Walgreens – Forty, Flirty & Fabulous

Goody Simple Styles Spin Pin

The Goody brand is the most widely-recognized manufacturer of hair accessories and styling tools in the world. Through proprietary brands such as DoubleWear™, QuikStyle™, Simple Styles™, Slide-Proof™ and Ouchless®, Goody has introduced smart innovations like the exclusive Spin Pin and Quik Style Brush. With products inspired by the latest designer trends and innovative solutions, Goody offers an inspiring range of hair accessories and styling tools.

The Spin Pin does the work of 20 bobby pins! Easily achieve chic updo styles; simply twirl your hair up and spin the Spin Pins in for a perfect top knot, undone bun and side bun!

Steps:
1. Gather your hair at the nape of your neck (no ponytail holder needed)

2. Twist your hair into a tight bun and tuck in the ends

3. Spin one pin in from the top and the other from the base, taking care not to interlock pins.

I received the Goody Simple Styles Spin Pin ($7.29 USD) complementary from Influenster.com to test.

I love how easy these are to use. I have medium length fine hair and they work pretty well for me. I do fine that my hair starts to slip out after a couple of hours, but it is easy to fix. I have these in the darker color and they blend well in my hair.

Learn more about these at www.goody.com. Spin Pins are available at Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreen’s, Kroger, and Duane Reade.

Enjoy!

The Many Uses Of Ivory

I was lucky to receive a bar of Ivory soap complimentary to review from Ivory and Influenster as a participant in the Mom VoxBox campaign.

Have you tried Ivory Soap before? Here is what it is and can do:

Ivory bar soap is 99.44% pure (it floats!). Beyond using it as a body cleanser, many of Ivory’s loyal users – not to mention a few celebrities – swear by Ivory as their beauty secret. In fact, many consumers use Ivory bar soap as a facial cleanser. It provides healthier, smoother and more even-looking skin. Also, its versatility makes it an effective laundry soap (just chip soap flakes into the washer) as well as a spot stain remover on your clothes (including delicate items). Ivory bars can even be used for a fun soap carving project with the family!

This soap is so versatile! I used it to wash my makeup brushes. It got them very clean and it is so important that it is pure since I use the brushes on my face!

I also placed it in the microwave for about a minute and it foamed up. You can then mold it or just use it to wash clothes or makeup brushes. Super fun for the kids.

Of course it is great for washing face and body. My daughter has eczema and it is comforting to know that the Ivory won’t irritate her skin.

You can also purchase Ivory Body Wash. I have not tried it yet, but I am sure it is fabulous!

A 10-pack of Ivory bar soap retails for around $4.49 (bath bar size) and is available at a mass market retailer near you. The body wash is approximately $3.99.

Enjoy!

My Favorite New Summer Lip Products

Soft, smooth and natural lips are the perfect look for summer. The luscious lip products below will help achieve this. From a lip exfoliator to a fruity lip balm to a lipstick that makes lips soft after continuous use, your lips will look fabulous while using this products!

Merle Norman Lip Exfoliator ($15.00 USD) — Gentle micro-dermabrasion lip treatment immediately retexturizes skin to reveal incredibly soft and smooth lips. Allows lip color to glide on smoothly and keeps it from caking. Easy-to-use stick formula. Visit www. merlenorman.com to learn more.

Enjoy eos’ all-new limited edition Strawberry Sorbet and Passion Fruit ($5.99 USD) – two refreshingly tasty organic flavors launching just in time for summer. Revolutionary smooth sphere applies directly to lips, making it more hygienic than pot lip balms. It is enclosed in powder pink and lavender soft-touch, recyclable packaging. Key Ingredients are Jojoba Oil, Shea Butter and Vitamin E to soothe and moisturize. This retails for $5.99 at Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Target.com and EvolutionofSmooth.com.

Becca Cosmetics Sheer Lip Color ($24.00 USD) — A collection of sheer, hydrating lipsticks with subtle shine in a palette of tones flattering for all skin tones, BECCA’s Sheer Tint Lip Colour contains a cocktail of emollients and antioxidants such as Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Honey and Vitamin E, to moisturise and protect the lips while providing a smooth, even application of creamy colour. Shop at The Plaza Beauty,One West 58th Street at The Plaza Hotel’s Concourse Level.

CoverGirl LipPerfection ($7.49 USD) — A new kind of lip transformation; lipstick that transforms your lips instantly with gorgeous color and transforms dry lips to noticeably smoother/more gorgeous lips in just 7 days. Contains a silk therapy complex –
beautiful rich lip color infused with silk protein to help sustain moisture leve ls so the more you wear it, the more gorgeous your lips become. Lip Perfection is CoverGirl’s iconic, prestige-inspired lip bullet. This is available at drugstores and mass market retailers near you.

