Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup
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Sephora calls the four petite pink and nude shades in their $15 Mini Ultra Shine Gloss Set universally flattering.
I call ’em perfect for purses and sunglasses, on account of their diminutive stature (0.1 ounces each), their easy, breezy sheer-to-medium coverage and a finish that’s brighter than the sun!
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I’m currently obsessed with Laura Mercier’s Lustre Eye Colour in African Violet, $22.
It’s purply copper love, I tell ya.
Alright, people, before we load up the Land Rover and head out on this safari, let’s run through a quick cosmetics checklist.
Lipstick? ✓
Eyeliner? ✓
Powder? ✓
Shimmery golden bronzer decorated like a spotted big cat?
…
I repeat, shimmery golden bronzer decorated like a spotted big cat?
No?! Well, that’s not right. Don’t worry though. We’ll fix that.
Locals refer to these wildcats as Dolce & Gabbana’s Animalier Bronzers. They’re $57, part of the new Animalier holiday collection, and recognizable by their distinctive spotted patterns.
A similar cat was sighted prowling makeup counters back in the summer of 2011. That one was also called Animalier.
This specimen’s spots, just like last year’s, are an overspray.
When we find one for you, I want you to mix the colors together. That should give you a cool-toned bronzy brown perfect for chiseled ’80s music video cheekbones.
Now, I have some experience with this cat, so I should warn you — it can be dangerous, especially while it’s still an overspray. I wore it around the house this week and felt very Flashdance, without the high-cut leotard and leg warmers, of course.
The overspray doesn’t deliver the most natural look, so I wouldn’t wear it every day, but luckily, I don’t have to. The overspray wears off, revealing a velvety soft, finely-milled powder beneath it.
How soft is it? Well, to put it in perspective, it’s softer than a tabby’s low-hanging tum. 🙂
Once you get through that overspray, this cat will lavish your skin with warm, golden orangey brown kisses.
I think this year’s kitten is more pigmented than the Animalier Bronzer we saw last year, which was pretty sheer. I think it’s also a little more golden than orange.
When boredom threatens your makeup bag, whom do you call?
Batman? Nope, he can’t help.
Spidey? Sorry, not this time.
Jeremy Renner?
Yes…you call Jeremy Renner. 🙂
But seriously, you call Dolce & Gabbana! With their fierce leopard-print caps, the three new $34 limited edition Dolce & Gabbana Classic Cream Lipsticks from the Animalier collection are so wild they’re practically feral.
Cat lady says what?
(What?)
Iconic (a warm-toned tomato red), Desert (a shimmery bronze) and Caramel (a sheer beige) will go purrfectly with some of my favorite accessories, like my leopard-print dress, the husky tabby often draped across my arms, and the golden neutral shades in D&G’s new Desert eyeshadow quad.
All three have Dolce & Gabbana’s faint rosy lipstick flavor and scent and a creamy, luxuriously smooth formula that lasts on my lips from 3-4 hours.
I just got back from having lunch at The Plant Cafe in San Francisco with my friend Kate.
The restaurant’s known for their veggie burgers, which they make in-house out of lentils, mushrooms, beets, cashews and bulgar wheat.
I ordered one and thought it was really good. It tasted fresh, had a nice texture (can’t stand it when veggie burger patties are so tough that it feels like I’m eating a shoe!) and wasn’t greasy at all.
For dessert, Kate got the raspberry cheesecake, and I chose the pear tart. The pear tart was okay, but the raspberry cheesecake was the bomb dot com. I had a bit of food envy, for sure.
There’s a few different Plant Cafe locations in SF, and the one we went to is located near the Ferry Building. If you go, try to make reservations for the covered deck area out back. You get a really pretty view of the Bay, and on cold days, they turn on the heat lamps, so it’s comfy.
Highly recommended, especially if you like vegetarian food (there’s also lots of non-veg dishes, too).
