Fabulous Over Forty – Where Beauty Is Ageless

There’s a crispness in the air of fall that I love so I’ve come up with a list of my Five Fall Favorites. These are new fall products or colors that I am loving right now and are a constant in my makeup bag. What are your favorites this fall?

Prescriptives: The Daring eyeshadow palette. My colorprint is yellow/orange and with this palette I heart the beautiful brown, purplish/plum and the taupish silver shades. With purple being a hot color this fall, this palette works on so many levels to bring out the gorgeous shades of fall and make you look fabulous.

Nars: Cordura shadow duo. These are also two more gorgeous eye shadows for fall. A golden brown and brownish grey in shimmer, but not too much shimmer for someone over 40. A nice addition to the fall collection.

Bobbi Brown: Long-wear Gel Eyeliner in Black Mauve. I swear by Bobbi’s gel eyeliners. They go on smoothly and stay put all day long without any touch ups, so your eyes look just as great at 6:00 AM as they do at 6:00 PM. This Black Mauve shade is a deep plumish brown with just a hint of shimmer.

Armani: Lipwax in #4 is my shade this fall. #4 is a deep raspberry shade that is a deeper version of my natural lip color. I typically am not a fan of lip color in pots. I don’t like to always use a lip brush and some pots are too gooey to use your finger. Apply this with either a brush or your fingertip because it is a smooth, easy color to apply. Waxy in texture, yet it looks like a stain when its applied. A great round pot with a mirror inside to make on-the-go applications a breeze.

Chanel: Nail color in Fantastic, and that it is. Fantastic is a deep plum, but not so dark that you question whether someone over 40 should be wearing it. Friendlier than the cult favorite Vamp, Fantastic is a limited edition and I highly suggest if you can still find it, pick it up.

We all want the best service and products for our every precious dollar. So the November 2008 issue of Shop Smart by Consumer Reports has done all the work for us to help us in our search. Here’s where you can get your beloved beauty products online and how the sites rate:

Best Overall Selection: Beauty.com Shipping Free if you spend $49 or more. Return policy 30 days on unopened products or, for certain items, if you don’t like the color. Returns cost $4.99 unless a product is damaged or incorrect or the color is wrong.

Great for Hard-to-Find Products: Beautyhabit.com Shipping Free on orders of $100 or more; otherwise $5.95. Return policy 14 days on most items. No returns on opened or used products.

Great for Trendy Brands: Beautyofasite.com Shipping Free on orders over $75; otherwise $5.95 to $8.95. Return policy 30 days. You pay for return shipping unless the product was damaged. All returns are for exchange or store credit only. There are no refunds or returns on color cosmetics.

Best Prices: Buymebeauty.com Shipping Free on orders of $35 or more; $4.95 on orders of less than $35. Return policy 30 days. Products must be unused and unopened, unless they are defective. You have to call or e-mail before returning products; you will also have to pay the costs of return shipping.

Great Return Policy: Cosmeticmall.com Shipping $5.95 plus 93 cents per pound. Return policy 30 days. You can return most products for any reason, even after they’re opened.

Great Drugstore Makeup Section: Drugstore.com Shipping Free on your first nonprescription order of $25 or more; free on orders of $49 or more after that. Return policy 30 days. Returns are free if a product is damaged, defective, or incorrect. Returns are free on certain products if you don’t like the color. Otherwise, products must be unopened and unused.

Great for Freebies: Sephora.com Shipping Free on orders over $50; otherwise $5.95. Return policy 60 days. Free return shipping. Store credit after 60 days.

Great for Organic Products: Skinbotanica.com Shipping Free on orders over $49; otherwise $5.95. Return policy 60 days.

Best Shipping Deal: Skin-One.com Shipping Free. Return policy 30 days. Product must be at least 75 percent full. You have to pay return shipping fees, and no returns are allowed of an opened product if you received a sample of it with your order.

Best Online Version of a Walk-In Store: Walgreens.com Shipping Many items qualify for free shipping of purchases of $50 or more; otherwise $5.49 for 10 pounds or less. Return policy 30 days.

Sad Site: BeautyDepot.com This site didn’t have a wide selection of products. You have to buy $99 worth of stuff to get free shipping; otherwise you could end up paying $7.95 or more for UPS ground. Cosmetics (and many other products) were not returnable, and there’s no toll-free customer-service number.

Let’s have a little fun today – after all, it’s Friday! Zoya is having this fun contest on their site, and here’s how it works. Between now and Oct. 31, 2008 beauty product junkies across the U.S. will have a chance to cast their “Polish Poll Vote” for the candidate of their choice. Make your voice heard by going to www.thepolishpoll.com. It’s totally unofficial, totally fun, plus you can get FREE ZOYA NAIL POLISH! And, no need to worry about hanging chads!

Each vote will reveal a special code and provide a shopping link. Just spend $20 or more online at zoya.com or qtica.com to receive three FREE bottles of Zoya Professional Nail Lacquer. Not those teeny, weeny little sample bottles either – these are full-sized bottles in your choice of more than 300 healthy, formaldehyde, toluene, camphor, and dibutyl phthalate free colors! What a deal!

The name Julie was drawn by Dan, the administrator at my job. Congrats Julie, and email me your address at kari@faboverforty.com. Your prize will be coming directly from Y.E.S.

I’m anxious tonight for the premiere of Season 2 of Lipstick Jungle, NBC 10/9 Central.

I love the makeup and the clothes and the to-die-for accessories from the fabulous Brooke Shields, to the ravishing Kim Raver, to the fun Lindsay Price. All gorgeous women with their own styles and tastes, age levels and career levels and family differences, but friends none the less.

It’s my chick fix since SATC left us.

Be sure to check out the website too, because they list the clothes and accessories and where you can buy them. Fabulous idea.

I have been trying out this DDF Protect and Correct moisturizing UV lotion, $58.00. DDF is a line that I have not used before, but have heard of it and the good quality products that they are.
DDF was created by famed dermatologist Dr. Howard Sobel, who has been practicing for more than 25 years in the field and using modern technology and cosmetic skin care to help keep women looking fabulous.

This particular product is meant to help recreate the radiance of your youth by evening out your skin tone, diminish brown spots and prevent future damage by containing SPF 15 to protect from UVA/UVB rays.

If you know anything about my history, you know I am all for SPF protection and especially products that are formulated for both UVA and UVB protection, so this gets a plus right there. The texture of this is a nice, medium weight lotion (not too sheer, not too heavy) that glides on smoothly. It is not tacky feeling like some products with sunscreen can be.

However, after using it for about 4 days, my skin started to break out everywhere. I was upset that this happened, because I really thought it would be my everyday, daytime moisturizer, more so than being upset about breaking out. Now, mind you, this was not full blown acne I got from this. No, it was more like the little bumps all over before you get acne or from using something that your skin just doesn’t agree with. After I quit using it, within 36 hours my skin had settled down and was back to normal.

I have always said, what works for me, might not work for you, and vice versa. So I still would give it a try if you can get ahold of a sample, because like I said, the texture and weight of it is so nice that I thought it would be a fabulous daytime moisturizer. Check out here to see what others are saying about it and form your own opinion. I have passed my bottle on to a co-worker and hope she has much better luck than I did.