Bare Escentuals & QVC - TODAY

Check out this great deal from QVC: you can order today, before it airs, their Today's Special Value for August 1st!! That's when BARE ESCENTUALS appears for 3 segments throughout the day. It's is a BARE ESCENTUALS 6-piece starter kit for under $33!! It's called the bareMinerals Makeup Revolution Starter Kit and it'll only set you back a mere $32.92 (plus, shipping & handling, of course, and tax, if applicable to your state - gotta get the fine print in).

Includes:

• 0.06 oz bareMinerals SPF Foundation in Fair, Fairly Light, Light, Medium Beige, Medium, Medium Tan, Tan, Dark, or Golden Deep; choose shade based on your skin tone
  
• 0.02 oz Bisque Multitasking Concealer in Original, Summer, Honey, Dark, or Deep based on your foundation choice
  
• 0.05 oz Mineral Veil in Original or Tinted based on your foundation choice
  
• 0.08 oz Mini Sugar Cookie Natural Lip Gloss (pink peach)
  
• Maximum Coverage Concealer Brush
  
• Flawless Application Face Brush
  
• Application tips brochure
  

Kathie Lee's Favorite Things

On Friday mornings, during the fourth (yes, fourth!!) hour of the TODAY show, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb start the hour with a little show and tell. They each bring out a few of their favorite things ranging from snackfoods to alcoholic beverages (lots) to beauty products. Love that they share some of their favorite beauty goodies - kinda like looking inside their makeup bag, and don't you love to get a peek inside someone's makeup bag, hoping to discover a secret potion or find out what that perfect lip color is? Anyhoo...this morning KLG shared a product that I own and think is great, particularly for summer. Nothing fancy or expensive - CLEAN & CLEAR Oil-Absorbing Sheets. These are blotting papers that feel like little rubbery sheets, not the powder covered paper ones most people are used to. They really suck the oil right off your face (as Hoda saw, and didn't particularly enjoy witnessing, when KLG blotted and the sheet came back oil-slicked). They come in 50 sheets to a pack and the pack is very small and slender - perfect to fit in your purse and keep on hand to get rid of any shine. And at around $5.49, it's a bargain!

Thanks, Kathie Lee!

Keeping Secrets

Overheard in the haircare aisle at Target, where I was getting my awesome Elnett:

Couple, early 30's

GUY: Who are you getting that haircolor for? You?

GIRL: (quietly, sheepishy): Uh-huh.

GUY: But isn't that your natural haircolor?

GIRL: Well...it's almost my natural haircolor!

Shhhhhh-- what beauty secrets, routines or procedures do you keep a secret from your significant other? Don't worry - I won't tell. It'll be our little secret!!

NIVEA Touch of Sparkle FREE Sample

Hey - head over to WALMART.com and get your free sample of NIVEA Touch of Sparkle Cream Oil Body Wash. According to Nivea, the sparkle comes from a touch of diamond powder. Oooh, fancy, huh? Sounds great for summer!

Also, Walmart.com continually offers new samples, so keep checking back to see what else you can try for free.

SEPHORA Blog: STILA SUMMER GIVEAWAY! Over $400 worth of product.

Had to let you in on this great summer product giveaway! The SEPHORA blog - Beauty and the Blog - is having a giveaway of a basket filled with over $400 worth of STILA products including:

Stila Sheer Color Tinted Moisturizer SPF 15, $34Stila Sheer Tinted Moisturizer SPF 30 Oil Free, $36Stila Illuminating Tinted Moisturizer SPF 15, $32Stila Bronzing Tinted Moisturizer SPF 15, $32Stila Illuminating Powder Foundation, $28Stila Stila Sun SPF 15 Bronzing Powder, $26Stila Lip Glaze, $22 (in 5 shades)Stila SPF 20 Shine Lip Color, $22 each (in 5 shades). Pretty awesome, huh?!

Enter by leaving a comment with a summer sun mishap (hopefully you won't have one. I had a few, unfortunately!), and leave your e-mail. They didn't list an end-date, so get over there ASAP to enter by clicking on the link below. Good luck, and thanks to our friends at Sephora!!

Beauty And The Blog: STILA SUMMER GIVEAWAY! Over $400 worth of product.

DOVE Winners!

Thanks so much to all that entered and shared their favorite summer beauty products (several of which I am dying to try!!). I wish there could be more than 2 winners, but the winners tonight are:

ANGIE

ELISABETH

Congratulations, Ladies!!!

I've sent you both e-mail requesting your mailing address so DOVE can send your prize to you!

Thanks to all who entered, and I hope you all will come back and visit! I will have more giveaways this summer!

DOVE Giveaway!!!

On May 1st, I wrote about the new DOVE Ultimately Visibly Smooth Wild Rose Anti-Perspiring/Deodorant (click here to read). Well, it's been almost 8 weeks since I started using it, and I'm happy to say that overall I'm really pleased with this new deodorant. It has made the hair softer and, surprisingly, I did notice that my underarms do look better and smoother. I've always had issues with that, because as someone who is pale but has dark hair, even when freshly shaven my underarms still didn't look quite hair-free (this was particularly angst-inspiring during my teenage years). But the other day I noticed my underarms looked really good and didn't have the pit-version of the five o'clock shadow going on. Yay!

