Today’s post is all about Laura Mercier, namely a selection of products from their Lingerie Collection for Spring 2012. Probably super late to the party since their Summer 2012 collection is already out! Eep!

One thing I do love about Laura Mercier and many of the other brands who release collections is how manageable the sizes are. Over the last few years I’ve personally gotten a bit sick over the sheer amount of product MAC seems to love to throw out. Don’t get me wrong, I still love MAC but the sheer level of products leaves me feeling slightly overwhelmed to the point where I just can’t be bothered even checking it out anymore. *sad face*

When I look at this collection I think “fresh”, a lot of lovely neutral shades with pops of pink and orange! The palette from this collection is something I am contemplating bringing with me on my overseas trip later this year (yes I plan these things out far too in advanced, I clearly need a life of some kind)

Eye and Cheek Palette

Palettes, especially those with eye shadows or powdered products are definitely my thing. (Believe it or not, I am not at all a fan of cream / lip palettes). This palette is wonderfully versatile, there is a very equal split of matte and shimmer finishes for the eye shadows. All the eye shadows are neutral so perfect for everyday, but the deeper shadows are pigmented enough to achieve sultry smokey eyes.

The cheek colours like the eye shadows are great for a range of different skin tones and as you can see from the swatches below, are not the most pigmented which actually in my world means I can be a little more lazy with my application!

The one thing that does bug me about having cheek colours in the same palette as eye shadows (even more so if the palette contains cream products) is that every time you dip your brush into the blush to pick up some product, you inevitable will always kick up some of the powder into the eye shadows. Which can contaminate them. Not too bad for powdered eye shadows because you can just wipe / blow it off without much dramas, but imagine cream products!

I think you might still be able to get this product locally in Australia as I remember seeing it at David Jones just the other day. Unfortunately I don’t know the Australian price (I purchased it overseas), but I know goes for $60US, so it’s likely around 30-40% more expensive and in Australian dollars.

Lip Shine

I have always been a huge fan of MAC’s Tendertones and use the two that I do have sparingly because I knew that MAC discontinued the range. So I had heard that Laura Mercier’s Lip Shines were very comparable, and I can say that the two products are pretty close. Not absolutely the same, but similar. The smell being the biggest difference, MAC Tendertones have a very fruity scent but Laura Mercier’s Lip Shines don’t have any scent at all.

The product gives a sheer coat of colour, does provide some level of moisture (but not as much as a traditional lip balm), and leaves your lips with a beautiful pearlescent gloss finish.

It does suck that these are only available in pot form. I’m in two minds about this, I hate how unhygienic it is, and I hate that it gets my fingers waxy if I’m using it on the go. But I just think that pot packaging is just so much cuter!

Also likely these are still available in Australia, but no clue for how much. These go for $22US in America, so bump that up a fair bit.

Long time no blog? Or rather, I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve written a real post, minus a chapter from my Book of Fables. I’m going to blame work and a higher than average amount of social activities that have crept up. My goal has always been to blog every day if I can, which I think I managed to do quite well for a few months straight. I guess I just need a better organisational system, one unscheduled late evening out with friends and I feel like my entire blogging schedule gets thrown off!

Anyways, enough whinging, I want to show you a few products from the Lunasol Spring 2012 collection Probably one of my favourite collections so far because I feel I may have actually found my new almost HG brow product!

Petal Pure Eyes – 03 Soft Beige

I picked out this particular palette because the shades were highly wearable (just what I need, another wearable nude / neutral eye shadow palette…). The pigmentation for this palette is pretty amazing, didn’t experience any issues what so ever. Was able to apply the shadows both with my brushes and fingers easily.

The design is truly gorgeous, even though I cringe at the idea of using beautiful designs such as the white rose above. All the shades are of a shimmery to satin nature, minus the top left hand shade which is clearly a purely shimmer shade that can be either worn alone as a highlighter to overlayed a more solid colour. It reflects pink under the light. None of these shadows contain any glitter and all apply buttery smooth.

Brow Styling Pencil Oval – Grayish Brown

The highlight product of this collection for me! (even though I actually love all the products here). I find it incredibly difficult to find natural brow products I can use. Day to day I don’t fill in my brows as they are naturally very strong, but if I’m going out to say a wedding or particular event I like to be able to fill in my brows just a touch. The problem is my brows are not brown (not even dark brown), which is the case for most brow kits. My brows are far more ashy, almost black / gray. As a result I end up lightly using black powder, which quite a number of my readers have already slapped me on the wrist for.

Introducing this brow pencil, a perfect mix of gray and brown tones mixed together to create a lovely shade for my own natural brows. I won’t go as far to say that the colour is seamless to my own brows, as you can clearly see in the photo below. But if I didn’t point that fact out, you can see how natural my brows actually look. Almost like I didn’t fill them in, which is exactly what I want in a brow kit. For now, this is as close to perfect as I can get (and I’ve been searching for a long time), so I’m truly in love with this pencil!

Full Glamour Lips G – 42 Light Pink

Lucky last, a light moisturising pink lipstick! My favourite kind. I find that the Lunasol lip products are quite similar to SUQQU’s lipsticks. Probably not as moisturising and creamy, but extremely close.

