Nordstrom Anniversary Sale Beauty Exclusives 2011

Hello Ladies...I just wanted to share a quick update of some of the things that Nordstrom is cranking out for the Anniversary sale this year. It's kind of a quick copy and paste, so I apologize for the way it looks. The sale will start sometime in mid-July.

Chanel Rouge Allure in Joyeuse (pictured) and Desinvolte--$32 each
Chanel Rose Tourbillon--$43
Chanel Rose Envolee Quad--$57
Chanel Glossimers in Blossom (pictured) and Liason-$27 each
Chanel Poudre Lumiere Pearl Glow Powder--$60
Bobbi Brown Tortoise Shell Beauty Kit-$80
Kit includes:- Shimmer Brick in Beach (limited edition).- Creamy Lip Color in Toffee (limited edition).- Shimmer Lip Gloss in Rose Gold (0.14 oz.).- Long Wear Gel Eyeliner in Black Ink (0.1 oz.).- Extreme Party Mascara in Black (0.21 oz.).- Mini Ultra Fine Eyeliner Brush.- Mini Face Blender Brush.

Dior Fall Ready to Wear Palette-$52

Lancome Parisian Sultry Eye Look Set--$48
Color Design Shadow and Liner Palette in Coral Crush (warm corals and browns). Complete your look with a full-size Le Crayon Khôl Eyeliner in Black Ebony, a travel-size Aquatique Eye Color Base (0.08 oz.) and Hypnôse Instant Full Body Volume Mascara (0.135 oz.) for lash drama. All tucked inside a Parisian-chic cosmetics bag.
NARS Bright Lights Big City Eyeshadow Palette-$55
Shades included are Cyprus, Biarritz, Fathom, Night Clubbing, Coconut Grove and Night Breed.
Smashbox Studio Stash Brush Set-$36
Full-size #7 Tapered Shadow Brush.- Full-size #15 Definer Brush.- Travel-size #28 Precision Liner Brush.- Travel-size Angled Blush Brush.



Smashbox Studio Stash Set-$59
Set contains:- Eyeshadow palette featuring shades Vanilla, Slate, Twilight Grey and Charcoal.- Full Exposure Mascara in Jet Black (full-size, 0.38 oz.).- Lip Enhancing Lip Gloss in Smitten (full-size, 0.2 oz.).- Cream Eyeliner Palette featuring ten versatile shades.- Blush/Soft Lights Duo in Split/Second.- Roll cosmetic bag.

Trish McEvoy Portable Beauty Romance Set-$75

Colors include eyeshadows in Shell, Romance and Antique Rose, Eye Definer in Deep Aubergine and new Bronzer in Golden.Also includes:- Instant Eye Lift under-eye brightener and line filler (deluxe travel size, 0.025 oz.).- Beauty Booster Lip Gloss SPF 15 in Sexy Petal, (deluxe travel size, 0.2 oz.).- Dual-Ended Eye Brush featuring two of Trish's most iconic eye-enhancing brushes on opposing ends: Brush 50 Angled Eye Lining and Brush 23 Angled Crease Contour.- Brush 48 Blending, the perfect face-color application and blending brush.
Trish Mc Evoy Timeless Beauty Makeup Planner--
Includes:
Red Bow Petite Makeup Planner.- Petite Refillable Makeup Page containing eyeshadows in French Vanilla and Soft Grey, blush in Glow, Medium Matte Bronzer and Translucent Finishing Powder.- Eye Base Essentials in Bare (deluxe travel size, 0.025 oz.).- Mini Classic Eye Pencil in Black.- Mini High Volume Mascara in Black (0.1 oz.).- Lip Color SPF 15 in Mulberry.- Brush 62 Fan Brush.- Medium Refillable Double-Decker Compact containing Even Skin Portable Foundation in Shades 2 and new 3.5 with professional sponge applicator.

There's a lot more goodies available, but I just chose some of the stuff available based on brands I personally like myself.

