Monday Mix: Well, That Explains a Lot; Smell-a-riffic Hand Sanitizers; and, of course, SALES

By Voxy  |  2010/02/08 07:00 Posted in news, sale  |  Comments (2)

Some of you have recently expressed disbelief at the odd products or techniques that show up from time to time in Voxy’s Skeptic Files. The vibrating foundation, the paint roller, the skin needling — all true. And how can it be, you ask, that trained professionals — with, presumably, good education, experience, and training in the relevant fields — are coming up with some of this stuff, and, worse, that these products are making it to the market?

I think I am beginning to see a glimmer of an answer to that question.

According to this article at CosmeticsDesign.com, L’Oreal (who came out with the paint roller foundation, you will remember; paint rollers for your face, because you’re worth it) has developed a system to recruit potential employees from among the ranks of enthusiastic-but-aimless college students via an online game called Reveal. Interested players can try their hand at simulation scenarios in five different departments: R&D, marketing, supply chain, sales, and finance. At the end of the game, you can apply for a job at L’Oreal! Your score in the game will be considered as part of your candidacy.

An unnamed spokesperson (!) for L’Oreal told CosmeticsDesign.com that this enables (!!) L’Oreal to consider candidates who don’t have the traditional background, training, or education for the post. Because why should you have to have science training to do R&D? Chemicals, schmemicals. Now, at last, you know what to tell your students who say, “but what will I do with this philosophy degree?”

As the top photo indicates, I am reminded of the Simpsons episode in which Homer Simpson is allowed to design a car, and, shouting down the advice of the trained designers, produces a monstrosity with tail fins, bubble domes, shag carpeting, and lots of horns (because “you can never find a horn when you’re mad”), all of which play “La Cucaracha.” Of the end result, which costs $82,000, Homer says, “All my life, I have searched for a car that feels a certain way. Powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball. Now, at last, I have found it.”

If you ever, EVER see a foundation that is advertised to be “powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball,” I called it here first.

In less frightening news, if you’re keen on the hand sanitizer idea but turned off by the frequently nasty smell, you might be interested in some nummier-scented options from Yankee Candle. They’ve got a new line of hand sanitizers out with some of their most popular candle fragrances: Garden Sweet Pea, Lavender Vanilla, MacIntosh, Midnight Jasmine, Sun & Sand, and Vanilla Cupcake. (Bet you can’t guess which one I got. Go on. I’ll give you … one guess.) They’re also more moisturizing than the standard hand sanitizer. Yummy-smelling and better for my skin? Yes please.

Sales!

Today is the last day that you can get free shipping at Sephora with a $25 purchase instead of a $50 one. Use code TOUCHDOWN at checkout.

From Wednesday 2/10 through Friday 2/12, drugstore.com is having a F&F sale with 20% off on “more than 50 favorite traditional and natural beauty brands.” They haven’t put out a code yet (if you need one; sometimes you don’t), but when/if they do, I’ll update.

Previously announced sales still going on:

SkinStore: 20% off sitewide (some exclusions) through 2/15; use code LUV20 • BeautyTicket: 20% off through 2/28 with code INSTYLE20 • TheCosmeticMarket: 20% off through 2/28 with code ALLURE

Simpsons image copyright FOX, via randombuzz.net
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Review: Lancome Color Fever Lip Gloss

By Voxy  |  2010/02/07 07:00 Posted in Makeup, Product Reviews, lip gloss, shimmer  |  Comments (3)

Lancome and I have a complicated relationship. Or rather, I have a complicated relationship with Lancome, and Lancome probably couldn’t care less about me.

After a fair amount of experimentation, I think the only products Lancome makes that I can really get behind are their lipsticks and glosses. I’m a big fan of the La Laque Fever lipstick I reviewed previously, and I do really like the Color Fever lip glosses. The rest of the makeup and all of their skincare are not for me. I have enough Lancome gift-with-purchase items that I think I can be pretty sure of the accuracy of that statement. Actually, I have enough Lancome GWP’s that I could probably make over everyone who lives in my building. For a pricy brand, they sure do give a lot of stuff away. Maybe they should keep some of it and lower the prices on the things you’re actually buying? Just a thought, there.

