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Paul & Joe Holiday 2009: Face Highlighters, Pearl Powders and Lip Lacquers

October 23, 2009

I have fallen completely head over heels over Paul & Joe’s Holiday Collection and new Lip Lacquers. If you haven’t checked it out, go to the Paul & Joe Beaute website or the Facebook Paul & Joe group page to look at their new holiday items. Josie shared her new items with us last week from her guest review with some gorgeous pictures and detailed descriptions. Check out the article First Look at Paul & Joe Holiday from Guest Writer Joey.

My holiday order from Bergdorfs arrived this past weekend and here is what I hauled along with my descriptions:


* Highlighting Powder in Sheer Radiance 001 (top left) – soft pale peach undertone
* Highlighting Powder in Sheer Glow 002 (top right) – soft highlight with a slight pink undertone
* Pearl Powder Smoke Black 001 – shimmery deep steel grey shimmer with silver flecks
* Pearl Powder Smoke Brown 002 – complex warm auburn taupe shimmer
* Lip Lacquer Nectar 01 (top gloss) – nectar peach
* Lip Lacquer Serenade 03 (middle gloss) – soft pink beige
* Lip Lacquer Riviera 05 (bottom gloss) – a cute coral pink with sparkles

My thoughts, photos and some swatches:

Highlighting Powders: The best thing about the highlighters is the packaging and the cute box it came in. The packaging/size is larger than the face colors and they come with a cute brush. The downside is that the pretty design on the powder is only an overspray so once you swipe it, the design is gone and you are left with a pale iridescent glowy powder.


Pearl Powders: Both Pearl Powders are limited edition and gorgeous for a smokey eye. They have an excellent pigmented base wtih silver flecks. 001 is a gorgeous deep smokey grey without blue undertones and 002 is a pretty auburn shimmer that might be too warm/copper for some, but I love it. With any loose powder, there is always a potential for some fall out. When applying these, they did fall on my face, but once on the eyes, they stayed put.

Comparisons to some other loose powders in the same color family (you can see that the Paul & Joe colors are unique!). Two views with contrasting backgrounds:


Swatch comparisons (applied over Paul & Joe’s Moisturizing Primer #2 as a base to pick up the pigment better):

1) Stila All Over Shimmer #13
2) MAC Dark Soul Pigment
3) MAC Sweet Sienna Pigment
4) Paul & Joe 001
5) Paul & Joe 002
6) MAC Gold Stroke Pigment
7) MAC Copperbeam Pigment
8) MAC Chocolate Brown Pigment

One more comparison set to include MAC Tan Pigment which looks similar in the container, but goes on a lot lighter than it looks in the pot (applied on bare skin without a base):

1) MAC Chocolate Brown Pigment
2) Paul & Joe 002
3) MAC Tan Pigment
4) MAC Copperbeam Pigment
5) MAC Gold Stroke Pigment

Lip Lacquers: These come packaged in squeeze tubes in 10 different shades. The Paul & Joe Beaute website and Facebook Paul & Joe group pages both show excellent photos! These are my new holy grail tube glosses. The pigment is medium – better than MAC Lipgelees (which I found too slick/sheer) and not as highly-fragranced like Lancome Juicy Tubes. The ones I bought are fairly similar: 01 is a nectar peach, 03 is a soft pink beige, 05 is a cute coral pink with sparkles. I don’t have swatches yet because I’m expecting another package soon for most of the other shades. I will post all the swatches together then. Check out Josie’s post for a swatch and picture of gloss #10!


Overall thoughts: P&J Holiday = huge win for me! Gotta love the cute samples and GWP from Bergdorfs that they had from their artist event. Are any of you Paul & Joe fans? I’d LOVE to hear what your favorite products are. I don’t have access to this line in person near me, so I rely heavily on internet blogs, message boards and reviews to try and figure out what to get!

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Laura Mercier Baked Eye Colour Palette for Holiday 2009

October 22, 2009

I normally get excited about all the holiday palettes and kits that come out every year, but felt this year there were too many palettes and not enough individual products to choose from. Laura Mercier has some gorgeous palettes which are nice if you don’t have a lot of products from her line. But if you’re like me and are looking for something you don’t already have in your collection, then you might be more inclined to wait and see what comes out for spring.

She does have quite a few bath & body kits that look interesting, but for her color items, the only thing that really caught my eye was her Baked Eye Colour Palette which retails for $48 and has 5 colors with a double-sided brush.

