Category: cosmetics

Surprising Gina Lollobrigida talent

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Flori Roberts Cosmetics (one of the first cosmetics lines to cater to women of color) posted this picture of Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida to Facebook:

Gina Lollobrigida

But did you know that Gina Lollobrigida is a talented sculptor?  Check out this sculpture that she created for the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (sorry, copying is disabled).

Mally Beauty Three-fer Giveaway!

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The Style Page is offering one lucky person the chance to win three Mally Beauty products:

Mally Beauty City Chick Smokey Eye Kit in Plum Chelsea

The Style Page hand-picked Plum Chelsea, as plums and purples are often more sensuous than browns and grays.

Mally Beauty Evercolor Poreless Face Defender

Mally Beauty Evercolor Poreless Face Defender is a colorless, powderless alternative to translucent powder. According to the Mally Beauty website:

Mally’s Evercolor Poreless face Defender is the perfect finishing touch for your Makeup look. This remarkable technology yields a waterclear, featherweight product that diffuses the look of pores and fine lines, helps makeup last and last, and helps protect your makeup look. Finishes a look, mattifies and smoothes, without the dry, ashy look of powder.

Mally Beauty Perfect Prep Poreless Primer

Mally Beauty Perfect Prep Poreless Primer is Mally Roncal’s creation because she couldn’t find a primer that actually worked when she was working on her celeb clients. Reportedly, she used to mix 7-8 primers to find a solution that worked.

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(Sometimes I feel so) Uninspired

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(Sometimes I feel so) Uninspired was the title of a song by Traffic, a band fronted by Steve Winwood that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  It also reflects how I’m feeling now about blogging.

The process of sitting down to blog is hard for me.  However, I’ve been very active on Twitter with beauty news.  Twitter is easy, blogging is hard.

I’ve also been going through a makeup-free period.  After DST, I’ve had a hard time waking up before dawn  and it’s enough for me to throw on clothes and get out of the house to go to work.  Maybe some lip color and Paula’s Choice Brow/Hair Tint to cover the gray hairs and groom the brows.  And that’s about it.

However, that hasn’t stopped me from buying cosmetics!  Recent purchases:

G-d willing, I’ll get the motivation to sit down and write about them!

Beauty-box subscriptions: what do you think?

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The article Beauty-box subscriptions: High-end cosmetics samples delivered to your door from Philly.com (the online companion to The Inquirer, Philadelphia’s newspaper) presents an uncritical look at subscription services such as Julep, Birchbox, and Beauty Army.

I do not subscribe, but other beauty bloggers who do have expressed disappointment with what they’ve received.

Do you subscribe to any of the beauty box subscription services?  What do you think?

Marc Jacobs Is Creating His Own Line Of Cosmetics With Sephora: are you interested?

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Hollywood Life picks up a story from WWD that Marc Jacobs Is Creating His Own Line Of Cosmetics With Sephora.  He is following in the footsteps of fellow designer Tom Ford.   He had his first meeting only last week.  It’s too soon to project a launch date.

Would you be interested in shopping Marc Jacobs’ cosmetics line, when it’s put on the market?

Laura Mercier Eye Basics

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Laura Mercier is my favorite luxe cosmetics brand.

Laura Mercier Eye Basics

I reach for Laura Mercier Eye Basics everyday.

Eye Basics in Flax is a perfect match for my light skin tone. It covers discoloration on my lids, thereby providing a canvas to apply eye shadow. The product has some pearlescence, but otherwise, eye shadow stays true and lasts all day.  I prefer applying a thin layer on my fingers, and applying it with my fingers rather than using the doe foot applicator.  Eye Basics sets quickly.

Laura Mercier Eye Basics also comes in Buff (medium pink beige), Cotton (light yellow), Eyebright (pale brightening blue), Linen (light ivory), Peach (sheer orange peach), and Wheat (light medium beige).

Now Laura Mercier has come out with Eye Canvas.  Still waiting to learn via the lauramercier.com web site how Eye Canvas differs from Eye Basics …

You may shop Laura Mercier Cosmetics at high-end department stores (Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s), Sephora stores, lauramercier.com, and Sephora.com.

Best foundations for dry skin

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I received an invitation from SkinnyScoop, a new social media application.  What, more social media?  It takes away from the hard work of writing original articles.  Facebook is good for interacting with other beauty bloggers, and Pinterest has been helpful in overcoming writers’ block.  While other beauty bloggers ignored the invitation, I decided to go for it.  SkinnyScoop offers the opportunity for bloggers to compile lists, get recommendations, and create professional looking widgets for your blog.

