September 2010 -

Sep 21, 2010

Maybelline Eye Studio Cream Eye Shadow Swatches

September 21, 2010 By Carleenp 1 Comment

I love neutral cream eye shadow so, even though I have no shortage of brown shadows (I seriously don’t need any more), I bought a new Maybelline Eye Studio eye shadow trio while out shopping. The trio, Neutral Illusions, has three nice cream shadows: A pink/beige, a luminous champagne/light brown, and deep brown that has a bit of luminosity, but is not overdone. Swatches are blow. The top is in indoor light and the bottom is in sunlight.

The shadow wears fairly well, but it did wear off for me before the end of the day. Note that cream shadows wear best when set with powder. I like to add a dusting of a light neutral eye shadow over mine, but translucent powder will also work. Using a primer can also help extend the wear time.

Maybelline is available at most drugstores and big box retailers.

Filed Under: Eyeshadow, Makeup Tagged With: Eye Shadow, Maybelline, Swatches

Sep 20, 2010

Finishing the Dannon Activia Challenge

September 20, 2010 By Carleenp Leave a Comment

TakeActiviaTasteTest1 Over the past couple of weeks I have written on Dannon Activia as a healthy snack. During that time, I also completed the Dannon Activia Fourteen Day Challenge. Dannon offers the challenge so that you can buy their Activia yogurt, try it for two weeks, and seek a refund if you do not like it. Click the logo to the left to learn more.

I ended up being happy with Dannon as a snack and with the challenge, and I also found this easy and tasty yogurt snack recipe this week:

Layer the following in a parfait cup or drinking glass, repeating layers until full:

Dannon Activia Vanilla Yogurt
Fresh cut berries (strawberries and raspberries work particularly well).
More yogurt. You can mix it up and use a different flavor here if you want, such a raspberry.
Granola

That is it! it is super simple, yet amazingly tasty. I like it as a healthy dessert. In the meantime, you also end up getting probiotic cultures to help maintain good digestive health, and a serving of dairy with some protein. Not a bad deal!

A few more snack ideas:

Mix yogurt with frozen berries
blend yogurt with a banana and some ice for a yogurt smoothie
Put vanilla yogurt on low fat pudding (or any dessert for that matter) instead of whipped cream
Split a banana and top with vanilla yogurt

Do you have any yogurt snack suggestions?

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. For more, please see the disclosure page.

Filed Under: Diet and Fitness, Promotions Tagged With: Dannon, Diet, Promotions

Sep 17, 2010

Profane Grocery Wear to the Amish Nun: The Worst of Fashion Week

September 17, 2010 By Carleenp 1 Comment

Fashion Week was this past week. You may have noticed many blogs covering items from the shows, providing face charts, and chatting about their trips to New York. Since I don’t really cover clothing much and prefer to spend my money on purchases of fashion items that are actually wearable rather than on expensive trips to see concepts, I did not attend Fashion Week. I suspect my feet also thank me for that since I’m pretty sure that attending Fashion Week involves some mandatory wearing of incredibly cute but torturously uncomfortable shoes, and I don’t do those very well.

In honor of not going to Fashion Week and in saving my feet, I decided to forgo the face charts and favorites this year and skip right to the weird, odd, and hideous. That stuff is much more interesting anyway isn’t it?

This is a shopping bag worn with tighty whities from the Jeremy Scott show. Oh the creativity! There was another version with profanity on it involving the letters f and u (or y if you prefer spelling over phonetics), but I have to keep the advertisers happy here so I couldn’t publish it.

I like prints. I even like yellow handbags, bright shoes, and green eye shadow. But not all at once. You can thank Zac Posen for this mishmash.

Here is a model taking a fall at Zac Posen. Falls happen, so that isn’t a biggie. What is interesting is that the fall has the fortunate effect of distracting from the odd combo of a frumpy dress over a an equally frumpy Tshirt and pants.

The Richie Rich Show is always good for some laughs. I really wanted to show a good bare butt shot here, but I fear that my advertisers would not like that.

Whoo hoo! Furry bikini bottoms for boys!

I believe these are spectators. At least they have clothes on.

Ellen DeGeneres sported a goofy mini hat on the runway. That was kind of a mean thing to do to her.

Yeah, I know that no one should take Richie Rich seriously. But it is still pretty darn ugly stuff. It must be possible to make fetish inspired club wear that actually looks good? OK, maybe not….Nevermind… Let’s move on to something serious and important. How about Project Runway and former dancing stars?

As much as I adore Project Runway, their show always has a few oddities. Aside from weird, those pants don’t appear to fit right and the model has a scrap of blue fabric stuck to her head. No wonder she looks sad.

Kelly Osborne attended Fashion Week. She looked very fluffy.

This is some interesting frump at the Argentina Group show where the look is something akin to an Amish Nun. I guess it beats grocery bags with profanity though.