Left to right: Champagne, Sepia, Mink, Malt and Sterling

Overall thoughts: Champagne, Malt and Sterling are very sparkley and light. If you remember those Diamond Dust Eyeshadows from Bobbi Brown years ago, these are similar in concept. Light base color with loads of silver sparkle. These are nice and not over the top, but since they are so sheer, all three colors look the same on me.

Sepia and Mink are gorgeous shades, but feel a bit “over baked” making the pigment so-so. It’s still workable and they show up if you apply them with a brush that is slightly damp or over a cream base.

The Laura Mercier website states this is a $108 retail value which I am completely at odds on how they calculated this.

If you like Baked Shadows but want more pigmented and fun colors, check out the Gemstone Eye Collection which is exclusive to Saks. I actually never used the kit and ended up returning that kit soon after I received it in the mail because I couldn’t justify the price – but have to say the colors were stunning and if you don’t mind a splurge the brushes are fantastic and colors cute.

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Guerlain Holiday 2009 Bal de Nuit Eyeshadow Quad

October 11, 2009

Guerlain has a lovely collection for this holiday and I picked up the Bal de Nuit quad from Neiman Marcus. I only have 1 other quad from their Fall Collection since most of their eyeshadows have so-so pigment. This one seems to have decent pigmentation, but you will be suprised to hear that the colors didn’t wow me this time.

It’s definitely a great neutral quad with pretty shades, but I found that I had a lot of dupes in my collection. The most unique shade is probably the bottom right chocolately color because it has just the right enough darkness to make it a gorgeous smokey unique brown, but there are definitely similar colors.

Comparisons to the following shades:

* White shimmer is very similar to Bobbi Brown Navajo Metallic
* Pink shimmer is similar to MAC Shimmertime Pigment
* Taupe shimmer is very similar to Nars Ashes to Ashes and Chanel Vega (discontinued, but very similar to Chanel Safari, see TAUPE SHADES HERE)
* Dark chocolate shimmer is similar to Bobbi Brown Java Metallic and Urban Decay Twice Baked

Holiday vs Fall Quads (two views – the flash makes these hard to photograph):

Overall thoughts: It’s nice to have if you’re looking for the convenience of an all-in-one neutral palette. It’s wearable for year round, but not a must have for me. The collection is definitely worth checking out since there are some pretty lipsticks and the holiday ball-highlighter is really pretty too!

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Dior Holiday 2009: Smoky Crystal Quint + Silver Purple Nail Polish

October 9, 2009

Dior Holiday 2009 has been spotted at my local Macy’s and I picked up the new Smoky Crystal 089 quint and Silver Purple 782 nail polish from the collection.

I just got a manicure, so I didn’t swatch the nail polish for you. I do recommend you check All Lacquered Up for a swatch of this lovely purple though. The entire holiday collection seemed very cool-toned, most of it seemed like repromoted items with the exception of a new sparkle-chrome-like single shadow and a charm with gloss.

Close up of the new eyeshadow palette:

Comparisons to a few other quints that I have to show how cool-toned it is. It’s even more cool than Sky Glow:

I don’t have dupes for the other shades, but the closest I could find to the bottom left color is MAC Moth Brown. The Dior is even more blue-cool toned than MAC Moth Brown which I consider to be one of the coolest-toned eyeshadows that I have:

OVERALL THOUGHTS: This is one of the iridescent formula quints, so the pigment is very rich. It’s definitely unique and not easily dupe-able in my opinion. Lovely for a soft silvery eye or a smokey eye. There are a lot of different looks you can create with this palette.

UPDATE: I was initially worried this would be too cool-toned or frosty for my medium olive-golden skin, however, I tried it tonight and it worked just fine for me! I even ventured out of my comfort zone and used all the shades tonight and it wasn’t too frosty.

I signed up for a Dior event this next week at my local Nordstrom – so I will see if they can show me more techniques on how to use this.

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Dolce & Gabbana Ultra Shine Lipgloss, Smooth Eye Color Duo & More Blush

October 2, 2009

I took advantage of the Saks Beauty Week Event and placed an order the from NY store. Turns out the mailer card I received wasn’t entirely true when it said you would get 20 different samples in the goodie bag. At least there was a good GWP with Dolce & Gabbana of Seduction Lipgloss (was told the gift would be Candy, but I’m actually really happy with Seduction).

