LORAC Hollywood Insider Kit - $39.50 at sephora.com

How serendipitous! I just got wind of this set and realized I forgot to post my review LORAC Special Effects Mascara. After 3 months, my tube is nearing it's end and I need to replace it, so I suppose it's lucky that this kit has come along so I can get another tube and get the chance to try some other LORAC stuff while I'm at it. This set is available starting today and Beauty Insiders can get it at Sephora.com until May 12th. It has a retail value of $142 but you get all of it for $39.50. Here's what comes in the kit:

• Perfectly Lit Oil-Free Luminizing Powder in Spotlight
• Baked Matte Satin Blush in Hollywood
• Bronzed Bombshell Eye Shadow Trio in Sand/Serenity/Bronze
• Special Effects Conditioning Primer/Defining & Lengthening Mascara
• Couture Shine Liquid Lipstick in Vintage

Me likey ;p

Charlotte Russe Nail Lacquers - in store $3.50 each or 2 for $6

As you guys know, this past week I finally ventured into a Charlotte Russe store and was blown away by the sheer variety of cute and inexpensive accessories. You also know that I ran into a few nail polishes, one of which is the gorgeous Jade. I also picked up five other pretties, and while they were gorgeous in the store, when I got them on my nails, I was a little disappointed. They are all very, very sheer, and in some cases not what I expected them to be at all. None of these have proper names, so I'll just refer to them by their descriptions. Let me show them to you and tell you my thoughts one-by-one.

Click to see the swatches

Charlotte Russe Nail Lacquer in "Jade" - $3.50 or 2 for $6 at Charlotte Russe stores

YellowLilac is the winner of this giveaway and i'll contact you soon:) Thanks everyone for entering!!

Stupid Karrie originally decided she just didn't need Chanel Jade. Bwahahahah. Even after thanking my lucky stars that somehow or another I got my hands on so many of the Chanel polishes that caught my eye because I love them each with ferocity, I guess I just inexplicably decided that when Jade came along that I didn't need it. Whatever... I won't let that happen again. Luckily for me, the knockoff business is alive and well. God bless America! Back in January Little Music Boxes posted a Chanel Jade comparison with a couple other doppelganger polishes. She concluded that this jade polish by Charlotte Russe was as close as my grubby little hands would get to Chanel Jade without shelling out big bucks for aftermarket goods. Not happenin'. I don't think I've got a Charlotte Russe store nearby my home, but thankfully I ran into one here in Florida. Can I just add that I really like the store a lot? It's got tons of amazing accessories and clothes for hella cheap. But I digress, the polish is why I went in, so let's talk about it.

Click to read more!

For basically a first attempt, this didn't turn out so badly. I used Gold Crush foil from dollarnailart.com for this manicure. I put a coat of China Glaze Passion on first, then applied an even coat of the foil adhesive over it and let it dry. Then taking small nail-sized pieces of the foil, I applied the film to the nails. Some still had bald spots, and this is where the base coat of similarly-colored polish comes in handy, but I took a part of the foil that still had some film on it and applied it to the bald spots and the adhesive picked it up for a better finish. Then I used a coat of Orly Glosser over it. Using a fast dry topcoat will make it wrinkle up (which in some cases is kind of cute) so a simple slow-drying topcoat is perfect. It will still shrink and wrinkle just a bit, but as it dries it will relax back out.

The gold isn't the most flattering shade on me, but the flimsy nature of this foil seemed like it would be the easiest to start with. It definitely was easier than some of the other foils I tested out before this manicure.

I wanted to try this as an alternative to Minx manicures since I don't really know of a salon very close that does it. I'm sure it doesn't compare, Minx supposedly has a completely smooth finish and lasts a lot longer than foils. These foils don't last as long as a traditional manicure, but you get 5 feet of foil from dollarnailart for, well, $1. Not bad. Plus if you have patience, you really can make it look nice. Either way it's a far cry from traditional nail enamel manicures.

So what do you think of foils? Have you tried them before? Are you interested in trying them?

LORAC has a mini-Mocktail lipgloss set and Free Shipping with your $50 order. Holla!

Benefit has a contest going on where you can win $600 worth of Benefit Cosmetics and Michael Stars gear four times in a year. Pretty neat stuff. I'd sign up if I were you.

Click for more beauty deals!

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen how excited I was about finding out that LIberty of London was not only doing a collaboration with MAC this Spring, but also with Target's GO International partnership. So this past weekend a ton of Liberty stuff showed up in Target. There was far less in-store than I imagined there would be. I didn't see any of the dinnerware, or storage bins, for instance. I did manage to find a couple of the things on my shopping list, though! I got the above toss pillow, 5x7 picture frame and a set of 3 small notebooks.

Here you can see the back pattern of the pillow. I love the smaller complimentary version of the bold pattern on the front. I am planning on getting the bedding in this pattern as well, which is why I got this. Sadly there was only one toss pillow in this pattern so I'm going to have to get the other co-ordinating pillows online. This pillow is available for $19.99.

