In 2002, Suki Kramer started her own skincare company, Suki, Inc., and has recently branched out in making a cosmetics line as well, Sukicolor. I first heard of Suki’s skincare line through my friends at Megsmakeup.com. If you haven’t had the chance, you can read my enthusiastic reviews of two of her products: Suki’s Lemongrass Cleanser, and her Sukicolor Tinted Active Moisturizer. Most recently I have fallen in love with a new sukispa product which I will be reviewing in detail soon, sukispa’s renewal bio-resurfacing facial peel!

The only thing that is better than finding an amazing skincare line, is getting to interview the phenomenal people that are behind these companies.

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are seven hair and skincare products that I truly adore…  Big hearts, whistles and hugs!

• Morrocan Oil Hydrating Cream ($28.95 – BeautyChoice.com) - Meredith from http://www.dailydosecoffee.com/raved about Moroccan Oil’s Hair Masque, and although I love everything I have sampled from this line, I particularly became fond of their hydrating cream.  I use it as a leave-in conditioner, the argan oil smells a bit like baby oil, does not leave my hair feeling greasy or weighed down, and my hair looks and feels so wonderful while using it!

HYDRATING STYLING CREAM FOR ALL HAIR TYPES FROM THE MOROCCAN SERIES This leave- in styling cream eliminates frizz, adds definition and brilliant shine, while the pure argan oil conditions and hydrates the hair. An effective and versatile product for all hair types. Usage: apply a small amount of styling cream to damp or dry hair and style as usual.

• Jessicurl’s Too Shea! Extra Moisturizing Conditioner ($12.75) is just what my thick, dry and curly hair craves.  This conditioner is infused with Lemongrass, Nettle, Burdock, Kelp, Marshmallow Root, Horsetail, Basil, Bay Leaf, Oregano, Rosemary, Peppermint, Sage, and Thyme; Aloe Vera Juice, Shea Butter, Jojoba Oil, and Avocado Oil.  For finer haired individuals, Jessicurl’s Daily Aloeba Conditioner ($12.75) is a great choice as well.
• Baby Quasar and Baby Blue Photo Light Device - After consistent use this photo-rejuvenation device for six weeks, I noticed that the Baby Quasar significantly helped diminish my skin’s redness and increase my skin’s overall evenness and clarity.   I noticed more firmness and softened lines around my eyes, mouth and forehead.  I also noted that my pigmentation issues have improved and are less noticeable on my cheeks and chin. (more…)

When asked to create a list of favorite beauty products for 2008, both DecoDiva and Mo mentioned their love of Indelible Gel Eyeliners.  When such extraordinary makeup mavens heart such a find, one needs to pay attention!

If you are a fan of liquid eyeliners, and particularly MAC’s Fluidline, the Indelible “Gel” Eyeliner will most likely appeal to you.  Mo reviewed this eyeliner in Black Cherry from LooseLipsNY , and DecoDiva found the indelible gel eyeliner at Aromaleigh’s website.  DD noticed that Aromaleigh carried this product by customer request and that it was made by a third party (private label) company that supplies it to any company that wants to carry it, in the same colors and same formula. (more…)

So many great beauty reads, so little time!

Jelly Pong: Pong Nude And Improved – Raging Rouge explains how “this handy little pencil isn’t just a primer, but can act as a concealer too!”

Purely Cosmetics – Pure Bionic Goodness! – Bionic Beauty discovers a wonderful mineral makeup line. “The biggest difference when I applied the Pure Silk Mineral Foundation was the feel.”

Sally b’s Skin Yummies – Lemon Sage Sugar Scrub – DecoDiva cannot get over how wonderful her skin smells and feels after using Sally B’s Lemon Sage Sugar Scrub.

CARGO HOLIDAY NIGHTS! SATURDAY AT SEPHORA! – Kate might still be building her wardrobe, but one thing she has down pat, Kate knows a great makeup palette when she sees one!

90s Ladies Week: Clueless About Foundation? As If! – I laughed all the way through this post about the 90’s. Spoiled Pretty’s new favorite, Make Up For Ever’s HD Invisible Cover Foundation!

