A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Despite the fact that I’ve hardly scraped the surface of my previous Chanel Illusion d’Ombre purchase (Mirifique), I was back at the counter barely a month later to pick up Illusoire – a smoky, mauve shade which contains the most perfect amount of glimmer for an understated sparkle.

These are simply my favourite shades – cool, mauvey taupes will always bring a pitter-patter to my heart.  The texture of the Chanel Illusion d’Ombres are like a solid mousse with a little bit of bounce when you brush your finger over the surface.  They feel cooling as you apply them to your eyelids and last well throughout the day.

Pigmentation is medium but the depth of colour builds quickly with a second sweep over the eyelid – the formula blends nicely, more like a powder than a cream or mousse – blendable even after it’s been sat for a little while.

The above swatch shows two swipes on bare skin done with my fingertip.  Are you loving the Chanel Illusion d’Ombres?

Chanel Illusion d’Ombre #83 Illusoire is priced at £22.50 and available instore online from Debenhams and Selfridges.

I think that when a girl is born, she’s born with two things: 1). girly bits and 2). a unwaivering adoration for “Cadbury’s purple”.  Butter London’s HRH fulfills that need to have a beautifully shiny Dairy Milk wrapper on your nails.

Perfect in three thin coats, though I would have preferred two – HRH looks indulgent, decadent and totally makes me want to lick my nails.  Priced at £11.95 and available online from PowderRooms.

What’s your favourite Cadbury’s purple shade?

I thought that this Color Club shade was going to be sheerer than it turned out…

Three coats gave me full coverage and results in a beautiful pink-violet with a strong blue/green flash.  My photograph hasn’t picked up the green but you should be able to see the strong blue hues lurking where the light reflects off the nail bed.  For a bargain brand, this shade is a cracker – I just wish it were more accessible in the UK.

I bought Color Club’s Ultra Violet on eBay and paid around £5 inc. postage (from the U.S.) – which nail polish brands do you wish had better availability in the UK?

I prefer my wintery brights over summery brights.  My skintone loves raspberry, purples and red shades and I have to feel a little more ‘brave’ to wear skintone repel-ing orange, green and turquoise shades on my fingers.  This is one of the main reasons for my love of Ciate’s Talent Scout.  It’s a bold purple that reminds me of juicy damsons!

A little unforgiving to ridged nails, though probably nothing a basecoat wouldn’t have prevented – Talent Scout is a two-coater with a creme finish.  Drying time was also good.

Ciate Talent Scout is available to purchase online at PowderRooms, priced at £9.00

Regardless of what your birth certificate says, Christmas is the one time of year we can wear an unadulterated amount of glitter on our nails and not feel even slightly embarrassed of ourselves.

Avon Nailwear Pro in Violetta Sparkle is a festively-themed combination of purple and gold – it also conveys flashes of red when under the right lighting – but it’s mostly about the gold.

Application was fine and the above shows three coats.  I found the brush a touch long and thick but what you sacrifice in precision, you make up for in speed of application.  It also dried quickly despite the three coats.  It’s a hair grainy thanks to the glitter but a single coat of topper smoothes that out nicely and gives a needed boost to the shine that really brings out the sparkle within.

I’ve only had this on for two days, but so far no chips and considering the vampy colour, only very minimal tip wear (the above photo was taken just now).

Currently priced at only £3.00 on the Avon website, it’s making me want to explore the other sparkly shades in the Nailwear Pro Sparkle & Shine lineup!

* press sample

The third polish in my mini Zoya haul was Neeka from the Fall 2011 Smoke and Mirrors collection.

A pretty purple/grape polish with gold sparkle, this wasn’t as dusty as I hoped.  Not that there’s anything wrong with the base colour but I expected something a little greyer from Zoya’s description of the shade.  Never mind, I’m not adverse to any kind of purple on my nails!

The formula of this was very similar to Yara and I achieved excellent coverage with two coats.

Zoya Neeka is available to buy online from Beauty4Nails-Body priced at £7.99

Let’s kick off the week with another nail polish swatch, again from Leighton Denny‘s new Atmospheric Collection.  Your Planet or Mine? is a beetle’s wing duochrome that displays mostly teal with flashes of vivid purple around the edges.  It scores extra points for providing such good coverage after two coats.

Duochromes are notoriously sheer and after a single coat, I thought this one was heading in the same direction.  Thankfully, the second topping pulled it all together and I was done.

If you love this kind of colour-shifting gorgeousness, you might also want to check out: Ciate Starlet and SpaRitual Health, Wealth and Happiness – both of which, provide similar effects but with enough differences between all three to warrant purchases.  Enabler? Moi?

