Tarte Miracle of Maracuja Eight-Piece Skin Smart Collection - Updated with Swatches

If you've read Best Things in Beauty for any length of time, you know I love Tarte Cosmetics. This week, you'll be able purchase a set that will feed your skin the health food it craves with Tarte's good-for-you formulas and high-performance natural ingredients.

Tarte has teamed with QVC to offer the exclusive Miracle of Maracuja Skin Smart Collection. The entire eight-piece set will be available for one day only, and it's a steal at $59.96 (the suite of products is worth $200). You can pre-order it now if you want to beat the rush. I predict this offer will sell out almost instantly, so you may want to ensure your set by pre-ordering.

Maracuja oil, also known as nature's pure milagro, leaves the skin brighter, firmer, smoother, and hydrated. Each maracuja fruit is hand-pressed to guarantee the purest dose. Here's how Tarte's maracuja-centered Skin Smart Collection stacks up.

• New QVC-exclusive airbrush-finish Bamboo Blush Brush ($28), which you'll use to apply Airblush Maracuja Blush for an air-brushed finish - or any other blush.
• New Airblush Maracuja Blush ($25) - infused with maracuja oil, this weightless blush looks like a second skin that floats. The set contains a QVC-exclusive shade, Amused, a shimmering poppy.
• Maracuja Waterproof Creaseless Concealer ($24), which delivers rejuvenating and hydrating vitamin C and essential fatty acids derived from maracuja oil for a rich, creamy texture that leaves a dewy, luminous finish. There are five shade options, from fair to deep. You'll be able to select your shade when you order the set.
  
• Pure Maracuja Oil ($46) - an oil that you'll warm in your palms and gently massage into your face. Thanks to vitamin C and essential fatty acids, this oil will "fix your face" without any greasiness.
• New Cashmere Waterproof Gliding Liner ($18), a creamy, highly pigmented eye pencil that delivers intense color without creasing or fading. The liner is black, a QVC-exclusive shade.
• Lights, Camera, Lashes! ($19), a well-known, four-in-one, dermatologist-tested mascara that lengthens, curls, volumizes, and conditions the lashes.
  
• A new shade of Maracuja Divine Shine Lip Gloss ($12), Peaceful is a peachy nude that will work for everyone - and looks stunning in the photos.
  
• New QVC-exclusive Beauty & the Box Amazonian Clay Eyeshadow Quad ($22), everything you need to create a soft, smoky look in seconds. The shades are Pink Cloud, Silver Mist, Purple Fog, and Dark Ash.
  

I don't want you to miss out on this amazing value. I pre-ordered mine, even though I'm not a big fan of QVC because of shipping costs. I really want the gloss, blush, oil, concealer (in Fair), and brush. I'm not sure from the photos whether all four eye shadow shades will be good for me, but the set is such a good deal, I won't mind giving the shadows to a friend if they don't work for my skin. Will you be jumping my way?

Update 3/13: I was surprised to receive press samples of this fabulous set today. I snapped a few swatch photos when I got home from work, but there were heavy rain clouds moving in. Take a look at this photo, and you'll understand why I had to hurry to get photos.

The Airblush Maracuja Blush in Amused, shown at the top of my arm, and the coordinating Maracuja Divine Shine Lip Gloss in Peaceful, shown below, are drop-dead gorgeous. The cream blush is much prettier than it looks in the promotional photos! I fell in love with it at first application. I applied it extremely, crazy heavily for this photo. Imagine this shade in a veil caressing your cheeks for spring and summer, punctuated by Peaceful, and you'll know why I experienced love at first sight.

The Beauty & the Box Amazonian Clay Eyeshadow Quad has three of four colors that are perfect for me. I applied all four shades with a sponge-tipped applicator. Pink Cloud and Silver Mist at the top of my arm look beautiful together. The third shade down, Purple Fog, isn't a great color for me, but it will look lovely on many of you. The charcoal Dark Ash is a great liner. I applied it moderately here to show you that it can be used to create your smoky eye if you want to use it as a shadow, not a liner.

Tonight before bed, I'll smother my face with Pure Maracuja Oil. I'll give you another update soon.

Update 3/16: Now that the set is Today's Special Value at QVC, all of the concealer shades are available.

Photos courtesy of Tarte and QVC

What's New from Giorgio Armani Beauty?

Giorgio Armani Beauty just introduced a lot of new products! Last week, I showed you Giorgio Armani Beauty's Design for the Lips set for the holidays, three Lip Shimmers in a useful patent case. Today, I want to share the other gift sets with you - and show you the newest colors, which are available online.

All four gift sets have arrived at Saks, and they are available at the Armani Beauty Web site too. I purchased two of them - only two because I have a back stock of everything else. Actually, even though I have purchased every brush set Armani has ever introduced, I bought another one! I can be a little obsessive-compulsive about Armani's brushes. There are times when back stock is good!

The Mini Brush Set ($100) is a $200 value. It includes blush, blender, eye shader, concealer, and eye contour brushes. All of them will help you achieve makeup artist results (on the go if you travel) with brushes that dispense the perfect amount of makeup. These brushes have shorter handles than the regular brushes, but are otherwise the same. I use the set brushes all the time at home.

The Eyes to Kill Set ($49) includes a Soft Lash Base, Eyes to Kill Mascara No. 1 (black), and Smooth Silk Eye Pencil in No. 4. Use it to create a glamorous eye look with length, separation, and definition, all in three easy steps. This is a good value because the items priced individually would cost $85. I don't think I have to tell you how good Eyes to Kill Mascara is.

