Fables in Fashion

I know that Clinique’s High Impact Mascara is a highly talked about mascara in general, I received this tube at a not so recent event thrown by Clinique for bloggers where we learnt that High Impact was actually their best selling mascara! I was definitely keen to see how this would fare, mascara and eyeliner are the two pieces of makeup I try my best to always wear to work

Generally speaking this is a great mascara, I like the length of the wand and the thickness of the brush, very easy to use. The application whilst great, isn’t something I’d consider a HG. I need about two coats to get the usual fullness I aim for, which honestly is probably a little thicker and clumpier than the average person.

All in all, it’s definitely an above average mascara. I don’t however think it’s an overly unique one. This would really suit people with already healthy lush lashes wanting just to amp them up a bit more. These retail for $38AU / $15US online or at David Jones & Myer.

Another late collection, that would be OPI’s Muppet collection. I used to live on the Muppets as a kid, I had all their tapes, watched them addictively on TV. They, along with Young Talent Time and Sesame Street were my life! That’s part of the reason I felt it necessary to review the entire collection. I’ve had this sitting on my desk for the longest time ever, and am only just getting around to swatching them now! Too many collections and also I’ve been putting off anything with glitter in them :3 It’s a pain to remove!

It’s hard to really give a general overall comment on a collection this large, but you can be the judge based on the swatches and I’ll do my best to find the closest possible dupe All swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

Animal-istic

A pinky red shade with bright red shimmers, Zoya’s Kamilah is a slightly pinker version of this.

Designer de Better

A frosty white shimmery polish with red shimmers, reminds me of snow for some reason

Divine Swine

Pink glitters with large chunky silver flecks, totally Miss Piggy inspired!

Excuse Moi

Silver and pink glitters with chunky silver flecks, I’m wearing this on my toes right now

Fresh Frog of Bel Air

Forest green glitters with chunky silver flecks, such a great partner to Divine Swine ;D

Gettin Miss Piggy With It

Red glitters with red and silver chunky flecks, pretty terrible on it’s own. Definitely should have tried this with a solid polish underneath

Gone Gonzo

Blue glitters with large silver flecks, really love this one for some reason. Especially on it’s own! Reminds me of Winter~

Meep Meep Meep

A darker hot pink polish with lots of magenta glitters, as you can tell the finish isn’t that smooth I found OPI’s The One That Got Away to be a less opaque version or OPI’s Let Me Entertain You to be a lighter and less opaque version.

Pepe’s Purple Passion

A deep maroon / chocolate shade with dark red shimmers. Somehow I don’t think the execution of this was very good because the shimmers or perhaps glitters made the finish gritty I found OPI’s Velvet Voyeur and China Glaze’s Velvet Bow to be similar dupes.

Rainbow Connection

Quite literally a multi-colour array of glitters and flecks, I don’t think I’d want to layer this over any other solid colours, I think this would look amazing if there were more glitters in general, so maybe a few more coats?

Warm and Fozzie

Brown chocolate polish with warm gold flecks, I really do love this because it does remind me of Fozzie Bear, who was one of my favourite characters from the Muppets Show Some how completely relatable!

Wocka Wocka

A maroon almost crème shade with the finest micro shimmers, China Glaze’s City Siren is a fully crème version of this.

Catching up with the Holiday 2011 collections, introducing you to Bobbi Brown’s Party Shimmer Brick. I already own one of their “normal” shimmer bricks in a pink shade, so I was curious to know how this would fare.

The product comes with two distinct sides, a strong gold shimmer and a more white silver shimmer.

However when both sides are swatches separately I can tell that the silver side actually is tinged with gold, and isn’t a “true” silver or white… maybe we can just call it white gold ;D

Blended together, you get a much more yellow based highlighter. I used this product on my cheekbones, but as with all highlighters you can use it anywhere else you want to reflect light from e.g. inner corner of your eyes, brow bone etc.

General comments I have to say about this product is that the texture is very smooth, not velvety butter smooth, but close. The amount of shimmer this product gives off is pretty strong, so be sure to go light if you only want a “dewy” finish. But not surprisingly this works great for parties or clubbing

I purchased this product for $40US online, I’m not sure if it is still available at counters, but it’s worth a shot if you’re in the market for a new highlighter. This retails for $85AU in Australia… yeah :/

You guys remember a while back when I attended the opening night for Topshop I mentioned I picked up a few items? Well makeup was one of them… of course! What sort of beauty blogger do you take me for?

But I was good and only grabbed two, that’s two lipsticks only. I didn’t get any other beauty related products because I know I am swimming in them at home. See? I have self control… of some sort…. Anyways!

