My Guerlain Holiday 2012 Haul Part 4 - Meteorites Wulong Exceptional Pressed Powder

The most anticipated items of the new Guerlain Holiday 2012 Collection for me were the Meteorites Perles and Meteorites Wulong Voyage Powder. I collect these two powders and am always very eager to purchase them.

This year's Wulong Voyage Powder is very similar to the permanent Mythic powder and the limited edition Imperial powder form 2009, only the colours are different. I prefer these powders to have more intricate designs, like 2010's Poudre D'Or or 2008's Radiant Butterfly Voyage Powder, but I'll take what I can get anyway.

Voyage Powders are basically Meteorites in pressed form, which means they're more travel friendly. These powders are the ultimate luxury items, the powders are gorgeous, soft, velvety, and they come in gorgeous compacts. This year's compact is black with mother of pearl rosette detailing. These compacts are very expensive, with the product costing £110, the powder refills are around £30 so the compact is basically the difference. They are, obviously, refillable, but you can't normally get the limited edition refill, only the permanent Mythic powder refill.

You get 7.5 g of powder, so gram per gram these compacts are way more expensive than the loose Meteorites Perles, but they make an excellent collector's item and these compacts are just so cool to pull out in the ladies room. Incidentally, if you watch Homeland, did you notice Carrie had one of these (the permanent compact) in one of the earlier episodes?

I apologise I haven't swatched this yet, I didn't want to mess up the powder until I get myself a back up (yes, I am that crazy). I managed to get this one on eBay for quite a bit less than £110, so hoping to be able to score another one, if not on eBay, then in the after Christmas sales.

As you know, I collect these beauties and in case you haven't see my collection, you can check it out here, although it needs updating as those pictures don't include Poudre D'Or (which you can see by clicking here) or Wulong.  

PS. My computer monitor has broken, so I'm typing this on my laptop. Hopefully I'll be able to get a replacement monitor tomorrow, because I really hate editing pictures and typing on the laptop, but in the meantime, please bear with me.

See more pictures after the jump!

Guerlain Holiday 2012 Collection Haul Part 3 - Liu Perfumed Shimmer Powder

Every year Guerlain releases a perfumed shimmer powder and every year I buy it, even though I have not yet finished one and I've been collecting them since 2008. In fact dare I admit, I actually have 2 of each release. The reason is, these are often the last item to be sold out in the collection and usually make it to the new year sales, so when I see them at half price, I can't resist.

This year's fragranced shimmer powder is scented with Guerlain's Liu fragrance. Otherwise it's the same, very very fine shimmer as other year's releases. I usually wear it on my hair and arms, decolette, etc. when I go out and I always get lots of compliments. I wouldn't wear it on my face personally, but it especially looks gorgeous sprayed onto your hair. We're not talking chunky glitter here, not like those glitter sprays you can get from Claire's, this is very fine, luxurious shimmer.

The bottle is so cute, it looks like an old style perfume bottle with the "bulb" on the side that you squeeze to release a puff of powder. Looks great on your dressing table!

You get 17.5 g for £50.50 which is a little bit ouch, but that's why I usually buy a bottle at half price. A bottle will last for years, especially as this isn't something you'd use every day. I don't think it's too over the top for a meal out or for the theatre, but I probably wouldn't wear it for school run.

See more pictures after the jump!

Guerlain Holiday 2012 Collection Haul Part 2 - Meteorites Perles du Dragon

Part 2 of my Guerlain Holiday 2012 Collection haul is featuring one of the most iconic Guerlain products, the Meteorites Perles. This year's limited edition is called Perles du Dragon and it contains 6 different shades: pale pink, beige, white, gold, plum and rosewood.

There are quite a lot of white pearls in the mix, but mine isn't too bad, it also has a good amount of the other pearls. At first the colours reminded me of  Perles d'Or from 2010, but that mix seems quite a bit darker actually. The pearls come in a shiny black tin with removable lid and a black sponge on top to keep the pearls secure. (I'd recommend applying them with a brush, not the sponge though.) The lid has the gold signature Guerlain flower detail. The outer box is the usual black with red inside. Very pretty.

