Rise and shine, morning glory. How did you sleep? Pretty well, I hope. I’m still waking up, but this Starbucks chai latte is helping.
Are you done with your Christmas shopping yet? I got a couple things online yesterday (can’t mention them now because the walls have ears/eyes), but I still have to brave the mall at some point today… Traffic’s bad, but I’ll use my rapier wit to hack through the capitalist hordes, grah! 🙂
But before that, I like to start Sunday mornings with 100mg of caffeine a look at some of the things we talked about earlier in the week. Sonia and Coco kicked hella @ss.
If you’ll be doing any driving today, please be careful out there. I’m serious, it’s a yuletide zoo.
The Weekly Roundup: Posts You Might Have Missed
SONIA KASHUK’S
REACH FOR THE STARS NAIL TRIO
When the goin’ gets tough, the tough paint their nails! Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly how the saying goes, but you know what I mean…
And when a nail polish goes on with near perfect application, like the pretty polishes in the Sonia Kashuk Reach for the Stars Nail Trio ($10), well, ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride.
The limited edition holiday set comes packed to the gills with glitter in three full-size bottles — a warm peachy gold (looks like a sunset!), a gunmetal gray and a magenta. Sonia filled all three with pounds of pigment and sparkle to spare.
Where’s the party at?! I ask because these festive shades hit all the right notes, but the formula’s what elevates these polishes from good to great. The smooth, thin texture goes on without any streaks (reminds me of OPI’s texture), and because they’re so pigmented, the color is easy to build up with layers. Last week I painted my toes with the gunmetal gray, and it was one of the fastest and easiest at-home pedicures I’ve given myself in ages. Just two coats produced a solid, opaque layer of color. Heck, I probably could have gotten away with one layer if I’d been in hurry. Read more…
CHANEL LES PERLES
DE CHANEL FOR SPRING 2011
Don your best tweed jacket and pearls, ma chérie (and dab No. 5 on your pulse points), because it’s time to say bonsoir to the new Chanel Les Perles de Chanel makeup collection.
There’s plenty of photographic evidence that proves our girl Coco wore a lot of pearls. In point of fact, she practically dripped in them because she believed their delicate glow enhanced a woman’s natural beauty.
Her heirs apparent at Chateau Chanel must agree. Remembering how much Coco loved pearls, they created the Les Perles collection for spring 2011, with its preponderance of pearly finishes destined to impart natural-looking luminosity to cheeks, eyes, lips and nails.
Since he joined the team — nay, the movement! — Chanel Global Creative Director Peter Philips has done a fantastic job (in my opinion) keeping Gabby’s spirit and her iconic style alive, and, with Les Perles de Chanel (just look at those shades of black, gray and white!), he’s done it again.
Les Perles is coming next month to Chanel counters but is available now on chanel.com.
Here’s a brief look at a few items from the collection, with more to follow over the coming days. 🙂
Joues Contraste Powder Blush in Espiegle ($42) — A warm peachy pink blush with a subtle golden sheen. It reminds me a little of NARS Orgasm in the pan but applies lighter, with a less frosty finish, and it gives my cheeks a soft, candlelit glow. Read more…
MASCARA MAGIC 101
HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM YOUR MASCARA
It’s 6:30 in the morning. You just barely saved your white blouse from a nice warm coffee demise, and all you’ve left to do is throw on some mascara. Do you…
A. Close your eyes, wiggle the wand randomly in the vicinity of your lashes, and hope for the best?
B. Look straight into the mirror, and take a few seconds slowly sweeping the bristled brush from base to tip, possibly allowing time for a second coat?
C. Stop, take a deep breath, and with your disposable sponge, gently lift your eyelid while you wiggle your brush at the roots, sweeping them quickly outward and upward, turning the brush vertically to add a bit of length at the corner, and wiggling it over the lower lashes?
Hopefully, you picked (C), as you may have guessed that in this case, the most complicated answer is the right one. Read more…
MAKE UP FOR EVER
ROUGE ARTIST INTENSE LIPSTICKS
Stand tall, my little lipstick soldiers! Paint the clouds with your awesomeness, and shower your pretty pigments down upon the planet like makeup Skittles!
I’ve been meaning to swatch the 10 Make Up For Ever Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks ($19) I received for placing in the Rouge Artist Contest, but I just keep chickening out, unable to bear the thought of disturbing them in their perfect little tubes.
And then it started raining here yesterday. And raining. And raining. And I thought, “Hmm… I remember those Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks being awfully pretty and colorful.”
I’m kinda glad I waited to swatch these, because with all the rain today today I really needed a pick-me-up.