Sneek Peek: MAC Hello Kitty Part Deux… The Makeup Girl posts about newly announced release dates for MAC’s Hello Kitty Colour Collection and Hello Kitty Kouture! Meow!

New Posts from Mythbuster Beauty:

• Urban Decay’s Urban Essentials Giveaway (hurry, the deadline is 11.26!)
  
• DecoDiva: The Right Tools for Liquid, Gel, or Powder Eyeliners
• FGW: Timelapse Wands, skin smoothing in a stick?
• Sally B’s Skin Yummies: Such a Treat!
• Beauty Bubble: Using your skincare products in the right order.

Being a hazel-green eye gal myself, I have always been drawn to the purple and plum hues. And it’s only natural to be drawn to those colors. In a basic Art 101 course you are taught the concept of the color wheel and complimentary colors. The perfect compliment to green is purple. Have you ever noticed the great contrast these two colors have in a painting or in a stripe pattern on fabric?

So how smart of Benefit to launch a new shade of mascara to compliment hazel, brown, and green eye colors: Benefit’s Badgal Plum Mascara ($19)!

Intensify your natural eye color with BADgal plum. This rich, luxurious plum mascara brings out any eye color! If you wear brown mascara, this is your new brown! It’s the same famous BADgal lash formula & voluminous brush for lavishly long lashes.

Tips and tricks: Not sure what kind-a BADgal you were born to be? We’ll help you decide. If you want to warm up & intensify your pretty peepers, BADgal plum is for you. Can’t live without your black mascara? Add pretty plum to the tips of your lashes for a sweet & sexy lash look.

And no worries for you blue-eyed beauties, BADgal mascara in plum can also compliment your baby blues! However, now you have the three BADgal mascara colors to choose from: classic black, blue, and now ze plum! Lucky brown-eyed gals can look gorgeous in any of these shades too.

And don’t forget, you can receive free shipping now with any Benefit BADgal purchase, just enter BADGAL08 at checkout! If you spend over $50 you can also receive FREE US Standard Shipping, just remember to enter the promo code PRETTY50 at checkout.

One thing is certain, you people love your summer berries! 

The response to this month’s tarte Berry Couture Cheek and Lip Stain Giveaway was incredible.  I simply treasured reading everyone’s entries.  Not only did people write about their favorite berry, they wrote up about nostalgic childhood memories, how berries are healthy, and their favorite ways to eat them!   It was amazing!

The favorite berries were tallied along with some of my favorite comments:

#1 Favorite Berry, Strawberries:  125

“Strawberries, they just so bring summer to mind. Where I grew up we used to be able to go to local farms and pick them ourselves, and thus get them much FRESHER and much cheaper than at the grocery store, we would come home with 10’s of lbs. We would freeze them to make strawberry shortcakes, etc year round. That was the most fun, picking them yourself and just eating a ton when you got home “- Rebecca C

# 2 Favorite Berry, Blueberries:  71

“My favorite summer berry is the blueberry. Not because I like to eat them because I could actually care less for the taste, but because of the time I spend with my son collecting them. Every summer during picking season we go out a couple days a week to pick blueberries. We pack a lunch and sometimes our fishing poles. We make a day filled with memories. Most of the time we give the berries away sharing the joy with others.”- Denise 

“I really don’t know if I can pick! Strawberries are the family “summer picking” tradition, but my mom still claims my eyes are so blue because of all the blueberries I ate as a child! “- Laney

#3 Favorite Berry, Red Raspberries:  71

“One of my earliest memories was hunting for blackberries and raspberries with my mom and my sister, we would always go walking down dirt country roads looking along the sides and fence lines and we would come home with baskets full of them. Those were the good ol days, but any way, my favorite berry is blackberries and blueberries, I can’t have just one favorite !!” – Carrie 

 #4 Favorite Berry, Blackberries:  51

“I was just given some of the largest and sweetest blackberries from a friend’s garden. My husband made a blackberry cobbler. Just add vanilla ice cream and it doesn’t get much better than that!”-Cindi

Honorable Mentions:

Mulberries (6), Gooseberries (2), Marionberries (3), Logan Berries (1), Boysenberries (2), Saskatoon Berries (1), Georgia Mountain Blackberries (1), Elderberry (1), Black Currants (1), Olallieberries (1), Yellow Strawberries (1), and Black Raspberries (5).

