MAC MACnificent Me Pro Longwear Paint Pot and Fluidline Review and Swatches

From my MAC MACnificent Me haul, I also have two Pro Longwear Paint Pots for review. The two Pro Longwear Paint Pots I purchased were Stroke My Ego a "pink silver shimmer" and Nice Composure a "midtone cool grey" (LE, $26.00 CA/$22.00 US.) 

MAC Pro Longwear Paint Pots (L to R): 

Nice Composure and Stroke My Ego

Like other colours from the range, these Paint Pots have a creamy texture which sets to an almost indestructible, long wearing shadow. Of the two I purchased, Nice Composure has the most traditional Paint Pot texture in that it's opaque and smooth.

MAC Pro Longwear Paint Pots (L to R): 

Nice Composure and Stroke My Ego

Nice Composure - As MAC aptly describes, this is a cool matte mid tone grey with excellent pigmentation and a smooth even texture. This would be great on it's own or a nice alternative to black for layering under duochrome or shimmer eyeshadows. A+

Stroke My Ego - A shimmery mid tone taupe with pinky-mauve overtones. I found this shade to be a little on the sheerer side which made application a little less smooth, but this colour is still buildable. Very pretty. B+

Overall I think these are solid offerings in the Pro Longwear Paint Pot range. Good neutral-ish shades for fall and both shades are flattering to all skintones. If you are a lover of this product don't wait too long to get these!

Overall Grade: B+ and A+

Bobbi Brown Holiday 2014 Shimmer Brick in Copper Diamond Review, Swatches and Photos

The star of Bobbi Brown's Holiday 2014 offerings has to be her limited edition Shimmer Brick in Copper Diamond ($52.00 CA). I almost completely missed this one as I was more focused on procuring her Pink Glow and Bronze Glow Highlighters from her other holiday collection "Scotch on the Rocks."

While researching the Pink Glow and Bronze Glow Highlighters on the blogosphere I noticed how many people left comments raving about Copper Diamond Shimmer Brick. So when I saw one last Copper Diamond at the Bobbi Brown counter in Holt Renfrew, I quickly snapped it up! Photos taken in natural light, on NC 35 skin.

Copper Diamond, like all other Bobbi Brown Shimmer Bricks, features five stripes of shimmery metallic pigments all loosely based around the same hue. You can use each stripe individually or all five swirled together, although realistically only eye brushes would be small enough to be able to pick up the shades individually. 

Bobbi Brown Copper Diamond Shimmerbrick stripes from top to bottom.

The texture of Shimmer Bricks feel like a baked product - they are finely milled, compact, powdery and all shades are highly frosty/metallic. The first stripe is a pale white-gold, the second a medium gold, the third a medium champagne-gold, the fourth a medium bronze and the last stripe a bright yellow gold.

Mixed together, the five stripes look very similar to the third stripe and the overall effect when used as a highlighter is stunning - it looks like molten champagne-gold has been airbrushed on your cheekbones. So glamorous! This is a full effect kind of highlighter - normal application with a blush/highlighter brush will yield dramatic results, so for a subtle application use a fan brush.

Bobbi Brown Copper Diamond Shimmerbrick mixed.

Tip: If you love rocking a more dramatic/metallic highlighter, give your skin a spritz of MAC Fix + after applying the Shimmer Brick, the moisture in the spray will "foil" the highlighter on your skin giving you a more editorial glow.

Wear time on the Shimmer Brick is good, with a small amount of fading after 8 hours. As the finish is on the high frost side, this highlighter may emphasize dry or large pored skin. This is a particularly great highlighter for yellow based skin tones, though I think this would also work well with cool skin tones as the gold does not run too yellow. This highlighter also pairs well with many blush shades, and is great when mixed in with matte blushes to give them some sheen. Such a beautiful, luxurious highlighter for the season!

Copper Diamond is still available at Bobbi Brown online and may still be available at your local Holt Renfrew counter.

Grade: A+

J

Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Palette in Fallen Angel

 Ever since seeing Charlotte Tilbury in person during the launch of her eponymous makeup line at Selfridges in the summer of 2013 I have been pining to get my hands on more of her products. The great news is that Charlotte Tilbury is now available in the US and retailers such as Beautylish have made it easy to get her products north of the border.

Fallen Angel (LE $65.00 US) is part of TIlbury's holiday offerings and is part of Tilbury's "The Supermodel" look. Fallen Angel is the first Luxury Palette with "a breakthrough formula for a wet and dry finish." According to Tilbury, using these shadows with a damp brush gives "three times the colour intensity and an irresistible liquid metal reflective finish."

