Makeup

Both Brights and Neutrals Play Important Parts in the New MAC Rossy de Palma Collection

October 11th, 2017 by Karen 4 Comments

mac rossy de palma packaging 1 — MAC Rossy de Palma

Described as a Picasso come to life, and Almodóvar’s muse, Spanish actress and model Rossy de Palma was something of an ‘it’ girl in the ’90s, but I seem to have missed that memo, lost to the same college vortex that sucked up the memo about Friends.

Yes, the TV show. I’ve never seen an episode of Friends.

How is that even possible, right? I don’t know, but it is.

I googled Rossy de Palma today, and oh em gee, the woman is gorgeous! I don’t even know where to start. She’s in her 50s, and I love that she actually looks like a 50-year-old woman. I can’t think of anyone else who looks quite like her. She seems sassy, artsy, strong, and I notice a recurring theme from her public pictures. She isn’t afraid to wear brights. She wears pinks on her lids, purples, teals…and I’m talking from the lash line all the way to the brow bone! She goes all out! I think I’m going to obsess over her now.

You can definitely see her love for brights in her new MAC collaboration, the MAC Rossy de Palma collection, especially through the Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow Palette, Colours on the Verge ($32).

Brights play a big part in this collection, but the must-have take-home for me is a neutral. Go figure. More on that in a few…

Before we dive in, can we just take a second to appreciate the packaging? — because MAC went all out.

mac rossy de palma packaging 2 — MAC Rossy de Palma

Some pieces have a holographic effect, while others have an illustrated version of Rossy’s profile and her signature red lips.

Oh! — that’s another thing. Rossy loves matte red lipstick. She’ll do nudes on occasion, but mostly she wears red.

MAC Colours On the Verge/Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow

I think the teal and navy blue in the Veluxe Pearlfusion Palette are pure fun, but the pink and purple are cute, too. And everything’s pigmented.

I’ll be wearing the brights like this again, as a single lid color and/or liner with a warm brown in the crease.

mac rossy de palma colours on the verge — MAC Colours On the Verge/Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow ($32)

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Product Shout-Out: BECCA Lilac Geode Shimmering Skin Perfector Powder

October 10th, 2017 by Karen 8 Comments

Normally, I would have no business wearing a purple highlighter. I’ll leave that to the club kids who wanna channel their inner unicorn, because lilac highlights are kind of unicorn makeup, right?

Not as hardcore unicorn as rainbow stripe highlights on your cheeks, but still…majorly unicorn-y.

But BECCA Lilac Geode Shimmering Skin Perfector surprised me.

OK, first of all, and I’ll be the first person to admit this, but this swatch is totally lame.

becca lilac geode swatch — The camera doesn’t pick up the purple flash, but it’s there, though!

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Now Available in the MAC Permanent Line: The Liptensity Lipsticks and Liptensity Lip Pencils

October 9th, 2017 by Karen 11 Comments

mac liptensity lipsticks lip pencils — New in the permanent line!

You know when people say, “She’s so extra”? I still haven’t figured out if that’s a good or a bad thing. I think it’s a good thing…like saying “you’re the cat’s meow!”

I think?

These new MAC Liptensity Lipsticks and Lip Pencils are definitely extra, though. Extra pigmented! 🙂

mac liptensity lipsticks october 2017 — I love that the packaging is the same color as the bullet.

Remember the LE MAC Liptensity Lipsticks from last fall? The Liptensities have totally different packaging than the regular MAC Lipsticks. Their brightly colored caps match the lipsticks inside, and the formula is majorly intense and pigmented. They lay down lots of color per swipe, and there are now 12 shades in the permanent line for $21 each.

Here’s a look at some of them…

mac liptensity lipstick swatches october 2017 — MAC Liptensity Lipsticks from the top: Bite o’ Georgia, King Salmon, Noblesse, Beetroot, Clouds in My Coffee, Well-Bred Brown

Pretty, yeah?

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NARS Man Ray for NARS Holiday 2017: Overexposed Glow Highlighter in Double Take

October 6th, 2017 by Karen 6 Comments

Wha-wha!? Double take! I had to do a faux one when I saw NARS Double Take up close for the first time. It’s the new highlighter in the NARS Man Ray Holiday 2017 color collection.

I mean, look at the pan. There are lips on it…but it’s a cheek product? It’s a little confusing, but dang if it isn’t pretty, so I’m just going to let myself be confused and go with it, LOL! Heck, I still might even put it on my lips sometime to see what happens…

The limited edition warm golden formula feels super soft and dense — a little like the MAC In Extra Dimension powders, only finer and creamier. When I flick a brush across it, the powder particles cling to the bristles and don’t go flying everywhere.

nars double take swatch — Ooh, shimmery golden purr-fection…

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NARS Man Ray for NARS Holiday 2017 Color Collection: Fetishized and Intensely Blush

October 6th, 2017 by Karen 12 Comments

Is it 1983? Am I in a Duran Duran video (OMG, I WISH!)? Fetishized and Intensely are totally worthy of stylish ’80s video dudes, which says a lot. Simon Le Bon would be raiding John Taylor’s makeup bag, and Simon would be all, “Hey, can I borrow your bright NARS blush?” And John would say, “The reddish coral one? Sure. You should try layering it with the tangerine one. Grab that too, and while you’re at it, could you please hand me my fuchsia lipstick?”

I gotta have blush that applies smoothly, and both of these totally do. They’re from the NARS Man Ray Holiday color collection, and they pack POW.