The Lancome Color Fever Lip Glosses are between a gloss and a lipstick in opacity, and they’re definitely glosses for grownups. Most of them are not transparent (with the exception of Rouge Magnificence, which is a surprisingly wearable clear red gloss; see: monster under the front seat of my car). Between the pigment and the shimmer, your lips will have almost as much coverage as regular lipstick, and if you use these on top of a lipstick, then you will be guaranteed full coverage.

Like Lancome’s La Laque Fever Lipshine lipcolor (love those L’s!), the Color Fever glosses come in a clear container with a splayed doe-foot applicator. The packaging is not among my favorites, mostly because I have this thing against squared-off lipgloss containers with sharp edges. OK, not “cut-yourself” sharp, but hunting for one of these in your purse can be uncomfortable. It’s also that whole “extra plastic that refracts light so you think you’re getting more product than you actually are” thing.

The lipglosses apply true to color, which is to say that what it looks like in the container is basically what it will look like on your lips. However — and this is a big however — I heartily advise that you shop in person, either at a counter or at Sephora, because the color swatches on the Lancome website are less accurate than your average entry in a “how-many-gumballs-are-in-this-jar” contest. Things that look pink on the site turn out to be coral, and things that look like a reddish brick end up being a deep berry. So, swatching in person is a good idea.

I also really, really wish that Lancome would not perfume their cosmetics. I don’t need my lipgloss to smell like perfume. In fact, I would much rather it did not. Foody scents don’t bother me as much, because at least a foody scent goes with a lip product; having my lipgloss smell like perfume makes me feel like I’m eating soap. Blech.

All that being said, and despite my many criticisms, the product is a good one. The wearlength is about average for a gloss (a few hours, at least on a working day when I’m talking all the time), and it wears evenly without feathering or leaving a stain around the outer edge of the lips. Now if they would only change their packaging, lose the scent, revamp their website for greater accuracy, and lower the price, we’d be all set.

The color shown both at the top of the post and below is “Combustible.”

Left: nekkid lips; Right: Combustible! As you can see, it really is true to the color in the tube, so at least it’s got that going for it.

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Lancome Color Fever Lip Gloss: $26

Provenance: Purchased.

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Fair. A bit higher than I’d like.

Purchase again? Maybe.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

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Review: Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil

By Voxy  |  2010/02/06 07:00 Posted in Makeup, Product Reviews, eyeliner  |  Comments (1)

Since I have green eyes, I’m a big fan of purple eye color, except when it is the result of a right hook. I’m still looking for the perfect purple eyeliner: not too warm, not too cool, not too light, not too dark… I am pickier than Goldilocks when it comes to purple eyeliner.

While in general I’m pretty content to buy pencil eyeliner at the drugstore, there has been an unending series of raves about the Urban Decay 24/7 pencil line. So, during the recent 20% off sale at ULTA, I tested and then picked one up in shade Ransom, a bright, slightly iridescent purple.

In order to do this, I broke one of Voxy’s Idiosyncratic Make-Up Commandments, namely: Thou shalt not buy anything that requires sharpening. I hate sharpening stuff. For a long time I have been able to get away without buying anything that needs sharpening. But I really wanted to try this pencil (long-lasting! great pigmentation! doesn’t smear!, says the internet), so I swallowed my irrational resistance and forked over my debit card.

And I have to say, for the most part, the internet was right. (About this. ONLY about this.) The pencil is nicely pigmented, with color that is reasonably long-lasting. However — and I’m sure Goldilocks would agree with me on this one — in general I do expect a high-end product to outperform a drugstore one, and I really can’t see how this is oodles ahead of the competition. The biggest thing it has going for it is that it’s a shade of violet that is both attractive and unusual; I haven’t seen this shade in any drugstore eyeliner. Because it is not terribly dark, it works best when I first tightline the upper lash line using MAC Fluidline (in either black or their violet shade, which is so dark it verges on black), and then apply this on top, smudging it out from the lashline a little bit. It is creamy and easy to apply, but I can say the same about several drugstore lines including ULTA and NYC. Now this is apparently waterproof, but I haven’t tested it in that capacity, so if anyone has it and wants to stick their head in a bucket of water and report back, that would be super.

