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
What up, buttercup? Here are swatches and photos of the three new Urban Decay Feminine, Dangerous and Fun Eyeshadow Palettes ($34 each). I’ll have face and eye shots in a few, but for now, check out the colors and holla at me in the comments if you see anything you like. 🙂
Clockwise from the lower left: The Dangerous, The Feminine and The Fun Palettes
The Feminine Palette
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Doesn’t it seem like more and more makeup brands are getting onto the airbrushed bandwagon? — the one filled with colorless loose powders designed to deliver an “airbrushed” look?
There’s MAC Prep+Prime, Make Up Forever HD Powder and Tarte Amazonian Clay Smooth Operator, to name but a few, and despite their different names and packaging, they promise a lot of the same things.
“[PRODUCT NAME] absorbs oil to create a matte finish, sets foundation and concealer, blurs fine lines and reduces the appearance of pores for a soft focus (read: airbrushed) look.”
The latest airbrushing beauty bit to cross my path calls itself Smashbox Photo Set Finishing Powder with SPF 15 ($28), and it airbrushes with the power of — wait for it — zinc oxide!
Zinc oxide?
Rather than being absorbed into the skin, zinc oxide, an inorganic white powder, acts as a physical sunblock, sitting atop the skin where it reflects rays of UVA and UVB light. Generally considered noncomedogenic (meaning it doesn’t block pores), zinc oxide is also a mild antimicrobial believed to accelerate wound healing. Unfortunately, products containing enough of it can look chalky on darker skin tones.
After wearing Photo Set a few times over the past week, there are some things about the product I think Smashbox really did well. First, the packaging — LOVE the wide jar, which accommodates my big powder brush without making a mess.
Second, it handles oil pretty well. With it on, even after a full day, my forehead, chin and nose (the oiliest parts of my face) are only just beginning to shine.
As for the whole soft focus effect thing, well, I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I haven’t noticed anything when I’ve been out and about, but I think I do detect slightly smoother skin in pictures. The effect isn’t as dramatic as it is with MAC Prep+Prime (which, by the way, is frickin’ fantastic), but I think it’s still there.
Urban Decay UD The Fun Palette, $34.
Urban Decay UD The Dangerous Palette, $34.
It appears that man’s best friend at Buxom has been seeing a makeup-loving woman on the side! Good morning and happy hump day, cutie. 🙂 Let’s get Wednesday off to a good start with a peek at the four new Buxom Stay-There Eye Shadow colors for spring 2011 ($17 each), which, like Buxom’s 10 previous Stay-There shades, are named after different breeds of dog (woof!).
What’s a Buxom Stay-There Eye Shadow?
With a plush, lightweight texture, these faithful beauty companions come in 14 waterproof shades. Non-greasy and long-wearing, the Buxom Stay-There shadows are always there when you need ’em, looking out for your pretty peepers with a mineral-infused, paraben-free formula enriched with Aloe and Vitamin E.
Tabs said he likes the idea, but he hopes Buxom considers adding a few feline colors to the line (and would like to offer his kitty modeling services if they do). While they mull that over, I’d like to submit a color suggestion if I may — Mystery Mutt, a shimmery golden brown, named after Shauna, my family’s beloved pooch.
Shauna the Wonderdog!
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Tabs looking slightly menacing in the early morning sunshine.
Like the Yeti of my makeup dreams, I thought the lipstick tree was a figment of my imagination. Many, many times I’ve dreamt of having one strategically placed outside my bedroom window (right next to the money tree, of course), so I could easily pluck a tube off its branches whenever I wanted a new color.
Funny thing about dreams — sometimes they come true, albeit indirectly in this case. It turns out there really is a lipstick tree! It doesn’t sprout lipsticks (DAMN!), but bright red fruit instead.
Apparently I wasn’t paying close attention in upper division botany, because today I found out achiote is a small tree grown in tropical regions of the Americas and Southeast Asia. It bears spiny fruit which contain bright red seeds used to color food, body paint and lipstick, hence its nickname, “the lipstick tree.”
That’s achiote, yo!
I owe this new beauty wisdom to Tarte’s Achiote Cheek Tint & Lip Luster Duo ($35). A two-piece QVC spring exclusive, Tarte packed it with a cream blush and a sheer lipstick, both in the shade Achiote, a shimmery reddish peach.
Did I mention that I love this color because it looks like a universally flattering shade that could work on light, medium and dark skin?
The new Buxom Waterproof Smoky Eye Sticks ($18 each) make me wanna holla ROAD TRIP! New for spring, the line of eight twist-up shadow sticks sports uber-lightweight packaging perfect for throwing into a makeup bag filled with just the bare essentials (there’s even a hidden sharpener tucked away at the bottom of the pencil).
Buxom Waterproof Smoky Eye Sticks from the left to the right: Bow & Arrow, Nunchucks and Silver Sword
Buxom designed the long-wearing shadows to line and shade eyes in flash. I tried three of the eight colors, Bow & Arrow (a shimmery dark green), Nunchucks (a shimmery blueish black) and Silvery Sword (a smokey graysish black), and, using the new Smoky Eye Brush ($17), followed “The Buxom Method” tutorial included with the product.
The Buxom Method
- Gently brush the Smoky Eye Brush against the eye stick tip, then sweep color back and forth on the lid near the lash line and into crease.
- Line the lash line with the pointed tip.
- Soften the edges with brush to get down and smoky.
Buxom Smoky Eye Brush, $17
Buxom Smoky Eye Sticks, $18 each
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