It's Friday! Thank god! I'm utterly relieved it's the weekend! Anyone else? The sun is shining bright and it looks like it's going to be a nice warm one!
Any great plans for the weekend for anyone?
The Muse is relieved it's Friday! Phew!
Here's the Weekend Round Up to enjoy! Happy Reading!
How about a lip treatment that's amazingly tasty plus super emollient, glossy, and contains good for you ingredients to heal lips.
Sounds great right?
It is.
I was recently testing out Jelly Pong Pong Lip Cushion and I must say it's on my favorite hit list at the moment! I'm lucky I even got the chance to review this because I was tempted to eat the entire jar instead of slicking it on my lips! Hey, I can't help it! It smells amazing and tastes so yummie I couldn't resist!
Before I get to the main review I should rave about the uber cute box and packaging on this! It comes in this really cute pink box that sports a lovely little cut out butterfly on top! So sweet! I'll definately be storing this in the box rather than tossing it out! I love cute packaging!
The actual Lip Cushion is housed in a clear plastic jar with a cute little gold cap with pink lettering on the top spelling out Lip Cushion by Jelly Pong Pong on top.
Jelly Pong Pong Lip Cushion is available in two selections, Crush and Syrup. I believe both taste the same and the finish on both is probably the same too which is a translucent tint. The gloss isn't pigmented but more a sheer gloss. I have Crush which looks like strawberry jam and tastes just as good. The taste is a sweet rose, berry flavor that you'll want to lick right off your lips! Truly a perfect kissing gloss! Although both selections probably have the same finish it hasn't stopped me from wanting to purchase Syrup! Cheeky Muse I am I must collect them all you see!
The formula is similiar to Shu Uemura's Gloss Lacquer. It's slick, glossy, highly emollient and wonderfully moisturizing. All the best things we want from a balm right? The balm also happens to promise to heal chapped lips! Fancy that! Sadly, the Muse is not currently sporting chapped lips but don't worry I'll tell you the low down on Lip Cushion's healing abilities come Winter when I'm sporting cracked, dry lips!
If you love glossy lip balms there is absolutely no question that you'll want to try this! It's a perfectly cute and sweet balm that deserves some of your time and attention plus at £6 you can't seriously go wrong by picking up at least one! Click on over and purchase one or two!
Sportin' some Jelly Pong Pong Lip Cushion!
The Muse likey Jelly Pong Pong Lip Cushion and says go and grab some for yourself! Do keep in mind I can't be held responsible if you eat this!
Muse Approval for this little guy plus a five star rating! Good Stuff!
Summer Must Have Makeup: Tarte Peaches and Cream Oil-Free Powder Foundation Review
I recently read about Tarte Peaches and Cream Oil-Free Powder Foundation over at 15 Minute Beauty Fanatic.
After reading Christine's raving review I promptly looked up more reviews for the product and decided I must haves it now! Let me tell you there are quite a few raves surrounding this little product. Although I'm a Tarte fan this is the first time I've even heard about this. The worst part about the entire product is it's freaking limited edition! Ugh! How awful is that? What convinced me further to want to try this out was I got at least ten e-mails over the past two weeks asking "Muse have you tried Tarte Peaches and Cream Foundation?" and I sadly had to say no that I never even heard about it!
This is probably thee best product you'll run across at the moment that offers really good yet light coverage plus dries down to a matte, powder finish which is perfect for those humid, hot days. I probably can't get away with wearing this in the Winter when my skin is drier but right now when I'm sporting a bit of oily skin it's pure perfection.
A little tiny dab goes a long way. Simply squirt a small amount on your fingertip and go to town smoothing it down the sides of your nose and spreading outwards to your cheeks, under your lip line, sides of chin, etc....these are areas I need coverage as those are dull spots for me and also shadowy. After this I have a beautiful working canvas for the rest of my makeup or since the coverage is so natural I can simply leave the house with this on and some gloss!
It contains plenty of good for you ingredients like vitamins a, c, and e plus it has an SPF of 20 which is a total plus for me! The color does appear slightly strange. It has a very weird orange beige tinge however it does blend in flawlessly in and leaves my skin looking fresh and awake!
