• Why do makeup dupes exist?
There are several reasons why you can find almost identical versions of your favorite expensive makeup, but sold by affordable brands. Even though there are thousands of makeup brands out there, several big companies own many different brands. For example, Estee Lauder currently owns 27 brands including prestige brands MAC, Smashbox, Clinique, La Mer and Bobbi Brown, plus they own the cheaper brands Flirt! and American Beauty, which are sold at Kohl’s. Drugstore brand L’Oreal Paris is part of the biggest beauty company in the world – L’Oreal – and L’Oreal makes cosmetics for luxury brands Kiehl’s, Lancome, Skinceuticals, Shu Uemura, and Giorgio Armani. But they also own drugstore brands Maybelline and Garnier.

Even though the same companies own many brands at different price points, the products still get manufactured at the same places, and many of the formulas in prestige brands are nearly the same as their drugstore counterparts! Another reason why makeup dupes exist is because inexpensive brands blatantly rip off the higher end makeup brands. Is this legal? I’m not sure. But if you see an awesome new Chanel nail polish color, don’t be surprised if you wait a few months and another company comes along with almost an identical shade – for $5, instead of Chanel’s $25. Ironically, sometimes expensive brands copy the ingredients of cheap brands - have you seen my post about my discovery of a Creme De La Mer skin care dupe for 99 cents?

• How do you find makeup dupes?
While there’s not a cheap twin for every eyeshadow or foundation, with a little research you may be able to find a dupe for a lot of your favorite products. For example, you can find dupes for several MAC products from drugstore brands Rimmel, NYX, E.L.F., Wet N Wild, Maybelline, L’Oreal, and Milani. Here are resources to find makeup for less:

• Temptalia.com has a Makeup Dupe List where you can search by brand, shade, or product type. If you find a new makeup dupe, you can also submit it to be added to the list.

• MakeupTalk.com has a Makeup Dupe & Swatches Forum where you can read about all sorts of dupes, or ask if anyone knows of a dupe for your favorite product.

• Specktra.net has several makeup forums including MAC chat, Product Swatches, and Recommendations, where you can find info about makeup dupes.

• MakeupAlley.com has a makeup board where you can post messages. Plus if you read the reviews of your favorite product on MakeupAlley, someone may have commented about a dupe they’ve found for that product.

• Beautypedia.com is now free for everyone. This website doesn’t list many makeup dupes, but it has product reviews, and some of the reviews list similar, or better alternatives to that product. You can also search the site for the best products in different categories, if you are open to finding a better alternative to your current foundation or powder, for example. The site also lists the ingredients for all products, so if you’re looking for a skin care dupe, you could type in the first 5-10 ingredients of a coveted product into Google and see if another cheaper product comes up with those same core ingredients.

• Youtube.com - Go on YouTube and type in “makeup dupes,” and there are all sorts of videos about great dupe finds. This might be a hit-or-miss way to find specific products, but it will give you ideas of ways to save money on cosmetics. Or you could type in a specific product, and someone may have made a video about it, and compared the item to a cheaper version.

• Google.com - to find cheaper makeup alternatives, try searching for your favorite product, plus adding the word dupe on the end. So, for example, you could type in: “Benefit High Beam dupe,” or “Urban Decay Primer Potion dupe.” If you want to see what a new product looks like, as an example, you could search for: “Les Jeans de Chanel swatches” to see if people have pictures of what that nail polish collection looks like. Many times bloggers will review the item and then compare it to a cheaper, similar version.

What are your tips for finding makeup dupes? Do you bother trying to track down low cost alternatives, or are you happy sticking with higher end makeup if you find a product you love? Feel free to share any makeup dupes, or skin care dupes that you know about. Or if you have a blog and write about makeup dupes, leave a comment. Personally I tend to be drawn to makeup swatches I see on blogs, and since I like to try products before I buy them, I then find myself at Sephora or Ulta trying out those various expensive eyeshadows or nail polishes on myself. But I also hate spending tons of money on makeup, so I will definitely be searching more diligently for makeup dupes in the future. How about you?

