Monday, February 22, 2010

Monday Makeup Madness: Resisting "Twilight"

When I first saw Karla Sugar's swatches of Guerlain Rouge G Le Brilliant a few weeks ago, I immediately fell in love with B63 Bella. However, I was turned off by the fact that it shares a name with the main character in those "Twilight" novels. (To be fair, I was also turned off by the fact that it costs $46. :P The other color I liked? B21 Bianca, which also happens to be the name of my Wii. ...Moving on.) Now, I don't hate Twilight. I don't even know much about it. However, my nature is to avoid things that have that level of popularity, and Twilight is no exception. It got to the point where I was annoyed by random products coming out that happened to have "Twilight" in the name, either as coincidence or to cash in on the craze (i.e. Bath & Body Works' "Twilight Woods"). When I came across ULTA's eyeshadow named "Twilight", I was torn for a second. Then I remembered I had an eyeshadow called Twilight Grey. And then I remembered that one of the lip products I got in that Bobbi Brown 3-pack over the holidays had Twilight in the name. ("Twilight Heather"? I'll go look later.) Then I was over it.

I was planning on ending this with swatches of the products I mentioned, but the weather didn't cooperate. Hopefully it'll be better this weekend.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Monday Makeup Madness: NOTD + Memento Mori

Hello! It's been a while, so let's start out with a NOTD pic:


This is OPI Dreaming of Red (Holiday 2009 ULTA Exclusive) topped with Essie Matte About You. Brush strokes annoy me, and I recently discovered the "get rid of brush strokes by mattifying" trick, so I thought I'd give it a go for Valentine's Day (which I'm not really into...so I did a bunch of laundry and watched the Winter Olympics, woohoo). I really like this. The color is not as bright as it is in this picture, and in most lights it appears to be a bit blackened at the edges. I meant to change colors for Mardi Gras but that didn't happen, whoops!

My order from Sephora recently came in which included Kat Von D stuff, most of it on sale (quite a few products were half off, I think they still are) and one product that was not: the new limited edition eyeshadow palette, Memento Mori.

 

Like all of the other eye palettes, Memento Mori goes for $34. Like the limited edition palettes, it contains a cream shadow. Unlike the other palettes, this one comes in a white case. The swatches are below. The upper one was taken outdoors, the lower indoors...this one is here so you can see the gold sheen that Peggy has.


True is a vivid medium purple. It seemed kind of weak as far as creams go, but it might work as a base. Solitude is a lavender with a bit of a blue flash to it that's very similar to Urban Decay Asphyxia. As you can see, I had trouble getting this one to show up. Maybe when it's sunny and I have time, I'll see how it looks over True. But I digress. Meditation is a sort of light copper. Agatha Pink is closer to peach than pink IMO. Sugar Skull is pale gold. Peggy is turquoise with a gold sheen. Hard Luck is darker green that seems to have a bit of another color to it, but I need more time in the sun to figure it out. Tijuana is black with copper sparkles.

Overall I'm pleased with this. The pigmentation's pretty good. I just got this, so I haven't had time to wear it and check on staying power, but I've had good experiences with Beethoven and Gypsy so I figure it'll be the same with this one. I'm really curious about the KVD eye primer that's out now...have any of you gotten the chance to try it?

(Disclaimer: These were all products purchased by me.)