Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral SPF 30

The Good:
A finely milled powder with a slight yellow tone does double duty by giving the face a smooth finish while providing SPF 30 sun protection. It solves the problem for those of us who dislike starting our makeup with a heavy sunscreen cream, it allows us to re-apply and touch up without messing up our makeup. It's also very portable: the powder is housed inside the brush, so you you can take it with you everywhere.

The Bad:
Execution. The powder is sometimes a it reluctant to emerge from the brush. You need to tap several times and hope for the best. Other times there's a fine cloud of powder that gets everywhere. It's hard to tell how much you've actually applied and if everything is covered. Also, the brush sheds quite a bit.


The Verdict:
Despite the mechanic faults, the product itself performs great. It matches my skin and doesn't require too much buffing to look natural. I've been using it the last couple of weeks, applying to face and cleavage and have managed to completely avoid getting a tan.

Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral SPF 30 ($30) is available from Sephora, Ulta and beauty.com which is where I bought mine. There's also an SPF 45 version for those who need heavier protection.

Edward Bess Lipstick And Lipgloss

I met Edward Bess at the counter carrying his name in Bergdorf Goodman. I was immediately taken with him, even before I got to test the makeup products. Truth be told, I wanted to take him home with me so he could go over my makeup cabinet, my wardrobe and shoes, edit everything and give me a makeover. Then we would have watched a movie, maybe The Philadelphia Story, sighed over Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart and attempted to guess the exact shade of Katharine Hepburn's red lipstick.

But enough with this fantasy.

Edward Bess is a talented young beauty entrepreneur, blessed with exquisite taste and eye for details, whose makeup line is sold exclusively at Bergdorf Goodman (and on his own web site). That should tell you something about the quality and luxurious feel of the products. The eye shadows deserve a separate post (once I decide I really need more perfect shimmery taupes) and I haven't tried the bronzer and face highlighter (yet), so today is all about the lip colors.

Testing the Ultra Slick lipsticks ($29) and Deep Shine glosses ($28) was the biggest thrill, but also the greatest disappointment. While the products are absolutely amazing- rich and beautiful pigments, perfect texture and superb lasting power, the current color range (10 lipsticks, 5 glosses) just doesn't work for me. The "perfect reds" are not my reds- on my lips they both show with a disturbing shrill pink tone, and the rest are mostly way too light (resulting in a chalky look) or too brown. The best the SA and I managed to get was by layering the Dark Blossom gloss over the Deep Lust lipstick, which looked like a neutral milky brown rose, but it lacked something to make my face come alive.

On someone else with less pigmented lips and a completely different complexion, these colors would be amazing. I suspect blondes and redheads in particular would be thrilled with Edward Bess' creations. But there's good news for the rest of us: According to the SA, this fall will see some additional colors that include purple/berry tones. I can't wait.

Photo at the top is of the entire Edward Bess lip wardrobe ($400) which comes exquisitely packaged in the sleek black box. Please take note that the tiny color swatches on Edward's website (edwardbess.com) are NOT true to life. Everything is actualy a shade or two lighter.

For more on Edward Bess and his products, I highly recommend this post by Annie of Blogdorf Goodman. Reading the comments there is also quite amusing, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

Four Things That Make No Sense

Hilary Duff's Footwear:

Drew Barrymore's makeup:

Megan Fox's hair:

Madonna's denim tuxedo:

Photos: I'm Not Obsessed, Faded Youth Blog and The Superficial