Image via Collider

Exciting news, Benefit babes (and fairy tale lovers)! This spring, Benefit and Universal Films partner up on a limited edition makeup set inspired by the upcoming movie.

Rare Beauty ($45), meet Snow White & the Huntsman.

The film, which hits theaters June 1 and stars Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as evil Queen Ravenna, looks like Grimm for grownups to me, and I like the spooky new look.

Benefit products also appear on the actors in the film, as they are the movie’s exclusive beauty partner.

More details (and product pics) coming soon, but from what I’m gathering through the grapevine, the set will include makeup to recreate Snow White’s super black lashes, flushed cheeks and milky skin.

Rare Beauty, a set inspired by Kristen’s look in the film, arrives in stores, boutiques and counters this May, but die-hard Bene-babes don’t have to wait that long. It will officially launch online on April 17 at benefitcosmetics.com.

I saw the movie trailer in the theater before The Hunger Games last week, and it looks pretty darn great! It even got El Hub’s attention.

Poor guy will indubitably have to put up with me whispering random Benefit makeup tidbits through the movie when we see it, like, “I think they used High Beam on Kristen’s upper cheek bones in that shot…” and, “I bet Charlize is rocking Hoola right there.” LOL!

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In the tradition of forward feline thinking here at Makeup and Beauty Blog, I am proud to announce a brand new service that brings the cat cafe experience directly to you.

Introducing: Rent-A-Tabby.

Why settle for mere pics and video when you can actually spend time interacting with the world’s first international plus-size kitty supermodel from the comfort of your own home?

Why Rent-A-Tabby?

Rent-A-Tabby, a new service here on Makeup and Beauty Blog, brings the Tabs experience right to your doorstep.

Feel Tabs making biscuits on your tum firsthand. Hear him sweetly beg for gravy in the middle of the night (“mrowww!”). Awaken to nearly 20 pounds of raw feline force catapulting off your bladder at 5 in the morning. Experience a kitty butt shoved in your face at all hours of the day (live and in 3D).

• Need a chest warmer or a furry chin to head-butt your face while you’re reading in bed?
• Looking for a lap warmer/TV companion?
• Interested in testing the waters for a career in full-time pet assisting?

If you said “Yes!” to any of the above, or if you’re just a cat fan and want to hang out with Tabs, Rent-A-Tabby is right for you.

Here’s how it works

1. Click the big Sign Up button at the bottom of this post, and complete the eligibility form. Be sure to indicate the dates you would like to Rent-A-Tabby, and select your options. At the moment, I take Visa and Mastercard, but I’ll be rolling out a PayPal option soon.
2. I ship Tabs to you. He’s guaranteed to arrive on your doorstep by your Rent-A-Tabby date (or your money back). I can ship to all U.S. and international addresses (overnight shipping available).
3. When you’re done spending time with Tabs, just pack him up in the pre-paid return box, and drop the box off at your nearby FedEx (or DHL) office.

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What a way to start the day. Fifteen minutes with Ms. Bobbi Brown, a legend in the beauty world (and a serious contender for the title of Queen of the Natural Makeup Look). Whenever I wear Bobbi Brown cosmetics, I feel put-together, ya know? But never over the top.

This morning I spoke with Bobbi over the phone about the hottest new spring and summer makeup trends, some of her favorite makeup tips, tricks and products (among them, her secret to glowing skin, which — here’s a hint — involves vegetables) and her new book, Pretty Powerful Beauty Stories, available this fall.

The following is an interview with Bobbi Brown, Chief Creative Officer of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics.

What are some of the hottest makeup trends this spring and summer, and your favorite ways to wear them?

For the spring, we’ve seen a lot of neon and nude looks, which are basically nude shades that we saw on the runways, but to make them kind of trendy, more trendy than modern, we paired them with a very bright neon lip.

We had, and I have to say “had,” [a neon lipstick] called Atomic Orange [it's sold out now], which I’ve heard you can only get online at eBay for over $100 because it was such a big hit. I’m sure we’ll eventually bring it into the line because people loved it so much. But we also have [Neon Pink], and that, I believe, is still on counter. So that’s definitely one really big look.

