Guerlain G Serie Noire

After seeing post after post about this blush, I felt that I had to have it. Unfortunately, my local counter was sold out of this, and I was told that it was completely sold out in the Nordstrom network. Of course, when it popped up on Sephora's site, I quickly plopped down the ridiculous amount of money that this blush was to cost me.

When the blush did arrive, I was completely underwhelmed by it due to the gold shimmer that was laced so strongly throughout its entire surface. Revisiting the swatches I'd seen on various other blogs, I was even more disheartened by it's comparison to blushes such as NARS Orgasm, which I had hated for it's gold sheen, as well as the overall shimmer in each shade. I was sorely tempted to take this blush back to Sephora without even trying it; however, it was still getting rave reviews online. I decided to suck it up and give this blush a whirl before I made my final decision; so taking my favorite R&R blush brush, I carefully ran my brush through all 4 colors and applied it to my face.

Sadly for my wallet, I found that I rather like this blush. I think that it's comparison to Orgasm, Deep Throat, and other peachy-pink blushes is a bit of a sad generalization about this blush as it does not even begin to describe this blush. While it's true that running your brush through all 4 colors will create a shimmery peachy pink blush, it does not have the gold sheen that Orgasm does (or it's sheerness), or is even quite as strong a shimmer as Deep Throat (though I could be wrong on this one). Plus with the way this blush is striped, you could make it as pink, peach, or coral colored on your face as you'd like. To me, this says that it is mutiple blush colors in one, making it my blush pick for the spring (though I'm not sure I could bring myself to travel with this sucker...it's far too pricey for me to want to tote it anywhere past the safety of my own home. I'm fairly excited to see what the summer blush will look like when it comes out.

I chose not to swatch this blush as I can't bring myself to wreck the G emblazoned throughout the surface of the blush, but decided instead to share my thoughts with you ladies on this blush. My honest opinion is to pick up this blush if you find one. It's well worth the splurge if you can afford it.

Guerlain Holiday and NOTD China Glaze DV8

This holiday season, Guerlain was the one that took my money...partially due to pushy sales ladies. I bought the holiday Bal de Minuit (retail $58) and the new holiday meteorites Perles Imperiales (retail $53). Bal de Minuit was pushed on me by the sales ladies at my local Guerlain counter. I was extremely hesitant to buy this because they had made a really awful muddy mess with it when they applied it on me, and I was less than enthusiastic to purchase it for that reason. However they finally pushed it on me telling me just to try it at home and to return it if I still hated it afterwards. At this point I didn't feel like arguing with them anymore (and I would never have made as bad a mess as they had), so I brought the quad home with me. In the end, I like it enough not to take it back at this point. It's a nice quad of shimmering neutral colors reminiscent of Chanel Dunes. However, unlike Chanel Dunes, it's much more shimmery and pigmented, which is a plus as Chanel Dunes didn't show up on my lids. The quad contains a shimmery white beige, a shimmering pink-champagne, a shimmery taupe, and a warm dark brown.

Perles Imperiales comes in a nice black glitter adorned case with rhinestones on top. Despite the aesthetics of this year's release, the packaging is still, unfortunately, made of cardboard. Comparing it to the 3 types of balls that Guerlain carries permanently, it's as sparkly as Pink Fresh, but the effect on the face is in between that of Mythic and Beige Chic. Basically speaking..it just sort of comes across as sparkle on the face. I'll have to play with these a bit more to decide whether or not they're worth keeping.


Today's NOTD is China glaze DV8. It's a great turqoise holo that in real life looks a lot more green than what shows up depicted below on my monitor.. I bought this baby last night for $2.75 at a local shop. For anybody that may be in the (South) Bay Area (California) there's a great little shop called US Nails Supply (you can look them up on Yelp) that carries China Glaze, ORLY, and OPI for discount pricing. The store is really tiny and somewhat cramped, but the pricing is excellent and doesn't come with high shipping fees. The selection is definitely more limited than say, if you bought of Transdesign or any other etailer, but still worth checking out as there are still some nice goodies.
This post was brought to you while battling a set of tiny jaws clamped to the corner of my netbook screen