Sharond here! I grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota.  In the 1900’s through 1970’s, and even now, farm chemicals were everywhere and considered safe causing no problems to humans or animals. We would spray for flies, run our hands through bags of fertilizer or insecticide while spreading it evenly in the spreader and didn’t give it a second thought.  A couple of great part time job for youth was being the flagger for the crop dusters or roaging corn, both meaning we were standing in clouds of farm chemicals.  Needless to say, cancer, Lou Gehrigs, MS and other diseases has ravaged every family in our community.  I moved away as soon as I graduated from high school, however all five of the children in our family did end up with lungs that are damaged, even though none ever smoked.

Because of my knowledge and fear of chemicals and seeing first hand how cruel and silent they can be, looking for products that are as free of chemicals and not tested on animals are very important to me.  Recently I was introduced to a brand I had never heard of, Kumaara.  I read everything on their website which explains that transformative power of Kumaara comes from a unique marriage of nature and science. Their family of skincare formulas binds the beautifying effects of nature’s botanicals and matches them with the power of scientific innovation.  15 such components are in Kumaara products and are credited for creating a youthful glow.  These products are Organic berries, hibiscus seed extract, Dermaxyl, Matrixyl 3000, red seaweed extract, Actiflow, Everseryl and Syn-Ake to name a few.  So far everything looked good to me.  The site also explains what each of these ingredients are known to correct.  The idea of my skin being protected from free radicals, the texture, density, firmness and elasticity improved creating skin that looks and feels years younger was exactly what I was looking for and needed.

I tested the Kumaara Luminizing Eye Treatment.  The product comes in a stunning black and gold half ounce jar filled with a luscious thick white cream that did not have much of a scent.  Kumaara claims this product will brighten and de-puff delicate under-eye skin.  Actiflow and Haloxyl reduce under-eye circles while Eyerseryl fights puffiness.  Iridescent luminizers dramatically illuminates the eye area with a youthful glow and soothes irritation and calms the skin.

The directions tell you to put a small amount of this treatment under the eye.  Kumaara recommends a 60 day trial to see the full benefit of their eye brightening system.  I noticed a significant difference in less than one week.  I met a friend today for lunch and the first thing out of her mouth was “What concealer are you using?”  I told her that I wasn’t wearing any and filled her in on this wonderful new eye treatment.  I have been following the directions that came with the product which recommends this is for under the eye only, not above.  You should use your ring finger and lightly pat the cream on before using any other products on your face.  

Sharond here! People who follow this site know that I am very fond of Cat Cosmetics and even list her Six Kitten palette as one of my favorite items on my profile page.

I used to go home for lunch everyday for years since I could not miss a single episode of the soap opera, One Life to Live. Lindsey, played by Catherine (Cat) Hickland, was one of the most beautiful, luminous women I had ever seen.  I used to read Cat’s Product Queen column in a soap opera magazine where she would review cosmetic products and was impressed at her honesty. In one of her articles, Cat mentioned she had developed her own makeup line since she could not find products of the quality she wanted and needed. She had been a makeup artist before turning to acting, and is still doing her own makeup before going on camera, so I felt her background what was needed to develop high quality cosmetics.  I was so impressed with Catcosmetics.com’s selection and information about the products that I had to put my first huge order on a credit card!  Cat’s site also had a wonderful chat where people could offer all sorts of cosmetic advice.  One day we got an e-notice that Cat was discontinuing her chat area and advised us to check out Megsmakeup.com for honest, straight forward reviews on drug store to high end makeup plus other great makeup ideas and skin care information.  Impressed again, I signed up with Megsmakeup.com immediately and have been voicing my opinion ever since.

Today I want to tell you about a fairly new item on the Catcosmetic.com website called Hello, Gorgeous!  This six well glossy black case is filled with some of Cat’s most popular items along with a good quality brush and a large mirror.  The first two wells have my favorite blush and bronzer, Whiskers and Catnip, which work with any skin tone.  The remaining 4 wells are filled with Cat’s eye shadows, a formula which is soft, silky and long lasting.  Start with Purity, a yellow based beige tinted base shadow which would be great for a matte even wash of color from lash to brow.  Highlight your brow bone and lid with Treasure, a soft pinkish beige shimmer shadow. Play with the antique shimmery bronze colored Peace, using it to darken your contours and as a great way to smoke your eyes or dry line. I blended Treasure with all the eye shadows in the kit with amazing results. Last but not least is Joy, a dark matte brown with just a small hint of shimmer.  Again, this is great to dry line, smoke and mix with any of the other colors to make new ones.  Cat’s Hello, Gorgeous! palette has it all on one nifty package.