As you can see in the swatch, the colour is very sheer. I’d almost compare it to a balm to be honest, but this shade is incredibly work friendly and wearable, which is my favourite kind of lip product. It feels great on the lipsticks, not at all drying, but unfortunately lasting power isn’t the best. I found it lasted around 2 hours tops? It’s a small price to pay for a moisturising creamy lipstick in my books. But if you’re looking for lipsticks high in pigmentation, I’d look else where.

To me brands like Lunasol, SUQQU, Bobbi Brown are more about natural looks, enhancing what you already have rather than covering it up, or emulating a different look all together, hence why most of their products contain more neutral tones or are very sheer.

In other words, these brands are perfect for the work environment or people who are not comfortable with heavy transformations. Lunasol certainly has a place in my collection Unfortunately this collection is only available in Asia, but there are plenty of websites online who will ship to Australia.

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like Chanel has been releasing some beautiful products in their last few collections. They always have this one signature product that just looks amazing in the pan. Of course it only looks great if you don’t use it After a couple of uses the beautiful patterns usually disappear so I think that’s something that always needs to be considered when making a collection purchase. Pretty to look at, but keep in mind it won’t always look the same after a while.

Blush Horizon de Chanel

That aside, here are a few products from the Chanel Spring line that caught my eye. First up is the signature product, the blush. It comes with a mixture of different shades of pinks, that swatch or applies as a soft baby pink shade. The pigmentation is average to slightly about average which is actually what I want in my blush products. I don’t like using blushes that are too pigmented at first swatch, I prefer them to be buildable because I find the application to be so unforgiving if I apply too much in the first go.

It gives a gorgeous soft pop of colour to the cheeks. I wouldn’t call it a show stopper, it’s one of those shades that just compliments you. It doesn’t stand out or draw any extra attention; subtle blushes are my favourite kind.

Les 4 Ombres – 34 Eclosion

Next is this eye shadow palette, which contains four neutral pink shades. You have a semi-matte dark brown, a warm honey gold shimmer shade, a light shimmery tan shade great for highlighting and finally a soft pink shimmer shade for that bit of colour to the eyes.

The palette kind of reminds me of Prelude, which was released late last year. Mostly because the two are relatively neutral and wearable for everyday. However I found Prelude contains far more mattes and generally has deeper neutral shades, where as Eclosion is contains softer shades with more shimmer. Either way I love both The pigmentation is great for everyday wear, but not for say a Book of Fables chapter.

The type of makeup I use for my Book of Fable chapters and makeup I use everyday is very different in both quality, pigmentation, texture etc. I should probably do a post on this instead of breaking out into a mini ramble though huh, hehe.

Rouge Coco Shine

Ah, Rouge Coco Shines, my favourite lipsticks from the Chanel line. I was never a big lipstick fan until I discovered these last year because they are so soft, creamy and moisturising.

The two shades I picked up were Flirt and Canduer. Out of the two, Flirt is far more pigmented, it almost looks like an orange shade under some lights, but really it’s more a coral shade that appears pink when worn. Canduer on the other hand appears like a wearable soft pink shade in the tube, but it barely has any pigmentation when swatched and worn. It’s incredibly sheer, so if I were recommend one I’d probably have to recommend Flirt, even though I personally love Canduer just as much!

Using the blush, Eclosion and Candeur.

Using the blush, Eclosion and Flirt.

The lipsticks set me back $32US each, the eye shadow was $58US and I forget how much the blush is But I know it wasn’t cheap I must truly be an addict because despite enjoying the Spring 2012 collection, I’m already super keen to get my hands on the upcoming Vegas collection!

I’ve already reviewed the Arabian Trio Eye shadow from the same collection a while back. Since then I’ve decided that if I do buy several products from the same collection that I’m just going to lump them all into one post. Saves me time and hopefully makes it more interesting for you guys

Aside from the Arabian Trio Eye shadow, I also managed to snag the lipstick in Joyous Red and the lip gloss in Albatross. Honestly I probably didn’t need the lipstick, but I had to have the gloss. I love the powder version of Albatross, which is a beautiful shimmery highlighter with yellow / gold undertones.

Generally I am a fan of NARS’ Lip Glosses, they aren’t what I’d call the perfect lip gloss because they do tend to run a tad sticky, but generally I love them They have no offensive smells and apply beautifully.

However I am not a fan of this lipstick, and you can tell from the photo that it is a pretty matte lipstick. Which was disappointing since NARS actually have a range of lipsticks specifically dedicate to matte finishes, so I wasn’t sure why this particular lipstick that doesn’t state matte anywhere on it had to be matte as well :/

To be honest though, despite appearances the texture over time didn’t feel drying. It certainly wasn’t moisturising, but it didn’t cause my lips to crack or chap either. None the less, I think unless I manage to swatch the lipstick at a counter before hand (which almost never happens given how far away I work from makeup counters now *sad face*) or read some raving review, I will probably be avoiding NARS Lipsticks.

For me, I love NARS for almost everything else in their range, but their lipsticks constantly seem to disappoint me