Dior Autumn 2010 Eyeshadow Quint - Incognito

I haven't really decided what this week's theme is going to be, so prepare for a week of utter randomness!  Today I'm having a look at Dior's latest eyeshadow quint palette in Incognito, which was released very recently:

I'll be honest, I don't own a huge amount of Dior shadows (lip products, oh yes, tonnes of them!) but I loved the slightly cool neutrals in this palette, and the silvery taupe in the bottom right there really called out to me.

This is how they swatch:

The shades all swatch on the sheer side (swatched once with fingers, no base), and, to be honest, I find the matte shades (the two at the top) a little powdery and somewhat chalky.  But there's no doubting the pigmentation of the bottom two!

Another shot of the swatches from a slightly different angle to show the finishes:

I'll be honest, I was expecting wonderful things from this palette (I was in a bit of a rush when I bought it, and didn't have a chance to swatch in store), and I'm a little disappointed in how "meh" it appears on the skin like this.  I've read some real raves about Dior Quints in the past, and I was excited about picking this one up.  I'm hoping I'll fall more in love with it once I've used it properly on my eyes.

What do you think of Dior shadows?  Have you tried any?

Perfect Purple? Daniel Sandler Sheer Satin Eyeshadow 575

Specifically for OxfordJasmine, this one ...  I know a few people are on the lookout for the perfect "Cadbury" purple eyeshadow, and I think this one is definitely a contender!  Daniel Sandler himself picked this one out for me recently (more about that next week) after I confessed my love of purple eyeshadow to him.  I've long been after a proper "bright" purple that isn't too blue, or too "dusty", and this one has been love at first sight.

Purples are notoriously difficult to photograph, and I'm not entirely happy with how these shades appear here, but I shall do my best.

Don't be fooled by the adjective "sheer" in the name of this shadow, it's vibrant and well-pigmented, and very smooth to apply. Whilst not as buttery-smooth as, say, Rouge Bunny Rouge, it's plenty soft, and very blendable.

The top swatch there is blended over Urban Decay Primer Potion, and the bottom is over bare skin.  As you can see, putting this on over a primer brings out the hidden shimmer in this shadow, which makes it appear lighter on the skin.  The photo has washed out the shade of this shadow a little, it's very definitely purple, and not at all the lilac-y shade you're seeing here.

Daniel Sandler cosmetics are available online from LookFantastic (but a slightly limited range) and Your True Colours (which has a full range) and you can see the entire line in the flesh at Urban Retreat on the 5th floor at Harrods. The shadows cost £10.

The Fine Print: No PRs harmed in the making of this post.  Nor did any money change hands. 'twas a present.  Kinda.  Long story, look out for a longer post explaining soon.

D&G Fall Out with Selfridges

Sooooo ... I was amused (sorry, but I was) to read in the Telegraph yesterday that D&G have had a "giant falling out" with Selfridges over shoes, and from next spring will be pulling out of their stores entirely.

For us beauty lovers, this gives us a tiny predicament, as it means that the D&G makeup line (which is actually very good) will be only available from Harrods from that point.  Better hope the customer service picks up before then, eh?

What do you think, storm in a teacup, or were Selfridges right to ... er ... put their foot down?

Chanel Taupe Grise & Khaki Vert Applied

For all those complaining (ha ha!) that I've not done any FotDs for a while, here's two for the price of one:

I wanted to show you the difference between the two shades, apologies for the differences in lighting conditions!  On the left there is Taupe Grise, and on the right is Khaki Vert.  Both are applied over a Trish McEvoy eyeshadow base, and I've used Guerlain Lingerie De Peau foundation - review to follow next week!  Lipstick in both pics is Edward Bess Secret Desire, and the picture on the left is slightly more colour-accurate for that.

I hate both of these pictures, but on the plus side, I think I've figured out which is my best side.

