Girl Gloss

We Have Joined The Open Sky Project!

I am very pleased to announce that Beauty and Fashion Tech and Girl Gloss have joined OpenSky as a shopkeeper!

OpenSky connects readers and shoppers with experts and the products they love and use. At OpenSky, you can browse the shops of experts in fields such as beauty, cooking, gardening, health and fitness, fishing, and more. These expert “shopkeepers” recommend and stock their favorite items—items that they can stand behind because they truly love and highly recommend them. So, you as a shopper can avoid wading through the junk and find the gems by browsing the OpenSky shops. It is a great concept and I am very excited to become part of it.

Shopping at OpenSky is also a great experience. Many shopkeepers provide additional reviews and information about the items they stock and some provide video demonstrations of the products. There are various free shipping promotions, returns are easy, and you can trust that every product is there because it is special to the shopkeeper. I have already been eyeing the shops there myself, especially in the food and garden sections. There are some really neat items there!

My focus with my OpenSky shop is to provide my absolute favorite products and items that are unique and interesting. There won’t be the everyday drugstore lip gloss there, instead, I’ll offer you something like my all time favorite tube gloss, Murad Pomegranate Energizing Lip Gloss SPF 15, or my go-to fragrance Marc Jacobs Cucumber Splash, which you can’t find grab at the nearest store.

Open Sky is a fun site and it it provide a unique shopping experience. Please come and check it out! You can view my own shop here: Beauty and Fashion Tech on OpenSky.

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Chapstick Fresh Effects Lip Balm

Chapstick has a new lip balm out, ChapStick Fresh Effects, in two flavors: Refreshing Mandarin and Invigorating Green Tea Mint.

I gave both flavors a try and was quite pleased with them. The balm itself has some mint and other ingredients that create a light tingling and cooling sensation. Go figure that I threw out the box before I took a look to see just what ingredient made it tingle. I suspect menthol or eucalyptus, or something similar. Anyway, I rather liked the sensation.

The texture of these balms is quite nice. It is a bit creamier than standard Chapstick, which tends to be quite a bit on the waxy side. Yet, it isn’t so creamy or oil based that constant reapplication is needed. I tend to like my balms to be in that middle road area.

Mostly though, these balms taste good! I really liked both flavors, especially the mandarin one. You can find Chapstick Fresh effects at just about any drugstore, grocery store or big box retailer.

Note: This review is based on items sent to me by a representative of Chapstick. For more information please see my Girl Gloss disclosures page.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Weekend Reading From The Beauty Blog Network

Fresco Phyrra compares seven eye shadow primers. See which ones come out on top!

Elke shares ways on how to make MAC’s Style Black collection work for you.

Beauty and Fashion Tech Has a new website dedicated to Holiday Makeup!

Girl Gloss checks out the MAC Holiday Lip Kits.

Beauty Anonymous is in love with Barefoot in Barcelona from OPI fall 2009 Spain Collection.

A Touch of Blusher is three years old!

The Makeup Blogger is thrilled that holiday gift sets are upon us! Her first favorite is the new NARS Lipgloss set from Sephora!

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Four Favorite Hard Candy Lip Products

Hard Candy Cosmetics are back, and they are at Walmart. I went out and bought a selection of items to try and the lip products were definitely my favorites. Hard Candy also sent me some eye shadows to try that I will review next week on Beauty and Fashion Tech.

The Balm Girls tinted balms give a nice sheer tint with good moisture. The package is cute too.
Mouthing Off Lipgloss is a high shine gloss that is not sticky and has pretty shades.
Button Your Lips Gloss is a twist up brush gloss similar to Stila’s glosses. This was my favorite of the bunch. Great pigment and low stickiness as long as you don’t try to go to sheer with it. I likes these better than Stila’s actually!
Visibly Wet Lip Pencil is a creamy, thick lip crayon that also has fairly good pigment and pretty shades.

Below are shopping links for the products at Walmart. You should also be able to find them just fine in the stores, although my local store was sold out of a few items–mostly eyeshadows.

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YSL Holiday Collection Lip Items

The 2009 Yves Saint Laurent Holiday Collection has some nice limited edition lip items. If you haven’t tried YSL lipsticks, you should. They are quite pricey, but I consider them some of the best out there. YSL lip gloss is also a treat!

You can shop the entire YSL Holiday look here: YSL’s Holiday Look 2009. Also, don’t forget to check out the many different holiday collections at Holiday Makeup!

Popularity: 3% [?]

MAC Holiday Lip Kits and Bags

I managed to sneak in a field trip to the MAC store to see the new MAC Holiday Collection . The MAC lip bags this year are quite nice. I like the silver bags, and the colors in both sets are quite attractive. One set is a selection of pretty pinks, and the other collection is akin to brick red in color.

The lip kits are also nice, as usual. One kit has neutral shades and the other has pinks. There is also a MAC Viva Glam set. Again, I like the cases on these quite a bit this year.