In my quest for perfect, flawless skin Tarte Peaches & Cream definately gets added to my Summer Must Have list! The fact that it offers excellent coverage while remaining light and natural plus keep my skin matte in the Summer sun makes it a perfect addition to my Summer Must Have Makeup List!
The Muse sportin' some Tarte Peaches and Cream!
As you can see from my FOTD (excuse my tired eyes! Didn't have much sleep last night eep!) the foundation gives a rather fresh, dewy look to my skin!
This retails for $35 USD however allow me to direct you to Tarte's site now and get 40% off during their Friends and Family Sale! Click!
In a world of Yay and Nay this one gets a big yay! The Muse likes it! Alot!
Jill Stuart's website has been updated with the latest Fall Collection for 2008 entitled Illuminance. I find the name quite fitting as the new shadow palettes and cheek blushes sport beautiful golds for Fall.
I wasn't particularly excited about the Brilliance collection but I do feel a slight tinge of interest. I think I'll be indulging in at least one of the blushes and three of the shadow palettes. The shadow palettes have been slightly revamped as well with an interesting design on the front of the compact. It's been a little bit of a gap between purchases for me on the Jill Stuart front simply because the shadow palettes are extremely uneventful with similiar shades being used over and over and over again.
The Muse's stash of blush compacts hauled from last season!
However, after such a long dry spell Jill Stuart Illuminance may be getting some of the Muse's hard earned money! Palettes are 5,000 yen each and blushes are 4,500 yen each. Expect to pay $10-$30 USD more per item online.
Items I think I'll be indulging in:
Eye palettes in Jewel Dress, Fantastic Light, Brocade Gold, and Flash Veil.
It's your dear, old Muse here to tell you that cheaper is NOT always better.
This little bottle has a rating of 4.1 on MUA obviously the people who reviewed this are on crack. 4.1? What the hell.
Your Muse decided that cheap was somehow better. This bright idea stems from the fact that I was thinking that $10 USD for a bottle of eye makeup remover was a bit steep and I needed new options in my fight against the obvious recession! By cutting down $4 USD on makeup remover I was making one big step for mankind. I think I was, I'm not sure..maybe...sorta I was.
Anyway.
Neutrogena Oil-Free Eye Makeup Remover promises to effectively remove all traces of eye makeup even waterproof mascara without oily residue. True that. No oily residue here. However, it not only fails to leave behind oily residue it also happens to excel at leaving behind mascara.
Removes waterproof mascara? Come on who you trying to kid. Stop! Go on now, stop it already.
This doesn't remove waterproof mascara. After swiping my lid for the better part of 5 minutes I was still sporting clumps of mascara on my lashes. Um...hello what happened to the promise of removing my mascara!
I did see some sense on the MUA reviews where someone wrote about how it takes ALOT of this to get off regular mascara never mind waterproof mascara! Some people lost all sense when they mentioned that this was a dupe of Bi-Facil...I told you it's that crack again! I was considering just tipping my head back and pouring the bottle onto my closed eye lid to see if that would effectively get my mascara off but somehow common sense kicked in and I just settled for rubbing at my eye for the better part of an hour trying to get this to work.
In all seriousness I did try to like this and I can honestly say it doesn't work too well at removing waterproof anything. It does a mediocre job at best of removing eye makeup and mascara. For $5.99 USD yes indeed it is cheap but just go ahead and splurge a few dollars more to get yourself something that does work.
This one is a miss!
The Muse no likey Neutrogena Oil-Free Eye Makeup Remover. Big waste of $6!
When the forces of Yay or Nay are in effect the Muse gives this one a big:
Dish out the $4 bucks more and grab some Sephora Eye Makeup Remover or just go nuts and buy a bottle of Lancome Bi-Facil! Your mascara will thank you for it at the end of a long night!
Try some removers that contain a healthy dose of Yay by clicking through my past reviews!
I think I might have unintentionally found the holy grail mineral foundation. Seriously.
First off I should explain that I have a certain dislike (or hate if you prefer) for mineral makeup. When mineral makeup was first making it's big appearance in the makeup circuit I was the idiot that promptly purchased a Bare Minerals kit. Hey, here it was a kit with everything I needed to look flawless! Awesome!