Merle Norman Lip Polish ($15.00 USD) — Creamy lip gloss delivers 100-watt shine. Luscious high-fashion shades provide intense luster with hydrating benefits. glides on smoothly and evenly with brush applicator. Long-wearing. Anti-feathering. Visit www.merlenorman.com to learn more. Enjoy!

Instantly Whiten Teeth With Luster NOW

Luster has just announced the debut of a revolutionary new way to instantly whiten your teeth at home. Luster Premium White, which offers a collection of at-home whitening products, has come up with a solution unlike anything available – Luster NOW Instant Whitening Toothpaste ($9.99 USD) for a fast fix to the white smile you have been dreaming about.

Power up your smile with an instantly white, dazzlingly solution that lasts for hours – perfect before a night on the town, a first date or a party! Dentist developed and perfect for everyday use, Luster NOW is infused with Bluverite™ technology that instantly makes teeth appear whiter with just one brushing. This revolutionary ingredient delivers a special optical effect to make teeth appear instantly white for hours. In addition to the instant whitening effect, the toothpaste uses Luster’s whitening power to gradually whiten smile over time. After brushing with Luster NOW the Bluverite technology may make teeth and gums appear slightly blue, but this will disappear after a few minutes to reveal a white smile!

Directions: Brush teeth thoroughly with Luster NOW following meals or twice daily. If excessive blue appears on teeth or gums simply swish with water to reveal your dazzling smile.

What I think: I have never tried anything like this before. It is like makeup for your teeth, with added benefits of long-term whitening. You brush it on and your teeth are instantly whiter — I would say a few shades. I also love how the whitening powder is brightening my teeth over time as well. Very cool. This is very affordable and you get three 1.5 oz toothpastes that you can take anywhere.

Luster NOW is available at Walgreens nationwide. Enjoy!

Stuff Your Stockings With New Lip Balm Collections

When thinking of stocking stuffers this year, lip balms are a great idea for all of the chapped lips on your list! Below are lip balm sets priced $9.99 — $14.99 — perfect to give to one person or to split up and drop one in each stocking you need to fill.

Eos, the innovative personal care brand, expands in the lip balm category and announces the launch of the 2010 Smooth Sphere Lip Balm Holiday Gift Bag ($9.99 USD) – a set of 3 organic, all natural lip balm spheres in a stylish, reusable cosmetic pouch. A delightful gift or stocking-stuffer, the Holiday Gift Bag contains full-size eos smooth sphere lip balms in Honeysuckle Honeydew, Sweet Mint and new limited edition Pomegranate Raspberry. Packed with antioxidant-rich vitamin E, soothing shea butter and jojoba oil, eos™ lip balms keep lips moist, soft and sensationally smooth. Availability: Walgreens, www.evolutionofsmooth.com.

Burt’s Bees Lip balm Ornament ($9.99 USD) Burt’s Bees fans can stock up on their favorite lip balms and get a keepsake reusable and recyclable tin. Choose from the ‘Classic’ pack filled with four Beeswax Lip Balms or the ‘Mixed’ pack with a variety of favorite balms. Sets include:

Classic = 4 Original Peppermint Lip Balms .15 oz each
Mixed = 2 Original Peppermint Lip Balms .15 oz each, 1 – Pomegranate Lip Balm .15 oz, 1 – Honey Lip Balm .15 oz

Visit www.burtsbees.com or www.ulta.com to learn more or purchase.

MISSION Balmer Bundle Pack ($14.99 UAD) — These athlete-engineered Lip Balmers™ provide your lips with great-tasting, broad-spectrum sun protection and are vitamin and antioxidant enriched. They lock in moisture for up to 8 hours, making them perfect for the harshest conditions or everyday use. Can’t decide which is your favorite flavor? The MISSION Balmer Bundle Pack is perfect. Availability: missionskincare.com

Eye Poppin’ Cover Girl Exact Eyelights Eye-Brightening Mascara

Reading about Cover Girl Exact Eyelights Eye-brightening Mascara (8.49 USD), I was really intrigued. It claims to make the eyes 4 times brighter than without wearing mascara. It’s available in four shades to match eye color: Black Pearl for brown eyes, Black Sapphire for blue eyes, Black Ruby for greens eyes and Black Gold for hazel eyes.

Each shade has a metallic sheen and a bit of a color to it. I purchased the Black Pearl, hoping to enhance my dark brown eyes. When you swipe this shade on a tissue, it is a metallic black.

On my eyes, you can’t really see the metallic, but it is very dark and really does make my eyes pop. I don’t know if they are brighter, but the thickening and lengthening mascara brings attention to my eyes. This mascara separates my lashes nicely and doesn’t clump. This is a great product.