In short, it’s a perfectly fine pencil, and if you find a shade you love and think is really unique (of which there are some; the 24/7 line is pretty extensive), then Voxy says go for it. Otherwise, most drugstore pencils will do you just as well.

Swatch is at right (UD pencil is at far left, shown alongside yesterday’s Maybelline Eye Studio Color Plush quad).

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Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil: $17

Provenance: Purchased.

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Fair. If it were self-sharpening, that would be “good.”

Purchase again? Doubtful.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

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Review: Maybelline Eye Studio Color Plush Quad

By Voxy  |  2010/02/05 18:22 Posted in Makeup, Product Reviews, eyeshadow, shimmer  |  Comments (0)

If I could sneak a teeny-tiny rider of my own into a 600-page healthcare reform bill, it would be that health insurance should also cover all impulse purchases made in drugstores while waiting for one’s prescriptions to be filled. Case in point: this Maybelline Eye Studio Color Plush quad in Purple Icon.

These new quads have gotten some good press around the interwebz, so I really didn’t need much convincing to add it to my impulse basket. There are 12 different quads, many of which are really appealing, so I had a hard time limiting myself to just the one.

The shades look very sparkly in the palette (which is disappointingly flimsy and cheap-feeling, even for drugstore makeup), but when applied, the sparkle blends out to a general brightness and luminosity that are very attractive. Maybelline attributes this to the silk protein that’s present in the powder. The shadows are well-pigmented for a drugstore brand; if you put them up head-to-head against a couture brand they would probably lose in the end but would put up a respectable fight. By the end of the day the color has faded slightly, but is still clearly present and clearly purple (I hate when purple eyeshadow loses its tint and goes grayish-brown).

The quad is meant to be used in the usual way: the middle two colors are for sweeping over the whole lid and up towards the brow bone, the darkest color goes in (or just above) the crease, and the lightest color goes under the brow as a highlighter shade. There should be a smooth transition between the lightest shade and the next lightest one; where that happens on you will depend on your own bone structure. You can also use the darkest shade as a liner but I find a pencil or gel liner to be a better option with this particular quad.

Swatches are below; colors are shown from left to right as they appear in the quad.

As usual, the applicator that comes with the product is not worth bothering with; use your own brushes for better results. I really wish they would just stop putting cheap applicators in entirely and chop $1 off the price.

By the way, if you’re ever torn between two purple eyeshadows (ouch!), one warmer and one cooler, and can’t decide which to get, get the cooler one. Any cool purple shadow can be warmed up by the addition of a swipe of pink powder blush. It’s much easier to warm up a cool purple than vice versa.

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Maybelline Eye Studio Color Plush eyeshadow quad: list price $9.99, but I’m pretty sure I got it for $8-something at Target.

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (drugstore: poor/fair/good/excellent): Good. This would get an “excellent” rating if the packaging weren’t so flimsy.

Purchase again? Probably, yes.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a shout-out in the comments!)

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Quickie Sale Code: Sephora, free shipping w/$25 purchase; code: TOUCHDOWN

By Voxy  |  2010/02/05 17:03 Posted in Uncategorized  |  Comments (6)

There it is. I don’t know the end date on this one, but, er, I expect it’s Super-Bowl-related.

In the meanwhile, go Colts!

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Open-Thread Thursday: Cake, Lemmings, Q of the W, Sales

By Voxy  |  2010/02/04 07:00 Posted in lemming, news, open thread, sale, spring  |  Comments (5)

Cloudberry Cream Cake by hfb.If you happen to see, out of the corner of your eye, a rapidly-moving blur that might look a bit like a very excited little girl wearing a pink dress with sparkles and tearing off in the direction of your local mall, pay no attention. That’s just Little Voxy, running at breakneck speed toward Sephora.

