I know that many of you may think that I never leave my house to shop, however, I can assure you that this is just not true! But, given the increasing popularity of "shopping at home", I figure, why not, you never know. It's like finding a really great restaurant in a back alley, tucked behind a laundromat. The prices are reasonable and the food tastes fabulous. It such a coup! Especially if you find it before the "connoisseurs" tell the general public about it. Then, a huge corporation buys the great little restaurant, Mom and Pop retire to Florida, and meanwhile the food begins to taste like cardboard. I'm sure you understand what I mean :).

With this in mind, here is my review of Tova Cosmetics. After reading Lisa's review of the products (I was a Cosmetic Connection reader long before I was a panelist), I purchased from QVC the Tova 18 piece Color and Fragrance collection. For the price of $46.00 plus shipping and handling I got 5 eye shadows, a highlighter, 2 blushes, 3 lipsticks, eyeliner, mascara and a lip pencil. The collection also contains a 1oz. bottle the Tova Signature eau de parfum and samples of Body, Mind and Spirit and Tova Nights fragrances.

Eye shadows and Highlighter
In this particular collection there are five eye shadows and a highlighter. The highlighter is an ivory/ecru color. The other colors are "Desert Taupe", a light gray-beige, "Desert Plum", a medium purple, "Dusty Rose", a beige-pink, "Blue Slate", a navy-gray, and "Expresso", a dark medium brown. To me, these color appear to have a distinctly blue undertone, so they look "muddy" on my skin, even with the addition of an eye shadow base. They go on fairly sheer and require a bit of "build up" for good color. Another thing to watch for with these eye shadows is that they contain quite a bit of mica, so although they are not "frosted", in my opinion, they do tend to age my eyes by calling attention to my wrinkly eyelids. On my oily skin, I found that the shadows tended to crack and crease after about four hours of wear, although I did get better wear using an eye shadow base. The colors are neutral and they would be fairly acceptable colors for "professional" daytime wear, just better perhaps on a younger, less wrinkly eye.

Blush in Desert Spice and Desert Rose
Personally, I liked the Desert Spice color better than the Desert Rose, however, both colors tended to be a bit "ashy" on my skin. Although these colors did not look as "muddy" on me as the eye shadows, like the eye shadows, I did need to layer it a bit thicker than I normally would to get good color on my cheeks. The blush held up fairly well throughout the day, however, I needed to "touch up" a few times. The blush also contains quite a bit of mica and isopropyl myristate, a comedogenic ingredient, so this may not be the best blush for the acne prone. I found that I developed quite a few blackheads in the cheek area after wearing these blushes for the week.

Lipsticks in Pink Sands, Desert Rose and Peach Sands
Of the entire collection, I think I liked the lipsticks best. The "Desert Rose" color turned out to be for me the perfect "nude" lip color. The lipsticks lasted well, although I did need to reapply them after eating lunch. The packaging is pretty, black with wide gold bands, so I wasn't "embarrassed" to pull the lipstick out of my purse when I need to reapply it.

Eyeliner in Coffee and Lip liner in Sienna
Both of these pencils were pretty unremarkable. The colors are nice, the Sienna is a warm rust-brown and the Coffee is a dark brown. Both colors are matte. The lines are soft. The lip pencil tended to fade out about as easily as the lipsticks did, so it, too, needed to be reapplied after lunch. The eyeliner lasted throughout the day.

Mascara in Black
Although this mascara has a really nice brush, an "extra-full" Christmas-tree type, I did not find product to be particularly thickening or lengthening. The mascara formulation is a little "goopy" and tended to clump on me quite a bit, however, wiping the brush did help that problem. I found it to be a decent, "everyday" mascara, even though it did tend to "flake" on me towards the end of the day.

Well, there you have it. Okay, so these products didn't turn out to be the "perfect" ones for me. And, maybe it wasn't a "coup." However, these colors and products would probably be better for dryer, fairer skin with classic "winter" or "spring" coloring. You do get a lot of product for the price, so, if your skin is within the afore-mentioned parameters and you're operating on a budget, this line may be one that you'd like to look at. Tova products may be purchased at the Tova Boutique in Beverly Hills, CA, or online at www.beautybytova.com or at www.qvc.com.