Beauty and Fashion Tech

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Foundation, Concealer, and Powder

A few weeks ago, I reviewed a number of products from the Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Makeup line. This new line of cosmetics inspired by Carmindy of the show What Not to Wear, and author of the book The Five Minute Face, impressed me so much that I went back for more! I am pleased to say that Sally Hansen Natural Beauty foundation, concealer, and translucent powder all were of excellent quality.

Sally Hansen Your Skin Makeup is a silky smooth foundation with medium coverage. This makeup simply looks great. From the packaging in a glass bottle, to the smooth and blendable texture, it seems much more expensive than it is. I did find that it takes a minute though to blend in and settle, and I like it best when used in conjunction with a primer (this is true of most foundations for me though). Apply it and let it rest for a minute, and then apply your powder. The effect is quite nice. For fair skinned women, the lightest shade is very light– something I also appreciated. I would like to see a few more shades come out in this though.

Fast Fix Concealer is a nice creamy concealer, packaged how I like it–in a pot. The pot allows for good access to apply it with either fingers or your own brush. It is light and blends well, yet provide surprisingly good coverage for its light texture.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Fast Fix Concealer

Finally, the Natural Beauty Truly Translucent Loose Powder is a nice translucent powder for setting the makeup. The powder itself is lovely, and like just about everything in this line, it seems more expensive than it is, but I do have a gripe with the packaging. This one comes with a powder sponge in the cap that blocks most of the space for the powder to be shaken into the top of the container. The result is that it is harder to use your own brush with this one, not at least without risking a bit of a mess, and I don’t care for the sponge.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Loose Powder

I also tried out the Sally Hansen Natural Shine Lipgloss , which is wonderful stuff. For more on that see my review at Girl Gloss!The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line remains impressive. You can find it at various drugstores and at ULTA Beauty.

By Carleenp Posted in Concealer, Face Products, Magazines | 13 Comments

Review: New Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics Inspired by Carmindy

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty has released a wonderful full line of cosmetics “inspired by” Carmindy from TLC’s show What Not to Wear. I am a big Carmindy fan and I liked her book, The Five Minute Face (Read Review). I also have been pretty impressed with Sally Hansen as of late. The new Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line focuses on natural ingredients and is paraben free.

When I saw the line at CVS, I bought a number of items to try. I was left highly impressed and am willing to bet that several items from this line will make my year end best of 2008 list (Read the 2007 list)!

The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty line includes foundation and powder, but I have so many unfinished items of those, I didn’t buy any. Instead, I got the primer, eye shadow base, an eye shadow trio, cream blush, lipstick, and a mascara. The look I created with the products and each item is covered below. All items are worn in the photo below. I am also wearing Laura Mercier Oil Free Foundation (Read Review), Laura Mercier translucent powder, and M.A.C. dual edged eye pencil in a blue/gray shade from the Heatherette collection.

The Natural Beauty Luminizing Face Primer is a really nice silicon based primer. It has a lighter feel than the cult classic Smashbox Photofinsh (Read Review), yet worked just as well. I found that it primed my skin quite well in preparation for foundation by leaving it smooth and silky. The luminizing properties are also a welcome addition. At around $10, this primer is an incredible value, and I am not aware of any other comparably priced primers of this quality. Revlon has a decent primer, but it does not provide the perfectly nice skin surface that the Sally Hansen product does.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Fast Fix Eyeshadow Base is another great value product. There are not a lot of drugstore shadow bases out there and this one is quite lovely. It has a light, easy to spread cream texture, that feels like it must have a touch of silicon in it. I found that it made my shadow look smooth and crease free all evening. This will become a staple product for me.

The cream blush is another great item in Salley Hansen’s new line. It is silky smooth, and Bloom, the shade that I purchased, has a nice rosy color. It is pretty well pigmented and builds pretty well, so those with darker skin can likely wear it just fine. At the same time, it also blends well, so I could wear it well with my pale skin as long as I applied with with a light and well blended touch.

Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics Carmindy

The Natural Beauty Instant Definition Eye Shadow Palette comes in basic and fairly neutral color sets. I decided to go for the Ocean Eye Palette, a gray/navy combo, because I seem to have acquired way too much brown shadow. The shadow is decently pigmented, blended fine, and lasted well. I did not have any creasing issues. It seemed like a standard decent quality shadow to me with nothing really outstanding, but nothing wrong with it either.

The Natural Beauty Lift & Define Mascara was nothing special for me. The brush is small (I tend to like that), but has rather wide spaces between the bristles, which I think can make things clump easier. It went on OK, and looked OK. I don’t think it would be my first choice in mascara, but it wasn’t bad either.

Finally, I loved the Color Comfort Lip Color! Perfect Pink, Rose Parfait, turned out to be perhaps one of the best pink shades I have found in some time. For a full review of it, head on over to my post at Girl Gloss!

The bottom line: The Sally Hansen Natural Beauty Cosmetics line is a welcome addition to the available drugstore makeup choices. I particularly recommend the primer and shadow base. These items are comparable to, or perhaps even better than, other much more expensive products. The rest of the line is quite nice as well. Well done Sally Hansen!

Look for the new Sally Hansen Natural Beauty at drugstore and at ULTA Beauty.

By Carleenp Posted in Blush, Celebrity Looks, Collection Looks, Concealer, Eyeshadow, Face Products, Lip Products, Makeup Primer, Mascara, Palettes and Collections | 21 Comments

Contest: Watch a Video and Win New Body Products from Whole Foods Market

New from Whole Foods Market is the Premium Body Care Standard and labeling seal of approval.

To provide education about the standard, Whole Foods has created a video cast and asked me to to spread the word. They would love to hear what readers of Beauty and Fashion Tech think. In the process, you can win a Zia Moisturizing Cleanser and Zia Nourishing Creme from Whole Foods Market.

To be entered to win, watch the new whole body videocast, then leave feedback about the video and new Premium Body Care standard in the “comments” section, with “http://www.beautyandfashiontech.com” in the “website” field on the comment form.

Remember that you must leave a comment and enter the Beauty and Fashion Tech link to be entered in the promotion.

Whole Foods will announce the winner on April 1! So go watch the video (it is pretty interesting) and give Whole Foods some meaningful feedback!

By Carleenp Posted in Bath and Body, Beauty Tech, Concealer, Sale or Promotion Notices, Stores, Video | No Comments

Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage

Laura Mercier Cosmetics offer an array of products aimed at created the “flawless face.” On of those items is the very good concealer, Laura Mercier Secret Camouflage.

Secret Camouflage is one of the best concealers that I have used. Although it can be purchased in single shades, I recommend the dual shade version because there is more flexibility when two shades are available.The concealer provides full coverage that, if warmed on the hand first and applied with a brush, blends quite well. It isn’t the best concealer for applying with the fingers. For the undereye area, the darker shade of the duo works well. For covering redness, melasma, pigmentation acne, etc, the lighter is used, or is mixed with the darker shade.

It really is all about the coverage with this stuff. It does so much better at covering melasma than most concealers that I have tried. When using it, be sure to apply it after foundation, and set it with a bit of powder.

Interested in more Laura Mercier products? See my previous reviews of the Laura Mercier Oil Free Foundation and Laura Mercier Oil Free and Silk Creme Foundations.

Shop for Laura Mercier Cosmetics

By Carleenp Posted in Concealer | No Comments

Patricia Wexler M.D. Instant Injection Line Filler, Instant Airbrush Concealer, and No Injection Lip Plumper

I have been trying out some products from famed Dermatologist Patricia Wexler M.D. First up are some more cosmetic oriented products. I am also trying some anti-aging skin care products that I will write about in a few weeks after I have had time to use them a bit longer.

Wexler’s Instant Injection Line Filler is a nice wrinkle filler that is similar to several other products that I have recently tried but have not yet reviewed. This is a silicon gel product that acts to fill in fine lines so that makeup will sit on top of them instead of sinking in and accentuating everything. I’m a pretty big fan of these types of products. They really do seem to make a difference. If you are familiar with DHC Velvet Skin Coat, it is similar in consistency to that, but perhaps slightly thicker. DHC also makes a thicker wrinkle filler, that is slightly more thick than the Wexler product. You could also envision this as a thick version of Smashbox Photofinish. The Wexler line filler is a nice medium between all of those products for me. It is not too thick and not too thin. It seems to work best under the eyes, with a bit of concealer over it. Which leads to a look at Wexler’s concealer.