The overall effect is a shimmery light beige powder. I didn't swatch it because it hardly shows up on my skin, but you will see me wearing it in a picture at the bottom of this post and you can see it's quite shimmery. I can see a couple of big glitters on my face, but I'm not entirely sure they're from the powder as on my eyes I was wearing Urban Decay's Kiddie Pool eyeshadow which has got big glitter particles. The overall effect however is quite shimmery, so this wouldn't be suitable for those with oily skin. Having said that, today I'm wearing it on top of the new Parure de Lumiere foundation and Voilettes loose powder and it's not too shimmery. So maybe the key is to mattify first.

Guerlain Meteorites perles cost £37.50 for 30 g (that's another 50p rise since the summer) and Perles du Dragon is a limited edition shade. I bought mine from Harrods, but it's also available from John Lewis, House of Fraser, Selfridges and hopefully Debenhams soon.

See more pictures after the jump and if you'd like to check out my large Meteorites collection, please click here!

Guerlain Holiday 2012 Collection Haul Part 1 - Shine Automatique Lipstick #760 Lou-Ling

Finally it's here, and I have already or will definitely buy almost everything from Guerlain's Holiday 2012 Collection, so I will be doing a series of these posts in the coming week or so.

First up I'd like to show you one of the Shine Automatique lipsticks, #760 Lou-Ling (I didn't buy the gold one (#700 Altoum) because I already have a Chanel gold lipstick and there's really only so many gold lipsticks a girl needs). The colour is a gorgeous deep wine red with lots of gold shimmer. The lipstick comes in a gold coloured case that has a "lever" on the side which pushes the lipstick up through a flap on the top (which of course gets opened first). This allows you to open and apply your lipstick one handed.

Once applied on my skin, the colour is rather sheer, the swatch you'll see below took 5 swipes. Shine Automatiques are supposed to be sheer, so I was expecting this. What I wasn't expecting though is what happened when I applied it to my lips: after just one swipe the colour was bright and vibrant. So this is actually a sheer lipstick that isn't actually sheer. The gold shimmer is noticable, but not gritty, and the lipstick has a gorgeous shine.

Not overly long lasting, it lasts on me for about 3 hours if I don't eat or drink, 2 hours if I drink and it disappears if I eat. It leaves a nice stain behind and fades quite evenly. It feels nicely moisturising as well.

Shine Automatique lipsticks cost £24.50 and you get a decent 3.5 g for you money. I believe both Lou-Ling and Altoum are limited edition.

See more pictures after the jump!

My Mac By Request Haul With Swatches

I wasn't sure whether or not to write this post as Mac collections tend to sell out so quickly, there's hardly anything left 2-3 days after release day. This is especially true of online only collections. However, despite being released on Monday, Mac's newest collect By Request is still in stock as we speak, so I thought I might as well show you what I got and do some quick swatches in case you see something you like. I haven't worn any of them yet, so I won't be doing a proper review.

I bought Moth Brown and Guacamole eyeshadows, Moxie and Rocker lipsticks, Bait, Flash of Flesh and Cult of Cherry lipglasses. I didn't get Candy Yum Yum or Jete because I already owned them from earlier releases.

The eyeshadows cost £12, the lipsticks are £14 and the lipglasses are £13.50 each. The collection is exclusive to the Mac UK website. Have you picked up anything from the collection? Let me know in the comments!

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Estee Lauder Vivid Shine and Cyber Metallic Pure Color Gelee Powder Eyeshadows Review and Swatches

Estee Lauder launched a new collection called Pure Color Vivid Shine that contains (among others) 16 shades of Gelee Powder eyeshadows. These eyeshadows (well, 6 shades) initially came out in January and I have reviewed them here and here. I really liked the initial shades and the subsequent five colour palette that came out at the beginning of this summer, so of course I jumped on the Gelee Powder eyeshadow wagon once again. I purchased 9 new shades (leaving just one out) and here they are:

I bought Pop Pistachio, Magenta, Fire Sapphire, Ultra Marine, Electric Orchid, Cyber Ice, Arctic Sky, Cyber Ruby, Cyber Gold. The eyeshadows are devided into two categories: Vivid Shine and Cyber Metallic. The first 5 on my list are Vivid Shine and the last 4 are Cyber Metallic. I have no idea what the difference is, I think the Vivid Shine ones are less metallic and more pearly/satiny. The only one I didn't get (other than the original 6 shades) is Lights Out which is the black one. There is a black shadow in the Violet Underground fall eyeshadow palette, that will be plenty enough black for me.

