Mascara Minute: Maybelline Volum' Express The Falsies

($7.49, Maybelline, CVS)

Okay, EYE LOVE this mascara. Get it? "Eye" instead of "I"? You get it. Anyway, if you think you can't find a decent mascara at the drugstore, you are sorely mistaken. And the great thing about drugstore mascara is if you buy it and don't love it, you're out like a couple bucks instead of, say, $22. Also, I'm in no way paid to endorse them, but they are my favorite drugstore (especially since there's one about 14 steps from my apartment), but I really love CVS because they'll let you return any and all beauty products if you tried something and you were like "meh." But you will SO not be "meh" about Maybelline Volum' Express The Falsies. It's got a rounded spoon brush that's made of fibers, not rubber (though I definitely LOVE a rubber brush), which separate and truly truly outrageously elongate your lashes, while the keratin formula makes your lashes look way more full. Of course, like any mascara in the entire universe, you need to apply a few coats -- The Falsies dries quickly, so apply fast. I like to do one entire eye -- curl, apply one coat starting from the base to the tips, doing that wiggly technique thing, and then apply a second coat to really bring them out. If The Falsies fails you it's because you have failed The Falsies. Oh yeah, since I don't do waterproof mascaras, I can't tell you how the waterproof version works. Only the "Very Black." There's a reason Maybelline's The Falsies has the letters "T," "F" and "M" in its name: it also stands for Tamar's Favorite Mascara.

(Disclosure: I was sent this product by PR.)

Binge Beauty Buy: Rimmel Sexy Curves Mascara

Rimmel's newest mascara, Sexy Curves, has a wand that looks like a sex toy (OR AT LEAST I'VE HEARD THAT THAT'S WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE ON TV), and while I think you're a straight fool if you don't curl your lashes first before applying mascara, the product, much like sex toys, does a good job of, um, hitting those spots other products don't. Despite its claims, Rimmel Sexy Curves doesn't plump lashes (or at least not mine), but it definitely does a good job of lenghtening, lifting and separating, if you will, so I'd recommend it as a base before you use other thicker mascaras out there, like Napoleon Perdis' Madame Curl Curl.

+ Pick up Rimmel Sexy Curves at CVS and Target.

OMG HUGE NEWS: Pop Beauty Nail Glam Nail Polish Now Available In The States At Beauty 360!

Okay, so remember how almost a year ago to the DAMN DAY, I went to London and, while at the Oxford Circus Topshop, I paid WAY too much for some Pop Beauty Nail Glam nail polish, but it was worth every penny because it's my favorite nail polish ever, and then I got all drama face when I got home and discovered that Pop Beauty wasn't selling their polishes in the States, and it was like, either make it last or bribe someone abroad to buy me some from Topshop or Asos.com (they won't ship it to the States! Boo!) and ship it?

WELL... Pop Beauty Nail Glam nail polish is NOW AVAILABLE IN THE STATES! Not widely available... yet..., but they are available at CVS Beauty 360 stores -- sort of like CVS' answer to Sephora, and I ain't mad at that, and it's still closer than London (well, at least the DC location is.)

Apparently the same colors as in the UK are available in the US:

Berry- Soft berry
Black- Intense ink
Black Grass- Fluro green
Icing- Pale pearlised pink
O'Boy- Perfectly nude
Ocean- Irridescent sea blue
Orange- Fluro Orange
Pinky- Hot,Hot pink
Platinum- Iridescent
Silver Sparkly- Metallic sheen pink
Strawberry- Classic orange red
Tomato- Classic blue red
Turquoise- Fluro Blue
Violetta- Fluro purple
Wine- Velvet burgundy
Xmas- Ruby red with red glitter

There are only two Beauty 360 stores so far -- one in Washington DC at 1350 Connecticut Avenue NW in Dupont Circle, and the other at 25272 Marguerite Parkway in Mission Viejo, CA. I'm not totally sure if you can buy online, but I'll supersleuth it.

BTW, below is a list of the other brands available at the Beauty 360 stores -- I'm most stoked for the Dr. Brandt, Laura Geller, Borba, Fusion Beauty and the Juicy Couture fragrances. Also, it looks like more 360 stores are in the works this year. (CVS people, if you're reading this, Court Street in Brooklyn could so use one!) Yay for affordable beauty, no? And YAAAAAAY for more Pop Beauty Nail Glam!

Dr. Brandt Skincare
Laura Geller
Paula Dorf
Freeze 24.7
Borba
ModelCo
Canyon Ranch
Fusion Beauty
Blinc
Bloom
Clarins Fragrance
Caron Paris
Clean
Coty Fragrance
Elizabeth Arden Fragrance
It Cosmetics
Juicy Couture Fragrance
Japonesque
Lavera
Me Bath
Tini Beauty
Mineral Essence
Payot
Perlier
P&G fragrance
Sampar
Stendhal
StriVectin
Supersmile
Talika
Zirh
Pop Beauty
Ahava

Binge Beauty Cold-Weather Dechapping MUSTS!

A couple of products keeping me from looking like Robert Downey, Jr. in The Singing Detective (and obviously, I mean no offense if you have the world's worst case of eczema or are a Katie Holmes fan).

($12.99, Yes To Carrots, Walgreens)

Yes To Carrots C Through the Dry Spell Body Butter is the shiz. It smells like something you should keep refrigerated and dip veggie chips into, yet I wouldn't recommend the latter. It's all natural, non-greasifying, and the excessively sad, dry skin on my shins and hips soaks this up like woah. And it smells all fresh and not grossly perfumed or anything. I also love Yes To Carrots Hand & Elbow Cream.

