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
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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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.
If you decide to add one of Benefit’s new World Famous Neutrals kits to your holiday wish list, there’s a good chance (at least 93.5%) that your sis, mom, BFF or Secret Santa will find it hard to resist keeping it for herself.
(Because that’s totally what I’d be tempted to do.)
These three new $30 Sephora exclusive kits are some of the most exciting neutrals I’ve seen since Naked2, and I’m going bananas (B-A-N-A-N-A-S) over the colors, almost all of which are new.
Just when I thought the whole neutral palette craze was completely played out, along comes Benefit to put their signature spin on it.
First, they created “Eyenessa,” the magical, mystical makeup maven/character who graces the covers of all three World Famous Neutral kits, and judging by her giant hoop earrings and affinity for gold jewelry, she’s a girl after my own accessories-lovin’ heart. 🙂
Second, there’s the Creaseless Creams! — which are my favorite things about these. Each kit comes with two of them in tiny pots, along with four Longwear Powder Shadows.
Now, it seems like every brand has a nude/neutral palette of powder eyeshadows, but not many of them come with cream shadows. By including two Creaseless Creams with each of these, Benefit takes these kits to the next level. I think the Creams give Bene-babes much more power to layer and create their own custom combos.
What do ya say we take a closer look now at each of the kits? 🙂
Abracadabra! This spellbinding kit’s combination of rich, warm neutrals is prompting me to put my obsession with Skinny Jeans on pause (BTW, have you tried Skinny Jeans yet?? It’s one of my favorite cream eyeshadow colors of all time!). The kit features two enchanting Creaseless Creams of its own, the shimmery champagne Birthday Suit and My Two Cents, a shimmery warm golden copper.
The kit also comes with Longwear Powder Shadows in Call My Buff (a pearly, peachy beige), Kiss Me I’m Tipsy (a warm reddish brown with a hint of plum), It’s Complicated (a shimmery pinkish gold) and Gilt-y Pleasure (a shimmery peachy gold) to add even more glow to your eye looks.
Why settle for a shimmery golden eyeshadow that merely illuminates your lids when you could wear a shimmery golden eyeshadow that also caters to your inner lazy girl?
With a few quick pats and swipes to blend out the edges, Laura Mercier’s intensely pigmented warm golden $24 Illuminating Eye Colour in Gilded Moonlight will take you from bare lids to bold shimmer in 3.9 seconds!
Wait — let me try that again…
With a few quick pats and swipes to blend out the edges, Laura Mercier’s intensely pigmented warm golden $24 Illuminating Eye Colour in Gilded Moonlight will take you from bare lids to bold shimmer in less time than it takes to say, “The only reason I’m watching Jersey Shore is because I don’t want to look for the remote…” Not that I’ve ever said anything like that to El Hub while sprawled out on the couch with a bag of Baked Cheetos.
Nope.
Laura, if your master plan was to get me to book a reservation at Château de Lazy Girls, it worked. Like your equally easy Gilded Bronze, Gilded Moonlight takes but a minute to use. Just pat, blend and go.
NOTE: Gilded Moonlight isn’t light on pigment at all. In fact, it’s loaded with it! — which also means it can be easy to over-apply.
Even though it’s a holiday release, I can see myself wanting to wear it when the weather warms up again next year. For a bronzed beach babe look, I’d just swap the red lipstick and black liner for a sheer, coral gloss and a liner in green, purple or teal.
Racing to get out the door but you still want to look polished? Perhaps soft, silky Gilded Moonlight can help.
PRICE: $24
AVAILABILITY: Available now at Laura Mercier counters and lauramercier.com
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: A
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
P.S. Catch ya later, Wednesday! See you again next week.
I hope your day went well. No complaints out here, other than the rain, which keeps trying to bring me down.
Tonight I’m just massaging my brain in front of the TV (re-watching Battlestar Galactica). I wanted to go to a Cat Behavior Clinic at the Novato Humane Society, but the timing didn’t work out. Maybe next time…
Not that Tabs really needs behavioral help. Despite his diva propensities, he’s actually a pretty awesome cat (most of the time). I just think the clinic sounds interesting.