I got the kit and promptly threw it in the garbage. No joke. The Muse felt it wasn't even good enough for swap bait!
Coverage was awful, I felt like I had a mask on, and damn was I itchy as hell! That's not exactly my idea of flawless coverage more along the lines of uncomfortable coverage!
Since that awful experience I've kept far away from mineral makeup and decided it was for those with perfect yet oily skin. Those of us with flawed, dry skin were basically out in the cold. No mineral makeup for you guys! Sorry!
About a year ago I felt it was my responsible as a super star blogger (I like the way that sounded...suppppppppppper star...ok sorry..I'll take it out later, promise, don't be a killjoy about it! *grumble*) to venture back into the world of mineral makeup. At the moment everyone and their mum has some sort of mineral foundation out on the market. I wonder if Bare Minerals is having a cow over this. Whatta ya think?
Anyway!
The market was particularly saturated in the drugstore where many drugstore cosmetics have taken on the mineral frontier and are trying to boldly go where no cosmetic brand has gone before....I think, maybe, their might be a snark in that statement do to the Muse's strong distaste for drugstore cosmetics.
As I was saying I've been sorta picking and choosing a few brands to try out and I haven't successfully located any good mineral makeup as of yet aside from Urban Decay's rather awesome Surreal Skin.
I know MANY of you awesome people have recommended me various e-tailer brands. Thank you! I'll definately be making some selections soon from those brands however I may not have to since I've discovered thee most awesome mineral powder I've tried to date.
Prescriptives has introduced it's own line of mineral foundation and I am in love.
Absolute love.
I gotta say I am a tad bit disappointed as I was reading reviews for this on MUA and it only got a rating of 3.4 or so. That's not particularly bad but it's not awesome either. Who are these people reviewing this? We should take a wanted dead or live warrant out on them!
My first time using this I think I made a little bit of a mess. I was comparing this to other mineral foundation I've used so boy was I buffing it on like nobody's business! I ended up looking like a scary chalky mess. Turns out that the coverage is pretty amazing so a little tiny bit goes a very, very, very long way! This is rare with mineral foundation! I've always found I have to pile it on but not the case with Prescriptives All Minerals Makeup. A little tiny bit will give your skin the coverage it needs while remaining light and natural.
You may have read in a few of my posts this Summer how my skin was going through a rather dull phase due to the overwhelming humidity but I'm looking freaking awesome after application with this. At least I thinks so. It looks so fresh and it really lightens up my face which I love!
Ok, so it has sun protection right plus it contains good for you minerals and it sets the perfect canvas for makeup but get this......the long wearing that they promise.....true. Seriously, long wearing. As in bulletproof long wearing. As in jump in the pool and still look awesome long wearing.
We're suffering a bit of the typical New York heat wave the past week and a half or so which means we get the normal round of blistering sun plus major waves of humidity. I tell ya...you can seriously do some major testing on your makeup in weather like this.
I walked 8 blocks yesterday in the humidity. 8 blocks isn't a whole lot for me as I walk alot more but 8 blocks in the humidity tends to feel like 200 blocks. After reaching my destination I feared my face melted right off so I quickly stepped into the ladies to touch up.
No need.
My face was beautiful. No touch ups required. This stuff is seriously waterproof. I was looking as fresh as a daisy hmmm or a rose I can't decide which. After a quick touch up with gloss I was ready to go! Right at that moment I was wishing I had my camera so I could have done some serious Before and After shots! Coverage pretty much lasts until you remove it. This stuff isn't going anywhere. I've used it for about a week and a half now and I can't begin to say what a great ride it's been. I'm shocked, delighted, and amazed at how awesome it is. We have a winner people!
The Muse looking flawless and fresh wearing Prescriptives All Minerals Makeup
THIS is my first attempt with the powder! I don't think it looks too bad but you can see that I went a little bit overboard. Remember kids less is more!
You have 18 shades to choose from so I think everyone should be able to locate at least one shade that's flattering to your skin tone. Each jar is 0.3 oz in size and $32.50 USD.
