I seem to always have mixed reactions when I try something from Sonia Kashuk cosmetics, a brand that is featured at Target stores. The packaging is almost always gorgeous and creative. The colors always look quite nice as well. But unfortunately something often falls short with the products for me.

Recently, I gave a few more products a try. The best thing that I bought was the Sonia Kashuk Lip Glossing Pencil. The pencil part was not particularly impressive, but I really love the gloss. You can read more about it at Beauty and Fashion Tech's sister site, Girl Gloss where everything is focused on lipstick gloss, and balm.

Another fairly successful product for me was the Sonia Kashuk Cheek Sheer. This sheer cream blush comes in a handy little twist up tube, making it easy to carry in a purse. The color I chose, a peach tone, was pretty nice. It also blended well, but the problem was that it took me awhile to get enough color from the product to have anything to blend. The sheer blush seemed rather low on pigment content and I found myself putting quite a bit on to get any real color. That wasn't so bad on my super fair skin--I don't need a lot of pigment, but anyone with darker skin tones might be quite disappointed in this product.

I also bought a new powder blush that had a twist up brush with loose powder blush in the cap. It is so new, that I can't find it online. The premise of it is great. Twist the cap to release some powder onto the brush, open up the tube, twist the brush up, and apply. If it worked, it would be a great way to neatly carry loose powder blush in a handbag. Unfortunately, the cap twists very easily and any little bumps cause the brush to become overloaded. Open the tube after that, and powder flies everywhere, making a rather annoying mess! The tube also seemed to leak powder a bit. I would not trust this item in my handbag. Not if I cared about the liner anyway. In the end, and rather unfortunately, this item is likely going in the trash at my place.

I had previously tried Sonia Kashuk eyeshadow and found it to be pretty average. I decided to try again though and bought a Sonia Kashuk Eyeshadow Duo. I had generally the same reaction. The colors were very nice and I didn't really have any creasing issues, but there simply was not enough pigment in the shadow. A good shadow should be able to be built up in intensity as more is applied. With the Sonia Kashuk shadow, I kept adding, and adding, and adding, and not really getting anywhere with it. I finally decided that it was OK for those days where I want a super light wash of color, but otherwise there are much better, and some even cheaper,  eye shadows sitting in my makeup case.

One area where I have generally liked Sonia Kashuk products as a good value is in the brush department. The Kashuk brushes are highly affordable and pretty serviceable. Because they are inexpensive, there are some flaws. For example, expect the brushes to loose some fibers during the first few uses, and don't expect them to hold pigments as well as a high quality natural fiber brush. But they do the job much better than anything that is likely to come packaged with your makeup products and they are fairly attractive.

I recently bought a little fold up case with a set of small Sonia Kashuk brushes to carry in my handbag. I can't find it online, but it is a very nice looking white case and the set is quite functional. Another good, and very inexpensive line of brushes is the Essence of Beauty line that can be found at CVS stores.

Sonia Kashuk products are available Online at Amazon.com and at Target stores.

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