making faces :: product review [armani, chanel, estee lauder, nars]

oh yes, everyone is coming out with new things these days. so here's a great, big omnibus review of a bunch of things i've accumulated over the last little while. some are here for a limited time, some will be around for the long haul, so pace yourselves accordingly.

armani "eyes to kill" eye shadow :: it's not often that i find something in the cosmetic world that makes me think "wow, that is really different", but these shimmery shadows are one of them. they come in pots, like cream shadows. they apply super-smoothly wet or dry, like cream shadows, but they aren't messy or prone to smudging. really, they're powders with multiple colours in one.

the colours are all quite breathtaking and, when applied, while they smooth into a single, nuanced shade, you can see elements of all the different colour "components" inside. who doesn't want an excuse to have people look at their eyes? the fact that they are quite shimmery makes them quite dramatic to look at, but there is a good range of colours from light to dark, with a few medium shades thrown in.

READ MORE REVIEWS AND SEE THE PRODUCTS IN ACTION!

lust red

the real magic in these is in their "technical" aspects, though. i got "lust red", a black shade replete with purple and red shimmer, and i had some trepidation because i'd been let down by such colours before. with other shades that have this effect, i find that, unless you really pack on the colour, they tend to just look like slightly muddy shades of black. worse yet, a lot of them are prone to fallout, so you end up with a lot of sparkle on your face, but very little on your eyes. when i first applied "lust red", i noticed a bit of sparkle spreading and was worried, but i brushed it away and persevered. once applied, i was amazed at the fact that the shade showed its base and shimmer perfectly and i was even more amazed when it looked exactly the same hours later. these shadows don't fade, don't smudge and don't move. however, when you clean them away with water or a moist cleanser, they come right off. i was skeptical when armani's publicity claimed this but this is one of those few times where the product deserves the hype.

the photo of the pot is more accurate...

these are permanent, which is good, because the price tag is a little hard to swallow. they're $32usd, which is bad enough, but some genius has determine that this should equate to $42. huh??? our dollar has been above par with the american dollar for weeks. how is it even possible that we should be paying $10 more?? someone needs to look at this, pronto.

the lady at the armani counter [only at holt renfrew in canada, as far as i'm aware] warned me that it's important to keep these babies tightly sealed when they're not in use, including keeping the small plastic inner cover in place. this helps them retain the amount of moisture that lets them do what they do.

yes, they're pricy, particularly if you're canadian, but these are innovative gems and, i'm not kidding, worth the investment.

chanel "rouge coco shine" lipsticks :: it seems that everybody is coming out with lip products that are a hybrid between a lipstick and a gloss and the most recent entrant into the category is chanel. as with all new chanel products, these have been hotly anticipated, especially as they did a limited release of one shade for valentine's day.

antigone

i'm a big fan of chanel's rouge coco lipsticks, but these don't really bear any resemblance save the name. these shades are quite sheer, whereas the rouge coco's are extremely pigmented. the coco shines are super-soft on the lips and don't have the stickiness one normally associates with glosses. the formula is like a very moist lipstick- comparable to mac's lustre finish, but without the tendency to bleed around the lip contour.

i picked up "antigone" [partly because of the name, i'll admit], which is a strawberry reddish-pink. although it really just augments the colour of my own lips, it's one of the more pigmented shades, which leads me to believe that the lighter ones wouldn't show up at all on me. it's the kind of lipstick i can wear for anything and i imagine that it'll be a particularly nice option for summer, where i don't want to feel like i'm wearing anything heavy.

for $39cad [$32usd... growl], though, i don't know that i'd find it necessary to buy a variety of shades. generally, i find them too sheer for the differences in the colours to show up in a lot of cases. the colour doesn't fade overly quickly, but, being a gloss-like formula, any amount of friction [from eating, drinking, etc.] will wipe it away. i'd recommend finding one colour you like and choosing that one.

sea star bronzing blush

estée lauder "sea star bronzing blush" :: this is one of those things that you want to have simply because it looks so cool. it's a bronze-y powder with a pink starfish debossed in it. the starfish is not an overspray, but an intrinsic part of the product. while i've heard it suggested that you could use the colours separately, i think that the pattern would make that very difficult and would require more patience than i can muster.