I'm thinking of getting a glossimer, the Dior palette, the NARS palette, and possibly the Lancome Set...I already have the Chanel JC so I'll skip it this time. I hope that helps somebody who's been trying to hunt down a list or some pictures.

Sephora Lip Service Lip Deluxe Sampler and Essie Mint Candy Apple

When I went to return the Stila Smudge pot set the other day, this set caught my eye in its place. It's a gift set of 8 lip products from various brands retailing for $38. 3 of the 8 items are full sized items too..so it's a pretty good deal. It contains DuWop Private red (deluxe sample size), Smashbox Lip Enhancing gloss in Sheer (clear gloss, maybe 2/3 size), Sephora Nano Lip Liner in Beau Bordeaux, NARS Velvet MAtte Lip Pencil in Roman Holiday (Full Size), Korres Guava lipstick in Wine Red (Full Size), Cargo PlantLove Botanical Lipstick in Muir Woods (Full Size) Tarte Vitamin Infused lipstick in Hatha (sample), and Laura Mercier Lip Color Creme in Pink Champagne (sample)Flash
No Flash
Swatches (L-->R): Du Wop Private Red: supposed to be a color changing lipstick. I don't really notice any real color change. It's a pretty red..unfortunately I don't feel like I love it...or hate it... it's got a good texture, is nondrying, and smells like Smarties candy.
Sephora Beau Bordeaux Nano Lip Liner: Reddish Brown. It looks kind of mauvey in the swatch picture, but I don't see any of that on my skin
NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Roman Holiday: Kind of a silvery pink. It looks like Pepto Bismo against my lips and skintone, but it'd probably look lovely on a lighter girl. It has an odd scent I can't quite place, but nothing too strong or lasting
Korres Guava Lipstick in Wine Red: Cute Pink-Red. Very good texture and moisturizing. I like this color best in the set and think it could be flattering for a wide set of skin tones.
Cargo Plant Love Lipstick in Muir woods- Sheer Mauvey Pink with an emphasis on sheer. Has a somewhat mild waxy scent. I find this color somewhat drying.
Tarte lipstick in Hatha-A nice pink with copper shimmer. It's a really cute color and decent formula.
Laura Mercier Lip Colour Creme in Pink Champagne- Mauvey Pink...a cute neutraly color and very work appropriate. Has a nice emolient feel to it too.
I was messing around with Private Red earlier..so I cropped out a lip swatch of it. It's not quite this warm RL:
Overall the set's really nice and would make a great gift for someone. Personally, I feel like the colors are a bit off with my skintone..but then again my skin tone's made another change and I'm now really warm, so I have to go through my stash and figure out what will work on me again.

Today's NOTD is from Essie's holiday collection. Mint Candy Apple. I found the formula a bit streaky..though thinning it helped a bit. # coats gave a smooth, opaque result:

Smashbox Holiday 2009- Wish for the Perfect Palette

This year, Smashbox has once again, put out a "blockbuster style" palette containing 64 eyeshadows, 8 lip glosses, 8 cream liners, a brow tech palette, 2 blushes, 2 highlighters, and a bronzer. The palette retails for $59 is an Ulta exclusive and can be found at Ulta and Smashbox's website only. In my excitement, I of course ordered one, despite having last year's with the reasoning that the colors in this year's are different from last year's...which they are. This year's palette is certainly a lot brighter than last years, which for me unfortunately meant that the palette as a whole was a lot less wearable than last year's. Additionally, I noticed that this year's palette was scented..which tends to bother me, but luckily the scent doesn't transfer to my face. There were some improvements over last year's..like the brushes for example, but they don't increase my excitement for the palette by much.


The eyeshadows in this year's palette are a lot brighter and warmer than last year's palette, which was very neutral; EVERY shade in last year's palette was wearable, which to me is no small feat since there were 70 eyeshadows in last year's palette. Consequently, I found that the majority of the shades would not work super well on me. The other thing I noticed when swatching the colors is that the quality of the eyeshadows this year are inferior to that of last year's. Last year's palette was smooth, buttery goodness, while this year, only a few were buttery, and a few were downright chalky and hard to scrape any real color from. Swatches were again done in columns...




