Drugstore Beauty Finds

More Pigment and I Would Have Been Swept Away by These L’Oreal One Sweep Sculpting Blush Duos

July 15th, 2011 by Karen 17 Comments

Interesting, but is it a gimmick or actually an imaginative innovation? Either way, I gotta give it up to L’Oreal for at least trying something new. The contoured brush that comes with each of the four One Sweep Sculpting Blush Duos ($12.95 each) is designed to define and brighten cheeks at the exact same time.

Wait — how’s that?

Well, the compacts for Poppy, Nectar, Flush and Posh come with both a cheek blush and a sculpting powder (to define the cheek bones), as well as a special U-shaped brush to pick up and deposit both products in the same sweep.

Running the concave brush across the pan parallel to the center line loads it up with both colors, one on each side. I was fairly sure I’d end up with striped cheeks (how ’80s!), but the doohickey surprisingly worked.

Sort of.

Nectar (left) and Posh Chic (right)

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Undertones Don’t Interfere with Long-Lasting L’Oreal Extra-Intense Liquid Pencil Eyeliner in Carbon Black

July 15th, 2011 by Karen 19 Comments

Four-leaf clovers, true love, pink diamonds and double rainbows all seem commonplace compared to eyeliners in dark, true black. The landscape is littered with supposedly black liners that, once they’re applied to skin, turn out to have undertones like green, brown and gray.

To put it mildly…that’s annoying, but it’s not a problem for L’Oreal’s new Extra-Intense Carbon Black Liquid Pencil Eyeliner ($9), an honest-to-goodness true black.

This enchanting ebony eyeliner doesn’t just skip on the funky undertones; it also skims across my lash and water lines with ease, where it lasts 10 straight hours, even through a few tears.

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Essence Multi-Colour Blush Is Wearing Stripes To the Party But Can’t Stay for Long

July 6th, 2011 by Karen 45 Comments

If something has stripes, I’m usually totally into it…

But when it comes to these $2.49 Essence Multi-Colour Blushes, well, let’s just say that their cute stripes and great price are just about the best things they have going for ’em.

I give the two available shades, pale pink Fashionista and pale peach How Cute Is That, major points for looking cute on a budget, but their knees buckle beside the performance of rock stars from the Essence line, like the fantastic Gel Eyeliners.

Fashionista (left) and How Cute Is That (right)

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For the Price, These $3.49 Essence Gel Eyeliners Have MAC Fluidline Whipped

July 5th, 2011 by Karen 86 Comments

essence gel eyeliner

Essence continues to rock me like a hurricane (and take the drugstore makeup world by storm). What fab, little steals these pigmented, long-wearing Gel Eyeliners are! They come in three shades — matte black Midnight in Paris, shimmery taupe London Baby and shimmery purple Berlin Rocks — and cost a mere $3.49 each.

The fluffy texture of this shoestring wedding of whipped mousse and $15 MAC Fluidline doesn’t hold these back at all. In fact, with the Sonia Kashuk bent brush, I find them surprisingly easy to apply, and since they’re also quick drying — like, in less than a minute — I finish lining with them in less time than it takes to say, “Ben McKenzie is hot!”

Well, ya know. 🙂

And even without the help of my trusty NARS Pro Prime Smudge Eyeshadow Base, they stay put all day long without creasing or fading.

essence gel eyeliner

essence gel eyeliner
Midnight in Paris on the left; London Baby on the right
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I Really Want to Care for These $1.99 Essence Caring Lip Balms (Really, I Do)

July 2nd, 2011 by Karen 17 Comments

I really wanted to be Loving, Laughing, Hoping and Dreaming about the four $1.99 Essence Caring Lip Balms, because they have so much promise to be cool.

Four of them for less than $8? Incredible! Just look at them in their adorable duds.

Each of them has a different color and scent, and the two I tried — Loving, a clear vanilla-scented balm with subtle glitter; and Dreaming, a sheer peach that smells faintly of fruit punch — feel soft, non-sticky and smooth.

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$1.49 Essence Metallic Eye Pencils and the Case of the Disappearing Colors

June 27th, 2011 by Karen 47 Comments

essence metallic eye pencils

Funny how I can’t remember much from college chem lab, but I do recall the lyrics to Foxy Brown’s Get Me Home.

Uh-oh, uh-oh!

Both of them appeared in my life around the same time (in the mid-1990s), but while most of my chem lessons left me long ago, Foxy’s song is still fresh to def in my mind.

