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.

 

 

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.