The blushes in the palette, however, are nicer than last year's. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good pic of these swatched..for some reason all the swatches after I finished swatching the eyeshadows came out impossibly warm..for this reason the cheek colors came out way more orange/brown than they should be.
The cream liners in this year's palette are also an improvement over last year's. For some reason, they were difficult to work with in last year's palette as they were significantly drier than their normal texture. This year's are nice and creamy
The lip glosses are also an improvement from last year's and are my favorite part of the palette. They're fairly nonsticky and don't have any scent or flavor, unlike last year's, which had a disgustingly sweet taste to them.

Overall, I'd say it's a palette I have very mixed feelings over, some of it is really nice, but to me, it's not really worth paying $59 + tax for. Then again, my stash is a monstrousity and I have a LOT of palettes...but in general I'm finding myself kind of disappointed with this year's holiday releases (with the exception of one...but you guys will see that later). The other thing that bothers me about the palette is the way it opens up..it came apart one already when I was sliding it open. It didn't break exactly..just came apart. It was easily fixed (it snapped back together), but it just left the feeling of very cheap quality.

Brush Cleansers--Parian Spirit, Smashbox, MAC

For the last 6 months, I've generally been really lazy about cleaning my brushes. Thankfully, many brands make brush cleansers that are great for light cleanings in between times that you finally get around to deep cleaning your brushes (which unfortunately for me has been a few months now...don't get grossed out though, I have a LOT of brushes so I've been on a rotation...) The three I've tried so far are Smashbox's, MAC's and Japonesque's Parian Spirit cleaners.

I'll start this post off with Japonesque's Parian Spirit Cleanser. This cleanser comes in 3 sizes, a 2 oz. bottle with a sprayer, an 8 oz size, and a huge 16 oz size. I was lucky enough to get a decent sized sample of this stuff from a friend of mine who picked this up from IMATS while she was there. (Thank you!) This cleanser is probably the quickest and easiest to use; you simply pour a little bit out into a small container, dip your brush in, and swirl it in there slightly and pigments literally just fall out of your brush. It's pretty interesting to watch. It has a lemony scent to it (Lemon Pledge anyone?) After that, just squish it a bit with a paper towel and it's good for use again. Out of the 3 cleansers I'll be talking about today, this is also the only brush cleanser I've tried that REALLY pulls all that gross gunk out of your lip brushes...and does so rather quickly at that (I think it took me less than a minute to clean 3 lip brushes) I like this one very much for that. However, overall, this cleanser is my least favorite out of the 3 because it seems to contain oil, which I don't think is something I like. This does make it so that scratchy brushes like the maxine mop are much much softer, but I think I'll skip on this for using regularly on anything except my lip brushes.

Next up is Smashbox. Smashbox is the first brush cleanser I ever bought, back in the day, when Smashbox was pretty much the only cosmetic line I used. (I was a die hard Smashbox fan back in high school and my early college years) Smashbox's Brush Cleaner comes in a 4 oz spay bottle and retails for $15. To use this product, you spray the brush cleanser on a paper towel and then sweep your brush over the moistened towel to remove pigment. It's a nice cleanser for removing pigment from your brushes as well as sanitizing your brushes, but I feel that MAC's brush cleanser does the same exact thing for way less money.

MAC's brush cleanser comes in a 7.9 oz bottle with one of those push top dispensers (like BBW lotion bottles) and retails for $11. One bottle lasts me a very, very long time (i think the last one lasted me about 10 months or so) I use this one in the same way that I use the Smashbox one, I spray/pour a bit of this stuff on a paper towel, run my brush over the dampened area, and then squeeze my brush slightly with a dry paper towel. My brishes are ready for use again within a few minutes. I'm generally quite happy with this cleanser, and out of the three I'm posting about today, this one is my favorite. It makes my life much easier since I can go just a little bit longer without having to deep clean my brushes. I think it's generally better to use on smaller brushes like eye brushes, but it can pull color out of cheek brushes as well, generally, I prefer to subject my face brushes to deep cleaning instead of using brush cleanser.

