Chanel Rouge Coco Stylo Message, Script, and Roman

I was all over half of Chanel's recently-released collection in my series of posts in which I detailed all of Chanel's new nail releases. What I failed to talk about was the new lip formula- the Chanel Rouge Coco Stylo.Why?

I wanted to really wait and test out a few shades before giving my impressions. I have played with three shades- Message, Script, and Roman.

First, I'll start with Message, the shade I tested at the counter. Here's a photo that I posted at the bottom of one of my nail posts:

This is the shade that is in all of the promo photos. Message is a lovely berry, but I was severely disappointed with the wear-time. That left me determined to try several other shades.

Enter Script.

Script is a rosy brown nude, otherwise known as a color you wouldn't think that I would pick up.

One of the reasons why I picked this shade is because I can always use another wearable nude. It works well on my pigmented lips and calmed down a few crazier makeup days (Example 1: MAC Grain e/s to eye, Tom Ford Crushed Indigo duo (left) inner eye area highlight, MAC Creme de Violet in crease, MAC Tilt on lid (inner 1/3), MAC Silver Ring on lid (outer 2/3), MAC Knight Divine (outer edges, blended as transition).)

What I found is that although it pulled a little warm nude for my tastes, it kept ending up in my makeup bag. And the more that I played with it over the course of several weeks, the more I liked the formula.

Here's Script on my lips:

A pretty nude, right?

Now that we've got that covered, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the Chanel Rouge Coco Stylo as a product and its packaging.

We've seen click lipsticks like this before, right? Oh, that's right. I reviewed a similar product from Dior on the blog about 2 years ago.

Here's a side by side to show the size difference between a Chanel Rouge Coco Stylo, a Chanel Stylo Yeux eyeshadow, and a Dior Serum de Rouge.

One thing that I think that the Rouge Coco Stylo does the best is that the color, its name, number, and a reasonable representation of the lip color are at the bottom of the packaging. It makes it so easy to distinguish between shades if you have more than one. A+ on that.

Now, on to Roman.

Roman is the antithesis to low-key Script, so I had to have it.

Roman is a warm-toned raspberry pink that screams hot juiciness.  I love it. It's the type of color I normally gravitate towards.

I love that this shade fades gracefully, leaving a pleasant stain afterwards. I'm not sure if the wear time really is slightly less than Script, or if it's because Script is closer to a natural lip tone than Roman.

Here's a hand swatch of both together:

Between these two, I have a great range of lip colors covered.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a hydrating, balm-like lipstick with good coverage, check out this new offering from Chanel. I found that using a transparent lipliner helped a lot with such a emollient formula. Chanel has curated a great collection- there's everything from the rosy nude to the hottest raspberry pink. Originally, I was hesitant about the collection. Now, I'm a convert.

Deborah Lippmann Sweets for my Sweet Set

While browsing recently at Nordstrom, I stumbled upon this newly-released set of six pastel Deborah Lippmann minis.  The Sweets for my Sweet nail set retails for $34.

I love that the box screams the Pantone colors of the year. So far this is the best presentation that I've seen.  While not the most creative set in concept, this set delivers in terms of formula and overall performance. I have tried quite a few pastel polishes over time and was blown away by these. Please forgive the rather short reviews, but really... these are colors we've seen before. They're just packaged in a cute set at a fabulous price and come in one of the better formulas I've seen.

Sugar Sugar is the light apricot shade of the group. I'm normally a bit hesitant about these shades against my NW15 skin.

Formula is outstanding. There's only 2 coats on my nails here, and it looks surprisingly awesome. I'll be coming back to this shade as spring actually shows up around here.

Lemon Drop is a cool-leaning yellow creme.  Again, formula is outstanding. If we're talking shades that make me cringe, yellow nails are at the top. With such pronounced pink undertones, I normally cannot do yellow. It makes me look sick.

Hmm, look at that. Deborah Lippmann may have found my perfect pastel yellow! I'm not sure if I'd try this for the office, but it'd be a cute weekend mani- or part of nail art. A shocking success, and 3 coats on my nails in this photo. You may have noticed that cleanup was more than a little problematic though....

Sweet Pea is the light green shade in the set. It's got more yellow in it than most of the mints that we've seen as of yet, but it's not as yellow as something like Essie My Prerogative. Deborah Lippmann does greens well- see Flowers in Her Hair (which is far more blue and darker).

Like the others, it's a great formula. There are 3 thin coats on my nails here, and I love the result.

My Boy Lollipop is the light blue that's close to the Pantone Color of the Year. One of my favorite light blues is Deborah Lippmann Let's Hear it for the Boy, so I had high expectations. Luckily, My Boy Lollipop delivered.

Two coats here on my nails- wow!  This one performed like a dream and also had the same great formula. So far, we're 4/4 in this set. At this point, I'd call it a winner.

All Day Sucker is the shade that I wanted to put on my nails first. You all know that I'm a true sucker (pun intended) for purple nail polishes, preferably of the pastel variety. I have at least 3 other Deborah Lippmann pastel purples/lilacs/violets, so I had a high bar set for All Day Sucker.

I have mixed feelings. I love the color, the formula was awesome, and there are three thin coats on my nails here. You'd think I'd be in heaven, right?  Tell me if I'm crazy, but I'm not thrilled with how it clashes with my skintone. Am I seeing things?

Candy Girl is the light pink of the group. Even though I hadn't had any problems with formula until now, I was holding my breath since light pinks tend to be problematic. Turns out, I was crazy.

Three coats of an awesome formula on my nails here. Deborah Lippmann nailed the COTY here.