I urge you to read my initial review, because these are basically the same products just with more colour variety and some less metallic than others. Overall I'm very pleased with these eyeshadows, although so far I have only used 3 of them, they swatched beautifully and the ones I wore lasted all day without creasing (over primer). You can use these dry or wet, they tend to be more intense when used wet, but I actually like using them dry. Over primer (I'm currently using Too Faced Shadow Insurance) they last all day long without creasing or fading and there's no fallout from them at all. They are powder, but feel like cream eyeshadows, very similar to the Mac Extra Dimension eyeshadows (limited edition from May).

The Vivid Shine eyeshadows are all limited edition, and I believe also Arctic Sky and Cyber Ice are limited, but the rest of the Cyber Metallic eyeshadows are now permanent. The most interesting shade of the collection for me has to be Arctic Sky, it's a beautiful duochrome light blue/pink/purple. My pictures don't so it justice, it's really stunning. I'm also very happy about Pop Pistachio as I also wanted a green shade and Pop Pistachio is a very pretty one. I guess it depends on what colours you prefer, but the blues are also very nice and so is Magenta. Well worth checking out.

These eyeshadows cost £19 each. You get 0.9 g which is pretty small, although I think the formula is probably more ligtweight than powder.   

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Sephora Moonshadow Trios in Bermuda Triangle and Dusk Till Dawn - Review and Swatches

I bought these eyeshadow trios from Sephora last month when I ordered the new Chanel Illusion D'Ombre eyeshadows and I was looking for something else to order to offset the shipping cost. I like baked eyeshadows, so I thought I'd give these a go. I have only used one of them so far, but swatched both, so I thought I'd share them with you anyway.

Bermuda Triangle,  Dusk Till Dawn

Both shadows contain 3 shades, Bermuda Triangle has yellow gold, copper and teal, and Dusk Till Dawn includes light violet, light pink and mauve. The shadows are big enough for the shades to be used separately, although you need to be quite careful when using the middle shade as the strip isn't very wide. The colour payoff for these was actually very good, which can be an issue with baked shadows. I only tried them dry, but I'm guessing the colours would be even more intense when used wet. I have only used Dusk Till Dawn on my eyes, haven't tried Bermuda Triangle, but they both swatched very nicely and when used, Dusk Till Dawn didn't have any significan fallout, other than a tiny bit during application. The colours stayed vivid and the shadows didn't crease on me at all.

Sephora recommends that you use the top shade on your lid, then the bottom shade in the crease and the middle strip to highlight the browbone. I mixed it up and used the violet shade on the lid, mauve in the crease and light pink to highlight. With Bermuda Triangle I would probably use the gold to highlight, copper on the lid and teal in the crease, I really don't think the copper would look good on the browbone. The copper strip reminded me of the Mac Red She Said mineralize eyeshadow trios but it is actually much nicer than them, although it is chunkier than the rest of the shades, it's still pretty smooth and has a great colour payoff.

The eyeshadows weight 1.8 g each and cost €14.90 each (roughly £12) from Sephora.fr. They come in 6 colour combinations.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Mac Heavenly Creature Haul Part 3 - Eyeshadows

Here's the final part of my Mac Heavenly Creature haul, this time it's the mineralize eyeshadows. You may know that I'm a massive fan of them and own almost every one Mac has released. (I didn't get two of the Chen Man ones that were exact dupes of some colours that were released earlier, but that's all.) I did a post on my Mac mineralize eyeshadow stash a while ago, but of course I have even more now. And of course I had to buy all 9 eyeshadows in the Heavenly Creature collection too.

I have to add that I have not used them all yet, but I have swatched them and they all seem very nice. Some are more shimmery than others (Invincible Light in particular is rather shimmery and frosty), but some are more satiny than anything. The colour payoff is very good, they are all really nicely pigmented. The ones I wore stayed on without creasing and fading for 10+ hours and there was only very mininmal fallout and that was only during application which is not a big deal for me at all.

The beauty of these mineralized eyeshadows is that you get 3 different colours swirled into one pot and they can create multidimensional colours, and also of course you can use them separately if you get large enough patches. Some of mine have really nice large patches, especially my Water with the big yellow patch in the middle and I've been able to use the separate colours in my Neo Nebula and Bright Moon as well. Of course the swirls also mean they are really pretty and nice to look at.