Photos taken in natural light, swatches are dry on unprimed NC 35 skin.

Charlotte Tilbury Fallen Angel (clockwise from top left): Prime, Enhance, Smoke and Pop

Like all the other Luxury Palettes, Fallen Angel consists of four shades: Prime, Enhance, Smoke and Pop (clockwise from top left.) 

Prime - described as a "pale golden pearl,"  this is a pale golden champagne shimmer that runs on the neutral side of golden with good pigmentation.

Enhance - described as "antique silver," this is my favourite shade from the quad - a metallic taupe that leans golden brown at some angles and silvery in others. Excellent pigmentation.

Smoke - described as a ":velvet black",  this medium dark black has a slight blue undertone and a satiny/pearl finish. Good pigmentation.

Pop - this "metallic bronze" shade is an ultra pigmented metallic bronze with auburn undertones.

Charlotte Tilbury Fallen Angel applied dry (clockwise from top left): Prime, Enhance, Smoke and Pop

The texture of the shadows in the pan is smooth and almost dry feeling - very similar to MAC's Extra Dimension eye shadows or Estée Lauder's Gelée Powder eye shadows. All the shadows apply, blend and layer effortlessly. Applied dry the Pop and Enhance shades are the most opaque, although all the shades can be built up to be opaque in two layers. Applied wet, the shadows have a slightly more opaque finish, and they apply as smoothly as they do when dry. You can see Charlotte herself apply this quad both wet and dry in her fantastic and entertaining "Supermodel Look" tutorial here.

While the actual shades in the palette are not incredibly unique, the finish and saturation of the shades makes this worth owning if you love smokey neutrals and are willing to pay for a luxury brand. Yes, if you are a makeup junkie you most likely have colors very similar to this in your stash, but they will probably not perform this well! The one thing that impressed me in particular with this quad is how well the shadows layered on top of each other, there was no muddiness or dulling down of the shades. When layered, the shadows actually became richer and more lustrous. This is not an easy feat for a quad that contains both warm and cool tones. Wear time on the shadows is excellent, I only noticed a tiny bit of fading and creasing after 8 hours on non-primed eye lids. 

Highly recommended if it fits your budget!

Grade: A-

J

CND Vinylux Weekly Polish in Daring Escape Review, Photos and Swatches

CND Vinylux is a Canadian brand of nail polish, from the creators of the shellac manicure. CND Vinylux is a weekly polish, that when used with the special CND Vinylux top coat is meant to last a week. The weekly polishes actually strengthen your nails, unlike regular nail polish which weakens and dries your nails. 

At IMATS Toronto this year, I picked up three colours of CND Vinylux. They were on sale for $6 each. Regularly they are about $10-$12 each. 

Here is the CND Vinylux shade Daring Escape, which is a medium blue-green with silver sparkle and shimmer. This shade makes me think of summer, it's bright and shimmery and almost tropical. But it's muted, not overly bright. 

All the CND Vinylux polishes apply beautifully. They're slightly on the thick side but enough so that they are easy to control going on and are opaque with only two coats.

This is two coats of Daring Escape plus the CND Vinylux top coat on top.  

Daring Escape wore on me for about a week, though I saw a bit of wear especially on my right hand after about 4-5 days.

I think CND Vinylux are great polishes, particularly if you find that nail polish tends to chip quickly on you or if it dries out and weakens your nails. Or if you like wearing nail polish and don't want to have to change it every few days.

One thing about CND Vinylux's selection is that they don't have a lot of textures. Most of them are solid, without shimmer. That's why I snapped up Daring Escape and Steel Gaze at IMATS. 

I really like this shade. It's bright and shimmery but isn't too dramatic.

Grade A

C.

Other CND Vinylux Weekly Polishes I've tried:

Dark Dahlia
Steel Gaze (coming soon)
Bloodline (coming soon)

LORAC Pro Palette Review, Photos and Swatches

I'm terrible at making decisions, and will do almost anything to avoid making one. I've been looking at the Urban Decay Naked palettes, of which there are now three, trying to decide which one to buy. I haven't been able to decide so why not buy a completely different palette instead?

So here's the LORAC Pro Palette! 16 shades of both matte and shimmery eyeshadows, ranging from white to black, soft pink to silver.

I'd never tried LORAC eyeshadows before, or even any of their other products, but I'd heard some very good things about this palette. Such as, it's better than any of the Urban Decay Naked palettes. High praise!

The palette itself is cardboard, very slim and about nine inches long. There's a good sized mirror embedded in the palette which makes this an excellent palette for travel. Each shadow is 0.02 oz.

