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Bare Escentuals Try. Believe. Love. Kit

January 4, 2011

We love mineral makeup, and above all, we love bareMinerals mineral makeup. Since their prime, their starter kits have been all over Ulta and Sephora. They are great, because they give you everything you need to, well, start.

That kit hovered around the $60 mark, which was always a little steep (but well worth it). Well, just recently, bareMinerals reached out to the skeptical first-time shopper and released the Try. Believe. Love. kit for an incredible $20!

Though all the products are smaller, and it doesn’t come with their amazing kabuki brush (that’s what creates that airbrushed look), it does come with the following: Original and Matte SPF 15 foundation, Mineral Veil finishing powder, SPF 20 concealer, mini full flawless face brush and mini concealer brush. The $60 kit comes with two shades of foundation, the extra brush, and what they call “warmth” which is a transparent, bronzer-like powder.

Overall, we think the Try. Believe. Love. kit is a fantastic pre-starter for the beauty maven who is interested in diving into mineral makeup, but wants to dip her toes in first. $20, sephora.com

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Product Review: Mario Badescu Enzyme Cleanser

December 30, 2010

Since we first discovered Mario Badescu’s drying lotion in college, MB has been our skincare mainstay. Visits to their small, yet official skincare store/spa in Manhattan only made us love the brand even more.

We’ve tried most of their products - kiwi scrubs, seaweed cleansers, honey moisturizer - but the star of the Mario Badescu line, in our honest opinion, is the Enzyme Cleansing Gel.

We first fell in love with it when it came as a sample with our first drying lotion purchase. It has a soft, clean scent unlike other cleansers we’ve tried, that makes you want to smell it over and over again. It’s non-drying and non-stripping formula is also non-foaming. It was a little strange at first to cleanse our face with no lather. Rubbing a green, pearlescent gel on t-zone wasn’t too convincing, but seven years later, it’s still our number one favorite cleanser of all time.

The packaging is simple and not in the least fancy, but the costumer service is fantastic, you always get samples to try with your order, and the price just can’t be beat.

If you wear heavy foundation or eye makeup, you’ll need a makeup remover beforehand, but it’s the only cleansing product we have found to not leave our face feeling tight and in desperate need of moisturizer (though we always apply anyway…and so should you.) Paired with their Special Cucumber Lotion (it’s really a toner, and not a lotion, fyi), our face has never (and probably will never) looked so good. $12 for 8 oz; $20 for 16 oz; mariobadesu.com

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Burt's Bees Natural Solid Perfumes

December 21, 2010

We love Burt’s Bees products. Natural beauty products that actually deliver, and at a low, drugstore price point? That’s what we like to see! So, much to our delight, Burt’s Bees recently released natural solid perfumes. [Insert a Yippee!! here]. If you’ve never used a solid perfume, let us educate you on a few points. If you have sensitive skin or sensitive senses, solid fragrances are great, because they are more subtle, and don’t have any alcohol in them like misting scents (which means they aren’t drying). They last longer, plus on cold winter mornings, you can warm the perfume between your finger tips before applying to your pulse points, reducing that little shiver we (and maybe you) get when spritzing our typical fragrance.

It comes in four varieties: Naturally Happy, Naturally Beautiful, Naturally Fresh and Naturally Sensual. Fresh is the…well, freshest and cleanest scent, Beautiful and Happy are sweeter, while Sensual is a little warmer. The product details says you can blend them to create your own scent, but we didn’t try that - not that we are opposed to it, though. So far, Naturally Happy and Fresh are our favorites, and we’re thrilled we can pack our silky, shea-butter infused solids for our holiday traveling without fearing spillage or shattered glass. $10, burtsbees.com

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Perfect holiday cheeks with Benefit Cosmetics

December 7, 2010

When Benefit Cosmetics first released their new blush CORALista, we received a sample, as well as a little bottle of Posietint. We had previously owned Benefit’s Moon Beam, but weren’t head-over-heels for it necessarily, so we weren’t terribly excited about our new goodies.

Boy, were we in for a delight! Ever since that first sample, we’ve been a repeat customer. Normally, blushes come off either too orange, or too light, or too matte for our tastes - not the case here! We can’t even begin to imagine our makeup routine without these two products. Benefit’s Posietint and CORALista are our go-tos. Never have we had so many compliments on our glow and makeup since we made these two part of our regimen.

CORALista is a vibrant, but not clownish, pink rouge with a slight shimmer and a very subtle sweet scent. Posietint is a “poppy-pink” lip and cheek stain. We don’t really like it so much for our lips, but it’s a must-have for the apples of our cheeks. The integrated brush makes application super easy.

For perfect, glowing carnation-pink cheeks (which, in our opinion, are a must have for looking gorgeous in those holiday photos), we applied 3-4 dots of the Posietint in a line on each of our cheeks and rubbed it in with our fingertips. We finish that up with a few sweeps of the CORALista blush (though we sometimes apply it in backwards order to wonderful results, as well.) Caution: these may be addicting! $28 each, benefitcosmetics.com

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Product Review: Stila One Step Correct

November 30, 2010

Claims: This innovative, triple-swirled helix serum instantly color corrects, brightens and covers skin imperfections for a flawless face with no fuss.

This primer, color corrector, brightener and anti-aging skincare serum instantly makes imperfections disappear, reduces lines, wrinkles, pores and pigmentation, and hydrates, controls oil and improves skin texture.

The revolutionary new product contains 3 color-correcting brighteners:

Green tone instantly neutralizes redness and conceals blemishes
Lavender tone counteracts sallow undertones for a vibrant, energized look
Peach tone brightens, illuminates and helps diminish the appearance of sun spots

Our take: We aren’t going to lie and say the eye-catching, tri-color design wasn’t the first thing to attract us to the Stila One Step Correct, because it absolutely was. We’re also not going to say that on our first try, we weren’t a little disappointed that all of our skin imperfections weren’t magically erased as it claims. We still needed to use concealer on some old acne scars that have stubbornly decided to stay put on our cheeks. But, with one and a half pumps of this serum slathered on our faces (that absorbs super quickly, and feels nice, cool and smooth going on), our skin took on a nice, glowing property. Not like this-stuff-makes-our-face-greasy glow, but a nice, underlying glow.

Once we put on our makeup, we definitely noticed a difference in the look of our complexion. It was more even, but not in a fake, too-much-makeup kind of way. Throughout the day, our oily skin was less slick, and our makeup stayed put all day. This doesn’t happen normally, so we were very much impressed.

Whether our pores and pigmentation have been reduced or not, we honestly can’t really tell, but as a face primer over moisturizer, this stuff works great. We can’t imagine putting on our mineral foundation without it anymore. It’s pretty pricey, but after forgetting it at home over the holiday weekend and seeing the difference in our final made-up look, we’d gladly spend extra for it! $36, sephora.com

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Bare Escentuals Try. Believe. Love. Kit

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Perfect holiday cheeks with Benefit Cosmetics

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Product Review: Stila One Step Correct

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