Today I want to share with you a soft, natural and pretty makeup look.    I’ve taken makeup from my own collection and put together a look that I like to use when putting together a polished, professional look that is also feminine.

I first apply Chanel Teint Innocence foundation all over my face.   I love the texture of this foundation – it just looks like your skin only better.   It’s a perfect weight and texture, lasts a long time and hides imperfections without looking cakey.  Perfection.

I didn’t feature a concealer, but most days I use Jouer Age-Repairing Brightener under my eyes as it hides the dark circles and is a treatment, so it works wonderfully for the delicate under eye area.     

To highlight my cheeks or anywhere I want to get “the glow”, I use Nars Orgasm Illuminator.  It is a beautiful shade of that pink/coral/shimmer that looks wonderfully on most any skin tone.   Dab a bit on your fingertips and rub or press into the skin. 

I dust on my cheeks, temple and jawline this Dior Diorskin Nude Natural Glow Sculpting Powder.  My shade is 40 Golden Caramel.  I like the versatility of this as you can sweep your brush all along all the colors or use them individually.  It leaves a soft warm glow without looking too bronzy. 

This may look like an awful lot of eye shadows, but when the Giorgio Armani Beauty makeup artist used this combination on me I fell instantly in love with the look.   Because I have larger eyes, some makeup artists tend to over do it with eye shadows on me.  This was a beautiful, soft look that could go from day to night – so soft and pretty.   On the left the shadows are Armani Maestro shades in #2 (top left) and # 25 (bottom left).  Blend these two together to get the perfect base shade for all over application.  #2 is a soft shimmer golden/nude.  #25 is a tan/nude/with a slight pink in matte.   #20 (bottom right) use all over the lower eye lid.  This shade is a light shimmer bronze.   Then in the crease  use #27 (top right) a lightly shimmer khaki/taupe shade.  Blend well.

You can line your eyes with a purple pencil eyeliner or try this Bobbi Brown Long Wear Gel Eyeliner in Plum Black.   If you prefer a pencil try the Armani Smooth Silk Eye Pencil in #5 Eggplant.   They are soft and creamy and super-easy to apply. 

Top with your favorite mascara.  I go between so many that I like that I didn’t list one here, but any Lancome, CoverGirl LashBlast or Armani Eyes To Kill works wonderfully.

Now, if you want to be daring, try Armani Rouge d’Armani Lipstick in a red shade like #401.   But, for daytime, I’ve shown here Armani Sheer Lipstick in #30 -a rosy pink that is soft and natural.   The Sheer line is very light in color as the name states, but very moisturizing.   Even though you may have to apply several times a day I find it worth it. 

If you want to top it with a gloss, I like this Hourglass Prodigy lip gloss in Hypnotic.   I love this new gloss and it’s unique packaging.   This shade is more pink than what it looks like on the package.  It’s moisturizing and has a nice slight shimmer.

This look will take you from the boardroom to dinner or a night out with the girls. 

Let me know if you enjoy it when I put together color collections like these – I have many more to share!

*All products were purchased by me with the exception of the Hourglass Prodigy.

This was a busy week in beauty blogging land. There were some great posts – required reading for beauty lovers!

Charlestongirl at Best Things in Beauty, has reviewed Rouge Coco, Chanel’s blockbuster new lipstick introduction. There has to be a shade with your name on it! The choices are gorgeous. A new contest started here yesterday, courtesy of Snubbr. Make sure to enter!

Kelly at Gouldylox has the latest, greatest Perricone MD giveaway contest! She has an Advanced Face Firming Activator to give away – good stuff for your skin. You need to enter by March 20, so get over there and do it now!

Gaia reviewed the Edward Bess All Over Seduction Cream Highlighter in Sunlight at The Non-Blonde. Gaia, you are costing us money, honey! While you are at The Non-Blonde, you can find out what’s happening with some of our favorite brands.

Amber is currently loving Vapour Organic Beauty. Go to Beauty Junkies Unite to find out how you can get your glow back with 100% natural and chemical free products that have a minimum of 70% certified organic ingredients.

We have to give a shout out to new beauty bloggers (this is hard work!). The darlin’ Kristen, a girl obsessed with everything beauty (and an Armani veteran), is writing Belle La La. She reviewed Bath & Body Works Summer Vanilla this week. She chose Lemon Vanilla. Which one grabs you? Make sure to read about Aunt Liz at Belle La La!

Are you a MAC addict? Lianne at The Makeup Girl has the scoop on the new Too Fabulous Collection. It looks “too pretty”!

KarlaSugar posts fabulous swatches on The Next Best Thing to Going Shopping Yourself. Want to see Dior’s Extas Pinks and Mystic Smokys, eye shadows for spring? Head over for some armchair shopping!

Do you nails need help? Did winter leave them brittle and breaking? Annieytown has the cure at Blogdorf Goodman with Dior’s Creme Abricot. “Sitting down with the Creme Abricot, the orangewood stick, and a cup of hot Earl Grey tea, and just taking a bit of time to take care of myself” – sounds pretty good!

Jennifer at Beauty In Real Life keeps us grounded! She let us know how to get our hands on the latest, greatest CoverGirl mascara, LashBlast Fusion. The availability is limited right now, so hurry!

DivaDebbi trolls the beauty aisles at CVS (like the rest of us!), and she found a great lip liner! Now we all need to try Q135/Plum Lasting Lip Pencil from CoverGirl’s Queen Collection, named after Queen Latifah. Debbi, Charlestongirl’s CVS has the gel eye liner you want. Want her to pick one up for you?

Felicia at This That Beauty is also going to cost us some money! L’Occitane has unveiled a brand spanking new makeup collection that draws its inspiration from the peony – the beautiful, fragrant, voluptuous peony. New makeup from L’Occitane – that’s news!

