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A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict

Karen

Swatches of the Be Discovered and Click You’re It Kits from the Smashbox Holiday 2011 Collection

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smashbox holiday 2011 swatches (16)

Is your pet waiting to be discovered? If your feline friend or canine companion longs for a life of international celebrity, the Tabs the Cat School of Modeling can help. Call 1-800-555-5555 today.

And speaking of being discovered, here are those swatches of the Be Discovered and Click It You’re It kits from the new Smashbox Holiday 2011 collection.

Now I’m sitting here on the couch covered in cat hair and glitter. Yup, it’s business as usual here for a Saturday night… 🙂

Click You’re It: Swatches

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Click You’re It

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Eyeshadows 1 through 5 in the palette above

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Eyeshadows 6 through 10
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Benefit Ticket to Glossytown Pics and Swatches

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More Benefit holiday 2011! Swatches and pics of the new Ticket to Glossytown kit ($24; available now online).

The kit includes So Frisk Me (a gilded berry), Nudie-Tude (a goldspun twist), Spiked Punch (a juicy coral), Life on the A List (a bubblegum pink), Foxy Lady (a diamond rose) and Kiss You (a clear fucshia).

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Swatches from the left: Kiss You, Foxy Lady, Spiked Punch, Life on the A List, Nudie-Tude and Frisk Me

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With the Smashbox Holiday 2011 Collection, Smashbox Is Making the Holidays Snappy, One Palette at a Time

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Now pose for the camera.

[CLICK!]

My inner-shutterbug has developed quite a crush on Smashbox lately, and they’re back behind the camera again with another photography-fueled collection (remember fall’s Girls on Film?), this one for the holidays.

They’ve kept their lens zoomed in on kits and palettes this time around. The new Snappy Holidays collection features kits for the face, lips and eyes. Here’s a close look at two of the sets, Be Discovered and Click You’re It, of which the former isn’t listed on the Smashbox website yet.

Be Discovered Palette: Details

  • Price and availability — Unknown at this point, but I’ll update you as soon as I know. Smashbox’s larger palettes typically sell for around $59.
  • What you get — 45 powder eyeshadows (WOW!), three powder blushes, two powder highlighters, one powder bronzer, nine cream eye liners, six lip glosses, four mini brushes and a booklet with three tutorials.
  • First impressions — This kit is MASSIVE and could be a little intimidating. I think Smashbox could have done folks a favor by making the tutorials easier to follow because they don’t reference specific shades. It’s just like, “Grab your favorite nude,” but what if you don’t know which of the many shades are nude? Props anyway to Smashbox for keeping the cream and powder products separate, though. That’s always appreciated.

    So far, I can say that I definitely dig the blushes.

Click You’re It Palette: Details

  • Price and availability — $49. Available now online and coming soon to Sephora and Ulta stores.
  • What You Get — 15 powder eye shadows, five cream eye liners, an eye primer and three doubled-sided how-to cards with instructions for six different eye looks.
  • First impressions — The way Smashbox numbered these pans was GENIUS! It makes following the how-to’s easy.

    I do wish they would have placed the cream liner on a separate tier, but still, I can’t wait to play with this palette!

Click You’re It Palette: Pics

smashbox click you're it box

smashbox click you're it box
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Benefit I’m Glam Therefore I Am Pics and Swatches

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Pics and swatches of the new Benefit I’m Glam Therefore I Am kit, new for holiday 2011 ($36; available now online).

Review coming soon!

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Swatches from the left with the flash: Eyeshadows in Pink Fancy, Icy Lilac, Posh Amethyst and Precious Pewter

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Swatches from the left with the flash: Glamming Face Powder mixed with Glamming Face Powder II, Girl Meets Pearl, Life on the A List Lip Gloss and Bad Gal Lash Mascara

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Swatches without the flash

Two Ways to Win a $50 eGift Card from Sephora!

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  • WINNER: The giveaway is closed now, and the winner is Jacqueline, for her comment that begins, “Omgoodness, I know exactly how you feel about losing your mechanical pencil! Losing a mechanical pencil, especially a favorite, makes me soo sad!” Congratulations, Jacqueline! If you entered but didn’t win this time around, keep trying, and click here to enter any ongoing giveaways before you jet. 🙂

Win a $50 Sephora eGift card from Makeup and Beauty Blog
DANGIT! SHOOT! DRAT! BLAST!

I’m so peeved right now… I lost another mechanical pencil. And not just any pencil. I lost my Pentel drafting pencil. My lucky drawing pencil, gah!

my favorite pencil

Where hath thou gone to, oh lucky pencil? Why art thou hiding from my firm embrace? Momma just wants to draw pictures of kitties and makeup… Is that so wrong? In the grand scheme of things, ’tis surely a noble cause.

In other news, welcome to the weekend! 🙂 I hope all is going well on your end of the keyboard. If a missing pencil is the worst part of my day, I’ll consider myself a very lucky gal.