The powder is very silky and feels weightless plus I had no itchy feeling that I normally get from mineral powders. I just felt like I had nothing on which is a plus when it comes to powder foundation of any kind. As I mentioned, please for the love of God, a little goes a long way so don't get crazy!
Prescriptives has a brush available at a special price of $17 USD when you purchase the mineral foundation. I got it at Macy's but I'm unsure if you can get one at all counters. It normally retails for $30 USD so that's a considerable discount.
The buffing brush introduced with the foundation is interesting. I'm unsure if I love it or not yet. It shed a bit which was disappointing but I did like how dense it was and how it picked up a healthy amount of product to buff onto your face. I used the powder with my MAC mini kabuki and I just felt like the Presciptives brush did a much better job of buffing the product into my skin. I'm unsure if that was due to it's larger size. The bristles are quite soft but...kinda stiff. So I do have a few minor rants about the brush but I'm in a stage where I love and hate it at the same time. I do think at $17 USD it's kinda sorta worth picking up because it made applying easier.
I noticed that they have a good selection for darker skinned girls. I noticed that the tones went from nice light coffee shades all the way up to very darker shades so if you find it difficult to get a good match in mineral foundations I think it's safe to say they should have your color available! Also plenty of the shades were flattering for my lovely Asian girls.
I know, I know many of my Singaporean readers are hating on me right for reviewing this since Prescriptives has pulled out of the Sinaporean market. I'm sorry guys! Definately check around MUA to see if some kind MUA'er can do a CP to grab some of this for you.
This one is Muse Approved for purchase. The Muse likey. Alot. The Muse has found her mineral makeup of choice!
Check out the shade selections for Prescriptives All Minerals Makeup by clicking here!
I have two tiny dogs at home and I love them something fierce however although they are short haired I still find little pieces of stray hair hanging out all over my clothes especially in the Winter when I'm wearing darker colors.
I read about Lint-On-The-Go-Sheets a few months ago on another blog and thought how awesome they were so I'm happy to have gotten a chance to test them out for myself.
I normally sit with a lint a roller in my hand wheeling it across the fabric of my slacks and such. I actually found out that wrapping tape around my hand just works better than a roller does! And here you go the perfect solution to lint and stray hairs would be these Lint On The Go Sheets.
It's like a big, old piece of sticky tape on the back of you hand that you pat over your shirt, slacks, etc...to swipe up all those evil lint pieces and hair!
These are simple to use. Just slip over your hand, peel away the protective layer of the adhesive, and go to town patting away all the gook that collects on your clothes!
Presto! You're look perfectly posh again!
The Muse likey!
If you work in an office environment you can really appreciate slipping these in your desk draw and having them handy for touch ups!
It's $12 bucks for a pack of 20 or go wild and get the triple pack for $26! Plus it's Free Shipping! Don't we love Free Shipping?
Click on over and have a peek at the Lint-On-The-Go-Sheets website and grab some for yourself! Truly these are handy to carry around with you! The Muse should know, as she mentioned, she's a magnet for lint!
Avon is jumping on board the ease of eyeshadow application bandwagon!
I've reviewed Eye Majic in the past which was one of the very first brands to pave the road for sheet eyeshadow application but I recently noticed that the market is becoming saturated with these sheet eyeshadow products. Everywhere I look some new brand is pimping these out.
But...props has to go to Avon for making it not only easy but CHEAP too!
$5.99 USD scores you 14 powder eyeshadow sheets. That's a deal and a half in the Muse's humblest opinion. Whether they work or not remains to be seen however they are getting a few raving reviews on the Avon site. Check out what folks are saying by clicking here!
If you happen to want idiot proof eyeshadow application for a nicely rounded price I'd definately consider picking up a set of these to try out. They come in eight shades and are super easy to use. Unlike other kits I've seen where the entire process consists of several steps this is a simple press, rub, and blend with your fingertip for gorgeous, vibrant shadow!
Can you seriously go wrong for $6 bucks, the Muse says nay and adds these to the wish list to try out!
Want 'em?
Tried something like 'em before?
Tell the Muse!
Click here to check out the "Majic" of eyeshadow application!