Leighton Denny’s Atmospheric Collection is available to buy online priced at £11.00

I liked this delicate combo of Beauty UK’s Smokey Lilac with OPI Golden Rainbow on top.  A dusting of holographic sparkle always goes a long way to brightening my day!

Of course, the Beauty UK polish is a bargainous snip at only £2.49 a bottle, though I believe that OPI’s Golden Rainbow might be a little harder to come by I’m sure that the effect can be reproduced with something like Northern Lights Holographic Top Coat.

The above mani shows three coats of the Beauty UK and a single coat of OPI Golden Rainbow.  Pretty!

What are you wearing on your nails today?

I was sticky beaking along the bargain shelves in Boots (as you do… frequently) and spotted this rather pretty nail polish that had been reduced down to something ridiculous like 75p.  This probably means it’s discontinued and you won’t be able to find it but humour me anway.

Rimmel London 60 Seconds isn’t a formula I’ve played with before.  I’ve previously tried and disliked the Lycra Pro range so have gently steered myself away from Rimmel polishes on that basis which makes me very glad that this bargain price sticker turned my head.

The polish is packed full of fine red sparkle, turning what was essentially a blue base into purple once worn on the nails. This makes the name Blue Me Away rather redundant when looking down at what is clearly a warm-toned purple polish.

Application wasn’t too shady, fairly smooth but I did get a bit of drag around the edges of the nail bed and the polish doesn’t apply kindly unless the brush is well loaded.  Other than that, I was done in two (fairly easy) coats.

I have to take issue with the whole “60 seconds” thing too, seeing as this was one of the slowest-drying polishes I’ve worn in months.  You’re definitely going to need a quick dry top coat with this one.

Other than those niggles, for £3.469 (or less if you can find them on offer), I’m pleased to be reintroduced to a brand I’d avoided when it came to nails.

Rimmel London 60 Seconds polishes can be found instore and online at Boots et al.

Now… this is more like it!

After some mild disappointment after seeing the Deborah Lippmann Autumn offerings this year, I’m glad to be back on cloud nine with one her beautiful glitters from last Autumn, Bad Romance (£14.00).

Purple glitter hexagons and regular glitter suspended in a black jelly base makes for an eye-catching combination!  Sure, it’s a little vampy for this time of year but rules are there to be broken yes?!

Opaque in three coats, it needs some careful placement to ensure even distribution of the glitter, thankfully not too tedious with this one as the particles moved around quite happily without causing any drag whilst still wet.  The only negative is that with such a dark shade, the tipwear becomes noticeable after the 2nd day.  No chipping on me though!

In the UK, Deborah Lippmann polishes are exclusively available online and instore at House of Fraser.

* press sample

I feel like a big fat cam whore with these FOTDs… I don’t think I’ve done as many FOTDs this entire year as I have this/last week.  I’m nearly through with all the trios now, I think there’s one more after this one… and then I’ve only got a bloomin’ awesome GIVEAWAY of all the ones I’ve featured so far.  Get in!

So today’s is the Wet n’ Wild Color Icon Trio Eyeshadow palette in I’m Feeling Retro.  On paper, it’s my least favourite… at least half of you will agree when you see the shades and the swatches.  Check it out.

Knowing that it was slightly sheerer than the rest, I did the usual thing of packing it on… if I’d had a trowel to hand, I would have happily used it.  The pink/purple needed more persuasion than the blue which went on surprising pigmented.  The highlight is very sheer and adds more of a luminescence than anything else.

Here’s the FOTD alongside Accessorize Merged Blush in Starlet and Lanolips Lip Ointment in Dark Honey.

For something that I was honestly expecting to hate… I, well…. don’t hate it!  Yeah, it’s a bit out of my comfort zone but it’s less clashy, clashy than I anticipated and certainly not too fancy dress.  At least, I hope not seeing as I did leave the house looking like this.  Application is a bit rubbish because I really thought I’d be scrubbing it from my face once I’d applied it!

So, come on… did you hate it then like it?  Like it and then hate it once you saw it on me?  Hate/Hate?  Like/Like?  I neeeeed to overanalyse the makeups!

The other polish I received from their Summer 2011 collection is this muted “grurple” called Native Rock, it’s somehow softer than any of the other shades of this type that I own.  It’s almost whimsical and ethereal, tres beautiful.

I think it may have a bit too much grey in it for some skintones to wear with success but I’m not complaining on mine!  The above photo shows two coats and although it looked like complete coverage… with hindsight, I think I could have gone for a third.  The photo shows it looking just a little thin in places.

Application was dreamy and longevity average.  Another solid release from SpaRitual.

SpaRitual nail polishes (£8.50) are available to purchase directly from the SpaRitual website and spas/salons.