mixed shade

mixed together, the two shades form a lovely warm rosy peach shade that definitely functions as a blush more than as a bronzer [there are proper bronzers available as part of lauder's summer collection for that purpose]. it can be built up to a fair intensity, although it's never going to be super-dark. i definitely think it's better suited to fair-skinned complexions, since the colour is fairly subtle. i had no problem seeing the colour it added to my cheeks, but i'm definitely on the pale side of the skin spectrum. i like anything that makes me look radiant without making me look brown or orange.

this is limited edition and, i think, will sell pretty fast. it's $40cad/ $34usd [better, but still more than it should be], which is higher than a regular blush, but it is a fairly large compact.

nars "copacabana illuminator" :: finally, this is a product i tried from a fairly generous sample. it's part of a line of skin illuminators that nars has launched. these products are designed to give skin an all-over glow with just a hint of colour and can be applied either on their own or mixed with foundation. there are four shades- orgasm, which is a natural peach, super orgasm, which is a similar shade with a slightly golden tone, laguna, which is more bronze and copacabana, which is a white-gold highlighter.

the texture is like a fairly light lotion and i found it easy to blend it in quickly with foundation. the effect is extremely subtle. my skin looked a bit brighter, but i don't know that i would pay the asking price [$29usd/ not sure on the canadian price, but undoubtedly higher] for the effect it gives. i found that if i added more than a little of the illuminator, it had the effect of making my face a little too white in comparison with the rest of me.

used on its own, over bare skin, it was more visible and definitely added a pale sheen to the skin. it reminded me a lot of benefit's high beam or moon beam highlighters, in that the effect was pretty enough, but i found that it had a tendency to make my pores more obvious. i think that whether or not you like the effect is very much a subjective thing. i liked it mixed with foundation, but i don't know that i'd pay upwards of $30 for it. the illuminators are a permanent part of the nars line up and there will likely be more shades to come.

and, to give you an idea of what these things are like in the field, here are a few things i've tried with them in the last couple of weeks.

"eyes to kill"
i decided i wanted to try something dramatic to test drive the armani shadow and i only wish that i'd remembered to snap photos when i got home, so that you could see that my makeup basically looked exactly the same as when i went out. of course, i'm not sure the face underneath fared so well, but i'll have to wait a while for armani to come up with a fix for that. the since it was night time, i had to use a flash for the photos, which i don't normally like to do.

face ::

nars sheer glow foundation mont blanc
mac prolongwear concealer nw20
mac prep & prime finishing powder

eyes ::
armani eyes to kill shadow lust red
mac pigment new fixation
mac pigment pink opal
mac fluidline eye liner blacktrack
ysl faux ciles mascara

cheeks ::
estée lauder sea star bronzing blush

lips ::
chanel glossimer myriade




"not quite cute"
last week, i reviewed mac's "quite cute" collection and, having done so, it occurred to me that i had a lot of products already that could easily give me the same look as the new ones i opted to skip [for varying reasons] from the new collection. so this is something i threw together to remind myself that sometimes what's new bares a striking resemblance to what's gone before. i'm wearing the nars illuminator in this one, but i don't know how different it would look if i weren't.

face ::
nars sheerglow foundation mont blanc
mac prolongwear concealer nw20
nars copacabana illuminator
mac prep & prime finishing powder

eyes ::
mac crystal avalanche e/s
mac aquavert e/s
mac smudged violet e/s
mac mating call e/s
mac blacktrack fluidline eye liner
ysl faux cils mascara

cheeks ::
mac azalea blossom blush ombre
mac hang loose mineralize blush

lips ::
inglot l/s 151

"antigone"
as you can probably tell, i've gone on a bit of a kick with red eye shadow lately. inglot has a program whereby you can build your own shadow, blush or combination palette for well less than you can get a palette anywhere else, so i made myself a custom job with a matte, neutral highlighter, a matte coral and an amazing tomato red shade with a stunning gold shimmer. sadly, the shimmer doesn't really show up when the shadow was applied, although the colour is quite intense [and it's damn difficult to find a good red shadow]. all inglot shadows tend to be a bit powdery, which makes them difficult to work with- you can see from the shots that i couldn't get the colour perfectly even. my advice would be to work patiently [which is a problem for me], mind the excess and pat rather than swipe. the colour payoff is intense, which is a relief at least.