DOVE wanted to give you the chance to try this new product (if you haven't already!) and is going to give 2 lucky readers a full-size DOVE Ultimately Smooth Wild-Rose Anti-Perspirant/Deodorant, along with coupons for $2 off future purchases of Ultimately Smooth - enough for you to share with your girlfriends. All you have to do is leave a comment for this post telling me what summer beauty product you Can't Live Without, and I will pick 2 winners at random on Tuesday, June 30th, @ 9pm EDT. You'll need to leave an e-mail address so I can contact you so I can get your mailing address to forward to DOVE.

Once again, here are the rules to win:

1) Leave a comment on this entry by Tuesday, June 30th@ 12 midnight (EDT)

2) Include your e-mail address and your favorite summer beauty product

3) One comment per person

4) U.S. residents only

Victoria's Secret Semi-Annual Sale

It's not just bras and panties that are marked down. Check it - makeup and other beauty products on sale for 75% off!! That is one secret I cannot keep! I wasn't planning on stopping in, but had to stop at the mall today to shop for a Father's Day gift for my hubby from our 4 year-old (another gift, actually, to go with the Elmo t-shirt we got for him last week. So cute!). But then I saw the sign for the Semi-Annual Sale and it said makeup on it, so into the store I went. I could have bought more, but I had a hungry child with me, though she did enjoy looking at all the pretty colors of body lotion and shower gels, so that kept her occupied,oh, for about 5 minutes. Anyway, I managed to score 4 products for $12.50. Sweet. And that included 2 - that's right - 2 full-size Very Sexy lipsticks. Uh huh. I also bought Bare Bronze Self Tanning Body Spray with Buriti Oil and an Everything Refresher Spray. The Bare Bronze was the splurge at $4.50. I am digging the Bare Bronze because I'm already seeing some color, which I desperately need, and it does not have that odd, immediately recognizable self-tanner smell. It does have a scent, and I can't say I love it, but you might. It's not offensive, but it's more perfumey than I like in a scent, but again, I don't think it's a giveaway that you just applied self-tanner. My store had plenty of makeup on sale, I just didn't have the time to open all the little boxes to see what was inside, though I did see eyeshadows, nail polish, lip glaze, plus the normal body lotions, etc., and more.

Happy 75% -off Shopping!!

SEPHORA:Pretty Minis for Maximum Fun!

If you're a SEPHORA fan (and, come on, who isn't?), you must remember the Lashstash collection of mascara samplers that Sephora offered - twice!! Well, for summer, they are releasing several different sample-size kits, and they'll be available starting tomorrow (6/17). Get some pretty minis in a variety of categories, all for less than $40!!! I'll be putting the Sephora gift card I got for my birthday to good use with these favorites. And it should come as no surprise, judging by the name of this blog, that I will be going for the Get Pinked Pink Lip Deluxe Sampler (shown below). Other kits include: Skincare & Makeup Sampler, Eye Deluxe Sampler, Fragrance Samplers for women and men, two different Mousturizer Deluxe Samplers, along with another Lashstash kit, and a waterproof mini-mascara kit called Splashstash!

Which one (or five?!) are you going to get?

Here's what comes in the Pink Lip Set!!

This set contains: - 0.34 oz Laura Geller Lip Strip - 0.1 oz DuWop Prime Venom - 0.0676 oz Korres Cherry Oil Lip Gloss in Fuschia - 0.23 oz Sephora Super Shimmer in Think Pink - 0.02 oz Stila Cherry Crush Lip and Cheek Stain - 0.1 oz Smashbox O-Gloss - 0.09 oz Calvin Klein Lipstick in Mesmerize - 0.26 oz Urban Decay Lipstick in Jilted - 0.17 oz Calvin Klein Plumping Gloss in Bloom

My Birthday Wish Came True!

Check out what my fabulous sister Lindsay gave me for my birthday (along with a gift card to Ann Taylor LOFT) - the SEPHORA Color Play Palette!! It's kind of like the Crayola 64 color crayon box for makeup-loving grown-up girls. It's got 36 eye shadows, 12 lip glosses, 3 blushes, and a bronzer (and the appropriate, if not minuscule, applicators- you'll want to better ones that you should already have in your makeup bag). I like it because I pretty much stick to neutrals when it comes to eye shadows, but this gives me the chance to be a bit more daring, and I already found out I love the bright teal shade - it really makes my brown eyes pop. The purple shade, eh, not so much, looks more like a bruise - but now I don't have to end up with yet another eye shadow pan gone to waste, along with cost of buying an individual eyeshadow.

Alas, I just saw that it is temporarily out-of-stock on sephora.com, and at only $22, no wonder. Check out your local Sephora bricks-and-mortar store, they may have some.