And then the one berry we cannot forget,

“My favorite summer Barry would be White, Barry White…. There’s something cheesy about listening to a little “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Baby” while driving with the windows rolled down on a hot summer night… Accompanied, of course, with off-key singing and the clicking of bugs hitting the windshield.”- IFW

Congrats Angela!  Angela is not only the official winner of this contest, she is a forty-something mom to two teens, a wife, a theatre junkie, and the author of a fairly new blogsite Opera Lobster!   Congrats Angela, a mom of teens certainly deserves this berry couture set!

Many thanks to tarte cosmetics for their generous contribution to this giveaway, and many thanks to you for participating.  Next week I will be announcing another kick-butt MBB giveaway with 3 amazing prizes!!! Make a note to check back because this next giveaway really deserves the three exclamation points.

Want an instant pop of brilliant red color on those lips, but a little leery of wearing a full colored red lipstick shade?  I highly recommend trying a sheer red lip gloss.  My favorite fun look for summer has been to wear Becca’s Glossy Lip Tint in Cherrybomb.   It adds a bright, pure shade of red to my lips and lots of long lasting shine, and I don’t feel like this gloss is overpowering and screams to everyone, “Hey look, I am wearing my Mom’s red lipstick!”

For you who can boldly wear the bright red lipstick, I envy you!  But for those like myself who are feeling timid about wearing red lipstick, but are still craving the ”little red corvette” color to your lip palette, Becca’s sheer bright red Cherrybomb lip gloss is a great alternative.  I usually think of a red lipstick as a winter shade, but picture this, how nice a red lip compliments a tan (or sunless tan) complexion?  

I gave Becca’s Glossy Lip Tint a “9 out of 10″ stars on the Total Beauty site.  I gave this product a “9″ simply because of its price.  $23 is a little steep for even a fabulous lip gloss.

Stila has a deep red lip and cheek stain called “Cherry Crush” which I have heard wonderful things about.  You can also try Stila’s limited edition “Rock the vote Red” lipstick.  Wearing red lipstick to the polls seems like a very patriotic thing to do.  

Check out my friend Kate’s picks for fabulous fall red lip color at her post, “That time of year again:  Saturdays at Sephora,” at Megsmakeup.com.

Which ever way you choose; have fun with some red!

Summer is nearly over and now you have the opportunity to win tarte’s Berry Couture All Natural Stain Set at Mythbuster Beauty!  Berrylicious!  No, I am not quoting Strawberry Shortcake, berrylicious is the name of their new limited edition cheek and lip stain shades.

What it is:
Tarte’s new limited-edition, all-natural cheek and lip stain and gloss set.  This set features their exclusive new shade- berryilicious, this item retails for $35.

What Berry Couture stain set can do:
The Tarte Berry Couture All Natural Stain Set lets you achieve a healthy, glowing complexion and naturally enhanced lips featuring two best sellers infused with their proprietary t5 super fruit complex™.  t5 complex is a combination of five of the most active known superfruits:  goji berry, acai berry, marajuja, acerola, and pomegranate.  All of which can soothe, repair, and enhance the skin.

Rules:  Enter to win by submitting a comment at this post on your favorite summer berry.  One entry per person and the deadline is at midnight (PT) Sunday, August 31, 2008.  One winner will be chosen via Random.org and will be announced on Mythbuster Beauty, on PRIZEY.Fetch, and contacted via email.  MBB will not share your email address with anyone, and only use your email address to contact you if you are a winner.

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One of the reasons I became a beauty blogger is because I hate the feeling of being intimidated and overwhelmed at the cosmetic counter.  My hope was to get familiar with how the industry works to overcome this fear.  And generally speaking, my experiences blogging have really helped.

