Musings of a Muse

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite beauty gift selections for friends and family this year! What are your favorite gift ideas this season?

Philosophy’s Candy Cane Gift Set $35USD

Includes Candy Cane Body Wash, Lipgloss, and Body Scrub

Bath and Body Works Sweetest Softest Cuddle Pillow on Earth Gift Set $39.50USD

Includes a super soft sleep mask, a cuddly pillow, and Lavender Chamomile Pillow Mist

Victoria’s Secret Love Spell Must-Have Gift Box $39.50USD

Includes Hydrating Body Lotion, Exhilarating Body Wash, Refreshing Body Mist, Sumptuous Bath Bubbles, Eau de Toilette Spray, and Stimulating Body Scrub

DKNY Be Delicious Be Delightful Set $55USD

Includes Be Delicious Eau de Parfum Spray and Body Lotion

Mally Beauty Travel Kit $120USD

Includes Mirrored Eyeshadow Compact in Soft Pink Mirrored Eyeshadow Compact in Rich Coffee, Cream Blush, Mascara, Perfecting Powder, Pencil Shadow Wand, Lip Gloss, Lipstick, and Makeup Case

tarte 101: Intro to Beauty 4 Piece Discovery Kit $30USD

Includes Mini Cheek Stain, Double Ended Lipgloss, Glistening Loose Powder, 24/7 Lipsheer, and Makeup Bag

Philosophy A Few Good Men Shower Gel Trio With Gift Totes $35USD

Includes Full Sizes of Muffinman, Gingerbread Man, and Milkman Shower Gels with Matching Gift Totes

Philosophy “Ultimate Diet” Cinnamon Buns 3 piece Bath and Body Set $33USD

Includes Cinnamon Buns Shower Gel, Body Souffle, and Lipgloss

Philosophy Treat”Mint” Body Mask, Shaving Gel, and Scrub Collection $40USD

Includes Empowermint Body Mask, Shaving Gel, and Body Scrub

TINte Cosmetics Shimmer and Shine Boxed Set $26.50

Includes Lipcolor, Shimmer Powder, Lipshine, Applicators, and a Collectible Pink Box

CLEAN Ultimate Eau de Parfum and Body Lotion Set $59.50

Includes Clean EDP and Body Lotion

Philosophy The Gold Child $45USD (I get several of these sets every year and gift them to friends and family who I haven’t yet given them too! It’s such a value set and friends/family love it! If you’re honestly looking to spoil a special person you can’t get beat this price!)

Includes Three and One Shower Gels in all of the following scents: Vanilla Birthday Cake, Strawberry Ice Cream, Chocolate Frosting Cinnamon Buns, Senorita Magarita and Melon Daiquri

Philosophy Good for You Gift Set $150USD

Includes Full Size Three in One Shower Gels in all the following scents: Cinnamon Buns, Pumpkin Pie, Hot Cocoa, Raspberry Sorbert, Vanilla Birthday Cake, Lemon Custard, Mimosa, Margarita, Melon Daiquiri, Powders Sugar Cookie, Strawberry Milkshake, and Coconut Frosting

Philosophy Cookbook Value Set $38

Includes 3, Three in One Shower Gels in Spiced Apple Cider, Eggnog and Doube Rich Hot Cocoa plus three matching soaps!

Lush Legends Gift Box £99.50

Includes Dream Cream Body Lotion, Helping Hands Hand Cream, Fair Trade Foot Lotion, Ocean Salt Face & Body Scrub, Therapy Massage Bar plus Tin, American Cream Hair Conditioner, Karma and Honey I Washed The Kids Soap, Butterball , Tisty Tosty and Champagne Supernova Bath Ballistics, Ultimate Shine Shampoo Bar plus Tin, Soft Coeur Massage Bar, The Olive Branch and Happy Hippy Shower Gels, Blue Skies & Fluffy White Clouds and Sunnyside Bubble Bars, Ceridwen’s Cauldron Luxury Bath Melt , Buffy Body Butter plus Tin, Lip Service Lip Balm, Big Shampoo, Ice Blue Soap, Floating Island Luxury Bath Melt, and Shimmy Shimmy Glitter Bar

