Product Reviews

Sonia Kashuk’s Keeping It Cool for the Holidays with the Prepping for the Party Lip & Eye Palette

December 9th, 2011 by Karen 9 Comments

sonia kashuk prepping for the party holiday

Lovers of taupe, mauve and gray, let it be a Sonia holiday. The makeup maven’s keeping it cool this year with her new Prepping for the Party Lip & Eye Palette ($19.99), with its six powder shadows and six lip products in cool-toned shades.

I’m really digging the shadows, which pack enough shimmer and pigment to spare — in particular the shimmery grayish pan at the far right of the first row, because it reminds me of Pistol from Urban Decay Naked2, and the shimmery purplish mauve at the far left of the second row, which looks to me like a slightly lighter version of MAC’s Satin Taupe.

sonia kashuk prepping for the party lip eye palette holiday 2011

sonia kashuk holiday 2011 (1)
Prepping for the Party Lip & Eye Palette, $19.99
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The New Burberry Beauty Holiday 2011 Lip Glow Glosses Lavish Lips in Luxury

December 9th, 2011 by Karen 24 Comments

burberry holiday 2011

As payback for dragging him to watch Breaking Dawn: Part I last month, an experience he describes as “beyond painful,” El Hub has asked me to accompany him to the annual holiday party at work. I’m down with that, but he also says that I can only bring a maximum of one extra pair of shoes.

Ouch.

Yeah… I might not be able to do that. 🙂 See, I’m fickle about my footwear, so whenever we go someplace, I always have to bring along ~~one or two~~ a few extra pairs of shoes, just in case I change my mind (which happens all the time).

It wouldn’t be an issue if I also remembered to bring the extra pairs back in the house, but I don’t, and so at any given time the inside of the car looks like a DSW Store. Passengers in the back seat risk being stabbed in a butt cheek by 4-inch stiletto heels. It’s actually a miracle El Hub has put up with it for so long.

If I do end up just bringing one extra pair of shoes to the party next week, I’ll have to find other ways to satisfy my compulsive need for options. These new holiday 2011 Burberry Beauty Lip Glow Glosses ($27 each) should do the trick.

I’ve been alternating between two of the three new shades this week, vibrant and creamy Bright Plum and shimmery golden beige Nude Gold. With flawless packaging that feels like it has some heft to it; a doe-foot applicator for precise application; a non-sticky, comfortable texture; a yummy violet flavor and scent (fades after about 10 minutes) and enough pigment and shine to last for days, these Lip Glows are everything a gloss should be for $27.

Not that a gloss should ever be $27.

burberry lip glow holiday 2011
Both Bright Plum (top) and Nude Gold (bottom) are two of three new shades in the Lip Glow line; the third shade, Ruby (not pictured), is a bright red

burberry lip glow bright plum swatches
Swatches of Nude Glow (left) and Bright Plum (right)

burberry lip glow bright plum closeup
Bright Plum
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Sonia Kashuk’s Scarlet Starlet 4-Piece Purse Brush Set Speaks to My Inner Geek

December 8th, 2011 by Karen 11 Comments

sonia kashuk scarlet starlet 4-piece purse brush set

There’s something about the black and red metal brushes in Sonia Kashuk’s new Scarlet Starlet 4-Piece Brush Set ($14.99) that reminds me of gadgets. The four travel-ready brushes, and the black and silver clutch in which they live, look almost like something that could have been made by Apple.

With the set, you get three eye brushes — an eyeshadow brush, a fluffy domed brush and a short shader — and one smaller blush/face brush.

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Scarlet Starlet 4-Piece Brush Set, $14.99
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It’s Summer in December with These New Bronzer & Blusher Combos from NYX

December 8th, 2011 by Karen 16 Comments

nyx bronzer & blusher combo (3)

Dayum, it’s so nice out here by the pool today… Nice and hot! — like a bare-chested Ryan Gosling in tight pants.

Here, put on some sunscreen, please. I’m not letting you burn on my watch, missy. And stop hogging that pitcher of iced tea! Go on now, pass it this way. Sharing is caring.

Oh — sorry. That was strange… I got lost in a daydream there for a minute and forgot that Christmas is less than three weeks away.

I don’t know what happened. I was just sitting here with the new NYX Bronzer & Blusher Combos ($9 each), and then everything got all summer, summer, summertime.

Everything about this new line of blush/bronzer duos, from the exotic black-and-white illustration on the compacts to the free-spirited pigments inside, reminds me of summer. I think it’s an unusual release for the holidays, but I don’t mind the timing at all. I’m a ho for blushes, so it’s all good. 🙂

For me, the blush halves are the stars of this show. They’re pigmented, easy to blend, and come in the kinds of colors I see more often from lines like NARS and MAC. In fact, I think a couple of them even look like possible dupes, particularly peachy Sunrise in Bali, which reminds me of NARS Orgasm, and shimmery, plummy gold Phi Phi Island, which resembles a lighter, more sparkly version of Sin.

The bronzer sides, however, despite how dark they appear in the pans, aren’t nearly as pigmented as their blushing halves. Still, I find them pretty easy to build up when I want more color.

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01 Sunrise in Bali
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These New NYX Xtreme Lip Creams Have an Xtremely Interesting Flavor and Scent

December 7th, 2011 by Karen 58 Comments

NYX Xtreme Lip Cream 01 Dolly Girl
NYX Xtreme Lip Cream in 01 Dolly Girl

Things that go well together…

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Macaroni and cheese
Chocolate and peanut butter
Music and workouts
Manis and pedis
Ryan Gosling and shirtless-ness (that’s not a word…)
Dirty Dancing and Clueless, watched back-to-back with a tub of ice cream (gawd, I’m turning into a Cathy comic)
Kittens and baskets 🙂

And things that don’t go well together…

The words “discount” and “plastic surgery”
Wet socks and jogging
Cosmopolitans and empty stomachs
Blind dates and Craigslist
The Twilight movies and Academy Awards
Shrunken pants and Harvard interviews
Lip products and the scents of plastic and butter…

Yes, plastic and butter.

