Gleam is loaded with good-for-you ingredients like olive oil, jojoba seed oil, green tea and white tea extracts, and aloe extracts. I wouldn’t use it as a straight-forward body lotion, but it feels nice on the skin. Bonus: it smells of vanilla cake, but not in that cloying, nauseating way; you have to really put your nose to your skin to smell it. The scent is light and subtle, just like the shimmer.

Gleam is available in four shades. Available for $40 per tube at GleambyMelanieMills.com

I love tinted lip balms, but it is hard to find the perfect tinted balm.  Most of the time, they have that weird lipstick taste and ultimately end up drying out your lips as much as a regular lipstick.  MAC, Fresh, Tarte, and Smashbox come to mind as disappointments.

Burt’s Bees new tinted lip balm is the dream balm.  A light, sheer touch of color in a protective, moisturizing lip balm.  Loaded with goodies like shea butter, coconut oil, soybean oil, olive oil, and rosemary extract, this actually feels like lip balm.  Available in six colors, Red Dahlia is my favorite.  The darkest shade in the collection, it is the perfect dark red for daytime.  But at only $7 each, you may just want to buy every shade.

Fresh Minerals – This line of mineral makeup is 100% natural – fragrance-free, talc-free, oil-free.  Yeah, I know, mineral makeup is like a dime a dozen nowadays.  What sets Fresh Minerals apart is their packaging.  Those loose minerals can be a nightmare to deal with.  If it is not kept perfectly level, you are asking for disaster, even with the lid on tight.  Rather than just a shaker top, Fresh Minerals has a second lid inside that snaps over the shaker part, meaning that even travel won’t mess these powders.

Christopher Drummond Beauty - Created by a bi-racial male model-turned-makeup artist, Christopher Drummond’s full line of cosmetics is all-natural, eco-friendly,and vegan, and is designed to work with any skin color. Many items contain essential oils like rose, lavender, geranium, acai, orange, vanilla, apricot kernel, lime, and clove bud. Sounds good enough to eat. Stand out product that we tried was the radiance booster, a soft powder highlighter that adds subtle glow without shimmer or glitter.

Source Toothbrush - That’s right, a toothbrush. The ergonomic handle is made of recycled currency, flax, or wood, and the large brush head is replaceable. So don’t buy a new toothbrush every few months, just replace the head. You will save money and less plastic is used.

Cruella De Vil from 101 Dalmatians includes warm, dramatic shades like a shimmery orange eyeshadow.  My favorite is Heartless, the most perfect red lipstick.

With Evil Queen from Snow White, you get a selection of pinked-up purples, like the Vainglorious eyeshadow, a shimmery plum-pink with warm undertones, and Sinister lipstick to match.

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty takes those purples to deeper depths, like My Dark Magic, a mineralized eyeshadow of purple shimmer over a sheer black base.  Wrong Spell lipgloss and Dark Deed lipstick bring deep, dark plum shades to your lips.  Three nail lacquers round out the collection, in shimmering shades with color-shifting shimmer.

Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog is the only male bad guy in the bunch.  As such, his collection is more neutral and unisex, with items like a pocket mirror and liquid powder.  I do love the Resort Life lip gelee, a pinky-nude base loaded with pink, gold, and silver micro-shimmer.

And of course, no special MAC collection would be complete without special packaging.  Each item in the Venomous Villains is decorated with the visage of their inspirational evil-doer.

Unii cosmetics has come up with something to completely change the way you palette. Their palette does not have predetermined slots. Instead, the Unii palette is completely empty, allowing you to fit in whatever size makeup pans your heart desires. Even square pans, or the elusive rectangular pan, fit in Unii with ease.

The creators of Unii have literally thought of everything to make this product one of the most innovative I have ever seen.

UniiCosmetics.com

By “pinking up” the plums, it takes the color out of a smoky winter look and into something fresher. An eyeshadow quad with a blackened plum, a soft pink, and shades in between. An ombre blush that seamlessly hits a whole variety of shades without you ever noticing. Lipsticks that go on slightly sheer and warm up the lips. Purple lip glass that goes on nearly clear – just a kiss of color and a touch of shimmer.

Huge Lips Skinny Hips Lipgloss – From Purple Labs NYC, HLSH has everything you could want in a lip gloss – plus some stuff you never realized you missed! The “huge lips” come from vitamin B3 to plump your lips without the sting or burn, and the “skinny hips” comes from Hoodia extract, a natural appetite suppressant. The formula is light, creamy, and non-tacky – perfect for smooching away. Our favorite shade: Kitty Poledancer, a wonderfully neutral pink with just a hint of shimmer.