Of the few chemistry lessons that have, however, stuck with me after all these years, the law of conservation of mass seems particularly apt today. It states that mass can neither be created nor destroyed, or, as the 13th century scholar NasÄ«r al-DÄ«n al-TÅ«sÄ« put it, “A body of matter cannot disappear completely. It only changes its form, condition, composition, color and other properties and turns into a different complex or elementary matter.”

If true, then what the heck is up with these $1.49 Essence Metallic Eye Pencils?

With so many cheap beauty thrills coming from the Essence line lately — like the Stay With Me Longlasting Lipglosses ($2.29) and Colour & Go Nail Polishes ($0.99) — I’d just assumed these six $1.49 beauties would deliver the same affordable BOOM-BOOM-POW!

essence metallic eye pencils
From left to right: Iron Goddess, Green Day, Heavy Metal, Lilectric, Black Knight and White Divine

essence metallic eye pencils swatches with the flash
Swatches from left to right with the flash: Iron Goddess, Green Day, Heavy Metal, Lilectric, Black Knight and White Divine
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5 Summer Staples: Show Some Skin with These Body Care Basics

June 24th, 2011 by Karen 24 Comments

Summer’s the season to show off a little skin, and to this I roar “Hallelujah!” After what felt like the longest, wettest, dreariest winter and spring in this century so far, I’m beyond ready to finally free myself from my cotton/polyester oppressors. So long, long pants, wool socks and turtleneck sweaters. Peace!

Summers in this part of Northern California can get pretty hot, but before I venture out in a summer dress or park my posterior poolside in a swimsuit, I like to do a bit of body beauty prep first (don’t want my hairy sasquatch legs to frighten the neighborhood kids, ya know?). For this I turn to body care basics like the fab five listed below.

1. A rockin’ razor

Furry girl says what? This vorpal gift to hairy women everywhere hacks away hair like a machete cuts through jungle. The Gillette Venus Embrace ($12 for a starter kit that includes the razor, a shower pod/case and two spare cartridges; additional cartridges are sold separately) takes care of the hair on my legs, lady parts, ‘pits and toes (don’t front like you don’t know what I’m talking about 🙂 ), and it does it with five blades.

FIVE BLADES!

You’d think that maybe four blades would have been enough, but no. Turns out that five is the new four.

This mighty multi-bladed monster gives this mini-Chewbacca the closest shave of her life. When I use it, not only does my skin feel smoother than it does after I use other razors, but the Venus shaves so close that I find I don’t have to shave as often.

2. An easy-to-apply sunscreen

Banana Boat Ultra Defense SPF 30

In my capacity as Tabs’ assistant/human servant, I have to be available at a moment’s notice, which means I don’t always have time to spend rubbing in sunscreen from head to toe.

When time is of the essence, particularly in summer, I like to have a good waterproof aerosol spray, and Banana Boat Ultra Defense Continuous Spray Sunblock ($10) is my current fave.

Just spritz on arms, legs and any other exposed parts, massage it in a little, and you’re done. It offers broad-spectrum protection against UVA/UVB rays and comes in three varying levels of SPF — 30, 50 and 85. It’s quick to dry and resists water ~~like most cats~~ incredibly well, ya know, just in case a shirtless Ryan Reynolds stops by to ask if you want to go swimming (I DO!).
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It Costs 99 Cents to Colour & Go with Essence Quick Drying Nail Polish

June 23rd, 2011 by Karen 49 Comments

One day, after cleaning my room back when I was in elementary school, I asked my mom for an allowance and tried to justify it as compensation for a job well done. Her reply? “When someone starts paying me for making dinner and washing clothes, then you get an allowance.”

Oh, snap! Score one for Team Mom. 🙂

I still managed to scrape together a few bucks here and there, like the one my grandma gave me for being cute. “You’re so cute!” she said. “Here’s a dollar!”

I strutted around with that dollar in my pocket for days, like I was some kind of third-grade baller.

Yes, those formative years probably have something to do with why I love bargain beauty deals so much. My newest cheap thrill: the 99-cent Essence Colour & Go Nail Polishes.

They’re from the same drugstore line responsible for the kick-arse Stay With Me Longlasting Lipglosses, and they come in a bunch of different colors — 22, in fact — spread out among three finishes in shimmery, creamy and holographic.

The 0.16-oz. bottles are quite a bit smaller than regular nail polish bottles (which are typically 0.5 fluid ounces), but I’m fine with that. Heck, I can’t recall the last time I finished a regular bottle of polish, so the smaller size of these doesn’t bother me at all.

From the left: Wake Up, Mellow Yellow, Irreplaceable and You Belong to Me

From the left: Let’s Get Lost, Where Is The Party, Dress for a Moment
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