Related posts:

1. Hard Candy Makeup at Walmart
2. Can Mineral Makeup Be Bad For Your Skin?
3. Discontinued Makeup And Beauty Products

L’Oreal Telescopic Explosion Mascara review
I have the Black version and the little ball-shaped wand really is adorable -  at least for something as boring as a mascara wand! The product retails for about $8 (compared to the Givenchy mascara, which is $29). The first time I used the mascara, it looked pretty good and I was happy enough with it. Then I read the reviews online (normally I check them before I buy something), and noticed most people give this mascara a scathing review (although some like it). The next few times I used it, the results were hit or miss. On some days it went on pretty well, and other days (like today) it got all clumpy and made my eyelashes stick together.

Mascara application
I know eyelashes are small so it only takes a few seconds to apply mascara, but with this little brush it takes longer to coat each lash. And while you would think it would be easier to reach the outer eyelashes, that’s not the case. Since the ball is round, it’s not tapered on the end like some mascaras, so there’s no advantage to this wand over regular ones as far as coating hard-to-reach eyelashes. Most of the times I used L’Oreal Telescopic Explosion, I ended up getting lashes that stuck to each other and that left little clumps on the tips of my eyelashes. I am not a master when it comes to mascara application, so for the average person like me, it’s annoying to use mascara that will most likely clump unless you apply it just right. I’m sure if I experimented with it more I could get it right, but who has time to do that, and who wants to go around with clumpy lashes, or take off all their eye makeup and start over if they mess up?

One thing I haven’t tried is wiping off the wand to remove some of the excess product – maybe that would help. If you read online reviews, most people encounter the same clumping problems I do with this mascara, but other people love it, so if you are some sort of mascara guru, maybe it would work great for you. It does a decent job of adding length and volume to my lashes, and it doesn’t flake. I haven’t tried it on my lower lashes so I don’t know how it would work for them.

Pros: As far as mascara goes, the wand is adorable! A small percentage of people love this unique mascara and think it works great.

Cons: Most people report it clumps, and it doesn’t get nearly the rave reviews that its more expensive look-a-like Givenchy Phenomen’Eyes Mascara receives.

Bottom line: L’Oreal Telescopic Explosion Mascara is not the worst mascara I’ve ever used, and it’s definitely not the best. If the unique ball-shaped applicator peaks your interest, give the product a shot – you can return makeup at most retailers these days. If you’re not an expert at applying mascara and are afraid of clumping, then it’s probably best to pass on this product.

Have you tried L’Oreal Telescopic Explosion Mascara? Do you love it or hate it? If you want to try it for yourself:
* Buy L’Oreal Telescopic Explosion Mascara here *

Related posts:

1. LashDip Semi-Permanent Mascara
2. Latisse – Eyelash Growth Treatment
3. L’Oreal Sublime Bronze ProPerfect Airbrush

The lipstain is easy to apply – it’s like using a felt marker on your lips, and it does give you a sheer pop of color – similar to a tinted lip balm. I used it over lip balm, and later applied lip balm on top, and my lips didn’t feel like I had anything on. My lips did feel slightly drier than usual, but just barely. Since this is pretty sheer, you could probably apply it without a mirror. The color was nice and even on me, and it looked like I had just eaten a strawberry or raspberry.

The Bitten Berry color has a subtle raspberry flavor – I’m not sure if they all have the same berry flavor. I was slightly surprised by the color because I was expecting bright pink, but instead I got a reddish, raspberry color (I guess I should have gone by the name, not the cap).

Normally I wear lip gloss constantly, so I ended up topping this with a coat of gloss, and it intensifies the color of the gloss, and the gloss helps lock in moisture on my lips. With the gloss, the color lasted several hours.

Maybelline COLOR Sensational lipstain comes in 10 shades – neutrals, pinks, and a cherry pop reddish color. On the Maybelline website they have swatches of the colors, and the Bitten Berry swatch looks the same as the cap, which is totally different than how it looks on me. I am slightly annoyed because I wanted bright pink! Maybelline says ”for the perfect everyday shade, choose a lipstain that’s 1 or 2 shades darker than your natural lip color.”

Do you own a Maybelline lipstain? What do you think? Do you have a favorite lipstain?

Related posts:

1. Lip Smackers Go Natural
2. Maybelline Dream Matte Powder
3. Is Lip Gloss Bad For You?

Before I picked up this foundation a few months ago, I read reviews of it and the reformulated Neutrogena Healthy Skin Pressed Powder, and the Mineral Sheers was getting great reviews, while the new version of Healthy Skin Pressed Powder just got average ratings. I just re-checked the ingredients, and it turns out they are almost the same product! The main difference is that the Mineral Sheers comes in more colors, and it has a higher percentage of titanium dioxide.

Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation SPF 20 Review
This foundation comes in 8 colors, ranging from Classic Ivory to Tan. I use the Nude 40 shade, which matches my skin nicely. I haven’t had any breakouts from it, and it should be safe for acne-prone skin, but it does contain titanium dioxide, which sometimes causes a problem for acne. Overall this should be non-comedogenic, but you might want to test it for a few days on a small area on your face if you are overly concerned.

Neutrogena Mineral Sheers comes in a mirrored compact with a sponge applicator, but I apply it with a foundation brush instead. It provides light to medium coverage (depending on how much you put on) and it looks good over sunscreen and light liquid foundation, or on bare skin. It goes on easily and has a smooth, silky texture. It definitely evens out my skin tone, but if you look closely you can see I’m wearing makeup. It has a somewhat matte finish on my normal to dry skin, and lasts at least several hours. After applying it I don’t see “flawless” – I just see “good enough.” The 6.6% Titanium Dioxide provides the SPF 20 sun protection, which is a great bonus over your regular sunscreen. Personally I don’t trust the sunscreen protection from a powder and always wear sunscreen underneath.

“Mineral” Makeup
It’s funny how this Neutrogena foundation is marketed as “the first purified mineral makeup in a compact” even though it’s almost the same as their Healthy Skin Powder, which makes no mention of its mineral status. I still think mineral makeup is mostly hype, and if you look at the ingredients of any makeup powders, they are almost all made from the same basic ingredients, whether or not they are called “mineral makeup.” This fragrance-free makeup doesn’t contain talc (which some people avoid), and it doesn’t contain bismuth oxychloride, which irritates some people’s skin. It does contain parabens, though.

Final Thoughts
At $12, this is a pricey drugstore foundation, but it’s still cheaper than what you’d find at Sephora, Bare Escentuals, or department stores. Its best features are that it: has an SPF 20, is most likely safe for acne-prone skin, offers a nice finish, comes in several shades, and it’s fragrance-free and doesn’t contain bismuth oxychloride. It’s a good overall powder with no real negatives.

* Buy Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation *

Active ingredients: Titanium Dioxide 6.6%. Inactive ingredients: Mica, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Zinc Stearate, Silica, Dimethicone, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Starch, Magnesium Myristate, Methicone, Ascorbic Acid, Tocopheryl Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Pantothenic Acid, Panthenol, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Flour Alumina, Silk Powder, Water, Polymethyl Methacrylate, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Methylparaben, Propylparaben

Related posts:

1. Physicians Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation
2. Can Mineral Makeup Be Bad For Your Skin?
3. Mineral Fusion Mineral Makeup At Whole Foods Market

EWG Skin Deep Cosmetics Database
On the EWG Skin Deep website, you can search for your favorite skin care, makeup, hair care, body, sunscreen, nail and baby products to see how safe they are according to EWG. The safety standards of EWG are extremely high, so don’t be surprised if most of your favorite products get a “hazardous” rating. The company gathers scientific data on thousands of skin care ingredients and then determines their possible toxicity. They look for ingredients that could possibly be linked to cancer, allergic reactions, endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, etc. This sounds extremely scary, right?

EWG Shopper’s Guide
Here are some sample tips the EWG recommends: Avoid products with fragrance, parabens, triclosan, and sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate. Avoid anti-aging products with lactic acid, glycolic acid, and salicylic acid. Avoid the skin lightening ingredient hydroquinone, don’t use hair dye with ammonia or peroxide, and skip hand soap with triclosan.

Don’t trust claims like “Dermatologist-trusted,” “natural,” or “organic” to necessarily be true. In sunscreen, skip the ingredient oxybenzone, and make sure you use a sunscreen with at least 7% zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. I do agree with these tips!

My take on the Cosmetics Database
I’ve been researching products on the site for the last few years. I find it helpful that each ingredient in a product is given a hazard score, and then the overall product receives a score. For sunscreens, I just noticed the site now gives you a rating on the effectiveness of a specific product’s UVA and UVB protection, as well as the sunscreen’s stability. Awesome!