In a few short weeks, Sephora will have on its shelves the delectable, delightful, and delicious products of a Canadian skincare brand called — wait for it — CAKE! Srsly. It’s called Cake. Little Voxy is practically falling over herself with excitement. Sephora has been doing a lot of switching lines in and out lately — CARGO: out, Tarina Tarantino: in; Decleor: out, Cake: in; Vincent Longo, out, By Lauren Luke: in. We’ll see how long they all last, but in the meanwhile, I predict that there will be some foxaliciously good-smelling skincare sampling going on.

Also, the MAC spring color collections are out (all four of them) and I have to confess that I am lemming far more of these products than my removable wallet can afford. Top of the list: Blush Ombre in Ripe Peach, lipstick in Rose Maiden, and eyeshadow in Very Violet. WANT. I am seriously considering putting my credit cards in the freezer to prevent a spending spree. Good thing I made that New Year’s Resolution about not buying makeup when angry or drunk! Because otherwise we would be in some serious trouble.

Sales!

SkinStore has 20% off sitewide (with some exclusions) through 2/15 with code LUV20.

BeautyTicket.com also has 20% off sitewide through 2/28 with code INSTYLE20.

And, if you have a quick thing or two to pick up from DuWop, they are offering 30% off only through 2/5 (which is Friday) with code KISS. (Sorry, I just found out about this one, or I’d have posted it sooner.)

I have also realized that there’s pretty much no time at which you cannot get free shipping at YSL with some code or other. So if you’re craving any YSL cosmetics, let me know if you want a free ship code.

Q of the W:

While doing my daily beauty blog reading, I often come across photos of different makeup looks. It’s interesting to see what other people do, and it often makes me think I should be bolder with my own makeup (another New Year’s Resolution, towards which I have made some progress) because some of the things that I still approach gingerly look great on people who have figured out how to make it work. Example: using eyeshadow underneath the eye. It looks great when other people do it, but I haven’t managed to feel confident about doing it myself yet.

So the Q of the W is this: what makeup looks or products would you like to feel more confident about figuring out how to use or pull off?

Photo (it’s a cloudberry cake!): http://www.flickr.com/photos/hfb/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
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Review: Cheek Stains, Part IV — MAC Just a Pinch gel blush

By Voxy  |  2010/02/03 13:02 Posted in Product Reviews, blush  |  Comments (0)

Just a Pinch gets just a quickie review here.

I wasn’t really planning on further installments of the cheek stain review series, but I picked up a MAC Just a Pinch gel blush at my CCO the other day and thought it was worth mentioning. Although this was from a LE seasonal line, you can still get them at CCOs and on eBay (shop carefully). I hope they’ll be doing more of these, because this is a great little product. Although it is in the form of a gel, it’s really a cheek stain, so I’m lumping it in with that category of reviews.

Just a Pinch looks frighteningly red in the pot, but when applied on skin it is a beautiful sheer red color. That description still seems like it would be too much for cheeks but it really is not. Unlike the Tarte and Smashbox cheek stains, which are so user-friendly that they are hard to screw up, this one takes a bit more skill; you do have to dab your finger in the pot and then spread it on your cheeks, and you will want to blend quickly and decisively in order to avoid clown cheeks. Merely touching your finger to the gel surface is enough to get some pigment on there, and as usual it is better to put on a little less and then build up than vice versa. You can layer the product to make it more intense, but you will probably not want to do very much of that. There is not a lot of room for forgiveness with this product, as the stain happens almost immediately, so aim carefully! You can also use it as a lip stain, but with my pigmentation this doesn’t look as good, so I’ll probably just keep it to the cheeks. The color is almost a true red, but I would say it’s just a little on the cool side. You can barely see it in this photo (I swatched very lightly), but it’s on my arm around and below that light freckle. The flush is quite natural and if you have a light touch you can really get a good result.

Although the stain is powerful at first, ultimately this is not as long-lasting as either the Tarte or Smashbox products. I still get several hours’ of wearlength out of it, but the other two are all-day affairs, and this one fades after probably about seven or eight hours. However, it would be easy to throw in your purse for quick midday reapplication, so that’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Watch out for it at your local CCO or online!

