Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup

Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup

A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict

Urban Decay’s Urbanglow Cream Highlighters Deserve the Spotlight, Don’t Keep It for Long

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Urban Decay Urbanglow review swatch pictures photos

I suppose if I really wanted an authentic candlelit glow I could walk around with a candle up next to my face, but talk about a big pain in the @ss, right? 🙂 And dangerous too!

No problem. The new Urban Decay Urbanglow Cream Highlighters ($24 each) are safer than open flames but just as illuminating.

UD packed these four cute compacts in Wicked, Sin, Brown Sugar and Moonshine with pearly glows and pigment to spare.

They kinda work like spotlights for the skin. Just pat on cheeks, at your temples, down the bridge of your nose or at the inner corners of your eyes for an instantly brighter outlook and a luminescent glow. They apply smoothly to bare skin, or on top of liquid foundations or tinted moisturizer, but I don’t recommend them for use atop powder foundations. When I tried, they looked kinda cakey.

I’ve been wearing Wicked (the shimmery pink) and Sin (the shimmery champagne) on particularly rough days when I haven’t gotten enough sleep the night before because they’re pretty good at quickly faking wide-awake eyes.

Urban Decay Urbanglow review swatch pictures photos closed
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The Chanel SoHo Nail Polishes: Steel Yourself for These Strong Fall Shades

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chanel soho nail polish swatches review

Chanel says, “It’s fall. Time to go to work.”

Well, it’s official. Elvis and summer have left the building. They walked out the back door, the one by the loading dock, and met for brewskies down at the Harvest Moon, you know, that little pub where all the classic fall nail colors hang out after work.

Every fall I pack up my warm weather must-haves — my neon nail polishes, fuchsia glosses, booty shorts with “I heart the Jersey Shore” written across the back (kidding!) to make room for autumn’s awesome goodies. This year, I’m clearing space for a couple of real workin’ stiffs called Steel (a shimmery gunmetal gray) and Strong (a shimmery blackened plum), Chanel’s two new SoHo Le Vernis nail polishes for fall ($23 each).

Why do autumn leaves make me want to paint mah talons with darker colors? Is it a cavewoman thing? Who knows, but if you like the look of dark fall nails, feast your Bette Davis eyes on these.

chanel soho steel swatch
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Shiseido Had a Bright Idea with These Luminizing Satin Eye Color Trios

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shiseido luminizing satin eye color trio

Shiseido is not a word that springs to mind when I think “bright eyeshadow,” but their new Luminzing Satin Eye Color Trios ($33 each) sure got my attention.

I stumbled on these in the city the other day. The seven powder shadow trios, inspired by Shiseido Makeup Artistic Director Dick Page’s world travels, are completely new to the line, and bright is their modus operandi (they also feel silky smooth).

shiseido luminizing satin eye color trio swatches
Swatches of the Shiseido Luminizing Satin Eye Color Trios: (first row) GY901 Snow Shadow; (second row) GR305 Jungle, YE406 Tropicalia; (third row) GD804 Opera, PK403 Boudior; (fourth row) OR302 Fire, BR 307 Strata. Sorry if these swatches aren’t very vivid; I took ’em with my phone…
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The Urban Decay Little Sins Eyeshadow Primer Potion Set: I Gladly Confess to These Four Sins

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urban decay little sins eyeshadow primer potion set in hand

Er, I’m not talking sins of the “seven deadly” variety, one of which, lust, I have for Ryan Reynolds.

These kinder, gentler sins live in the Urban Decay Little Sins Eyeshadow Primer Potion Set ($29), a brand spankin’ new Sephora exclusive with four travel-sized bottles of Urban Decay’s famous Primer Potion in four different shades.

Stop unsightly shadow creasing and fading with the three classic shades in Original, Sin and Eden, or get a little selfish with the newest shade, shimmery golden Greed.

urban decay little sins eyeshadow primer potion set in hand
Urban Decay Primer Potions from left: Original, Greed, Eden and Sin
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Unsung Makeup Heroes: Have a Cookie, Sugar, with Benefit Sugar Cookie Lipstick

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benefit sugar cookie review swatches photos
Did I mention it’s fat free?

Do me a quick favor and check your blush stash, boo. If you find enough peaches to bake a cobbler, then I’d like you to meet my new go-to girl, Benefit Silky Finish Lipstick in Sugar Cookie ($18).

The color — a warm, shiny peach with flecks of gorgeous gold — has been around for a while as a permanent member of Benefit’s Silky Finish Lipstick line. Like the other Silky Finish gals, she’s got a thin, creamy texture (very hydrating, to boot) that glides on slick and smooth, and I think she looks GREAT paired with peach blushes like Benefit Georgia, NARS Orgasm, MAC Sunbasque, MAC Margin and MAC Peaches.

benefit sugar cookie and nars orgasm blush equal fabulous

Do you remember the sparkly glitter from last week’s look with MAC Lipgelee in Resort Life (part of the Venomous Villains release)? — how it ended up all over the place? Well, Sugar Cookie isn’t messy like that at all. Her golden glitter stays put, but all is not peaches in the garden of golden glitter.

Sadly, this Sugar Cookie disappears faster than…sugar cookies, or the box of toffee macadamia nut chocolates I opened last night right before bed.


My thighs keep telling me “No,” but my taste buds keep telling me “YES!”

I have to reapply Sugar Cookie often — about every two hours or so — unless I layer it atop a nude lip liner, which almost doubles her wear time.
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Have You Ever Finished a Bottle of Nail Polish?

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chanel jade chanel jade rose
Oh, Chanel Jade, how you tempt me…

In Sunday’s open thread Beth asked a logical follow-up question to Have you ever finished a bottle of perfume? (two thirds of us have).

She wonders…

Has anyone ever finished a bottle of nail polish? I love nail polish and buy it all the time. But I never finish a bottle before it gets too thick and gloopy. Even my high end ones… I don’t polish constantly, but I do almost always keep it on my toes and at least a few times a month on my nails. Anyway, just curious!

Now that you mention it, Beth, I don’t think I ever have finished a bottle of polish (but I have had to discard a few that gave up the ghost to the gloopy monster). Wow, did I just say that?

There is one shade that I could potentially polish off (ha!) someday — Chanel Jade, released as a limited edition color back in fall 2009.

After a year, I’m about a fourth of the way through the bottle, and I love it just as much today as I did the day we met (it was love at first sight).

I can easily see myself getting to the bottom of Jade and shedding a tear crying a river.

Have you ever finished a bottle of nail polish?

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Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

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