TotalBeauty offered to send me their TotalBeauty Collection for HSN to review before it was even available for purchase, so of course I giddily accepted. (I totally felt like one of the cool kids on the block...)

Beautybox5 offered to send me this month's Beautybox to review. I've been hearing about various subscription services for beauty products for awhile, but hadn't actually tried any, so I was pretty excited to test it out!

Here's a quick excerpt about Beautybox5, taken from their website:

"Once a month, we deliver a Beauty Box with four or five handpicked samples directly to your doorstep. Your Beauty Box will contain items like makeup, skin care products, hair care products, fragrances and a few other surprises! Learn more about your samples on our site! You can see exactly what other beauty lovers are saying about the products. Plus, you’ll find special how-tos and beauty tips right at your fingertips.  We think you’re going to love your samples! If you just have to have more, you can purchase products directly from us, or from our partners. Sounds good? Well, here’s the bonus: share BB5 with five of your friends and earn a free one-month subscription! Just head to the Sharing Is Caring page!"

I've already reviewed Red Apple Lipstick brand lipstick, and also their lip pencils, and now, on to the lipgloss ($18.50)! As with the lipstick and lipliners, these glosses are gluten-free,  paraben-free, allergen-free, soy-free, cruelty-free, and vegan! I tried three shades from their regular line, Amor Caliente, Bridesmaid, and Metropolis.

Amor Caliente is a shiny candy apple red with a nice shimmery sheen to it. It has medium-pigmentation. Bridesmaid is a lightly pigmented hot pink with lots of sparkle. Metropolis is a nude-pink with a shimmery sheen, low-medium pigmentation.

I love these. The formula is great--really smooth, not too thick and not too thin. The color stays for a decent amount of time, but it moisturizes for hours. These only have a faint fragrance--I can't quite place what it is, but I don't mind it at all, and I'm quite picky about how my makeup smells. I love the large sponge applicator, and I love that you can easily see the color, and how much product remains. The packaging is a tad bit bigger than the average gloss. The biggest drawback is the price. But considering the quality, I'd say it's worth it. AAAAANNNNNDDDD when you participate in their lipstick exchange, you can get them for only $11.99 (be sure to check out the details). 

These are awesome. It's pretty tough to impress me when it comes to lip gloss, and I had honestly been pretty skeptical that these lipglosses would compare with department store products, but they absolutely hold their own! It'd be great to see more colors added to the line, especially some highly pigmented pinks or corals! I'm also pretty eager to try the new Peppermints lipglosses, since I love minty glosses.

Lipgloss+Spandex rating: 

Check out my first review of Red Apple Lipstick here, if you haven't already! All of the Red Apple products are gluten-free, soy-free, paraben-free, cruelty-free, allergen-free, and vegan. And the quality is fabulous. 

Red Apple Lipstick recently released their first lip pencils ($20 regular price, currently on sale for $12.50!!). While these products are new to their line, the quality is fabulous.

These colors are super wearable, especially Brick and Mocha. Chocolate is a little too brown for my preference, but it's still quite pretty. The texture is fairly smooth, they're easy to sharpen, and the pigmentation is nice. I find that they last fairly long for me also, although as with all lipliners, they do tend to wear off slightly faster in the middle compared to the edges of my lips. There's no fragrance to these either, which I appreciate. I'm not typically a huge fan of lip pencils, but these are just plain practical to have on hand. My only complaint is that the regular price is a tad bit high, but they're great quality, and for $12.50 (currently on sale), they're a steal!

I don't always wear lip liner, but when I do, it's Red Apple Lipstick lip liner! :)

Lipgloss+Spandex rating:

You don't have to have a gluten sensitivity to use Red Apple Lipstick products! If you like quality makeup, especially quality makeup without tons of added crap, then you should take a look at Red Apple, because their lipsticks, lip liners, lip glosses and balm are simply awesome. And all of their products are also paraben-free, allergen-free, soy-free, cruelty-free, and vegan!

When founder and president Jay Harper offered to send me a bunch of products to try out, I was excited, but I will admit that I was a little skeptical--that's a lot of things to keep out of the products! will the quality be the same as regular lipstick? will it smell weird? will it feel weird? But the products he sent me blew my mind. Today, we'll look at the lipsticks!

Check out those beauties! The Rallye balm ($19.50, sale price $15.00) is fragrance-free, sheer balm with SPF 8 that moisturizes and protects lips. The three lipsticks are on the right ($17.50 each). Ruby Slippers is a pretty shimmery sheer pinkish red. Not frosty, just pretty! Strawberry Lips is a sheer brick red. Red! is a true blue-based red. It's more pigmented than the other two, and will leave a nice stain on your lips.