We got a little thrown off with the holiday so Katie is bringing you Saurdays at Sephora on Sunday! Hope your 4th was wonderful! Love, Meg

Kate here! I've been there and I know it's hard to do.  I've watched countless early 90210 episodes and I know that Kelly and Donna were 'thin by all meanings of the word'.  But, my friends, it's 2009 and it's time to make a clean break, get sober, and put the tweezers down!  What starts as a "simple" pluck of a single stray transforms into Jackson Pollock random pop art.  And our eyebrows are the sufferers for it!  Thicker (or thick!) brows have been back for a while and personally, I really don't think they ever go out of style (Hello, Audrey Hepburn!)  
 
I bring you photographic evidence to show you that I learned the hard way--but luckily before it was too late.  Above and right you see my senior picture (age 17) in the fall of 2003.  Excuse the bad eyeliner and acrylic nails but notice just how thin and uneven and unnatural my eyebrows were! I had a sickness and I didn't know what a real eyebrow should look at.  About two years later, while I was working in a small cosmetics boutique in Oxford, Mississippi, the BrowGal on hand gave me an intervention!  She told me STOP!  Only pluck the ones that are really stray! And never from above the brow!  Just fill in with a little powder/pomade/gel if you please!  As you can see by July of 2008 I had truly recovered - and before it was too late.  It never is good when you have to DRAW on your eyebrows later in life.  They never look real!
 
- Hold a pencil or straight age beside your nose and straight up perpendicular to the inner corner of your eye.  Your brow should begin outside of this line and you can pluck any and all unibrow wannabes in between!  
- Extend your pencil from the outer corner of your eyes at a 45 degree angle.  Your brows should stop inside this line, so you don't want them drawn or grown out to your temples.  That's weird!
- If your brow hairs are particularly long, comb them all up with a brow comb or a clean toothbrush sprayed with a little hairspray.  Only trim the ones that go above your "horizon" line.
 
My brows are actually a little bit sparse towards the center so I do fill them in a bit every day.  Below are a few of my favorite brow products for you to pick and choose!

Goddess Granny here: I LOVE it when anyone dares to imply that it's my "body"  they are interested in and not my mind...
I know, I know, all my sistas' in feminism will be pounding the table but hey, you simply have to realize that sometimes the "truth" is REALLY not what we want to hear after all so go ahead and smother me with cheesy compliments, ply me with umbrella drinks and whisper something that will make me squrim. It's the "fantasy" that sells people!

If you can also toss in a hefty dose of humor backed up with a solid set of skills and a proven track record of quality,I want YOU TOO! 

How could you NOT fall in "lust" in a company whose "philosophy" is non-existant, (don't you hate those stuffy self-serving "mission statements?) who makes it crystal clear that they are funny and original,and whose website is one of THE coolest,most well-designed and entertaining lil' bites of delight on the web?Oh and....they make no bones about the fact that they also "only want you for your body!"

Anatomicals had me at first click...I promise you will love this site so be prepared to visit a while!:

"...keep this tightening gel handy,after all,there's only one place for bags in this world: under the arms of a yummy Beverly Hills porter!"

Now don't you know Miz Meg herself would absoultely agree with this statement but "No Old Bags Allowed" is the name of Anatomicals FABULOUS eye gel so take this little blue tube very seriously even if it laughs at itself? With orange flower water,my beloved arinca, and a dose of good ol' witch hazel, this cool and totally non-irritating clear-gel can make anyone's "old bags" morph into converted Vuitton's in minutes!

Tantejoan here, subbing for our Drugstore Deals Diva, Gigi.  Today I'd like to tell you about a remedy for a disease you may not know you have: Blepharitis.  Sounds funny, doesn't it?  When my ophthalmologist told me, years ago, that I had it, I blurted, "You're making that up, aren't you?"  It just sounds so bogus, like Movie Star Disease, that killer that polished off Ali McGraw in "Love Story."  But blepharitis is real, and actually a very common ailment suffered by girls and women.  It is a disease of the tiny oil glands at the base of the eyelashes, called blephs, causing inflammation, swelling and redness that many women assume is pinkeye.  Blepharitis is easily treated, and once relieved, it is almost 100% preventable.

What causes it?  Improper or incomplete removal of eye makeup is the primary cause of blepharitis, and careful cleansing of the residue from mascara and eyeliner is the remedy.  There are two easy ways to ensure that all makeup is cleaned, both easily available at your local drugstore.