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MAC Just a Pinch gel blush (link not available as LE line has left stores)

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (high-end: poor/fair/good/excellent): Good; CCOs are always a good place to save a little bit of money

Purchase again? No reason why not.

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a holler in the comments!)

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Monday Mix: News Tidbits, Sales

By Voxy  |  2010/02/01 07:00 Posted in news, sale  |  Comments (7)

Tidbits from the beauty world you may have missed:

— Paris Fashion Week recently ended, and you do not want to know what they are doing with hair and makeup over there. This photo is from the Alexander McQueen show (via style.com) — apparently the shoes have 12-inch heels. (But the platform at the bottom of the shoe is probably a good 4 or 5 inches, so really that’s only a 7 or 8 inch heel. So wearable.)

— The Prescriptives brand officially left stores this weekend; the demise of the line was part of a large restructuring by parent company Estee Lauder. Apparently, the restructuring as a whole is working, as the company’s profits are beginning to increase, although interestingly, Asian markets, rather than US markets, are leading the rise, according to a brief article at CosmeticsDesign.com. And speaking of the Asian market, Japan-based Shiseido is in the process of trying to buy Bare Escentuals. Will US consumers see a benefit from such a merger? Could go either way, IMHO. Although Shiseido is the oldest cosmetics brand in the world, and also owns the NARS and Cle de Peau lines (as well as some popular fragrance lines), they seem to have a hard time appealing to a wide variety of consumers outside of Japan. To wit: I know exactly one person who uses Shiseido products, and it is my grandmother. Bare Escentuals, on the other hand, is a brand that appeals to all ages, and this could be very good for Shiseido’s portfolio (if they manage to run it properly).

— Tarina Tarentino’s new cosmetics line is about to launch at Sephora, which has a lot of people drooling. I am not among them, at least until some other guinea pigs go first and we see how the products perform. Also launching is By Lauren Luke, a makeup line created by … well, by Lauren Luke, who is the latest “I-rose-to-fame-by-doing-makeup-videos-on-YouTube” sensation. I don’t know who’s actually creating these products, so I’m holding out for more information before I fling any money at them.

— In news that no one but me cares about, I am disappointed in the performance of the Almay Face Brightener I bought last week. I’m all for “barely-there” shimmer, but some products are so barely there that they are essentially not there at all. But, it does have SPF 15, so at the very least it can give me some extra sun protection. I also still have not gotten the monster under the passenger seat of my car to spit up my Lancome Rouge Magnificence lipgloss, which I really want back before we get too far into spring colors and I don’t feel like wearing a red lip anymore.

— And, well, this. Mildly unsafe for work.

Sales!

The Cosmetic Market, which, like Sephora or ULTA, carries many brands, is offering 20% off everything through 2/28 with code ALLURE.

I’m not sure of the absolute reliability of this one, but I hear that Vincent Longo is having a F&F sale, with 30% off sitewide through 2/14. Use code VLLOVE at checkout. Free shipping with purchases over $30.

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Review: Neat Feat Foot & Heel Balm

By Voxy  |  2010/01/30 07:00 Posted in Product Reviews, Skincare, dry skin, moisturizer, winter  |  Comments (3)

Favorite. Foot. Cream. EVER.

While in most ways I am the girliest of girls, I have to admit that my Achilles heel is — well, my heels. Actually, the whole bottom of my foot is kind of a disaster. Year-round, but especially in the winter, I have calluses and buildups of dead skin on my heels and on the ball of my foot that would shame a sasquatch. I have ruined more pairs of tights and hosiery than I can count because they get runs up the back from the tiny prickly stalagmites sticking out of my heels. (Yes, I know, eeeeew. Sorry.)

My arsenal of tools for dealing with this problem includes a callus shaver, a wide range of abrasive devices (pumices, emery boards, microplane graters, and even — I’m not kidding — a battery-operated rotary tool with a gritty quartz head, like a Dremel rotary carver), and every foot cream known to man. Or, woman, because honestly I haven’t met too many men who care if the bottoms of their feet are scratchier than 30 grit sandpaper.