Click to see the other items

Kiehl's Lip Balm #1 - $7 at kiehls.com

I've been a die-hard fan of Kiehl's Lip Balm #1 since a couple years ago when I bought this on a whim from Sephora. I bought it basically to bring my cart up to free shipping level, but it's a product that took me by surprise and one that I've re-bought twice since then.

The formula is often talked down about as being "glorified Vaseline," but I see a huge difference, personally. I thought it was perhaps hype until one night almost three years ago when my lips were so dry that I ended up with a split right down the middle of my bottom lip. This tube was sitting in my bedside drawer, and I'd almost forgotten about it since I tried it and wasn't thrilled with it the first time I tried it. I was too lazy to get out of bed so I put a bit of this on and the next morning my lip was healed and my lips were flipping unbelievably soft. I sort of thought it was weird, but I kept using it for a week or so and I'd never had softer lips in my life. They even looked healthy, and maybe a bit more plumped out.

A while after that I decided to try it on my cuticles and it was nothing short of amazing. It healed a couple places in the corners where the cuticle meets the skin on the side of my nail that were a bit raw because of the winter weather. It also kept my cuticles feeling very soft overall. I still use it as a heavy treatment for cuticles once in a while, because it can look a bit funky and greasy, but it's very effective.

Click to read more

JR Watkins Lemon Cream Hand and Body Lotion, $9 at drugstore.com

JR Watkins has been making amazing natural remedies since 1868, and while you don't hear much about them, their products are the stuff that cult favorites are made of. The cute vintage-y packaging and the simple but effective formulas scream "you need me!" I bought my second bottle of Lemon Cream Lotion when I still had half a bottle of the first. This light lotion is deceivingly moisturizing and leaves no nasty residue, plus the scent is so authentic and smells like an airy lemon sugar cookie. The lemon is the most articulated scent but it's not as stinging as Fresh Lemon Sugar's cleaning product tang. The creamy vanilla scent is an afterthought and doesn't stick around very long. This is my very favorite lotion for Spring because it's so fresh and pretty and provides just the right level of moisture for the season, and the citrus scent is very uplifting and the cookie note very comforting.

There's also a body cream available in this scent, for those of you looking for more intense hydration, though I haven't personally tried it, so I can't vouch for it. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's amazing, though.

TRESemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo, about $5 at drugstores

I previously reviewed the Waterless Foaming Shampoo from the new Fresh Start range, and I like this product just a bit less. The foam of the other one makes a great refresher for the ends of the hair, and I adore it for my kindergartner daughter to keep her hair fresh and clean without having to dry her hair out badly. She doesn't have an oily scalp obviously, and as long as there isn't food in her hair, I try not to wash it more than 2-3 times a week. So the foam comes in handy and drastically improves the feel, texture, and scent of her hair.

I mentioned that the other product I would not recommend for people seeking a dry shampoo product for an overly oily scalp, but would be a little bit more apt to recommend this product. The Fresh Start Dry Shampoo is reminiscent of the Oscar Blandi and Ojon versions; a sprayable powder in a can, but it costs a fraction of the pricetag of those products. For about $5 you get 5.7oz of product. Before finding this product I'd settled on Batiste from Sally Beauty as the best product for my money, and in that can you get around 5oz for about $8. The price difference isn't that much, so for me it all comes down to how the product inside the can works.

Click for more~

Wet n Wild Color Icon Eye Shadow in Nutty - $2 at most drugstores

Wet n Wild is a drugstore brand that is synonymous with your high school years, no doubt. The inexpensive drugstore makeup range including a vast array of orange foundations, eye glitters, and don't leave out the blue and black lipstick! For the last few years Wet n Wild has been evolving within the bounds of the inexpensive drugstore niche it has always filled, but has been offering increasingly surprising products that are absolute steals. Their nail polish is wonderful and their blushes and bronzers, not to mention illuminators, lipsticks, and their cult 666 lipliner are secret weapons in the stashes of even the snobbiest of high-end connoisseurs. Recently their eyeshadow revamp has taken me by surprise. I was already a fan of their single shadows and palettes, but the new packaging is welcome. The old screw-top lids were somewhat annoying, though due to the price, I could deal with them. Now I don't have to because the shadows are now coming in a flip-top square which is small and streamlined, and about on par looks-wise with most other drugstore brands.

I picked up Nutty, because in the drugstore lighting it looked like a pretty taupe. While some warmer toned people might find this to be that pretty taupe, on my skin this turns a bit bronzey. In fact it reminds me a lot of MAC Woodwinked in color and texture. It's buttery soft and pigmented and gives off a beautiful sheen on the eye. I was surprised at the wear on this shadow, it does amazing over Too Faced Shadow Insurance with no creasing, barely any fading and no migrating. It makes a great lid color to blend up a bit above the crease and since this isn't quite as orangey on my as Woodwinked, I think this will be amazing this summer when I start to feel the need for bronzey eyes.

Jump to see more pics and swatches!