Here’s what arrived today:

* Luminous Cheek Colors in Delight (soft pinky rose) & Provocative (bright pink)
* Ultra Shine Lipglosses in Baby (shimmery baby-barbie pink), Sunset (soft peachy shimmer) & Seduction GWP (creamy nude pink-rose)
* Smooth Eye Color Duo in Stromboli (smokey black with silver micro sparkles & nude champagne shimmer)

L to R: Delight Blush, Stromboli Duo & Provocative Blush:

Delight:

Provocative:

Stromboli Eyeshadow Duo:

Ultra Shine Lipglosses, L to R: Baby (bubble gum shimmery pink), Sunset (shimmery peach), Seduction (nude rose cream)

Top to Bottom: Baby, Sunset, Seduction

Another view:

Swatches (note the flash enhanced the shimmer in the first picture making Baby & Sunset look frostier and lighter than they actually do):

This gives you a better idea of the undertone:


I haven’t tried the lipglosses on my lips yet, but they seem to be thick and very pigmented. They have the same rose scent as the lipsticks. Baby looked so much prettier in the promotion pictures – in reality, it’s brighter and more barbie-like, but still wearable in my opinion.

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Bobbi Brown Pewter Chrome Eyeshadow & Earth Metal Palette

October 1, 2009

These were found at Neimans yesterday – they had all the first round of holiday sets out for Bobbi Brown including the full-size tube tint set, full-size lip gloss set, velvet plum eyeshadow palette etc. They also had the rich color glosses (I passed on all of these because I couldn’t find a single color I unique enough or pretty enough). They also had their exclusive Black Plum Deluxe Brush Collection with the full size brushes. No sightings of those cute mini shimmer bricks yet – I believe the ship date for those was in November.

Came home with the Chrome Eyeshadow in Pewter $22 (Saks.com) and Earth Metal Palette $60 (on Saks.com and Bobbibrowncosmetics.com) even though there are several events I should have waited for happening on the 15th of this month (my local Nordies is having their fall event at all the counters with GWPs, Saks has their friends and family starting around that time, and Neimans will have their Incircle event with GWPs too).

Hopefully these pictures will help! In response to the request for “more picture views without flash” I’ve tried to include a lot more different shots this time. So be warned this is picture heavy!



Size comparisons:

Top close up:

Swatches of the Pewter Eyeshadows and Earth Metal Palette over bare skin, no base:

L to R: Pewter Metallic, Pewter Chrome, Autumn SW, Earth Metal Metallic, Zinc Metallic, Black Spruce Metallic, Sunset Gold Metallic, Antique Gold Metallic, Paisley Rose Creamy, Rose Garden Creamy, Rose Bud Creamy, Barefoot Shimmer Creamy

Pewter Metallic (left) and Pewter Chrome (right):

Pewter Metallic (left) and Pewter Chrome (right) in natural sunlight:

I posted about the exclusive Pewter Metallic Eye Set at Nordstrom in August and many of you have inquired “is the Pewter Metallic going to be the same as Pewter Chrome?” My answer is that they are very similar but not the same. I prefer the metallic version, the chrome is slightly harder in formula, more shiny (hence the chrome aspect), and more silver-cool.

Overall thoughts about the Earth Metal Palette – feelings are mixed. For $60 the palette is pretty tiny and not worth the price. Products should have been larger and the brushes in the set are the worst I have ever seen. Pigmentation of the eyeshadows is also mixed, some are less pigmented than others.

I really liked her format of her most recent Nudes Eyeshadow Palette and felt it was worth the $60 price tag. If she had released an eyeshadow palette like this with the Earth Metal Colors I would have felt it a better buy.

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First Look at Edward Bess: Naturally Chic

September 24, 2009

What came in the mail from Bergdorf Goodman:

* Ultra Luminous Eyeshadows in Intimate & Dusk
* Ultra Slick Lipstick in Pure Impulse
* Deep Shine Lip Gloss in Soft Whisper

Left is Intimate: which is a gorgeous light neutral nude taupe with just the slightest hint of shimmer
Right is Dusk: which is a deeper taupe grey with slight khaki/coffee tones

Left is Pure Impulse, Right is Soft Whisper: both are gorgeous nudes and I can’t wait to try them (huge thanks to the makeup artist at BG who recommended these two)

I haven’t tried the products yet on the face but I’ve swiped a few to play around a bit and I’m extremely pleased with the natural but high pigmented colors. I will definitely be exploring the line some more in the near future.

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