Lipstick -Bobbi Brown - Lip Color - Pink Mauve 49
DENF 4/24/2013 6:09:00 PM
This is a cool medium rose that is just a bit bright. It looks fine against my neutral light complexion but it reads a bit too raspberry for my taste. This type of color tends to go fuchsia on me, but this one stays true. The formula goes on pleasantly moist but dries out about half an hour after application. I'm puzzled at people describing this as warm or brown. Perhaps the product changes color with age or there is some weird chemical reaction going on with their skin chemistry.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Palettes -Urban Decay - 15 year anniversary palette
DENF 9/8/2011 12:49:00 AM
Color me unimpressed. I have all of the larger eye shadow palettes and this is just not up to snuff. I expected UD to do something special for the Anniversary set but instead they charged more for less. For the past few years we have been treated to do a set with 16 color (8 regular and 8 limited) with two 3/4 sized eye pencils and a mini potion. This year we get 15 "original" shadows (15 for 15th anniversary - get it) inside a cumbersome box and nothing else. UD is known for its vibrant buttery soft shadow many of them frosty and more then few infested by glitter. The one thing that is generally true, is that the color always comes through and they are very easy to work with (glitter fallout not-withstanding). Previous years boxes have included a full range of colors allowing for a wide variety of looks although you always have to supply you own neutral mattes. This year is more limited. Sadly several of these shadows have a lousy texture and poor color pay off. Four of the shadows are light neutral overpowered by frost that they all look nearly identical (Midnight Rodeo, Midnight 15, Vanilla, Flow). There are a couple of mid-tone colors, one of which looks like pinkeye (Tainted) and another like you have a bruised eye (Junkshow). There are a couple of nearly identical deep browns (M.I.A) one of which is slightly more bronze (Deeper) and the omnipresent basic black (Blackout). The only colors that qualify as different for UE are a vibrant mid-tone blue-teal (Deep-end) a deep grey (Ace) and the only three colors I actually was impressed with - a deep grayed purple (Half Truth) and a very deep true sapphire (Evidence), and an off-beat dual chrome pink/blue violet (Omen). The packaging is brainless. A heavy metal affair with a lid that does not clasp shut making storage tricky and a "secret" velvet lined compartment that requires something long and thin to access. For the money, I can not justify keeping it. If you have a lot of UD, I suspect you will not be happy. If your only experience with UD is the atypical neutral Naked palette you will certainly be in for a shock. I tried making my eyes up with this set five days running and every single time I ended up using my other UD palettes to redo the look to much better effect.
12 out of 16 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Eye Shadow -Stila - Natural Beauty Eye Shadow Palette
DENF 9/20/2010 12:45:00 AM
Don't be fooled by the seemingly low price tag. These eyeshadows are no bargain. This is low pigment, made in China makeup, on par with those junk sets of 100 colors for $15 that appear during the holidays. Stila hopes that their name will be enough to convince you this crap is better then it is. On top of this the shadows are tiny and the packaging is the flimest I have ever come across. If you are OK with using made in China cosmetics that check out Coastal Scents Warm palette where for a few dollars more you get 88 colors and the shadows are of surprisingly good quality for the price point. I returned this product.
