Recently in Eyes Category

We are kicking off the holidays with Thanksgiving next week which means it's time for holiday gift shopping! Black Friday is the most frightening day for me. I will be in LA celebrating with friends and family and will stay home stuffing my face with leftovers and do all my shopping online. We thought we'd make it easier for you, too and have created a 5 part gift guide for the following types of beauty snobs:

FRUGAL SNOB, JET SET SNOB, FRAGRANCE SNOB, SPORTY SNOB and DIVA SNOB.

We will post one guide per day until Thanksgiving so you'll have lots of options to shop for come Black Friday! Have fun!

Frugal Snob

I don't think I need to spell out why this is an amazing gift at $55 (worth $350!).  I think you can pretty much get through the entire year (all four seasons) on these colors!  LORAC Double Booked Full Face Collection ($350 Value) $55

I am buying a dozen of these anti-aging eye rollers as stocking stuffers. I know my frugal snob friends will love them and continue to treat themselves to it! I keep mine in the fridge and when I wake up puffy and angry looking, I simply roll it around my eyes (towards the inner corners). Olay Regenerist Anti-Aging Eye Roller here $20.69

 

What's more fun than playing in a tub full of Philosophy bubbles?!  Well there is something more fun but this is a rated G beauty site so I won't get into that.  No need to pull out soap, shampoo, and bubble bath-- with Philosophy you get all three, and then some.  Philosophy Best of Sephora Set ($97 Value) Best of Sephora Set $55

Now isn't this the cutest little make up kit you've ever seen? Too Faced celebrated its 10 year anniversary with the Too Faced Decade of Glamour Beauty Wardrobe Makeup Collection. It comes with its most popular products for the past 10 years. This is a great try me kit for Too Faced, or I'm thinking of giving it as gifts to the younger ones in my family. It's cute just to display on their dresser, and I love the silhouette of the girl in the bronzer/blush. The products are all deluxe sample size but for $19.50 for a $195 value who can go wrong? It's got a variety of color and product so this is great for the experimenting beginner or the beauty lover like us!

Get it at Sephora for $19.50.

Check out these adorable holiday palettes from Shu Uemura!! Collaborating with acclaimed fashion designer Tsumori Chisato, shu has created a very special makeup collection called "Wish Upon a Star".  These will make perfect stocking stuffers and are will be great for traveling.  I like putting cream highlighter around the outer and inner corners of the eyes-- makes them sparkle and takes attention away from any unsightly lines. 

PLANET CAT COUTURE PALETTE

• Price : $65.00
• Available: Shu Uemera tsumori chisato limited edition planet cat couture palette

 

RADIANT RIBBON COUTURE PALETTE

• 3 Pressed eye shadows, 1 cream eyeliner, 1 cream highlighter, 2 double-ended applicators, 1 glow on
• Price: $65.00
• Available: Shu Uemera tsumori chisato limited edition radiant ribbon couture palette 

Orlane has just come-out with the eye version of their famously pricey Creme Royal. Called Creme Royal Eye Contour, the creme retails for $300 for .5oz and is formulated to be an anti-aging, anti-sagging, anti-free radical, anti-wrinkle, hydrating, nourishing, and firming creme (talk about a mouthful!). The key ingredient in the creme is royal jelly, a substance that serves as the queen bee's sole nourishment and enables her to live 50 times longer than the other bees (sounds convincing, no!?). The eye cream also uses 24-carat gold (same idea as those Kanebo lipsticks everyone's talking about), which is used in plastic surgery to stimulate the production of elastic fibers and fight skin slackening. Lastly it's got Lupine Extract to fight puffiness, redness, and dark circles. This is a hearty eye treatment that is meant for those over the age of 30 (though if you're an over-worked New Yorker/frequently suffer from hangovers this could be for you as well!).

This is one of my favorite new MAC lines, I received a sample of the Mineralized shadow duo in purple/silver (Devil May Care $19.50 on left) and it's one of the most gorgeous purple shadows I've tried.  Honestly, most of my MAC samples go to our young assistants cuz the colors are so out there and sparkly but this collection is wearable (though still a bit sparkly so proceed the metallics with caution!).

Another item worthy of trying is the metallic nail lacquer (either in blue/pink frost or the silver below $12).  I like the consistency of MAC nail polishes, goes on without the little annoying bumps and will last a good week without chipping or peeling.  MAC holiday- Magic Mirth and Mischeif here.   

