Makeup

The Korres Vitamin E 10-Color Pencil Kit Is Worth Writing Home About

November 3rd, 2010 by Karen 46 Comments

korres vitamin e 10 color pencil kit review swatches photos pencil tip closeup

Holy wow! That’s a lot of liners. And they’re full size too!

The pencils in the Korres Limited Edition Vitamin E 10-Color Pencil Kit work out to just $3.25 each ($32.50 for the kit). Of course, all of them are green. 🙁

No, not literally. I mean they’re eco-friendly and 100% natural, according to Korres, made with moisturizing Vitamin E and jojoba oil. And considering that eyeliners this size (standard 0.04 oz. pencils) usually go for $16 apiece, the kit’s one of the best holiday bargains I’ve seen this year so far.

Korres included a wide range of pigmented colors in popular shades from their permanent line…

korres vitamin e 10 color pencil kit review swatches photos pencils 2
From left: Long-Lasting Eyeliner in 1 Black, Long-Lasting Eyeliner in 1S Black Soft, Long-Lasting Eyeliner in 2 Brown, Long-Lasting Eyeliner in 4 Green, Soft Eyeliner in 4S Purple

korres vitamin e 10 color pencil kit review swatches photos arm swatches 1
Swatches from left on NC35 skin: 1 Black, 1S Black Soft, 2 Brown, 4 Green, 4S Purple
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The Bobbi Brown Smokey Eye Palette Helped Me Face My Neighbors (and the Day)

November 3rd, 2010 by Karen 40 Comments

Okay, methinks it’s time to stop scaring the neighbors. With last week’s beehive and that other blast to beauty’s past, I got more than a few sideways glances every time I went outside.

I don’t really know my neighbors very well, but I’m sure they know me — as the crazy lady who walks her cat on a leash while wearing lots of eye makeup and bathrobes, ha! I love it. 🙂

I kept getting that look. You know the one, where they’re afraid to make eye contact, but their glassy, straight-ahead stares betray what they’re really doing, which is watching you from the side with their peripheral vision… I do it a lot at restaurants to see what everyone else is eating, haha.

This morning I decided to give ’em a break and go back to wearing something a little less shocking in public. Out came the new Bobbi Brown Smokey Eye Palette ($45).

The Bobbi Brown Smokey Eye Palette from left: Eye Shadow in White, Metallic Eye Shadow in Tin, Eye Shadow in Storm, Long-Wear Eye Paint in Onyx

Have you seen it yet? One of three new kits in the just-released Choose Your Glam collection, it comes with four powder eyeshadows perfect for black/gray smokey eyes.

I’ve been chomping at the bit for this one, specifically for the sparkly black Long-Wear Eye Paint in Onyx.

Bobbi makes a pretty big deal about how it can be worn either wet or dry, but isn’t that true of most powder shadows?

Eh, with glitter like this, who the hell cares!? They can say whatever they want as long as they catch me when I swoon. 🙂
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Have You Seen the Hourglass Extreme Sheen Holiday Set?

November 3rd, 2010 by Karen 62 Comments

Extreme Sheen Lipgloss in Siren

I love the blue top I’m wearing in this picture, but I’m not entirely proud of the stretchy black pants I’m wearing with it (too many 100 Grand bars before, during and after Halloween), even though they’re incredibly comfy.

How comfy are they? Well, they’re almost as comfy as the glosses in the new Hourglass Extreme Sheen Kit ($45).

Yes, you read that correctly. The three glosses in the limited edition holiday set are almost as comfortable as stretchy pants. 🙂 And they’re some of the most delightful lip products I’ve ever worn.

The colors in the kit lean toward the warm end the color spectrum, like Ignite, a golden peachy pink; Siren, a shimmery reddish copper; and Child, a pale warm pink.

Are you familiar with NARS Sweet Revenge, MAC Nymphette and/or MAC Lychee Luxe? If you like any of them, I think you might also like these.

Hourglass Extreme Sheen Kit swatches review photos
From left: Ignite, Siren and Child

Like the other Extreme Sheens I’ve worn, these feel divine on my lips with a smooth, thin, non-sticky texture, and since they smell faintly of cupcakes, I pretend like I have frosting on my lips when I’ve got them on (they’re flavor-free, though).

They’re also mad moisturizing! If I put ’em on when my lips feel dry when I get up in the morning, my lips really do look and feel better by the end of the day, almost like a healing lip balm.

Wear time varies among the shades. The darkest one, Siren, lasts from 4-6 hours with very little fading, while the lighter colors, Child and Ignite, last between 2 hours and 4.

From left: Ignite, Siren and Child
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Have We Met Before, Bobbi Brown Glitter Liner?

November 2nd, 2010 by Karen 51 Comments

Bobbi Brown Glitter Eyeliner in Silver, $20

Above is what happens when your home team wins the World Series while you’re swatching Bobbi Brown Glitter Eyeliner in Silver ($20).

