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Every once in a while, a brand comes along that reminds me why I fell in love with makeup in the first place. Looking at Tarina Tarantino’s playful pink packaging and vivid colors, I am instantly transported to a time when makeup was purely about fun, fantasy, and wonder. The sheer girliness of it all makes me positively giddy.

If you’re not familiar with her work, here’s a little Tarina 101. A jewelry designer and former makeup artist and model, the pink-tressed Tarina Tarantino is known the world over as the “Queen of Irreverent Luxury.” The accessories and handbags created at her downtown-LA headquarters dubbed “The Sparkle Factory” show up frequently in the pages of fashion mags and on adoring celebrity fans. Her latest endeavor — a new artisan-level makeup collection created exclusively for Sephora and QVC — treats makeup as an accessory on par with your favorite jewelry.

While many of the compacts and bottles make me feel like a little girl playing dress-up, the cosmetics are the real deal. The color payoff is huge. Take the Starchild Odyssey Collection Palette for example. The funky packaging opens to three rich jewel-tone eyeshadows and two icy-cool ones. Each is so packed with pigment that you only need to use a tiny bit. One of my biggest pet peeves about drugstore shadows is that while they look great in the pan, you have to layer and layer (and layer) until you achieve a decent level of saturation.

Here are a few of my other top Tarina picks:

Magic Hour Smudge Pens Growing up, I was always envious of a friend who could line both her upper and lower lash lines with eyeshadow. She used the coolest icy blue color (it was the ’80s, after all…although I am a fan of blue once again) but I could never pull it off. Thanks to this new crop of eyeliners, I’m getting a second chance. This trio offers a creamy powder coupled with an easy-to-manipulate sponge-tip applicator. You dip the sponge into the cap where all the condensed, highly pigmented powder is housed and can do a smoky eye, smudged line, or coat the whole lid.

Pearl Glow Primer If you only try one thing from Tarina Tarantino, it should be this. It’s Customer Top Rated and with good reason. Not only does it help makeup glide on and look flawless, but it contains shimmery (not sparkly) light-reflective pigments that offer a luminous radiance and a diffused, soft-focus glow. It absorbs surprisingly fast and you can even mix it with foundation or wear it all by itself.

Sparklicity Shimmer Dust This atomizer bottle makes me smile just by sitting on my vanity. And puffing on the subtly sparkling powder is about as fun as it gets in my book. I’m pretty sure my 3-year-old niece would feel like a princess if I let her play with it, and for me, it’s perfect for adding a little pizzazz for parties. Try it on your shoulders, legs, décolleté, the back of your neck when wearing an updo, and even your hair. For even more staying power, apply over Pearl Glow Primer.

Gem Gloss I’m a lip-gloss addict by nature and this smooth, non-sticky formula certainly satisfies. Every shade catches the light beautifully, but I’m particularly partial to My Pretty, a shimmering nude pink.

Tulle Flower Anywhere Clip Speaking of feeling like a princess, how cute are these?

Girly yet sophisticated, the ballerina-like blossoms are handmade at the Sparkle Factory and feature Lucite filigree work with Swarovski crystals in a classic Tarina Tarantino pattern. My favorite way to wear it is right at the base of a pony. Even though my hair is on the finer side, it stayed put until I took it out. I’m finding them a blast at 30-something, but it’s also definitely something to keep in mind for young girls at the holidays.