For Your Eyes Only - Chantecaille Les Petales De Rose Powder

Aah, Chantecaille. You always come out with the prettiest powders and palettes just to tempt me. Which is not good, seeing how all these pretties are actually very expensive. Thanks crunchie for eBay is what I say.

"Inspired by the gossamer, soft color and texture of crushed rose petals, Chantecaille has created a limited-edition highlighting powder that will brighten up your powder room as well as your face."

"Les Pétales’ kaleidoscope of colorful powders blend together beautifully to impart a sheer, flattering glow on all skin tones. Unique light perfecting powders provide a veil of subtle radiance, while flexible polymers help provide lasting, comfortable wear."

This is such a lovely, soft, finely milled, slightly shimmery, light pink illuminating powder. It really only has very very fine shimmer, it gives a subtle sheen to the skin. I haven' worn it, it's simply too pretty to distroy, but I did swatch it carefull to see what it was like. I would liken it to the Guerlain Meteorites, they give similar effect.

Les Petales De Rose costs a whopping £64 and you get 12 g for your money. I bought mine off eBay for around £45, it didn't come boxed and the label's missing from the bottom,but it's the powder that matters.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

NOTD: Milani 3D Holographic Nail Polish in Cyberspace

As I said the other day, I might not be able to muster up anything other than nail polish posts for the next few days due to chronic time shortage. Thankfully I have plenty of pretty polish to show you, so hope you will enjoy them. Here's the first one, Milani 3D Holographic Nail Polish in Cyberspace.

Taken without flash in direct sunlight

I have already showed you another one of these polishes, 3D, a yellow subtle holo.Cyberspace is a light blue polish with a stronger holo effect than 3D, It looked especially pretty in the sunshine. I did 2 coats for this full coverage you see in the pictures. I added another coat on top of the topcoat to see if the holo effect got any stronger, but it didn't seem to matter. The formula was nice and quick drying. It started chipping on me on the first day, but actually then lasted really well even through scrubbing the oven! So I was pretty happy with it.

I bought this nail polish from Cherry Culture and it cost $3.99. You get 13.2 ml which is great. Their shipping is also very reasonable and they often have 20% off sales, so it's worth registering with them.

See more pictures after the jump!

Guerlain Rose Aux Joues Blush Duo 05 Golden High Swatches and Review

I have managed to get my hands on another shade of the new Guerlain blush duos, this time I have Golden High to show you. If you have missed my reviews of the other shades, you can check them out here: Peach Boy, Over Rose, Pink Punk and Chic Pink.

Golden High is a mix of reddish brown and light peachy pink. The reddish brown shade has a slight sheen to it, the light peachy pink shade doesn't. This blush is the worst texture wise of the 5 I have tried. The reddish brown shade is extremely hard and very difficult to pick up with your brush. The light peachy pink shade is softer, but even that's not very soft. I don't know if this is just a dud, or this shade is simply this hard to work with.

Then upside of the hard texture is that's it's really not easy to overdo this blush. I had to swipe it twice with the brush to get the colour you will see on my cheeks in the picture at the bottom of the post. It gives a very natural result. The peachy pink shade works well as a subtle highlighter, or if you're very light skinned, maybe even a blush.

These blushes cost £32.50 and you get 6 g of product which is not huge. I'd like to point out that I have not paid full price for any of them (thanks to eBay) and probably wouldn't, although they are nice, but I feel there are better blushes around for a lot less money.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

Stila Luxe Palette Review, Swatches and a FOTD

Before I show you this lovely palette, I just want to say that I'm really struggling with writing new posts at the moment. Firstly, I am currently very busy with school and children related activities. Secondly, due to the gloomy weather we've been having in the UK, I've found it incredibly difficult to take proper photos of products, which means if I can't take pictures of my new acquisitions, I then can't start using them, and obviously can't review them in detail. So for the time being I think you might be seeing a few more nail polish posts, I have a big backlog of NOTD pictures that were taken back in the autumn when we still knew what the sun looked like. Hopefully I'll be back with some proper product reviews soon.

For now, here's a lovely palette from Stila to drool over. This one is called Luxe palette and it contains 3 matte and 6 sparkly eyeshadows, plus a smudge stick waterproof eyeliner in Ladyfish (an exclusive shade). You also get a small booklet with ideas on looks to create with the palette. I bought it with my £5 off discount code StilaKiss which is valid for another 3 days on the Stila UK website (minimum spend £25).

I have to say, I'm a bit on the fence about this palette, I'm just not sure about the matte shades. I would've preferred either 3 more sparkly eyeshadows instead of the matte ones, or at least shades that go better with the rest of the palette. Quality-wise I can't really fault the palette, because the matte shades are really nice, the sparkle shades are gorgeous and the eyeliner is lovely too.

I have only worn the eyeshadows over a primer (Too Faced Shadow Insurance), but I didn't experience any creasing and there was only minimal fallout (usually during application). The smudge stick is really long lasting, even on the waterline.

The matte shades are a bit brown for my liking. Actually Bubble Bath is a pinky highlighter colour, it's pretty, but I prefer highlighting with more sparkly, satiny colours. I couldn't combine the two different finishes in the palette. I did do a look with the mattes, it was a nice, but rather boring look for my liking.

