What: Smashbox Platinum Surge makeup kit
Why: Every beauty needs minimal makeup when she’s on vacation
Cost: $39.00
Where: Sephora stores and online at Sephora.com
Palm trees, tropical breezes, white sand beaches: I wish I could ditch this cold, rainy weather for a quick winter getaway to someplace warm like Australia, Tahiti or Maldives.
Calgon take me away … to Maldives.
Whether or not you’re one of those lucky ladies bound for a tropical vacation this holiday, don’t leave home without the Smashbox Platinum Surge makeup kit. With its four fab products, your minimal vacation makeup needs are covered. You’ll look good whether you’re sipping pina coladas at the beach bar or dancing the night away in your living room at home.
Eye Shadow Quad in Smolder – pearl, gold, cocoa and plum
Fusion Soft Lights Palette (this is a highlighter/cheek color) in Glisten – deep bronze, gold, warm pink and tan
Moonbeam lipgloss – shimmery muted pink
Starlight lipgloss – clear with silver shimmer
The products in the kit have a light color payoff and very subtle sparkle. It may not appeal to hard core makeup junkies who prefer concentrated color, but I like it because when I’m on vacation I don’t like wearing heavy, high maintenance makeup. At the most I’ll wear waterproof mascara, a light wash of eye shadow on the lids, lipgloss and a touch of bronzer. The Platinum Surge kit has all I need to achieve that perfect touch of color!
Everything comes in a sleek, silver case you can easily throw into a beach tote. Now, head to the beach, girl, before I tackle you and steal your plane ticket!
Vacation, all I ever wanted
Does anyone else have vacation on their mind? Where would you go?
I’m trying a little something new with the blog today — smaller posts throughout the day — just to mix it up, so please check back later! 🙂
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Hey Karen!
Happy (rainy) Tuesday! I’m really feeling miserable with this weather since for some reason, I tend to break out into these weird hives when it’s cold. 🙁
I wish I were back in Turks and Caicos floating around in the pool (and very close to the pool bar) right now with this Smashbox in my beach bag. For $39 bucks, it really is all I ever wanted for vacation!
Hope you have a great day and stay dry!
Hi Nilla,
I’d love to go to Turks and Caicos someday. When did you go and how long were you there for? It’s been so long since I’ve taken a *real* vacation, and my soul needs to do some traveling/dreaming.
Sorry ’bout your hives, dear! I’m the queen of random allergies (I used to get huge hives on my arms and face, not cool) so I feel your pain. Hope you feel better.
Hi Karen! I’m looking forward to your next posts. I try to check your page and Christine’s when I get home, but there are times where I have to read them when I’m at work. It’s sort of therapeutic. lol I work at a biotech company, and today it looks like I don’t have much lab work, but I have plenty of data to analyse. :/ Which brings me to the topic of vacations. Since there have been a bunch of deadlines at work, I haven’t been able to take a proper vacation in the last couple of years. If I could help it, I would either be in Europe (I’ve always wanted to get there, particularly France and Italy), or in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands hanging out with my cousin, or at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas jet skiing and scuba diving, or in Palestine visiting my grandma, aunts, uncles, and multitudes of cousins! hehe Hopefully next year I’ll be able to take some time off. Anywho to end this essay, I hope you have a great rest of the day. And keep up the great work!
Hey hey!
That little kit seems so handy! It has such pretty lipglosses too. Yay Smashbox!
I would love to be in San Francisco right now! Everything in my backyard is covered in at least 20cm of snow =(
Anyway, I really like the lots-of-posts-a-day thing, ’cause I always check your blog. Woohoo!
Hey Karen,
The BF and I wenk to Turks & Caicos earlier this year in May. We stayed for a week and it was amazing. The waters are so blue and warm, I could have stayed forever!
The only thing about it was that the island is still pretty underdeveloped so there’s not a whole lot of stuff to actually do but lounge and explore. It was really nice for us b/c we were still able to go fishing and jetskiing and be a little active but didn’t feel like we had to do everything. A lot of the days were just spent on the beach and in the pool with cocktails in hand 🙂
Where’s your favorite place to vacation?
Hi Karen, oh how you read my mind! I am taking a cruise from SD to Mexico next week (yup, an entire week!) and I was just thinking what should I take with me what should I leave behind. Knowing me, I’d bring a truck load. So I was all like, ok, just bronzers, blushes and some mascara. But then, no! I have formal nights on the ship where I need to dress up. Ok, so the Chanel quads and the Red Romp lipglass.
I went to Turks and Caicos with my bf in May this year as well (my last vacation). It was the most beautiful place on earth. And I’ve been to almost all the beaches (the Carribeans, Bahamas Atlantis, PR, Hawaii, Sanya *the hawaii of china*, etc). But T&C beats them all! It’s a mellow place, 1 supermarket, 1 shopping center (5 stores, 3 of them hang *be back in 5 min* sign), we stayed on Grace Cay, so that’s kind of the downtown already. But it was quiet and I loved it.
I got a spa treatment with aloe vera in a little shack on the beach, so the doors were open to the beach, i was afraid people would see me, but there’s no one there, just the ocean crashing. Oh! and we rented a little condo place, it’s a huge apartment with a balchony facing the sea, full kitchen (we cooked a lot) and the maid come in clean our mess in the morning.
We went scruba diving and deep sea fishing (we caught a shark!). and just chilled by the beach and the pool. Oh I should show you the video we took, you’d buy a ticket in a heart beat!
anyways, sorry, i’m just so excited about my vacay and wish I could revisit T&C again.
love your website!