For deep cleaning my brushes, I like to run the tips of my brushes under warm water, then work in a mixture of antibacterial soap, baby shampoo/conditioner, and warm water, or just a mix of warm water and antibacterial soap. I then rinse out my brushes, squeeae out excess water, with a paper towl, and lay them flat to dry.

Eyeshadow Primer Comparison- Lumene, UDPP, and Smashbox

A somewhat belated topic here, but today's topic is eyeshadow primers; more specifically, a comparison between Lumene's eye base, Urban Decay Primer Potion, and Smashbox's new photo finish eye primer.

I feel that all 3 are decent primers and all have their pros and cons.

First up is Lumene. Lumene is a nice primer that was found in drug stores like CVS for $10 and came in a nice little squeeze tube, which is a step up from Urban Decay's craptastic packaging. As you can see below, it's slightly yellow toned before you spread it out. However, once smoothed into the skin, it dries clear/nude without any problems. It's got a bit more texture than UDPP, so I like to use this primer for loose shadows and pigments as I get better pigmentation from this base than with UDPP. My eyeshadow lasts all day without creasing, although it does fade a bit by the end of the day.

Next up is Urban Decay's Primer Potion. This baby retails for $17 in it's regular size and is currently being sold in an XL size for $22. This is my favorite primer out of the 3. It is neutral toned when first applied and dries nude/clear. Eyeshadows are intensified when applied on top of this primer, and it also makes an excellent base for your brow powder. Eyeshadows last all day without creasing with this primer, though again I get some fading. The downside to this primer is that eyeshadows become a bit harder to blend on top of this primer, but this problem is easily fixed by dusting a nude/base color over your lid.

Last up is Smashbox's Photo Finish eye primer. This one was my least favorite out of the 3. IT retails for $20, more than either Lumene or UDPP, with only 0.02 oz in the tube...MUCH less product than UDPP has. I decided not to return this right away and give it a try, but unfortunately I decided that I prefered UDPP over Smashbox, though the smashbox is still a decent primer. Smashbox's eye primer is the darkest and warmest of the 3 primers and does not dry clear on my skin. On darker skintones than mine though, it probably would be pretty nude/clear. It did intensify colors and lasted all day without creasing, but fading still occured for me. Additionally, I felt that it made cooler toned and neutral toned shadows a bit warmer. It does have two pros over UDPP though; shadows are still easily blended over this primer, and it does not seem to be as drying as UDPP. nevertheless, it was not for me, and went back to the store right after these swatches.

Primer comparison before smoothing out. Lumene is a creamy yellow, UDPP is a neutal cream, and Smashbox I'd say is about a NC30 or so.

Smoothed out: I'm ot sure if it's visible here, but the Smashbox did not dry clear. It's a bit warmer than the other two primers. Lumene may have a slight yellow cast to it, but is clear for the most part. UDPP is completely clear on me.

For the eyeshadow swatched over the primers, I used Urban Decay Last Call..a red-magenta shade. Lumene intensifies color a bit, but not as much as UDPP or Smashbox. Again, the Smashbox changed the color a bit, but as Lst call is a warm based color to begin with, the change may not be all that apparent.

One more pic for color comparison:

Smashbox Mini Lip and Eye Palette

The Mini Lip and Eye Palette was released a few years ago with the Mod Chic collection. I don't particularly remember how much it retailed for, but you can still find it on ebay for pretty cheap nowadays. It's a great little palette with 4 buttery, sheer, but buildable eyeshadows and 2 lip glosses with a mini double ended eye brush. It's great for a quick neutral look or simple smoky look. I do have to apologize for the state mine's in. I neglected to clean it before snapping a picture of it..

