Wearing Hot Pink No. 5 from the new $25 Sephora Gloss Lab kit

If chem lab had been anywhere near as much fun as Sephora’s new Gloss Lab, I never would have finished any of my titrating!

I would have been too busy mixing and matching the 10 marvelously moisturizing glosses (which could easily pass for MAC Cremesheens) in the $25 kit, and then watching the clouds above my head part to a concerto of harps and herald angels singing.

Unlike chem lab, Gloss Lab is exclusive to Sephora. The limited edition holiday kit, which is available now, comes with seven shades in an assortment of nude and bright colors and three colorless top coats (one clear gloss, another with small bits of white shimmer in it, and a third with larger bits of multi-colored shimmer), and all 10 of them come with an easy-to-use doe-foot applicator.

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The new $32 Primping With the Stars kit from Benefit

Where am I…?

What is this strange place?

It’s as if, when I walked through that door, I came out in a different universe, a parallel dimension, a nexus, if you will, of time and space, where the impossible is possible.

Back in the universe where I came from, primping with the stars — at least the one particular plus-size feline celebrity I’m familiar with — often took hours, days and sometimes even weeks.

Based on my star-primping experience, which involved prepping a superstar kitty supermodel for all the major awards shows, it was always a chore, but Benefit designed this kit to change that.

They filled the $32 Primping With the Stars kit with six sample-sized products from their permanent line, hand selected to fake a flawless face in mere minutes. In the kit, you get Benefit’s Stay Don’t Stray Eye Primer, The POREfessional face primer, Girl Meets Pearl Highlighter, their Some Kind-A Gorgeous cream foundation in Medium, one Benetint lip and cheek stain, and a tube of They’re Real mascara.

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Wearing the products in Benefit’s new kit, Do The Bright Thing ($32)

They say that necessity is the mother of invention… Well, after seeing Glen do that thing with the zombie’s arm in last night’s episode of The Walking Dead (HOLY SCHNIZZ!!), I believe it!

I don’t know where I was going with that…but I think it had something to do with Benefit’s new $32 Do the Bright Thing Face kit.

I was thinking about decorating the house for the holidays, how I wasn’t sure if I have enough decorations, and then I looked at this kit’s bright, eye-catching packaging and thought, “Gee, this’ll work as a Christmas decoration in a pinch.”

This little Sephora exclusive lives to make faces glow, and it comes with five-sample sized products from Benefit’s permanent line.

See that pretty girl in the mirror there? (What mirror, where?)

Sorry! — random music reference!

She turned up the dial on her outer glow by wearing Do The Bright Thing’s soft, shimmery pink That Gal primer under her foundation, and to give her cheeks some color, she swiped light pink Dandelion Blush on her cheeks. Then, she dabbed and blended a few dots of highlighting High Beam on the tops of her cheekbones.

To make her eyes look bigger and brighter, she smudged Jet black Bad Gal Waterproof Liner along her lash lines and applied They’re Real Mascara, which works like yoga for lashes, s t r e t c h i n g them out.

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Wearing the new Benefit Bronze of Champions Kit ($32)

Weee are the cham-pions…my frrriend.

And weee’ll keep on bronnnzing…till the ennnnd.

Weee are the cham-pions. WEEE are the cham-pions!!

SWWWIPE on some Hooola…’cause weee are the cham-pions……OF THE BRONNNZE!!

– “We Are the Champions” (1977), by Queen, lost recording

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“Maybe you need to move the camera to the left a little?”

This is the face you make when your parents try to FaceTime you from across the Pacific Ocean for the very first time, LOL!

Both my mom and dad are retired, in their mid-60s and not the most technologically savvy people. Example: Even though I’ve explained it to them a bunch of times over the last six years, they still don’t understand what a blog is (“Why do you post so many pictures of makeup and Tabs on the internet?”).

But bless their hearts for trying and for keeping an open mind to new gadgets and gizmos.

They’re on Oahu right now, and it’s been a couple days since I’ve seen them, so they FaceTime’d me (is that even a verb?) this morning to say hello and to show me the ocean. How sweet!

Because they’re my parents, I spent 10 minutes looking at my dad’s left ear before they figured out how to hold the iPhone. When they finally worked it out, my mom grabbed the phone to chat…

ME: “Hi, Mom. Whatcha up to?”

MOM: “Oh, I went to a country line dancing class this morning. It was a lot of fun. Dad says he went to the gym to walk on the treadmill, but I think he went to the buffet instead. You know. Retired people stuff.”

ME: “That’s cool.”

MOM: “Where’s my tabby?”

ME: “He’s sleeping at the top of his cat tower. I’d wake him, but I’m not in the mood to get scratched.”

MOM: “You know, if I had a grandchild, I’d take her on vacation with us.”

ME: “You know, you already have a grand-cat.”

MOM: “I know! But I can’t take Tabs with me to Hawaii. If I had a granddaughter, I could bring her to the pool, the beach and all that fun stuff.”

ME: “Are you asking for a grandchild so you can have something to do on vacation?”

MOM: “I’m just saying. If you had a baby, it would keep me busy. Ideally a girl. Hint, hint.”

ME: “Ummm…”

MOM: “Just something to think about!

Oh, I like your eye makeup today. What are you wearing?”

ME: “It’s a new kit from Benefit called the Most Glamorous Nudes Ever.”

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