Lush Wish List Gift Box £49.95

Includes Champagne Snow Showers Solid Perfume , Silver Cloud Bath Ballistic , Christmas Party Bath Ballistic , Ruby Red Slippers Bubble Bar , Mr Butterball Bath Ballistic , Cocktail Soap , Bling Crosby Bubble Bar , Candy Cane Bubble Bar , Egg Snog Lip Balm , Green , Green Green Bath of Foam Bubble Bar , Christmas Angel Bath Ballistic , Green Party , Greenwash Soap , Angels Delight Soap , Twinkle Bath Ballistic

Lush Christmas Star Gift Set £19.95

Includes Twinkle Bath Ballistic , Flosty Gritter Bubble Bar , Jingle Spells Star Ballistic , Snow Fairy Shower Gel , Glitterbug Glitter Bar

Lush Anything but Ordinary Gift Set $36.95USD

Includes Avobath, Campagne Supernova, Big Blue, Haagen Bath, Honey Bee, and Sex Bomb Bath Ballistics

You might wish to visit the lovely Janice and Specktra Blog to check out your Muse’s latest entry

Today I covered the new Aube Jewerly Shower Eyes that was introduced for the Holiday Season! In celebration of the new color combo I hauled out some of my older palettes and made it a Aube Jewelry Shower Eye Affair!

Do click on over and have a peek!

Tell me if you’re lemming the new palette or if you have these already how you like them!

Your Muse’s ears are always at listening attention to hear your comments, woes, likes, hates, and must haves!

The Muse has a coven of little elves to help her locate exciting goodies for you! So you might want to give a special thanks to the Muse’s mate and reader, Betsy, for locating this gorgeous little fine!

It appears you won’t need to stalk Japanese websites or beg friends to get you Awake’s Limited Edition Stardom Holiday Collection because Betsy has kindly pointed out that your local Neiman Marcus has it available for a mere $50 (Betsy also kindly pointed out you can nab it with Free Shipping by using coupon code WINTER). Have we told Betsy how much we love her for this?

Awake Limited Edition Stardom Holiday Collection as seen on Neiman Marcus

This set includes Mascara, Dimensional Eye Color in Love Light and Angel Wing, Face Powder in Champagne Glow, Lip Gloss in Fairly Pink, and Nail Varnish in Magnetic Violet Sheer and let’s not forget it comes all wrapped up in a cute red awake box!

Want it?
Love it?
Go get it! Click!

Thanks again to Betsy for filling the Muse’s Christmas Wish List with dreams of the Awake Holiday Set!

Your Muse spends alot of time searching around for new and exciting make-up bits for you and she’s found something quite sweet this time!

The Duwop Pretty Mystic Palette as seen on Beauty.com:

This cute palette includes three eyeshadows, three lipcreams, a luminizer, and a blush!

DuWop makes some pretty high quality items and this little palette looks darling! I’m particularly loving the shades of eyeshadow in this compact!

The palette is only available from Beauty.com and exclusive to them!

It’s $32 a bit steep but still quite a nice array of goodies for the price!

I sure do wish it was around when the 20% Friends and Family Discount at Beauty.com was going on!

Want it?

Today I received my Bare Minerals bareGold Luxury Color Collection in the mail and I must say I’m pretty impressed! You can view my previous blog about this collection by clicking here.

The collection wow’ed me a bit more than the Bare Esentuals Pure Platinum Collection (Bare Minerals is the same company as Bare Esentuals if you were wondering). You can see my impression of the Pure Platinum Collection by clicking here.

