Revlon Colorburst gloss in Crystal Water, From the Gucci Westman Escapism Collection for Spring/Summer 2012

I turned 34 last Friday. I’m okay with getting older for the most part. I did go on a drugstore makeup shopping spree for my birthday. That always makes me feel better. One of the things I picked up was this Revlon Colorburst gloss in Crystal Water.

Which, apparently, is limited edition from the Gucci Westman Escapism collection. I found this at Target in the normal display with the standard Colorburst glosses. In the store this stuff looked completely awesome, all full of purple and blue shimmer. I still love it, but this gloss is a lot more subtle than I thought it would be. The shimmer is just barely visible. But as a clear gloss, this stuff is great. It is long lasting and moisturizing but not really sticky. I like how the shimmer isn’t gritty at all. This gloss feels really smooth. I have another Colorburst gloss (in Strawberry) that has chunkier glitter in it and I can’t really stand to wear it.

Anyway, if you manage to find the Escapism display at your local drugstore, I highly recommend this gloss.

A++++ WOULD DO BUSINESS WITH AGAIN.

More pictures:

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P.S. Many apologies for the lack of posts recently. I went back to work and it has been killing my soul. I’m getting used to it, slowly.

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Rest in Peace, Davy Jones. Marcia and I will miss you.

I already needed this. But now that it is $5, I have no excuse.

Senna Cosmetics just sent me a message about their Leap Day sale. Many great items are only $5. I really love Senna’s lipsticks. More info below the cut.

Good Afternoon,

Greetings from the beautiful world of Senna Cosmetics. We are hosting a MASSIVE $5 online sale starting now for Leap Year. All sale items are $5! This is a great time to jump start your spring makeup wardrobe and stock up on staple items.

Here’s a direct link to the sale site: http://www.sennacosmetics.com/index.php?cPath=73

Online only. No returns or exchanges. Sale ends 11:59pm PST on Wednesday, February 29th.

Please share this link with your friends, family, readers, subscribers and followers!

XOXO,

They just patch the 3rd kidney in there.

I have had two kidney transplants. One in 1997 with my mother as the donor and one in 2008 where my fiancé was able to donate. To have someone do a thing like that for you, to save you from having to do daily (in my case) dialysis treatments, to improve your health and life expectancy to such an extent, is overwhelming. If there is anything I can do to give that to someone else, I will do it.

Since I can’t actually donate myself, I ask you to please become an organ donor. Let your family know of your wishes to donate, because ultimately it will be their decision. Don’t believe the myths going around about donation.

Donation facts:

104,748 U.S. patients are currently waiting for an organ transplant; more than 4,000 new patients are added to the waiting list each month.

Every day, 18 people die while waiting for a transplant of a vital organ, such as a heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, lung or bone marrow.

An estimated 12,000 people who die each year meet the criteria for organ donation, but less than half of that number become actual organ donors.
(Source: National Kidney Foundation)

With all that in mind, I want to relay a plea from a friend:

From Diane Hirakawa:

Anyone interested in more information about being a kidney donor? One of my sons states that humans have two so they can share one. Unfortunately, both he and his brother have my same kidney disease so can’t be donors. My filtration rate has now declined to a severely low percent. The LA cadaver wait list is about 10 years and the SD cadaver wait list is about 4 years. That is too long for me.

If vaguely interested, please contact: (number deleted for privacy, please email me and I will pass the message to Diane). A blood test will inform them if we are compatible and you will need to make a trip to UCLA to meet with their team. After surgery, most donors miss about 7 days of work, then they are good to go. My insurance pays for everything.

You can find more facts about living donation on the National Kidney Foundation website. While I don’t really expect to find someone willing to donate a part of themselves to help another person, I had to try on the off chance I can help give Diane what others have given me.

If anything, at least this post will have raised awareness and maybe a few of you will register to be organ donors.

Thank you.

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Bruno pug is very serious.

Mr. Bruno Sprinkles likes cheese, spinning around, and stealing socks. His favorite time of day is bedtime, when he gets to nap with his humans. He believes the tv is real and often looks for football players behind it and down the hallway.

ARTIST’S RENDITION:

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I didn’t used to be so into purses. The previous residents of my home are to blame. THANKS A LOT, LESLIE WILKERSON. Your misdirected Nordstrom catalog featuring brightly colored purses let to me googling some purse blogs which led to a new obsession.

I really love bright colorblock purses. I picture them standing out against neutral colored clothes or looking bright and spring-like with a floral dress. I must have one. Pay no matter to the fact that I can’t actually afford any of these bags right now.

Five colorblock purses that I wish I owned:

1. Coach New Willis, $298

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2. Marc by Marc Jacobs Bob’s Memphis Trip, $528 (this bag looks like Valentine’s Day!)

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3. Fendi Silvana, $2300

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4. Reed Krakoff Boxer, $990

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5. Yves Saint Laurent Muse Two, $1895

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And I suppose if that is too much COLOR for you, you could always get one in more neutral tones. Such as these:

Reed Krakoff Boxer, natural/black, $1090

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Coach Pinnade embossed exotic Louisa, $898

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I guess I better start saving.

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Seriously, these are really good eyeshadows.

I am a little late in reviewing these new eyeshadows from L’Oreal. I just recently bought way too many Revlon Lip Butters and was trying to avoid buying any more makeup at the drugstore. But after seeing some L’Oreal Infallible Eyeshadow reviews, I knew I had to have it.