4 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Palettes -Urban Decay - Book of Shadows - Alice in Wonderland [DISCONTINUED]
DENF 1/24/2010 11:19:00 PM
This palette which is made up mostly of of neutral colors and includes primarily colors that already appear in many recent and current UD palettes seems designed to lure in those unfamiliar with UD products through the movie tie-in. People with no interest in the packaging and who already own most if not of of the colors will not find this palatte of interest. Five of the colors are also in the Book of Shadows Vol II (Baked, Twice Baked, Midnight Cowboy Rides Again as well as Mushroom and Homegrown which were supposed to be exclusive to that palette.) Two of the colors appeared in Book of Shadows I (Griffter and Last Call), Painkiller is from the brand new Preen and Show Pony Palettes. The 16 half sized shadows, 2 mini eye pencils (Zero[black] and Flipside [teal green]) along with the mini Potion Primer represent a good value for UD products if you don't already own most of the colors. The color selection however, does not go togethether particuliarly well as most of the lighter colors are warm and all quite similiar, while most of the darker colors are cool, making it challenging to put together more then a few looks using only the colors in this palette. This is the major problem I see with this palette. I also wish UD had chosen some colors that are not commonly included in every palette that would have worker together better. For example, Chains a warm green would have worked much better with all of the golden neutrals then the out of place cool deep Homegrown and Crash a copper plum would have been a better choice then the red plum Last Calll, l and why couldn't they include the lovely cool light grey Vapor in place of all of the similar peachy, pinky golden colors. The colors in the Palette: Underland (Flash) - bright iridescent purple Alice (Painkiller) - turquoise shimmer Oraculum (Baked) - rich bronze Queen (Last Call) - plum punch Chessur (Chopper) - coppery fawn w/ silver microglitter White Rabbit (Polyester Bride) - white w/ silver glitter Wonderland (Maui Wowie) - medium gold w/ silver glitter Curiouser (Grifter) - sheer lavender w/ lots of silver microglitter Muchness (X) - gold w/ sheer peach tint Mushroom (Mushroom) - dark taupe with bronze shimmer Midnight Tea Party (Midnight Cowboy Rides Again) - golden beige w/ bronze, gold & silver glitter Vorpal (S&M) - bright metallic silver Absolem (Homegrown) - Drink Me Eat Me (Sin) - champagne Mad Hatter (Twice Baked) - dark brown w/ gold glitter Jabberwocky (Oil Slick) - black with silver glitter
23 out of 23 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Palettes -Bobbi Brown - Chrome Palette
DENF 11/1/2009 6:37:00 PM
A world of gray in the palm of your hand. Some of the shades are lighter, some are darker. Some have sparkle, some have shimmer and some are matte. Some are a little more pink, some a little more blue, but in the end they are all quite similiar. The quality of the shadows is uneven and 5 of the shadows are so similiar they can easily stand-in for one another in any look. The 3 plain shadows are very good quality and very easy to blend. White is a nicely pigmented white, perfect as a cool highlight color. Iron looks like a deep gray but it goes on as a medium gray. Chrome Haze looks like a gray-black but it goes on as a dark gray. The 2 shimmer washes are also very nice, but rather similiar to each other. Polar Ice is a light shimmery pinked gray-taupe. Cyber Gray is a light shmmery mavue gray-taupe and looks just like Polar Ice, minus the pink tinge. The 2 sparkle eys shadows are low on pigment and high on micro sparkles. They are nice for adding some sparkle to the other colors as they have little to no fallout and the sparkles are so fine they look like sparkling snow. Again the two colors are very similiar to each other and they look identical on my lids. Moonlight sparkle is a light mauve gray and Storm Cloud is a light pinked mauve gray. The 3 metallic eyeshadows are not the same formula as BB's other metallic shadows of which I own many. Other BB metalic eyeshadows are velvety smooth, easily depositing an intense dose of shimmery metallic color. These are somewhat rough to the touch, go on sheer and can be layered for more color payoff and there is nothing remotely metalic about their finish which is moderately shimmery. Foil metallic the lightest of the bunch, reminds me off MACs Lustre formula at its worst. The BB site claims this is pale bronze but it is nothing but light silver sparkles that if you keep building comes out looking exactly like Cyber Gray but rougher . Thunder Metalic is the deepest, builing to a dark- medium blue gray. Chrome metalic is very similar, building to a barely green tinged medium gray that looks almost identical to the slightly darker Thunder. None of these shadows blend all that wel and I irrated my eye crease when I tried to which is something that has never happened with BB shadow before. The 4 lip colors are the goopy moist formula standard to BB palattes. They are all very sheer and the sparkles are tiny and far between. The lightest 2 - Pink Mist and Chrome Mist provided so little color that I was able to paint half my lips with one color and half the other and I couldn't tell the difference on my medium pink lips.. Winter Bronze is an usual color that gave an interesting look on its own or over a lipstick and the only oe of the glosses I really like. Berry glitter is a sheer pink-berry color. An inferior mini eyeshadow is provided. The brushes has insuffiencent density to work with this hard packed shadows and not provide a good application. I had much better success with a standardr BB mini eyeshadow brush which provides a dense head suitable for dealing with BB eyeshadows. The capped mini lip brush is servicable. In summary this is a very exspensive palette that provides little vararity despite containing 10 eyeshadows and 4 glosses. If it had just been one of those 5-8 pan shdaows that run $45, I won't have been so disappointed in the lack of variety and so-so quality, , but for $75 I have decided to return it. I think this is probably the poorest quality product BB has put out since the infamous Sandwash Eye Palette.
