Clinique

Where the heck are you!?

Um…I mean, are you traveling this weekend? Did you fly anywhere for Thanksgiving, or do you plan to go anywhere for Christmas? Because if you did or do, this new holiday 2015 travel exclusive kit from Clinique has not one, but TWO of my favorite Chubby Sticks for Eyes. It comes with Bountiful Beige and Fuller Fudge. So, to the creator of this fantabulous five-piece set, haaay! — you’re officially awesome. 🙂

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Like Kevin Federline circa 2005, highlighting and contouring are having a moment. You literally cannot escape them. They’re the Alcatraz of the makeup world right now.

The new Sculptionary Cheek Contouring palettes by Clinique have that highlighting/contouring trend in mind. Three shades, three jobs, one coordinated mission — to sculpt and shape yo’ cherub cheeks! They’re $32 each and available now in six oil-free shades at Clinique counters and online.

Use one of the mid-tone shades as blush for your cheeks, the deeper shades for contouring, and the lighter shade for highlighting. Or, mix them however you’d like to create a custom blush color for the apples of your cheeks.

I think these are really fun to mix, especially if you use them as blushes and highlighters…

I love me a customized cheek color! 🙂

Here I’m wearing the Defining Nectars palette. I mixed the mid-toned and darkest shades together by tapping my brush back and forth between the powders. Then I swirled the powder on the open lid to mix them together (you can also do this on the back of your hand or in your palm) and applied the combined color to my cheeks as a blush. Then I cleaned off my brush, loaded it with the lightest shade and swept that on my cheekbones to highlight.

If you’re going to be mixing these, I think it’s important to use a small face brush because the individual pans are pretty petite (the entire palette fits in the palm of my hand). I like the Contour Brush by Real Techniques; it’s small enough to pick up the colors separately.

As for contouring, I probably won’t be using these palettes to do a true contour as all of the darkest shades have shimmer, which really doesn’t do a lot in terms of chiseling my cheeks. Plus, I’m kind of afraid of things looking a little too ’80s with the colorful contour.

Totally go there if it’s your thing, though. You do you! That’s one of the things I love about makeup. 🙂 There’s an endless number of ways to interpret a look.

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The only thing that could make these new Clinique Pop Lip Colour + Primers better is if they actually came with Pop Tarts.

That, and if they were free and summoned fluffy kittens and unicorns. 🙂

By the way, if we’re handing out Pop Tarts here, I’ll take a strawberry with frosting, please. The others are a complete and total sham!

But I digress…

These new $18 lippies resemble one of my favorite high-end (much more expensive) lipsticks of all time. Keep reading to find out which one!

The Clinique Pop Lip Colour + Primers: Deets you need to know/overview

• These are a brand new line of $18 full-coverage, long-wearing, moderately moisturizing lipsticks with a built-in smoothing primer.
• There are 16 unflavored, unscented shades divided into four color families — nudes, tawnies/corals, pinks, violets.
• They have an interesting finish that I’d characterize as about two-thirds cream, one-third matte. Still a little shiny, but not completely matte. It reminds me of the NARS Satin Lip Pencils.
• Texture-wise, they feel creamy and slightly thick on my lips but aren’t heavy.
• I get five or six hours of wear time from the more intense shades, and four or five hours from the less intense ones.
• Of the six I’ve tried, the vibrant, colorful shades, particularly hot pink Punch Pop, reddish coral Poppy Pop and warm red Cherry Pop impress me the most. One layer of each gives me full, even coverage that stays out of my horizontal lip lines (yay!).
• I’m not crazy about pastel pinkish purple Fab Pop, though. It settles into my lip lines, looks patchy, and I can’t get it to stay where it belongs on my lips.
• For me, the stars of this show are the brights! 🙂 They totally remind me of Guerlain’s $51 Rouge G line. They look the same and feel the same to me, but they don’t taste or smell the same, so FYI, if you absolutely must have that rosy Guerlain flavor and scent, you won’t find that here.

  I still love the Rouge Gs to bits and probably always will, but these Clinique Pop Lips are a fabulously affordable $18 option (versus $51!).

Pop over to your neighborhood Clinique counter or Sephora store to check ’em out (or find them online).

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First of all, Happy Earth Day! 🙂

Speaking of objects with curvy contours…have you seen these new Clinique Chubby Sticks?

To quote Mary J. Blige, “What’s the 411, hon?”

Here’s the scoop: there are two, one for sculpting and contouring, and another one for highlighting, and both are available now at Clinique counters, Neiman Marcus stores and online at neimanmarcus.com.

So…what are they?

No matter how hard you try, guuuurl, right now in the world of makeup, you can’t completely escape highlighting and contouring. They’re both having a moment right now, and these two new creamy chubby pencils from Clinique are in that same highlighting/contouring vein. Dark brown matte Chubby Stick Sculpting Contour in Curvy Contour ($21) adds structure and definition to cheekbones (and wherever else you choose to use it), while satiny beige Chubby Stick Sculpting Highlight in Hefty Highlight ($21) helps you draw attention to areas you might want to highlight, like perhaps your upper cheekbones. You can use them together or individually.

How do you use ’em?

All you do is draw a few dot on your face wherever you want to highlight and/or contour, and then blend those dots with your fingers or a brush. I use like to use a synthetic brush with these, because the bristles aren’t as absorbent as most natural fibers, so they tend to work better with creams.

OK, but how well do they work?

Pretty well! — as a highlight/contouring combo. They do the trick. I’m glad the contour shade is a cool-toned matte and not a shimmer (better for creating illusionary shadows). I also like that the highlighter is more satiny than full-on shimmery, because it’s not as visibly harsh.

I do think that the chubby shape of the pencils makes them a little tough to maneuver around certain areas because it’s so darned big, but it’s workable.

Who would probably really like these?

Gals/guys with normal or dry skin who are looking for soft, natural highlights and contouring and aren’t super concerned about precision. Oily skin may not take to the cream formulas as readily.

Also, if you tend to touch your face a lot throughout the day, stop that. 🙂 Because these creams will scoot if you futz with them.

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