Now as much as I find the Cosmetics Database helpful, I personally don’t follow all of the safety warnings, and some of the products I use are deemed moderately hazardous, or even worse. Why am I so cavalier? Even though a lot of ingredients are linked to horrible things, that doesn’t mean the amount of the ingredient in your favorite product is enough to necessarily cause any harm. I am more concerned about the ingredients, pesticides and contaminants in the food I eat, for example. The website deems fragrance as extremely hazardous, and it should be avoided by anyone that has fragrance allergies, but the website also gives perfumes an extreme hazard warning. I don’t wear perfume so I don’t care, but do you really think all women will suddenly give up perfume?

The other reason I personally don’t follow all of the advice given by EWG is because I’m vain and I want to use anti-aging products that work well, which means I will use glycolic acid from time to time for wrinkles, and I’ll dye my hair with regular ammonia-based hair dye. I feel like there are enough toxins in the world to get me, and using a little wrinkle cream isn’t going to be what kills me. But I don’t completely disregard the site’s advice and ideally would like to only use products that are low hazards.

What should you do?
If you are concerned about skin care and makeup safety, absolutely look on the website for low hazard products. The site lets you search by category, and you can sort by score to find the safest products. If you are worried about your children, the site is a great way to find safe children’s sunscreens, soaps, baby shampoo, etc. Recently the site came out with their EWG 2010 Sunscreen Guide which rates the safest sunscreens, and it gives you sunscreen buying tips.

What do you think of the EWG cosmetics database? I know a lot of people use it because I get comments about it all the time.

Related posts:

1. BurnOut Sunscreen – 18% Zinc Oxide!
2. Alcohol In Cosmetics
3. Beautypedia

Physicians Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation
I picked this up at Target for about $13, which is expensive for a drugstore powder, but the SPF 50 made it irresistible to try. It only comes in 4 colors for light to medium skin tones, so the color choices are limited. I got the Natural Beige color and it’s a great match to my skin tone. The packaging is really cute and it seems durable – it’s in a bright orange and hot pink case, and it comes with a sponge applicator.

Benefits
The main benefit of this powder is its high SPF 50 (which offers UVA and UVB protection)! It contains 4% Octinoxate, 21% Titanium Dioxide, and 3% Zinc Oxide. The packaging says it’s water-resistant, but I haven’t actually tried this powder in water yet to see how it holds up.

Application and Coverage
I immediately threw out the sponge because it didn’t work well to apply the powder. Instead I used a powder brush. Getting this powder on my face was somewhat of a challenge! In order to get any powder on the brush, I had to push the brush into the powder pretty hard before it actually coated the brush. I applied this over sunscreen, and initially it didn’t do much to mattify my slightly dewy face. I had to keep going back and applying more and more powder. I’m not sure if it’s just hard to get the product onto the brush, or if I was actually using a lot more powder than I’m used to (which means this would run out pretty fast). I also applied this to bare skin, and it still took a lot of swipes before I felt like I had any coverage. What I don’t know is how much powder you need to apply to achieve the SPF 50. I felt like there’s no way I was really putting enough on to get to that level of sun protection, and I wouldn’t chance wearing this alone without regular sunscreen underneath.

Results
With enough powder on my face to look good, the Physicians Formula powder still looks pretty sheer, with light to medium coverage. The packaging says it has full coverage, so I guess you really need to cake this on to get more coverage. It has a nice finish and initially I was excited to use this in the daytime instead of Maybelline Dream Matte Powder, because of the added SPF. However, after about 2 hours, the powder wore off and my face was left shiny again! Normally because I have dry skin, I can go all day without ever touching up my powder! While a lot of people on Makeupalley.com like this powder, some people also complain about the difficulty in getting enough coverage, and its lack of staying power.

What I have now been doing is applying the Physicians Formula powder first, and then sealing it with the Maybelline Dream Matte Powder. Or the other way around gives the same results. This way I’m at least getting some added SPF (who knows how much) without the need to reapply every two hours. But if you’re out in the sun, you’ll want to reapply that often anyway.

Safe for acne-prone skin?
I was nervous to try this because of the high amount of Titanium Dioxide, an ingredient that sometimes gives me breakouts. Surprisingly in the two weeks I’ve been using this, I haven’t had any breakouts, however a lot of people online have reported them. The only way to know for sure is to try this yourself. You could try a small area on your face for several days to see what happens before using it everywhere. This doesn’t contain any pore clogging ingredients otherwise.

