Holiday 2011: Laura Mercier Book of Nudes and NOTD OPI Meep Meep Meep

One of the things I bought for Sephora's Friends and Family sale is the Laura Mercier Book of Nudes. This palette contains 8 shadows, 1 cake liner, and 3 cream cheek products. Most of the eye shadows are smooth and buttery, but Tiger's Eye is an unpigmented, hard pressed mess. The other shadows are somewhat sheer, but very buildable. All swatches were taken in a mix of natural lighting and OTT lighting over UDPP, roughly 3 swipes each (except Tiger's Eye)

Buff is a matte beige.
Tiger's Eye is an warm brown with gold glitter. It's hard and unpigmented and easily forms a crust on top. I had to really dig in to get payoff. I think this was 6 swipes or so with my brush, and I had to really pack it on.
Sandstone is a shimmery beige pink.
Bamboo is a warm, slight antiqued bronzey taupe.
Baroque is a warm orange brown with gold shimmer
Fresco is a matte, pinked brown.
Granite is a deep, matte grey.
Cocoa Brown is a reddish brown with slight bronze shimmer. The shimmer doesn't really transfer onto the skin.
The cheek creams in the palette have a smooth, kinda oily texture. The only one I found somewhat pretty is the cheek veil which is a slightly corally peach shade. Bronzer veil reminded me kind of like baby diarrhea...it didn't look particularly pretty swatched onto my arm. Glow veil is a golden highlight shade. The only one of these I tried on my face was the cheek veil. It was easy enough to blend, but I didn't like the payoff on my face. Each of these swatches was maybe 4 swipes. They're definitely quite sheer.

I did neglect to swatch the cake liner, but you can find a swatch of it with the LM Luxe Color portfolio I swatched earlier this month if you're interested. Overall, the palette is okay, but the colors themselves don't particularly appeal to me. If you're torn between getting the luxe color portfolio or the book of nudes, my personal preference would be towards the luxe color portfolio. The Book of Nudes is quite a bit cheaper though, so if you like the colors, it's okay to get, but it doesn't excite me whatsoever.

Here's a look at yesterday's NOTD as weel; OPI Meep Meep Meep. This polish is a slightly pink red, that I found was somewhat jelly-like in color payoff (I can still see my nail line a bit after 3 coats). There's some multidimmensional shimmer to it as well that I feel like my camera didn't capture so well. This photo was taken under OTT lighting at the end of the day shortly before I removed it.

Laura Mercier Holiday 2011-- Luxe Color Portfolio

Laura Mercier Luxe Color Portfolio- retails $98
Contains: 6 eyeshadows, 3 cake liners, 2 blushes, and 3 mini brushes

Laura Mercier Luxe Color Portfolio (close-up)

Natural Lighting + OTT light over UDPP

Primrose-Warm shimmery pink.
African Violet- Warm violet shade with gold shimmer
Merlot-Deep plum shade with mild shimmer
Truffle-Warm matte brown
Topaz-silvery taupe
Stellar-shimmering beige

Indirect Natural Lighting, no base

The Luxe Color Portfolio by Laura Mercier is my favorite palette so far this season. It's really the only thing I've truly been happy with purchasing in a while (with the exception of the Guerlain 4 pan palettes) and is well worth the hefty price tag to me. All 6 shadows are smooth and blendable, and carry medium pigmentation. The mini brushes are soft, and very useable, unlike a lot of brushes that tend to come in sets. The cake liners are fairly easy to use; lightly dampen an eyeliner brush and mix with the liner. If you dampen the brush too much, you won't get a nice, pigmented line. I wouldn't really purchase the cake liners on their own, as I prefer pencil/gel liners but they're nice to have in the palette and come in very pretty colors. Ground Espresso is even a bit taupey.

Dior Holiday 2011--Celebration Collection Deluxe Palette and Eye palette

The last couple of years, Dior has managed to sucker me into purchasing their deluxe palette. This year I got suckered into the eye palette as well. The packaging for these was too adorable for me to pass up.

