Sunless Tanners – and another reason to hate Lindsay Lohan

If you purchase a product “made” and/or endorsed by Lindsay Lohan, you deserve whatever happens to you.

I know this.  Anyone with common sense knows this.  And yet, I allowed the saleman with spiky hair at a Sephora in West Palm Beach convince me that Sevin Nyne Tanning Mist was a smart investment.  In my defense, Sephorais supposed to be more infallible than the pope, and he showed me how it works in the store. (The spiky haired salesman, not the pope.)  Plus, Sephora has the best return policy you can ask for, so I figured – what the hell?

Hell.  That’s a good word for the Sevin Nyne Tanning Mist experience.

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Smells Like Gift-Giving Success

Finn here again. I’ve got a lot to say. Apparently.

I’m not hard to buy for—if you pay attention. But so many people just don’t. Or at least that don’t pay enough attention. Maybe they realize that I am a perfume whore (The more the merrier, I say and I’m not ashamed). What they don’t get is that just because I like fragrance it doesn’t mean I will like their favorite, which they will invariably assume, even if I didn’t say I liked it or even notice they were wearing any. And invariably that scent will be something sweet and delicate, which is NOT me at all and should be obvious to anyone who’s ever been in my presence.

But enough about me.

What I’m getting at is this: Unless you know for sure what your giftee likes perfume-wise, it really has been better just to refrain from giving that particular item.

Until now.

Sephora has the perfect solution:  Sephora Scent Samplers. It’s ingenious really. You buy the sampler, which includes a handful (7, 10 or 12 depending on the collection) of sample bottles of their bestselling fragrances. Once you’ve tried them all and decided on a favorite, you bring the enclosed voucher to your nearest Sephora store and redeem it for a full-sized bottle of your pick.

Easy-breezy and oh-so-cool. Plus, they have samplers for men, too.

A few caveats: You must redeem the voucher at a Sephora store; you can’t use it online. And it’s not valid for our Canadian friends unless they cross the border. Finally, there is always the chance that the recipient won’t like any of the available scents. But the included selection is diverse enough that the chance would be slim. Two of the collections have one scent that I’ve recently fallen in love with and I’m picky as hell.

Pricing on these are $50 for the Best Sellers or Deluxe samplers and $75 for the Collector’s Edition, which features seven miniature versions of the regular perfume bottles rather than the little sample packages. For men there are two versions, the Deluxe for $50 and the Collector’s Edition for $75.

I gave one these to both my brother and my dad for Christmas (they like cologne almost as much as do) and they loved it. Gift-giving WIN I tell you. Even my mother liked the idea and she’s a pain in the ass when it comes to gifts. Trust me, you’ll be a hero. Try it.

P.S. These are a great way to sample several fragrances and even save a few bucks on new scent if you’re in the market for yourself.

Maybe, just maybe, someone in my life will get the hint (anyone?) and buy me one of these babies. But they’re probably not paying attention.

A Way To Touch Up Mineral Makeup Without The Mess

My friend Megan introduced me to Bare Escentuals bareMinerals makeup a few months ago, and I have been in love ever since – with only one complaint.

I use the Bare Escentuals bareMinerals SPF 15 Foundation and the Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil to set the powder.  My only problem to date has been that there wasn’t a good way to apply touch ups to my makeup through out the day.  You see, although the mineral makeup has the amazing ability to provide great coverage while being super light and natural looking – it all comes in a loose powder form.  In other words, it’s really, really, messy.

Much too messy to stick a pot of foundation or mineral veil in your purse.  Which sucks, because a quick retouch of mineral veil at 4:00 in the afternoon gives you instant fresh face.

Thankfully, the good people at Bare Escentuals have answered my prayers in the form of a refillable buffing brush.

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Do drugstore eye primers work?

I have been trying to find ways to cut back on my beauty budget.

That means giving myself pedicures and at-home facials.  It means going a little longer between hair cuts and letting my girlfriends wax my eyebrows for me.  And it also means buying drugstore brands whenever possible.

Several weeks ago, I ran out of the eyelid primer I use to make my eyeliner smudge proof.  Instead of replenishing it immediately, I began searching for a drugstore eye primer.

A few trips up and down the beauty aisles of Wal-Mart and Target proved to be fruitless.  I turned to Google, thinking perhaps there was an alternative similar to my Monistat Chafing Gel As Foundation Primer that I hadn’t heard of.

What I discovered online were several reviews for L’Oreal’s De-Crease Eye Shadow Base.  It was the only eye makeup primer I found mentioned that would be available at a local drug store.  Fortunately, I thought, all of the reviews were positive.  This stuff, it seemed, was exactly what I was looking for!  And it would only cost about $8!

Someone on a Yahoo! beauty forum owes me $8.

I’m not sure what, exactly, L’Oreal’s De-Crease Eye Shadow Base is supposed to do.  Maybe it gives you a smoother surface for applying eye shadow.  My shadows did go on slightly better with the base than they did on bare skin.

But the number one reason I use an eyelid primer is to extend the life of my eye makeup – and this eye shadow base did absolutely nothing for me in that department.  I should have suspected as much when the primer/eye liner mixture washed off the back of my hand with water and a quick swipe.

While L’Oreal’s De-Crease Eye Shadow Base is half the cost of Bare Escentuals bareVitamins Prime Time Eyelid Primer, the bareVitamins Primer actually works.  It makes my eye shadow colors more vibrant, it mixes with my liner powder to give me smudge free eyeliner, and it makes all of my eye makeup stay on all day.

You can’t buy Bare Escentuals at Wal-Mart, but you will get a free sample product when you buy it from Sephora.

Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips – my most expensive lip gloss

I can’t believe I paid $18 this weekend to replace a tube of lip gloss that I lost.

But really – it’s that good.

So good, in fact, that I willingly endured another trip to my local ULTA so that I could plop down $18.  For lip gloss.

Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips is currently tied with Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer for my all time favorite lip gloss.  And while Burt’s Bees is awesome and only about $4.99 at a drugstore – I still couldn’t resist the urge to get my hands on another tube of Buxom Lips.

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Friday Flop: ULTA “Customer Service”

I came dangerously close to staging a riot at the local ULTA last week.

The only thing stopping me was the fact that I live 45 minutes away from a Sephora, and I couldn’t risk getting myself banned from the next best thing.  My principles, apparently, only run as deep as my need for overpriced cosmetics.

But boy I was pissed.

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Friday Flops: Lip Plumper. Ouch

The idea of a lip plumper is intriguing to me.

According to commercials and reviews, a cosmetic lip plumper is a product you apply like lip gloss and it makes your lips appear fuller.

Like collagen, but without the needles or doctor appointments.

Now, I am blessed to have fairly full lips.  My face might be round and I might be severely lacking in the cheekbone department – but I’ve got good lips.  The only thing my lips need is regular moisturizing and a little bit more color.  Lucky me.

Of course, that didn’t stopping me from playing with a few lip plumpers the last time I was in Sephora.

I poked around and located the most expensive product – because that’s usually an indication of a product that should work.  At least, that’s what cosmetic companies tell us.  That’s how I discovered Lip Injection Extreme by Too Faced.

The name should have been a warning.

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Friday Flops: ULTA eyeshadow brushes

It’s fun to show you all the things I want to buy or things I’ve bought that I love.  But anyone who goes shopping as much as I do knows that some things you buy suck.

I cannot even tell you the hatred that I have for my new eyeshadow brushes from Ulta.

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