face ::
nars sheer glow foundation mont blanc
mac prolongwear concealer nw20

eyes ::
inglot 351 e/s [matte buttercream]
inglot 495 e/s [warm red with pink/ gold shimmer]
inglot 368 e/s [matte peach-coral]

cheeks ::
mac marine life highlight powder

lips ::
chanel rouge coco shine antigone

making faces :: product review [mac "quite cute" collection]

welcome to the cult of cute. actually, more like the cult of kawaii, really, that particularly japanese-inspired version of cute that's like cute on a lot of meth and steroids. this is cute's cousin who's hot in that way that all completely insane chicks are. it's really a perfect idea for a spring collection that's both girly and freaky and it's particularly perfect for mac, who are a company in a very feminine industry that always keeps a bit of bite.

mac's collections almost always have interesting imagery associated with them, although it's sometimes a little difficult to make the connection between the inspiration and the end products. (one of the worst examples of this was 2010's "fabulous felines", which did not have colours that i associate with any of my cats, but which was phenomenal nonetheless.) in this case, the links are pretty strong, since the imagery is seriously cutesy, laced with bright pinks, pastel purples, hint of light green and peach. although i'm not a huge fan of pastels as a rule, but these colours did kind of draw me in. purple products? now that's a spring fling i can get behind.

unfortunately, while i was excited when i read about what was included, the collection overall is lacking a little in the not-so-cute light of day. i love mac for keeping a busy schedule of collection launches, since it's nice to have something new to look at, but i'm starting to wonder if that schedule isn't causing some burnout. it's not that what's coming out is bad; i think of it the way i think of a lot of lengthy albums that i own- great stuff but padded with a lot of filler.

WATCH ME PASS JUDGMENT!



i apologise for the fact that i didn't do proper swatches, but i do have some pics of products "in action" later on.

first up, we have the "cutie" eye shadow quad. mac has these quads with many of their collections and i normally gobble them up. they're a great deal- $43cad for four full-sized shadows in a palette, compared to $14 per shadow plus about $7 for the palette if you bought everything separately (assuming you could, since most of the colours are limited edition anyway). these quads are usually conceived as complementary, so that all four shades can be worn together in various ways and this one is no different. i think that the mix of a bright white-green, light pink, violet with silver sparkle and rich, deep violet could make an interesting combination. unfortunately, only the last of those colours- named azuki bean- gives much colour. that one is just gorgeous and i wish they'd bring it back on its own, but the others are frustrating. there's pastel and there's colours that just don't show up. i know others who have made this work, so maybe their skin is more forgiving, but i got a combination of poor colour payoff and flakiness. no one looks cute with eye shadow crud sprinkled over their face.

there are four lip glosses with the collection, which i'll deal with all at once. they are mac's "plush glass" formula, which is supposed to plump lips. while they do tingle, i've never noticed any plumping effect from the ones that i've tried. these glosses are always sheer and the ones in this collection are all pastels- two pinks, a nude and a lavender shade. i could barely see them on my hand, let alone my lips. plus, the colours are very flat. if you want a sheer pastel effect, mac released a collection of glosses under the name "lightfully bright" earlier this year. they're also subtle, but they're far more interesting in my opinion.

it doesn't have to be like this

there are also three lip liners, something i've always approached with caution because i associate it with some very bad moments in fashion. the ones in this collection are quite nice- in synch (a peachy-pink), naked (a light flesh tone which lets you line without worrying about matching colour) and boldly bare (a brick red). used properly, liners are your friends. trust me on this. all that nasty feathering and smudging you can get from lipsticks? that's what lip liners are for. practical products, but not terribly exciting.

now, we get into the cutesy pastel meat of the collection. there are five lipsticks. i'm a lipstick fiend, so this is usually where i do some damage and, true to form, this is where i found what happy place i could in the collection. honestly, reading descriptions of the colours, there isn't a single one of them that i would have ruled out.