Let's take a look at some photos and swatches. The top row of the palette are matte (or mostly matte) colours and the bottom row are shimmery colours. They range, on both rows, left to right, from light shades to dark shades.

Click to view larger.

All 16 shadows swatched.

Let's look at them more closely.

These are the lighter shades. You can see the difference in texture between the matte shades in the top row and the shimmery shades in the bottom row. 

First half of the palette.

First half of the palette swatched on NW15 skintone.
Top L-R: White, Cream, Taupe, Lt. Pink
Bottom L-R: Nude, Champagne, Gold, Lt. Bronze

Close-up Top Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: White, Cream, Taupe, Lt. Pink

The light matte shades are a bit chalkier than the dark matte shades, as you can see particularly with the Lt. Pink shade above. 

Close-up Bottom Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: Nude, Champagne, Gold, Lt. Bronze

Second half of the palette.

Second half of the palette swatched on NW15 skintone.
Top Row L-R: Mauve, Sable, Espresso, Black
Bottom Row L-R: Pewter, Garnet, Deep Purple, Slate

Close-up of the Top Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: Mauve, Sable, Espresso, Black

Close-up of the Bottom Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: Pewter, Garnet, Deep Purple, Slate

I'm very, very impressed with the quality of these shadows. The matte shades are drier and dustier than the shimmery ones, but that's typical for matte eyeshadows. All of them are very creamy and very blendable. They blend so beautifully that they can barely be seen on the skin.

I'm absolutely loving the options that this palette gives me. I love matte neutrals, and if you do too, this is a great palette option for you. I've been wearing a combination of Cream, Taupe, Mauve, Espresso and Black almost every day to work. I've also been playing with Gold, Lt. Bronze and Pewter.

The back of the palette has a QR code and a note that says "Scan for tutorials". When I scanned it, it took me to the Lorac website selection of the Pro Palette. 

The Lorac Pro Palette comes with a mini Behind the Scenes Eye Primer (0.19 oz) which is a great pairing. The eyeshadows look better applied over a primer and you get to try out the Lorac primer at the same time. 

Lorac Mini Behind the Scenes Eye Primer

I've been using the Behind the Scenes Eye Primer and it's up there with my usual primer - the Urban Decay Primer Potion. It goes on smoothly, you need very little, and shadows look truer, and last longer (my eyelids are oily). 

Lorac Mini Behind the Scenes Eye Primer

The Lorac Pro Palette can be tough to find in Canada as Sephora no longer carries Lorac but it's available in Canada at Canada Beauty Supply for $69.99 (plus shipping if you can't visit a store), and Nordstrom.com sells it for $49.23 (plus shipping). You can also order it via the American Amazon website ($42 US).

Grade: A

Stila All Over Shimmer in Rose Gold Review, Swatches and Photos

I adore skin luminzers and own many. I wear them almost every day. When applied to the skin they bring light to that area and they come in a variety of textures - powder, cream and liquid. On a recent stop at Winners, I found one of Stila's All Over Shimmer Liquid Luminzers in Rose Gold and snapped it up. It's regularly about $26 CDN and I paid about $15 CDN for it. 

Stila's All Over Shimmers are creamy, skin-enhancing luminizers that bring a fresh, radiant glow to the skin. They help to diminish skin imperfections and minimize the appearance of fine lines and sun spots. They contain a potent antioxidant component as well as grape seed oil to nourish the skin. As well as the Rose Gold shade, they are available in Pink, Bronze and Kitten. 

Ingredients

The Rose Gold shade is a soft peachy-pink with a good dose of gold shot through it. The texture is creamy and the applicator is much like a nail polish bottle and brush. 

With the applicator, it's easy to control the amount of luminizer you apply. Simply dab it onto the tops of your cheekbones, or brow bone and blend it. Or dab it on your hand and mix it in with a dab of moisturizer or your foundation for an all over glow.

Here is what it looks like on the back of my hand, unblended. At first it seems like it might be pretty intense but as you can see in the following photo, once blended it is much less intense. There's still a lot of shimmer to it, so it doesn't give a natural glow. Still, it's very pretty and unlike some of the powder luminizers I have, doesn't sit heavily on the skin. Because this is a gold luminzer, it's warm on the skin. That's why most highlighters and luminizers are warm-toned - silver looks artificial and unnatural, even on cool skintones.

If I were to place the Rose Gold All Over Shimmer onto a scale ranking of highlighters/luminzers with one being "barely noticeable natural" and 10 being "holy disco shimmer, Batman!", it would sit at a six or a seven. 

Swatched on NW15 skintone.

Swatched on NW15 skintone (blended out).

