Blaq Vixen Beauty

Recently, Miss America shared with ARTISTRY products she uses to keep her skin and lips looking beautiful:

>>ARTISTRY Lip Care Kit: Cameron says that this kit keeps her lips soft and smooth as she travels all around the country appearing at various events. The Lip Polish gently exfoliates and the Lip Conditioner hydrates with the benefit of antioxidants and vitamins A and E. I noticed that the ARTISTRY Lip Care Kit is very similar to the Laura Mercier Lip Treatment Kit. Both kits use the same mint/rose packaging as well as the same names.

>>ARTISTRY Microdermabrasion System: Cameron also prefers this system, which is a more affordable, at-home alternative to microdermabrasion at the dermatologist's office. It's her lifesaver - she depends on weekly exfoliation for healthy, glowing skin. The system consists of the ARTISTRY Polishing Scrub, the MicroExfoliation Cloth and the Skin Refinishing Lotion.

When I heard that Caressa Cameron, our new Miss America, depended on the ARTISTRY brand to keep herself looking fabulous, I was shocked. Artistry was one of the first brands that I reached out to when I first started Blaq Vixen Beauty.

They sent me a nice-sized selection of their products like the ARTISTRY TIME DEFIANCE Cleanser, ARTISTRY TIME DEFIANCE Toner and the ARTISTRY Essentials Colour Collection (which includes the mineral foundation, concealer, eyeshadow color quad, lip shine, and makeup kit).

In retrospect, I am forever grateful to Precious of Precious and Makeup. She's an ARTISTRY consultant. I love that she uses a lot of ARTISTRY products in her face-of-the-days (FOTDs).

I was so excited to hear that Miss America used the brand that I reached out to my contact to see which products she recommended. Look for a post on that soon!

Editor's note: Click here to go straight to Temptalia's Master Foundation Matrix!

Have you checked out Christine's foundation matrix over at Temptalia? Such an ingenious idea! As long as there has been beauty blogs, I am surprised no one else have come up with anything similar. Or maybe you have? School me in the comments!

Christine created a Google Spreadsheet with MAC foundation shades (like NW35, NW40, NW45, etc.) as the common reference points, as many women out there have been sucked into the MACtrix at one time or another. I was sucked in May 23, 2009. So far, I've only been smitten with one product. You then scroll down the list to see which other brand (whether it be a department store, drugstore or a MLM (multi leveling marketing) company like meet mark, Avon, Mary Kay, Artistry or Market America.

If you don't see a brand that you regularly use, you can add it in column A, which is a list of all the foundations that have been added so far. I knew on the Iman Cosmetics site, they have a section where you can see which Iman shade would correlate with your MAC, L'Oreal, Black Opal, Revlon or Fashion Fair shade. If you know there isn't a match, you can type in "none" or "no match."

Possible matches for me:

More Revlon...

I'll keep you posted on my findings!

Image via Bitchie Life

Two of the products that I was anxious to use were the Artistry Time Defiance Cleansing Treatment and Artistry Time Defiance Conditioning Toner. These were the only two products from the Artistry line that I brought with me on my trip.

Artistry Time Defiance Conditioning Toner

Artistry Time Defiance Cleansing Treatment