The two shades I grabbed were Confession, a watermelon pink / red shade and Nevada, a nude beige shade.

The packaging calls these two “Velvet Finish Moisturising Lipstick”, and I can attest to the moisturising element, These apply very creamy and feel lovely on the lipsticks. The formula smells sweet, which in the book of Celina, means I like them! I’m such a sucker for anything sweet

I can’t say these last a full day however, naturally Confession out lasted Nevada by a long shot, especially if I blot them before hand. Though lipstick tends to wear off faster for me given how I do love to graze during the day

I can’t decide which shade I prefer, but I know that I would be very comfortable using Nevada at work and Confession for a day or night out

Each lipstick is $15AU, which isn’t too bad given I would honestly say these are comparable to MAC lipsticks, especially their more creamy lines. I think last I saw there were about 20 or so colours? Perhaps a bit less, but I would definitely recommend you take a look at these

Get ready for another dose of glitter! I actually have a couple more Christmas collections left I want to get through, in retrospect I think I have more than enough glitter to last me a life time and honestly can’t see myself wanting to add anymore to my collection. That said, hope you enjoy the swatches. I’ve been wearing Candy Cane on my toes for about a week now and it has done me proud Though I find most polishes lash much longer on my toes than hands!

Generally speaking I’d consider the entire collection to be mostly chunky. The finish is not smooth, and even with top coat, you can feel the bumps on the surface. Personally not a collection I’m particularly fond of, but at least the swatches are pretty!

As always 2 coats and no top coat!

Beyond the Mistletoe

A silver and icy blue glitter shade, and the namesake of this collection. I reckon this would be great on either blue or white polish. OPI’s Simmer & Shimmer was a pretty close match to this, only with more purple to it.

Candy Cane

An electric light pink glitter shade, the shade currently on my toes, which I really do love. Not sure I could handle this on my hands, but it works fantastically on my toes.

Gingerbread

A light gold glitter with some hologram, would look amazing on top of some opaque polishes, perhaps another solid gold shade. If you’re looking for a dupe, OPI’s Bring on the Bling is a more pigmented version.

Holiday Splendor

Silver glitter mixed in with a turquoise shade, the only polish from this collection with an opaque formula.

Jingle Jangle

One of my favourite shades from the collection, a mixture of dusty blue and lavender glitter. Very unique

Sugarplum Fairy

A hologram silver shade, in real life it has a slight blue ting to it. Beautiful and wearable shade for parties or evenings out.

I’m slowly working my way through Chanel’s Holiday 2011 collection, you’ll have to forgive me as I’ve been pretty slack with going through a bunch of holiday 2011 related products, which means January may be filled with them. Which may not be such a bad thing, as most of the holiday collections are now slowly going on sale to make way for Spring 2012 So if I review something you like, you might be able to grab it for a lower price! *am wishing the same could have been said for me….*

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this particular lipstick, for one I really love the colour. It’s very wearable and it’s convinced me that I need to invest in more similar colours, as I tend to always go for nude beige shades (Estee Lauder’s Nude Almond is my current go to lipstick), but now I’m thinking I may need to switch to more Rosey Pink shades.

But aside from the colour (which actually contains tiny red / hot pink micro shimmers), I think the lipstick itself is pretty average. It isn’t terribly moisturising nor creamy (which are two big personal musts for me). However because of it’s stickier / drier nature it did last on the lips longer than most of my other lipsticks. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a drying lipstick at all, it’s just not as moisturising as say the Coco Shine lipsticks… but I would recommend using a lip balm before applying this lipstick if you want to ensure your lips don’t dry out.

The package is kinda cute, it has this push down / pop up feature. It doesn’t improve usability, nor does it make it any more difficult. It’s just a nice twist to the usual I purchased this lipstick for $32US from Neimus Marcus via a mail forwarding service

First real beauty post for the year! ORLY’s Bling in the New Year, hehe how cute~ This is a pretty simple collection, just three bottles. As always, 2 coats and no top coat.

Prima Gloss Gold

Fine gold glitters, this is clearly a great top coat. Though I kinda like using it as a stand alone polish as well as to add a bit of subtle glitter to my nails. Often I don’t wear polish day to day (because chipping drives me insane), but if I wanted a bit of extra lift, I could see myself using this alone.

Prima Gloss Silver

Fine silver glitters, exactly the same as Prima Gloss Gold only in Silver!

Rage

The only opaque polish of the collection, a metallic rusty light pink shade? Unfortunately you can clearly see the streak marks on my nails, but besides that it is a great blingy polish