Something BorrowedOh, I rented a movie last night that really surprised me. Something Borrowed? Have you seen it? It got a frighteningly low 14% on Rottentomatoes, but I don’t know what those critics were smoking because I thought it was much better than that. Sure, it’s probably not gonna win any Academy Awards or anything, but I thought it was one of the better rom-coms to come along in a while. Even El Hub enjoyed it, and that was after I’d talked him out of renting Captain America (so he was already a little salty).

As a friendly reminder, The 2011 Breast Cancer Awareness Month Sign Project and Giveaway ends on Monday, so please take a minute to send in your support sign and leave a comment on the original post, if you haven’t already.

And now, without further ado…

A Makeup and Beauty Blog Giveaway!

Win a $50 eGift card from Sephora" title="Win a $50 eGift card from Sephora

  • One (1) Sephora eGift card containing $50 sent to the winner by email (international readers, you may opt to receive $50 sent by PayPal instead).

  • There are two ways to enter, and you can do both of them for two chances to win. First, you can enter by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post, a comment about anything at all, like, do you have a favorite writing implement (a pen/pencil)? What’s your favorite romantic comedy of all time? What was the most surprising part of your week? Where do you see yourself in five years? What was the last eyeshadow you purchased? When was the last time you gave someone makeup as a gift? — you get the idea.
  • Second, you can enter by following me on twitter Twitter @karenmbb and retweeting (RT) the following message:
    • Follow @karenmbb and RT to Win a $50 eGift Card from Sephora! http://bit.ly/tvIhQ0

  • The deadline to enter is Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 11:59PM (PT).
  • Entrants must enter using a valid email address and/or Twitter account to win.
  • A maximum of two (2) entries per person — one within the comments at the bottom of this post, and a second entry via Twitter addressed to me @karenmbb.
  • Contest is open to individuals of any country who have reached the age of majority according to their local laws (18 in the United States with these exceptions: Alabama and Nebraska, 19; Mississippi, 21).
  • Sephora eGift Certificates can only be redeemed online and are not valid in stores or available for purchase or redemption in Canada. International winners may opt to substitute the Sephora eGift card prize for $50 sent directly to their email address by PayPal instead.
  • Tabs and I (heretofore referred to as “T-Money and K-Dawg”) will select one (1) winner at random from the entries either left in the comments at the bottom of this blog post or addressed to @karenmbb on Twitter.
  • The winner will be announced here within 48 hours of the deadline.
  • Void where prohibited by law.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. Hi again. 🙂 I know you have an artistic side just screaming to get out. Put it to good use this weekend by entering The 2011 Breast Cancer Awareness Month Sign Project and Giveaway. If you haven’t yet, it’s something you don’t want to miss. It’s easy, it matters, and that huge pile of products from MAC, Clinique, Make Up For Ever, Estée Lauder and Bobbi Brown (click here for the full details) needs a good home.

  • WINNER: The giveaway is closed now, and the winner is Jacqueline, for her comment that begins, “Omgoodness, I know exactly how you feel about losing your mechanical pencil! Losing a mechanical pencil, especially a favorite, makes me soo sad!” Congratulations, Jacqueline! If you entered but didn’t win this time around, keep trying, and click here to enter any ongoing giveaways before you jet. 🙂

MAC Glitter & Ice: A Makeup Trick for Warm Gals Who Want to Wear Cool Colors

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mac glitter & ice

Exhausted from the day, I stopped by the mall last night before the Project Runway finale to pick up a few pieces of “comfort chocolate,” and I figured that since I was already there, I might as well pay a quick visit to the MAC store.

I wasn’t there for long, but I spent every minute of the visit with the MAC Holiday collection.

We’re — how shall I put this? — still getting to know each other. It’s that awkward stage, ya know, where I’m attracted to the packaging but haven’t quite figured out how I feel about the products yet, in particular the frosty, cool colors in the sub-collection called Glitter & Ice.

I told myself, “Don’t be scurrred,” but I couldn’t help it. Frosty, cool-toned shades like the ones in Glitter & Ice don’t always play well with my warm undertones. Often they’ll look ashy on my NC42 skin.

But today, not wanting to give up without a fight, I decided to channel Tim Gunn and “make it work,” so I used one of my all-time favorite makeup tricks — pairing a cooler eyeshadow with a warm matte brown in the crease.

The brown’s warmer tones tend to balance out cool, frosty colors, and the trick has one more very cool side effect: whenever I blink or close my eyes, it reveals a quick flash of shimmer (fun!).

How do you know if you have warm or cool undertones?

If your skin has a lot of yellow in it, you probably have warm undertones (think Jennifer Anniston or Beyonce), but if it contains more red than yellow, you may lean cool (a la Courtney Cox or Oprah).

Here’s another way to tell: take a look at the veins on your inner wrist. If they appear green, then you’re probably warm toned; if they look blue, then you’re probably cool. For a more detailed explanation, check out this helpful post by my friend Jen over at BSB.

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