A few years ago, I bought a little pair of toeless socks that had been treated with a thick moisturizing gel in the heel. They were essentially heel patches, with enough sock around them to hold them in place on the heel. They came with a tiny sample of foot balm, and the deal was that you would put the foot balm on your heel, put on the heel sock, and go to bed. The moisturizing gel and the heel balm together would theoretically do a number on your heels overnight and presto! you would wake up in the morning with fabulous heels.

And presto! it worked. And it continued to work while I went through that sample of foot balm. And then I ran out, and I figured I would just use some other foot cream instead — and then it stopped working, and there was much sadness (and many ruined stockings) in the House of Voxy. While the gel socks were a good idea, it turns out that the magic was in the foot balm — which was not available at Target, or Walmart, or any drugstore, or anywhere on this continent. While other products from this New Zealand company were being sold in the US, this particular one was not, and so at the time there was no way to get it.

Since then, the interwebz have improved a lot, and prompted by a recent inquiry elsewhere in cyberspace, I looked it up, and just about fell over with excitement when I saw that I could now buy this product online and have it shipped to me from New Zealand! (It’s still not sold in American stores, as far as I know; if you find out otherwise, let me know in the comments!)

This magical mystery product is, of course, Neat Feat Foot & Heel Balm, and it is the single best unsightly-feet-fixer I have ever used.

When looking at something to penetrate and soften dead and callused skin, urea (lab-synthesized) is the magic ingredient, but there are plenty of foot creams that have urea that don’t do squat. Unlike most other drugstore foot-care products I’ve tried, Neat Feat Foot & Heel Balm is a thick, oil-based balm, which means that it stays where it’s put and takes a long time to absorb into skin. This gives the urea a long time to penetrate and really softens the skin. The balm does not smell like roses or cookies or anything else delicious, but it certainly works. This is a product that caused me to see a real difference in just one night.

Use in conjunction with other dry-skin removal practices: cleansing, exfoliating via an emery foot board or other appropriate abrasive, and overall foot moisturizing. The wear-socks-to-bed trick is still a good one, and this balm works just fine for that.

Right now Neat Feat is having a 2-for-1 sale, so you can get two tubes for the price of one. Each tube is only 75 g/2.6 fl. oz., but since it is so thick and you don’t use a lot at a time, it will last a reasonably long time, especially if you only have dry-skin troubles in the winter. The value of the 2-for-1 deal effectively cancels out the high cost of shipping from NZ to the US, but even if it ended up not quite evening out, it would have been worth it to be able to get this product again. I ordered on January 5; it was not shipped until January 18 for some reason, but it arrived at my door on or about the 25th. So, a week from shipping date to arrival date, give or take.

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Neat Feat Foot & Heel Balm: $9.95 US for 2 tubes, plus $8.50 shipping from NZ to US

Provenance: Purchased

Price/Value Ratio (drugstore: poor/fair/good/excellent): Fair. The product price itself is good, but having to pay overseas shipping is a drag. If you find it in stores in the US, let me know.

Purchase again? Yes, ma’am!

(Have you used this product? Love it? Hate it? Want it? Give a shout-out in the comments!)

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What You Get for the Money: SkinCareRX’s Beauty Caché

By Voxy  |  2010/01/29 07:00 Posted in Product Reviews, Skincare, steal  |  Comments (0)

First, let us all agree that that accent over the e in “caché” just doesn’t belong there. To quote John McIntyre, former head of the copy desk at The Baltimore Sun:

“Baltimore looks for prestige, for a little extra cache, or so a recent article suggested before the copy desk got at it.

The right word, of course, is cachet, pronounced ka-SHAY. A cache, pronounced kash, is a place where supplies are hidden for safety, or the supplies themselves. As a verb, to cache means to store something in a hidden place, as campers hide their food in a place where bears won’t find it.

Cachet, in the sense of possessing distinction, derives from the same root as cache. In pre-Revolutionary France, the crown used the lettre de cachet, a secret, sealed letter containing a warrant, to imprison someone without trial. The cachet was the seal that kept the letter secret. A cachet has thus come to mean a seal or stamp on a document and, by extension from the lettre de cachet, a mark of official approval. Odd that a negative connotation should metamorphose into a positive, but that is how language works.

