Drugstore Beauty Finds

EOS Shave Cream in Vanilla Bliss Shaves Hair and a Few Minutes Every Time

May 10th, 2011 by Karen 38 Comments

eos shave cream vanilla bliss

My BFF Cindy is a practical girl, and lawd she knows me well. Fed up with me arriving late to our homegirl dates, she gave me an ultimatem after the last time, threatening to take away my lipgloss if I ever did it again.

Got. My. Attention.

With horror like that hanging over my head, I was extra careful to set aside enough time to get ready last Friday before our ballet date.

I was ahead of schedule when I finished my hair and makeup, so I pulled up Google Images on my computer to take a really quick break.

“S h i r t l e s s C h a n n i n g T a t u m” [ENTER]

When I bolted back to consciousness 15 minutes later, I was, as usual, running late. “No problem,” I told myself in a soothing voice. “Lots of time.” And then I glanced down at my legs and noticed — WHOA! — a thicket of fur on my shins (enough to make a full-length coat).

It has been said that Asian women don’t have a lot of body hair. Well, tonight on MythBusters: my furry legs. 🙂

Thank ye beauty gods for EOS Shave Cream ($3.49)! It delivered one of my fastest shaves ever.

eos shave cream vanilla bliss

I’ve actually used the same cream in a different scent before. Last summer, I hacked away my body hair with the Pomegranate Raspberry version. I loved how soft it left my legs, how quick it made my shaves and how it never gave me bumps, but I couldn’t stand the scent (sickly sweet). Still, I liked how well it worked enough to finish the bottle.

But then I moved on to other things, discouraged by the scent, and forgot about EOS Shave Cream…until I tried Vanilla Bliss! It’s just as creamy and moisturizing as the Raspberry one, and also works with or without water. It’s one of six flavors in the EOS Shave Cream line.

eos shave cream vanilla bliss

The scent? Like vanilla ice cream and warm apple pie… And SO much better than the one in Pomegranate Raspberry (at least to me). It’s a softer scent and not at all overwhelmingly sweet.
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Drugstore Lipgloss Nirvana for Less Than $3 with the NYC New York Color Liquid Lipshines

May 9th, 2011 by Karen 76 Comments

NYC New York Color Lipshine in Midtown Mulberry

Today El Hub found out about my affair. 🙁

It had been going on since way back in 2006. That’s when I met the Sally Hansen Diamond 12-Hour Lip Treatments while cruising the aisles at Walgreens one afternoon for a pick-me-up after a really tough day.

There they were, non-sticky and pigmented, with a wear time that lasted for hours and hours…

What can I say? It just happened. When I saw they were a mere $6, I was willing to throw everything away. They were the closest thing to drugstore lipgloss nirvana I had ever seen.

But I’m not going to say I would have done it all again. No way. What I should have done is hold out for the NYC New York Color Liquid Lipshines I met last week. 🙂

Like the Sally Lip Treaments, they’re light and non-sticky with lots of rich color, but they’re an even more incredible bargain at $2.49 a pop!

Since the last experience I had with an NYC gloss was less than stellar, I expected Brighton Beach Peach (a shimmery golden peach), Midtown Mulberry (a creamy berry) and Big Apple Spice (a pearly bronze) to let me down. They’re the three Lipshine shades I recently tried (out of the 10 available).

Thankfully, it didn’t work out that way at all.

From top to bottom: Midtown Mulberry, Brighton Beach Peach and Big Apple Spice

Wands from the left: Brighton Beach Peach, Big Apple Spice and Midtown Mulberry

Swatches from the left: Brighton Beach Peach, Big Apple Spice and Midtown Mulberry
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$5 TRESemmÃ© Tres Two Extra Hold Hairspray Brings Back Aqua Net Memories for Me

May 5th, 2011 by Karen 18 Comments

TRESemme Tres Two Hairspray

I was really hoping my run of good luck with drugstore haircare products would continue when I gave TRESemmÃ©’s Tres Two Extra Hold Hairspray a try. It’s supposed to offer excellent hold, frizz control and 24-hour humidity resistance without leaving hair crunchy or stiff. All good things, and I was mostly interested in seeing how well it controlled fly-away hairs.

As soon as I caught my first whiff of the stuff, I knew things weren’t working out. It has that classic old-school hairspray scent — like the way high school bathrooms used to smell during the Aqua Net years.

Ingredients

Alcohol Denat., Hydrofluorocarbon 152A, VA/Crotonates, Vinyl Neodecanoate Copolymer, Octylacrylamide, Acrylates, Butylaminoethyl Methacrylate Copolymer, Aminomethyl Propanol, Dimethyl Stearamine, Fragrance (Parfum), Linalool, Limonene, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Amyl Cinnamal, Hexyl Cinnamal, Citronellol, Geraniol

But if I pinch my nose, I like almost everything else about it — the price ($5 for a big 11-oz. can), how soft and shiny it leaves my hair, how it retains the volume in my style and how it doesn’t flake when I run a brush through it.
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Be Bold on a Budget with These $7 Milani Lip Flash Pencils

April 24th, 2011 by Karen 35 Comments

Milani Lip Flash

Hey, cutie. Before driving out to the East Bay this afternoon, I didn’t intend to spend a lot of time on my makeup, but then one thing led to another, etc., etc. Before I knew it, I’d swatched the entire line of Milani Lip Flash Pencils ($6.99).

