The Musings of a Working Mom

Okay I know that this post might be a little late for you gift buyers or this post is exactly what you have been waiting for since you find it difficult to buy something nice for your beauty loving friends. Now since I have not purchased a lot of makeup this year (I made a resolution to to use up what I have but did buy products that were limited edition or felt like they would be a good addition to my collection), I did find some products that I think every beauty loving gal would love to have. The first item on my list was just released in stores this week (but online last week I think) so if this is something you want to get your hands on - do so quickly before it sells out.  It's the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette.  If you have the other 2 Naked palettes and don't think that you need another Naked palette, well this palette is quite different than the first 2.  The original Naked palette is described as "bronze-hued neutrals", the Naked 2 palette is described as ...

Happy New Year!  And what a year it has been?  It's been a year since I started my blog and one of my first posts was a list of my 2011 favorites...and here we have come round full circle to my favorites list of 2012.   But first off I want to thank all of you for your continued support and for coming back to read my blog posts, commenting, and subscribing to my blog.  This blog has been my side project and my baby (outside of my real babies).  I have had so much fun writing for this blog and doing my "research" (i.e. having a great excuse to buy makeup and beauty products).  I have done quite of bit of "research" this year and have found a lot of great low-end and high-end products that have become my favorites for this past year.  This blog has also allowed me to try beauty products outside of my beloved MAC brand and I have found some amazing products at all price points.  It has taken me quite some time to compile my list but here are my fav...

I fell in love with this palette last year when I spotted it at my Sephora right before the holidays.  I had to have this palette, especially since it has just about everything you need in one palette and with "good for you" ingredients, how can you go wrong?   I love Tarte and it's "Amazonian Clay infused" makeup.  This palette has 2 of their famous Amazonian Clay blushes, their Park Avenue Princess bronzer, and Amazonian Clay Shimmering highlighting powder in Champagne on the left side of the palette.  And as they claim, these Tarte Amazonian Clay infused blushes give you up to 12 hours of full-on pigmented color.   On the right side, there are 12 gorgeous Amazonian clay infused eye shadows in both matte and shimmering finishes -  shimmering platinum, shimmering sienna, matte chai tea, matte light pink, shimmering sage, shimmering citrine, shimmering steel blue, shimmering sunset gold, shimmering cocoa, shimmering smoke, matte coffee liquor, burnish...

Well Tarte has done it again!!  They have put out another gorgeous holiday gift set which is part of the their "Baby It's Bold Outside" holiday collection .  I had originally resisted buying this set only because I have so many eye shadows and a lot of glosses but this set had so many awesome items and at $54, I couldn't resist!  This gift set has a little bit of everything it in - something for the eyes, cheeks, lips, face....and all packaged in a cute and usable gold and purple travel bag. This set has six eye shadow quads (for a total of 24 shadows) with a good mix of bold and neutral shades as well as shimmer and matte finishes.  Unfortunately, like most palettes, there are only a few mattes (4 in this set) and 20 shimmery shades.  I wish that Tarte had included more matte shadows to use for blending but we'll take what we can get.  And as always, the shadows are richly pigmented with great color payoff and they are easy to apply and blend out. ...

October was such a busy month for me - planning 2 birthday parties (my father's surprise 70th and my son's 2nd birthday), my husband was out on business for 3 weeks, getting the kiddos ready for Halloween, Halloween parties at school...October truly flew on by.  But the leaves are falling and the air is getting crisper - Fall is finally here! As the seasons change, so do my skin needs and makeup routine. Here are my favorites for the moth of October: For makeup - I am loving the Revlon Colorstay Whipped Foundation .  This foundation is just as great as the original fluid Colorstay foundation.  The pigmentation is great - a little goes a long way.  I have found that the best way to apply this foundation is not with a brush or damp beauty blender, but rather with your fingers.  Somehow I don't know if it's the warmth of your fingers or what, but using your fingers to apply and blend out the foundation leaves a flawless finish just like using a brush or beauty bl...