These Mac mineralize eyeshadows cost £16.50 and you get 2 g which is a bit smaller than some other mineralize eyeshadows (normally 2.2 g), but still rather large and they will last you absolutely forever.

See lots more pictures including swatches and a look I did, after the jump!

My Mac Heavenly Creature Haul Part 2 - Blushes

Here's part 2 of my Mac Heavenly Creature haul, this time it's the mineralize blushes. Don't worry this won't be such a long post as the skinfinishes' was, there are only 4 I've purchased (although I am thinking about going back for a back up for Solar Ray).

The collection includes 4 mineralize blushes, all of them come with a swirl pattern and contain 2 different colours. Some are again more shimmery than others, some just give you a nice sheen. None of them are metallic looking on the skin and all of them are wonderfully pigmented. I have included a picture at the bottom of the post of me wearing Supernova, the bright pink one, and boy it is very bright and extremely easy to overdo. Also Stratus is a very dark shade and need a very light hand if you are on the paler side.

My current favourite is Solar Ray, which is the lightest colour, it's a lovely peachy-pink with gold swirls. The gold is quite shimmery, but the overall effect is rather lovely. Ring Of Saturn is a mix of peachy pink and terracotta and it's another beautiful shade. That one isn't shimmery at all, it just had a lovely sheen. All of the blushes are very smooth and very pigmented.

Mac Mineralize Blushes cost £19 and you get 3.2 g which is once again slightly less than the usual 3.5 g weight. Have you picked up any of these shades? Which one is your favourite?

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Mac Heavenly Creature Haul Part 1 - Skinfinishes

Finally, the long awaited Mac collection, Heavenly Creature has launched in the UK and I have a lot of goodies to show you. I was very excited about all the mineralize products and ended up purchasing all of them, so I will do this haul post in 3 parts. Apart from the mineralize make up, I also bought a couple of tubes of Volcanic Ash Exfoliator which I won't be reviewing just now, but will hopefully get around to doing so sometime soon. So many products, so little time...

First off, here are the Mineralize Skinfinishes (or MSFs) I bought. There were 4 of them launched in this collection: Light Year, Star Wonder, Center Of The Universe and Earthshine. As I wanted to make sure I ended up with the ones I really wanted, as well as ordering from Debenhams as soon as the collection launched, I also picked up one of each MSF with patterns I really wanted. So all in all I ended up with 8 of them. I was actually very lucky in that the MSFs Debenhams sent me are also very much the colours/swirls I was after, but slightly different from the ones I picked up.

In the picture above the MSFs I picked out myself are in the top row and the ones I ordered from Debenhams are in the bottom row. I particularly wanted a Star Wonder with lots of purple and an Earthshine with very little burgundy. Out of the four Light Year is definitely my favourite, even though I thought it would be Star Wonder. I find Light Year less metallic looking on the skin and it's such a gorgeous peachy pink colour. Eartshine is slightly too dark for me to use as a blush (it looks dirty on my cheeks), but I will find a way of using it for sure. I have not worn Center Of The Universe yet, but it's a nice orange/coral blush and will no doubt work well for my skintone.

The MSFs are all very smooth, not gritty or glittery at all. Yes, there's some shimmer, some finer than other, and some of them, in perticular Star Wonder and Earthshine are quite metallic. I've found Light Year the smoothest and less shimmery. It of course depends on the exact pattern and combination of shades within each MSFs. 

Mac Mineralize Skinfinishes cost £21.50 and you get 7 grams which is actually quite a bit less than the usual weight of MSFs, they are normally 9 or 10 g, not sure why the difference. Have you picked up anything from this collection? Have you got a favourite? Let me know in the comments!

See LOTS more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Half Price Guerlain Haul :)

I don't know what I love more, using make up or buying make up. While I love choosing what I'm going to wear each day and applying it, seeing the looks turn out nicely (or sometimes not so) and making me look better than I started out (usually), I also love the anticipation of new make up collections and buying make up so much. I think we can safely say, I'm addicted to make up, both using and buying it.