"playing koi" :: described as a white peach. peach colours are very tricky on me, because they can easily turn into a very bad light orange that looks like poorly matched concealer. it's a satin finish lipstick, which means the end product can be a bit unpredictable. if you have dry lips, this one could go very wrong on you. it's fairly thick and, if your lips are patchy, it's going to show. the nice part is that it's quite opaque when it does go on evenly. i find really light colours are more challenging than really dark ones (other than black) because any sheerness translates to your natural lip colour poking through and that always looks awful. i like that the colour has a real peachiness to it, rather than just being flesh-toned, like other colours in the mac line.

"quite cute" :: i wanted to love this. the eponymous colour of the collection is described as a light white-lavender. lavender shades are fairly rare, because it's a challenging colour. it's very cool-toned, which limits its appeal and even on people who can get away with it, there's often a "freshly asphyxiated" look that some people find off-putting. not me. i'm always happy to see one of these chilly tones from mac and i wear them with pride. since this one was supposedly lighter and chillier than the others, it seemed like even more of a challenge. unfortunately, i could not get it to apply properly. even a couple of passes left it terribly splotchy and, the horror, you could see lots of my natural lip colour. so sad. they would have been far better off re-releasing cult favourite lavender whip, which is a little darker. if you do want a very pale shade that's similar to quite cute but works, try inglot 151.

"saint germain" :: a very cool light pink that mac has available as part of its permanent collection. i have this one already. it's the kind of colour you have to be a bit careful with- it ain't your grandma's pink lipstick for sure.

"candy yum yum" :: seriously, that's the name. i'm actually quite fond of hot pinks, but this one just didn't work. although i'd heard it was a cooler pink, it looked exactly like a bright barbie pink on my lips, which is not my preference. on top of that, it's a matte shade, which means it has no dimension. there are two shades in mac's permanent collection- fusion pink (warm coral pink) and show orchid (incredibly bright cool pink) that are way better. nonetheless, this is likely to be the superstar of the collection from what i've seen, so if you are interested, hop to it. i do think that this shade would look incredible on women of colour.

"play time" :: every time mac comes out with a new collection, it seems, they like to tease me with a new purple lipstick. too often, these turn out to be pink colours with a slightly magenta cast, which is not the same thing as purple. there have been at least three of them in recent months. but this one is actually pretty purple, i have to admit. it's a medium violet colour that's very cool and that does take a little bit of work to build up (or you can just leave it sheer, if that's your thing).

overall, there is a nice mix of shades here, a bold colour like candy yum yum makes an excellent "star", but it seems like a medicore actor trying to play hamlet. playing koi and saint germain are cool because they're pastel, but surprisingly bold. play time is a great wearable purple that adds a dash of eccentricity. quite cute just falls flat.

[not clear on all the lipstick finishes and what they mean? you can always look at the lexicon.]

the final part of the collection is the blushes. as seems to happen a lot with mac collections in the last little while, these are the real superstars. they are all mineral blushes, which means that they have a lot of sheen and shimmer to them and can be used a little damp for more intense pigmentation. on the down side, they have a tendency to turn a little powdery or ashy, particularly on darker skin. i've also found that they can emphasise pores more than regular face powders.

each one of the three blushes exclusive to the collection has a base colour plus an "extra" colour in a little heart in the centre. quite cute indeed. of course, the size of the blushes means that it's pretty much impossible to use either colour on its own, so the end result is going to be a mix.

"miss behave" :: a very soft peach with a mint green heart. green blush? well yes. and no. the blend makes a colour that's very difficult to photograph, because it's very pale. on very pale ladies, it gives just a hint of colour, but a very nice highlight. trust me, it really brightens your cheeks, which is a look i love. (just what i need, something to make me whiter.) i can't imagine this looking good on medium to dark complexions, though. i think it would look like you smudged the contents of an ashtray on your face.

"giggly" :: a sweetheart pink blush with a plum-coloured heart. it comes out a bright candy pink, which is nice, but hardly unique. dainty (part of the permanent line-up) is similar, but a little warmer and more toned down. dollymix, another permanent product, is also similar, but it's a regular blush, not a mineral one. if you want a nice pink blush that can be layered for more colour pretty easily, you could do worse than this one.

