Product Reviews

Reporting for Beauty Duty, Ma’am: Les Khaki de Chanel Nail Polishes for Fall 2010

September 8th, 2010 by Karen 41 Comments

chanel les khaki de chanel swatches review photos khaki brun khaki rose khaki vert

Leave it to Chanel to make baby poo/army green into a nail polish that looks downright effin’ cool to me. Last year, they stormed my beaches with another gorgeous green, Jade, forever and always my five-star general of Chanel polishes, but the three shades in the new limited edition Les Khaki de Chanel collection ($25 each) are bringing up the rear.

I like it when beauty products appear to combine contrasting concepts, and I think the rugged, outdoorsy elegance of Khaki Vert (a creamy army green), Khaki Rose (a creamy, rosy brown) and Khaki Brun (a creamy, cool brown) just…works.

These are well-groomed thugs wearing tuxedos, y’all, and I hope to see them gracing fingers and toes this fall.

Let me know what you think! 🙂

Tabs and his Chanel Khaki nail polishes
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How Do You Feel about the Tarte TEN Palette?

September 8th, 2010 by Karen 45 Comments

tarte ten palette swatches review

It’s true, your honor. I’m horribly, terribly guilty — of abusing denim.

Especially in the late ’80s.

I guess I was just copying my friends. First, it was that pair of cheesy Guess overalls… You see, I wore them with one strap up and one down. Yeah, I should have known it was wrong, but I was just a kid then.

And that wasn’t the worst of it, either. Soon, I graduated from overalls to cropped jeans jackets. They were bedazzled, with golden studs.

That was probably my worst crime…

To help you understand — not that I’m trying to defend my actions — this all happened around the time my parents forced me to get a boy’s haircut.

Simply put, I was a bedazzled, denim-wearing mess who looked like a tween Filipino Elvis.

Then, just when I’d thought I put those days behind me forever, I saw the Tarte TEN Limited-Edition Collector’s Palette ($44)…

And the purple packaging triggered a flashback, an acid-washed trip back to my fashion-challenged days (NOOO!).

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Quint-Essentially Dior: I’ve Got Designs on the Nude Pink Design Palette

September 7th, 2010 by Karen 65 Comments

dior nude pink design swatches review

It’s a little funny to me that Dior calls this 5-Colour Designer All-in-One Artistry Palette “Nude Pink Design” ($58), seeing as how there isn’t a lot of pink in its design.

Like the four other quints in the All-in-One Artistry line, Nude Pink Design comes with three powder shadows, a cream liner and a cream base. A little mascara and you’re good to go. 🙂

As for the pink, well, it’s there, hiding within a few of the shades…

a shimmery taupe eyeshadow
a shimmery peachy pink eyeshadow
a sheer, glittery peachy pink eyeshadow
a shimmery pinkish beige cream base
a shimmery purplish brown cream liner

You might remember another Dior quint with a similar name. Dior released the Dior 5-Colour Designer All-in-One Artistry Palette in Pink Design (sans the “Nude”) earlier this summer, but if you had trubs with that palette’s cool-toned pink and purple shades, you might have better luck with this one’s warmer palette.

dior nude pink design swatches review closeup upper right
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Tarte emphasEYES Aqua-Gel Eyeliners Will Help You Glide Through Your Day

September 7th, 2010 by Karen 47 Comments

tarte emphaseyes aqua gel liner review

No. 4,572 on the list of things I do badly: hip-hop glide moves.

It’s gotta be the shoes!

Yeah… The only gliding I’ve done lately has been along my lash lines with Tarte emphasEYES Aqua-Gel Eyeliner ($18). 🙂

Released earlier this summer, the eight liners (Tarte refers to them as gel pots in pencil form) turn lash lines into tug-free zones.

tarte emphaseyes aqua-gel liner review swatches
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Does Rimmel Max Volume Flash Waterproof Take Lashes to the Max?

September 6th, 2010 by Karen 31 Comments

rimmel max volume flash waterproof mascara review

Have you been watching the US Open? I’m probably the world’s worst tennis player (sports involving projectiles = not a strong suit) and only know the bare basics of the sport, but I sure like watching it. Team sports are great, but there’s just something about watching two world class athletes go one-on-one, ya know? Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that most of the dudes are cute, heh!

WERK, Andy!

Today was all about the ladies, though, and watching Maria Sharapova duke it out with Caroline Wozniacki got me thinking about — big surprise — makeup.

If, by some miracle of modern science, I morphed into an elite 35-year-old tennis player, I’d be all about waterproof mascara. With that unlikely future in mind, today I gave Rimmel’s Max Volume Flash Waterproof Mascara ($7, available in a single shade called Black) a try.

rimmel max volume flash waterproof mascara review wand

Rimmel designed it to quickly add dramatic volume, so I took two layers with me for a test drive on the treadmill this morning.