I decided to compile a list of recommendations for foundations for dry skin via SkinnyScoop.  Here are the recommendations I received:

IsaDora Eye Shadow Quartet

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A glowing review of IsaDora Eye Shadow Quartet from Paula Begoun:

IsaDora Eye Shadow Quartet is a find! Although each set of four colors has at least one shiny shade, the texture is magnificent: a creamy-feeling powder that is not the least bit dry, dusty, or flaky. It glides over lids and allows precise blending. The pigment level is higher than usual, so you get stronger color and more coverage than you do from most powder eyeshadows, not to mention long wear. For a professional makeup design, these work great and the price is more than fair. The best combinations (which include a dark color for use as eyeliner) are Pearls, Classic Brown, Crystal Mauve, Pearly Minerals, Silvery Gray, Antique Gold, and Chocolate Brown.

I can certainly vouch for the Eye Shadow Quartet in Antique Gold. Bronzing Plums have deep shades that are great for the outer corner. You may shop Isadora at CosmeticMall.com or Apothica.  Unfortunately, there are itty-bitty thumbnails (no enlargement or swatches) so you can’t get a good sense of the shades.

beautyADDICTS BeautifulLIPS Lipstick

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BeautyADDICTS groups its cosmetics into four color groups:

  • Glow: “Shimmering lavender shadow. Chic candy color glosses. Icy pink and cool bronze highlighters glisten with glamour.”  
  • Express: “These must have essentials include buff, rose-gold, cream, and bronze for casual elegance.”
  • Motivate: “Heather, berry, plum and pale pinks are the highlights of this palette, taking you from the boardroom to a night on the town.”  
  • Seduce: “The perfect smoky eye in white, silver and black. Sheer ruby and silver glosses. Velvety burgundy blushes add just the right hint of drama.” 

BeautyADDICTS recently added BeautifulLIPS Lipstick to its collection. The BeautifulLIPS collection consists of 8 lipstick shades.

beautyADDICTS  BeautifulLIPS  lipstick

The lineup:

  • Glow: Flirt (delicate pink) and Affair (rose) 
  • Express: Shy (peach) and Toast (described as “the perfect everyday shade that works on all complexions”)
  • Motivate: Peep Show (eggplant) and Vintage (soft berry) 
  • Seduce: Femme Fatale (dark burgundy) and Sinful (red-orange)

I was pleased to receive samples of Affair, Shy, and Vintage. BeautifulLIPS Lipstick is emollient and creamy and therefore is particularly good for winter time. Affair and Vintage are soft colors and particularly well suited for everyday wear and safe for work. Shy was too pale for my liking.

beautyADDICTS BeautifullLIPS Lipstick retails for $18 each and is available at www.beautyaddicts.com and salons.

The Style Page would like to acknowledge Lexamedia for sending me samples of beautyADDICTS BeautifulLIPS lipstick for my review.

Seven lip gloss reviews from 7 beauty bloggers

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Feeling royal? Jen Mathews from My Beauty Bunny shares her fave cruelty free lip glosses fit for a queen, http://www.mybeautybunny.com/2012/gold-lip-glosses/.

Julie (that’s me!) from The Style Page thought that lip gloss was kid stuff until she tried Three Custom Color Specialists.  Read her review of lip glosses from the Robert Jones Signature Collection from 3CC, http://thestylepage.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-of-3cc-robert-jones-signature.html

Expensive, but worth it: Brittany from Clumps of Mascara discovers cult favorite Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment, http://clumpsofmascara.com/2011/10/fresh-sugar-lip-treatment.html

Brooke from BlushingNoir reviews three Lipglasses from MAC’s limited edition Tour de Fabulous collection, http://blushingnoir.blogspot.com/2011/12/mac-rich-witty-rich-bounty-and-knockout.html

Brie for Madame B Fatale discovers a multi-tasking product with “completely environmentally friendly packaging, 100% natural active fair trade ingredients and fragrances, and no animal testing,” http://www.madamebfatale.com/2010/04/13/review-trilogy-everything-balm

Jessika from polish insomniac will be a repeat customer for the luxe French brand By Terry after trying its Gloss Delectation, http://www.polishinsomniac.net/2011/06/makeup-monday-by-terry-gloss.html

Melody from Cosmetically Challenged calls Afrobella’s All My Purple Life Lipglass from MAC’s Bloggers collection “amazing,” http://www.cosmetically-challenged.com/2011/06/23/afrobellas-all-my-purple-life-lipglass/. She looks gorgeous wearing it!