Interested in Crema Nera Skin Care ($250)? This year's set is more attractively priced than last year's. The first step to polished and flawless makeup is always healthy skin, and Armani's Crema Nera can help you create your perfect skin canvas. The set includes OMC³ Obsidian Mineral Restoring Cream SPF 15 1.7 fl. oz., Obsidian Mineral Reviving Eye Cream 0.5 oz., Mineral Soothing Lotion 1.69 fl. oz., and Obsidian Mineral Cleansing Balm 1.01 fl. oz. Nice set! I particularly like Armani's eye cream.

The subject of much speculation, the new Eyes to Kill Eyeshadow Collection for Holiday 2010 ($32 each) gives us a taste of a much larger collection that's coming in the spring. Giorgio Armani Cosmetics is previewing its unique, high-tech approach to blended color with these new shadows. The innovative hybrid texture, which is not a powder, nor a cream, acts like a smooth, lasting color film. The formula is composed of an unprecedented association between binder elements and pearls that creates exceptional luminosity, depth, and intensity of color. A high-resistance bi-polymer enables the formula to perfectly fit the contour of the eyelid, with cushiony suppleness, for comfortable, long wear.

A harmony of blended black cut-metal shades sets a smoky eye on fire with gold, copper, or silver grey shimmer. Apply dry or wet to obtain any finish from satin to lacquer, subtle to dramatic.

Offering 24-hour wear, the new Eyes to Kill shadows are waterproof and sweat-proof. They slide on and stay on, but wipe off in an instant. Applied wet or dry with fingers or a brush, Armani's Color-Fil color matrix formula blends and layers without creasing or flaking.

There will be a lot of shades available in the spring. Now, though, you can experience the pleasures early with Black (13), Copper/Black Grey (15), and Silver/Black Grey (16). I won't know which of these two photos is correct until mine arrive early next week. The photo on the left above is on the Web site, but the photo on the right above shows the shades I was expecting after talking with Tim Quinn about them. If the Web site is incorrect, it won't be the first time.

The Gold Rush Palette and three new Rouge d'Armani shades - all vibrant - also arrived at the Web site. Follow this link to my earlier Best Things in Beauty post to see them.

The Gold Rush Palette ($55) is a soft, universal, sheer, and shimmering beige powder that will light up the face and décolleté with an irresistible gold glow. The sleek, gold and black lacquered signature compact, itself representative of Armani elegance, adds a sparkling note to the seductive collection.

The three new Rouge d'Armani shades for Holiday 2010 ($30 each) are bright: Coral Red (404), Fuschia (517), and Tibetan Orange (405), all designed to revisit the colors of the Giorgio Armani Fall/Winter fashion collection. These shades are outside my comfort zone, but if you like vivid lips, they were made for you!

More interesting to me than the new Rouge d'Armani shades are the four new Lip Inks ($27). Like a second skin color for lips, the Lip Inks offer long-lasting transparent warm shades of deep reds, pinks, and purple. They are intended to be used alone for a natural intense color effect. I ordered one to get the "feel" of Lip Ink. I expect I'll love it and want more.

There's one more set, one I hadn't anticipated earlier in the season. It's called Dress Code for Face ($115), and if you wear shade 5.5 in Luminous Silk Foundation, you should check it out.

See anything that catches your fancy? You can order these new goodies now at the Giorgio Armani Beauty Web site. Some of them are available already at Saks, and they will all debut at Armani counters very soon.

Photos courtesy of Giorgio Armani Beauty

Sephora's Limited-Edition Value Sets

Sephora has been offering us some especially nice sets. Two very different ones, available now, are definitely worth a look! These sets are limited editions and available only at Sephora.

Benefit To Go Beauty Bestsellers ($10) is irresistible - both because of its price and its products. It has four portable minis of Benefit's best-selling complexion enhancers. These are all popular products. If you have them, you will appreciate the small purse or pocket sizes. If you have never tried them, now's the time.

The set has four products.

• 0.08 oz Posietint: A poppy-pink tinted lip and cheek stain
• 0.06 oz Some Kind-A Gorgeous: The foundation faker
• 0.25 oz That Gal: A brightening face primer
• 0.09 oz High Beam: A luminescent complexion enhancer

The second set I recommend is MAKE UP FOR EVER's Beauty In A Box - Aqua Essentials Kit ($69).

This kit includes seven long-lasting, must-have products that resist water and humidity, even in the most extreme summer conditions. Stay crease-free with Aqua Cream's long-lasting formula, which contains mother-of-pearl particles that provide rich color in just one application. I am absolutely smitten with Aqua Cream! Define your eyes with the award-winning Aqua Eyes, a two-in-one eyeshadow and liner pencil that adheres to the lids and remains melt-proof. You can apply it as a defined line or smudge it to smoke it out. The shades included in the set are black and a dark, metallic grey. Create an extra-black faux lash effect with Aqua Smoky Lash mascara, which delivers lashes with volume, length, and curl. Shape your lips with Aqua Lip in Nude Beige, which contains vitamin E and jojoba wax for comfortable wear. You can instantly remove your waterproof look with MAKE UP FOR EVER's best-selling make-up remover Travel Sens' Eyes. Its gentle formula can be used on even the most sensitive eyes.

The Aqua Creams alone are $22 per shade, and I have both Warm Beige (champagne shimmer) and Taupe (taupe shimmer), the two colors included in this set. Beauty in a Box is a great value.

There you have it! Two great sets worth a look before they disappear.

Photos courtesy of Sephora