Remember these? We talked about a shimmery bronze one a while back called Lip Flash.

Not bad for $7, right? Have a look at these, and let me know what you think. 🙂

Clockwise from the purple pencil at the lower left: In A Flash, Flashy, Hot Flash, Photo Flash, Flash Light, News Flash, Lip Flash and Star Flash

The Milani Lip Flashes are pigmented, shimmery lip glosses in stick packaging — a little like budget drugstore versions of NARS Velvet Lip Gloss Pencils. Unscented and unflavored, they feel thick and sticky on the lips and offer full coverage with a four-hour wear time.

These party girl glosses are bold, shimmery and in yo’ face. I’ve been pairing bronzy brown Lip Flash, probably the tamest one of the batch, with brown, gold or bronze smokey eyes. The other seven come in various shades of pink, red, magenta and purple and should be a blast to wear with crazy false eyelashes, glitter and a pair of dangerously sky-high heels. 😉

Milani Lip Flash iphone
With an iPhone for scale

Milani Lip Flash
Lip Flash
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These Milani Baked Eyeshadow Swatches Are Fresh Out the Oven (Careful, They’re Hot)

April 23rd, 2011 by Karen 17 Comments

Milani Baked Eyeshadow Swatches

Heya, gals. How’s your Saturday coming along? Doing anything fun? I’m just taking a quick break from all of the high-intensity relaxing I’ve done today. Ya know, I didn’t want to overexert myself. 🙂

I did want to share a few swatches of the Milani Baked Eyeshadows ($7.49 each) with you, though (if you’re interested, here’s a review).

Milani Baked Eyeshadows
Top row from the left: Purrr-fect Purple, Pink Twice and I Heart You; Bottom row: Blue My Mind, Teal The Truth and Rich Java
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Schick Intuition Naturals Sensitive Care Will Take You (Partway) Bare

April 8th, 2011 by Karen 22 Comments

For years, every time I’d pass by a display for the Schick Intuition razor I’d hear the commercial with that Jewel song in my head (“In-too-ish-unnnn!”).

Wasn’t a huge fan of that particular Jewel song (I preferred her older stuff)… But seasons change; people change (to quote another tune), and now that I’m in my mid-30s and the hair on my body is growing at a supernatural rate, hair removal has become a higher priority.

Naturals Sensitive Care ($10), the latest version of the familiar Intuition razor, kinda looks eco-friendly, doesn’t it? The mostly cardboard package replaces the old plastic one, which wasn’t eco-friendly at all. About half of the newer package’s cardboard is recycled and a quarter of the plastic, which sounds like a definite improvement to me.

Intiution’s blades are lubricated using something Schick calls a “hypo-allergenic shaving solid,” which looks like white plastic in these pics, but it’s actually a soapy material. When you run the razor head across your skin, the white solid, which contains vitamin E and aloe, creates a foam while the four blades shave the hairs.

The soothing, moisturizing foam supposedly eliminates the need for additional gels, soaps and body washes, shaving a little time off the process of shaving. 🙂

I have a soft spot for tools that nurture my lazy side (Tabs and I are similar that way), especially when it comes to hair removal.

The white part housing the blades is actually the aloe-rich soapy material…
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Get Soft, Bouncy Volume with $3 Suave Touchable Finish Hairspray

April 5th, 2011 by Karen 63 Comments

Suave Touchable Finish

Can I just say that I’ve been having a serious Suave moment lately? I tried their Dry Shampoo a couple weeks ago and was blown away by how well it worked — and not just because it’s $3.

Turns out their new Touchable Finish Hairspray is another $3 gem. An aerosol hairspray designed to add light hold without weighing hair down, it’s designed to compete with Sebastian Zero Gravity Hairspray, which costs about $10 more.

I’ve never tried Sebastian’s version before, but now that I’ve found this one, I may not have to. 🙂

When I apply Touchable Finish before and after using my curling iron to style my hair, I’m shocked by how soft, bouncy and voluminous my curls look.

I like the light citrus scent and the fact that it dries so quickly (takes about a minute). Suave says the product’s anhydrous formula (which means it doesn’t contain water) accelerates drying time.

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These $7 Milani Lip Flashes Have Got You Covered

April 3rd, 2011 by Karen 45 Comments

Don’t worry. These new Milani Lip Flashes ($7 each) have totally got you covered. No really, they do. These chubby gloss pencils pack pigment and shimmer like WHOA!

If you golden full coverage glosses, these might be right up your alley. They come in eight shades; I tried the one actually called Lip Flash. It’s an unscented, unflavored shimmery bronze with a thick, sticky texture that really clings to lips, helping it last about four hours on mine.

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