The MAC Vera collection is perfect for flowery spring looks and includes two pretty pearlmatte face powders, Sunday Afternoon, and Flower Fantasy.

Below is a photo of my Sunday Afternoon powder.

Here is a swatch of MAC Vera Sunday Afternoon. This is done sweeping across the entire pan to pick up all of the colors:

Disclosure: This post is based  on an item given to me by a representative of MAC. For more, see the disclosure page.

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Here we are again at the end of the year, which means it is time for the best of the year posts! Below are Beauty and Fashion Tech’s best beauty product for 2011. The list includes the best makeup, best skin care, hair care, and best beauty gadgets that we tried this year. The items are in no particular order, although I tried to keep absolute favorites near the top. There are also a few items at the end of the list that I tried in 2011, but have not written the review of the item yet.

Best Beauty Products of 2011

(1) Ott Lite Makeup Mirror: This is a great makeup mirror that provides natural light in a highly adjustable and attractive package. Forget the cheap drugstore lighted mirrors an get the real deal with this one! I adore mine. Learn more in our initial review here: OttLite Makeup Mirror Review .

(2) Lancome Bi-Facil: When your dog eats a hot pink lipstick on the carpet, you will be glad if you have have some of this around. Oh, and it removes makeup from your eyes and face very well too! For more and for the story of the lipstick eating corgi, look here: Lancome Bi-Facil Review

(3) Skinsonic: The Skinsonic is a sonic skin cleansing system, similar to the popular Clarisonic, but much cheaper. Sonic cleansing is great for overall skin care and exfoliation. You can read more in our at home microdermabrasion guide.

(4) Iswas Handbag organizer: This is the best purse organizer on the market and it comes in several nice shades. Read our report: Iswas Handbag Report

(5) Sedu Revolution 4000i: Sedu makes great products, and the Revolution 4000i dryer is no exception. Learn more about the top hair dryers here: Best Hair Dryers

(6) Verseo eGlide: The Verseo eGlide is an interesting permanent hair removal device that uses a galvanic current instead of a lasers, which makes it great for those with darker skin or who want to remove facial hair, since a laser is not safe for either of those. I personally prefer my Tria Laser, but the eGlide did work for me to remove some facial hair. For more on the eGlide, see our Verseo eGlide review or our laser hair removal at home guide.

(7) Tokidoki Soda Shop Palette: This limited edition item is getting hard to find, but if you look at Sephora, there are multiple Tokidoki palettes and all are packed full of really well pigmented makeup. Learn more here:  Tokidoki Soda Shop Swatches and Review

(8) Hot Tools Pink Titanium Curling Iron: Hot tools makes a number of great curling irons. To learn more see our report: Best Curling Irons

(9) MAC Me Over Fall Collection: MAC’s fall collection was particularly impressive this year. See more here:  MAC Me Over Swatches

(10) MAC Bloggers Obsessions: the MAC Blogger’s Obsessions colelction was really fun because fellow beauty bloggers designed it! You can see photos here:  MAC Bloggers Obsessions Photos

(11) Sedu Pro Ionic Ceramic Tourmaline Flat Iron: I love Sedu irons and this one it right up there at the top.  Learn about the top Flat Irons here: The Best Flat Irons

(12) Laura Mercier Luxe Colour Palette:  Laura Mercier has been putting out a number of neat palettes lately and this set is particularly nice.

(13) Brazilian Peel: This 30% glycolic peel works wonders for dull and acne prone skin. I used it weekly for four weeks with excellent results!

(14) Stila Dream in Color Palette: The best makeup palette of the holiday season. Get a large number of Stila shades in a single pretty palette!

Interested in the best products from past years? Look here:

Best Beauty Products of 2010

Best of 2009

Best of 2008

Best of 2007

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MAC Matchmaster Foundation is a new offering for the permanent collection that focuses on adaptable pigment and buildable shades numbered from 01 to 10 instead of using MAC’s other/older shade naming conventions. The foundations are meant to adapt to you skin shade and can be worn from sheer to full coverage through building. They also provide SPF 15 sunscreen protection.