Fine Print of the week (for those who were asking, who knew disclaimers could get fan mail?): I bought everything you've seen from Chanel this week. Unless you're MrLippie, in which case, it was a present from the makeup fairies*.
*Debenhams**
**No responsibility can be taken if Debenhams isn't actually staffed by fairies.***
***Mine isn't either, but the assistant did give me a badge.  Like the ones you used to get from the Dentist, but this one reads "I survived a visit to Westfield today". ****
****Gifts With Purchase really aren't what they used to be, are they?*****
*****I'm done now, please stop reading.

Chanel Autumn Collection - Eyeliners Cassis & Clair

You all Chanel-ed out yet?  Well, I'm not, but this is the last one for a couple of days, I promise! I had seriously promised myself that I'd only been going to get the eyeshadows I showed you yesterday, but when I swatched these, I had to have them too.  (I bought Paradoxal because, well, even I get swept along in the hype sometimes)

The waterproof liner in Cassis is a gorgeous dark purple shade, perfect for green eyes.  It's dark enough to appear black from a distance, but just gives you a tiny pop of purple along the lashes, I love it.  It's very smudgeproof, I had a swatch on my hand for about 8 hours on the day I bought this, and it did not move! It's an automatic propelling pencil (about a third shorter than the Khol, for some reason), but I love that it has a built-in sharpener at the end.

 Clair is a nude skin shade made specifically for use on the waterline, to make your eyes look brighter. It's a traditional khol pencil, that comes complete with a sharpener (as all Chanel pencils do).  It's not as soft as I would have expected, but this isn't, actually, a bad thing.  Some nude liners can be very soft, and this can lead to you applying a little too much which can make you look a little odd ...

It's not too white, which is nice.  Here's how it looks on the waterline:

Can you guess which eye is which?  Would you use a nude liner?

Krasey Beauty

I love my US blogging friends. I love them a whole bunch.  Amongst the ones I read regularly, I have particular space in my heart for the following:

Elvira and Joeybunny at Pink Sith
Amy at Cafe Makeup
Sabrina at The Beauty Look Book
Paula at Older Girl Beauty
and Gaia at The Non-Blonde

All of them are well worth a read, they've created many a lemming for me, and I adore chatting to them on Twitter too, they're wonderful ladies. 

But, today, none of them are more worth a read than the lovely Adina at Krasey Beauty for I have become her newest contributor! She's an absolute sweetheart, and she's letting me take over a corner of her blog, bless her.  Every couple of weeks, I'm going to be offering a peculiarly - I use the word avisedly - "British" look at the beauty world, and I'd love it if you guys had a look at my first little offering (which has far too many exclamation marks in it, I've already noticed, mmmkay?) and let me know what you think.

So, without further ado, here's the first instalment of "British Beauty with Get Lippie". (also known as The One Where Lippie Makes Some Controversial Remarks About Americans vs The British, Then Puts The Blame On Daniel Sandler And Runs Away). See you there!

Eythangyew.

Chanel Eyeshadow Singles: 87 Khaki Vert & 88 Taupe Grise

When I was buying Chanel Paradoxal the other day, I was very aware that it was quite low down on my list of "must-haves" from the collection, these two little beauties were the things I was eagerly awaiting, and how happy I am to have them, finally! 

Sadly, the picture has washed both shades out a little.  On the left above is Taupe Grise, which is a gloriously complex shade of ... well ... taupe.  On me, this pulls to the purple side, which I really, really like.  There's a hint of silver in the powder too, meaning it's not flat, but it's also not a total shimmer fest.  It's very flattering and a perfect foil for the cassis eyeliner that's also available in this collection.

Vert Khaki, is a green shade, with hints of gold.  Similar to (but darker than) Mac's Sumptuous Olive, I adore this shadow, it's the very definition of "murk", and I think it goes well with my eyes, which are also a murky green shade.  Here's a very light swatch of both, without primer:

I'm totally looking forward to creating some smokey/bruised shadow looks with these little babies!  They don't look too different here, but I'm hoping the FotD that I have coming up will show off how different the shades are.

I love the autumn collections, it's probably my favourite time of year for makeup, before the cosmetic companies try to convince us that green and red and glitter are the only things you can wear ...

Chanel Paradoxal Dupe?

