Love Lip Color? All you need is Lip Liner.

I'm a little obsessed with lip color... in all kinds of shades, finishes, and wears.  If you have a similar addiction, you could go broke buying balms, glosses, lipsticks, lip glazes, stains, lip liners, etc.  For a much more economical way to experiment with all those fun colors, all you need is these three items to get the different finishes created by the products mentioned above:

• lip liner in color of choice
• clear lip balm
• clear lip gloss

Here are instructions and pictures to show you how:

Pantone-Inspired Beauty Haul

Pantone Color Institute recently announced its Color of the Year for 2012: Tangerine Tango.

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

As a long-time fan of orange shades, I LOVE this color!   And on a Personal Shopping appointment yesterday, I saw two MAC lip colors that perfectly create this red-orange shade:

MAC Lipglass in Knockout.  MAC Lip Pencil in Entertain Me.

How gorgeous are these two colors?  Individually, they're beautiful, and combined they perfectly create the Tangerine Tango shade I love!

Lip Pencil on left; Lipglass on right.

Starting with the gloss, applied in a stippling motion, I then blended in a bit of the pencil for a sheer, tangerine wash on the lips.  Wear this with a light wash of bronzer or apricot brush on cheeks and strong brows with simple, neutral eyes for a chic daily look.  This color is gorgeous on all skin tones, especially those with slightly pinker undertones.  I hear Pantone will be coming out with a line for Sephora this year, but for those of us who want it now, check out MAC.  The Knockout Lipglass is limited edition, so hurry!!

What colors are you feeling this year?

New Beauty Resolutions for 2012

Happy New Year, beauties!  I wish you all a happy, healthy, and gorgeous year ahead :)

Now, getting on to the "gorgeous" part, here are some New Beauty Resolutions that will help keep us looking pretty all year and into the next:

1.  Clean Your Brushes.

This might sound like a no-brainer, but I'm always surprised by how many women don't wash their brushes... ever!  This is so important; brushes are a breeding ground for bacteria that can result in acne and  will contaminate your makeup.  So, wash your makeup brushes at least once a month with a gentle shampoo, following these simple steps:

• Wet the brushes and squirt a small amount of shampoo into the palm of your hand.
• Wash one brush at a time in the palm of your hand using a back-and-forth motion - this is really important, because using a swirling or circular motion will cause the brush fibers to twist around eachother and break.
• Rinse under flowing water and gently squeeze out all excess moisture, ensuring that the water runs clear out of the brush.
• Reshape the brush and lay on a towel or the side of your sink and let dry.

At least once a week, spritz your brushes with an anti-bacterial brush spray to keep bacteria at bay.

Cyber Monday Beauty Deals and Steals

Hi Lovelies!
I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving weekend filled with friends, family, and lots of delicious food.  Now, it's Monday and we are celebrating one of my favorite shopping days: Cyber Monday!!  Black Friday is great and all, but after the enormous food baby I usually wake up with, I'm in no shape to deal with hordes of shoppers and long lines.  Enter Cyber Monday, with its just-as-good deals without requiring me to get out of my PJs.  Bless.

Here are some of my favorite beauty deals and steals:

Thanksgiving Inspired Skin Care - Pumpkin Edition

This season, take your skin care cues from your dinner table!  These products feature the Thanksgiving staple, pumpkin, to ensure your skin looks its best this season.

Pumpkin
Pumpkin is an excellent source of Vitamins C and A to protect, heal and stimulate collagen production, and Zinc Oxide, which is a powerful anti-inflammatory and aids in skin repair.  Pumpkin is also packed with enzymes that naturally dissolve dull, dead skin for a glowing complexion.

MyChelle Dermaceuticals Creamy Pumpkin Cleanser

This creamy cleanser contains pumpkin and honey enzymes, to gently exfoliate and hydrate while cleansing.  It completely dissolves dirt, oil and makeup, leaving skin soft and smooth.  Perfect for all skin types!

Glo Pumpkin Enzyme Scrub 2oz

This scrub combines gentle jojoba beads with pumpkin and fruit enzymes for both physical and chemical exfoliation.  It also contains powerful anti-inflammatories to ensure your skin never gets irritated.  Use 2 to 3 times a week for a glowing complexion!

Sanitas Pumpkin Enzyme Mask

This mask from my beloved Sanitas line combines pumpkin enzymes with hydrating hyaluronic acid and squalane to gently exfoliate while hydrating.  Right after using this mask, you'll see smooth, soft skin with a decrease in fine lines and discoloration.  

DIY: Pumpkin Mask

Or... you can create your very own mask at home!  Combine the following ingredients, apply to face and rinse off after 10 minutes.

3 tsp. pumpkin puree

1/2 tsp. honey

1/4 tsp. whipping cream

Kate Somerville ExfoliKate® Body Intensive Exfoliating Treatment

This intense exfoliator will ensure your body is just a smooth as your now-glowing face!  With natural pumpkin, papaya, and lactic enzymes to exfoliate, plus caffeine to tone and smooth any dimples, this scrub has everything you need to keep body skin smooth and hydrated this winter.

I just love the scent of pumpkin products!  They are so soothing and comforting.  What are your favorite holiday scents or products?

Keeping Skin Summer Fresh with MBeze!

Here in Denver, we have had one of the hottest, stickiest summers I can remember.  Keeping my skin hydrated and fresh-smelling without the heavy, waxy residue left over from most lotions has been tough... that is, until I found MBeze!
MBeze is a natural skin care and cosmetics company that has a great line-up of everything you could need to keep skin fresh and soft, like body and facial oils, fragrances, and deodorants.

