You’ve won Cool Heat eyeshadow and High 90’s slimshine from MAC’s latest Cool Heat Collection! Please keep an eye on your mail box because I’m shipping your gift off to you this week!

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The Daily Cookie’s Summer Sweepstakes continues in full force and to keep with our MAC theme, I’m giving one lucky winner a chance to get your summer glow on with Skinsheen.

Use Skinsheen, a gel-based self-tanner, on the legs to give yourself a sheer, bronze radiance the healthy way without laying out in the sun or harmful tanning beds.

Just sign up for The Daily Cookie’s monthly newsletter below for your chance to win a bottle of Skinsheen now! Please remember that I draw winners from the complete pool of entries, not by date you entered. You’ll be contacted by email if you’re the lucky one.

And if you must get your MAC fix ASAP, don’t forget they’re having a Friends and Family Event right now where you can get 15% off your online purchase. Just enter promo code MACFF8 when you check out - offer good until June 17th at 11:59pm PST in the U.S. and Canada only. Enjoy!

Love contests? Subscribe to The Daily Cookie RSS feed and email or check back often so you don’t miss what our next Summer Sweepstakes prize is going to be - because you know you like free stuff just as much as I do!

It’s 8am on Saturday, a usually quiet and sleepy time before the San Francisco Centre Downtown opens up for business. This week was a little different, though.  This Saturday, there’s already a long line to the elevators to go up to Nordstrom. As the doors open up to the main floor, we’re welcomed by bumpin’ jams from an unseen DJ and are escorted to follow the music up the escalators.

Finally, we make our way to the top floor to find that this season’s Beauty Trend Show getting ready to go into full force. It’s only 8:15am and already there are more than 400 women swarming around, grabbing goody bags from greeters, warming up on hot coffee courtesy of the show, and making their way through to find seats.

I wish I took a picture of the set up because let me tell you, it was looking as fabulous as I’d imagine a fashion show in NYC. There’s a cat walk, bright lights, music - the ambiance was so lively and full of energy, it was almost too much for me so early on a Saturday morning! We looked to find our seats and get ready for the Beauty Trend Show to begin.

Hot off the heels of the Sex and the City movie, the theme of this season’s show, hosted by Nordstrom Beauty Director Joelle Russo, was aptly named Summer in the City. In three acts, we got to see what the hottest looks were as we officially move into summer.  (more…)

We’ll be sending out your gift this week! If you weren’t a winner, don’t fret because we’ve got tons more to give away on The Daily Cookie’s Summer Sweepstakes so check back soon!

Love contests? Subscribe to The Daily Cookie RSS feed and email for your chance to win because we’re not done giving away free stuff!

Happy Father’s Day everyone! I’m getting ready to bake a carrot cake for our dinner tonight and try to get in some down time after my whirlwind day at Nordstrom’s Beauty Trend Show yesterday - more on that soon!

What are you up to today? I hope you have fun plans for the man in your life!

But before you go, remember that I’m working on some new things for the site and I’d love your feedback on what features you’ve liked so far and what you’d like to see more of. It’s a short survey and it will help me continue to bring you stories you really want to read!

Please take a few minutes and take the survey now.

And don’t forget to read the best weekend stories from around the beauty blogosphere.   (more…)

Alas, another MAC collection to put us in frenzy - full of brilliant blue shadows and hot summer pinks and corals for lips, it’s appropriately called Cool Heat. What a great collection to turn up the heat on your summer look, yes? Keep reading below for your chance to win a couple items from this HOT collection!

I love that blues are making a comeback and my favorite of this set is most definitely Blue Flame, a dark metallic blue that’s gonna make me a hot smoky eye. I know I said I was gonna rock it earlier this week but I’ve been having one of those lazy makeup weeks.

I’m heading out to the Nordstrom Summer Beauty Trend show in a few minutes - how are you spending your Saturday? Stay tuned for another post later today on all the hot beauty looks for the season and my friends’ makeovers that we’re going to do!!

The complete Cool Heat collection includes:

SLIMSHINE ($14.50 US)
Tropic Glow a delicious shimmery pink that makes me feel like I’m in love
By Degrees a great everyday neutral pink, but not a standout for me
Gentle Summer a nude shade of peach, perfect for layering lip shades
High 90’s this one is scary looking in the tube, I’m talkin’ super orange, but turns out to be a nice coral for summer
Swelter a fun red-orange, but not one that can work for everyone’s skin tone (more…)

We’re at the halfway mark for the Meet Me in Mexico contest - can you guess the destination of the photo above? Don’t miss your chance to win, there are only 2 weeks left!  Head on over to Glam.com right now and submit your guess for your chance to win a dream vacation for two!