Midnight Blue and Perpetual Purple

L’Oreal’s website describes the formula as fusing “the ease of a powder with the velvety caress of a cream to create a unique hybrid that glides on effortlessly.” I don’t know about it being a velvety caress, but this shadow is one of the smoothest you will ever use. I applied it without primer, my lids just prepped with moisturizer. It was easy to blend, no fallout, and lasted all day. L’Oreal’s claims this shadow wears for 24 hours, but… I personally don’t need to wear makeup for 24 full hours. The colors are super pigmented, especially considering that this is a drugstore product retailing for around $7.99 (but don’t pay that, get it on sale!).

I must have every single shade.

More pictures:

There is a little stopper in the jar (leave that thing in there!) that squishes the powder down or keeps it from drying out. I'm not sure.

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Midnight Blue

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Perpetual Purple

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I barely touched the powder. This is pigmented stuff.

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Midnight Blue, Perpetual Purple

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Full range of shades that I will be buying very soon. (click to enlarge)

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Revlon makes the good stuff.

Buying a new lip product is incredibly rewarding to me. If I’m having a bad day at work, I like to buy one on the way home. Though, I can’t quite bring myself to spend big bucks on high end lip products. I know many of them have wonderful formulas (read: Guerlain Rouge G) but I’d much rather have a handful of Revlons than one high end lipstick.

Revlon makes some decent stuff. I love their Super Lustrous lipstick, their matte line is excellent, the ColorBurst gloss is great, and the Lip Butters are to die for. Here are some of my favorites:

Matte Lipstick

• Strawberry Suede – I find this bright pink matte much more interesting than standard reds. This is a great color that I also like to use as a lip stain under gloss.

Super Lustrous Lipstick

• Demure – This is a sheer nude pink with the tiniest amount of shimmer to it (it is listed as a creme though). Some are put off by how sheer it is, but I really like how I don’t need a mirror to reapply this lipstick. I wear this to work almost daily.
• Siren – Bright orange cream. A cute, trendy orange lipstick. I love this.
• Temptress – Sheer, light cool-toned pink with a tiny amount of shimmer. Another great lip color for work.
• Gentlemen Prefer Pink – Bright pearly pink, more pigmented than Temptress but the color is somewhat similar. This is super flattering on my skin tone.
• Pink in the Afternoon (not pictured) – My favorite Revlon lipstick that SADLY I HAVE MISPLACED. This is a warm, pink creme with good pigmentation. Reading reviews on this I am afraid that Revlon may have changed the shade slightly. My old tube seemed more neutral-toned than the pictures I have found on MakeupAlley. I will have to buy another tube and report back to you.

ColorBurst Gloss

• Crystal Lilac – A light, neutral pink with purple shimmer. This is the most flattering shade of lip gloss I have ever owned. I love it. It has purple shimmer, not glitter. So it is smooth and lasts on me. A HG for sure.
• Decadent – A bright purple with blue shimmer. This is a holiday Limited Edition shade that I am still seeing in stores. So if you like it, you better hurry up and find it. This isn’t a shade that everyone can wear, but I think it is really fun. It reminds me of the first lipgloss I ever bought when I was 5 years old.
• Strawberry – A bright pink with silver glitter. The shade is similar to Strawberry Suede lipstick. I love the color of this although I don’t always love glitter in lip gloss. But there isn’t too much of it and it doesn’t feel gritty. A very cute shade!

ColorBurst Lip Butter

• Cherry Tart – This shade is sheer (as are all the lip butters) cherry red with red shimmer. The shimmer is pretty subtle though. I really love this color. I am sometimes afraid to wear red lipstick and this is a nice way to wear a red that isn’t too much.
• Sugar Plum – Sheer plum with subtle shimmer. This is a shade I wasn’t sure about but it is actually very, very flattering. It is a nice my lips but better shade.
• Tutti Frutti – Sheer bright orange. There is no shimmer at all in this shade and because it is sheer, it tends to look slightly more peach on me when worn. I love this! This might be my favorite lip butter so far.
• Strawberry Shortcake – Light pink creme with decent pigmentation, actually.
• Gumdrop – Lilac with silver shimmer. I love this color and wear it often but it is probably too light for some. Overall, this is the color I wear the most even though I do like Tutti Frutti better. I still want to try Pink Truffle, which I suspect may be my new HG lipcolor.

More Pictures:

Strawberry Suede, Demure, Siren, Temptress, Gentlemen Prefer Pink

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Strawberry Suede, Demure, Siren, Temptress, Gentlemen Prefer Pink

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ColorBurst Gloss: Crystal Lilac, Decadent, Strawberry

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ColorBurst Gloss: Crystal Lilac, Decadent, Strawberry

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ColorBurst Lip Butter: Cherry Tart, Sugar Plum, Tutti Frutti, Strawberry Shortcake, Gumdrop

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What kind of company changes their name without getting the twitter name first?

So, this isn’t really a beauty related post but I found the whole thing so funny I’m posting about it anyway. Today I got an email from the CEO of Netflix that was part apology and part LOLFEST.

Dear Lovelyandroid,

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

p.s. I have a slightly longer explanation along with a video posted on our blog, where you can also post comments.

Why would an extremely popular, well known company suddenly up and change their name to something like Qwikster? It sounds so stupid. Those in charge at Netflix seem to be dead set on running the service into the ground. They might as well have named it Flippy McDickster. I mean, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS? I find the whole thing hilarious.

But the best part is that they did not even ensure that they owned the twitter username, Qwikster. Jason Castillo has the name and up until a little while ago, had a user picture featuring Elmo smoking a joint. He is up to 8365 followers currently and has been getting offers on the name. Way to go, guys.

The Wall Street Journal blog reports that customers are more annoyed than ever and aren’t buying the apology. CNN Money wonders, “Can Qwikster safe Netflix stock?” I am going to go out on a limb here and say NO.

I think Netflix and Elmo are smoking the same thing.