Bobbi’s Ultra Nude palette, from the Neons & Nudes collection

Bronzy nudes and pinks are going to be really big in the summer. You start with bronzer first to give a nice warm glow, and then add a little bit of shimmering pink on top of it. Maybe add a little bit of sparkle on the eyelids, but keep it to two parts of the face for the sparkle. So if [the sparkle] is on the eyes and cheeks, don’t put it on your lips and your nails, or it will just be overkill.

With warm weather around the corner, do you have any tips or tricks to get the look of flawless skin?

Corrector Concealer is a great way to get rid of dark circles, and our Corrector Concealer is actually long wear. We didn’t design it that way, but our testing shows that it’s an 8-hour long wear, which is incredible. Particularly when you put powder on top of it. That’s the secret. It locks it in place and stays on all day. That’s number one.

Number two, if you do have a blemish, make sure you cover it up, not with a concealer, because that would be too light, but with a touch-up stick or a foundation stick in the color of your skin. So you touch that up, put powder on top of it, and that will last most of the day.

I usually just take it out of the stick, put it right on top, and then use my finger when I’m on the go. Certainly, if you use it with a brush, it’s much more precise, but you could do it either way.

But long-wear makeup is going to make the biggest difference. We’re really big now on long-wear products. We have Long-Wear Cream Shadows, Long-Wear Eyeliners and a No-Smudge Mascara.

A few of Bobbi’s limited edition Long-Wear Cream Eyeshadows from 2010′s Beach Club collection

On days when I have to get up at 5 a.m. for the Today Show and do a black tie at night, I absolutely go to my Long-Wears, and I barely have to touch-up in the evenings.

What’s the best way to prevent concealer from creasing and settling in fine lines?

I recommend using a hydrating eye cream, and the reason, because it’s really hydrating, so it’s wet, so it will absorb and leave a very smooth finish on your skin, but it won’t be too greasy wher the concealer kind of wears off.

Often, on days when I haven’t had enough water the night before, or had an extra cocktail at dinner, and I’m drier the next day, I’ll put on my concealer, and I’ll look in the mirror and say, “Uh oh.” I’ll take a touch of eye cream and put it on top, and it works just as well.

What’s the secret to your beautiful skin?

I was complimented on that same thing this morning after a spinning class by two girls who were literally five years younger than me, and they looked at me and said, “Okay, what cream are you using?” And I said, “I gotta be honest, as much as I think I make the best cream, it’s not the answer.”

I swear, the answer is that I’ve really cleaned up my diet, and the majority of my foods are fruits and vegetables, and it helps my skin.

It’s not an overnight thing. I’ve been slowly changing my eating habits. Where I used to be, like 80% good, now I’m kind of 95% good. The 5% I go off, it’s usually for things like a martini, dark chocolate, pizza — pizza’s probably the worst thing, but I just don’t do it that much because it’s not worth it to me. But it takes time to make changes.

How do you feel about women over 40 wearing brighter colors?

You want the truth? The truth is, I love bright colors, and I wear neon t-shirts and neon scarves, but I will not wear neon makeup. I find that when someone of a certain age wears bright colors, it isn’t modern.

I prefer a bright pink over a fuchsia. I think there are ways to wear bright colors that aren’t extreme. I think that’s the difference.

When my son’s girlfriend, who is 21 or 22 years old, wears [Neon Pink] and nothing else on her face, she just looks absolutely adorable, like she just stepped out of a J. Crew catalogue. And that’s trendy and great.

But when someone my age wears it, because you have other makeup on your face, it almost doesn’t work as well.

But say you are older and want to explore bright makeup. What are some ways to wear brights successfully?

There are a few girls in my office who are very fashionable over 40, and they do wear bright colors. And the ones that look best, they’ve got concealer, corrector, maybe a very light foundation or tinted moisturizer, soft blush, and everything is very soft.

Bobbi’s Cosmic Pink (bottom) and Ultra Violet (top) lipglosses, from the Neons & Nudes collection

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Benefit babes, brace yourself for a bodacious treat.