Patricia Wexler Fastscription Instant Airbrush Line Smoothing SuperConcealer is a pretty neat product. This is a liquid concealer packaged in a pen. On one end is a brush (with a cover), and on the other is a push tab that clicks the product up into the brush for application. This makes it very easy to carry and dispense without any mess. The concealer itself is pretty good too. One word of warning though, don’t click that tab too much! I initially clicked it a bunch and overloaded the little brush. Once the thing is primed, it really only needs one click. The packaging is also a very attractive deep red color. It is a nice product to look at and to carry.

I also tried the Wexler Advance No Injection Lip Plumper (pictured). Like with every lip plumper I have tried, I didn’t see much plumping. But this still is a nice gloss, and I really do love the tingle that lip plumpers give, including this one.

Patricia Wexler products are available at select Bath and Body Works stores.

By Carleenp Posted in Concealer, Lip Products, Makeup, Makeup Primer, Skin Care | 2 Comments

Benefit Cosmetics Realness of Concealness Kit. Contains Ooh la Lift, High Beam, Lip Plump, Lemon Aid, and Boi-ing.

I have been discovering a number of new favorite products lately, with one of the best surprises being the ability to discover several all in one box. Benefit’s realness of concealness kit contains small versions of several of Benefit’s most popular products, all in one cute little package.For general concealing, the kit contains lemon aid and boi-ing.

Benefit’s lemon aid is a light yellow skin tone corrector developed for use on the eyelids. It does a great job of covering up red areas and evening out skin tone, especially on my very fair skin. It also works very well as an eyeshadow base. The only issue I had with it was that it didn’t spread quite as well as I would like. I have read suggestions for the full size version of putting it under an arm for a bit to warm it up and make it spread easier. Sure enough, on a warm day where I did not turn on the air conditioning, it spread much better. So keeping it on the warm side is a useful tip for using it. I also have used it under my eyes and put a bit of boi-ing over it. I’m not sure how darker skin tones would adapt to this product. It does cover red well, so it might still useful on darker skin if a darker concealer is placed over it.

Boi-ing is a standard brown tone concealer. The kit provides it in medium, which I thought would be too dark for me, but I find that it works fine on my pale skin if I put a bit of lemon aid under it. This concealer covers well, and spreads a bit better than the lemon aid. I like it quite a bit. Benefit sells boi-ing in three shades.

Also in the realness of concealness kit are three tubes consisting of high beam, ooh la lift, and lip plump. I am hooked on ooh la lift! This light pink cream has just a hint of shimmer to it and is supposed to give your eye area a cooling lift. It does have a bit of a cooling tingle that I like, but I don’t notice the lift part of it so much. Instead, the reason I like it so much is that when put over a bit of boi-ing, it makes for a really good light reflecting under eye concealer. Ooh la lift makes my under eye area look great! I will be purchasing a full size version of this product and using it regularly.

High Beam is a highlighting cream in a pinkish shade that works very well to highlight various areas. The shade seems to be pretty universally flattering. I have been using it on my upper cheekbones and on my brow bone and like it just fine.

Finally, the kit contains lip plump. This lip primer is OK. I’m not enamoured with it and likely will not purchase a full size version, but I also don’t dislike it and will use up the little tube in the kit. Light brown in color, and fairly thick, lip plump provides a decent base for lipstick. It takes a bit to dry and is a little sticky until it does so, which is something I tend to lack patience with. I can’t say that I noticed any plumping from it.

Overall, Benefit’s realness of concealness kit is a great way to try five of Benefit’s popular products all at once. It also is a nice way to have a bunch of concealing and luminating products all together in a convenient little kit. It would be great for travel.

You can buy Benefit online at a number of locations, including directly from the Benefit website
.

Shop for Benefit Cosmetics