Bottom Line
The idea of the Physicians Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation is great due to its high SPF. It’s definitely worth trying if you’re seeking a powder with added sunscreen. You’ll just need to experiment with your application technique, and you may need to reapply this throughout the day. On days when I know I’ll be outside, wearing this over regular sunscreen gives me a little more peace of mind than usual.

Have you tried this powder? What’s your favorite powder with SPF?

*Buy Physicians Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation*

Active Ingredients: Octinoxate 4%, Titanium Dioxide 21%, Zinc Oxide 3%, Inactive Ingredients: Talc, Mica, Nylon-12, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Styrene/Acrylates Copolymer, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Diacetyl Boldine, Diisostearyl Malate, Dimethicone, Genistein, Glycyrrhetinic Acid, Lauroyl Lysine, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate, Peg-12 Glyceryl Dimyristate, Solanum Lycopersicum (Tomato) Fruit Extract, Squalane, Tocopherol, Tocopheryl Acetate, Ubiquinone, Zinc Stearate, Disodium Edta, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Sorbitan Sesquioleate May Contain: Iron Oxides, Titanium Dioxide, Ultramarines

Related posts:

1. Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation
2. Maybelline Dream Matte Powder
3. Road To Healthy Skin Tour

Last week I was at CVS and noticed my favorite foundation Maybelline Pure Makeup was on closeout, and upon further investigation, it appears it’s been discontinued. It’s currently half-price at every drugstore. Why??? Why??? Do you know how many foundations I had to try before I fell in love with this one??

What to do when your favorite beauty product is discontinued:

1) Cry. Mourn. Tell yourself maybe you’ll find something even better, even though you know it’s probably not true.

2) Contact the product’s company to find out if they have a similar product that you may have previously overlooked. When my Clinique moisturizer was discontinued, I emailed Clinique (the contact info is on their website) and asked what they would recommend as a replacement. They were very polite and emailed me some suggestions, but the new products they recommended either cost more, came in jar packaging, or had completely different ingredients, so I didn’t end up buying any of their recommendations. You may even find out your product hasn’t really been discontinued, and that there’s still a way to purchase it (either at a different store, only online, etc.)

3) Head over to MakeupAlley.com and look at the product reviews of your favorite product to see if other people have suggestions for what product they found to be similar to your favorite. Then you can look through reviews of other products in the same category to see what else appears to have great reviews, but this can take hours and hours because there are so many products out there. 

4) If your favorite beauty product has been reformulated, buy the new version and maybe you will still like it. I rarely find this to be the case, but sometimes I am still happy with the new version. Ulta, Sephora, and most drugstores and department stores will let you return used makeup and skin care products you don’t like, and I have no guilt about doing it when my beloved product has been ruined with a new inferior formulation!

5) Stock up! I just bought 5 tubes of the Maybelline Pure Makeup, and I figure it will last me a few years. That will postpone the search for finding the new perfect foundation for quite a while. Hopefully by the time they all run out I’ll have found something even better, and if the makeup goes bad before then, it only cost me a few dollars each, so it was worth the risk. At least I have peace of mind…for now.

6) If you can’t find your favorite product in the store before it’s gone, again contact the product’s company to see if they can help you locate a last few bittersweet bottles of your favorite perfume or precious jars of your moisturizer. Clinique has a service that does this, but I decided against trying to track down any more of the On-line moisturizer because I was just so mad at the time, and I had found a cheaper alternative that was almost as good.

7) Start a Facebook campaign to have your favorite product brought back. Okay this one is pretty far-fetched, but TV shows have been brought back from the dead by people signing online petitions, and Betty White got her SNL hosting job from Facebook supporters. I kind of doubt a tube of lipstick or mascara would garner the same support as a TV show, or Betty White, but you never know…

8) Type in the first several ingredients of your favorite product into Google and see if there’s another product out there that has similar ingredients. The same company may make the same product under a different name, or you may find another company that makes a very similar product. This is a slight long-shot, but it’s worth trying.