Yeegh!

The thought of those together makes my tummy churn, and unfortunately, it’s the way I think the new NYX Xtreme Lip Creams taste and smell. Even so, the list of things I like about these liquid lipgloss/lipstick hybrids almost outweighs their flavor and scent.

nyx holiday 2011 (12)

nyx holiday 2011 (13)

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They’re highly pigmented, smooth, non-sticky, come with an easy-to-use doe-foot applicator, are available in a wide variety of bright and nudes shades, and sell for a reasonable $6 each. They also last about five hours on my lips, which isn’t half bad for something as lightweight and glossy as these. Plus, on top of all that, I don’t find them drying at all.

With these, as long as I hold my nose, we’re good to go. 🙂

Lip swatches and pics

I tried something a little different for the eye look I’m wearing here, and I’m not 100 percent sure I like the way it turned out…

That’s the Guerlain Ecrin 4 Couleurs quad in Les Roses ($59) on my eyes. It’s from the spring 2012 collection coming in January to select Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Sephora, Bloomingdales and Bergdorf Goodman stores.

I think the combination of hot pink in the crease and purple in the outer corners of my eyes looks okay in person, but here in these pics it kinda looks like I got into a fight.

Hmm… Well, if nothing else, it was fun to try something new.

NYX Xtreme Lip Cream swatches
Swatches from the left: 01 Dolly Girl, 02 Candy Land, 03 Spicy, 04 Buttery Nude, 05 Bonfire, 06 Pinky Nude, 07Absolute Red, 08 Skin Tone, 09 Strawberry Jam, 10 Natural and 11 Nude Peach Fuzz
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On Second Thought, I Actually Adore MAC Cleanse Off Oil/Tranquil

December 6th, 2011 by Karen 35 Comments

mac cleanse off oil tranquil review (1)

When I find myself tapping an almost empty plastic bottle upside down against the side of the sink to coax out the last few drops of this product, or zipping to the mall minutes before it closes to pick up a spare and coming home with not one but two replacement bottles — that’s when I know it’s probably time to throw my arms up in the air, spin around in circles and sing at the top of my lungs like Maria does at the beginning of the Sound of Music…

“The hills are alive…” with the sound of MAC Cleanse Off Oil/Tranquil! 🙂

Err — so maybe my version of the song doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Maria’s, but I still think this stuff is awfully amazing. Epic, even.

It’s a mineral oil-free makeup remover designed to whisk away face, lip and eye makeup, and it does such a good job on hard-to-remove products that I rarely feel the need to use it with a secondary cleanser.

As with many great relationships, MAC Cleanse Off ($30 for a 5-fluid-ounce bottle) and I started out as work friends. When I reviewed it the first time last summer, I liked it and gave it a B+, but I felt like we wanted different things in life… I wanted a makeup remover that wouldn’t mess with my vision, for instance, and MAC Cleanse wanted to cloud up my eyes.

We kept things strictly platonic for a while, but then one night a few months ago, one thing led to another (you know how it is), and now I’m completely head-over-heels in lust! MAC Cleanse Off has become one of my favorite products in the line.

Sure, I’ve strayed a few times since then, tried a few other cleansing oils, but none of them worked as well or as fast.

mac cleanse off oil tranquil review (2)

mac cleanse off oil tranquil review (3)
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A Revealing Look at NYX’s New Clothing Optional Palette, Butt Naked Eyes

December 5th, 2011 by Karen 37 Comments

nyx butt naked eyes palette (1)

Butt why, NYX!? Why so cheeky? 🙂

I can’t say I ever expected to see the words “butt” and “naked” appear on a makeup palette, butt there they are — all saucy and snarky on the front of Butt “Naked” Eyes, NYX’s new $25 holiday palette for the face, eyes and cheeks.

Judging by the name at least, it looks like the line had fun putting together this two-tiered palette of eyeshadows, blushes, a bronzer and highlighters, butt about that name…

LOL! Okay, I’ll stop.

I couldn’t help but notice that the name shares a word in common with the recently released Naked2 from Urban Decay.

Would that mean it’s also a possible dupe for half the price?

Let’s find out!

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NYX Butt “Naked” Eyes
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I’ve Taken a Shine to Elizabeth Arden’s High Shine Holiday Lip Gloss Set

December 2nd, 2011 by Karen 20 Comments

elizabeth arden 4 high shine lip gloss (8)
Wearing Elizabeth Arden High Shine Lip Gloss in Shimmering Rose

Now where’d I leave my lipgloss…

That’s a phrase the cute zippered case that comes with Elizabeth Arden’s new High Shine Lip Gloss Set ($19.50) might eliminate. The limited edition set of four mega-shiny mini-glosses, one of eight sets in the new Elizabeth Arden Holiday 2011 Collection (full list at the bottom of this post), is available now at Macy’s and also online.

Elizabeth Arden fans and/or gals who love pigmented, non-sticky glosses without a flavor or scent, this one’s for you. 🙂

elizabeth arden 4 high shine lip gloss (5)

elizabeth arden 4 high shine lip gloss (6)

elizabeth arden 4 high shine lip gloss (7)
Glosses from top to bottom: Berrylicious, Candlelight, Shimmering Rose and Sparkle Mauve
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