($6, Einstein Lip Therapy, LipTheory)

While I wasn't a fan of their lip moisturizer, I LOVE Einstein's genius little Lip Therapy tub -- it's not as mediciney and el stinko and thick as Carmex, and it leaves a gorgeous balmy gloss with a refreshing minty zing!

Alba's all-natural, petroleum-free lip balms are more exciting than boring-ass Chapstick, and both the Passion Fruit Lip Balm, which I'm a big fan of, and the Cherry Lip Balm with SPF 18 are only lightly flavored. The former leaves more of a glossy sheen, while the Cherry Lip Balm is good for guys too. (And me!) They're both under $3.50 and available at CVS and other such drug store locays.

A Tale of Two, If Not Sometimes Three, Mascaras

While MKHo may not be a beauty blogger, I am a little bit of one myself. Therefore, please enjoy a completely overlong post about one of my all-time favorite beauty products, mascara! Wee!

The other day, I was celebrating the fact that it was like 7p.m. on a Tuesday or something equally as irrelevant, and I impulsively decided I REALLY DESERVED to buy myself something. (Un-)fortunately I work about 30 seconds from a Sephora.

Due to the fact that, like a magpie, I am attracted to any and all forms of shiny packaging, I swooped down on Urban Decay's Big Fatty Mascara:

($19, Urban Decay)

The wand is basically the size of a fucking toilet bowl brush. Unfortunately, this mascara completely sucks. Nothing showed up at all. I even thought I'd perhaps gotten a faulty, dried-up one. I read a review somewhere that said this mascara is good for "the natural look," and I can only imagine that refers to the look of WEARING NO MASCARA AT ALL. I took advantage of Sephora's open-arms exchange policy -- you can return anything if you're not completely satisfied, which I wasn't. So I did!

In its stead, I got Diorshow:

($24, Dior, Macys)

Ah, the redoubted Diorshow. I was sooooo ready to believe the hype. And the first few tests, it was okay (maybe I just REALLY wanted to believe) -- it definitely lengthens -- but after a few repeated uses, BOOOO Dior! WTF? J'clump!!! Definitely a lot of thick coverage, but zero separation -- it did that thing where it made major clumps at the center of my lashes and then made them look stringy-string-McStrung-out at the tips. Boo for reals.

Oh, and before I forget:
+ Free shipping over $25 at Sephora with promo code B388C2, through April 30.
+ Also, did you know you can return any and all beauty products to CVS if you're not feelin' it? It's true!

Anyway, back to the mascara:
... So, just yesterday, my sister came to visit. Every time we see each other after having not seen each other for months, we first act a'fool about how much we wuv each other. Then, we go into giddy-overdrive mode over mascara. She reminded me how much she loves CoverGirl's Lash Blash (the one that looks like a small orange sex toy), and I was so glad she did:

($6.79, CoverGirl, CVS)

Huge, right? But even more importantly, hugely effective. It's perfect on its own (after a few coats of course -- please stop kidding yourself if you think any one mascara can do it all in just one coat. Do you give your walls JUST ONE coat of paint? No. Unless you're a crappy slacker.) or as a base -- I'd also completely forgotten my own trick -- find a great separating mascara, use it as a base to hit as many individual hairs as possible that the slightly clumpier mascaras can't deal with, and then layer with a bolder mascara over that. Yeah, it's a little extra time, but so is dealing with those crappy lash brushes which never really end up working.

But, you don't have to take my word for it -- some Lash Blash reviews:
+ Makeup Alley
+ Makeup Moxie
+ Makeup Minute
+ The Makeup Girl <---- impressive before and after photo!

I also remembered how much I like MAC's Zoom Lash mascara: ($11, MAC)

A VERY thick (think mud) mascara. For $11, t'aint (hee) bad, but I don't advise it on its own -- instead, use it as a top coat over a solid separating mascara like Maybelline's Define-A-Lash, which is the Bentley Continental GT of separating but the mid-to-late '80s LeBaron of volumizing:



PS: Non-sequitur, yes, and I know I'm like the 23rd person to tell you this today, but Muxtape is awesome.
MU

Hair Miracle! Cristophe Beverly Hills "Purely Natural" Conditioner

($7.99, Cristophe Beverly Hills, CVS)

The other week, I was sent Cristophe Beverly Hills' new "Purely Natural" conditioner and, admittedly, thought little of it. But, since my hair is long, dry, curly, thick, often unruly and usually frizzy (lucky me!), I go through about a bottle of conditioner a week. I ran out of whatever else I'd been using (the fact that I can't even remember what it was should highlight my indifference), and I figured I might as well give it a shot.

Sweet sassy molassey! This stuff is a mini hair miracle! It's tamed my not-so-"fierce" frizziness and added a lovely layer of shine without the gunky greasiness, AND it's kept my scalp from doing undesirable things.

It has a nice light fragrance (I detect a hint of what smells like anise), and it's got no parabens (yay!), and apparently that's very good because they're apparently bad. What it does contain: alcohol (boo!), but it also clearly contains magic! Oh yeah, and here's more magic: it's only $7.99 (at CVS). I've spent far more on far lesser products, so I'll definitely be dropping that when I run out -- which will surely be soon.