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 Anastasia’s Brow Gel is a clear gel that keeps your eyebrows looking good all day.  When I was in High School I used clear mascara to keep my eyebrows in place.  The experience was not without incident, most of the time the formula would flake up or get stiff as a board.  Not the look I was going for.

I’ve been wearing this gel since the Total Beauty summit and I’m happy to report none of that happenned. I’m filling out my brows, the corner ‘up hairs’ are back but I’d like to change the arch. I wish I could go to Anastasia’s salon to get them done right once and for all.  Since I’m in Maine and her salon is in LA, I am going to attempt to shape them myself with the help of Anastasia’s kit in the very near future.

Anastasia’s really made a name for herself and carved out her own niche with beautiful, natural looking brows.

Anastasia’s Brow Gel Retails for $21

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

Eye Shadow, do you?  If you do, try Thevi’s eyeshadows available in gorgeous shades, I especially love dark brown, oatmeal and charcoal.  Rich, crease-resistant color in adorable packaging that goes on smooth and shows up on your skin tone. 

I’ve had this shadow banging around my purse for a couple of weeks and there are NO scratches on it!  this is quite something considering all the junk I have in there believe me.  Click on over to Thevi Cosmetics to see more makeup that shows up.

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…

One of the most constant things in my life is wearing eye make up.  I started wearing mascara and eye liner when I was about 12 (retrospectively ridiculous).  It was a rite of passage in Queen’s, the blacker and thicker the better, but we didn’t take good care of taking it all off.

Just another case of youth being wasted on the young I guess.

Now I’m faithful to take off my make up every night. There is a huge benefit to my skin but it’s also a huge timesaver in the morning.  Of course you can remove your eye make up when you get up, but it just isn’t the same as doing it at night. 

For one thing if your lashes are greazy you can’t put on fresh eye make up, right? and in my case my eyes can get irritated and redden up a bit depending on the solution. 

I’m also a contact lense wearer but I usually take them out before I remove my make up so that’s not a factor.

When I wake up I have such a short time before the kids pounce, it’s nice not to worry about waking up with racoon eyes.  I just have to quickly wash my face and moisturize and I can be ready for my day in a jiffy.

I go back and forth between thrifty and luxe eye make up removers.   My thrifty choice is what I grew up watching my mother use, Andrea Eye Q’s eye make up remover pads.  For less than $5 you get enough remover and pads for  about 2 weeks.  I like the convenience of this product, the pads are immersed in the solution so there’s one less thing to do.

My Luxe choice is always Lancome’s Bi-Facil, it is the classic I come back to time and again.  It is very gentle, I’ve even removed make up while wearing my contacts with no problem.  It comes in bottle form so you have to use your own fluffy cotton pads which are gentler on the skin in your eye vicinity. 

I love this look from Revlon, those eyes, that light lip, just gorgeous.  

I want my eyes to smolder, BEDROOM EYES to mesmerize my man.  The last time I tried a “bedroom look” after the kids were subdued in their cots it was  disaster.  I emerged from the bathroom with a new nightgown (I later realized he thought it was a new dress!!) and some heavy duty eye make up.   He looked at me and asked “you going to Walmart?” all I could do was laugh…  

Photo Credit:  Revlon

Thank goodness! no more of the sparse eyebrow look! I was feeling so out of it, I’ve kept my brows what I call ‘natural’ but I’m sure others call thick because I think it suits my face. 

Spa brows are not for me, it was done to me unwillingly and I felt so violated.  When the tech handed me the mirror I almost cried - I’d been spa browed and there was nothing I could do but sit there and mourn my lost look.

Once you’ve got a bad brow job it’s hard to get back to your normal self, it took forever for them to grow out back then - luckily I still had a waist and youth on my side at the time or I’d been hopeless. 

If you are switching to a thicker brow and need to grow out your brows you’re in luck… the eye brow authority, Anastasia, has great advice for you…

 Total Beauty spoke to brow guru Anastasia on the eve of her latest product launches.
Here’s what she had to say about the latest trend in brows:
- “Fashion shows put the stamp on thicker brows, and that’s one of the
reasons why New Brow [her claim to fame product] is such a great success.”
- “People have been over plucking for years and now they want their brows
thicker, so they are trying to grow them.”
- “If you have someone who wants a new shape, tell them to go step by step,
growing one row at a time. They need to build up to that look (thicker
brows). It’s about baby steps.”