The First: make a solution of ten drops of baby shampoo in a squeeze bottle filled with 3 ounces of water.  Shake and then drop onto the end of a cotton swab and scrub the base of each eyelid.  Use a new swab for each eye.  You will be surprised at how much product is still left on your lashes, and how easily this final step will ward off future infections.

The Second Method: especially well-suited for those who travel or do new make-ups on the fly at the end of your office day, is a fantastic product called Eye-Scrub.  Packaged in boxes of 30 individually-wrapped, sterile, single-use packets, Eye-Scrub removes all of your eye makeup in one refreshing step, and enables you to scrub away those pesky infection-causing remnants of mascara or eyelash glue.  They are also wonderful for getting through airport security checks without taking up precious space in those little zip-lock baggies -- space needed for your creams and lotions.  Tiny and spill-proof, several thin little packets can slip into even the tiniest of evening bags for ladies room clean-ups, too.  I find them useful at weddings, when I tear up before the organ begins to play.

Tantejoan here! If you were to wake me up in the middle of the night, shine a strong light in my face and demand that I confess the one beauty product I could never do without, I’d probably say mascara.  I love my entire arsenal of lip colors, foundations, shadows, blushes and what-have-yous, but the truth is that if I had to limit myself to one of each, I could do it.  Give up my wardrobe of mascaras?  I break into a cold sweat even thinking about it.  My bathroom shelf has a 12-slot Lucite holder dedicated to housing my Wands of Many Colors, and that’s not even all of my collection. 

I have blacks.  And Extreme Blacks.  And browns, which I like next to my blue, blue eyes.  And burgundy, which I also like near my blue, blue -- well, you get the picture.  I have several of those formulas that wrap each lash into little tubes that are supposed to drop off at the mere hint of water.  Don’t like ‘em, but I still buy them each time another company comes out with a version in the hope that I will like theirs.  I have cake mascara, a true throwback to the days when I used to sit in my eldest sister’s bedroom and watch her spit -- that’s right, spit -- on her Maybelline cake and work at her lashes with a brush the size of a gnat.  When you bear in mind the health advisory that recommends replacing mascaras every three months, you can appreciate that mine is a habit more insidious and expensive than gambling or drugs.  In fact, I’m looking for a support group, so I hope that the similarly addicted among you will step forward. 

Some of my favorite mascaras are luxurious department store brands, including the two that I pay tribute to on my profile page, Yves St. Laurent and Givenchy, but a recent piece here on the new Maybelline Stilletto (which does not meet my, or in fact many of my sisters’, standards) reminded me of one of my oldest and best drugstore favorites, Max Factor’s 2000 Calorie Mascara.  It’s been around forever, and at under $8 it’s a real steal.  Now, in the first real breakthrough in Max Factor’s take on a winning formulation -- their innovations having previously been confined to the shape of the brush -- Max has come out with a truly new concept.... well, new for them. 

Max Factor 2000 Calorie Extreme Lash Plumper Mascara will look familiar to those who have tried Cover Girl’s Lash Blast.  Both have big, big plastic brushes and both promise a “big lash look.”  While I’m not convinced that a brush the size of a helicopter blade is necessarily an advantage when working on objects as delicate as eyelashes, this Plumper’s brush bristles are significantly shorter than the Cover Girl version.  This to me is an advantage, giving the user more control. The patented Fat Wrap Brush is designed to grab every single lash, even the little ones, and the patented Fat Wrap formula works with the Fat Wrap Brush as it wraps around each and every lash for an “extreme, voluptuous effect.”  The shorter bristles allow me to get in closer to the base of my lashes and wiggle my way into a truly lush lash. And the web site offers two intriguing hints for getting that Fat effect all the way up:  a) blink against the brush, and b)  take a piece of card stock or a business card and hold it against your lid, then stroke the product onto your lashes against the card. 

This is really hard-core, ladies, but it worked for me, with no clumping or smudging.  And while I’m not a fan of waterproof mascara, and so have not tested that, I have been caught in the rain while wearing the standard version, and can testify it did not run.

Tantejoan  here, filling in for our Drugstore Deals Diva, Gigi.  In her honor, I have decided to feature the item that has revolutionized my make-up routine: Divaderme Brow Extender.  Now, you may think "revolutionize" is an extreme word to employ for a mere eyebrow cosmetic.  If so, you are obviously among the happy many who wake every day possessed of a luxuriant growth of hair above your eyes.  Perhaps you even lament their abundance, and have to tame or trim them.  In that case, you can skip right on down to the next article, because this one will be of no possible interest to you.