Yesterday Benefit Global Beauty Authority Annie Ford-Danielson took a few minutes to chat with me over the phone about their newest product, Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Liquid Foundation ($34), which arrives on counters this March.

You may remember Annie and her sister Maggie from last year’s B.Right Skin Care launch. Together, they travel the world, working as global ambassadors for the brand.

This marks Benefit’s latest leap into liquid foundations, and Annie, who also works in product development, gave me an inside look at the development process and what we can expect from Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow when it arrives.

The following is an interview with Benefit Global Beauty Authority Annie Ford-Danielson about the brand’s new Benefit Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow Liquid Foundation.

So why did Benefit decide to do a liquid foundation?

Well, I think that at Benefit, as you know, we have kind of a small number of products. We’re not like the MACs or Make Up For Evers, where we have 1500 SKUs, so we have to choose our launches super carefully.

We kind of realized that we’ve done concealers, we’ve done highlighters, Fake-Its, brows, skin care, so the next step to really becoming a one-stop shop for beauty was to create a new liquid foundation.

Our girls, our customers, were coming to us for all of these beauty dilemmas and needs, and the fact that we didn’t have a full assortment of foundations was sending them off to other brands, and of course we want our girls to stay with us.

Annie Ford-Danielson, Benefit Global Beauty Authority

I think that really sparked our interest in making a new line. In true Benefit fashion, I’m sure as you know, we’re all about just quick, easy, instant beauty solutions, and I think that foundation can be hard for a lot of women. It can be super intimidating; it can be laborious, so we wanted to create a formula that was really easy, hydrating and brightening.

When you say brightening, does that mean shimmer?

There’s no shimmer in the foundation itself. It’s called Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow, and the really kind of “Fake It” quality that we’ve given this foundation is that it has an oxygen hydrating complex.

What does this mean? It means it’s going to help boost your cellular respiration, giving your skin a really nice plumping effect, so it’s going to make those fine lines, those little crevices, kind of plump up, giving you that healthy-looking skin. And it also helps protect against environmental stresses. It has vitamin C and E derivatives, which are known to prevent the signs of aging.

My favorite part about this is that it’s oil free but has an SPF 25 PA+++. So what does that all mean? It’s very technical. First of all, the Oxygen Wow complex is completely exclusive to our brand. We created it for our liquid foundation, and basically, what it means is that this is not your traditional liquid foundation. It goes on and has the consistency of a really nice, kind of lightweight tinted moisturizer, but it has the coverage of a foundation.

Can you describe the coverage a little bit?

It’s interesting that you asked. It really depends on the method in which you apply. For example, I apply — I wear it, and I’ve been wearing this foundation because I have connections here and I get it early (laughs). I’ve been traveling so much this year, and everyone’s like, “What’s your favorite product?” and I’m like, “Well, I can’t tell you…because it’s our liquid foundation and we don’t have it [yet].”

So, honestly, it really depends on what you want the foundation to do. On the weekends, I apply it with my fingers, and I just apply half a pump. It kind of gives me a really nice, evening-out effect, but it’s incredibly build-able.

That was one of the main aspects of the foundation that we as a brand felt was important for our customers, because our customers are always telling us, “We want to be able to customize our look. On Sunday, we don’t want to look as decked out as we do on Friday night.” So we figured that to have a formula that was incredibly build-able was the key, so you can go all the way from light, to medium, to medium-full coverage foundation.

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MACaholics, just a quick heads up. If you missed Black Knight Lipstick from 2009′s Style Black collection, this Friday, November 25 (aka Black Friday for shoppers here in the US), MAC’s bringing the s*xy back for one day only on maccosmetics.com.

Creamy, dramatic Black Knight (here’s a swatch) probably isn’t something I’d wear to pick up gravy for Tabs at Petco, but ya know…I might reach for it when I’m feeling particularly sassy. It’s got an edge and a style to it that’s sure to stand out in a crowd.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. One more thing: the new Gareth Pugh for MAC collection is available now online. Happy shopping!