If you’ve stayed up late at night to watch infomercials, you’ve probably seen shows touting the Bare Minerals line of talc-free mineral make-up. The products are pretty good; I use them mostly because I don’t care for liquid foundation at all, and prefer them for traveling with since I don’t have to count it in my 3-1-1 liquid bag.

Well, I’m always keeping my eyes peeled for travel-sized toiletries and cosmetics, and what do I get in my inbox the other day but an email from cosmetic store Ulta, advertising a special promotion for a “10-Day Trial of bareMinerals Foundation w/Mini Kabuki.”

It was hard to tell from the Web site, but the samples definitely looked small. Best of all, the trial sized products were free! In addition, if you spent at least $10.00 at the site, you got $3.50 off. I wound up getting a pair of travel tweezers from Tweezerman (they are the best in my opinion), and got myself a nice little package of travel goodies in the mail in less than a week!

It looks like Ulta’s offer is still valid. Hop over to their promotion page and choose the color that best fits your skin tone—”fairly light,” “light,” “medium beige” or “medium tan.” Of you aren’t sure, you can hop over to the Bare Minerals Web site and check out their skin tone color chart and detailed descriptions.

Regular Bare Minerals brushes on the left with a regular container of Mineral Veil, and the sample container of Mineral Veil and Mini Kabuki brush on the right.

The 10-day container of foundation is the same size as the eye shadow containers from Bare Minerals, but it looks like it’s not filled to the brim. If you already use foundation from them, however the inner separater is removable, so you can add more powder to the container.

The Mini Kabuki brush is not only small, but also short.

What’s unique about the offer is their Mini Kabuki brush. Most blush and foundation brushes are too long for traveling with, but the smaller travel ones tend to still have a longer stick or be too wide. This one is truly tiny. It might take a bit of coordination and some getting used to, but you can still use this tiny brush to put your foundation on. And unlike little tiny brushes that come in your blush compact, the Mini Kabuki is round and still has some heft, and uses the same type of brush material as their full-sized Buki brush.

One more thing. If you live in a city with an Ulta retail store, it looks like they will have a four-piece introductory kit available in their stores from Sunday, September 28 through Saturday, October 11. For $15, you get the baby brush, a tiny container of regular Mineral Veil, and two small containers of foundation powder. According to the mailer I got, it looks like this kit will be available online from Ulta.com as well; just type in TRYBELIEVE as your promo code.