Can’t wait to go back! 🙂
It’s a jungle out there. Thank goodness for makeup…and cats (what, you couldn’t tell I was a cat lady?).
And whenever my two favorite interests collide, let’s just say, I have a moment.
Like a straggler gazelle on the African savanna in the crosshairs of a hungry lion, I fell prey to the new Dolce & Gabbana Animalier holiday collection… It was inevitable — the cycle of life as it pertains to the new Eyeshadow Quad in Desert ($67).
Leopard-print packaging, golden neutrals and flawless performance? Yes, this is the quad I’m bringing with me when J.Renn and I get stranded on that deserted island (that incidentally also has modern conveniences like plumbing, air conditioning, a Sephora store and Internet access).
Granted, the $67 price tag is like a deep, painful cat scratch for wallets, but that’s Dolce & Gabbana for ya. They may charge borderline redonkulous prices, but when they get a product right, they knock it out of the park…
…and all the way to the Dolce & Gabbana Eyeshadow Quad in Desert. 🙂
Even if I wasn’t a cat lady, I’d love this limited edition quad’s packaging. Not only do I like the way it looks on the outside, but the colors inside it are based on the print! How cool is that?
Three of the quad’s four neutrals — the matte beige, shimmery gold and matte light brown — have golden, mid-color temperature tones, which should make them flatter a wide range of skin tones.
The darkest shade, the plummy reddish brown, is a touch warmer than the other colors, and because it’s the darkest, I use to smoke out the other shades and as a liner (works well on lash and water lines).
If you have very cool-toned skin (quick tip: if the veins in your arm appear blue, you’re probably cooler toned; if they’re greenish, more warm), the darker shade might be a little tough to pull off, but it could still come in handy as a fallback liner.
Man, these eyeshadows should get Hollywood agents because they’re superstars! They’re everything I could ever hope for and expect from a high-end makeup line (that charges $67 for a quad).
I have no idea how D&G managed to make them this pigmented and yet keep them so easy to blend. And the fallout? — what fallout? Zero, nada, zilch. And they last all day long for me without creasing or fading.
“Bling it.”
“Oh, it’s already been blough-it.”
Sorry… Made myself laugh. 🙂
So, what’s better than getting a great deal on a face palette with eight pigmented shadows, a perky pink powder blush and five flattering lipsticks?
How ’bout this: getting it all with a side of bling.
No need to bust out your BeDazzler to bejewel the new limited edition Sephora Blinged Palette, because it already comes complete with sparkly rhinestones. It’s also pretty affordable at $15.
Oh, how do I love thee, Sephora Blinged Palette? Let me count the ways…
Fallout? What’s that? I hardly see any at all from these eight powder eyeshadows. Worn with my beloved NARS primer. With the primer’s help, they’re a breeze to blend and last all day long on my lids.
I love the mix of matte and shimmer finishes and the brown, gold, peach, beige and green shades, which are nicely balanced between cool and warm tones.
Only thing is, the high-shine shimmery shades have an appetite for fine lines — meaning they like to highlight ’em.
What a nice surprise! It’s so smooth and natural looking.
I wish these five unscented, unflavored lipsticks weren’t seated so close to the blush (such a pain), but I think the colors work so well with the palette that I’m willing to let it go.
If chem lab had been anywhere near as much fun as Sephora’s new Gloss Lab, I never would have finished any of my titrating!
I would have been too busy mixing and matching the 10 marvelously moisturizing glosses (which could easily pass for MAC Cremesheens) in the $25 kit, and then watching the clouds above my head part to a concerto of harps and herald angels singing.
Unlike chem lab, Gloss Lab is exclusive to Sephora. The limited edition holiday kit, which is available now, comes with seven shades in an assortment of nude and bright colors and three colorless top coats (one clear gloss, another with small bits of white shimmer in it, and a third with larger bits of multi-colored shimmer), and all 10 of them come with an easy-to-use doe-foot applicator.