With June being a slightly slow month for new collections (didn't like the new Mac collections and I'd pretty much bought everything from the other summer collections by the beginning of the month), I was itching to spend some more money on some pretty make up. So when I heard about the sale coming up at Bentalls (a department store where my nearest Guerlain counter is), I made sure I can go there as soon as it started and check out the Guerlain sale. One of the very few high end brands to have sales, they often have discontinued or left over limited edition Guerlain products for 50% the original price. This time they actually had a lot of things, including foundations, blushes, eyeshadows and even some Cruel Gardenia highlighters (yes, I thought they were completely sold out, but clearly not). So I took the opportunity to stock up on essentials and a few nice-to-haves. Here's what I picked up:

I bought a Parure Aqua liquid foundation in 03 Beige Naturel, Parure Nuit highlighter, Rouge G in 75 Rose Barbare and Terracotta Blush & Sun blushes in 01 Sun Light and 02 Sun Kissed. (I also picked up a Parure Aqua liquid foundation in 02 Beige Clair in the John Lewis sale - not pictured. Beige Clair is my winter shade and Beige Naturel is my summer shade, and I have just run out of my bottle of Beige Clair.) As you can see, they were all half price, so I ended up saving a significant amount of money. If there's anything I like more than shopping for make up is shopping for bargains!

Have you found any beauty bargains in the sales lately? Share your findings in the comments!

See another picture of my findings after the jump!

My Chanel Summer Collection Haul - Sable Rose Bronzing Powder and Calypso Glossimer

A rather small haul from Chanel summer, I only picked up one glossimer and one bronzer. I bought Calypso glossimer, a very bright orangey coral lipgloss with gold shimmers and Sable Rose bronzing powder.

First up, the bronzer. It is made up of 7 different coloured strips including some pinky purple ones which was why I chose Sable Rose. I apologise but I haven't actually swatched it yet, it's very pretty and as I have many bronzers on the go, I thought I'd save it for now. I have both from last year and have hardly made a dent in those yet. This one is also rather huge at 15 g, so it should last a long time.

Calypso glossimer is a bright orangey coral lipgloss with lots of golden shimmer. It is definitely more orange than Guerlain Porto Fino Terracotta gloss, but it also has a bit of a pink tinge to it. It's very pretty and summery. Unlike a lot of glossimer it is very nicely pigmented (some shades are mostly just shimmer) and lasts quite well on the lips. It isn't sticky at all, but due to the amount of shimmer it isn't smooth either, the shimmer makes is quite gritty in fact. This doesn't bother me too much, but if you prefer smooth glosses, that is something to consider. You get 5.5 g which is quite a lot (although it's hard to say how many ml that is).

The bronzing powders cost £34 and the glossimers cost £21. I believe most of the collection is still available, but obviously is limited edition, so if you want to buy anything, don't hesitate.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Guerlain Summer Collection Haul Part 3 - Terracotta Gloss and Terracotta Vernis

Here's another installment of my Guerlain summer collection haul (and I'm not finished yet!) and this time I want to show you the lipgloss and the two nail polishes I bought.

I got the Terracotta gloss in #10 Porto Fino which is a lovely coral shade with a hint of pink. Terracota glosses are non-sticky, smooth and really quite lovely. Porto Fino is quite pigmented, it definitely shows up on me, but it doesn't last very long, maybe 1.5 hours at most. It feels very comfortable on the lips and it's not at all drying.

I think a lot of people (including me) were surprised to see that there were two nail polishes in this collection as I had never come across any nail polish by Guerlain. I have to say though, I think they are actually pretty good. The orangy coral one is called Paradisio and the purple-blue one is Riviera. Paradisio is incredibly bright, almost neon, such a great summer colour, and Riviera is just a gorgeous, very unique colour (or at least I don't own anything like it).

Paradisio is a cream, it has a lovely formula, very smooth and almost completely opaque in one coat (I used two). Unfortunately it chipped on me very quickly (you will see in the pictures I already had a large chip after about 15 hours of wear), but it could be due to the base coat being applied a whole day beforehand. (Nothing lasts on me long, 3 days is my record for being chip free.)

Riviera lasted much better (on a fresh top coat), 2 days in I still only had a couple of small chips. Riviera is a beautiful purpley blue colour and it's a frost. Not a duochrome, just a gorgeous purple-blue. I'm sorry the pictures aren't great quality, but my camera doesn't do purples and they always turn blue, so I used my phone to capture the true colour. The picture taken with flash is the best colour match.