I found that the 02 and 03 foundations, the lightest that I was sent, worked ok with my fair skin. I usually wear the second to lightest shade in any collection and I appear to be close to the same here. 02 was a bit more yellow than I care for though, while 03 appeared to be a bit cooler toned but slightly darker than I wanted on my face (It matched my arm well though in the swatch).  The foundation covers well, especially if you do build it a bit. It wore as good for me as a number of other foundations. I liked 02 just fine, but am not sure that I would necessarily buy another bottle of it. I think it could be of most interest to people with either very fair or very dark skin because the collection include formulations of MAC’s lightest and darkest shades ever. So if you fall into the very light or very dark skin tone category and have had trouble finding a foundation shade, this might be the place to look.

Below are indoor and outdoor MAC Matchmaster Foundation swatches of the following numbers  02, 03, 06,, 07, 08, 09,10. Please note that I did not try to blend these  in for the photos, so this is how they look right out of the bottle. when blended, they even out and mix in with the natural skin tone pretty well. For example, even though 02 and 03 don’t look like matches for me on my arm when put on that thick, both did blend into a pretty good match for me when I actually wore them on my face. This is one product that you really should test in the store fro best results though. It is hard to get a gauge for the best shade for any given person based on the swatches and when you can’t really use the old MAC naming system as a guide.

The MAC Matchmaster collection will be available beginning September 15 and will be part of the permanent collection.

Disclosure: This post is based on items provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see the disclosure page.

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Items from the MAC fall 2011 collection, MAC Me Over, arrived! So, here are MAC Me Over swatches from the items that I received. I must say that I have been anticipating this collection. It is full of just the types of shades that I like and tend to personally wear—pretty neutrals and soft plums, browns, and greens. I want quite a few items from it, so I foresee some serious shopping ahead for me. If I buy anything else from the MAC Me Over collection I’ll definitely swatch them.

The MAC Me Over Collection is split into three groups: Icelandic Cool, MAC Basics, and New Black.  First up, from Icelandic Cool are swatches from the Lady Grey Eye Shadow Quad  with the shades All Races, Tender Smoke, Lady Gray, and Hazy Day.

MAC Lady Gray Eye Shadow Quad Swatch

Next, are MAC fall collection swatches from the MAC Basics set. From left to right below are Outre, Moleskin, Satin Taupe (I particularly love this shade!) and Mythical.

MAC Basics Eye Shadow

Also in the Icelandic Cool collection are a set of shadesticks. From right to left are swatches of Cakeshop, Tundra, Heirloom, and Street Cool.

MAC Fall Collection Shadesticks

From New Black are the following fluid line swatches: Dark Envy, Dark Diversion, and MAC Avenue:

MAC Fluidline Swatches

Finally, here are MAC fall collection swatches of cheek and face color from MAC Basics:  On the left is the very pretty Seaside Cream Color Base and on the right is Stunner powder blush.

MAC Me Over Cream Color Base and Blush

I also did MAC fall lip product swatches of these and four lipsticks:

MAC Me Over Lipglasses

I have the MAC Me Over Lip Swatches up on Girl Gloss.

MAC Me Over is listed as being on counter on August 25, 2011. Often collections show up a bit early though on the MAC website. You can also get MAC at Nordstrom.

Disclosure: This post is based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more information, please see the disclosure page.

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Update: You can see product swatches from the collection here: MAC Fall 2011 Swatches

The MAC Me Over collection for fall 2011 is based on MAC cosmetics’s online makeover contest. Below are images from the upcoming collection and a video about the people selected and their new looks.

I’ll have MAC Me Over swatches and photos  when I get some of the products. The collection includes makeup and brushes centered around three different fall looks.

Black Trend

Icelandic Cool

MAC Me Over Basics

Below is the video about the Mac Me Over collection. I’m loving the photos from it, so I am excited to do a review and some swatches of some of the products when they area available! I’ll post an update link here when that happens.

The MAC Me Over collection will be available beginning August 25, 2011.

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MAC Semi-Precious Swatches: Eye Shadow, Mineralize Blush, and Mineralize Skinfinish

The MAC Semi-Precious collection offers twelve very well pigmented mineralize eye shadows,  three blushes, and four Mineralize Skinfinish luminizers/blushes/bronzers. In the past when MAC has done mineralized eye shadow I found that some of the shades ended up a bit muddy at times, but this collection  generally didn’t have that problem among the eight shades that I swatched, with the exception of one dark green shade, Dark Indulgence (which I think still looks OK, but the green doesn’t show at all) .

