lip Perfection Lipsticks were designed by Covergirl Global Creative Design Director (and magic makeup maven) Pat McGrath, who’s kinda like the Midas of my makeup world; everything she recommends turns into makeup gold. 🙂

covergirl lip perfection lipstick
Covergirl Lip Perfection in Darling (left) and Soulmate (right)

I like to think of these Lip Perfections as gateway lipsticks for girls who don’t usually like opaque lipsticks. Applying them feels like kissing satin or fresh spun cotton candy, and I know you’ve heard this description before, but wearing them almost feels like I’m not wearing anything at all.

They have a very faint vanilla scent and flavor, which I don’t feel very strongly about one way or the other, but if you’re not a fan of scented lipsticks, it does disappear pretty quickly.

Because lipsticks with thin textures don’t typically last long, I was surprised to get four full hours from these. Better yet, as the color fades, it does so evenly, leaving behind a really pretty stain.

Covergirl gave them something they refer to as their “Silk Therapy Complex” (along with ingredients like olive oil, shea butter and aloe) to make them moisturizing, and supposedly it also helps improve lip moisture after seven days of wear. That sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo to me, but after wearing two of the colors — Soulmate (a creamy mauve) and Darling (a bluesh pink) — off and on for about a week, I don’t detect a difference in my lips… At least they aren’t drier than they were before, which is good enough for me.

Cover Girl Lip Perfection

Cover Girl Lip Perfection
Covergirl Lip Perfection in Darling (left) and Soulmate (right)
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The Silicone Is Gone from L’Oreal EverSleek Frizz Taming Creme Serum, But What About the Flyaway Hairs?

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Well herald the trumpets and release the Kraken! Do my eyes deceive me? I’ve been waiting all my life (okay, more like five years) for a silicone-free drugstore frizz tamer, and it looks like one’s finally here!

L’Oreal’s new $9 EverSleek Frizz Taming Creme Serum is one of seven products in the new L’Oreal EverSleek Sulfate-Free Smoothing System of shampoos, conditioners and stylers released this spring. The serum, which is designed to be applied to wet or dry hair, is supposed to relax rumpled tresses and tame flyaways, making hair frizz-free for up to 48 hours.

However, my hair wasn’t the first thing I thought about the first time I heard about EverSleek. My nose was, and that’s because I’ve had some bad scent-sory experiences with L’Oreal hair products in the past. Some were just too heavily perfumed for my sensitive schnoz, but as it turns out, EverSleek’s fragrance is a relatively restrained light floral and amber that I find warm and comforting. I actually like it a lot.

I also like that L’Oreal didn’t test the stuff on animals, nor does it contain any animal products, so for that it gets two paws up from Tabs.


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Shu Uemura Lash Curler Woes and a Thursday Thank You

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How are you doing, young lady? I hope something nice happened to you this week. I know we talk all the time in the comments, but I’m feeling extra chatty now, so I thought I’d say another hello.

Hello. 🙂

Have a seat. Let me pour you a cup of tea…

Hasn’t the week just flown by? For the most part it’s been a good one for me, with one minor major exception: I can’t find my Shu Uemura Lash Curler.

It’s true what they say — you don’t really know how much you love something until it’s gone (and you completely lose your sh*t).

It wasn’t in its usual place when I went to do my makeup on Tuesday morning. I looked everywhere for it, tearing through the house, panic rising in me with each passing second until BAM! I realized how silly I was being.

Had I lost touch with reality? Was I becoming Ronnie and Sam? It’s just an eyelash curler, after all.

Right?
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