Lots of New Products and GWPs Courtesy of the New Bloomingdales Makeover Catalog!

The flagship Bloomingdales on 59th and Lex has just completed a massive renovation of their beauty floor. To celebrate, Bloomingdales sent out a very nice catalog featuring new products and is offering extensive Gifts with Purchase October 15th-25th. The store will be offering new brands and has a full calendar of events throughout October including makeovers, facials, skincare classes, and opportunities to meet makeup artists such as Dick Page and Poppy King. You can call 212-705-2000 to get more information on the events and look below for some of the Gift with Purchase information and highlighted products.

Gifts with Purchase:

• Lancome: Choice of 7 piece gift with any $35 Lancome purchase. 3 sets to choose from.
• Dior: 5 piece gift with $100 purchase
• Clarins: Choose 2 deluxe travel size treatments when you purchase any 2 skincare products
• Trish McEvoy: Must Have Lips 3 piece gift with any $75 purchase plus a Deluxe Makeup Planner with $250 purchase

• Shiseido: Skincare bonus with purchase of any 2 High Performance, Benefiance, white Lucent, The Skin Care or Pureness products plus a travel size The Skincare Instant Eye and Lip Makeup Remover and mini Perfect Rouge Lipstick with any foundation purchase
• Shu Uemura: Best-Of 6 piece gift with any $125 purchase
• SK-II: Full size Signs Uplifter with $325 purchase, plus a limited edition golden and Swarovski compact with $500 purchase
• Giorgio Armani: 6 piece Glamour Kit with exclusive full size Lip Shimmer shade with $95 purchase
• Benefit: Creaseless Crea Shadow in Bunny Hop and mini Bad Gal Lash with $65 purchase
• Laura Mercier: 5 piece Flawless gift with $85 purchase
• Estee Lauder: 7 piece gift with purchase of $29.50 or more. Large navy tote when you spend $55
• Prescriptives: Essential Makeup 5 piece kit when you spend $65. Full size Flawless Face Primer when you spend $95 as well as a pink tote and full size Intensive Rebuilding Cleanser when you spend $125
• Yves Saint Laurent: Must Haves 8 piece gift with $125 purchase
• Clarins: Eye Opening 5 iece gift with cosmetic bag with $200 purchase
• Bare Escentuals: 4 piece Radiance Gift with $35 purchase

New Products:

• Shu Uemura Planet Cat Palette ($65), Planet Ribbon Palette ($65), Rouge Unlimited Lipstick in Jupiter Brown ($25).
• Dior Serum de Rouge Lipstick ($32) contains 10 times more active skincare ingredients than other lipsticks. In 8 shades.
• Giorgio Armani 2009 Crustal Palette ($98) has matte and sparkling color for the eyes and a powder in a translucent golden shade. ArmaniSilk Lipstick in a limited edition shade ($38) is also available.
• Trish McEvoy Bejeweled Collection ($95) includes a Petite Makeup Planner in quilted white with black stitching, Petite refillable makeup bag, refillable makeup page, Dual Resort Bronzer, Easy Going Blush, Delicate Pink Eye Shadow, Sable Bronze Glaze Eye Shadow, Amethyst and Deep Aubergine Definers, Eye Base Essentials in Bare and Beauty Booster Lip Gloss in Brightening Pink.
• Laura Mercier Color Wardrobe ($98) is 2-tiered and contains 6 Eye Colours, 3 Cheek Colours, 6 Lip Stains, 2 Lip Glazes, a double ended Eye Colour brush, and a double ended lip brush.
• Lancome Oscillation Powerfoundation ($48) is a micro-vibrating, polishing mineral makeup.

There are a number of other Gifts with Purchase available in addition to more new products and fabulous-sounding events. I'm definitely checking out the new store tomorrow!

Images from the Bloomingdales catalog.