Dior Holiday Eye palette (outside)

Dior Holiday Eye Palette (inside)

The eye palette contains 3 eyeshadows and an eyeliner and comes packaged with intructions for creating certain looks with the palette. The eyeshadows themselves a beautifully pigmented and silky in texture. Each of these only took a single swipe to photograph well on my arm. The eyeliner is a cream liner that I'm not all that fond of. It stays creamy and never really seems to set, even if you press the dark brown eyeshadow over it to set it. Unfortunately, this means I had smudgy eyeliner under my eyes by the end of the day. I really wish Dior had gone with a 4th eyeshadow instead. I do however, really love the eyeshadow colors that were in this palette. They're shimmery without really being frosty this time. I'd say the lighter gold-brown shade is more metallic than a frost this time. I fell in love with it when I wore it. The darker brown is also beautiful. The eye palette retails for $44 (pretax)

Dior Holiday Eye palette over UDPP, natural+OTT lighting

This year's deluxe palette features 3 eyeshadows, a cream liner, 1 lipstick, 1 gloss, a lip balm, a miniature Diorshow Iconic, and a miniature Diorskin sculpting powder (020). My honest opinion on this one is that the eye shades are similar enough to last year's palette that you probably don't need this one if you bought last year's. Unfortunately for me I got suckered into this one for the adorable packaging, and ended up really liking the lip shade (Rouge Dior 644).

The eye shades are a pink-beige shade, a lilacky taupe, and a smoky plum shade. The eyeliner is a soft black, and unfortunately, like the one in the eye palette, smudgy. I probably would only use this liner in a pinch. The insert that comes with the palette gives you directions for 2 eye looks, as well as directions for using the sculpting Powder. The sculpting powder has 3 sections; the top section, which is lighter is for hightlighting. The middle shade is supposed to be for contouring, and the bottom shade is for setting/blending. It seems like it'd be a cute product, but unfortunately, with the powder being the size that it is, it's virtually impossible to use this powder the way it was intended. I attempted to just swirl it all together and use it as a setting powder, but the powder sits lower in the palette instead of at the surface, making it even more difficult to use. The lip balm, Creme de Rose, is decent; it's nothing special in my book, and carries a light rose scent. This probably would have been better if it had a more portable option. Either way, it was nice for Dior to add this in as I find the regular lipstick line kind of drying. The lipgloss (Ultra-gloss Reflect 246) is practically clear. It has a tiny bit of a peachy tint to it, but on my lips it might as well be clear gloss. I definitely wish Dior had chosen a different shade, as I can't really tell the difference between the gloss and the lip balm on my lips.

Dior Holiday Deluxe palette (outside)

Dior Holiday Deluxe palette (outside)

Dior Holiday Deluxe Palette over UDPP, natural+OTT lighting

I do like the big palette overall, and it's a nice little splurge if you don't already have a lot of Dior, but I don't really consider it a must-have. There's definitely other nice things that you can spend your money on this holiday season, but if you want to shell out the $77 for it, it's not a bad purchase either.

Dior Fall/Winter Ready to Wear palette (Nordstrom exclusive)

I'm trying to get back into the swing of swatching things, but the lighting in my room has been less than optimal. For some reason my house just doesn't really seem to be getting any good natural lighting anymore. Anyways, I'm crazy enough to have a Nordstrom Visa, so I was able to shop the sale early (got my stuff last week). I hadn't really been able to do anything with it really though until today. I picked up 3 of the exclusives from the sale; the NARS Bright Lights Big City eyeshadow palette and this Dior palette, which retails for $52 before tax.

The palette contains 4 eyeshadow shades, a powder foundation in shade 020 (not swatched), blush in 950 Framboise/Raspberry, and 2 Dior Gloss Ultra Gloss Reflects in shades 183 and 483. The eyshadows themselves are nice and silky. The Pink shade swatched closer to white on my skin (about nw20 right now I think), the taupey shade swatched purpley, the brown was fairly consistent with how it looked in the pan, and the white shade has pink duochrome to it so it came out pink on my skin. The blush is a nice neutral-warm pink with very minor shimmer. The two glosses came out very very sheer on my arm. They were actually a bit difficult to get on the brush though.
Overall, I'm really happy with this palette. It's a nice travel palette for girls with lighter skin (girls with medium-dark skin most likely would not be able to use the foundation) and is very reasonably priced for Dior. I'm fairly surprised at what seems to be a low price point for Dior, since their holiday palettes which have come in similar formats have retailed for $75 (I'm not complaining though, I love that this palette is about $20 cheaper)

Wet 'n' Wild 8 Pan Eyeshadow Palettes

Last weekend I picked up the 3 new 8 pan Wet 'n' Wild eyeshadow palettes at my local Walgreens. They retail for $4.99 and are a great value for the money. For the most part I like them, despite generally being a total brand whore, but Wet 'n' Wild has always been one of those exceptions for me; the quality is always great.


