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I’ve been testing Sera skin care and have fallen in love with the little glass tube that rolls away the troubles.

I don’t have (m)any wrinkles yet, perhaps two or three so my usage is purely preventative at this point.  I LOVE this product because it is a small, think the size of a lipstick tube.  The roller is amazing, you don’t have to get eye cream under your nails, no need to worry about contaminating your eye cream with other beauty products.  The roller is, simply put, a sanitary and efficient way to apply eye wrinkle serum. 

Sera uses recycled and recyclable glass!  that’s right, you’re going to keep this beauty out of the landfill TWICE!  Retails for $39.95 @ Roll Away Winkles

NARS Divine Duo Eyeshadow Darling, Pink and Brown, vibrant do I dare to wear?!  I’ve experimented a bit and I like it as a thin wash of pink color.  I put pink on the lid and the brown in the crease.  I’ll try from scratch some day soon. Have I mentioned, my camera is busted, seems a lot of people with the same Sony model are reporting the same problem… Retail on the NARS eyeshadow is $32

 Too Faced has won my heart with this cute little pocket palette!  It fits in the palm of your hand.  I can’t stop opening and closing it, looking at it and dabbing some lip color, looking in the mirror - repeat, look, repeat. 

6 lip glosses and 4 eyeshadows with adorable little brushes.  The make up itself is passable.  The lip glosses were a disappointment, none of them showed up on me and had a faint scent to ‘em (perhaps vanilla?)  The shadows are worth getting to and make the set worth taking on vacation or in your purse because of the tiny size.  Truth be told the cuteness of the set at this price point make it totally worth it. I can’t wait to run through the makeup and refill with my favorite glosses!

Too Faced Glamour to Go retails for $18.50 @ Sephora

Anastasia’s Beverly Hills salon was one of the stops on the Total Beauty Tour and was amazing.  The open layout of the salon is very nice and bright with a stunning array of celebrity clients on the walls.  Clients are consulted and brows are groomed in the main room.  I was suprised to see there are a lot of other services offered from body waxing to facials, you could have all your needs met in one place. 

As a treat we got to watch Anastasia’s brow shaping work first hand. Annie from BellaSugar was chosen for an on the spot brow fix and in a few minutes changed her already beauty-full expression. 

I could not leave without a consult so I basically begged for help and it was granted!  If you had asked me before the consult, I would have said I had bushy brows but after talking to the brow authority I know I have too big a space between them and they are too thin.  How do you like that?  I’m thinking that my subconcious fear of uni-brow has blinded me to the waxers taking off to much in the middle - but no more, I’m going to pay much better attention now.

you learn something new everyday they say

This is a time I wish I had a flair for the artistic so I could draw a diagram, or that I could explain succinctly what Anastasia explained to us so eloquently.  There are two types of eyebrow hair.  Top eyebrow hair grows straight and down, bottom eyebrow hair grows up.  The key to getting a good arch and look is getting some of both of those hairs in your eyebrow so that your brows will stay nice and contained.  It really doesn’t matter the method you use to get the hair off according to Anastasia, tweeze, wax or thread.  And enough of the old advice about not taking off the top hair, it’s so wrong and outdated.  The most essential thing is to get the right combination of upper and lower eyebrow hairs. 

If you can ever make it in to Anastasia’s salon I highly recommend it.  If possilbe grow out your brows so they can really define your arch from scratch.  The price is $80 w/Anastasia herself which is a lot but VERY reasonable considering the demand.  She could charge much more and the rich would pay but she’s keeping the service at a reasonable price point for us average folk in need of a special memory.  The cost is $50 w/an eyebrow specialist.

Check out the Anastasia Salons on the bottom left there are links to International Locations and Find a Store to find someone trained in the technique near you. And if you prefer a DIY approach, I will have product reviews on kits you can use from the convenience of your own home.

Estee Lauder is a brand I haven’t used much since leaving Japan, the base exchange only carries a few premium brands and EL was one of them.  When I wasn’t experimenting with Japanese beauty brands, I would buy loads of Estee stuff. 

I’ve been using the Projectionist Mascara for five days and really like it.  I totally missed the launch last March so I’m making up for lost time now!  Projectionist defines my lashes and makes them look longer with just a few strokes.  

My main lash issue is volume, sadly I didn’t notice much increase in volume while using Projectionist.   The mascara stayed in place, no smudge or clumps which is enought to get a good mark up from me. 

An added bonus: The bottle is gorgeous! a really great looking tube.

Get more beauty reviews from Total Beauty on Estee Lauder products, mascara and more.  

I ran to the drugstore late Friday night to see what I could see, a sort of beauty vision quest.  I don’t get many of those these days so I went up and down every aisle.

During these little escapes it takes a lot for me to take notice.  Most of the products seem like more of the same old stuff, but when I saw the L’Oreal High Intensity Pigment section I stopped dead in my tracks. 

There were so many unusual looking things to tempt me, and intimidate me.  When I bought the HIP cream shadow in ‘witty’ I was not at all sure I would even be able to pull it off, I had to pay because 20/20 was about to come on and surely there would be some type of issue a the counter (I’ll blog about this later).

I’m not a make up artist, or even good at applying eye makeup, I always do the same thing - play it safe, classic.   Saturday’s are all about family, we always go into the city with the kids and do something for them, shop the an early dinner out - so my makeup has to have lasting power.

I got up early to get ready, giving myself plenty of time to goof up my make up.  I was pleasantly surprised by the easy application.  Just squeeze a small amount of the paint in a special well built into the packaging, then use the included paint brush, dip and brush on your eyelids.

It just glides on so smoothy you may get a little overzealous - be very conscious of your brow bone.  It sure is fun painting yourself!

Witty was perfect because it’s a nice taupy color, very neutral and not dark, almost flesh tone on me.  It has a great glitter to it but totally wearable by day.  I let it dry for a second and then put a green MAC eye shadow in the crease and a light cream at the brow.  Anyone can use this, super easy and eliminated the need for a eye shadow primer in my case.  Most importantly it did not crease at all!! I payed $10.xx, push out the tiniest amount possible, because it is so highly pigmented you don’t need much to do both eyelids.

I didn’t look much different, like I said, I pretty much always look the same but it was nice to try something new.  Now  I have the courage to try a new HIP pigment in a bolder color so stay tuned…

PS:  hopefully I’ll find a picture soon, I can’t find one for this product…