Post Purge: The Carnage

So I think it's time to admit that you have a makeup addiction when your 'to toss' pile becomes larger than most people's collections. I went through my stash and tried to be as ruthless as possible in attempt to declutter and, undoubtedly, make room for new makeup! Yes, there's Armani in there. And Becca. And Chanel. And Julie Hewett. Like I said, I was trying to be ruthless!
What I've learned:

• I should never buy drugstore makeup. Almost every drugstore item I had ended up getting trashed. I'm not sure if it's because I couldn't try the items beforehand and so they weren't quite perfect, or if they just seemed expendable to be because they cost less and I had an easier time letting go. Either way, it's money wasted since the products are headed to the garbage. No more CVS "cheap fixes" trips now matter how much Allure lauds an item or how long the wait is at the pharmacy counter.
• No more buying makeup because it's on sale. When Sephora cleared out Becca I bought a ridiculous amount of product. As in I went to 4 separate Sephoras and could have opened my own Becca counter afterward. Many of the items were tossed long ago, but some remained taking up space, collecting dust because I thought they'd come in useful some rainy day or just couldn't bare to throw them out because they were such a "great deal." Their day has come. Bye bye opalescent liquid with sunscreen. So long gray-green face shimmer! That Armani blush and eye shadow you see? Sale buys. Ditto the Julie Hewett.
  
• Just because the product looks great on an airbrushed model in a magazine or a color is heralded as the "next big thing" does not mean that they are right for me. Sure the fuchsia Chanel lipstick looked great in Elle, but the model was 17 with flawless skin and the shade was airbrushed to be just right. If the credits were even being honest about what product was actually used. And those vampy berry lipsticks I'm getting rid of? NOT for very full lips! My lips entered a room 10 seconds before I did!
  
• No more minerals. I went through a Bare Escentuals phase because their Upper East Side boutique was so tempting! Hundreds of pots of open sparkly color! Free pastries on Sunday! I amassed an embarrassing number of the aforementioned sparkly pots of color, and they sat untouched. I decided to decant them into stackable containers thinking I'd be more inclined to use them if they were more accessible. I wasn't. I didn't. They are beautiful but so messy, especially when I'm trying to get ready for work and haven't had caffeine yet!
• And finally--and I realize this is probably sacrilege--I just don't use Gift with Purchase (GWP) items. I'm sure Estee Lauder just rolled over in her grave. The bag would have 5 more GWP items in it if I hadn't used them for Sephora's Cash for Clunkers today. The Benefit Creaseless Cream and Lipstick were Sephora gifts with purchase. I never would have chosen those shades if I had to pay for them, and haven't opted to wear them since they arrived. Let's not even talk about the products I purchased that I didn't need just to qualify for GWPs filled with products I never use!
  

Have you purged lately? What are you getting rid of? Have you learned anything through the process? Share your epiphanies!

The Best Goody Bag Event of the Year!

The Barneys New York Beauty Event is this week! The minimum price is high ($175) but the past goody bags have been fabulous, featuring many full and deluxe size cosmetics, skin care and body care and fragrances! We're not talking about those puny little perfume vials *ahem* other stores seem to be offering up! I'l post more details once they become available.

Korres Pure Coral Color Collection

Korres has a new collection out for summer and it's available on their website at a bargain price. For $25.50 you receive a Shimmering Eye Shadow in White Green 42S, Mango Lipstick in Coral 45, and a new Lip Butter in Mango. The site frequently features gifts with purchase and other special offers, and currently they are offering a Spring Color Essentials Collection with a $30 purchase. It include a Fuchsia mini Lip Gloss, full size Lip Liner and a mini of one of my Holy Grails, their Mascara. Use code FLING at checkout.

Neiman Marcus The Scent Event

For all of my fragrance-loving readers (waves to Susan!), I wanted to pass along some details about Neiman's online fragrance gift event. With a fragrance purchase of $85 or more, you'll receive a straw tote with pink or green camo handles filled with 9 samples.

Set includes:
• Hermes Voyage, 0.06 oz.
• Carolina Herrera CH, 0.04 oz.
• Salvatore Ferragamo F for Fascinating Night, 0.06 oz.
• Supersmile Whitening Toothpaste, .05 oz.
• Cartier Delices de Cartier, .05 oz.
• Prada L'eau Ambree Eau de Parfum, .05 oz.
• Hanae Mori Parfum, .039 oz.
• Bvlgari Eau The Blanc Eau de Cologne, .06 oz.
• Natori Eau de Parfum, 0.17 oz.

