making faces :: product review [stila, benefit]

thought i'd take the opportunity of a truly miserable sunday afternoon [is it just me or does bad weather seem a lot worse when it happens on sunday?] to give some quick [for me] thoughts on a couple of things i've picked up lately, one new to the market, one just new to me.












stila sparkle eye liner "curacao"
this is a brand that i've wanted to try for a while, starting chiefly from the fact that my first exposure to them came from seeing their name on early iterations of companies that don't perform animal testing. while it's a lot easier to find companies who meet that criteria nowadays, i was still always interested to see what stila did. it's just that i could never find them. for whatever reason, their products never seemed to be on sale any place i could actually get to. reluctant to make my first experience an online exchange, i waited and was recently rewarded when i went into murale and found that the lise watier display had been uprooted in favour of a shiny new stila one. [smart move on their part- watier is available everywhere in montreal, whereas this is the only location in the downtown area that has stila.

i was a blank slate, having no idea where to even start with the brand, so i was surprised when what really caught my eye was a bright blue sparkly liquid liner called "curacao". i say surprised because i'm not normally much for eye liner in any colour other than black and, in particular, blue is a colour i tend to avoid since i find it makes my actual eye colour look faded. it's just that this one looked some damn pretty and so damn unique compared to just about anything else on display. the colour when i tried it on the back of my hand was intense and i figured that, if i was going to try something new, i might as well go all the way new. and as it turns out, these particular liquid liners are new to stila as well.

curacao sparkle liner

the formula on these is fairly watery- i found that on my eye [where i'm not inclined to push down with tremendous force], i needed a couple of coats to build up the intensity. i also found this meant that it took a few seconds to really properly set. the good aspect of that is that if you make a mistake, you can just wipe it away and it's like nothing happened. the bad part is that you need a little patience applying or else you're going to have smudges all over your lids. once set, the staying power is great. it doesn't budge and it maintains its intensity of colour, which is probably one of the main reasons people choose liquid liners to begin with.

the reason people tend to avoid liquid liners is because they can be really, really finicky and messy to apply. however with these, that's not so much the case. aside from the fact that you can clear away an "oops" pretty quickly, the long, conical applicator gives you a great deal of control over where the product goes and is not prone to dripping where you don't want it. i found the application smooth, even and neat, despite having to layer the product to get the intensity i wanted.

that layering is actually my biggest problem with these liners [or at least with the one i've tried]. the applicator makes it easier to do, but to me, trying to line up layers of eye liner is just asking for problems. once i did get the colour where i wanted it, though, i do have to say that it's very beautiful. i love the way it shimmers when it catches the light and adds just a flash of blue to my eyes. that effect can be more subtle when worn with other colours, or could be more dramatic if used on its own against a nude/ neutral base.

there are eight shades available of the sparkle liners. i would characterise them as "standards"- black, brown, olive, purple, blue and teal for colour. curacao is more original- more of a royal blue than a cyan base and a sort of ultraviolet reflect. there is also a mauve-grey ["starry"] that looks a little more distinctive than most dark grey shades available.

stile sparkle liners are $22usd/ $30cad, which puts them firmly on my s**t list for currency gouging, but the product is nice enough to warrant giving a try to whichever colours grabs your fancy.

available from sephora and murale [canada]. 

benefit full-finish lipstick "mod squad"
oh benefit, i so want to love you, with your slyly humourous marketing and your highly specialised products designed to meet needs i didn't realise i had, but we just never quite seem to connect. i'm extremely glad to see that the california-based company who celebrate both femininity and feminine power have grown to such a success and i still believe that their "bad gal" mascara is something to which all other mascaras secretly aspire [which makes me wonder why they've launched a new one this summer], but i just seem to have very little luck using their products myself.

