Beauty of a Blog

I am so excited to introduce my blog to the world, I'm going to give away to one lucky reader, a $100 gift card to my favorite beauty mecca, Sephora. Don't have a Sephora near you? You can use it at Sephora.com too! All you have to do is sign my guestbook at the bottom of the page, and tell me what's the one beauty product you can't live without, then click on one of the ads at the top or bottom of the page and you're entered to win! Winner will be chosen at random on December 15th.

I am an avid user of the Make Up For Ever Waterproof eyeliner, and love it for it's staying power, but it's a little on the expensive side at $17. I wondered if I could find something comparable that would be a little cheaper. A friend of mine is a Mark representative and suggested I try their Eyemarker pencil. Although it's not waterproof, at $5.50, it seemed like a steal, so I decided to try it out in black. It has a twist up format and I was loving the soft texture- it literally melted onto my eyelid without tugging or pulling at all. It drew a nice, dark inky black line. I was loving it...and then it smudged all over the place a couple of hours later. My next purchase, I decided, would be waterproof. I was in Walgreens the next day and Revlon Colorstay eyeliner caught my eye. It claimed to stay put for up to 16 hours, and at $7.50, I thought it would be worth a try. I was pleasantly surprised at the packaging and texture, as it was very similar to the Mark Eyemarker...velvety smooth, twist up, easy to draw. I smudged it a little across my lash line, then let it set for a minute before continuing with my eye makeup. To my surprise, by the end of the workday, I did not have any smudges and it was still intact. Toward the very end of the evening, around midnight, I rubbed my eyes, and noticed a little smearing, but it was hard to tell if it was the eyeliner, or my mascara. Besides, it was about 16 hours later at that point, so I would say this eyeliner lives up to it's claims!

I'm what you'd call a frugirl, so I try not to spend a lot of money on things if I don't have to. That said, there are some beauty products that are worth every penny, and Fresh's Sugar Rose Lip Treatment ($22.50, Sephora.com) is one of them. It comes packaged in a heavy, expensive-looking metal tube that twists up from the bottom. The product itself is very soft, and you have to be careful not to carry it around in your pocket or you'll have a tube full of mush. If it were any softer, it would need to be packaged in a pot vs. a tube. The balm is scented with that famous Fresh Sugar scent that is so delectable...brown sugar with a hint of lemon. The product just melts into lips, quenching them instantly, and leaving a slight (not at all goopy) sheen. By looking at the color of the balm, you'd think it would come out dark, but it adds just the slightest hint of beautiful rosiness to your lips. The color is so believable, no one would ever think you were wearing a lip color, but that your lips are just naturally gorgeous and rosy. I'm not sure that I will ever wear anything BUT this stuff on my lips...ever.