So how’d she fare?

Well, after four miles of pounding the fake pavement through a raging torrent of sweat, there were no smudges to speak of beneath my eyes. 🙂 They remained clean and mascara-free (no panda eyes whatsoever!). Just for haaay of it, I left everything on when I jumped in the shower. Even after THAT, inky black Max Volume Flash hung on like a champ.

And its extreme aversion to water isn’t the only thing that makes it stand out from its competitors. It doesn’t clump, either, and remains easy to remove with my regular Philosophy Purity Made Simple cleanser.
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Hourglass Femme Rouge Velvet Creme Lipstick: A Bullet I Could Bite

September 6th, 2010 by Karen 22 Comments

hourglass femme rouge lipstick review

Before El Hub I kissed quite a few frogs, and truth be told a few of those kisses were…awkward, like the one with Mr. Sharp Tooth (it was like a single vampire fang!), or the one with SeÃ±or Saliva (like kissing a slobbery puppy), or Mr. Mannequin (the dude never bent his elbows).

The first time I tried on the new Hourglass Femme Rouge Velvet Creme Lipstick ($30, available in 12 shades), I was reminded of those frog kisses, because, well, something felt…off.

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$6 Olay Quench Advanced Healing Intensive Lotion Knows What Sensitive Noses Like

September 4th, 2010 by Karen 18 Comments

Olay Quench Advanced Healing Intensive Lotion review

As much as I love Pacifica’s Body Butters, there are some days when I just don’t want to wear a scented moisturizer, like when I’m loving on a new fragrance.

I’ve been wearing a couple of new scents lately and haven’t wanted my body lotions to clash, so when I spotted this bottle of fragrance-free Olay Quench Advanced Healing Body Lotion ($6), I had to snap it up.

Talk about happy drugstore lotion accidents. 🙂

Olay recently revamped the bottle and the name, so I must have found one of the leftovers from the older packaging. The new version looks a little different (same formula though) and goes by a new name, Quench Advanced Healing Intensive Lotion.

I hadn’t been crazy about the other lotions I’ve tried from Olay’s Quench line because all of them had strong scents and contained mica (hello, shiny finish!), both of which Olay kept out of Advanced Healing. Good call, methinks, because not only will sensitive schnozzes appreciate Olay’s thoughtful little omission, but most dudes will too (I’m pretty sure El Hub’s been using my bottle on the ‘low).
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I’m a Softie for LORAC’s Private Affair Palette

September 2nd, 2010 by Karen 42 Comments

lorac private affair palette review

For Christmas last year my little brother got our mom a Snuggie (“as seen on TV!”).

What’s a Snuggie? Well, if you’ve seen the late-night commercials, it’s the world famous blanket with sleeves (kinda looks like a reverse wizard’s cape), and my mum thinks it’s cooler than a young Paul McCartney in butt-hugger pants.

I talked a lot of crap about ’em until the day I tried one on…

DANG, they’re unbelievably comfortable and soft.

Which reminds me of another “so soft!” moment I’ve had recently, this one with LORAC’s Private Affair Palette ($38).

It had been a while since I’d used one of the company’s powder shadows (not the baked ones) from their regular line, and Private Affair’s six shades refreshed my memory. There’s one thing I think LORAC’s always done well, and that’s make smooth eyeshadows.

I mean, if these were any smoother, I’d heat ’em in the microwave and pour ’em on pancakes.

Mmm… pancakes. 🙂

Unfortunately, they’re also a little fragile. The other day I accidentally pushed a brush head too hard into the gray pan and took a big chunk out of it (oops!); they’re THAT soft (and consequently easy to blend).

Joining the six shimmery pigmented shadows in plum, beige, pink, bronze, gray, and blackish plum, Private Affair also comes with a tiny tube of Behind the Scenes Eye Primer and a dual-tipped brush tucked in a drawer, secret squirrel-style.

NOTE: The brush that comes with Private Affair is identical to the one that comes with LORAC’s Close Up Eye Tutorial Kit, and, um, remember how that one broke? I saved myself the time and heartache and ditched this one immediately.

Private Affair’s shadows lean toward the cool end of the color spectrum, and several have reddish purple undertones, which I tend to have trouble wearing (they can make me look like I’ve been crying). I think if you have a cooler skin tone than I do, you might like these a lot.

TIP: How do you tell if you’re cool toned or warm? It’s based on the undertone of your skin. If the veins on the underside of your arm appear bluish, you’re cool toned (and probably wear pink-based foundation); if they appear greenish, you’re warm (and probably wear yellow-based foundation).
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lorac private affair palette review ingredients
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