Entries for Saturday October 30

BareMinerals’ Buxom City Slickers kit

• Vendor: Bare Escentuals
• Availability: beginning August 2010 exclusively through Sephora
• Contains: 4 mini lip polishes and 4 mini lip sticks
• Cost/Amount: USD$39.00
• Would you purchase again: yes

Similar to last year's Buxom Babes About Town, this kit had four lip polishes paired with four lip sticks - and four were completely new. If Sephora follows last year's pattern, the two lip sticks will be available in fullsize in the first half of 2011.

Zoya’s Raven

• Manufacturer: Zoya/Art of Beauty
• Availability: originally released as part of Zoya's Extreme collection. Was also available as the October 2010 Vampy Varnish "VKISS" freebie (Raven, Trixie, Delilah)
• Color Range: black creme
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$6 for 14 ml / .5 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: possibly
• Similar shades: Sally Hansen's Midnight in NY (minus the sparse gold shimmer)

Though this is called a “metallic black” on Zoya’s site, I’m not seeing the metallic, nor the silver shimmer they claim is present. To me, Raven is a shiny, non-matte, solid black creme.

Like all dark-colored Zoya polishes, Raven’s first coat is a bit scanty and streaky. The second coat gave me the solid, smooth opaque black color I was expecting.

Entries for Friday October 29

Urban Decay’s 24/7 Jackpot kit

• Manufacturer: Urban Decay
• Availability: webstore and channel partners; - first saw them in early spring 2009
• Contains: nine mini (.02 oz) waterproof eyeliner pencils and one fullsize (.04 oz) waterproof eyeliner pencil
• Cost/Amount: USD$39
• Would you purchase again: yes

This was kind of an impulse-purchase: I was in a beauty store picking up something else, and these were on display right as I walked in the door. I’d been entertaining the idea of getting this, just to have and try out several colors of eyeliner from Urban Decay.

Sephora’s Flashy Liner Waterproof Pencil Set

• Manufacturer: Sephora
• Availability: beginning October 2010 through the webstore and boutiques
• Contains: seven mini (.03 oz) waterproof eyeliner pencils
• Cost/Amount: USD$20
• Would you purchase again: yes

I’ve been raving about my love of these pencils ever since I started this blog. They’re inexpensive, they apply very smoothly, they last as long as Urban Decay’s eyeliner pencils, they’re waterproof, and the Flashy Pink (a color that has since been discontinued) is my secret weapon: I use that on my waterline to brighten my eye area, and then put the darker color smudged below. At $8 for a fullsize pencil, these are a fantastic deal.

Entries for Thursday October 28

BareMinerals’ buxom Bombay

• Manufacturer: bareMinerals/Bare Escentuals
• Availability: part of the Buxom Lip Stick collection. Was also available as part of the Buxom City Slickers kit
• Color Range: deep rose creme
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4
• Cost/Amount: USD$18 for .03 ounces
• Would you purchase again: yes

This isn't quite as bright-red a color as Barcelona. It's more of a medium rose-red, and in the City Slickers kit it's paired with Michelle buxom. I had been hesitating about buying this one in full size, but I may end up doing just that - the color looks like a slightly deeper version of San Francisco, my favorite (thus far) buxom lipstick. In the Buxom City slickers kit, Bombay was paired with Michelle.

Entries for Wednesday October 27

Meow Cosmetics’ Zombies collection

• Vendor: Meow Cosmetics
• Availability: Octobers, beginning in 2009; through the company's webstore
• Contains: 13 eye colors
• Cost/Amount: eye colors: $8.00 for 1.2 grams, $1 for a sample baggie.
• Would you purchase again: yes

A collection of colors from previous Halloweens. Zombies was released in 2009, and then re-released in 2010 - so perhaps it will appear every October (which, honestly, would be kind of nice.) EDIT: and as of October 2011, it looks like this will be another seasonal re-release, making a comeback every October with the other Halloween-themed collections.

Entries for Tuesday October 26

China Glaze’s Mommy Kissing Santa

• Manufacturer: China Glaze
• Availability: originally released in October 2010 as part of China Glaze's Tis The Season collection
• Color Range: metallic holiday-red shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$6 for 14 ml / .5 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

A gorgeous bright holiday-red metallic polish. This isn’t a cranberry red - it’s more like the red on a can of Coca Cola, with a bit more blue. My bottle arrived with a bit of a leak inside the cap, so the formula was a bit thick - don’t know if that’s because the formula’s thicker, or because it dried out a little while I was cleaning off the bottle-neck and the inside of the cap. At any rate, I anticipate that this will make an excellent nail stamping polish, as well as a lovely regular polish. With one coat, the color was bright and semisheer. A second coat deepened the red and evened out the coverage a bit. The other polishes I got from this collection had excellent spreadability (they didn’t clump or show brushstrokes), so maybe my bottle just dried out a little? I’ll have to find a way to thin this out…but only a tiny little bit.

Entries for Saturday October 23

China Glaze’s Tis the Season collection

• Manufacturer: China Glaze
• Availability: beginning October 2010 through etailers and retailers
• Contains: 16 nail colors
• Cost/Amount: USD$6 for one .15 oz / .5 gram bottle
• Would you purchase again: yes

Sixteen holiday colors in a mixture of finishes: creme, metallic, and glitter. There were also gift sets available, with two colors some kind of extra (a candle, a shot glass, a stuffed animal, four mini-polishes in a candy cane.) Once again, I ended up eyeing two polishes, and ended up with nearly half of them.

Entries for Thursday October 21

BareMinerals’ buxom San Francisco

• Manufacturer: bareMinerals/Bare Escentuals
• Availability: part of the Buxom Lip Stick collection
• Color Range: dusty mauve-rose creme
• Staying Power: 3 out of 4
• Cost/Amount: USD$18 for .03 ounces
• Would you purchase again: yes

I don’t know if San Francisco is my favorite buxom lip stick (because they’re introducing more colors all the time)...but it’s my favorite right now. It looks very natural on me, the quintessential “my lips but better”. The color, application, and staying power are all excellent. I really love this whole collection, and this color specifically…but it is a high-ish price to pay for the amount of product you’re getting.

Entries for Wednesday October 20

Zoya’s Brizia

• Manufacturer: Zoya/Art of Beauty
• Availability: originally released in July 2004 as part of Zoya's Suede collection
• Color Range: mauve-taupe pearl
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$6 for 14 ml / .5 fl oz
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades: Sally Hansen's Mystic Lilac (similar, but not an exact dupe)

One coat of this gives me a lavendered-bisque color - a very pretty “neutral” base for nail art, or a variant on “mannequin hands”. Two coats tilts the color more toward pale lavender, and the polish has a slight silver metallic sheen that didn’t show up with one coat. It reminded me of Sally Hansen’s Mystic Lilac, but slightly paler and without the microglitter that ML has (and Brizia has better application.)

I’ve got a couple of pictures: one with just the nailcolor, and two that let you compare Brizia to Urban Decay’s Primer Potion tube packaging color. Brizia is paler, and has a bit more red in it, and the silver-blue duochrome-esque effect changes the color slightly; but it’s in the same general color-family as UDPP-purple.