"sakura" :: a delicious shade of medium lavender with a magenta heart. there is nothing not to love. and it is a really nice colour, it's just that i wanted a lavender blush. do you know how difficult it is to find a nice purple blush? harder than it is to find the lipsticks. in this case, the magenta heart makes the colour a cool pink and there are already a lot of cool pinks. granted, this is one of the bluest pinks i've seen, but chances are you have something like it. it does have the nice sheen, so that may be a factor. i thought about it long and hard, but finally decided it just wasn't special enough. sorry sakura.

even though i like these blushes, i think that they could have been better. mac has been super-sizing so many products lately, i can't believe no one in their marketing team ever floated the idea of making these big enough so that you could comfortably using both colours. i think with miss behave in particular, being able to play with the colours separately could have made a nice product into a must-have.

there are also three nail polishes- mint green, bubblegum pink and lavender- but i did not have a chance to test these. 

my haul :: playing koi, play time, in synch (looks awesome with playing koi), miss behave

for me, that's a surprising peach bender, but i'm happy to see variants of the colour that aren't as warm as usual.

overall, the collection is, appropriately enough, quite cute. it has some nice highs, some forgettable lows, but it's far from something that i'm going to remember as a standout. products are available at mac stores and counters and online.

here are a few things i've done with the products i've picked up. have fun creating your own cuteness. [all products are mac unless otherwise noted.]

"saint germain"

saint germain

this is a bit of a cheat, because i've had saint germain for a while. (no, i don't know why mac put regular products in with the limited collections, but my guess is that it helps call attention to them, which boosts sales- and saint germain is actually a good fit here.) this look was something i was playing around with for a post i was planning on doing on bright, colourful makeup and where it evolved from (a piece which may still happen). this was fun to try out, but it's not exactly an everyday look for me. i do think it illustrates that, especially where saint germain is concerned, there is such a thing as a challenging pink.

products used ::

face ::

saint germain

nars sheer glow foundation mont blanc
prolongwear concealer nw20
nars copacobana illuminator (i'm still playing, but i should have a review of this one next week)
prep & prime finishing powder

eyes ::
painterly paint pot as base
electric eel e/s
blue calm e/s
suave intentions e/s
crystal avalanche e/s

saint germain

love lace e/s
blacktrack fluidline eye liner
fascinating eye kohl
ysl faux cils mascara

cheeks ::
pink power mineralise skinfinish [blush + bronzer + highlighter in one]

lips
saint germain l/s

"play time"

play time

although the colour is pretty playful, i wanted to try to incorporate it in such a way that it wouldn't seem odd or out of place, even in an office. i think that the main thing anyone would notice is that i actually matched my lipstick to my shirt, because the look itself is pretty tame. still, i love finding new ways to wear purple.

face ::
nars sheer glow foundation mont blanc
prolongwear concealer nw20

eyes ::
painterly paint pot as base 
silverwear e/s
courtly e/s
chanel fauve e/s

play time

vile violet e/s
smoky heir liquid liner
ysl faux cils mascara [for some reason my lashes were really sticky on this day, so the application is pretty terrible. i stand by the product.]

cheeks ::
hang loose blush [note: if you have this, you really don't need sakura]

lips ::
play time l/s

"playing koi"

playing koi

what's cuter than a beatnik? lots of things, but i just really love doing this sort of look with pale lips. it's so completely out of the ordinary that i find it's quite arresting- more so than dark lips. this was actually incredibly quick to do, considering that it looks quite dramatic. as an aside, the fluidline eye liner was used as a base over my eyelid. it looked very sharp and intense, applied precisely and lasted all day. in fact, when i removed it, i found that my lids were stained blue for some time. whoops. these are the hidden dangers of experimenting. could have been worse. a friend of mine painted her face green for a halloween costume with much the same results. green faces are never work-safe.

face ::

playing koi

nars sheer glow foundation mont blanc
prolongwear concealer nw20
nars copacobana illuminator

eyes ::
painterly paint pot as base
siahi fluidline eye liner [all over lid]
moonlight night loose pigment [over siahi]
black swan pearlglide eyeliner [oh, and speaking of things you're not supposed to do, i put this on my lower water line, which isn't safe... don't do as i do...]
false lashes mascara

playing koi

cheeks ::
miss behave
golden lariat

lips ::
in synch lip pencil
playing koi l/s