9) Check online to see if your favorite product is still available somewhere – on a website that specializes in discontinued beauty products, on Amazon, on eBay, on a store website in another country, etc. Just be cautious because I find it’s not always a good idea to buy beauty products from eBay or random websites, and chances are you can’t return the product if you have a problem with it (it’s a fake, it’s expired, etc.) Amazon is a good place to buy from, though, because they offer refunds.

10) Start saving up some money because in the end you will probably have to start the quest for your new favorite lipstick/moisturizer/shampoo/sunscreen, and it will inevitably cost a lot to find it. The whole kiss a lot of frogs thing is totally true when it comes to beauty products (as well as men of course). Unless I get lucky, I will probably have to try 5-10 new foundations before I find one I like as much as the Maybelline Pure Makeup. I will probably end up returning some future foundations I end up hating, but most people keep their purchases, even when then don’t really like them. Despite reading great reviews about a product online (or on my site), everyone is different, so even though a product may work great for most people, you may not be one of them:(

What’s your favorite beauty product that’s been discontinued? How did you go about finding a replacement that you love just as much? The only silver lining in this whole thing, for me at least, is that I’d run out of things to write about if I never tried new products. And even if you think you’ve found the best beauty product ever, there’s probably something out there that’s even better, but you just don’t know it yet…

Related posts:

1. New Beauty Products
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3. My Favorite Makeup

Price
For the last few years I had been using Neutrogena Healthy Skin Pressed Powder, but the formula changed, and I thought I’d try the Maybelline Dream Matte Powder because it was getting better reviews online than the revamped Neutrogena, and it’s a few dollars cheaper (it’s about $7). Plus my favorite foundation is Maybelline Pure Makeup, and I’ve had good luck with several Maybelline products.

Packaging
I think the packaging of the Maybelline powder is good, and it seems sturdy and it’s easy to access the product, but a lot of people hate the packaging for some reason. The bottom part swivels out and there’s a powder puff and mirror in the bottom. As long as nothing breaks with it, I am happy with the packaging.

Safe for acne-prone skin?
Most drugstore powders contain pore cloggers that cause cosmetic acne, but this powder doesn’t as far as I can tell, and in theory it should be a good choice for acne-prone skin. It’s oil-free and it’s also free of cornstarch, which can be a problem for acne. I haven’t had any breakouts since I started using the Dream Matte Powder a few weeks ago, but a lot of people on Makeupalley.com report they have broken out from it. The ingredients appear safe for acne-prone skin, but unfortunately the only way to know for sure if something works for you is to try it yourself. I breakout pretty easily from makeup, though, but this one is safe for me.

*Buy Maybelline Dream Matte Powder*

Colors and Coverage
Maybelline Dream Matte Powder only comes in 4 colors (one light shade, and 3 medium shades), so it’s pretty limiting. In the store none of the colors looked like they matched my skin, but I chanced it and picked up Beige, and on my light/medium olive-toned skin, the color looks perfect (probably because it’s almost translucent). I use a big powder brush to apply this (not the puff it comes with). The coverage of the product is really light, though, so rather than adding a lot of color to my skin, it just gives it a more matte finish. If you need a decent amount or a lot of coverage, this product probably won’t cut it for you. Also, I’ve only worn it over foundation and sunscreen, so I’m not sure how it looks on bare skin.

The finish of this is sort of matte, but since the coverage is so light, my glowy/shiny sunscreen shows through slightly. Up close the powder looks slightly “powdery” but it doesn’t sink into my wrinkles and make them look worse, which is a problem I have with a lot of powders. It doesn’t achieve the absolutely flawless look I would like, but it looks good enough to keep using it, especially for the price. I have dry skin, and this makes my face feel slightly drier. This should be fine for slightly dry, normal or oily skin, but since the coverage is so sheer, I’m not sure how well it works to control oil. The powder still looks fine at the end of the day, and it doesn’t change colors and turn darker like some powders. This does contain talc, in case you have an aversion to that ingredient.

Final Thoughts
This is a good powder – not horrible, not awesome. It offers sheer coverage, it’s cheap, and it’s good for acne-prone skin (in theory). It only comes in 4 colors, though, and even though it’s non-comedogenic, some people still report breaking out from it. Since I don’t love this, I’ll try something new next time, but I’m okay using it for now. Have you tried it? What’s your favorite drugstore powder?

