Happy Halloween: 10 Pumpkin Beauty Treats.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins are everywhere, and I thought what a better way to celebrate today than with some pumpkin beauty treats. From pumpkin scents and pumpkin names, to the power of pumpkin in skin care, take a look at some great pumpkin beauties I found.

1. June Jacobs Perfect Pumpkin Enzyme Polish - $60.00
Infused with a powerful pumpkin enzyme, combined with the gentle exfoliation of crushed bamboo and jojoba micro beads, this scrub helps to cleanse the skin of dead cells.

2. MAKE UP FOR EVER Powder Blush in Pumpkin - $20.00
This muted orange powder blush is named Pumpkin. It is highly pigmented and super soft.

3. Gianna Rose Pumpkin & Squash Soaps in a Dish - $30.00
Harvest classic soaps infused with exfoliating wheat bran and scented with a Pumpkin, Brown Sugar and Fig fragrance are sure to delight anyone with a taste for the season.

4. Kate Somerville ExfoliKate® Body Intensive Exfoliating Treatment - $65.00

Naturally effective pumpkin and papaya extracts digest dead skin cells as gentle beads buff them away to reveal super soft and  smooth, sexy skin.

5. Bath and Body Works Liplicious Lip Gloss in Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin - $8.00


Bath & Body Works #1 fall flavor Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin, kisses lips with a mouth-watering flavor and high shine gloss.

6. Philosophy homemade pumpkin pie shampoo, shower gel & bubble bath - $16.00
Scent yourself with not just pumpkins, but with yummy pumpkin pie, as you wash with this rich, foaming body cleanser.

7. Peter Thomas Roth Clinical Peel & Reveal - $58.00

This powerful pumpkin-scented dermal resurfacer is a triple action exfoliating treatment  that polishes dull, aging, and congested skin.

8. Cinderella Collection by Sephora Moonlit Kiss Lipstick Set - $25.00


Seal the love with your very own Prince Charming when you kiss him with a beautiful pumpkin pout. This set includes 4 beautiful lipsticks, one of which is a light pastel peach named Pumpkin.

9. Meaningful Beauty® Glowing Serum - $52.00
Formulated with soy protein, marine botanicals and antioxidants including pumpkin extract to encourage cell renewal, this serum will have skin glowing all fall.

10. True Blue Spa Renewing Face Mask with Pumpkin - $12.00
With power-packed skin renewing Pumpkin Extract, this luxuriously whipped, creamy mask soothes and refines skin for fall.

A Poll: Professional Product Photos vs. Actual Personal Product Photos.

I need your help in deciding something about the blog. Because I do this for the love of beauty and YOU, my loyal readers, I figure you have the right answer.

After over 10 years of having the site and using professional product photograph that is provided to me by the beauty brands, I noticed that almost every other beauty blog I was reading was using their actual product photos in their posts. So, in the last year or so, I have invested a lot of time and money in taking actual product photos. What do you prefer?

I hear from so many of you in the comments and emails daily. I get a steady stream of "thanks for the great photos" in the comments, while it seems I am getting more and more emails asking me "what happened to the blog", and asking why I'm not using better professional photos, and the like. I am here to please YOU and want to know what you prefer. Please take a short second to answer this question in the poll. Your answers will either have me continue on this route of using my own personal product photos or I'll be going back to using the provided professional product shots.

Here are a few examples of actual product shots versus product shots that I took.

brand provided product shot

my actual product shot

brand provided product shot

my actual product shot

Also, please feel free to leave a comment and expand on your thoughts in the comments. Thank you so much! (Please forgive the typo in the poll - I tried to change it but it's not working for me!)

Not to weigh your desicison at at all, I want to explain my feelings with a few bullet points.