For starters the collection comes in a far better box than the Platinum Collection. The box is highly reusable and perfect just to keep the entire collection together. Plus it has an awesome flip up mirror which is ideal for application. Don’t get me wrong the Platinum Collection had quite a nice box as well but this is just quite a deal better!

In my opinion the bareGold Collection is much more wearable for the Autumn than it will be for the winter and holiday season as the colors lean more towards browns and golds while the Pure Platinum Collection contains cooler colors that are better suited for the colder weather and the upcoming holiday season!

Like the Pure Platinum Collection the bareGold Collection comes with three brushes however the similarities end with the Full Flawless Face Brush. The other two brushes are completely different. Where as the Pure Platinum Collection comes with a crease brush and a shadow brush the bareGold Collection comes with a liner blending brush and an eye shaping brush!

I’m somewhat thankful that these came with different brushes as having duplicates is somewhat pointless!

The brushes are pretty ok quality so far that I see and no shedding as of yet! The liner blending brush is a bit pointless and I’d have prefered some sort of eyeshadow brush but I’ll find a use for it I’m sure. My favorite in the lot of three brushes would be the eye shaping brush. It’s pretty soft and it has a nice curve to it so I can fit it precisely into the crease of my eye quite nicely. It’ll serve well as a multitasking brush for my lid and crease area.

From Bottom to Top: Flawless Face Brush, Eye Shaping Brush and Heavenly Liner Blending Brush

The collection comes with a Mineral Veil in full size which was was missing from both the Classic Rock and Pure Platinum Collections. Mineral Veil is actually one product I do approve of in the BE line of foundations products so getting a full size Veil with this set is such a nice extra!

My favorite item in the set is most definately the Gold Gossamer powder. It’s shimmery and gorgeous and just perfect to use just about anywhere you want a bit of gold sparkle! Eyes, Face, Body, wherever you desire a bit of glittery gold you can apply this lovely Gossamer! This is a tiny bit more wearable than the Platinum Gossamer powder because it’s such a universal color that’ll work well with most all skin types!

Gold Gossamer

The glimmer this set comes with is called Golden Earth and is quite a gorgeous brown shade with golden sparkle! Upon viewing some of these colors you’ll see why I believe they are better suited for the Autumn than the Winter!

Golden Earth Glimmer

Gilded Taupe glimpse is is a beige color with specks of gold and quite lovely. I’ve noticed that the gold infused in all these colors is much more prominent than the crushed diamond in the Platinum Collection!

Gilded Taupe

Last but most definately not least in the shadow department is the Gold Mine Liner Shadow. This can be used a liner or an eyeshadow and it’s my favorite of the several eye products in this collection! It’s a deep mineral brown color with tons of gold! I’m so loving this and I’m envisioning several looks I can do with it!

Gold Miner Liner Shadow

The blush in this set I find much more flattering than Posh Blush which was included with the Platinum Collection! This blush is called Riches and it’s a shimmering rosy peach with quite a nice dose of gold!

Riches Blush

Finally another win for me is the lipcolor in this collection! The Platinum Collection included a muddy rose color that I’m not entirely in love with where as this collection included a brownish peach color with a bit of gold!

I’m most definately favoring this set over the Pure Platinum Collection plus it was cheaper!!!! The only thing missing from this set was a mascara and beautifully luminous lashes duo but the good news is I already have gold beautifully luminous lashes so I’m covered

As with most BE collection and eye sets this comes with great instructions for application! Anything that makes makeup easy is always a plus for me! It’s so nice to open a package and have some really helpful hints, tips, and general step by steps for applying what where and how! Sometimes colors can stump us all and it’s difficult to firgure out just where something should be on our eye area and BE always seems to simplify that stressful part of application!

This set would make an amazing gift and like I said the price is just too sweet to pass up!

I’m eager to get my Classic Rock Collection now and see how it is and make my final decision about which could be my favorite!

Do see my original post about this collection to nab it for yourself at a very nice price! Click!

Want it?
Love it?
Hate it?

Tell your Muse!