Now that we have the room to ourselves, I am happy to share with all my sisters a product that can allow you to go forth into the world with eyebrows to flaunt, not hide.  Women who have spent endless time and money searching for that perfect eyebrow pencil, that transformative gel, that $178 elixir that would solve all their eyebrow woes in only 6 to 12 weeks!  Women who suffer from sparse eyebrows, whether from over-plucking or heredity, or whose eyebrow color is so fair as to be virtually invisible, know what a chore it can be to start every day drawing on the frame for their eyes.  I know I did, and it became an increasingly daunting task.  I tried brow pencils, brow gels, neutral eye shadows -- anything to give some substance to my wispy, thin, inadequate brows.  Even the most successful of these efforts was only half-successful at most.  If the pencil was the right shade it offered no volume.  When the gel swept my hairs upward in a semblance of fullness the result was still thin and made me look permanently surprised.  The shadows worked well at first, but had no staying power, wearing off as the day progresses.  I despaired.  Until last month.

Ladies, I offer you relief, and the delivery, not just the promise, of eyebrows in 1 second.  Well, 2 seconds, tops.

Katie here! Happy Saturdays at Sephora column!  I feel unendingly guilty about my non-dependable-ness of late.  Is a part-time retail working, full-time MBA student's busy life excuse enough? It doesn't seem like it is...but especially these days, studying for finals - it consumes me!  Speaking of finals, I have two on Monday, and they may be the death of me:  Finance at 7:30am and Economics at 7:30pm!  I feel like these two subjects have some inherint irony in them - given the macroeconomic situation of the world these days - bankrupt Chrysler, overwhelming consumer debt, even more overwhelming trillion dollar's worth of national deficit.  Bleak. Bleak. Bleak.  On the bright side, if you happen to have the cash lying around...it's a great time to pick up real estate, take out student loans (a la yours truly), or refinance your mortgage at super low rates!  All of those are what we like to think of as long-term investments.

In keeping with that theme, I want to propose a long-term investment to your costmetic case - which comes to you in the form of the ever-so chic blue and silver compacts of a Christian Dior 5-Colour Eyeshadow compacts.  At $56, they make you shudder at first glance.  But at $11.20 per shadow colour, the blow is softened a little bit.  They're full-sized shadows and pressed in really tight - so I think you can use them for months and months before making a dent into one of the colors.

Gigi Here! Hold your breath—skin care reviews of popular brands are coming.  Under our system of law, every item is entitled to a fair trial by a jury of its users.  Okay, the first one is  . . . wait—sorry, I’m keeping it secret for the time being, but I like it and hope you will as well.
 
When it comes to mascara, I am particular.  No, I am very demanding, brutally and harshly critical.  As I type this, I recall kate2004rock’s story of wearing a blue vinyl skirt many years ago and being insulted about her hair on the school bus.  Kate, we’ve all been there.  My story is similar.  I was a majorette beginning in junior high school and took a long time to prepare myself for a popular parade.  The boy on whom I had a crush would probably be there.  Would he notice me?  Would he say anything?  I vividly recall marching down the street, with my hair behaving for one of the few times in life.  I looked good.  Better yet, I didn’t hit myself in the head with the baton for once!  He was there.  He screamed, “Hey, spider eyes—over here!”
 
I learned two lessons from that, one encouraging and one humiliating:  He noticed me and I was reassured, in his own childish way, that he was smitten, as was I.  And I realized that spending half an hour layering mascara did not make me attractive but, rather, freakish.  Since that day, I strive to find a product which will enhance my sparse lashes in the most natural way.

Meg here! So there are lots of perks of running megsmakeup.com! Hearing all of your humor and brilliance is completely the best reason. Hands down! After that there's a whole other list of reasons. One of them is finding out about new lines. The company Skinn was totally new to me until they sent some samples of their Wet Lips Super Shine Gloss As you can see from the reviews, everyone loved them.

I was so excited when I went to the mail and saw that Skinn had sent us their Luxe Waterproof Eyeliner! I looked over the materials and read how it had shea butter and peptides, ingrediants to make for a smooth application and not crease into dry skinn

I went with the deep black and decided this was a great In My Purse Cosmetic case item! No sharpener needed. I usually hate those twist up tubes-I inadvertantly always end up breaking them and the product is wasted! This is a much higher quality twist up then some of my drugstore deal trys and the price is so reasonable! $9.50 for a top quality liner! YAY!

I used it last night and this morning (Bad Meg!! Didn't wash her face) It's still in place. It also doesn't pull, just glides on really smoothly.
After working for 20 years at big cosmetic companies, Skinn's founder, Dmitri James was really frustrated. This, in his own words, is pretty interesting...