Sexy Smile – If your lips don’t need any more plumping, try Sexy Smile. This double duty gloss contains a long lasting blue-based gloss on one side (to avoid making teeth look unnaturally yellow). The other side contains a breath-freshening mild tooth whitener. Drink that red wine with confidence!

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Perfume – If you can’t get away to France, smell like it, with APOM fragrance from Maison Francis Kurkdjian. At once sensuous and light, this Oriental whiff combines orange flower, cedar wood, and ylang ylang flower. It will have him going “oh la la!”

Scandle – Finish the evening off with a Scandle. These wonderfully fragrant soy candles double as body oil. The wax burns two degrees higher than normal body temp, and is formulated with soy, shea, jojoba, and vitamin E. Pour a little bit for a moisturizing and fragrant massage – just remember to extinguish the flame first!

Dr. Perricone High Potency Eye Lift – Perfect for the morning after a night full of champagne and chocolates, High Potency Eye Lift has Perricone’s patented DMAE as well as phospholipids and pycnogenol to increase collagen, reduce dark circles, hydrate, reduce the appearance of wrinkles, and fights the loss of skin elasticity.

1C Foundation: The lightest cool-tone loose foundation (other than the gothic pallor shade), I really love this product. I almost never wear foundation because even the lightest mineral powder feels heavy and unnatural on my skin. This one did not. I did not feel like I was wearing any makeup at all. It didn’t look like I was wearing makeup either. It did a very good job fighting shine, too. I am very, very impressed by this product.

Sheer Perfection Concealer: On the other side of the spectrum, I hated this product. It is basically a translucent powder. I found it to be dry on my skin, a bit chalky, and it offered no coverage at all. Definitely a miss for me.

Youth Dew Luminizer: This pale pink shimmery highlighter is a fun product – lightweight, virtually colorless, lots of shimmer. It is somewhere between a soft glow and stripper glitter.

Larenim is available for purchase at Larenim.com and Amazon.com

Young Punk – this baked mineral eye shadow has a black base and tons of purple shimmer and glitter. The black goes on very sheer, and the shimmer is quite pigmented. It offers an instant smoky eye without being too goth or Halloweeny. Unlike NARS’s similar Night eye shadows, the black never overpowers the shimmer.

Volcanic Ash Exfoliator – this gentle foaming exfoliator is certainly black. It doesn’t stain the skin though. It has a strange smell that I can’t quite place. The sugar crystals dissolve as you massage it in, and it rinses clean without drying. I like it enough to finish off the bottle, but it is not my favorite cleanser. I just don’t feel as clean as I could be.

Glimmerglass in Blackfire- This sheer black gloss with tons of purple micro glitter. It is surprisingly flattering, a sheer plum shade, but watch out, as the gloss can gather around the edges of your lips, which darken and make it look like you are wearing liner 3 shades darker than you should.

I was less impressed with the Dsquared collection. The blue sparkly Greasepaint Stick is too thick to easily use as a liner; too hard to use as a shadow. The Fuchsia Fix lip conditioner – while a little bright for my pale complexion, was a lot nicer than I remember the lip conditioners being. Not my favorite balm, but it doesn’t dry out my lips like the old formula did. And the “Blood Red” lipstick from the collection was far more fuchsia than red.

Organic, high-quality, eco-aware products that cost less than typical drugstore products – yup, it’s a reality, and it is called EOS. Evolution of Smooth.

Currently the EOS line consists of only two products, but they have obviously put a lot of attention into each. The Ultra-Rich Shave Cream is loaded with aloe, shea butter, and vitamins to offer a moisturizing shave. The product applies more like a lotion than a typical shave cream, so don’t expect a thick coat of suds. But you get a close, easy shave. The company also promises that the shave cream can be used on dry skin as well as wet. Best of all, the shave cream comes in a recyclable, soft-touch plastic bottle with a one-touch pump top. It is easy to use and won’t rust out in the shower – the most important feature for me.

The 95% organic, 100% natural lip balm is loaded with vitamin E and shea butter, and gives long-lasting moisture and feels light on the lips. Don’t let the boy in your life use it: it’s non-colored, non-glossy coverage means you may never get it back. EOS comes in a half-dozen flavors, and two shapes: a traditional stick, and a bulbous sphere. I love the sphere because it is so different and applies easily. I also love that EOS balms don’t come in pots, so you don’t have to stick your grubby little fingers in. Both balm styles come in the same soft-touch packaging.

Shave cream retails for $4.99. Lip balms retail for $3.99. To purchase, visit the EOS store at Drugstore.com or Amazon.com