their "high beam" highlighter is a beautiful, moonlit shade, but it settles in my pores something wicked. "dr. feelgood" priming balm makes my skin feel like velvet, but after a few days' use, it has a tendency to make me break out. their "creaseless cream" shadows work far better on me than most creams, but i still find they leave my lids feeling "sweaty" and can irritate the corners of my eyes [although they're not nearly so irritating as the mac "big bounce" shadows]. i keep going back to them because i love their attitude, their products are inventive enough to keep me interested and both "bad gal" and their ubiquitous boxed blushes are standouts.

their lipstick crossed my path when i had a hankering for a summer version of a lighter, cooler pink, something a little less heavy than mac's "saint germain" and a little more neutral than guerlain's "fuchsia delice". "mod squad" fit the bill quite nicely, because, despite the name invoking visions of opaque sixties white-pink kissers, the shade is quite sheer and, while definitely a cooler nude pink, it reads as quite natural with a single pass.

it surprises me that this is listed as a "full finish" lipstick, since i find the formula to be quite light. while it's not sheer, the colour of my lips definitely pokes through a little. if i layer the colour [which brings it closer to that light, cool "mod pink"], this becomes more pronounced, since the colour of my lips "fights" with the colour of the lipstick. personally, i didn't like the effect of the lipstick once it was layered- it seemed to apply very unevenly and the formula is slippery enough that it becomes more uneven every time your lips move. as a light, fairly sheer shade, i liked it very much, so whether or not this is the colour for you may depend largely on what you want to get from it.

mod squad- the cat hair is simon's touch

the formula, as i mentioned, is very moist/ slippery, almost more like a gloss. very strangely, although the colour itself doesn't have any shimmer or frost i can discern, there is a fine "grittiness" i can feel on my lips. i can't imagine why that would be the case or why someone wouldn't fix it, because it feels like you've got dust or dirt on your mouth. if you can get used to that, or learn to ignore it, the formula is quite moisturising and i did feel like my lips were getting some benefit from that. [i'll give you a moment to groan.] being a pretty emollient texture and a lighter colour, it's not a long-lasting shade; i would say i could get two hours or so of wear [assuming i could stop pleating my lips trying to figure out the grittiness] without having to reapply. based on what i've red, lipsticks in general seem to last less time on me than on others, so your mileage may vary.

there are definitely things that i like about this shade and some of the things i don't like, i can forgive because they're not as noticeable in a light/ sheer colour as they would be on the kind of colour i normally wear. but, once again, it seems that benefit and i are just doomed to be a little bit out of synch.

benefit full-finish lipstick is available in 20 permanent shades. $18usd/ $22cad [gets a slight growl, but canadian customers can order directly from benefit's web site].

available at sephora, murale, select shopper's drug mart/ pharmaprix locations and on line from www.benefitcosmetics.com

here's a quick look incorporating both products.


face
lush colour supplement "jackie oates"
diorskin nude hydrating concealer "001"
mac mineralize skinfinish natural "light"

eyes
mac e/s "neutral pink"
mac e/s "prussian"
mac megametal e/s "prance"
stila sparkle eye liner "curacao"
diorshow mascara

cheeks
mac mineralize skinfinish "pink power"

lips
benefit full-finish lipstick "mod squad"

nails [visible above, so i figured i'd share]
nars "desperado"

friday favourites 18.03.11

it''s friday friday! time for favourites favourites! why am i saying everything like jacob two-two two-two? well let's just get down to business shall we?

here are a few things that made my smile a little brighter...

the death of the music industry :: sure, people have been predicting it for years, but now we have ark records here to pound that stake through the heart of the last music mogul and nail the coffin shut just for good measure. excuse me, i've not written their name properly: they are actually called ark music factory and a more appropriate company name has never been entered in the ledgers of business registrations. i couldn't make that up, because i know that no one would believe me. they actually call themselves a music factory.

prepare to be rocked

the premise of this business is not to find and promote hot new artists, but to cash in on the eagerness of wealthy families to keep their teenage princesses happy in any way possible. so ark takes their money, flies their little snowflakes out to los angeles (assuming they're not there already) and has a team of songwriters compose something for them to record, fire up the auto-tune and let the music fill their ears (assuming they haven't just stopped them up with cotton or glue or anything else they found lying around). and it doesn't stop there. they then make a video with them dancing with their friends, tossing their hair and generally acting in a way that would thrill any pedophile and should scare the hell out of their parents. remember when britney spears was cute? your kids can't. they don't know how far they can slide.