11 out of 14 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Palettes -Smashbox - Rapture Ultimate Beauty Palette
DENF 4/26/2009 3:42:00 PM
I just picked this up on Ebay. They are still floating around and can be had for around the originial retail price. This is surprisingly good quality for made in China cosmetics. Most of Smashbox's regular line is made in the US, Canada and Italy, but for their value sets they turn to China. The makeup is nowhere near as good as their regular line, but is still quite good, and for the price point when compared to drugstore lines, still a very good value. The shadows are loosely pressed, making it easy to load your brush. I think many of my fellow reviewers are mistaken that for high quality. However the shadow themselves are not anywhere near as finely milled as Smashboxes regular line. The shimmer particles are quite course and saddly they have opted to include them in nearly every shadow. In comparison to the shadows in Smashbox's recent Artists Eye Palette are much silkier and apply and appear far nicer then the ones in this palette. I woudld give those shadow a 5 and these a 3.5. The pigment is decent on most of the colors in the Rapture palette, but some - noteably the column of peaches are completely overwelmed by the shimmer to the point that every single color in that line (except the darkest one) appear to be an identical silvery-white-peach. I tried these with MAC Paint, UD Primer Potion, and Trish base, but found this work the best with Bobbi Brown's shadow base. A lot of the 70 colors are very similar but there is a good selection of greys, periwinkle and grey blues, plums, roses, celery and forest greens, taupes and browns of all kinds. The bronzer, two blushes and highlighter are highly pigmented and I found I need to use a large fluffy bronzer brush to get a natural application on my currenty NC 25 level skin. I wished that had an included a dozen different blush choices instead of large plans of couple. The brow tech and wax is fine if you like brow powders, and the deep brow powders work great as liners. The gel lines are moist and go on nicely with SB's angled liner brush which I have from another kit. The lippies were a pleasant surprise. They are moist, with just the right balance of sheerness and pigment in a nice variety of very wearable colors. I own a lot better quality cosmetics then this, but it is still fun to play around with and can produce a wide variety of polished looks. This is a very buy for someone who wants to get a huge selection of wearable colors for a bargain price and doesn't mind that the quality is going to be somewhere between drugstore and low-end department store. My final caveat is that China has recently been found to be putting all sorts of forbidden things in various products with unhappy results to the purchaser. I won't be shocked to find that some made in china cosmetics are including banned ingredients, or have been contaminated by known carcnigens. Personally, I don't mind playing with made in China makeup, but I don't think I'd want to risk doing my entire face out of made in China products day after day for years.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -MAC - Air of Style
DENF 12/7/2007 7:44:00 PM
Air of Style was a MAC limited edition perfume released with the December 2007 The Stylist collection. It was supposedly limited to 3000, but that does not seem possible considering the volume of MAC Sales and the fact that it was offered on its web site. It retailed for $65. I picked up MAC Air of Style and without even opening the box, happily carted it home. Big mistake. The perfume comes package in a separate vial that looks like a giant testtube with a screwtop, a "limited edition hand blown" glass container from Italy and a funnel. The hand blow glass looks like test tube with a pointed bottom. The decoration looks nothing like the elaborate layered swirls on the picture that is on the MAC web site. It is just a simple narrow quarter inch white frosted band that swirls around the container three times. The vial is nothing special to look at, and is a horrid design that requires it to be layed on its side. To make matters worse it is topped with a cheap black plastic rim that on my bottlw is on slightly crooked and is has deep scratches on one side. The stopper is a cheap black piece of plastic with the word MAC on it. I can't imagine actually putting perfume in it. I would be afraid that it either leak, roll of my counter or drip after being used. It is just a dreadful, dreadful, dreadful design and MAC should be ashamed of its self. Or yes, the perfume. The perfume is OK. It is heavy sweet fruity floral. The scent description MAC provides is fair ("sensual…A baroque blend of white pepper, dates, tuberose, orange flower, jasmine, precious woods, leather, vetiver and amber crystals sumptuously overlaid with the opulence of ylang ylang and orris"), but it sounds better than it is. If you like the sweet fruity florals that everyone is doing, you will like this. I like it and would wear it if someone gifted me with it, but I don't see anything to justify its price tag. I tried a dab and on me, it doesn't last very long and quickly dries down to a much softer scent that I would have expected. I certainly don't think the scent is strong enough to warrent be packaged in style of packaging that only allows for small dabs. A spray bottle would have been a better choice for this scent. Final verdict, I'm returning it. It is so not worth the bucks.