I'm not a huge lipstick person, but I really like these. Although applying Red! takes a little precision, the other two shades can easily be applied without a mirror, which makes them just as handy as my usual lip gloss. AND, unlike a lot of lipsticks, they're nicely moisturizing, they're long lasting, and the pigmentation is totally buildable! Although the price is mid-range (comparable to department store products), and the packaging could be a little fancier, I'm super happy with these lipsticks and would definitely consider buying additional shades. And there are frequently deals (discounts for signing up for their newsletter, or for doing their lipstick exchange!)They guarantee 100% satisfaction too :)

Any way you look at it, these lipsticks are FABULOUS for everyone, gluten-intolerant or not. I'll also be reviewing their glosses and lip liners soon :)

Lipgloss+Spandex rating: 

I kind of wish I had an awesome sister with whom I could co-found a makeup business... And while I don’t have any sisters, I can live vicariously through the founders of SweetPea & Fay, Katrina and Amanda. This duo created a 100% natural, hand-crafted makeup line using their knowledge as a licensed skin care therapist and as a makeup artist. Their focus is on professional quality makeup that’s affordable and free of harmful ingredients, as well as being cruelty free. 

SweetPea & Fay Mineral Eyeshadow
$4.99 for 1.0 gram

Ingredients: Mica, sericite, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, tin oxide

Shades:
Granny Panties-nude/sand with golden/silver shimmer when wet
Pandimonium-mint green when dry, green patina with golden shimmer
Chupacabra-shimmery darkened taupe when dry, chocolate brown with bronze when wet

I love that there are swatches of every shade of eye shadow on their website! It's really helpful, especially for mineral eye shadows, which tend to be more variable than regular eye shadows when comparing the appearance of the product in the pan/jar to the swatch. They're really affordable and pretty decent in terms of texture and pigmentation. For me, they have pretty standard length of wear, and with a primer they last all day. I like that these shadows come in a sifter jar--that makes them slightly less messy compared to other mineral shadow.


Lipgloss +Spandex:

SweetPea & Fay Lip Balm
$4.99 for 1.0 gram

Ingredients: Beeswax, Caruba wax, extra virgin olive oil, mica, french vanilla flavor oil, stevia, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, tin oxide

Shades:
Crop Circles-orangey tan cream
Ghost of Petra-hot pink creme
Apparition-soft pearl pink with shimmer

These are great tinted lip balms. They have a faint vanilla scent and come in clear plastic mini tubes--all details that I like. Crop Circles really didn't look good on me, and Apparition was a touch frosty for my skin tone, but I loooooove Ghost of Petra. The color is gorgeous and can easily be built up by layering on the balm, and it also leaves your lips with a nice stain. The price is pretty good as well.


Lipgloss + Spandex rating:

SweetPea & Fay also carries loose mineral powder foundation, liquid lipstick, and lip gloss. 

I know this is months after the release date, but I just had to review it! This is one of my absolute favorite MAC collections. I love the fun packaging, the oversized products, and the colors. While the quality of most of the products is average for MAC makeup, I definitely think there are plenty of items worth buying (and even buying backups)!

Where can you find these? Believe it or not, more than a dozen items from this collection are still available on MAC's website. You can also find a few items on Nordstrom.com, Bloomingdales.com, and Macys.com. Or if you can snatch up a few items in store, you should!

Here's what I have (thanks to my boyfriend, who surprised me with these on Valentine's Day):

As 2010 comes to a close, I'd like to share a few of my favorite beauty products.

The Bad : I'm 6 lbs up from the week before spring break, and 9 lbs from my goal weight. I've been eating junk food all week. Partly because i felt sorry for myself after my disastrous long run on Sunday. And it was generally a stressful week, which meant i do what i usually do when stressed--eat! I need to get back on track with eating healthy, since happy hour isn't helping my bank account either.

The Okay : I talked to my friend who is a physical therapist and she said my post run knee pain is most likely due to an IT band problem, that I need a foam roller, and to roll it out for as long as possible every day (treat and prevent). I've been dreading buying a foam roller for a long time because I've heard how much it hurts and figured my Stick was good enough. But I decided to stop wallowing, and start foam rolling. I went to Fit Right NW and got a foam roller. I've been foam rolling at least once a day, sometimes twice. It hurts and sometimes I whimper pathetically.

My latest obsessions :

• My foam roller. The one good thing about it is it's kind of fun to whack people with it. It doesn't hurt.