Terracotta glosses cost £21 for 5 ml, and Terracotta nail polishes cost £17.50 for 11.5 ml.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Guerlain Summer Collection Haul Part 2 - Terra Azzurra Bronzing Powder and Blush

Next up in my Guerlain haul post series is the limited edition bronzing powder and blush, Terra Azzurra.It is made up of 4 colours, approximately half of it is a nice warm shimmerless bronzer and the other half is made up of 3 strips: coral, pink and a light pinky beige highlighter. It isn't possible to pick up the smaller strips individually, so it's best to mix the three with your brush, but due to the size of the compact it is perfectly possible to use the blush part individually and also the bronzer. The blush strips are slightly shimmery, but not glittery.

The powder comes in the same kind of compact as last year's Terra Inca bronzer, it's a domed round wooden compact with a lid that's held on by 3 magnets, so it comes off completely. The compact comes in a gorgeous cloth pouch that is the same design as the Meteorites brush's pouch. The inside of the outer cardboard box also has the same design. The powder is slightly heavier than last year's Terra Inca at 16 g, and it retails for £51 (ouch!). I picked mine up in the Duty Free at Gatwick for £44 which is a slightly better price.

The bronzer isn't overly pigmented, so it doesn't require very light handed application for the pale ones amoung us, however it can be built up for a darker colour. The blush is quite pigmented, especially the coral shade, so you need to be more careful with it. You can also mix up all 4 shades for a bronzy coral-pink blush.

It's a nice product, but at this price I'm not sure it's a must have. It was for me because I'm a collector as well as user of Guerlain, but if you think it's too expensive for you, I'm sure you can find other alternatives. I think last year's Blush G is similar to the blush part, but I'm not a bronzer person, so no idea about dupes for the bronzer powder. The packaging is gorgeous though and if you like limited edition products with pretty packaging, then go for it!

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Guerlain Summer Collection Haul Part 1 - Perles d'Azur Meteorites Pearls and Meteorites Brush

I was really looking forward to the Guerlain summer collection, so of course I ended up buying a lot of products. I thought I'd split the haul post into a few parts and actually do proper reviews as well.

First up is the limited edition Meteorites powder Perles d'Azur and the Meteorites powder brush. As you might know already, I'm a big fan of Guerlain Meteorites pearls and I have a very extensive collection of them (I should take an updated photo of my collection, the last one can be seen here if you're interested).

This summer's Meteorites come in a beautiful container designed by Emilio Pucci and the case of the Meteorites brush has the same design (as well as the inside of the boxes every product comes in). This summer's Meteorites container is a lovely blue colour and the lid has the intricate detail, and the brush has matching blue hair. The pearls come in 5 colours: white, gold, copper, pink and blue, and as always they come in different sizes. Although there are blue pearls in there, the overall colour you get is just general skin colour. I would describe Meteorites as finishing powder, it gives a kind of glow to your skin, but it isn't glittery kind of glow. I didn't swatch it for you because it doesn't really show up in swatches.

The brush is really good for applying the Meteorites, but it  also works with other powders. It's very soft and quite dense, and the blue hair is just gorgeous! (The regular Meteorites brush comes with pink hair.) I love the pouch it comes with, the pattern on it is so pretty.

The Meteorites pearls cost £37 and you get 30 g, and the Meteorites powder brush costs £28.

See lots more pictures after the jump!

My Clarins Summer Collection Haul

I have a quick post for you today to show you what I bought from the Clarins Summer Collection. No swatches I'm afraid, but I will do a proper review on the lip balms later. (Not sure when I'll get around to even swatching the eyeshadow palette, it's so pretty, don't want to mess it up.)

As you can see, I bought all 4 lip balms and the gorgeous eyeshadow palette.The lip balms are slightly different to last years (which I didn't actually bought), because this year the balms also have a "core" which is a pretty well pigmented lipstick. You can see below in the pictures what I actually mean.

The eyeshadow palette costs £30 and the lip blams are £16.50 each. They are all still available from Debenhams if you like the look of them.

See more pictures after the jump!