After 7 years of being one of ModelCo's most popular products, the Turbo Lash Wand ($33) has undergone a makeover! The revamped heated lash curler now has a higher-powered superior heating mechanism with a hot new pink look and added features that help shape lashes without breaking them (I've been using it for the last few weeks and haven't noticed any breakage/eyelash-loss). Among the new features are --

• A double-heating coil that reaches 60 degrees instead of 40 and curls at the root of the lash as well as mid-way
• Ergonomic design that fits easily in your hand
• Battery operated so it's travel-friendly
• Inbuilt On/Off indicator light
  

The application process is easy; just apply your mascara and then straight after turn on the wand and wait 60 seconds for it to heat up. Then apply the wand at the root of your eyelashes, fold back and hold for 20 seconds.

I have not found my Holy Grail mascara yet. There are many mascaras that I really like, but they just don't hit all points for me. I know DiorShow is some of many people's HG, and I love it too...the first month or two. After that it seems to get really dry and clumpy. The closest to my HG mascara right now is Fresh's Supernova, but the only problem, for me at least, is that it raccoons very easily. So I decided the way that I could fix this problem was by waterproofing it. I had heard about the Urban Decay Lingerie & Galoshes Double-ended Mascara and liked how it had a primer on one side, and the waterproofer on the other. The consistency was a little thicker then a gel, and I think that really helped to prevent it from making the mascara look dry. Using the waterproofing side really did help my mascara stop from running and didn't make it look any different then it was before. And I felt that since it's the waterproofer coated over my regular mascara then it wasn't going to hurt my lashes like regular waterproof mascara does. I did feel like I got half gypped though, because I do not like the primer side at all. It was so fibrous that it made my mascara look spidery and would make my lashes turn in every which direction. I wish I could buy the waterproofing side by itself, but they don't sell it that way. The next product I may try to waterproof is Benefit's She Laq which actually comes with several brushes to waterproof nearly all your make up. The only thing I'm weary of is how water the concoction looks. I'm afraid it would look so drying. You can get Urban Decay Lingerie & Galoshes Double-ended Mascara for $18. What's your Holy Grail mascara?

I'm obsessed with Sharpie fine point pens, nothing writes as smoothly or easily!  That is how I felt about Le Metier de Beaute's felt point liquid liner when I tested it out (exclusively at Neiman Marcus!) today.  The tip makes a very smooth line (not jagged like some felt tip liners can get) and it will not budge unless you wash it off with make up remover.  I got the BLEU cuz it was just so fun and funky-- very Valley Girl circa 1985.  The NOIR is a deep deep black, blends really well with fake lashes and look striking on its own.  Have you tried this line?  Tell me what you think!

"Chrome is cool and icy- it's a very modern, but still pretty way to illuminate the skin." - Bobbi Brown

I flew home last night to a mound of mail and packages (24 days worth of mail and blogger packages is a sight to see!) I opened each and every one of the (10) boxes from cosmetic companies and when I saw what was inside the Bobbi Brown package I got a bit miffed.  Not to be ungrateful and all but hello-- I so could have used this CHROME palette during my trip to Asia! It's a tri-fold compact that has 10 eyeshadow shades, 4 lip shades, plus mini brushes to boot. It would have saved me a lot of room in my luggage! 

I played with the shadows after the hubby and boy went to bed and was surprised how subtle the shadows are on the lids (considering how dark they look in the palette).  I used the "Iron" matte shadow as a base and highlighted the brow bone with "White" matte shadow.  I then put "Charcoal Haze" along the lash line to smoke my liner (may be used as a liner itself) which made for a really pretty daytime look.  To test out an evening look, I lightly dusted "Cyber Grey" and "Storm Cloud" sparkle shadow over the entire the lid-- smokin' hot!  I love playing with make up and can do this all night long!
Bobbi Brown Chrome Palette ($75) here.
 
The collection also has three new limited edition lipsticks: Port Lip Color, Chrome Metallic Lip Color and Plum Pearl Metallic Lip Color.  I did not get any samples of these so will stop by Neiman Marcus later this week to test out.  

The collection also includes Bobbi's holiday Chrome Mini Brush Set- the perfect present for the beauty-junkie in your life (wait, that would be moi!). The set, which comes in a chrome zip-around cases features a Mini Face Blender, Bobbi's new Mini Angle Eye Shadow Brush and a Mini Eye Liner brush.

Also available at Nordstrom. Bobbi Brown Chrome Palette $75, Bobbi Brown Metallic Lip Color $22, Bobbi Brown Chrome Mini Brush Set $55.