Honest Beauty

New From Honest Beauty: Liquid Lipstick

August 6th, 2019 by Karen 5 Comments

honest beauty happiness — Happiness — an aptly named bright peachy pink 😊

If you feel like you can’t toss your high pony, toast a Pop Tart, or brush the cat fur from your shoulder without bumping into a liquid lipstick, you’re not alone. Especially over the past few years, they’ve been errrrywhere — from fancy brands like Chanel to big drugstore lines (I like the ones from Maybelline and Physicians Formula), and at all price points in between.

Now there’s a “clean” beauty option from Honest Beauty, and guess what? It’ll make you cabbage patch right outta your office chair, which is what happened to me when I tried one of the nudes.

Mauve nude BFF is the perfect “there but not there” lip color (and you know I love me a nude lip!).

I’ve tested four of the seven shades, and all of them feel smooth and flexible on my lips. The mousse-like formula stays put through breakfast, lunch, snacks and copious amounts of coffee and water without settling into my horizontal lip lines. Plus, most importantly, NO CAT BUTT LIPS. 😄

Even after wearing one for a full day, my lips feel comfortable and moisturized, and there’s nary a flake in sight the next day.

honest beauty goddess — Goddess (a bright reddish pink)

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Crazy About Creams! Honest Beauty Creme Cheek Blush

January 7th, 2019 by Karen 14 Comments

honest beauty creme cheek blush swatches final — Affordable and long-lasting!

This month I am CRAZY ABOUT CREAMS. Stay tuned for some of my favorite cream makeup products all throughout January.

BRRR! You guys…it’s so cold! ⛄

I know that that must sound mildly hilarious coming from a ☀️ Californian, but seriously, there’s a big difference between Northern California and Southern California. Here in NorCal, it gets almost freezing…

Hardy-har-har, yes, I know that 37 degrees isn’t arctic, but let me tell ya, it’s been so cold in the mornings that my butt bones, my teeth and even my eyebrows are cold!

Now, you’re probably thinking, “DUDE, why are we talking about the weather??” Well, because — gotcha! — cream makeup makeup, i.e. eyeshadow, cream blush, foundation, what have you. When the temperature drops, cream products come in extra handy because they tend to last longer when you aren’t sweating buckets.

Truth be told, though, I’m an all-year-round cream product junkie because I like how smooth they look on my skin (unlike powder), and I’ve been all about cream everything since I hit 40.

That said, the theme this month on MBB is “Crazy About Creams,” and I’ve been wearing today’s guests of honor off and on for more than a month. They’re the Honest Beauty Creme Cheek Blushes.

“Buildable and blendable color right at your fingertips, our cream blush is your go-to for an instant, dewy flush for cheeks. The lightweight formula melts onto skin seamlessly and comes in a stashable compact for easy on-the-go application.”

— honestbeauty.com

Directions:
Use your fingers or a sponge to lightly dab the cream blush onto the apples or your cheeks. Blend upward toward cheekbones in a circular motion.

Tips:
Smile to easily find the apples of your cheeks for spot-on application every time.

“Here at Honest Beauty, we pride ourselves on delivering clean beauty products that work. Our Crème Blush is formulated with naturally derived fruit extracts (like apple, raspberry and grape!) which means that, sometimes, natural separation can occur. You may or may not notice small droplets on the surface of the product, please rest assured that these droplets are completely normal and will naturally absorb back into the formula after use. This does not impact the quality of the product. We got you, babe. Keep on being beautiful.”

I’ve been using two of the four shades — a coral pink and a wine — and both are sheer-ish, so they’re natural looking. Plus, the satin finish goes well with any number of foundation finishes, including velvet, matte, satin and even dewy finishes. It’s all good.

The shades are also super affordable at $12.99, although you’d think you were working with a $32 Bobbi Brown Pot Rouge or a $29 Laura Mercier Cheek Cream), and beyond the awesome price, these have something else elevating them beyond the average cream blushes, and that’s longevity. They actually stay where they belong and don’t pull a disappearing act halfway through the day.

Ingredients:
Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Beeswax (Cera Alba), Euphorbia Cerifera (Candelilla) Wax, Ethylhexyl Palmitate, Polyglyceryl-6 Polyricinoleate, C10-18 Triglycerides, Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Glyceryl Caprylate, Triethyl Citrate, Alcohol, Pyrus Malus (Apple) Fruit Extract, Rubus Idaeus (Raspberry) Fruit Extract, Vanilla Planifolia Fruit Extract, Rubus Fruticosus (Blackberry) Fruit Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Fruit Extract. MAY CONTAIN: Mica (CI 77019), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Red 7 Lake (CI 15850), Red 6 (CI 15850), Red 30 Lake (CI 73360), Ultramarines (CI 77007)

If the MAC Cream Colour Bases work well on your cheeks, you’ll probably also like these because they feel very similar. Just like you can with the CCBs, when you pick this up from a pan with a fingertip or a sponge, you can grab a good amount, even though they’re somewhat dry (as in not wet) for a cream. They apply creamy, even and smooth, even around dry spots.

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Product Spotlight: Honest Beauty Lip Crayon Lush Sheers

December 28th, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

honest beauty lip crayon lush sheer swatches — Wear ’em, carry ’em, love ’em.

