By Anne Houseman, of Beauty Xpose
First Thanksgiving, then my birthday, followed by Christmas and finally New Year’s. As usual, I’m beyond excited for the holiday season, and I’m already fully immersed in the holiday spirit. Case in point — my holiday shopping is well underway, I bought a pine-scented candle to tide me over until the Christmas tree comes, and I’ve been playing around with fun makeup and hair styles I plan to wear during the festivities.
For those of you who are just as ready to jump into the holiday spirit, Bare Escentuals has got you covered with several fabulous holiday gift sets.
Have your eye on shadows? Try the Bare Escentuals All Wrapped Up, a pretty package of six petite shadow pots in a range of party-ready colors (including four new shades!).
For just $34, this gorgeous set is affordable enough to get as a gift while picking one up for yourself too. Like all Bare Escentuals mineral shadows, the colors are deeply pigmented, swipe on fairly true to color, and can be built upon to create even more intense hues. These swatches were created with one solid swipe using an eyeshadow brush (no primer, no foiling).
Colorific, no?
If stocking stuffers are what you’re after, why not pick up a mini trio of Big, Bright & Brilliant eye liners ($20)?
These liners may be mini, but they pack a pigmented punch in three deep shades (click on the picture for a larger view, and check out the subtle sparkle in the Midnight Moon and Black Gold shades):
The best part about these liners? The tips are very tiny, allowing you to create a very thin line should you so choose. The only downside is that they didn’t stay on my waterline as long as I would have hoped, but that’s pretty standard on my eyes with any crayon-like liner.
This year, Bare Escentuals also has a yummy stocking stuffer just for the lip gloss lover: the DeLISH 100% Natural Lipgloss Palette ($22).
The three glosses — Vanilla Spice, Pink Sugar and Jelly — taste just like their namesakes and actually impart some of their color rather than going on completely sheer. One warning — while the set comes with a brush for application, these glosses are fairly soft, so you might want to just apply them (gently!) with your finger.
After playing around with these great gifts (so covet-worthy!), I put together a color-packed look that I hope is worthy of Kelly Gould, who’s the ultimate color master and Bare Escentuals fiend.
With a blend of four of the brighter shadows in the All Wrapped Up kit, I would wear this look at a holiday party or other evening soiree. I guess I consider it a colorful alternative to the traditional smoky eye. The key to this eye look is to blend, blend, blend!
To create this look, I began by swiping Tinsel over the entire lid. Then, I swept Mistletow all the way from the crease to just below the brow bone, also dabbing it in the inner corner of my eyes to really pick up the light. For highlight, I applied a light dusting of Garland just under the brow bone. Finally, to add depth (and that beautiful blue hue), I layered Bauble over the outer half of the lid (over the Tinsel), and extended it upward into the crease. Voila!
So what do you think? Will you be picking up any of these gifts for your loved ones (and/or yourself)?
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