MAC Semi-Precious Eye Shadow Swatches

Below are Semi-Precious Eye Shadow swatches of eight of the twelve shades. From left to right with notes in parenthesis: Unsurpasssable (this is more luminous than the picture shows and is a gorgeous light turquoise/teal), Quartz Fusion (lots of glitter in this one that doesn’t show as well in photos), Dark Indulgence, Blue Sheen (particularly well pigmented), Rare Find (my personal favorite), Faux Gold (more luminous than the photo really depicts), Jade’s fortune (another really pretty and interesting sea green shade), and Mineral Mode (this was more pinkish than I thought it would be).

MAC Semi-Precious Blush Swatches and Mineralize SkinFinish Swatches

Neither of the blush shades that I tried thrilled me, but that is only because they wouldn’t personally work well for me, they actually are rather pretty shades. I also noted that they have pretty decent pigment to them. I also tried three of the skinfinish shades. Here are  swatches of the blushes and skinfinish. From left to right: Pearl SkinFinish (probably the best shade for my rather pale skin), Rose Quartz SkinFinish (has a very pretty pink to it), Goldstone SkinFinish, Pressed Amber blush, and Warmth of Coral Blush

The collection also includes brushes, mascara, face and body lotion, mineralize charged water, mineralize satin finish foundation, and  new lip shades. I swatched the lipsticks and cremsheen lipglasses over on Girl Gloss. You can see them here: MAC Semi-Precious Lip Swatches.

This  collection is available July 7, though August 21, 2011. Sometimes the collections show up for sale a few days early.

Disclosure: This review is based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more, please see our disclosure page.

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The Mac Surf Baby collection has a summer bronze theme that will work well if you are a bronzer fan. I’m not really loving the eye shadows in this collection except for the teal blue, but it does have two really nice sets of metallic pigments. I also love the lipsticks and balms (which really are tube glosses with spf) in the collection. I have swatches of those up on Girl Gloss here: MAC Surf Baby Lip Swatches.

Below are MAC surf baby swatches. First up are the powder point eye pencil in Gilded White, which is a rather nice soft pencil, and eye shadows in Surf USA, Saffron, and Sun Blonde. I question whether Saffron and sun Blonde would look very good on anyone other than those with rather warm skin tones to begin with. I do love the teal though! It seems like MAC puts out a new teal every summer that just vary from each other slightly. The pigment is quite good on all of the shades.

Next up are swatches of the surf baby crushed metallic pigments. These come in two different four pigment sets. I really like both of them. The Summer Stash set includes shades of Light White Pearl, Light Pink Champagne,  Brown Bronze with gold pearl, and Light Violet with silver pearl.

The pigment set of Surf the Ocean contains shades of Frosty Platinum, Light Yellow Green (I don’t personally see the yellow in this, which is fine by me), Dirty Graphite with silver pearl, and Gold Bronze. The light green is gorgeous and I don’t think the swatch really does it justice.

Also in the MAC Surf Baby collection are three bronzer sticks. These are not sheer by any means! Nor are any of them very light. Even the lightest shade is not going to work for me. They could be rather neat for contouring on darker skin though. Below are swatches of the MAC skinsheen bronzer sticks in the shades Tan-Tint (the lightest shade in the collection) and Billionaire Bronze.

Finally, here is a swatch of the Surf Baby Cheek Powder, which is an interesting shade that I think you need the right skin tone for. It is pretty, but I think it looks a bit garish on my cool toned skin. Also included is a swatch of Gold Go Lightly Bronzing Powder.

MAC lists the surf baby collection as available beginning May 26, 2011. Their collections often pop up a bit early though.

Disclosure: This post is based on products provided by a representative of the company. For more information, please see the disclosure page.

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The MAC Fashion Flower Collection contains a number of brightly colored shadows inspired by spring floral blossoms. For lip product swatches, head on over to my post on Girl Gloss: MAC Fashion Flower Lipstick Swatches.