• I have a lot of fun taking the pictures, but it does take a lot of time.
• I only get a limited number of samples to photograph and very rarely get every piece in a collection or story to photograph. As I cannot simply photograph every piece in a story as I don't have access to it, I feel that I am leaving out a lot of products.
• I receive much higher quality photographs from the brands that I work with.
• If I never saw other bloggers posting actual product photos, I would have never started.
• I like the look of the professional photographs and the overall look and feel of a more professional looking site.
• Beautiful Makeup Search featured 99% professional product photos for 10 years and has been very successful
• I do not want to be a professional photographer and I do not want to pretend to be. I try to take clear accurate photographs that look decent to my untrained eye.
• If I keep taking actual product photos, I am bound to become a better photographer. :)
• Brands pay a lot to have professional photographers take high resolution product images.
• If I only use professional photographs, I will have time to do more actual blog posts.
• I think blogs that use professional products photos are equally as great as blogs that feature their own actual photos.

You can see, I am all over the place with this, so that is why I am asking for your help. The poll will close Monday night, and I'll be back with the final results.

UPDATE on 10/15:  Thanks to everyone who voted. It looks like the majority of you like the photographs that I take. This helped me make my decision easy. I will continue to include my original makeup photographs in my posts.

The Beauty Sample Box Low-Down: A Comparison of Birchbox, Glossybox and Yuzen.

Sample boxes of beauty seem to be all the rage. I hear people talking about them everywhere, and I am often asked my opinion. I thought I would share my very honest opinion of three different sample box services that I received over the past few months.

In case you are new to sample boxes, they are basically just that. They are boxes of sample beauty (mostly beauty) products, in which you subscribe to on a monthly basis. Every month, you get a new box for a subscription fee.  The boxes contain a mix of beauty products, mostly sample sized.

Let's take a look at three of the most popular beauty sample boxes.

BIRCHBOX - $10.00/month

The Birchbox I received was the August edition, I believe. It was the smallest box in size, product and value, but also the smallest in price at just $10 a month, which includes the shipping.

It contained:

• Color Club Professional Nail Lacquer in Disco Nap - This seems to be a very small .25 oz. sample size that is very separated in the bottle, no matter how much I shake it.
• Twistband - A pink ribbon, that seems to be made out of a very stretchy satin ribbon. I think it is made for the hair?
• Origins Checks and Balances Frothy Face Wash - This is a "not for individual sale" free sample size.
• Lulu Organics Hair Powder - A small free sample size of hair powder.
• Stila Sparkle Waterproof Eyeliner in Curacao - This was the only full size piece in the box. It retails for $22.00, so if it is useful for you, it makes this months Birchbox a great deal.

GLOSSYBOX - $21.00/month

The Glossybox I received was from June or July. It was considered the Summer Nights edition.

It contained:

• Sebastian Color Ignite Shampoo & Conditioner - These are small 1.65 oz. and 1.7 oz. sizes.
• Alessandro Pedix Feet Heel Rescue Balm - This seems to be a free 1.0 fl oz. sample size.
• Blushed Fragrance Pouch - a free throw away fragranced towelette.
• Senna Lip Gloss Duo - A full size lip gloss duo in pretty coral shades.
• Figs & Rouge Balm - A full size balm that I am guessing can be used on dry body parts and maybe lips.

Yuzen - $26.00/month

The Yuzen box is an eco-friendly box that contains all eco-friendly, natural and organic products. This was the heaviest, and fullest box, but it is also the most expensive. This was the August box.

It contained:

• Coola Mineral Sunscreen SPF 30 - This was a full size facial sunscreen.
• TilVee Calendula & Comfry Healing Balm - For lips, wounds, and any body part that is dry. This was just a .28 oz. size, but it looks to be a full size product.
• Cowgirl Skincare Desert Recovery Cleanser -This is a 2 fl oz, which seems to be a large sample, or travel sized product.
• Organic India Teas - 4 tea bags in different flavors.
• Olomomo Nut Co. Chai Bliss Almonds - A sample package of nuts.
• Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Soap Bar - A full size bar of soap.

All in all, let's face it. You are paying for samples, many of which are free samples. Many of which are products you are not going to use, let alone be interested in. This was my case anyway. I guess you can tell I am not a huge fan of the subscription sample box services overall. I honestly rather save up a few monthly subscription fees and splurge on one great beauty item that I am lusting after.

What do you think? Are you a fan of the subscription sample boxes?