First up is the beautifully neutral toned Comfort Zone. The quality on this one is nice; it's soft and pigmented and delightful to apply. I do feel like the left side of the palette is too warm for my taste, but I love the green side of the palette (minus the ugly warm brown duochrome shade)

The second palette is Petal Pusher, the purple toned palette in the new collection. Again, one side is cooler toned than the other. The cooler toned left side is far less pigmented than the other. I had a bit of trouble applying the lid shade without packing it on, and even then it didn't show up too well. I haven't applied the right side yet, but it swatched pretty nicely. I would say that this is the least pigmented of the 3 palettes, which is a bit dissapointing to me because I'm fond of purple eyeshadows.

The last palette; Blue Had Me at Hello is the most pigmented of the 3 palettes, and oddly enough my favorite. I'm wearing the right side of the palette today, and it applied smoothly and coordinated perfectly. The silver shade is also the most amazing silver I've come across. I feel like this palette is worth it for that shade alone if nothing else. I am a little bummed that they shoved two black shades in this palette that are nearly identical; the glitter in the right side of the palette falls off pretty much immediately leaving it identical to the other black shade. The blue on the left side is also black based; making it come off as nearly black on my lids. I really wish that the creative team at Wet 'n' Wild had seen fit to put a different shades in here, but I'm still happy with the palette overall.

The last thing I have for you ladies today is my manicure for the day; China Glaze Cracked Concrete over ORLY Cashmere Cardigan. It's not my favorite combination, but it works I guess.

NARS Calanques Trio

The only item that I had actually preordered from NARS Spring 2011 was the Calanque Trio, which I had originally thought would be beautiful, taupey goodness. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up the the promises the stock photo seems to promise me. However, it wasn't that the stock photo was altogether decieving...as you can see below, the picture I took of the palette matches the colors in the stock photo pretty accurately. However, the middle shade is not taupey at all, but is instead a relatively nude shade.

The colors themselves apply smoothly, with the exception of the largest shade, which is a bit grittier in texture and sparkly. It's more of a sheer sparkle on my lids without much color on it's own. The darkest shade in this palette is sheer love for me. I love that it is a warm, green-tinged brown. However, I don't know if it's altogether worth keeping this for the price point. It's a smidge steep at $45... If these colors do float your boat though, you can use 132011cp on the NARS site to get 17% off with $65 purchase. (Expires 2/7/2011)

Tarte Jewelry Box

I've had these swatches sitting around for months, but never got around to uploading them on here. I figured I'd get around to it now, while Sephora was still selling these. The Tarte Treasure Chest retails for $52 and contains 32 e/s, a highlighter, a bronzer, 8, lipgloss and 5 eyeliners. The eyeshadows are less pigmented than their previous palettes, but I didn't have the same problem with them I did last year with them oxidizing on me. However, I didn't like the sheer quality of the mattes (the mattes last year were much, much nicer), or the bulky packaging of it all, so it went back to the store. I did really like the colors of the eyeliners, but it wasn't enough to get me to keep them. The eyeliners applied smoothly, but never fully set; they remained smudgeable throughout the day, but I didn't have too many problems with them as long as I didn't rub at it throughout the day. Besides the bulkiness of the packaging, I found that it had a similar problem to last year's palette where the drawer would slide out if you moved around; not exactly great for travel. I did find that the eyeliner drawer was a bit difficult to pull though. All around, this palette wasn't really worth the money to me, despite the large amount of product inside. I think I may need to accept that Tarte probably will probably never put out a palette on par with my beloved A-list palette.

Sleek Palettes-- Storm, Original, and Safari

For the last few months I've had these Sleek palettes sitting around waiting to get swatched. I was lucky enough to get a CP of these. Sleek palettes are decently priced palettes available at Superdrug in the UK. I don't actually remember what they retailed for, but I think I paid under $10 each for them. They're all super pigmented and soft.

The Originals palette is a nice, colorful palette full of colors that all work on me for the most part. The colors don't lose to Urban Decay's and I think are actually more vibrant without all the chunky glitter that UD loves putting in. They are all shimmery though except for the black shade.



Sleek Storm is a gorgeous palette capable of creating a variety of neutral or smokey looks.


Safari was a LE palette released over the summer I believe. It's actually my least favorite out of the 3 I own, but only because the colors in it aren't as nice as the other two to me.



I really don't have much to say about these except that they're a good buy for the price. I like them, but they sort of sit around unused in my stash..mostly because I'm a brand whore. My only gripe about them is that there's a black shade in every one of the palettes. I don't need multiples of the same black shadow. Past that, they're great