I anticipated the Rose Gold Shimmer to be quite pink and possibly used as a blush, or on top of a blush to enhance it. But it sheers once blended in, leaving hardly a hint of pink. I could still use this on top of blush but it would be for luminescence only. 

I've been wearing this on the weekend and occasionally during the week, as my makeup routine involves applying my blush and any contour/highlight underneath my foundation, so everything is muted. 

A note about the formula: liquid products always blend beautifully on most skintypes, and tend to be very sheer. Because of this, they tend to look the most natural, like they're part of your skin, not sitting on top of it. 

The Rose Gold Luminzer looks gorgeous dabbed on my cheekbones, brow bones and if I'm dressing up, on my collarbones.

If you're looking for an easy to use, medium-intensity highlighter/luminizer, you can't go wrong with Stila's All Over Shimmer in Rose Gold. 

Grade: A

Elizabeth Arden Pure Finish Cool Radiance Highlighter in First Mate Review, Swatches and Photos

Elizabeth Arden is not a brand I think about often - the last time I purchased a product of theirs was back in the 90's when Amber Valletta was still their brand ambassador! It probably was a tube of Eight Hour Cream which is a brand classic (and a great substitute for cuticle cream.)

Recently on a visit to my local Shopper's Drug Mart I stopped to play around with their new nautical themed summer collection. Much to my surprise I came away with their Pure Finish Cool Radiance Highlighter in First Mate (LE, $35.00 CA). Photos taken in natural light on NC 35/40 skin.

Elizabeth Arden Pure Finish Cool Radiance Highlighter in First Mate

First Mate is a twist-up stick highlighter that has a gel-cream consistency. There is a slight grittiness to the formula but it otherwise glides smoothly onto the skin and as the name implies has a moist, watery feel that evaporates in a few seconds. The product itself remains creamy on the skin allowing you to blend and sheer it out, but it does not dry down or set on the skin.

Elizabeth Arden Pure Finish Cool Radiance Highlighter in First Mate

According to Elizabeth Arden, First Mate "illuminates your skin with a soft, pink opalescence that looks and feels naturally radiant." I would agree with everything in that statement except the "natural" part. First Mate is an opalescent explosion of ultra fine pink, violet and gold micro shimmers suspended in a clear base. The formula is similar to some of Bobbi Brown's Sparkle Eye Shadows but with a finer grade of shimmer. The effect applied straight out of the tube is quite glitzy - this is not a product for people who want low level shimmer! Thankfully because of the formula you can sheer out the shimmer to more subtle effect, and though I would not consider the effect "natural" it certainly is pretty in a fairy dust kind of way. A little of this product goes a long way.

Elizabeth Arden Pure Finish Cool Radiance Highlighter in First Mate on NC 35/40 skin.

Unfortunately, capturing the dazzling effect of First Mate was extremely difficult. This swatch is two heavy passes, straight out of the tube with no blending. I think you get an idea of how reflective the shimmer can be when built up, but the photograph does not capture the beautiful way the shimmer shifts colour from pink to violet to gold. The mix of cool and warm shimmers really is flattering on the skin and in real life does not appear as cool toned as my photo would suggest.

Because the product does not set it remains slightly moist to the touch, which means it's not a product that is going to be bomb-proof. If using on the eyes, a primer or glitter glue would be necessary to reduce fall out an increase wear time. It would be very pretty patted over a neutral matte eye shadow, but I like it over a clear primer on an otherwise bare eye.

At the time of this post First Mate is still available online at The Bay.

Grade: B

Artdeco Glam Couture Eyeshadow in Blissful Taupe Review and Swatches

Artdeco is a German cosmetics brand available at select Shoppers Drug Marts in Canada. I picked up a few of their products recently. This is their Blissful Taupe eyeshadow from their Glam Couture collection.

The Glam Couture collection had six eyeshadows - shimmery, creamy powder textured, metallic nude shades. The look of the product is stunning, fanned out in a fan or seashell shape. 

The shadows are similar to MAC's Extra Dimension eyeshadows - a cream/powder texture. 

Blissful Taupe is a shimmering taupe shade, metallic and multi-dimensional. It has a creamy texture and is stunningly metallic. It goes on beautifully and blends well due to the creaminess of it. It has excellent pigmentation. Blissful Taupe is a stunning neutral, easy to wear on its own or as part of a look.

It wore very well over a primer for about eight hours at which time it began to fade oh-so-slightly. I didn't try it without a primer, since my eyelids are very oily and require a primer with every eyeshadow I've ever worn. 

This was the first Artdeco eyeshadow I have tried and I am very impressed.

Grade: A