Roses Ultimes de Chanel Haul and Swatches

Chanel has a new collection out with Glossimers and nail polishes, so I of course had to check it out and here's what I ended up with:

I got Le Crayon Levres lipliner in 49 Rose Corail, Le Vernis nail polish in 541 Tentation and 3 Levres Scillianted glossimers in 166 Amour, 168 Desir and 169 Jalouse. Now I'm not too sure if any of these are at all limited edition, I believe they're not, but I might be wrong. There are actually 6 glossimers and 4 nail polishes in the collection, but I was very restrained and only got these. The other shades were much lighter and less pigmented. I especially love Jalouse, it's such a gorgeous shade of fuchsia pink, and Tentation is what I imagined Rouge Carat nail polish (holiday 2011) to be like. Rouge Carat is red with fuchsia sparkles whereas Tentation is fuchsia itself. I haven't worn it yet, but it looks gorgeous in the bottle.

I also picked up Rose Corail lipliner which is not part of the collection, but the lady in front of me was getting some lipliners as well and a few were on the counter... and somehow I ended up with this one. It's a very pretty coral pink, darker than Mac Shore Leave prolongwear lip pencil, but has a similar texture. I wore it under Amour glossimer and it was lovely.

The lip pencil is £17.50 and you get 1 g which is slightly less than Mac prolongwear lip pencils (but it comes with a free pencil sharpener), the glossimers are £20 and you get 5.5 g (not sure how many ml that is), and the nail polish is £17.50 and you get 13 ml for your money. So yeah, not cheap. But then this is Chanel.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Mac Hey Sailor Haul and Swatches Part 2

Okay, so this is not much of a haul, but I thought I'd rather do a separate post than add these to the end of my other Hey Sailor haul post. In this post I wanted to show you the two eyeshadows I bought from Hey Sailor.

I got Barefoot (left) and Feeling Fresh (right). Barefoot is described by Mac as tarnished gold which I agree with. It's a Veluxe Pearl finish, so it's lovely and smooth. It isn't overly pigmented, but the colour is buildable. Feeling Fresh is described as bright green, which is true, it is very bright. It's a lovely grass green colour, not too yellow, not too blue, and it has gorgeous micro shimmer to it. This is a very pigmented shade and has an excellent colour pay off and texture. This one is a Frost finish. Both eyeshadows are limited edition and come in a limited edition blue packaging with white stripes, same as the rest of the Hey Sailor collection. They cost £12.50 each which is 50p more than regular Mac eyeshadows (my God, when did they get so expensive by the way?). Barefoot is 1.3g, Feeling Fresh is 1.5g, the difference is due to the different finishes I believe.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump! 

My Mac Reel Sexy and Lips and Tips Haul and Swatches

I have another quick haul post from the two other Mac collections that were released in the UK this month: Reel Sexy and Lips and Tips. As you can see, I really didn't get much, only bought Heroine lipstick from Reel Sexy and Impassioned and Russian Red lipglasses from Lips and Tips. In fact Russian Red is permanent, so it almost doesn't even count. But anyway...

I haven't actually tried all of these yet, only wore Impassioned lipglass for a couple of hours yesterday (that's how long it lasted actually). I like it, but don't love it. Impassioned is one of my favourite Mac lipsticks but the lipglass isn't that great. It's okay, but it does fade away quickly on me and it's just nowhere near as vibrant as the lipstick. But I guess it's easier to wear than a full-on bright lipstick.

The rest I've only swatched on my arm so far. Heroine actually looks a lot more purple in the pictures, in real life it's more pink, still purple but less blue if that makes sense. Russian Red lipglass is just lovely and I can't wait to wear it.

 See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

My Mac Hey Sailor Haul and Swatches

Sorry this is a bit late, but I've only just got around to doing and I know this collection hasn't launched in America yet, so hopefully some of you will find it useful. So this is my haul from Mac's summer collection Hey Sailor (well, most of it, I'm still waiting for two eyeshadows to arrive from Debenhams, will do a separate post on them).

I got all 3 Pro Longwear Lip Pencils, one Powerpoint Eye Pencil in Handforged, Riviera Life and Send Me sailing lipglasses, Red Racer lipstick and Crew High-Light Powder. A relatively modest haul by my standards, but I do have a lot of make up already, so I'm trying to be a bit more picky.

I'm not going to do a full review partly because I haven't actually worn everything yet, but I do have swatches for you and also a picture of me wearing Red Racer lipstick. So far I'm happy with everything I've got, my favourites have to be the lipstick and the High-Light Powder, which actually shows up quite well on me, so I can use it as a subtle blush. Also, just to clarify, the stripes are not an overspray which is why I ended up buying it (plus because it's very pretty).

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!