NARS Red Square Velvet Matte Lip Pencil ($24) always puts me in a good mood. 🙂
Happy Friday!
NARS Noms: Red Square Velvet Matte Lip Pencil
Archives for December 2011
I Can’t Imagine Falling Out of Love with Laura Mercier’s New Baked Eye Colour Palette
Are they macarons, or are they eyeshadows? Well, that depends. The baked beauties in Laura Mercier’s new Baked Eye Colour Palette ($48) just might be a bit of both.
Like macarons, they make me smile. 🙂 All five of the shimmery shadows in brown, bronze, beige, pink and purple deposit very little fallout on my cheeks, and I love the glowing, wide-awake look their punchy pigments bestow upon my eyes.
The palette, a holiday release, also comes with a time-saving surprise — a dual-tipped brush with a flat eyeshadow brush on one end and a dense, pointed cream shadow brush on the other. I’ve tried the shades both wet and dry with the flat shadow brush and got some fast, fresh looks, and because the shadows adhere to my lids so well, I didn’t have to spend any extra time cleaning up fallout on my cheeks.
The Laura Mercier Travel Brush Kit Successfully Tries to Sweep Sticker Shock Under the Rug
Okay, now I want you to brace yourself, and take a deep breath.
Good? Okay, now when you’re ready, slowly read the following line…
$85.
Now that feeling there? — that split second when you felt the air forced out your lungs and could barely draw a breath? That’s called sticker shock, and the $85 Laura Mercier Travel Brush Set causes it a lot.
Thankfully, it subsides (somewhat) after a bit of number crunching and quality play time with these super soft brushes.
The kit, one of several of Laura’s holiday 2011 offerings, includes four travel size dual-ended eye brushes, a full size skunk brush and a faux snakeskin pouch with a removable insert.
Now, if this were just an $85 kit containing four travel eye brushes, a face brush and a cute, zippered pouch, I’d probably feel disappointed and a little upset, but the dual-tipped brushes serve to justify the price. With brush heads on both ends of four of the brushes, it’s like getting nine brushes for $9.44 each — practically a steal for Laura Mercier brushes, which usually sell for $30 a pop.
As for the quality of these travel brushes, color me impressed. I haven’t observed any shedding, loose ferrules or construction mistakes, and their performance seems to be on par with Laura’s more expensive full-size eye brushes.
Better yet, and why I really like this set, it covers all of the most important bases for my eye looks, with brushes for brows, concealer, liner, and for applying and blending eyeshadow.
And the full-size skunk brush? Amazing! I can’t believe I went without it for so long. It buffs powders, blushes and bronzers with a very light, natural touch. Great for getting that flawless, airbrushed look.
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Mixed Metal Manis: Like Britney, My Nails Are Going Beige, Silver and Gold
Aha! I always knew (or hoped) that those countless hours spent watching Pop-Up Video would pay off eventually. Yup, it was while watching Britney shake her moneymaker in the Toxic video (one of my faves) the other that day that I came up with this idea for a Mixed Metal Mani.
You know that nude bodysuit she wears with the diamonds? Wouldn’t that look pretty chic and blingy on your nails? — a minimalist nude nail layered with gold and silver glitter?
Let’s find out! 🙂
I started with a base coat, and then slipped on two layers of creamy beige Essie Brooch the Subject, which would be my nude background color.
I wanted a subtle sparkle from the golden glitter — nothing too overpowering — so I chose Essie as Gold as It Gets for its tiny flecks of golden glitter in varying shapes.
(NOTE: Next time I give something like this a try, I just might add a top coat and stop right there. Coupled with a nude background color, I think it’s a very pretty, subdued way to approach glitter.)
Christmas Lights: Rainbow Colors
Are You a Tocca Graciella Girl?
It’s her hair you notice first — long, loose and wavy, and still a little damp from this morning’s shower. Today she’s riding her rickety bicycle, the one with the worn wicker basket on the front, along the cobblestone streets of the small Italian village you both call home.
“Hello, Graciella!” you call to her. She sees you, smiles and waves a hand high in reply.
Clackity-clack-clack, goes the bicycle, as it moves along the cobblestones. She’s wearing a flowery, flowing dress today, and all of a suddenly the air is filled with the scent of oranges, you assume from her shampoo. Fresh from a visit to the early morning market, her basket is brimming with white lilies and a brown paper bag filled with pears. Hungry (she’s always hungry), she nibbles on one of them as she cruises along, and when she passes you, there’s a whiff of soft musk from her skin, but it slowly drifts away…
Just like that, she’s gone, floating off toward the day’s adventure. 🙂
Graciella ($68), Tocca’s newest eau de parfum, is a fleeting, simple beauty on the corner of a cobblestone street. Sweet, feminine and innocent, it starts quietly, with notes of pear and bitter orange, moving from there into a slow song of white lilies, before winding down into a lush, creamy musk.
Get Glowing Hands with Julep’s Glowing Hands Gift Set
Whenever I think of cuticle oils, a couple of things come to mind…
1. Co-dependency, in how I feel like I always have to have a bottle within reach.
2. And PPs (translation: Purse Problems).
I couldn’t even venture to guess how many times I’ve mistakenly ruined a purse and all of the products within it by forgetting to tighten a bottle of cuticle oil. Ah, the sweet, sweet pain of opening a clutch, only to discover that your favorite NARS blush has been irreparably smothered in mango-scented cuticle oil…
For a long while I’d been using these handy-dandy clickable cuticle pens from Sephora. No muss, no fuss. And they worked just fine, but you know how it is to be a beauty nerd. I got bit by the itch to try something new.
That led me and my cuticles to a brand called Julep. The company — an indie brand based in Seattle with their own line of polishes, nail care products, nail salons and an upscale, eco-friendly vibe — squeezed their Essential Cuticle Oil into a convenient roller-ball.
And it’s genius! 🙂
To apply, just unscrew the cap, and guide the roller-ball along your cuticles. It’s kinda like writing with a ballpoint pen, only instead of ink, it distributes an oil with a lovely lavender scent. Then, after covering the area, I use my thumb to massage the oil in.
Besides preventing a mess, the roller-ball also makes it easy to control how much oil I use, so my fingers aren’t left feeling like I’ve dipped them in grease.
I came across Essential Cuticle Oil through Julep’s holiday Glowing Hands Gift Set ($48 for a $102 value), which, along with the oil, includes two polishes (sheer pink Jennifer and creamy red Catherine), a Glycolic Hand Scrub, a makeup bag and a crystal nail file.
It’s one of several holiday gift sets available now on the company’s website.
The set is by no means cheap, but it represents quite a bargain, when a bottle of Julep’s Essential Cuticle Oil regularly costs $18 by itself (and the polishes sell for $14 each). Looking at it that way, I think it’s a pretty good deal.
Swatches of Catherine (left) and Jennifer (right)
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NARS Noms: Star Sailor
NARS Star Sailor Duo Eyeshadow, $33. Available now at NARS counters and also online.