lovesit: my beauty breakthroughs of 2011

The Allure best of beauty issue has become my beauty bible and I look forward to it all year long.  I’ve definitely found some of my all-time favorite products from this list of tried and true products which are weeded out of hundreds of hopefulls.  Some of the new products featured in their beauty breakthrough’s were really impressive – I’ve already picked up several of them  and I couldn’t wait to share my own love for them.  Not all of the products below were featured in Allure’s best of lists- but they are all product’s I’ve come across this year.  Enjoy!

As someone with fair skin prone to sun damage, an ever-expanding collection of freckles and a borderline obsessive fear of skin cancer (thanks to my dermatologist) I really couldn’t wait to pick up this new body lotion/sunblock from Avon:

 When a healthy skin cell is assaulted by UV rays, the body’s own immune response generates free radicals that do even more damage. Avon scientists developed a complex that boosts the body’s own antioxidant defense system within each cell, to neutralize these nasties and repair any recently sustained damage.

The key ingredients in Solar Advance—a rice protein, an algae extract, and a soy fragment—activate the production of three of the body’s own natural antioxidant enzymes. One of them weakens the free radicals, and the other two then turn them into water. Clinical testing shows that this same complex also boosts repair enzymes inside the cell, fixing 50 percent more DNA damage than when the cell is left alone.

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I’ve always loved Origins body lotions but I’ve never tried any of their facial skin care.  I recently picked up a few of their items after reading about the following item.  I’ve been using a retinol for a few years now but I was curious to know what else was out there that was just as stong but retinol-free- one of my pregnant girlfriends informed me she was told not to use a retinol while pregnant so we started searching for a safe alternative for her to use during her pregnancy.  Origins Plantscription anti-aging serum proved to be just as effective:

The serum’s key ingredient, African Anogeissus, does two things. It protects existing collagen and elastin by inhibiting enzymes, called MMPIs, known to degrade them. And it generates more fibrillin, a springlike filament that gives skin bounce.

Plantscription was shown to have 88 percent of the visible-wrinkle-reducing power of a retinoid, without any of the photosensitivity, dryness, redness, or itching.

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I’ve always believed the key to healthy skin was exfoliation.  I tend to over-do it though and sometimes too much can actually make my skin worse by irritating it and inflaming blemishes.  A great alternative to the sometimes too harsh ‘scrubs;’ I am newly obsessed with this deeply exfoliating brightening peel with fruit acids from Origins.  Never have I had such an instantly polished look and feel to my skin after just two uses.  This exfoliant isn’t a gritty cream or gel, it’s actually a damp face pad (think Oxy pads from highschool) that delivers the strength of an in-office glycolic peel without the irritation or redness.  At $37.50 it’s more than your drugstore scrub, but I’ve been cutting the pads in half to get 80 uses out of this product instead of 40.

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As someone with fine hair (but a LOT of it) and a sensitive scalp, I always dreaded the post-shower brush out.  Or any real de-tangling session for that matter since it’s always been pretty painful.  Brushes that promised to be gentle could barely comb through my hair and the ‘natural bristle’ brushes my hairdresser scolded me for not having felt like torture on my scalp.  I randomly came across the Goody Styling Therapy Copper Brush which appealed to me because the ball-tipped bristles promised to ’massage the scalp’ (it does!) and the copper plating kills most bacteria and fungus left on your brush (eww) that can cause dandruff and a dry, sensitive scalp.  It only took me a few days of using this brush to fall in love – it does a great job of combing without any pain and the thought of having a clean, germ free brush makes this a great find.

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I’ve used several cream eyeshadows and I thought I had sworn them off forever because of how much they creased and caked up until I tried the Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Cream Shadow.  I was mostly drawn to them because of the gorgeous color selection and decided to try one final cream shadown that promised never to crease.  After one use I was back on the cream shadow train.  These do not crease.  Ever.  The colors look even better on than in the jar and they are perfect to wear alone or under eyeshadow for a more dramatic look.  My current favorites are Sand Dollar for day (a silvery/grey/taupe) and the smoldering Antique Gold (a deep gold sparkle) for night.

xoxo,

Lauren