Whatever you’re up to, enjoy the rest of your night, and sleep well. I’ll talk to you soon.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
I love the smell of a good bargain in the morning…
It smells like…victory!
LOL! I’m pretty sure that’s not how that actual line goes, seeing as how Apocalypse Now is one of my top five favorite films of all time, but it is how I feel about Tarte’s new Treat Yourself to Gorgeous Gifts From the Amazon Collection kit.
Talk about great stocking stuffer material. I love breaking apart holiday kits to use as stocking stuffers, and this $49.98 one (a $496 value) looks perfect for that.
But it’s a qvc.com exclusive, and the sale only lasts a few more hours (sale ends tonight, November 28, 2012)!
It’s conveniently divided into three separate, easily giftable sets, the first with four Cashmere Waterproof Gliding Liners, the second with four Maracuja Divine Shine Lipglosses and the third with 20 Amazonian Clay Eye Shadows.
As gifts, the sets work out to about $16 each, and would ya look at that? — they already look gift-wrapped! 🙂
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If I were a pirate…my makeup collection would be my pirate’s booty, yargh!
And like most swashbuckling sailors of the seven seas (at least the ones in Hollywood movies), I’d wear a lot of looks featuring dark black eyeliner (hello, have you seen Jack Sparrow’s water line?? FIERCE!).
I’d also want a steady supply of sheer glosses to balance out those heavy eyeliner looks.
Ahoy, matey! Bobbi Brown has yer solution, and it’s not just for buccaneers and marauders. If you have a soft spot for sheer gloss, you just might like the five new $23 Lip Glosses from the Caviar & Oyster Collection.
Like a hunk of driftwood or a bottle with a message inside (“Please send gravy!”), the eight-piece release recently washed up on Bobbi Brown counters, delighting makeup treasure hunters with a palette, a nail polish, a dual-ended mascara and the five new glosses in predominantly cool-toned neutral shades.
The hook? — no, not the one replacing Blackbeard’s hand. With the collection, Bobbi aimed to offer her fans the option of going strong and smokey or soft and pretty.
But here’s the thing about the glosses: even the darker shades, like Moonlight Pearl and Black Pearl, seem pretty tame to me, so you might want to blank them out first with a layer of concealer.
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Wait — are you kidding me?! You two haven’t met yet? Well, we need to fix that immediately.
Babe, this is Sonia Kashuk’s new Formal Affair Palette; Formal Affair, this is one of my beauty besties.
I think you two will hit it off. Formal Affair here is quite a bargain at $19.99. She may spend her days in drugstores, but at heart, she’s 100% department store-caliber makeup.
It’s as if Sonia said, “I’m going to make the perfect powder palette, and it’s going to contain two blushes, one bronzer and four eyeshadows for girls who want to look like they’re wearing NARS, Bobbi Brown and Urban Decay but don’t want to spend that much.”
Don’t the golden brown powder bronzer and shimmery, golden peachy pink blush on Formal Affair’s far right look inspired by the NARS Orgasm/Laguna duo? Except that Sonia’s bronzer is sheerer than NARS Laguna, with slightlier grittier grains of golden glitter, and the golden pearl within the blush looks less pronounced to me than NARS Orgasm (maybe they’re just kissing cousins).
Okay, although I feel kinda lame getting excited about a brown eyeshadow (with so many great flashy colors out there and all!), Formal Affair’s brown is just so chocolaty…so shimmery…and so Mmmm! — buttery smooth.
It reminds me of Snakebite from the Urban Decay Naked2 palette.
It’s just so blendable, and I love how easy it is to wear sheer or build up in layers.
The tan and black glittery shadows in Formal Affair would fit right in with Bobbi Brown’s Sparkle Eyeshadows. Like those shadows from Bobbi, they’re loaded with gobs of medium-sized glitter, but Sonia takes things a step further by using an intensely pigmented base. Patting either shade on the brown shade from Formal Affair is a quick way to dress up a look. I do have to be mindful, though, of the fallout, which is slight, but still. At least it’s easy enough to clean up, especially if I do my eyes first.
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