Why anyone would confuse the two words is obscure, but I suspect that some responsibility must fall to Caché, a retailer of women’s fashions that has added an acute accent to cache to suggest cachet. Now you see the peril of allowing retailers to influence English usage. (Macy’s uses a little star instead of an apostrophe in its logo, but that doesn’t mean that you should use little stars instead of apostrophes.)”

I don’t know — I kind of hope the little stars thing catches on. However,  I do draw the line at dotting the letter i with a smiley face, heart, or daisy.

But! To the matter at hand, which is showing you what you get for the money when you get one of these SkinCareRX Beauty Cache packages (I refuse to use the accent). These are available for $29.95 and you don’t know what’s going to be in them, but the products are supposed to be valued at a minimum of $350. They will produce four different caches per year, but even within the same quarter’s caches, products may vary somewhat.

I know this because the first Beauty Cache I received had had a leaky product in it, and it had gotten goo all over the other products and the bag. Calling Customer Service got me a free replacement, with prepaid labels to send the other set back (and no, I did not get to keep the products from the first set). The products in the second bag (which arrived unharmed) are not all the same as the products in the first. Here’s what I got:

(Back row in photo)

1. Obagi Nu-Derm Foaming Gel cleanser (2 fl. oz.)

2. Avene Rétrinal 0.1 Crème (5 ml) (anti-aging cream with retinaldehyde, a less-irritating form of retinol)

3. Dermalogica Hydration sample kit, containing small samples of Multi-Active Toner, Skin Hydrating Booster, Skin Hydrating Masque, and Intensive Eye Repair.

4. Avene Moisturizing Self-Tanning Lotion for Face and Body (100 ml/3.38 fl. oz.)

5. La Roche-Posay Lipikar Lipid-Replenishing Body Emollient (15 ml/0.5 fl. oz.). Very purse-friendly size.

6. DDF Wrinkle Plus Pore Minimizer Moisturizing Serum (7 ml/0.23 fl. oz.)

7. Caudalie Démaquillant Soin Doux/Gentle Cleanser, normal to dry skin (30 ml/1 fl. oz.)

8. Sothys Homme Detoxifying Active Cleanser (15 ml/0.5 fl. oz.)

(Front row in photo)

1. Dermaquest DermaFirm anti-cellulite cream (29.6 ml/1 fl. oz.). OK, I’m not on the anti-cellulite cream bandwagon, but whatev.

2. (dropper vial) SkinCeuticals Phloretin CF antioxidant treatment. Bottle bears no measurements, but I’d guess it’s about 4 ml.

3. Colorescience Sunforgettable SPF 30 Sun Protection (2.25 g/0.8 oz.). This is a powder sunscreen.

4. Kinerase Pro Therapy Advanced Repair Serum, full-size (15 ml/0.5 fl. oz.). This sells for about $132, so getting it in a $30 bag is a good deal if you like Kinerase products. I’m willing to give it a go.

And let’s not forget the bag itself. I normally hate bags that are part of cosmetics giveaways, because I always find them too small or inconveniently shaped. This one, however, holds a nice amount of product and I will definitely be taking it with me when I travel.

If you order one, you will likely get some different products, of course — a fact which caused no little consternation for some SkinCareRX customers who evidently don’t know what the prominently displayed phrase “CONTENTS MAY VARY” means and who are angry that they didn’t get this or that product that was pictured in the photo — but at least this will give you an idea of the quality and quantity you’re getting for your $30. There certainly is a lot to try, and it gives you the chance to sample products from lots of different lines that you might not otherwise have been able to do (especially if they are not carried at your local Sephora or ULTA).

I’ll be interested to see what the next installment is; it should be out around April. While the contents of each bag do vary, my understanding is that within each quarter, they are more alike than different. So from January to March, each bag will contain samples drawn from merchandise on List A; from April to June, List B, etc. Hopefully the lists do not overlap!

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