Archives for January 2011

What Was Your Last Impulse Makeup Purchase?

January 20th, 2011 by Karen 109 Comments

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. 🙂

Do you remember your last impulse makeup purchase?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Just How Smooth Is the New Dolce & Gabbana Smooth Eye Colour Quad in Eden?

January 19th, 2011 by Karen 42 Comments

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.

Dolce Gabbana Secret Garden Eden Smooth Eye Colour Quad
[Continue reading…]

You Are My Obsession

January 19th, 2011 by Karen 16 Comments

Kate Spade Didi shoes, new for spring 2011.

So Very Spring 2011, Don’t Ya Think?

January 19th, 2011 by Karen 8 Comments

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.

I Feel Good About the New NARS Multi-Protect Pro Primer

January 19th, 2011 by Karen 50 Comments

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…]

The Lancome Ultra Lavande Collection for Spring 2011: Now THAT’s a Lot of Purple

January 19th, 2011 by Karen 47 Comments

lancome ultra lavande

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…]

$20 Dolce & Gabbana Nail Lacquer in Platinum Looks Like a Million Bucks

January 18th, 2011 by Karen 56 Comments

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!

Dolce & Gabbana Platinum nail polish swatch

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…]

The Clarins Neo Pastels Collection Turns Down the Lights

January 18th, 2011 by Karen 19 Comments

clarins neo pastels

I wonder what would Neo from The Matrix would think about the new Clarins Neo Pastels Collection. Would he consider ditching his black cloak and brooding persona for its uplifting makeup in pink, purple and peach?

I highly doubt it, but ya never know. 🙂

SCI-FI SIDE NOTE: Now, my girl Trinity would probably dig that pop of black liner the Neo Pastels model is wearing on her lower lash line, but I digress…

Back to makeup in three, two, one…

Available now on counters and online at clarinsusa.com, the new Neo Pastels Collection features 21 new and repromoted items consisting of an eye palette, six blushes, 12 lipsticks, one mascara and a wrinkle-smoothing primer in a palette of primarily soft pinks, purples, peaches, with a sprinkling of neutral brown, beige and black thrown in for safe measure. To me the colors seem like typical (in a good way) spring/Easter shades.

clarins neo pastel display

With the collection, Clarins says they wanted to celebrate the annual spring renewal by interpreting pastels in a new way. Like Chanel did with pearly finishes in Les Perles de Chanel, Clarins tried to play with varying degrees of sheen, shade and shine to give faces, eyes and cheeks a subtle radiance — almost like a halo of color.

At least that was the idea. Looking at the swatches now, the concept might have been lost on me, but I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing. I do like many of these colors, but they’re darker than typical pastels — a good thing, perhaps, if darker also makes them wearable on a wider range of skin tones.

Take the Eye Colour & Liner Palette ($40), for instance, and I’m hoping its brown, pink and violet shades will be wearable by pale princesses and tan temptresses alike.

Still, gals who had their hearts set on pure pastels might want to look elsewhere, like to Dolce & Gabbana’s Secret Garden, with its more traditional pastel greens, violets and pinks.

Grays have been showing up in several of this spring’s collections from lines like Chanel, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and Laura Mercier, but I was quite surprised not to find any in Neo Pastels. Nada. Zilch. Zero. You won’t find any gray here, folks!

But while you won’t find any gray, you will probably spot some fingerprints. I can already tell that trying to keep this packaging pristine will be a useless endeavor because prints are easy to notice sitting on the surface of these shiny gold compacts. Not a big deal, but it might be something for the super spies with secret identities to consider. 🙂

The first time I saw the model in the promo pic at the top of this post, I fell in love with her eyes. The ethereal purples and pinks suck you in and then POW! — there’s that black liner along the waterline. She’s like a biker angel. All she needs now is a leather jacket to ride her winged hog into the sky…
[Continue reading…]