In the eye shadows, I particularly like the lighter shades in the fashion flower collection, which includes a beautiful matte light aqua blue and a luminous lime green that really shines.  Matte coral pink and gray shades are also interesting, as is a frosty white/yellow shade, that appears mostly white. The disappointment for me was a hunter green shade that looks luminous and beautiful in the pot, but appears black and not so luminous on the skin.

Below are Fashion Flower eye shadow swatches. Since the sun hasn’t come out here in a week, these are taken in indoor light with a flash. But I think that the swatch is very true to color. From left to right: Fresh Daisy, Aqua , Lucky Green, Free to Be,  Groundcover, and  Bows & Curtseys.

Also included in the collection are two beauty powders. Both are very light and sheer. I was packing on the color when I did the powder swatches, but it still is rather hard to see. Below are the swatches of the beauty powders form the MAC Fashion Flower collection. From left to right: Alpha girl and Light Sunshine.

The M.A.C. Fashion Flower Collection is listed as being on counter on May 5, 2011. Often new MAC Cosmetics collections show up online slightly before their listed dates.

Disclosure: This post is based on products provided to me by a representative of the company.  for more, please see the disclosure page.

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I have been asked a lot recently about basic makeup tips and application. So I decided to present a few how to articles from guest authors as part of a back to basics series. The first in the series looks at how to apply makeup foundation.

Cream to Powder Foundation: Many consider a creme-to-powder, such as Make Up Forever Duo Matte (editors note: highly recommended, read previous review here: Make Up Forever Foundation) to be the best foundation for most skin types.  Apply a creme-to-power foundation by using the enclosed sponge. Dab to sponge onto the make up and pick up a small amount. Then, starting with your nose, spread the foundation gently across your nose and onto the cheek areas. Make sure your application is smooth and even (you should not be able to see any lines.) Once the nose and cheeks are covered, spread more foundation evenly across the rest of your face. You want to make sure it all blends and has an even look. Applying foundation with more pressure on the sponge will create a more full coverage, less pressure will result in lighter coverage. Avoid pure powder foundation if you have dry skin, as it can make you look chalky.

Liquid Foundation: Folks with oily skin, or skin that is oily in places and dry in places, will probably prefer an oil-free, liquid product such as Stila Natural Finish Oil-Free Makeup. Those with very dry skin might prefer a moisturizing brand. To apply the foundation, remove the cap from the bottle, and place a small amount of foundation on your fingertip. Depending on your coverage preference, place between one and three dots of foundation each on your nose, cheeks, forehead and chin.

Next, use a foundation sponge ( we particularly love the Beauty Blender Sponge) or your fingers to smooth the dots together so that your whole face is covered. Add more foundation as necessary to create an even finish.

There are also several options for folks with uneven skin-tone or freckles. One option is to use a foundation primer concealer or a BB cream underneath the foundation. You would place the primer or concealer only over the area(s) that needed attention, and then cover your full face with the foundation. Alternately, you may choose a sheer powder or very light foundation and let your natural beauty shine through.  Women who tan in the summer will find they need seasonal foundations. However, it is not a good idea to use a darker foundation to mimic a tan. The solution for that is a self-tanner specially formulated for faces.

The biggest secret, whichever type you choose, is to make sure the coverage has no streaks or dark/ light spots, and that the shade you choose matches your skin. The best foundation is the one that makes you feel beautiful.

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Finding the best face powder can be a bit tricky. There are plenty of good ones, but there are also plenty that are so full of talc and fillers that they look chalky or pasty, especially in the cheaper brands.

The below article, syndicated from Total Beauty, has their reader’s favorites. I’m actually not a fan of a a couple of the powders in the article: L’Oreal True Match (this one is chalky for me), and Physician’s Formula (that one doesn’t last well for me). I also don’t love Bare Escentuals Mineral Veil because it has quite a bit of bismuth, and ingredient that can cause irritation and that creates a shiny look.  However, I do love the Clinique powders that are listed, along with MAC Mineralize. Guerlain, my all time favorite, is also listed.

Click on through below to see the entire list of best face powders from Total Beauty.

The 13 Best Face Powders

There are so many grease-minimizing powders out there, but which one is No. 1? Find out …

This is a TotalBeauty.com face makeup article We combed through thousands of reviews to bring you the most helpful, insightful tidbits about the highest-rated face powders on our site. Get list

What is your favorite face powder?

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