We hope you will enjoy these posts from beautyland. Have a great weekend!

Recently, while perusing one of my countless magazines I saw that Anastasia Beverly Hills had this mini wax kit.    Anastasia is known for her celebrity brow styling and for us non-celebrities a variety of eyebrow grooming kits and related products that we can purchase to pretend we can get brows like the celebrities on our own.  HA!   I’m only kidding, I do really like the Anastasia products and they work really great.

Since her other products are fantastic, I figured this must be too.  I’ve tried another brand of pre-wax strips and had horrible results.  I have been on the hunt for a wax kit, but I really dislike the thought of having to keep a huge jar of wax and then heat it up, blah blah blah.    I just don’t want to mess with it, but I want to be able to wax the annoying eyebrow strays and the really annoying lip hairs that drive me crazy.   So I ran to Sephora to check it out.  Only my local Sephora doesn’t have it.   I didn’t feel like ordering it online, well, just because I didn’t.  It’s only $12 and the shipping would probably be half of that again.

Then I ran into my local Ulta – we have a new mega Ulta near my home which I am thrilled about and paranoid at the same time because it’s just too close!   But I did run into one of the little kits and I grabbed it up.    The jar of wax is tiny (PERFECT!) only .5 oz – think of a jar of eye cream size which typically is the same size, just not with all the excess pretty packaging that eye creams have.   There are 5 small wooden sticks for application and 14 substantially sized muslin strips, and instructions on how to use the kit.  This seemed like the perfect kit to me.

You only have to heat the wax about 10 seconds in the microwave and apply with the stick.  The muslin strips are quite large and can be cut in half to easily remove the mustache lip hair.  Each half of the strip works on each half of the lip area and I would say the same for the eyebrow area as well.  Lickity split – the hair was gone, I’m able to save myself a wad of money by not having to go have my lip hair removed professionally and spending no less than $15 each time.   $12 for this kit will give you many uses before it is gone – at least 14 uses (the number of strips).  So lets do the math:  $15 x 14 trips to have a lip wax = $210, (not including tip) so I figure I’m saving myself at least $200!   This is the bargain of the century!

I think that qualifies as Beauty on a Budget – don’t you? 

p.s. – the Ulta website has the incorrect price of $21.  It is only $12 in the store – they really should fix that.

I’m sure many of you are fans of Lancome products.  I know I am!  It’s funny how I used Lancome for years when I was in my 20’s and then it faded into my beauty background for no particular reason.  About two years ago I had a facial and the facialist used several Lancome skin care products and started raving about them to me.   I purchased a few products and fell back in love with Lancome in my mid to late 40’s.   

After reacquainting myself with the skin care I decided to check into the makeup line, more than just the oh so popular mascaras.   I think I now wear at least one if not more, makeup product from Lancome on my face daily.  

I’ve been fortunate enough to have met a few of the women that work at Lancome PR, like Patricia, Kerry and Erin – all lovely women and so happy to have met them.   One year ago (where does time fly!) Kerry started writing a blog for Lancome, so they’re celebrating their birthday by doing a giveaway.   One lucky winner will get a chance to win 5 Lancome beauty products of their choice!   The Lancome Blog is one of my favorite “Daily Must Reads” and Kerry keeps us up to date not only on the Lancome beauty scene, but with fashion, what’s hot, who’s cool and of course, cupcakes!

Be sure to head on over to the Lancome Blog and enter for your chance to win!   And tell Kerry Happy Birthday from Fab Over 40!

Finally!  Here they are, one of the first looks at the Degree Women Natureffects new body mists and deoderants in their new scents.  I told you a few days ago about the new fragrant combinations created by Ann Gotleib, now you can enjoy them yourselves as well.

Beauty on a Budget – that’s what Degree Natureffects has for all of us.  Beauty in scent and protection and at a budget price of only $3.99 retail!   These fresh new scents were created to release your “Outdoorphins”.   Now that Winter is waning and Spring is knocking on our doors, these new scents make me anxious for Spring. 

Avaialable at retailers nationwide.

Is a bar of soap the best way to wash your face?   I’ve always heard to never use a bar of soap on your face.  They’re supposedly drying, make your skin easily irritated, strip your skin of the good nutrients.   So to be honest, I was actually hesitant to give this Erno Laszlo Blue Firmarine Treatment Bar a try.  But I did anyway.

And I was pleasantly surprised!  

This bar has the texture of a glycerin bar, creates a lot of lather and it cleans my face exceptionally well.  After washing with this and rinsing I mistakenly took my WHITE towel and dried my face.   As soon as I had done that, I thought – oh no!  There goes my white towel with makeup on it.   But no!   My white towel didn’t have a speck of left over makeup on it, it was actually spotless.   Then I waited several minutes before applying the remainder of my nighttime ritual skin care, I wanted to see if my skin felt dry.   No again.   My skin felt clean, but not dried out, just smooth.   I have been using this treatment bar for several weeks and my skin still doesn’t feel dried out like I had originally expected.   At $39 the bar is not inexpensive, but it lasts FOREVER!   Like I said, I have been using this for several weeks and it doesn’t look like I’ve used any of the bar.

Here’s what the company says about the treatment bar:

It’s unique delivery system releases ingredients gradually over time to ensure activity long after cleansing strengthening skin’s barrier and allowing visibly firmer, smoother skin.  Spirulina Maxima and Algae Extract to firm skin by helping cell renewal and improving skin texture.  Vitamins C & E to provide long lasting anti-oxidant protection.  Glycerin Sorbitol and Palm Kernel to help hydration and retain moisture by binding water to the skin.