Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup
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I’m having NARS déjà vu left and right! — first with Urban Decay Troublemaker mascara (which is just like NARS Audacious) and now with the new Kevyn Aucoin The Etherealist Super Natural Concealer.
It’s a new permanent collection line available in 10 shades for $30 each. One of the 10 shades is a peachy apricot color corrector for dark circles, and the other nine range from having peach to gold to beige undertones.
I love my pores. They’re a part of who I am and, ya know, they do all the hard work that pores do (like housing hair follicles).
That said, I really don’t need to be reminded of their existence all day long, so I’d much rather wear a line of blushes called “Bye Bye Pores” than “Hi Hi Pores!”
Sweet Cheeks is the newest shade in the It Cosmetics Bye Bye Pores Blush fam, and it comes out this fall.
It Cosmetics has some fantastic permanent collection blush lines, including my faves, the Confidence In Your Glow Blushing Bronzers (a.k.a the Neapolitan ice cream ones) and the CC+ Radiance Ombre Blushes, which are SO GREAT. They’re easy to blend, long lasting and look incredibly natural.
These new NARS Velvet Matte Foundation Sticks have me completely rethinking what I thought about stick foundations, which had previously brought up bad memories for me of thick, heavy, cake-face coverage and suffocating pores, but this new NARS incarnation feels light and looks like a tinted moisturizer…BUT IN CREAM STICK FORM.
You’re blowing my mind, NARS!
The Velvet Matte Foundation Sticks are sheer satin cream stick foundations now available in 20 shades at NARS counters and Sephora for $45 each.
The shades include…
No matter how tempted you get, do not — I repeat, DO NOT! — put any Lancôme Miel-en-Mousse Foaming Face Cleanser & Makeup Remover ($40) into your cup of tea, and you can forget about smearing it all over a piece of toast, man! Sure, it might look like honey and smell like honey and, yes, it even has honey in it, but no, it is absolutely, positively 100% not edible.
Follow the instructions for this two-in-one makeup removing cleanser, and you’ll be fine. Apply 2-3 pumps to dry skin, then gently massage it all over your face to begin dissolving your makeup. Marvel at how it feels thick like honey, but isn’t sticky like honey (weird!), and feel your tense shoulders begin to reeeeeelax as the product ever-so-slightly warms up as you work it into your skin.
Feels like you’re at the spa, doesn’t it?
At this point, if you want to take a moment to wonder why it doesn’t sting your water lines and lash lines (I usually do), feel free. Whatever you do, though, resist the temptation to lick it off your lips with your tongue!
If Urban Decay really wanted to start sh*t with their new Troublemaker Mascara, instead of calling it “sex-proof,” why not say that it’s tough enough to handle your next mission to MARS? Or that it’s worthy of wearing while you defend your thesis? Or that it can handle all of the many obstacles you’ll encounter on your path to earning an Olympic Gold Medal?
There are just soooooo many other ways brands can appeal to women without tying something to sex.
OK, stepping off my soap box!
Troublemaker is a $24 lash lengthening and separating mascara coming to UD counters in September (there’s also an $11 on-the-go sample size if you aren’t ready to make a full commitment). It’ll be available in only one shade, a rich, dark matte black, a color that Urban Decay says they achieved by mixing two types of black pigments together.
I can appreciate this because, as any girl who went through an all-black wardrobe phase knows, there are many, many different shades of black.
If I had a dragon, I’d want her (because she’d be a girl, obvs) to be the same exact color as Tom Ford Burnished Copper Creme Color For Eyes — a beautiful deep khaki with hints of gold.
And speaking of dragons…OMG, Game of Thrones! Can we talk about it please? Because I’m still shaken from last Sunday’s episode, and I need to release all the feelings.
It’s like purposefully weathered metal. Not super metallic. More like buffed to a fine patina. The shine is dampened down, but it’s definitely there, and it’s unlike anything else in my makeup collection.
Yeah, man! Burnished Copper’s BFF is bare freakin’ lids. No matter how I work it (sheer or layered or with other eye products), I get a full day’s wear sans creasing or drama. Yeah, you can wear a primer with it if you want to (I recommend NARS Pro-Prime if you do. It’s the best!), but if you’re feeling lazy, 1) I can relate, and 2) Burnished Copper doesn’t really need one, so save yourself the effort, and use all that extra energy to do a quick dance in your chair.
Go ahead, I’ll wait. 🙂
I’ve never met a Chanel Ombre Premiere cream shadow I didn’t like…until now.
Le sigh.
Urban is a blackened navy blue sheen in the Chanel Travel Diary collection, and it isn’t my favorite thing in the launch.
I’ve loved pretty much everything else from the collection so far (it’s been my favorite Chanel fall collection in years), but for me this cream shadow falls short.
It feels drier than the other cream shadow in the launch, Memory (WHICH IS BOMB!), so when I smooth it across my lids, it catches some spots and skips over others. Unlike all of the other Ombre Premieres I have, wear and love, this one is the hardest to blend.
It’s Patchy City, so I’d drive by this one this year.
5 Road Trip Essentials
The Chanel Travel Diary Fall Collection has two marvelously moisturizing Chanel Rouge Coco Lipsticks in it ($37 each), and yes, I did a whoop-whoop car chair dance of joy when I saw bright red poppy Experimental on my lips for the first time.
