Please stand by: 2011 is Loading... ██████████████ 99% complete

I saw this status on Twitter - it was so funny, I had to use it as my title.2010 has been an epic year for me. I watched my baby get ready to spread her wings and apply to colleges all over North America. I took a long overdue vacation with the fam to Costa Rica (if you want to read a really funny account of the trip, my husband wrote about the journey here), and I put on my "Big Girl Underpants"

Back2Basics: Mineral Foundation Application Tips

Enkore Makeup does a demonstration video on applying mineral foundation. Well worth watching!By the way, if you like the Beauty Blender, we carry it here for one stop shopping!

Giveaway Alert! (closed)

A little while ago, I won a $25 gift certificate from Crystal for Apothica er, no, make that Apothica, SkinCareRx and SkinBotanica.com. 3 different sites, all one shopping cart. Very cool site where I can buy hard to find things and don't have to order from several places. You can buy the standards like Clarisonic, Bobbi Brown, or NARS, but also harder to find things like my favorite moisturizer,

Ru-oh...

I went to log in this morning to pull today's orders and marked yesterday's as shipped. Waaahhhh - I'm getting an invalid log in error! And of course, I have a programmer in India. He closed for the day about an hour before I discovered the problem. Now he won't see my Red Alert! message until I'm in bed tonight :( I keep telling myself I need to pay the big bucks and hire a local programmer.

Pursebuzz!

Have you seen this? Watch the whole thing for how to get a free gift :)You can also see Pursebuzz's full review of the Diamond Perfect Finish here.A couple of things of note: You must ask for the buki (and specify which type of hair) in the notes section of the order. It will automatically be included in your order - there's no need to add it to your cart.Offer valid through Friday, 12/10/10, or

Just for Fun (and because I haven't posted in so long)

My husband sent me these attorney jokes in an email. It was too long to put on Twitter, and since I haven't blogged in a million years, thought I'd give everyone a reason to chuckle on a cold Monday before Thanksgiving. Enjoy :)ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?WITNESS: He said , 'Where am I, Cathy?'ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?WITNESS: My name is

What's in YOUR Sephora Cart?

It's no secret that Sephora's Friends & Family sale begins tomorrow. Starting tomorrow (newly updated: it's working) NOW through November 3rd, you can receive 20% off your entire order with the code FF2010. Spend over $50, and get it shipped to you for free as well.So many of my beauty friends find that visiting Sephora does for them what chocolate does for me - it can cure even the worst

Anniversary Sale!!

Yay, the time is here! On Sept 18th, we're celebrating our 3rd year anniversary. The response on what kind of a sale you'd like best was pretty much split right down the middle between free shipping worldwide and a percentage off across the board. I couldn't decide, you couldn't decide, so I did both.For those who want Free Shipping Worldwide, I had to set a small minimum order size of $15.

Sale Announcement Coming...

Many of you may have seen the tweets about our anniversary sale. Though the announcement is up on our YouTube channel, I'm leaving some of the mystery since the sale doesn't happen just yet anyway.Check back tomorrow night for the blog post announcement, or make sure you're signed up for our newsletter, which will be sent tomorrow morning. It's only a one day sale, so make sure you subscribe to

Kitchen Cosmetics: OCC Lip Tars

I freely admit it: I'm a lipstick klutz. I rarely wear lipstick of any sort because I tend to talk it off faster than it took to apply it, so it's not even worth the effort. People frequently ask me why I don't have any lip products on my website, to which my usual response is something to the effect of "how can I sell something I don't wear?" I know too little about the stuff to make anything

August: The Good, The Bad, and the UGLY

Boy, has this been a tumultous month! I've been so flattered to have my products selected as monthly favorites, but the website is still not functioning. Starting with the good stuff...Professional makeup artist and blogger Crystal Strayer (who I personally feel is one of the prettiest people on the planet) lists her Favorite August Beauty Products today, and our Diamond Perfect Finish is the

Just a little programming problem....

I've just now discovered that my site has become wonky. If you're using Firefox or Google Chrome as your browser, you're probably have no idea what I'm talking about. If you're using Internet Explorer, you may well be visiting my blog because you can't figure out how to navigate the site, and the only category showing is the link to this blog. Waaaahhhh....I've just emailed my programmer to see

5 Hour Sale!

Since it's the first day of school for my daughter, I'm doing a 5 hour sale (which coincidentally ends the time she gets home from school). Now you guys know that I rarely do sales, and there will be a bigger one coming for our 3rd anniversary in September (see post below), but I just threw this one together at the last minute.From now until 6:00pm EST, order a full sized foundation, and your

Long Time, No Post

Boy, talk about the ultimate in procrastination - it's been over a month since I've posted even a peep! Not only have I been a busy bee, but more importantly, I can sum it up in two words: Writer's Block. I've got so much going on, I really haven't stopped to think about what to post. How do bloggers who post new content do this every single day? Even now, I logged on to write this post, and

IMATS 2010 Recap

We survived! Oh my, was that an experience to never be forgotten. I've been to IMATS before as an attendee, and I've never seen it (or any other makeup show) so dang crowded! The line to get in on Saturday for those who had already bought their tickets in advance was out the door, and from what I understand, it took hours to get through the line and into the show. The staff even had to shut

OMG, D-Day is here!