I also used the shadows in the middle row which resulted in a lovely pink/purple look. But my most favourite shade in the palette has to be ♥ Of The Ocean. At first it looks really dark and a bit dull in the palette, but on the skin it turns into an amazing teal/peacock green colour with loads of pearl. Absolutely gorgeous! I've included pictures of the look I did with it (actually not including any other eyeshadow from the palette, I used it with Sassy Marshmallow and Time Resist White L'Oreal Infallible as well as Stila Peacock smudge stick on the lower lashline). It was really lovely, probably even better in real life.

The palette costs £30, but you can get £5 off with StilaKiss on stila.co.uk. I'm too tired to work out how much value you get, but altogether there's 13.5 g eyeshadows and 0.28 g eyeliner, so you can be sure you're getting great value for your money. I also like it that you get a mirror in this one, definitely something that was missing form the other Stila palettes before.

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

Want It: Guerlain Spring 2013 Collection

I'm really excited about seeing the promo pictures and details of the Guerlain Spring 2013 collection, so I thought I'd quickly share them with you. Firstly, another gorgeous promo picture featuring the lovely Natalia Vodianova. Can't help but wonder how photoshopped those eyelashes are though...

So there is a new mascara coming out, it's a volume creating, curl sculpting mascara.

Cils d’Enfer – Maxi Lash (£22)

• 01 Noir
• 02 Violet

The secret of this brush is all in the three polymers. “The first one wraps the lashes in extremely adherent oils, coating and thickening the lashes. The second one, made with supple waxes, acts like a conditioner, softening the lashes so you can sculpt them into just the right shape and style. The last one forms a thin film, coating the lashes to trap the wax and set the amazing curve.”

This mascara also has an innovative brush which is described the following way:” full, round brush caresses each lash to thicken and lengthen at will. The volumising effect is accentuated by the new generation hollow fibres, capable of dispensing just the right amount of mascara with each stroke. Cleverly placed in a criss-cross pattern, they carefully separate the lashes and spread the rich formula without clumping.”

The other products in the collection are as follows:

Ecrin 4 Couleurs Long-Lasting Eyeshadows (£38)

• 501 Attrape-Coeur - mauve, violet, white illuminate, prima donna purple
• 502 Coup de Foudre - green, silvery patina, bronze-khaki, vibrant coral

Eyeliner (£24.50)
 
Ebony black liner with an ultra-thin tip (I think this is permanent actually).

Météorites Perles du Paradis (£43)

New Limited Edition of Meteorites come in XXL size with a pink powder puff with a black bow on top. These Meteorites come in a box adorned with an illustration of a boudoir. The pearles come in six shades.

Rouge Automatique Lipstick (£24.50)

• 601 Romance
• 600 Ballade

Shine Automatique Lipstick (£24.50)

• 762 Rendez-vous
• 761 Flirt

Kiss Kiss Gloss (£24.50)

• 870 Cherry Pink (repromote, see swatches here)
• 849 Fizzy Mango (repromote, see swatches here)

This collection will be out in January.

Pictures and information source

See lots more pictures after the jump!

Dior Holiday 2012 - Grand Bal Palette

Dior really know how to make you drool over their products, don't they? When they make it this pretty, how can you possibly say no? This is their newest holiday palette, Grand Bal.

It contains 2 eyeshadows (gold and silver), 2 lipglosses and an eyeliner pencil, housed in a gold clutch type compact with a full size mirror in the lid. The pencil holds the clutch closed as it's threaded through the two circular barrels in the front.

The eyeshadows are so incredibly beautiful, not just the colours but the pattern. I carefully swatched them, but I'm really not sure i want to use them much as it would ruin the gorgeous design. However, they seem so lovely, it would be silly not to use them. They are very pigmented, smooth, and the colours are lovely. The gold is a light coppery gold and the silver is a white silver. The eyeliner is a straightforward black, quite creamy and well pigmented.

I didn't swatch the lipglosses (a shimmery sheer golden colour and a medium reddish coral colour), because I really didn't want to mess them up, but they would be good to apply on top of a lipstick or wear alone. For those who don't like their powder and cream products in one palette, you'll be pleased to know that the glosses are hiding behind a little flap.

Not only the clutch itself is gorgeous, but it also comes wrapped in white tissue paper with gold CD printed all over it. The whole thing just screams luxury. Unfortunately the pricetag is rather luxurious too at £60. You get 5.3 g product (doesn't say individually) which isn't much, but like with many other luxury products you also pay for the name, the design and it doesn't get much more luxurious than Christian Dior.

See more pictures including swatches after the jump!

NOTD: Enchanted Polish Once Upon A Time

Time for another NOTD post. This time it's Enchanted Polish Once Upon A Time. Enchanted Polish is quickly becoming one of my favourite nail polish brands, their polishes are really gorgeous and quite different to everything I own. Although having said that, Once Upon A Time did actually remind me of China Glaze Liquid Crystal, only better.

Taken without flash in direct sunlight

The glitter particles in this polish are smaller than in Liquid Crystal, making the whole effect smoother, and this also has subtle holo, something I love in Enchanted Polish nail polishes. This was the polish I wore in my Nail Polish Stash And Storage Video if you want to see it "in action".

I used 2 coats for the coverage you see in the pictures,which is pretty opaque. I had a tiny chip after about 24 hours and managed to chip another nail quite badly the next day, but after patching it up I wore it for the total of 4 days. So all in all, a good little nail polish. I bought mine from Llarowe, it cost $15 for 15 ml, although sadly it's not available anymore. The only downside of this brand is its very limited availability. She only makes them in very small batches and once they're gone, they're gone. If you like this though, check out China Glaze Liquid Crystal for a similar effect.

See more pictures after the jump!