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
I have no knitting or purling game (the only thing I’ve ever knitted was a scarf — a really, really, really long and hideous scarf), but if I had the skills, I’d start knitting homemade hats for Tabs! 🙂
Look what I found at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma last weekend: Cats in Hats: 30 Knit and Crochet Hat Patterns for Your Kitty, by Sara Thomas ($16.95).
Now I can’t get the image of Tabs wearing a yarn unicorn hat out of my head. BAH!
I see torrents of teal, bunches of brown, gobs of gold and a deluge of Dior on the horizon!
The new $62 Dior Summer 2015 Limited Edition 5 Couleurs Eyeshadow Palette in 556 Contraste Horizon, one of two limited edition powder eyeshadow palettes in the recently released Dior Summer 2015 Tie Dye Collection, is available now online and at Dior counters, where it patiently awaits makeup lovers hoping to take it home. 🙂
Dior Contraste Horizon contains a shimmery medium warm brown, a shimmery deep teal, a shimmery warm yellow gold, a shimmery mint and an iridescent pale violet, and yes, it’s $62.
YIKES!
Dior is a high-end brand, after all, and with their prices, it seems they aren’t afraid to show it.
This is what I’d call a traditional summer eye palette…with a twist. If you live for classic summer eye colors, you may freak out over the shimmery gold, brown and teal shades in this palette.
Granted, the whole brown/teal/gold combo idea isn’t exactly revolutionary — I mean, it’s no Ryan Gosling body pillow — but because Dior is freaking Dior, these shadows do everything they’re supposed to do, and they do it well.
Take the teal, brown and gold eyeshadows in this eye look I’m wearing. Seriously, it only took one layer with these to reach maximum color. The highly pigmented powders are downright indulgent, and yay! — no fallout. Plus, an eight-hour wear time.
If there’s one thing Guerlain “gets” better than most brands it’s bronzers. They do toasty, tanned glows so well.
The latest additions to their brood of bad-@ss bronzers, the $53 Terracotta Joli Teint Natural Healthy Glow Powder Duos, are available now in four shades — 00 Light Blondes, 02 Natural Blondes, 01 Clair Brunettes and 03 Naturel Brunettes — and even though their names correspond to different hair colors, I don’t think you have to necessarily stick to your matching shade. Myself, I bounce back and forth between 02 Naturel Blondes and 01 Clair Brunettes.
These face powder duos pair a bronzing shade for warmth with a brighter pop of color for radiance in every pan, and breaking with their own tradition when it comes to bronzers, Guerlain made these less pigmented this time around. These are more like light golden tan browns than the rich bronzed browns I’m more accustomed to seeing from the brand.
The goal was to glow without looking garish, so subtlety plays a big part — more subtlety than usual for bronzers by Guerlain.
And that’s also a caveat. When I wear these, I don’t really see a major wow factor on my medium-toned skin. The effect may be a little too subtle for some makeup lovers, especially darker divas, and especially considering the $53 price.
One of the downsides of deep-cleaning one’s office (yes, Operation Get My Sh*t Together is still ongoing) is finding a huge mound of stale cat treats behind a box of eye palettes and realizing, “Holy freaking crap! I’m the woman who had a pile of stale cat treats in her office and has no idea how long they were there!”
It could have been days, weeks or even years, and frankly I’m surprised that Tabs didn’t find them, because I’m sure he would have “removed” them for me.
Before you click away thinking, “This woman is crazy,” I do have a point, and it is this: one of the upsides of deep-cleaning one’s office is rediscovering long-loved and lost gems like MAC Brownluxe Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow.
If you like wearing eyeshadow but feel like your blending skills are lacking, and/or you’re often in a hurry to get out the door, and/or you can’t bear the thought of buffing out three layers of Soft Brown with your 217, YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE.
“Five complementary shades that glide on and blend beautifully for infinite day-to-night looks: egg shell, frosty orange gold, light yellow chocolate, deep bronze, blackened plum with pearl. Matte to highly pearlized finish.”
MAC Brownluxe belongs to the Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow family, a group of powder shadow palettes in the MAC permanent line. It’s one of eight Veluxe Pearlfusion palettes available now for $40 each.
The MAC Veluxe Pearlfusions have a different formula than the regular MAC powder shadows that come in the round pans. Softer and silkier, they feel almost creamy to the touch.
Each Veluxe Pearlfusion palette (Plumluxe, Copperluxe, Peachluxe, etc.) has its own distinct color theme, and within each palette, you get five Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadows hand-selected to work together in that particular theme.
Browluxe, one of my favorites in the Veluxe Pearlfusion fam, has a soft, shimmery eggshell beige; a satiny, medium golden tan; a glittery, orangey gold; a shimmery chocolate; and a shimmery, deep plummy brown — all colors that I could happily wear daily for the rest of my life based on how I’ve been feeling lately, ’cause I’ve been all about #datneutrallife.