Available in a monstrously huge selection of 50 unscented, unflavored colors in matte, pearl and satin finishes, the pigmented, full-coverage Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks are designed to drench puckers in pure, unadulterated color — opaque after just one swipe. They joined the Make Up For Ever permanent line last fall. Read more…
SONIA KASHUK
WHAT GLITTERS GLOWS PALETTE
OMG! Have you heard about the party at Target?! Well, not at Target. It’s more inside Target, down by the cosmetics aisle, right in front of the Sonia Kashuk display.
Just look for the disco ball…packaging for Sonia’s limited edition What Glitters Glows Eye Palette ($15).
If it looks familiar… If it looks familiar (déjà vu!), you may be recalling last year’s Starry Eyes Palette, which also had big pans of shadow like these and came in similar packaging. Oh, and it had the same price ($15).
For this palette, Sonia swapped out the three cool-toned, smooth and pigmented mattes from Starry Eyes with three dynamic, neutral-toned shadows with a fascinating combination of matte/glitter finish.
I can’t believe the gray, black and brown shadows in the bottom row are available at Target, because they seem like higher end department store material to me. They come in a matte base that’s pigmented, yet still soft and easy to blend, and they’re infused with subtle flecks of sophisticated black-tie glitter (as opposed to 1996 rave glitter), which reminds me: did you ever dance with a glow stick at a rave? Yup, good times… Read more…
THE SONIA KASHUK
FACING STARDOM PALETTE
The limited edition Sonia Kashuk Facing Stardom Face Palette ($19.99) is like a spontaneous red carpet moment. One second I’m sitting at my desk in black stretchy pants (you know, the ones with the hole in the butt?), but the second that first swipe of smokey eye and rosy cheek/lip makeup dances onto my face, BAM! I’m strutting my stuff at a Hollywood premiere, waiting for Ryan Reynolds to introduce me as “his close friend, confidante and shoulder to cry on” to the paparazzi.
Looking like a star with this 12-piece holiday palette, which includes two powder eyeliners, six eyeshadows, two lipglosses and two cream blushes, doesn’t require an actual acting career. All you need are brushes and your imagination.
Eyeliners: The matte powder eyeliners can be worn wet or dry along the lash and/or waterlines. They have a little fallout when applied dry, so I keep makeup wipes on standby just in case I need to clean up.
Eyeshadows: Cool-toned and smokey is the name of the game. The glitter shadows (a glittery gray, taupe and purplish taupe) are more pigmented than the ones in the What Glitters Glows Palette, which is a big plus. The three mattes (a gray, purplish taupe and taupe) apply sheer and blend with ease. Read more…
YES TO CUCUMBERS
COLOR CONDITIONER
Tabs has really been riding me lately to find a good cruelty-free drugstore conditioner. He even threatened to swipe my ankles if I didn’t produce something this week worthy of sharing on the blog. I focussed the search on volumizing products designed to cut down on frizz, since those are both hair issues of mine, and I think I may have found something to save my ankles from Tabs. They call it Yes to Cucumbers Color Care Conditioner ($9).
With a mild cucumber scent, this lightweight, moisturizing conditioner is marketed to gals with color-treated hair, which I have, but I’m so impressed by it that I’d wager it would also do wonders for other types of hair (particularly fine, limp hair because it is quite volumizing).
Not only is it cruelty free, but it’s also made from 99.6% natural ingredients, including minerals harvested from the Dead Sea, organic cucumbers, centaurea extract (an extract from a flower that’s supposed to help prevent brassiness) and green tea. Most of the ingredients are also plant extracts, way up on list, and there’s no mention of silicones among the ingredients at all. Read more…
NYX TANGO
BRONZING POWDER
When Tabs was on safari in Tanzania earlier this year, he met a serval who told him the tale of a leopard named Nix (pronounced NYX), who spent every day sunning himself way up high in the branches of a big acacia tree.
Later, when he got back home to Novato, Tabs took the story and turned it into his first book, titled “When Leopard Gets a Tan.”
And that’s where NYX got the idea for Tango With Bronzing Powder in When Leopard Gets a Tan. 🙂
Okay, okay, that’s not true at all. But it sure would have made a great story, right?
When Leopard Gets a tan, one of the new NYX bronzers for fall, reminded me of Too Faced Pink Leopard from the pan, but once applied the color’s more bronzy, less peach and less shimmery — a soft sheen as opposed to Pink Leopard’s frost. Read more…
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Nina says
i think im going to cave in and get a couple of the MUFE lipsticks …. theyre just so pretty!
Karen says
I think you’ll like them! Maybe pick up a satin rather than a matte though, since the mattes can be a little drying.
Watcha up today?
Radhika says
The Chanel SA was clueless about when the collection would launch here…How is the 5-shadow palette that’s there in this collection? It looked nice in all the pics..
Karen says
Hi Radhika,
I’m hoping to take a stab at it today. I have a few things to finish up and then I’m heading to the mall! Will let you know if I get my hands on it.
Radhika says
Thanks 🙂 🙂
Karen says
You’re welcome! 🙂