SEE MORE FAVOURITES PLUS THIS WEEK'S CAT PIC!



the thing is, the music from ark music factory is, as their name would suggest, mass-market generic pop cranked out by a couple of people who can quite literally look at their bank accounts to determine the net worth of their souls and the chances that any of these divas-in-their-dreams are astoundingly slim. until now.

with rachel black, the company has suddenly been rocketed to the foreground as the people behind what many are calling the worst song ever made. personally, i think that's a bit harsh. yes, the auto-tune is ridiculous, emphasising every nasal nuance to this poor girls voice, but the real downfall is in the lyrics, which are the sort of thing those kids from high school who used to wear acid washed jeans and hang out by the back of the gym smoking pot would write for their remedial poetry assignments as a joke. and her video is getting millions and millions of hits a day.

a quick perusal of the ark web site reveals that black's "friday" is in a league of its own, but the rest of the songs are a pretty ridiculously bleak picture of a star factory gone wild. truthfully, any of the others could very well be the next britney or... whoever else those girls with auto-tuned voices are, because there is such a phenomenal stream of traffic to the ark records music factory web site that it's inevitable that some of the other videos will get watched. and i'm contributing to it because i think it's friggin' hilarious.

ark records music factory is simply making obvious what many music fans have known for years: anyone can take a pretty young thing, drop her in front of a camera and write a simple, get-stuck-in-your-head-so-you-want-to-kill-yourself song, fix it up on the computer and throw it out for audience consumption. wash. rinse. repeat.

i think these guys were also responsible for the new boris album.

9 degrees celsius :: sure, in june that would be an insult, but on st. patrick's day in montreal, that's a message of hope. a sweet chocolate of hope floating in a pool of guinness.

free with purchase? please?

freebies :: one of the fun parts of shopping for beauty products (as you may have deduced i enjoy doing) is that, in addition to whatever you buy, these companies are absolutely desperate to stuff your bag with extra goodies in the hopes of hooking you as a loyal customer. i've received about eight vials of perfume to try, a mask, moisturiser and an absolutely divine lavender-scented hand cream from sisley, samples of mac pigments (which require so little to use that even the half-teaspoon samples can last a couple of months), a miniature starter kit of bare minerals foundation (unfortunately in medium tone), a surprisingly gentle eye cream from cle de peau, a rich cream and cleanser from lush, an entire chanel skincare regimen and an ingenious little card from estee lauder that opens up to reveal four sealed blister-packs of their new lipstick formula and a tiny lip brush to use them. it reminds me of what i used to refer to as the "costco brunch". go to any costco on a saturday morningand wander from table to table, sampling the free food. there's generally enough of a crowd that you can go by the best ones a couple of times without being recognised. what's better than free stuff? lots of free stuff. now i just have to persuade john fluevog to start handing out samples...

(i'm also exceptionally happy that i managed to fulfill my quest- not for free, unfortunately, for a nice, opaque white lipstick that isn't part of some marked down halloween kit. seek and ye shall find, apparently.)




the naive beauty of community television :: heck, i used to work in community television. i'm familiar with the relatively loose quality requirements, but sometimes, even those slip by the wayside. still, i have to salute the guts of people who are willing to do this kind of thing. it points to a level of un-self-consciousness that's almost a zen state. here are two favourites.

if you've made it this far, you deserve a really great cat photo, so here's a double-shot of cutness. dom took this wonderful photo of simon and hecubus this week, so all the credit goes to him.

happy friday everyone and i hope this music-dominated version of friday favourites hasn't scarred you too deeply. remember, you have to see the humour in life or else you end up sniffing glue.