 I picked up Jessica's Venus Was Her Name about a month ago, because it appeared so unusual in the bottle!I got it from The Sanctuary, but I'm assured there are other places you can pick it up from.  In the bottle it appears a charcoal shade with tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of purple shimmer.  Sound familiar?  Here's now it looks on the nails:

On the nails, it looks more purple than grey, but when the light hits it, oh my!  Your nails will light up with an amazing "lit from within" glow, that is entirely missing from Chanel Paradoxal.  Please excuse the tipwear in the above pic, btw, it was on it's sixth day of wear by the time I got around to photographing this ...

A bottle comparison of Paradoxal and Venus:

See what I mean about that "lit from within" glow?  Yes, the Chanel appears mouse-y in shade, and the grey is darker in the Jessica, but the Jessica is more of a jelly finish which allows more of the shimmer to shine through.

Which do you prefer?

Nail of the Day: Chanel Paradoxal

Yes, you may have seen this on a few blogs already, but if you know me, you know I have a hard time resisting Chanel, and I love my murky shades.  So, when Chanel bring out a range of murky shades, I'm in there.  Totally!  Paradoxal is a grey with purple shimmer, but depending on the angle you get either a purple-grey shade, or a pinkish-purple shade with a grey background.  Compare the above and below pictures:

Because Paradoxal is a creme-finish, once it's on the nail, the shimmer hides somewhat, and you get a grey nail, with just the very tiniest amount of shimmer (sometimes referred to in blogger circles as a "hidden shimmer") that only shows at certain angles and in certain lights.

The pic above is how the shade will appear in most lights - a lightly pinked grey, with just a hint of brown in the base shade.  I like it a lot.  If you shift your fingers around a little though, you can pick up the shimmer a little:

It may help if you enlarge the pic, but there is a definite hint of the shimmer on the little finger and around the outer edges of the ring and index finger.  You have to hunt for it though!

I liked a great deal of the rest of Chanel's autumn range too, much to the salesperson's delight, and I'll be showing you some of that later this week, but tomorrow I'll be showing you a cheaper dupe of Paradoxal, which isn't from Model's Own ...

Have you picked up any of the new Chanel collection, or are you all purpled out?

Review - Halston Woman Amber

This, gentle reader, is the perfume release I've been waiting for.  The fact that I didn't know anything about it until two weeks ago is neither here nor there.

If you've read any of my perfume reviews lately, you'll know that I've been disappointed with all the fruity/woodsy/musky SWEET perfumes I've been sniffing over the last couple of weeks, and have been longing to smell something a little more grown up.  This has been the perfect antidote to perfume generic-itis this summer.

On first sniff, it smells deliciously of aldehydes (those artificial notes that smell of "perfume", instead of specific ingredients, think Chanel No19, but softer and rounder), notifying you from the very start that this is not a perfume for those who like their perfumes to scream of fruit. Or soap.  Allegedly, there is mandarin and redcurrant in the top notes, but I don't get them, there's a slight citrus note under the aldehyde, but it's not as sharp as one would expect. It's dry, rather than sharp, like a Campari, rather than a Martini Rosso.  After it's settled on the skin, and the dry, aldehydic notes have died off a little, it's warm and powdery with a hint of tuberose (there are meant to be rose petals in there, but it's not floral, not really), and, in the final stretch, there are hints of sweet sandalwood and possibly a touch of musk. Sophisticated ... but I'm not sure it's sexy. MrLippie just mumbles about "nice" when I wear it, but I like it a great deal.

It smells, to me, once again, of the seventies (it is very different to, but reminds me unexpectedly of, untitled by Maison Martin Margiela which I reviewed a few months ago), it's an exceptionally feminine perfume without being in anyway girly, flowery, fruity, or sweet, likewise, it doesn't patronise the wearer by trying to be the definition of femininity, for which we should all be truly thankful.

Halston Woman Amber is exclusively available from Harrods and costs from £65.

The Fine Print: Sample arrived unrequested, but very welcome.  You will all please notice that I have not mentioned how the bottle looks like a winky.  Thank you.