benefit

The power of packaging compels you! The power of packaging compels you!

And for me with Benefit’s new “I’m Glam… Therefore I am” palette ($36), it almost does. I desperately wanted to bond with B’s new kit of mostly cool-toned colors for eyes, lips and cheeks. That way I’d feel good about giving it a permanent place on my dresser, a place where I could gaze lovingly at the adorable illustrated box.

The glam gal featured on the front reminds me of the girls my friends and I would doodle on our notebooks in school, complete with gown, tiara and opera-length gloves, and her step-by-step makeup lessons imprinted on the packaging describe how to use the palette to achieve two distinct looks, one called Daytime Dahling and the other, Evening Goddess.

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Today my mad love for Benefit bumped up against an annoying reality. As much as I wanted to love the brand’s new Lash Lovelies false lashes, I just couldn’t make ’em work.

Ticked me off, too, because I think the designs are super cute.

Three of the nine Benefit Lash Lovelies

I had grand plans to try on three of the nine designs today, but after wrestling with two of them, Prima Donna and Big Spender ($15 each), I didn’t have it in me to try the third.

Benefit’s clear Lash Glue ($8) doesn’t do these designs any favors, either, and I think it’s what finally drove me over the edge. I hope so many issues with the stuff that I don’t even I don’t even know where to start. Thin and runny? Yup, and it makes the glue difficult to control. It kept dripping off the band, down the length of the lashes, onto my lids and even below my lash line. And it looks pretty janky when it dries (like all thick and crusty).

I could probably stop right there, happily, and just never use this glue again, but there’s more. It also stings… Yup. I think the lemony/glue-ish fumes make my eyes burn a little. I’ve tried a few different false lash adhesives over the years, and this was the first one that bothered my eyes.

Big Spender Lash
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Okay, so I know that it’s totally Benefit’s style to give their products cheeky names, and I get that the name they gave their new Watt’s Up face highlighter ($30 for a 0.33-oz. tube) plays on the idea of light bulbs illuminating the skin, but I can’t help but think of something else every time I say the name…

WASSUP!

LOL! I loved that old commercial. 🙂

Team B describes the color of their new highlighter, a solid stick with a cream-to-powder finish, as a luminous, sheer champagne. I turned it on this afternoon, and I really did feel like I was glowing (on me it’s a shimmery, peachy glow).

I’m reminded of a NARS Multiple in how the product looks and feels — smooth, thin and slightly dry to the touch. The concept has been approached before, but here I like Benefit’s execution.

First, I’m glad they chose not to go the liquid route, a la Moonbeam/Highbeam, because it means not having to worry about accidental spills and getting the product all over the place. Second, with the highlighter on one end of the stick and a blending sponge on the other, I don’t need an extra brush. All I do is glide the creamy stick along my cheek and brow bones (it works on bare skin and atop makeup), and smooth out any edges with the sponge.

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