Once Bitten Natural Body Oil

This natural body oil is incredibly lightweight and absorbs immediately - so no sticky residue!  It also smells amazing, with apple blossom, vanilla and a hint of lime, it smells really fresh and not overly sweet; perfect for summer!  On top of all that, it has Vitamins A, B, C, D, and E in a natural oil base to help soften and protect skin.  According to MBeze:

"Each hand-poured blend contains oils that are full of vitamins and known for their ability to break up scar tissue, reduce & prevent stretchmarks, regenerate skin cells, and moisturize to maintain a soft and healthy glow."

Wow!  That is one hard-working body oil!  I love applying this oil after showering; it leaves my skin soft and smooth all day with gorgeous scent that really lasts.  It also works great any time my skin needed a little pick-me-up or some additional glow.

Ife Natural Perfume

The Ife Natural Perfume smells sweet and is kind of... addictive.  This pthalate-free fragrance comes in a coconut and jojoba oil base, and it smells mainly like strawberry, with musk and sandalwood to make it a bit more grown up.  It layers really nicely and comes in a small roll-on, perfect for touching up throughout the day.  Berry scents don't normally smell good on me, but this perfume smelled really natural and made me feel like I'd been running through a field of strawberries!  Even as it wears down, it leaves the softest hint of strawberry on the skin.  So pretty!!

MBeze has several different fragrance options to choose from, and also offers a non-scented option in the body oil for those of us that prefer our own scent.  Check them out and tell me what you think!

Juara Skincare Review

Juara is a vegan skin care line based on historical Indonesian herbal and botanical treatments.  Using traditional Indonesian botanical remedies like healing teas, sandalwood, turmeric, tamarind and rice, combined with western science, these products have an east-meets-west attitude towards anti-aging and skin health.
Juara was kind enough to send me some samples of their daily skin care regimen of cleansing, toning and moisturizing.  Here's what I found:

Rice Facial Cleanser

This foaming, suflate-free cleanser leaves skin soft and hydrated, removing all traces of dirt, oil and makeup.  With rice starch as the active ingredient, known for its soothing and softening properties, as well as its ability to decrease moisture loss, this cleanser works great for all skin types.  

I found this cleanser to have an amazingly pleasant smell, almost like slipping into a tropical vacation - with sweet citrus and warm coconut scents, it's a great way to wake up the senses in the morning.

I especially liked using this cleanser with my Clarisonic - it left my skin feeling super clean and soft!  The only thing I didn't love is that it left my skin feeling a little too "squeaky clean," probably due to the foaming or fragrance ingredients, but after using the toner (reviewed next), my skin felt perfectly soft and supple.

Ingredients:
Water, Disodium Lauroamphodiacetate, Acrylates Copolymer, Sodium Methyl Cocoyl Taurate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Rice (Oryza sativa) Starch, Peg-7 Glyceryl Cocoate, Glycol Stearate, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Glycerin, Glyceryl Caprylate, Phenypropanol, Fragrance.

Tamarind Tea Hydrating Toner

Juara describes this product as a "toner serum", and I completely get why.  This toner is super hydrating, just as the name implies, with a slightly thicker consistency than most toners.  It comes out of the bottle with a brownish tinge, which threw me off a bit, but it disappears perfectly into the skin, leaving it soft and glowing.  The oil-free liquid contains all kinds of skin-loving ingredients, like black, green and white teas for a super antioxidant boost, and tamarind extract to boost hydration and sooth skin.  It also contains rice bran extract to minimize irritation and de-stress skin, and hyaluronic acid to further hydrate and plump.
This product has the most impressive ingredient list of them all, with mostly actives in the list:


Water, Pentylene Glycol, Tamarind Seed (Tamarindus indica) Extract, White Tea, Green Tea, Black Tea (Camellia sinensis) Extract, Rice (Oryza sativa) Bran Extract, Honey Extract, Glycerin, Sodium Hyaluronate, Potassium Sorbate.

I swiped this over my face and neck after cleansing and loved the way my skin felt afterwards!  It left me with a great glow and smooth, softened skin.  It also relieved any tightness or "squeakiness" I felt after cleansing. It definitely feels a bit more conditioning than most toners, which is probably why it is dubbed a "toner serum".  Whatever you call it, it's good stuff!


Sweet Black Tea and Rice Facial Moisturizer
This lightweight moisturizer contains fermented black tea (aka Kombucha) to soften and brighten, and Rice Bran Oil to hydrate as its active ingredients.  Rice Brain Oil is an excellent source of natural fatty acids and Vitamin E, both of which are really important for softening, hydrating and protecting skin.
I found this moisturizer to have a great consistency that soaks right into the skin and leaves it with a hydrated glow.  My skin didn't feel oily or dry all day - it was comfortable and soft, which is a big feat because my skin is pretty bipolar when it comes to its dry and oily zones.
Ingredients:
Water/Eau, Candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) Oil, Emulsifying Wax NF, Avocado (Persea gratissima) Oil Unsaponifiables, Rice Bran (Oryza sativa) Oil, Cyclomethicone, Stearyl Alcohol, Illipe (Shorea stenoptera) Seed Butter, Glycerin, Dimethicone, Squalane, Saccharomyces/Xylinum Black Tea Ferment, Hydroxyethylacrylate/Sodium Acryloyldimethyltaurate Copolymer, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Polysorbate 60, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Glyceryl Caprylate, Phenypropanol, Fragrance/Parfum. 






Bottom Line: REALLY LIKE!  The products are really unique in their use of Indonesian botanicals and herbs to soften and hydrate skin.  While I don't love the addition of fragrance in the cleanser and moisturizer, and found the cleanser a bit too... cleansing, I did appreciate the texture and feel of all the products, especially the toner.  If you're looking for a good, hydrating line with strong natural antioxidants, this is a great line for you!