The colors are as follows:
Eyeshadow:
All of the eyeshadows are sheer, but buildable, and are of the same excellent quality of Smashbox's regular singles. The shimmery shades have light shimmer, and are great for everyday
Fab: A shimmery white. An excellent highlighter
Mini: Shimmery Cream, makes a good base
Shag: Shimmery light brown, a bit on the warmer side.
Jet: Matte "off-black" This shade is black, but not a full on black, if you know what I mean
Lipgloss:
These are also sheer, but buildable and nondrying. One layer gives a tint with a soft shine. More layers=more color and shine
Smashing: Warm Peach color. It looks orangey on my arm, but on my mauvey-pink lips, it's perfectly fine
Smashing: Mid-toned Rose.

Smashbox Rapture Collection -- Holiday 2008

For my first official blog post I have chosen to post about the Smashbox Rapture Collection and what I bought from it. It seemed fitting, as Smashbox was the first high end makeup brand I ever bought and for the longest time was the only high end brand I would buy. This collection renewed my love of this brand. The Rapture Collection, which was released for Holiday 2008, contained the following items:

• Best of Smashbox Kit ($19.00)
• Rapture Lip Gloss Set ($29.00)
• Flawless Finish Primer set ($39.00)
• Rapture Eye Shadow and Brush Set ($59.00)
• Rapture Travel Brush Set ($49.00)
• Ulta and smashbox.com online exclusive, the Ultimate Beauty Palette.

From this collection, I purchased only two things.

The first was the Flawless Finish Primer set, which contained a full sized (30 ml) Photo Finish Primer and a to-go sized Photo Finish Primer (15 ml) in the original clear formula. There isn't a whole lot to say about this set other than that it's a pretty good deal for those who like Smashbox's foundation primer like myself. Smashbox's Photo Finish primer is a silicone based primer that I use whenever I wear foundation and occasionally when I wear blush. I find that it smooths out my skin a bit and helps my foundation and blush "stick" a bit better. improving its wear.

The second thing I purchased was the Ultimate Beauty Palette from Ulta.

Despite it's massive appearance online, the palette, when closed, is a bit bigger than a DVD case. Inside, the palette has two layers. The top layer contains 70 eyeshadows.

All of these shades are very wearable and neutral and are perfect for everyday wear. The shadows are of Smashbox's usual good quality, with a buttery, easily blendable texture and somewhat sheer but buildable color. I have swatched them all below by column as labeled. All swatches were done on the inside of my arm over UDPP (Urban Decay Primer Potion) on NC 30 neutral skin in slightly cool natural lighting.

The second layer contains brow tech wax and powder, 8 cream liners, 12 lipglosses, a bronzer, a highlighter, and two blushes.

The cream eyeliners are all black based eyeliners, making them all very wearable colors. Unfortunately, they were already a bit dried out in this palette, which made them just a bit difficult to apply. This wasn't a big deal to me as I didn't buy this palette for the eyeliners, which I am not that fond of to begin with. Why? Well the eyeliners just don't stay put. Even over an eyeshadow base, the liners still manage to crease a bit and smudge or dissapear. The bronzer was a very nice peachy color, which was a bit odd as a bronzer, but luckily, it was a very nice peachy flush on me, making it a very nice blush for me. The blush next to the bronzer, labeled "blush #1", is a brownish pink with shimmer, and "blush #2" is a nice matte pink flush. The soft lights was probably my favorite of the cheek powders as it is a very gorgeous highlighter shade.

The 12 lipglosses that were included with the palette are also very nice wearable colors, with only one real flaw for me; they're flavored! Other than that, they're wonderful, somewhat sheer, glosses that are not overly sticky.

Overall, this is an amazing palette, and is the best "blockbuster" type palette I have ever seen. It is no longer available at Ulta, but you can still get one at Smashbox.com. It is an excellent deal at $59, although it's so pretty that you may find it hard to dig in at first!