I've been prepping for nearly 3 months for this weekend. IMATS is finally here! I cannot even begin to describe how I've been feeling the last 48 hours. I sway from extremely excited to petrified and near meltdown almost minute by minute. The car is loaded, and I'm as ready as I'm ever going to get. For those of you who are attending this show (which, by the way, is the largest attended IMATS

MIA Updates

Wow, it's been an awful long time since I last posted - even for me! I've been consumed with "all IMATS, all the time", ha ha. I haven't done a post in months not because I couldn't think of what to write (well, yeah, that too), but because I've been a very busy little bee. I'm afraid to count, but I've packed somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 jars of product in prep for this internationally

'Nuff Said

OK, it's a little blurry, but you get the idea. Need I say more? Click on the picture to be taken to the full exhibitor list. Hope to see you there!

Putting On Our "Big Girl" Pants

Everyone who reads this blog knows I attend every type of makeup and suppliers show I can possibly find. I've attended The Makeup Show, Cosmoprof, IMATS, and countless supplier's conventions.Lawd, have mercy. I'm doing more than attending a show.I'm going to be exhibiting at IMATS in Los Angeles! For those of you unfamiliar with IMATS, it stands for the International Make-up Artist Show, and is

The Case of the Missing Jars Continues...

My MIA new packaging has been found! ...in China. Apparently, several hundred boxes didn't make it to the boat in time before the Chinese New Year. Is anyone like me, and visualizes boxes literally running after a departing boat like one would for a bus, saying "WAIT! Wait for us!!"?So... I have no idea when they'll get here. I did get my hands on some 20 gram black lidded jars and had my

New Packaging :)

LOOK - twisty sifters! My new packaging finally arrived - WOO HOO :)Too bad it's only part of what I ordered. I've been working on this project for the better part of 6 months, and was soo excited when I heard that they had finally made it from the slowest boat from China. Only one leeetle problem: I ordered the salt & pepper style sifters for both my 20 gram and 30 gram jars, both with the black

The Makeup Show 2010: There's a Theme Here...

I went to this year's Makeup Show with 4 goals in mind: Learn. Talk. See. Try.Ok, make that 5 things in mind: Learn, Talk, See, Try, BUY. I realize that the combination of both my ancient age and having my own line, I have tunnel vision. I went to learn what's hot in the industry, learn what's new and upcoming, learn what the pros are looking for, and learn new techniques and applicataions. The

Perricone Winner!

To keep things nice and fair, I didn't pick the winner for the Perricone MD High Potency Eye Lift. Twitter did. Everybody's names went on a list, those that had multiple entries for tweeting about the giveaway or posting on our Facebook Fan Page had their names listed again after everyone's first entry was listed. Then I asked on Twitter for anyone who wasn't entered in the drawing to give me a

Giveaway Ends This Week - Enter to Win Perricone MD High Potency Eye Lift Cream!

Wouldn't you love to have an eye serum that really works well? How about one worth $95 for FREE?Well then, what are you waiting for? Enter the drawing for a free bottle of Perricone MD's High Potency Eye Lift Cream before time runs out.The rules are simple:Comment on my post "My Peepers Love This" about what eye serums you've tried;Get an extra entry for posting a link to the Peepers post on

Countdown To: The Makeup Show LA 2010

There's only less than two weeks left until The Makeup Show begins in LA! I'm really looking forward to this year's show - more so than last year, where I was deathly afraid of speaking on the blogger's panel and sounding like a complete and utter idiot (which fortunately, I pulled off ok - check out how it went last year on this post).I'll be attending a special blogger's preview the day prior

What's YOUR Valentine Tradition?

When I was single, there were two holidays I dreaded: New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day. Those just always seemed to me to be the two days that you were meant to spend the evening with someone you were deeply in love with, and it seemed that was exactly what everyone but me did. The New Year's Eve problem was one easily solved: I flew to Vegas about 7pm (it's less than an hour's flight for me),

My Peepers Love This: High Potency Eye Lift

There are two things about my body that I really, really don't like. Everything below my waist (if I could walk behind a counter for the rest of my life, I'd be one happy camper), and my eyes that are in serious need of plastic surgery. I've always struggled with hooded eyelids, but after several anniversaries of my 21st birthday, I've learned to live with those. I just drool at the gals who can

Spin-off on Book Of Colors (aka Tower of Terror)

I love watching Koren of EnKore Makeup's videos on YouTube. Not only for his makeup applications, but he comes up with some great do-it-yourself projects (where was he when I was a Girl Scout leader in need of ideas??). The last few days, he's done a series of videos on how to make your own Book of Colors (inspired by Urban Decay's Book of Shadows). While watching them (you can see them on

Houston, we have a problem...

I've discovered one other glitch that happened while I was away. Not only am I now in search of wayward jars, but the postal service had a rate increase. Ordinarily, that's no big deal, but they renamed the international shipping options. As a result, international customers are currently seeing only Priority Mail as their only shipping choice. I've emailed my programmer to fix the bug the new

Back Home Again

Amazing how you can spend 10 days getting some R&R, and quickly have it undone all in merely one day. We got back into town late last night, and I've completed 18 loads of laundry, packed 4 bazillion orders, and even accomplished the grocery shopping!There is only one leeeetle snag.... all but 2 orders have will be shipped out first thing tomorrow. I can't pack the remaining 2 orders because I'm

Overwhelmed, Grateful and Thankful!

I'm still out of town enjoying my Costa Rican vacation, where my internet connection is spotty at best, the mosquitos are aplenty, and the scenery is gorgeous - but I'd do a proper blog post on that later.While I DO have a connection, I wanted to express my gratitude to so many who have listed my products as their Top Picks for 2009. Wanting to keep this brief to get it written before I lose my