I don’t go to the mall often.  I have a learned aversion to shopping malls, and as much as I want to see the pretty packages and tubes of cosmetics, mall shopping is torture to me.  Another problem I have is with confrontation.  With my own children and husband, confrontation comes naturally.  But, with someone who I perceive as having authority, confrontation is another thing.  I have a very difficult time expressing a strong opinion.  This is particularly true when I desire to communicate my discontent or negative feedback.  Generally, if I don’t like something, I will choose to avoid talking face-to-face with a real person about it.  I have “changing the subject when the tension gets high” down to an art. 

Recently, this trend has changed for me.  Now, when I meet people at the cosmetics counter, they have become my new allies in the quest for good beauty stuff.  Instant soul mates.  I usually ask them tons of questions and have a great time talking with them.  What product really stands out?  What is your favorite product?  Have you heard of this line?  Which line carries your favorite foundation?

And then there is today.  Today, I needed to shop at the mall.  I left my entire lot of children with my oldest and slipped out of the house!  Sweet childless freedom.  I casually strolled into the shopping mall. No stroller. No crowds. Just me in a big air conditioned space.  First I went shopping for some bare necessities, and casually stopped by the cosmetic counter at Dillards.  My Dillards experience proved to be so disappointing in comparison to the Sephora I visited last weekend in Vegas. 

I noticed a new line I hadn’t seen before.  I walk over and dabbed some of their serum on the back of my hand.  I thought to myself, ”Interesting consistency. Do I smell citrus?  Must have some alcohol in it too. Kind of reminds me of…”

Interruption!  

A cosmetic saleswoman with a bright white lab coat asked me if I needed assistance.  Another customer simultaneously asked the saleswoman about the Clarisonic Face Brush on display.  “As Mentioned on Oprah” the signs say around it.  The saleswoman gave the sales pitch for the Clarisonic Brush, quickly announcing, “This is the most amazing skincare item!”

When I responded, my troubles began.  I said, “Actually, I like it okay; I don’t think it is all they claim it to be.”

The saleswoman shot me a look of surprise, and then beamed daggers at me.  “Everyone here loves the Clarisonic; it helps our serums really sink in, instead of just staying on the surface.”

“Oh really.  Well, I am sure it does help exfoliate your skin.”

“If you tried this, you would really see how it makes a difference.”

“I have one of these, I used it for a while, and it is very nice.”

“What kind of brush did you use?”

“One for sensitive skin and the other for regular skin.”

“I meant to say, what kind of setting did you use on your Clarisonic brush? Low or high?”

“Gosh, I didn’t realize there were two different settings.”

“You must have had your brush on high!”

“Okay, thanks…” 

I wanted to stay and browse, but I didn’t want to keep this conversation going, and I felt about 3 feet tall.  Why on earth do I let a salesperson or any person make me feel this way!?   I made some kind of excuse and got out of there.

Does this ever happen to you?  I guess I need more beauty blogging therapy.

Almost everyday, someone will comment when they look at my feet, “Cool sandals, what brand are they?”

“FitFlops,” I happily reply.  Which will lead into the next question.

“Where do you get them?” 

“I am reviewing them because I heard about these amazing sandals on the BlissWorld site.  They are suppose to give you a little additional workout while you wear them, and they looked so great, I just had to try them.”

“So, how do they feel?”

“Incredible.  They are lightweight, but give a good amount of support and cushion.  They are perfect to wear around town while running errands, and are great poolside as well.”

“What about the workout feature, does that really work?”

“Actually, after the first day I wore them, I didn’t notice any additional muscle action while wearing them, but that evening, when I took them off, I felt some butt fatigue like I had been doing some lunges or had just worked out.  I think they are really doing something.”

FitFact:

FitFlops slow the eversion rate of the average person’s step, so that the time the muscle spends in an active state is increased during every step. The muscle fibers activated are the ‘slow twitch’ type, which are the fibres that create longer, leaner-looking limbs.

“Where do you buy these and how much do they cost?”

“You can purchase these at several online shoe sites, but I bought mine at Macys.  They retail for $49.99 for the Walkstar style, and they also carry some cool patent leather styles for $59.99.”

I am loving summer in these fashionable, comfortable and butt-burning FitFlops!!!  Seriously, I love getting the compliments too.