Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup
A beauty blog blooming with fresh makeup reviews, swatches and beauty tips from your friendly neighborhood beauty addict
The packaging for the new Cargo Voyages Water Resistant Collection ($25) makes me wanna take a trip!
This Ulta exclusive includes Cargo’s Water Resistant Bronzer and Better-Than-Waterproof Mascara. Expect to see it on shelves in late February.
Grocery stores call it Point of Sale, or POS (no, seriously, they do) — the racks of candy bars, soft drinks and magazines placed strategically in the checkout lane. It’s the stuff they’re hoping we’ll buy at the last minute before we leave the store.
I fall for it all the time… I was at Trader Joe’s last night and grabbed a chocolate bar on a whim, and it got me thinking about impulse makeup — ya know, the stuff you didn’t plan to buy when you walked into Sephora but grabbed it just the same.
The last time I did it was at the Laura Mercier counter a couple weeks ago. I went intending only to get the Eye Kohl in Stormy Grey from the Silk Road Collection, but I grabbed the Lip Plumper in Ruby Glaze at the last minute. Poor thing just looked like it needed a friend. 🙂
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Amid the deluge of gray falling on eye palettes this spring, Dolce & Gabbana stands out. In the pan, their Smooth Eye Colour Quad in Eden ($59) looks like a garden with pretty pastels in mint green and pink.
Dolce & Gabbana usually scores with their quads — hitting them out of the park with rich pigmentation, a buttery, easy-to-blend texture, and shadows that exhibit very little fallout, but I think this new one falls a little short.
As the one and only quad in the new Secret Garden Collection, Eden’s shadows are uncharacteristically uneven when applied.
I wore the colors in the palette today and kinda struggled to blend them together. They weren’t as smooth as I’m used to from the brand and looked patchier then I would’ve liked.
Kate Spade Didi shoes, new for spring 2011.
Update your spring makeup wardrobe for less with the trendy purple and gray eyeshadows in the NYC New York Color Custom Compact for Blue Eyes (I picked mine up from Tar-ghay for $7).
The palette includes four shadows, an eyelid primer and a cream highlighter.
Purple and gray not your cup of tea? Check out the compacts for green and brown eyes.
Look out! It’s a primer triple threat! From the fertile mind of Francois Nars, the new NARS Pro-Prime Multi-Protect Primer SPF 30 ($32) creates a smooth canvas for your makeup while it supposedly nourishes skin with a bevy of plant-based ingredients.
This newest member of the permanent NARS Pro Prime line has a colorless, lotion-like texture that feels light and fluffy to the touch. Oil-free, it totally reminds of Urban Decay’s Complexion Primers, absorbing quickly without leaving a greasy residue or white cast on my skin.
I like the texture, and I do notice smoother makeup with it on (especially in pictures).
NARS bills this as a “treatment face primer.” Sounds good, right? 🙂 And they identify two plants as key to the product’s many benefits: Gentiana Urnula, a Himalayan flower used in Tibetan medicine for its anti-oxidative properties; and Indian Frankincese, used in Aruveydic medicine as an anti-inflammatory.
I dug around and found a handful of studies involving Indian Frankincense to treat asthma, cancer and arthritis, as well as one directly related to skin care, but I didn’t find any studies pertaining to Gentiana Urnula.
I think it’s cool that NARS is looking to ancient medicine for ingredients (if people have been using the stuff for centuries, it should be good for something, right?), but some data to back up the product’s claims would help, as would clearer language. Which compounds provide which benefits? Inquiring minds want to know.
[Continue reading…]
It’s time to bust out your lighter and sway back and forth, because Lancome’s new spring makeup collection is a regular Prince!
As in Purple Rain. 🙂
Just how much purple are we talking about here? Well, if you crammed a thousand Prince impersonators, all of them wearing sparkling purple suits with matching ruffled shirts, into one HUGE room, that would be less purple than Ultra Lavande, Lancome’s spring release of new and repromoted items for eyes, lips and cheeks.
Lancome invoked the ’70s for the product names, and some of them are great (Disco Silver and Le 54?). I don’t know though… Doesn’t the promo pic remind you more of the ’80s than the decade before? Check out the model’s Brook Shields brows and the blocks of color on her eyes. I mean, she could pass for one of those jungle girls from Hungry Like the Wolf (or an extra on Dynasty).
When I saw these pics, my first thought was, “This is a purple version of LM’s Silk Road.” Heck, there’s even a dash of gold on the eyes.
Butterflies Fever Ultra Lavande Blush, $40
Color Design Eyeshadow Quad in Ultra Lavande, $42
[Continue reading…]
Besides its top-shelf pigmentation and oodles of micro-glitter, Dolce & Gabbana’s Nail Lacquer in Platinum ($20) has a nice surprise that makes it stand out from all the other gray polishes showing up at department store counters this spring (see Estee Lauder Wild Violets and Dior Montaigne).
The sole nail color in the new Secret Garden Collection might look like your typical shimmery silver polish in the bottle, but on my nails Platinum subtly flashes from silver to gray to green to taupe depending on the light. Very cool!
I haven’t yet tested Platinum for durability since the bottle just came in, but if it’s anything like the Dolce & Gabbana polishes from the last few seasons it should resist chipping with a good base coat.
[Continue reading…]