12 out of 15 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Chanel - Chance Eau Fraiche
DENF 5/6/2007 5:19:00 PM
Thank goodness this is not yet another pineapple drenched scent. I'm a big lover of fruity florals and I was very pleased to discover this original take on the theme with an upfront strong scent of lime, which is a note more commonly found in masculine scents. If you simply spray this fragrance on a tester strip and take a quick sniff, you may mistake this for an aftershave, but that impression in far from complete. On the skin, the lime begins to fade back until the drydown is complete an hour or two later where it merges with the other scents. None of the scents are distinct, but the impression is a creamy, soft floral, with fruit that is bit sweet but still mostly tart and a dab of wood in the background anchoring the scent. I don't get the chypre that other reviews have mentioned - this is worlds away from the the heavy classic chypres like the origianl Miss Dior and Este Lauder's Knowing. Actually the scent reminds me most of Incanto Charms. The scent lasts very well (about 6 hours)- I'm fine with it as an EDT, and I have the kind of skin where most scents meet a quick death. It is dry and hot as I write this (over 90!) and this is very refershing. I think this will be one of my most worn summer scents. I hope that this scent proves popular and Channel makes a lotion to go along with it. For reference other crisp fruity florals I like: Stella Sheer, Incanto Charms, Incanto Dreams, and Pleasures Exotic.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Lotions/ Creams -Christian Dior - Miss Dior Cherie Body Lotion
DENF 4/20/2007 2:08:00 PM
Miss Dior Cherie comes as both a body cream in a round tub with a screw top lid and a body lotion in a tall bottle with a flip top lid. This review is for the body lotion. This lotion smells exactly like the fragrance, lasts most of the day and is a decent moisterizer. I wear it with the perfume to intensify the scent and extend the wear. The bottle is classy looking but I wish it had a little bow to match the perfume. Also I am not thrilled with the flip top lid as it is really easy to get lotion stuck into with no way to remove it except with a q-tip. Do not confuse this with the more exspensive body cream in a screw top jar. The body cream has a nasty smell of burnt plastic.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Lotions/ Creams -Christian Dior - Miss Dior Cherie Body Cream
DENF 4/20/2007 2:00:00 PM
Miss Dior Cherie comes as both a body cream in a round tub with a screw top lid and a body lotion in a tall bottle with a flip top lid. This review is for the body cream. I was urged to purchase the cream over the lotion by the SA who explained that this product as a quarter ounce of the pure perfume which is why it is more exspensive then the lotion. She claimed it was actually a better deal because it lasts longer, is much stronger, and I won't need to use as much. She was right on of those claims except for the sad fact that the intense perfume scent is completely destroyed by a strong overpowering note of burnt plastic. I exchanged for the lotion which I much happier with. The lotion has a softer scent but it is true and quite moisterizing.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Christian Dior - Miss Dior Cherie
DENF 4/20/2007 1:48:00 PM
On me this scent is pretty true to its description. It starts out with a sweet strawberry scent with a hint of soft florals underneath. Over the first 15 minutes the strawberry becomes more candylike and sweet - I definetly get the strawberry sorbet. Over the next half hour the strawberry note fades until it is just a delicate scent hovering over the soft florals. For the next few hours this is what I smell except for an occasional whiff of carmel. I find the scent appealing and very young. I'm in my early 40's and I can't help flashing back to prom night where I wore my first formal gown and was served strawberry sorbet in those tiny cones to cleanse the palate between courses. The problem with this scent for me is that it has no bottom note to anchor it. It really needs a hint of white musk or soft wood to complete the scent and help the lasting power which is on me is only a few hours. I'm tempted to say this feels like it should be a cheap scent except this is the first strawberry based scent I'm found that smells classy. Strawberry scents are usually little girl spritzers so I'm guessing it was pretty hard to get this one to smell like something a big girl would wear. I probably won't have purchased it except it is the only scent that my husband ever said smelled nice. It has grown on me and I expect I will repurchase. I use the body lotion which smells exactly like the perfumen and really extends the wearing power. Steer clear of the ghastly and exspensive body cream. It has a very intense scent of the perfume which is destroyed by an overlay of burnt plastic.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Palettes -Bobbi Brown - Surf and Sand Shimmerwash Palette--2007
DENF 3/28/2007 3:44:00 PM