I kind of wish my eyes were a different color, so I could try the shades that are tinted. Oh well, since the price is reasonable, maybe I will try the others, too !

Cold Weather Defense — Yes To Carrots Skincare

C is For Clean Gentle Expoliating Facial Cleanser — C is For Clean Gentle Exfoliating Facial Cleanser

Kansas City is very dry in the winter. This year especially, since we haven’t had the rain or snow other regions are experiencing. My normally combination skin is so dry. I need help!

That’s where Yes To Carrots skincare comes in. It helps put back moisture in my thirsty skin and has made it glow again.

The C is for clean Exfoliating Facial Cleanser ($9.99 USD) really scrubs the face. I can only use it a couple times a week because any sort of exfoliation can be a little rough, especially when my skin is so dry. When I do use it, it gives me a nice scrubby glow. Formulated with Dead Sea Mud, organic carrot juice and natural apricot scrubbing particles, C is for Clean removes dead skin cells leaving your skin balanced and nourished.

I follow this up with the C Today or C You in the Morning Moisturizing Day Cream ($14.99 USD) .

The spring water based day cream combines the anti-oxidant power of organic carrot and orange juices with 26 purifying Dead Sea Minerals. C Today Moisturizing Day Cream softens, smooths and firms your skin, leaving you with a radiant glow.

I do not recommend this moisturizer if your skin is oily. Even though it is water based and absorbs fairly quickly, you can still feel it on your skin after applying. That is great when your skin is dry, but not great if you tend to break out.

I know I’ve said it before, but check out this organic, paraben-free brand. It is good for your skin and feels great on!

Want a Fun New Look? Try Purple Mascara!

This summer I tried purple mascara for the first time. I had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for Almay Cosmetics at Walgreens. I decided to try some new eye products, so I chose a new mascara and eye palette. I have brown eyes, and Almay’s Intense Eye Color line claimed that purples are the color for me.

The mascara I tried is called Almay Intense I-Color Play Up Thickening Mascara in Purple Amethyst ($7.49 USD). The brush has hard plastic bristles that separate and the formula is very thickening. The color is hard to discern on my black lashes, and the effect it gives is a soft black color. I really like this mascara, but it is more of a day look than an evening look. The best feature? It does not smudge at all!

This weekend I decided to see if Sephora and Ulta had any other purple mascaras that were a little more noticeable for going out. The first one I tried was Urban Decay’s Big Fatty Colored Mascara in Purple Haze ($17.00 USD). This is a brighter purple than the Almay shade. This was more noticeable on my lashes, but my lashes themselves did not appear much thicker or longer. I would not buy this mascara.

The second new mascara I tried was Benefit’s BADgal Plum ($19.00 USD). The color on this is a lot different than the other two, since it is a true plum and not a purple. I really like the formula. It made my lashes look huge. The color is fun, too, but it might be better on someone with fairer lashes.

I LOVE mascara, so it is always fun to try new colors and formulations. Go out and test drive some new lashes today!

Long Lashes That Don’t Smudge? Try Too Faced Lash Injection Pin Point Mascara!

I love me some mascara! I love long, thick, eye-opening lashes and many of the modern mascaras give me just the look I want. Not natural, or sweet. I’m 40. I need WOW eyes, 24-7.

It wasn’t always like that for me. I used to hate mascara. It would clump and run. And not really make my tiny lashes look much bigger then they were. But so many new, wow formulas and brushes are afoot, and that makes my eyelashes much happier.

One good example of a great new mascara is Too Faced Lash Injection Pin Point Mascara. This is a mascara with a smaller wand that gets even the puniest lashes and lengthens them.

The cool thing about the Lash Injection Line from Too Faced is that “Lash Injection Pin Point’s exclusive 3D polymers build waterproof tubes around each lash that expand and stretch far, far beyond the natural lash while the sleek pinpoint precision brush separates and curls for the most divinely detailed, healthy lash look imaginable. Like paraffin dip treatments, moisture is locked into the lash by each tube, and lashes stay conditioned and hydrated.”

The tubes are cool, but difficult to remove. You need a good, oil based remover to get it all off. Lancome’s Bi-Facil is a good one. But this mascara WILL NOT SMUDGE, so it is worth the work to remove.

Priced at 19.50 USD this mascara is a bit of a splurge, but it is worth it if you like long lashes. Another good skinny-brushed mascara at a cheaper price is Maybelline’s Lash Discovery Mini-Brush Waterproof Mascara. This one is priced for $7.29 USD at Walgreens. It also grabs all of your lashes and is waterproof so it rarely smudges. Both of these mascaras are worth checking out if this is the look you are going for!