Last night was crazy! After the game we could hear loud booms off in the distance that I presumed were revelers detonating cherry bombs, or perhaps the start of that zombie invasion I’m always talking about.

I was ready to go into Apocalypse Mode and head for the hills! Survival kit? Check. El Hub, Tabs, emergency purse and this new Bobbi limited edition liquid liner? Check.

Why the liner? Ya know, because it’s nice to look good in the face of certain doom. 🙂

Glitter Eyeliner is part of the new Bobbi Brown Choose Your Glam collection for lips, eyes and cheeks.

While I’d like to have Bobbi’s Glitter Eyeliner in Silver with me in during a zombie outbreak — great pigment, a quick-drying liquid formula, reflective and therefore easy to spot from military helicopters surveying the area for survivors, waterproof but still easy to remove — it’s not altogether original.

Silver, one of two shades (the other being Gold), looks an awful lot like MAC Superslick Liquid Eye Liner in Nocturnal from fall’s Fabulous Felines collection — same shimmery silver, same style packaging, similar brush, same fantastically long wear time and thin texture.

bobbi brown glitter liquid eye liner review silver wand
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Love Sheer Lipgloss? You’ll Crazy Heart This New Set from NARS

November 1st, 2010 by Karen 52 Comments

nars crazy heart swatches review photos glosses

I learned something oddly thrilling today. The new NARS Crazy Heart Set ($50) glosses are sheer enough to apply while walking down the street without a mirror (try it sometime), yet pigmented enough to make an impact on passers by.

This is brilliant news! Now I can devote more precious time and energy to important things, like unraveling the mystery behind Zac Efron’s allure.

The set comes with five sheer shades from the NARS permanent lipgloss line — Easy Lover (a hot pink), Babe (a reddish orange), Orgasm (a shimmery golden pink), Turkish Delight (a creamy light pink) and Misbehave (a cherry red with golden shimmer) — all of them highly wearable, with the exception of Turkish Delight, which looks kinda milky before it mellows into an attractive pale pink.

MAC Nymphette-s might like Orgasm, Nymphette’s sheerer cousin, and ladies who’ve always wanted to wear red lips but were too afraid to try should take a look at Babe.

All of them have the same silky smooth medium weight texture in tubes that are considerably smaller than usual for NARS lipglosses (0.14 oz. vs. 0.28), but that’s only a fraction smaller than full-size MAC Lipglasses (0.17 oz.).

nars crazy heart swatches review photos box

nars crazy heart swatches review photos glosses in box

nars crazy heart swatches review photos swatches arm
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The Buzz on Burt’s Bees Holiday Kits at Target

October 31st, 2010 by Karen 26 Comments

I was at Target today buying Halloween candy when I stumbled on these cute holiday kits from Burt’s Bees. There’s a whole bunch of them for lips, body, hands and nails, ranging from $14.99-19.99. Some even come with little purses, too.

Ahh, the temptation! I want the $19.99 manicure set. It comes with a jar of Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Cream, Cuticle Cream, a lip balm and a little purse.

But for some reason I feel like I should be starting to think about holiday shopping for other people and not getting any of these for myself…which is bizarre because it’s only Halloween. I’ve already been seeing Christmas decorations all over the place. Target had a small but growing Christmas area. Can you believe it? Before Halloween? I guess they couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving this year.

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Estee Lauder Pure Color Long Lasting Lipstick in Extravagant Berry: All That Glitters Is Gone

October 30th, 2010 by Karen 52 Comments

Extravagant Berry lipstick could have been called The Grinch Who Stole Glitter because, seriously, where did it go? The new limited edition color, released for the holidays, is one of the prettiest tubes I’ve seen in years, but it turns out the glitter is just an overspray more for decoration than for practical use (SHOOT!).

The glitter’s all but invisible on my lips. The color, however, a dark berry with a hint of golden shimmer, doesn’t need glitter to shine. I think it’s still lovely.

Here’s a quick look:

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Tarina Tarantino Magic Hour Cream Shadow in Nebula from the Starchild Odyssey Collection

October 30th, 2010 by Karen 8 Comments

Written by Bari

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the blogger, Bari, as she seeks out new makeup, like the beautiful subject of today’s guest post.

Starchild Odyssey Magic Hour Cream Shadow in Nebula

Hi guys!

Today I thought I’d share four tips for using Tarina Tarantino’s Magic Hour Cream Shadow in Nebula from the Starchild Odyssey Collection (also in the collection, a silver called Starchild and a navy called Meteor Night). It’s available at Sephora for $19, and for the money you get a pretty big pot! It’s a limited edition, but there are also some gorgeous colors (Black Diamond, Purple Velvet, Golden Shadow) in the permanent line. You can still get this one now, which I suggest you do, because all of the Magic Hour Creams are so pretty and versatile.

Starchild Odyssey Magic Hour Cream Shadow in Nebula

Starchild Odyssey Magic Hour Cream Shadow in Nebula
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