*Buy Maybelline Dream Matte Powder*

Ingredients:
Talc, Nylon-12, Isodecyl Neopentanoate, Magnesium Stearate, Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Cetyl Dimethicone, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, Methylparaben, Triisocetyl Citrate, Ethylparaben, Propylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Butylparaben. May contain: Mica, Iron Oxides, Titanium Dioxide.

Related posts:

1. Neutrogena Mineral Sheers Powder Foundation
2. Physicians Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation
3. Maybelline Lipstain

Shop Tarina Tarantino at Sephora!

Have you tried Tarina Tarantino’s new beauty products yet? What do you think?

Tarina products that look enticing to me:

Sparklicity Pure
A pale pink crystalline sparkly highlighter for brows arches, eyes, cheeks and lips. This appears to be noncomedogenic.

Eye Dream Hyperliner
Waterproof, smudgeproof, smooth eyeliner that comes in lots of shimmery colorful shades. Paraben-free.

Dollskin Cheek
Silky powder “high definition” blush that comes in 5 colors. This appears to be safe for acne-prone skin.

Tarina Tarantino’s beauty line also features mascara, lip gloss, lip sheen, shimmer body dust, pearl glow primer, eyeshadow, cream eyeshadow, makeup brushes, and more! Tarina is also doing in-store meet-and-greets at several Sephora stores this month!

Related posts:

1. Hard Candy Makeup at Walmart
2. Great Makeup I Won’t Use
3. Discontinued Makeup And Beauty Products

When Hard Candy first hit Walmart last year, I was ready to prove that you don’t need expensive makeup from department stores and Sephora to get super high quality makeup, but the Walmart version of Hard Candy has turned out to not be as good as the original higher end version to me:( All of the products are formulations are different, so this is like an entirely new cosmetics line.

Hard Candy Glitter Pencil
I was most excited to try the glitter pencil (which comes in a package called Eye Candy that includes a glitter eyeshadow). The original Hard Candy glitter pencils were great – they were easy to use, they went on nice and dark, and the glitter looked sparkly but not too over the top. The Walmart version is horrible:( I bought the purple color, and could barely even see the color after several waxy application attempts. I threw it out after the first day. The Eye Candy glitter eyeshadow is a clear cream with flakes of glitter. It would be cool for a night on the town, or Halloween. The whole set is $5. I am currently on a search for a new glitter eyeliner pencil. Any suggestions? Even though I’m in my mid-30s, I’m not ready to completely give up glitter yet.

Hard Candy Kaleyedescope Baked Eyeshadow
I love the old-school Hard Candy eyeshadow quads so I was also dying to try their new duo eyeshadows. I bought them in four colors at Walmart, for $6 each. They aren’t as pigmented as the original eyeshadows, but for the price they are pretty good, and the array of colors is nice. When used over an eyeshadow primer they look better, and last most of the day.  They come in 14 different duo colors. I am a little out of touch because I had not bought a single drugstore eyeshadow since before the original Hard Candy eyeshadows came out about 15 years ago! I never had good luck with drugstore eyeshadows before, but I am curious to try other newer pigmented drugstore eyeshadows like L’Oreal HiP.

Hard Candy Nail Polish
The original Hard Candy line started with their crazy colored nail polishes, and somehow I found myself spending $12 for a bottle of nail polish back in the 90s. The Walmart nail polishes are $5 and come in 16 shades. Some of the colors are unique for drugstore polishes, and are worth checking out. They also come with the novelty rings, but the new rings are harder plastic and kind of bulky, but they are still sort of cute.

Hard Candy Blush Crush Baked Blush
Finally I bought the Hard Candy blush in the Living Doll color (a pale pearly pink) for $7. It broke into pieces before I got home, and I was too lazy to go back and get a new one. It’s a nice subtle pink color, but given how easily it broke for me, I would worry it would happen easily, and once it’s broken, it’s hard to contain the pieces in its case. Otherwise I would consider buying this blush again.

These are the only Hard Candy products at Walmart I tried, but there are tons of other ones too – primers, highlighters, bronzers, mascara, liquid liners, lipsticks, lip glosses, body glitter, and more! All of the packaging is really cute and eye-catching. Which products have you tried, and what do you think? I’m not totally giving up higher-end makeup just yet!

Related posts:

1. Hard Candy Eye Shadow
2. My Favorite Makeup
3. Makeup Dupes