But it’s not just the Brownluxe colors that I like. The Veluxe Pearlfusion formula is also just plain fab. It’s really, really easy to blend. Even if you’re completely new to eyeshadow, I think you could do a look incorporating two or three (or maybe even all five!) of these colors, and have it turn out looking like you know exactly what you’re doing.
I don’t know what kind of cosmetic witchery is at work, but it’s probably related to the creamy formula. Erasing edges between the colors and creating diffused gradients that seamlessly transition from light to dark, which are telltale signs of someone who’s been blending for a while, is easy with these shadows.
Brownluxe is the best if you’re always running late (story of my life). I wore it yesterday to a meeting in the city with some beauty folks, and I only had 20 minutes to do a full face of makeup from start to finish. Brownluxe helped me quickly do a neutral cat eye, which I paired with a bright hot pink lip (MAC Pink Pigeon), and I think it turned out looking like I spent 45 minutes instead of 20.
At first, this really, really freaked me out. I kept thinking of that scene in The Matrix when you see all of the people being farmed in those pods, or like when old-@ss vampires seek out newborns to drain because it gives them extra strength for a clan war or something…
Anywho! Overactive imagination much?
What were we talking about? Cleansing oil??
To use Napoleon Perdis Rebirth of Venus Skin Renewal Cleansing Oil ($39 for a 4.9-oz. bottle), apply a small amount to your face while your skin is dry (don’t dampen your skin first with water — that’s the key), massage it in, and then rinse with water.
As for the whole placenta thing…the kind used here in the ingredients is called Marine Placenta.
And because knowledge is power, I did a quick search on “placenta,” specifically “marine placenta,” and apparently it’s an ingredient often used in beauty products as a humectant (used to keep things from drying out). It’s derived from salmon eggs (source and source).
Who knew?
Just a little random Thursday night food for thought if ingredients interest you…
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“Uh, yes, I’ll take a Baked Starblush and a tall Caramel Macchiato, please…”
I really like this product’s name: Baked Starblush. It sounds both astronomical and tasty. 🙂 This here is the Smashbox Fusion Soft Lights in Baked Starblush, one of two new $32 shimmery baked highlighters (the other one is called Starburst) containing five individual shades (there are two of each color) — in this one’s case a soft white, a soft pink, a rosy pink, a dusty rose and a bright rose. Both are available now online and at Smashbox counters, Nordstrom, Ulta and Sephora.
As for wear time, on my combination oily/dry skin, it lasts between six and seven hours.
I like sniffing out scents that you can’t find on every beauty shelf and every fragrance counter, and this one, Maria Christofilis Fleur 09 Eau de Parfum Spray, definitely catches my nose’s attention. It’s an unabashedly bold and upfront white floral and citrus blend very much like a Tom Ford perfume, and it doesn’t back down from start to finish.
The official fragrance notes sound a little like a travel brochure: Sicilian yellow mandarin essence, Calabrese bergamot essence, bitter orange tree leaf water absolute, Moroccan orange flower extract, Tunisian orange blossom absolute, Indian tuberose absolute Orpu, Mexican Vanilla bean absolute and benzoin tears extract from Laos…
Benzoin tears?
Yeah, I also stopped in my tracks when I read that one.
What are benzoin tears? Apparently, they are secreted from ducts formed on deciduous and evergreen shrubs after they receive a severe wound.
Fascinating.
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The Dior Summer 2015 Collection Dior Addict Lipsticks ($33 each, available in four shades) are aptly named.
Because they are deliciously addictive. 🙂
I usually like to swap out the lip products I keep in my purse every few days (’cause I crave variety), but the two Dior Addicts I’m wearing here are the only two lipsticks I’ve carried around consistently this past month.
Two of four Dior Addict Lipsticks in the Dior Summer 2015 Tie Dye Collection, they’re available now at Dior counters and online. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between 001 Red Bliss and 005 Fuchsia Utopia (the others are 002 Coral Trip and 006 Nude Fever).
“Dior Addict is back this summer with a brand new two-tone version: four fresh and bright shades featuring the emblematic Dior logo in a contrasting colour at the center. In a single sweep, shades and textures intertwine to recreate a subtle tie dye effect on the lips.”
— dior.com
Like Tootsie Pops, each of these lipsticks has a surprise inside. There are two colors within each bullet, and they mix together as you slick one across your lips.
Why am I addicted to Dior Addict? Let me count the ways…
For me, these are right up there with the top performers in the medium-coverage lipstick category alongside the fantastic $20 MAC Huggable Lip Colours, which look similar but have a slightly thicker formula, and the fabulous $50 Tom Ford Lip Color Sheers, which are a smidgen more pigmented but waaay more expensive.