A few of the fragrance lines are also running gifts with purchase. See the full lineup here. Neiman Marcus currently has free shipping at any price with code NMSHOP!

New Paul and Joe Self Select Eye Color Compacts + Beautyhabit Offer

When Paul and Joe discontinued their single shadow line a few months ago, many of us wondered how and when they'd be brought back and it seems that Beautyhabit has the answer! The single shadows are now available in pan format and palettes can be purchased so that you can create your own customized look. Currently, with the purchase of any 3 shadows, Beautyhabit is offering the $12 palette FREE with code MYLOOK.

Here is the copy from Beautyhabit about the new shadows:
Available in twenty five shades with three different textures including satin, silk, and suede, Paul & Joe’s Self Select Eye Color conjures beauty in both color and texture. These three textures let you enjoy different finished looks to complement moods, makeup, and, moreover, more color.

The collection uses “fix oil” – included as an oil solution, it blends well with the pigment, generating stunning color. Self Select Eye Color also includes “clear plate powder” – a translucent powder that makes the color of the pigment stand out with real vibrancy. And to make it easy to soften, spread, and adjust color intensity, spherical and smooth powders are mixed in to afford easy slide across the skin.

Thanks to these carefully selected powders that keep color from sinking, Self Select Eye Color individual shadow inserts cling beautifully onto eyelids with a smooth, long-lasting finish. This vivid color assortment is blended using Paul & Joe’s signature Secret D’or formula, featuring shimmering champagne gold frost that produces an exquisite luster that radiates from within.

And the beauty of it all? Paul & Joe lets you be your own makeup artist, with the introduction of a convenient Eye Color Palette for creating customized color combinations!

Satine texture: Shades 01-09
Silk texture: Shades 10-17
Suede texture: Shades 18-25

It's So Annoying When Work Gets in the Way of Makeup

Beginning at 9AM tomorrow, the first 300 people who purchase a Sugarbomb Cupcake at the NYC CupcakeStop Truck (Broadway between Broome and Spring) will receive a Benefit Sugarbomb for free! That's a $28 value! I would have been psyched to buy Sugarbomb and get a cupcake free but this way rocks! It's too bad I have to do this whole 'work' thing every day and they like me to show up around 9AM. Sigh...

Is anyone planning on going?

My New Love

I had zero need for a new blush. Actually less than zero. Not only do I have a ton currently in rotation, but I have a bunch in my "to sell/give away" pile right now. So had logic prevailed, I never would have come home with my new Laura Mercier Second Skin Blush in Rose Petal, but I'm quite glad that I did.

The Laura Mercier site describes Rose Petal as a matte fresh pale pink, though in reality the shade has enough warmth in it to work with my coloring, though not so much that it could be called a true peachy pink or coral. I'd call it a sheer, warm light pink. It applies beautifully and looks very natural. I love the transparency that these blush have--it really makes the color look like it's coming from within and is a big improvement in my opinion over Laura Mercier's previous blush formulation.

These blushes are $24 and the Laura Mercier website currently has a gift with purchase until 5PM CST with a $75 purchase. It's not the most thrilling gift to me, but a nice treat if you were going to spend that much anyway.

Nice Gift With Purchase At SpaceNK

SpaceNK is offering a really nice goodie bag with a $150 purchase online. Click on the picture to view details (no, I'm not compensated in any way, shape or form if you click. It simply makes the picture and text larger).

FREE Chantecaille Tea Rose Lip Chic!

Okay, so it's not totally free--you do have to make a purchase. But Tea Rose is a gorgeous shade and at least Chantecaille isn't going all Neiman Marcus on us and requiring a $300 minimum purchase or something! On Friday, November 26th, every purchase of the Fall 2010 Tiger in the Wild Palette from Chantecaille.com will score you a free Tea Rose Lip Chic if you enter code TIGERS at checkout!