I was afraid that this palette would be horrible just like last years Sandwash palette which I ended up returning because it only produced very frost silver. Thankfully the colors in this palette perform as advertised. They provide a sheer but noticble glaze of color and are shimmery rather then frosty so you can wear blue eyeshadow without screaming blue eyeshadow. I was pleasantly surprised that when used over a base of MAC paint in untitled the colors are quite vibrant. I was able to use one of the brown colors as a soft crease color, the peach color as a highlighter and one of the blues as a lid color. I even used the darkest blue with the help of Smashbox's eyeshadow to eyeliner media converter to get a shimery light blue liner for my waterline. Now the bad side. This palette is tiny and the product amount is small. This is exactly the same size as last year's Sand palette, which is to say about half the amount of product and no brush as a typical BB eye palette. Compared to her most excellent Chocolate Palette, this is really, really exspensive ror what it is. The blues and lone green are all very similiar - you can tell the difference side by side, but the look is going to be essentilly the same, no matter which one use. The stripes are wide enough to get a brush on one color, but there will be mixing as the palette get's used. It is very pretty and I expect to get a lot of use out of it, so I will be keeping it. I wear the second lightest neurtral to cool foundation and have shadowed lids. I won't be surprised if these colors don't read all that well on darker then medium skins or on very pale gals. I expect very mixed reactions to this product.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Juicy Couture - Fragrance
DENF 3/25/2007 3:59:00 PM
I love fruity florals and this is fast becoming my favorit scent. On me this is very light on the fruit with a hint of sweetness and mostly floral. I smell a bit of the watermelon, but mostly the tuberose, softened by a bit of the rose and vanila and a mellow almost burnt woody scent that must be the creme brule and wood that makes me think of it as powdery. It smells completely different on me than it did in a magazine insert where it was a generic sickingly sweet scent. The drydown on this is gone almost instantly where the initial burst of candy sweetness changes into the softer powdery floral scent it will remain until it fades away hours later. The first time I tested it, I thought it was nice but too straightforward and simple to justify the price tag. But there was something about it that kept drawing me to test it again and again, until I finely caved and purchased the gift set with the old fashioned tasseled atomizer bulb and a half size of the Royal Body Crème. (By the way the Body Creme is excellent, a tiny bit goes a long way in the scent and moisterizing department. I don't recommend the body lotion which smelled off.) The atomizer only disperses a tiny amount which is nice as this is a strong scent that is easy to overdo even on someone like me who often has scents fade in minutes. I don't think this smells like anything eles out there. I have dozens of scents, many of which I don't feel up to on most days, but this is one I find myself constantly feeling in the mood for Juicy. For reference, my most worn fragrance is Pleasures Exotic a fruity floral with a tart pineapple edge. Other fruity florals I wear are Betsey Johnson, Miss Dior Cherie, and Incanto Charms, all of which I would describe as sweeter than Juicy. I'm in my early 40's and don't own or desire any Juicy apparel or accessories.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Powders -MAC - MAC Sheer Mystery Powder
DENF 2/7/2007 8:29:00 PM
When I first saw the price tag on this powder, I though no way. The SA insisted I try it and expecting the worst because my skin was already dry and powdery looking, I reluctantly dusting some on. I was amazed. My skin looked even and the powedery look disappeared. When I learned that this comes with a a refill, I decided it was a great price for an amazing powder. I have worn it every day as my setting powder since I purchased it and it aways makes me look better. I have also worn it on its own over moisterizer when I'm rushing out without other makeup and it does a decent job of evening out my skin. Yes, the case is very classy looking and very heavy, and I don't carry it around, but luckly I don't require touchups with this powder. The only bad thing is that darker skin tones won't be able to use it as the medium is quite light. I am currently between NW 20/25 in coloring but more neutral and Medium was a perfect match. I love this powder and hope MAC brings it back.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No
Fragrances -Thierry Mugler - Angel Garden of Stars Rose
DENF 1/15/2007 9:38:00 PM
I love rose scents and sweet scents, both of which work well with my body chemistry. This scent smelled lovely on the testing strip, a sweet scent with a soft rose overlay. On my skin, though, it quickly morphed into the scent of bubble gum. Even the sales person commented, wow, that is sweet on you. On the plus side, it lasts a long time. After a couple of hours it faded into a florally soapy kind of smell, but still smelled vaguly like bubble gum. This is one you really have to try before you decide.
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No