Wow Stephanie, sounds like you had an amazing time! We stayed at Grace Bay too, at the Beaches resort though, not our own cute condo like you did. But I found that it was really nice to be able to plan almost all of our activities from the resort. We loved snorkeling and also went deep sea fishing – it was fun, but no sharks for us!
Oh just talking about it makes me wish I were there again. Hope you have fun on your cruise! 🙂
Hi Vera,
All of your vacation dreams sound like great choices. I hope you get to go on a trip soon!
That’s cool that you work in biotech! I was a science major in college and spent many hours in lab. Ah, the memories of countless titrations and noxious fumes!
So tell me, do you still like to dress up and put on makeup even when you are working in the lab?
Hi Irene!
I wish I could say that it’s sunny and crisp but today it’s rainy, overcast and terribly gloomy in the SF bay area today. No snow though! 🙂
The lipglosses are my fave part of the Smashbox kit. The pink shade is really easy to wear and they aren’t too sticky.
Stay warm!
OMG Nilla and Stephanie,
Looks like I gotta get my self to Turks & Caicos ASAP! My idea of the perfect vacation is doing a whole lotta nothing in a tropical place so it sounds perfect. Oh, and surfing!
I haven’t done a really big trip with El Hub in a while, but some of my favorite places to visit are Paris, Portugal, and Hawaii! I’d love to go to Australia to do a surfing trip. Ahh! Warm water. 🙂
Hey Karen! I usually go to work in jeans and a t-shirt. It’s comfortable for those long days in the lab. hehe Every once in awhile though I’ll feel really girly and dress a little nicer and put some makeup on. The company Halloween party is the best time to dress up. Last year I was a modern day Cleopatra and sported a bold blue eye. It was pretty cool if I may say so myself. =D
This is a little off topic, but I wanted to compliment you on your lips. They’re the perfect size and shape. You’ve got a really good gene pool! (Sorry if I sound stalkerish and weird, definitely not my intention)
Aww, thanks for the complement, Vera! (and I know you aren’t being stalkerish or weird!) 🙂 I like doing those lip swatches, because it gives me the chance to work on my lip brush skills and it gives readers a good idea of what colors look like before they go out and buy. Next up: the cool lips sets from MAC holiday, yay.
Ohhh, Cleopatra is a very cool costume. (Random side note: I’ve been watching HBO’s “Rome” show on DVD and Cleopatra just showed up in the series.) Anyway, I love bold blue eyed looks, but I’m very color shy so I am am currently working on the courage to work it in full daylight, ahhh! What colors did you use?
A little off topic, but I think that’s so cool that you are in a lab. I don’t miss my science days much but sometimes secretly wish I could’ve been a cosmetics chemist.
Hi Karen! Beauty blogs are the best when you’re up late studying or can’t sleep, so to you and your fellow bloggers, thank you! 😀 I really like the swatches you do. I have a couple of Chanel glosses, and your swtaches make me want to get a couple more. hehe By the way, you rock red!
I don’t pull off blue very well, so I don’t wear it often. On that day I wore Blue Peep Fluidline as my base on the lid, then Lucky Green or some L’Oreal Turqiouse Shade (I forgot honestly)on the inner third, yellow or Goldmine in the middle, and Freshwater on the outer third of the lid.
The lab is cool. I like that I get to play with DNA (my other love besides make up). But it can get monotonous and boring. Funny that you mentioned wanting to be a cosmetics chemist. Lately I’ve been thinking about trying to apply to work in the lab for a cosmetics company. Would you happen to know how to go about doing that?
Hi Miss Vera,
You’ve got to pick up those Chanel glosses. They are limited edition so if ya want them then snatch them up, soon. I am usually not a big glitter girl but the Chanel’s is the most refined and multidimensional of them all…LOVE IT!
That blue eye sounds pretty! I love that you used so many layers and colors. I’ve been wanting Blue Peep for a while but have yet to pick it up because I’m not sure what to pair it with.
You must do really interesting work (when it’s not monotonous – but hey, I think everyone’s job is from time to time though) because DNA is freaking AWESOME. The double helix structure, all the cool bonds, A to T, C to G … okay, I don’t remember much from my sciences days but I remember thinking that Watson and Crick were the shizz. The only other times I remember stuff is when I watch shows like “Law & Order SVU” and the medical examiner talks about matching suspects to alleles.
But if you are thinking about moving into another field like cosmetics chem I suspect that getting your foot through the door would be easiest if you knew someone. If I was in your shoes then I would try to find a society or some sort of group first. I’m sure there’s gotta be a “Society of Cosmetics Chemists” or something of the like out there. I’d try to get to know a few folks and ask them out to coffee so that I could ask them questions about breaking into the field. I’d also send out an e-mail to my friends asking them if they knew anybody I could talk to, as well. In my experience networking is always really important when getting your foot through the door, especially in an industry that’s new to you. 🙂
At this point anywhere warm and tropical would be nice…It snowed yesterday and has been horribly icy as well. I’m thinking I’d like to go back to Barbados… it’s been awhile.
Yikes! Megan, I dunno how you gals do it. I can barely function when it hits 40…no ice or snow for me.
Totally weird question (I’ve never lived in the snow before), but do you have to use waterproof makeup and mascara?
I’ve never been to Barbados. I’ve seen pictures and it looks beautiful! If I ever make it out there I’ll have to remember to get travel tips from you. 🙂