The really intense coral-red one that looks like a ruby red grapefruit is called Fetishized, and the bright matte tangerine one is Intensely. They look almost tropical, don’t they? Almost summery? — which is surprising for a holiday/winter look, but not surprising, at the same time, since the Man Ray color collection is all around bright, pigmented and joyful.

nars intensely and fetishized blush swatches — Intensely and Fetishized swatches!

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NARS Man Ray for NARS Photoglosses in Zambeze, Muse, Off Limits and Kiki

October 5th, 2017 by Karen 5 Comments

nars man ray for nars holiday 2017 photogloss lip lacquer — From the left: Muse, Zambeze, Off Limits and Kiki

I love that the lips on these LE tubes of gloss from the new Man Ray for NARS Holiday 2017 collection look like regular ol’ lips. They’re even slightly asymmetrical, thank goodness! Because I gotta be honest, sometimes I need a break from the hyper-inflated Kylie-style lips everywhere.

The glosses are NARS Photogloss Lip Lacquers, a new limited edition formula, and — very importantly — they smell almost like vanilla cookies.

The thing about these glosses is that they’re SO pigmented. Like, you know how sometimes when you make tea and you put the tea bag in the hot water, but then you go do something else and forget about the tea, only to realize an hour later what you did, but you don’t want to waste it, so you drink it anyway even though it tastes crazy strong and intense?

That’s how these glosses look.

nars man ray for nars holiday 2017 photogloss swatches — Photogloss Lip Lacquer swatches from the top: Muse, Ambeze, Off Limits Kiki

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Set Your Concealer With Powder LIKE RIGHT NOW

October 5th, 2017 by Karen 18 Comments

nars concealer and powder — Lock that concealer down ASAP

I got a message from the makeup goddesses the other day. Do you wanna hear it? Well, you’re gonna have to, even if you don’t want to, because it’s CCI (Crucial Concealer Info).

Here it is: when you’re working with concealers…or doing just about anything else in life, timing is everything. With concealer, I’m talking about the timing of when you apply setting powder to it.

Because it’s gotta happen right away, and I mean immediately after you’ve done that last pat, blend and whatever. Right at that moment, grab a brush, and dust your setting powder on top with a quickness, girl!

It’s like when you find a good cat… You gotta lock that ish down right away. I did it with Tabs, and I usually do it with my concealer, buuuuuut I didn’t do it that way the other day.

I was putting on my face in the morning, and, as you know, I have a pimple (I keep talking about him because he’s basically been running my life for the past month or so). His name is Julian, and he’s a lovely shade of dark purple now, so I’ve been color-correcting him with an orange lip pencil, of all things.

Anyway, I did the color corrector, set it with powder, then applied a liquid concealer on top. Now, normally I would have immediately set it with a powder at that point, but I got distracted and started doing other things.

When I went back to the mirror five minutes later, the orange color corrector had bled through, and I ended up with a big orange spot on my chin.

Whoops!

That never, ever happens when I set my concealer with a powder right away.

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NARS Man Ray for NARS Holiday 2017: The Duo Eyeshadows and Velvet Eyeliners

October 4th, 2017 by Karen 25 Comments

Uh…who is this Man Ray dude?

For their holiday collections, NARS usually pairs up with an artist and thematically incorporates the artist’s work into the release. This year, that artist is Man Ray.

No, we did not just teleport into an episode of Futurama. ?

Man Ray was an American visual artist known for his photography in the ’20s and ’30s, and he was a big time contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements. You’ve probably seen his work on your day-to-day travels. My favorite of his pieces is this picture here. It’s called Glass Tears. The first time I can remember seeing it was in a magazine when I was in high school, and it haunts me to this day.

I wonder if Man Ray liked purple, because the eye makeup in this color collection has purple, purple, purple!

Exciting stuff, if you ask me.

I’m into purple on my lids and lash lines, especially purples with bronze and gold, and there’s lots of that happening here. If you’re a NARS Cordura fan or a NARS Mekong or MAC Sketch or Shale fan, you’ll probably be feeling the duos and liners.

nars man ray for nars swatches debauched montparnasse — Swatches from the top: Montparnasse Duo Eyeshadow, Debacuhed Duo Eyeshadow, Santiago Velvet Eyeliner, Nagoya Velvet Eyeliner

Before we jump into the eye makeup, let me back up a little first. The Man Ray for NARS Holiday collection launches this Friday, October 6th at NARS Boutiques and the NARS website, and it’s set up the same way that NARS has been doing their holiday collections for the past few years, with a color collection, which is like your traditional makeup LE collection with eye, lip and cheek products, and then there’s also a “gifting” collection with kits and sets.

The color collection contains 11 pieces and includes glosses, eyeshadow duos, a highlighter and liners, and there’s LOTS of purple, bronze and gold on parade, to which I have to say “YAAAAS!” 🙂

There are two $36 eyeshadow duos, each with a pan of wonderfully wearable, joyful, GORGEOUS purple shadow. The wearable aspect is a bit of a departure for NARS Holiday eye shadows, as 2015’s Steven Klein and 2016’s Sarah Moon seemed more serious, heavy, and…challenging to me. Like, am I really gonna wear a single pan of frosty white shadow on a Tuesday afternoon? Probably not.

These two new duos may not be as edgy as the NARS shadows from recent holiday collections, but I’m fine with that. I’ll take easy-to-wear stuff any day of the week.

The first duo, Montparnasse, pairs a satiny, reddish bronzed purple with a frosty, cool yellow gold. The second one, Debauched, partners a rich, deep golden plum with a smoky blackened purple containing red micro glitter.

nars montparnasse — Duo Eyeshadow in Montparnasse ($46)

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