Like everything I’ve tried from the recently revamped Honest Beauty line, these twist-up sheer lip crayons bring it. There are eight shades in the Lip Crayon Lush Sheers line, each an affordable $12.99. They don’t have any funky flavors or scents, and they feel smooth, slick and moisturizing on my kisser. Best of all, they pack a preternatural amount of pigment — so much pigment that I can actually see the difference between the colors when I wear them (who’da thunk it?). They’re like the Neutrogena Color Sticks or the Clinique Chubby Sticks, but much more pigmented. Recommended!

I’m smitten with Sheer Raspberry and Sheer Chestnut…

honest beauty sheer raspberry — Sheer Raspberry

honest beauty sheer chestnut — Sheer Chestnut

Buuuuuut, as good as they are, if we look at them solely from an apocalyptic perspective (Why? ‘Cause I just watched Bird Box on Netflix.), they’d be lower on the “important things” totem pole than, say, antibiotics, peanut butter, tampons or weapons.

For instance, would I bother to grab one if I were on a scouting supply run in an abandoned Target? No. But if we were five years into the apocalypse, and I were miraculously still around and happened to stumble upon a stash of Lush Sheers on a cobweb-covered shelf, I’d indubitably contemplate the following:

“Geez, I hope one of these is Raspberry or Chestnut!”
“Remember how sheer lipsticks not showing up on pigmented lips was a big problem? DAMN, THOSE WERE GOOD TIMES.”
“Big surprise, my lips are hella dry right now.”

Then, I’d throw every last Lip Sheer into my cart, because I’d have to share them with the other survivors at base camp (OBVI). Hopefully I wouldn’t get eaten on the way back by the zombies/plague/evil whispering spirits that will have taken over.

YEAH. In Bird Box, the bad guys are evil whispering spirits, which, if you look directly at them, cause you to hallucinate and immediately kill yourself.

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Product Spotlight: Honest Beauty Luminizing Glow Powder

December 26th, 2018 by Karen 16 Comments

Three words: Hourglass. Ambient. Dupe.

Yeah, I went there. I totally did.

These Luminizing Glow Powders by Honest Beauty… I would bet my tabby’s stripes that the team behind them had the Hourglass Ambients firmly in mind, because they look and feel just like ’em. They have that same lovely low-key luminosity — same effect that you can kindasorta tell is there if you look really, really closely — and the powder grains are just fine, fine, fine.

Like Michael B. Jordan fine.

FOINE.

Even better, the pans are pretty big (0.35 ounces), and they’re only $19.99 each, but the bad news is that they aren’t available in as many colors as the Hourglass Ambients. These only come in two shades… The lighter one is Midnight Reflection, a pale peachy beige reminiscent of Hourglass Incandescent Light (you could say that it’s a touch less pigmented, but they’re still very similar). I use it as an inner corner highlight, a brow bone highlight, and, on the rare occasions when I wear powder under my eyes, as a setting powder for under-eye concealer. It’s b-o-m-b on all those fronts.

Oh, sure, you can also wear it as a cheekbone highlight, of course, and I’ve tried it, but I think it’s just a tad too light on my skin to do it often. But if you’re lighter than I am, you could totally rock it that way, no problem.

honest beauty luminizing glow powder 2 — Dusk Reflection and Midnight Reflection in action.

The darker shade, a.k.a “my jammy-jam-jam,” is Dusk Reflection. It’s a warm, peachy golden tan — like a slightly deeper version of Hourglass Radiant Light — and I like to work it by sweeping it onto my cheeks as a combo blush/bronzer, and then using it in my crease as a shadow.

honest beauty luminizing glow powder swatches — I use Dusk Reflection as a blush/bronzer on my cheeks and as a shadow in the crease, and Midnight Reflection as an inner corner and brow bone highlight.

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Product Spotlight: Honest Beauty Demi-Matte Lip Crayons

December 11th, 2018 by Karen 14 Comments

Why aren’t more people obsessed with these lip crayons from Honest Beauty?? They’re so good! They’re the $12.99 Demi-Matte Lip Crayons, and they’re available at Target (and you can also get them online through the Honest Beauty website).

They come in a bunch of colors, but the two I wear are nudes. Or rather, nude-ish. Easy-to-wear Blossom is a warm-toned pinkish beige — completely opaque with just one swipe (no settling into vertical lip lines, either!) — with a demi matte finish that’s ever-so-slightly shiny and creamy, like someone mixed a morsel of matte lipstick into a MAC Cremesheen Lipstick.

And note: Unlike many pinkish beige nudes that are SO DIFFICULT to wear, it’s neither super skippy, nor will it make your lips look like a cat’s butt. If you like MAC Creme Cup, you’ll probably love Blossom.

Rosy brown Marsala is the other shade I’ve been all about, and like Blossom, it’s smooth, opaque and easy to wear. I have very pigmented lips, and it’s slightly deeper than my natural lip color, so on me it works as a nude shade, but it may look like a more standard ’90s-style brown lip, depending on your skin tone.

Neither of these has a noticeable flavor, but if I get my nose all up in there — seriously, I gotta get one of them up into my nostril — I can smell a little rosy waxiness, but it’s far from overwhelming.

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