Come back to The Daily Cookie next week where I’ll post the last photo before the contest is over. Remember, you have until June 29th and a correct answer each week will enter you in a pool where a winner will be chosen at random at the end of the promotion.

Love contests? Subscribe to The Daily Cookie RSS feed and email to hear about the latests giveaways - because you know you like free stuff just as much as I do!

It was close but thank Goodness Lisa is GONE!  And Stephanie prevailed as this season’s finale of Top Chef in Puerto Rico!!!

Somehow my gut told me that Richard or Stephanie was going to screw up, similar to how Casey completely botched her finale meal last season in Colorado. After all those weeks of being on top, something had to happen - and it happened to Richard.

My boyfriend really wanted Richard to take it while I was rooting for Stephanie. Lisa surprisingly outshined in this last challenge, but only because she got to cook exactly what she wanted to make, in my opinion. A true Top Chef should be versatile enough to cook under any conditions and restrictions, which she is not and has showcased that time and time again.

Poor Richard, I felt so bad for him when none of his dishes rose to the occasion. At the same time I feared that Lisa was going to win, beating out her competitors with her Thai-influenced soup and dessert. Thankfully the judges didn’t judge based on the dishes head-to-head like they did last year. If that were the case, Lisa really might have taken it. Instead, they focused on who’s meal they’d want to eat again - I’d personally vote for Stephanie, too. From the judges’ comments, I really want to try braised pistachios too!

Now we have one more week of Top Chef to look forward to and that’s the Reunion episode. Should we start taking bets that Lisa’s gonna flip her lid and storm out when she gets harassed by fellow cheftestants AND viewer emails for making it to the finale? Either that or we’ll get to see her grumpy, sour face on TV one more time - what do you think?

Tomorrow, I’m going to check out the Bravo blogs to see what everyone has to say - you should too!

Want to know what other TV shows I’m addicted to? Subscribe to The Daily Cookie RSS feed or email to keep up with what I’m watching tonight!

Over the weekend, I invited my friend Helen out to the shu uemura store on Fillmore so that I could introduce her to the wonderful Cleansing Oils that I’ve been sampling for the past couple of weeks (review to come!). When we got there, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new summer collection, HANA-BI, created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of when Mr. Uemura opened his first boutique in Tokyo in June of 1983.

While Helen browsed around the cleansers and skincare, I poked my nose (literally) in these three gorgeous summer fragrances and palettes to get a closer look. Every year to commemorate the first boutique opening, shu uemura releases a limited edition collection as a reflection of the season. This year HANA-BI, meaning “fireworks”, is inspired by the elements of nature - Source (water), Rose (flowers) and Terre (earth).

Each eye shadow palette features 6 colors along with a highlight. Fleur de Source is pretty full of earthy colors with pops of blues and greens that mimics the colors found in water, capturing the essence of a serene spring and cool beauty. The fragrances in the HANA-BI collection are made with Depsea water with essential oils as the core fragrance ingredient. Fleur de Source is a cool scent with notes of Citrus, Coriander, Basil, Paraguay Orange Leaf, with Watery Papyrus. (more…)

I haven’t been able to confirm the two winners of the MAC Tendertones giveaway yet but our Summer Sweepstakes must continue on! (Note: If I emailed you last night, please reply back to me so I can send your gift! )

Right now, we’re giving one lucky reader a trio of CoverGirl products to help her get a flawless, sun-kissed complexion just in time for the warm summer season. Here’s what you’ll get: CoverGirl TruBlend Liquid Makeup in Classic Ivory (410), TruBlend Minerals Loose Powder, and TruBlend Minerals Bronzer in Golden Sunrise.

Just sign up for The Daily Cookie’s monthly newsletter below for your chance to win! Please remember that I draw winners from the complete pool of entries, not by date you entered. You’ll be contacted by email if you’re the lucky one.

Love contests? Subscribe to The Daily Cookie RSS feed and email or check back often so you don’t miss what our next Summer Sweepstakes prize is going to be - because you know you like free stuff just as much as I do!

{Contest Rules & Disclaimer}

For all you ladies with wavy hair, going from curly to straight is super easy with the Corioliss Pro Flat Iron!

The other day, I asked my friend Elizabeth if I could do her hair with my new flat iron just to see how she liked it. Elizabeth flat irons her blonde locks everyday so I thought, who better to give me an honest review on the Corioliss than her.

She came in with her hair in its natural, slightly wavy state - which I always call “crazy curly” (sarcastically, of course) because I rarely see her in with anything other than stick-straight hair. We plugged in the flat iron and let it heat up for 3 - 5 minutes before we started to straighten her hair. (more…)