Bottom Line: This is an awesome mini nail polish set. I really recommend this for yourself or as a springtime gift. It's not often that you can get 6 seasonal shades of high-performing nail polishes for $34. Just do it, you won't regret it.

Charlotte Tilbury The Uptown Girl Luxury Palette

When I rebooted this blog, I happened to mention a wish for featuring not just the newest of new releases. From time to time, I'm late to a beauty party and miss out on an incredible permanent collection item.

The Charlotte Tilbury Uptown Girl Luxury Palette Colour-Coded Eyeshadow Palette is one of those. I always swore that I didn't want to splurge on this line without a local counter. Luckily, one of my local Nordstrom did get a counter! After playing with the testers, I completely fell in love with one of the four shades in The Uptown Girl and knew it would be my first palette foray into the brand (if you recall, I did buy a lipstick and a lipliner (which I adore) from the line when it first launched in the US). I stayed true to my convictions and didn't purchase any additional items until I could see them in person.  (By the way, I feel the same way about Gucci Beauty. Give me even a mini kiosk at a local Gucci boutique and I'm in.)

I'll be honest- as much as I love this item, I'm not sure if I'll be purchasing more after dealing with the staff at my local counter. I hope it was merely over-exuberance from the grand opening, but I was left with an extremely negative impression of how the brand postures itself. The product's wonderful, but I felt bullied because I wanted to only purchase the quad and not one of the $200 plus full face kits. Especially when I already own some of the items in the kit that goes with this quad! I was told by the SA that it was "not being true to Charlotte's vision" and "not correct" to just buy the quad and that "I didn't get the brand" if I didn't plunk down $200 plus and purchase repeats. That's one of the reasons why I've held off on this review for so long. Makeup is about self-expression, not bullying consumers and demanding products be used only a certain way as not to "offend" the brand's creator.

As I said, I hope that this practice has stopped at my local counter. I've not been back since.

But let's talk about this incredible palette today instead of dwelling on my counter experience.

The Luxury Palettes are designed to produce a signature look. Each contain 4 types of shades:
1 (Upper Left): Prime
2 (Upper Right): Enhance
3 (Lower Right): Smoke
4 (Lower Left): Pop

For daytime, one generally places Prime all over the eye, and uses Enhance as a deepening shade. Depending on your preferences, place a little bit of Smoke just for daytime Smoky eye. For nighttime, deepen with Smoke, and place a little Pop for some shine.

That's the "true to Charlotte's vision" way to use this quad. I wanted to make sure that I mentioned it.

Let's look at Uptown Girl closely.

Note: this is swatched 1,2,4,3

Uptown Girl #1 (Prime): An amazing golden-beige shimmer that produces an incredibly natural sheen on my NW15 skin. I love this for an all-over highlighting shade, not as a base for everything else (I use primers for that).

Uptown Girl #2 (Enhance): This is the shade that I fell in love with at first swatch, and why I bought the palette in the first place. It's a shimmery complex grey-taupe that's flattering on just about everyone and is literally the perfect lid color for an understated look on me. If I could only wear one lid color for the rest of my life, this would be a finalist in that tough decision. 

Uptown Girl #3 (Smoke): A purple-grey shimmer that reminds me a lot of a slightly darker version of the Armani Organica palette from fall a couple of years ago (and one of my all-time favorites. Hey, Prime actually reminds me of the lighter shade from that palette, too!).

Uptown Girl #4 (Pop): A rose gold glitter. This is close in consistency to the original glitter shades in Tom Ford quads. I'll pop this in the center of my lid on occasion, but glitters aren't a daily go-to in the office for me. Spray your brush with MAC Fix+ for best performance.

Overall, this is an awesome quad. Texture of these shadows is awesome- very buttery and blendable.  This quad has found its way into my weekly rotation- I wear it at least once a week.  Here's an example:

Bottom line: Looking past the marketing, this quad does it all right. The Uptown Girl is an awesome neutrals-with-a-twist quad that's found its way into my most-used items because it simply performs. It's worth checking out.

Dior Vernis Cruise 676 for Spring 2016

Oops, they did it again.

Dior is once again re-formulating and re-launching their Dior Addict glosses for Spring 2016. And as a part of the re-launch, they're releasing a mini collection of nail polishes that correspond to some of the star glosses of the collection.

Stop me if you've heard this before.

No really... what was it, Spring 2013, when they re-did the Dior Addict glosses this past time?

There are three nail polishes with this mini collection: Cosmic, a coral with subdued glitter (aka I'm not sure how much it would translate to the nail), Ultradior (which almost looked like a milky coral jelly), and Cruise.I found them at the local Nordstrom, although testers weren't available.

Sorry about the somewhat crushed box.

Cruise is a glittery, incredibly girly light pink. It reminds me of something. Oh, wait- I remember. Dior Princess. Don't worry, I'll be comparing them later in this post. Instead of jumping to the comparison, I'd like to spend a few moments talking about this color.

I would've loved to have brought you the matching gloss, which was available (although lurking in the display, no special collection display for the glosses for some reason). There's only one heartbreaking reason why I won't be reviewing it- or any other Dior gloss ever again.  Dior has reformulated all of their Addict glosses to be plumping. If you have sensitive lips that can't handle plumping products, no more Dior Addict glosses for you, some of the best on the market.  I pray that they reconsider this idiotic decision. The woman at the counter said that they were told at training "Everyone will be thrilled that these are plumping!.

NO, DIOR, NOT EVERYONE WANTS OR CAN PHYSICALLY USE PLUMPING GLOSSES.

So, back to Cruise now that I'm done ranting. It's Princess's cousin. Although it's cooler and brighter, it somehow seems daintier on my hands?

Just look at Cruise on the nail- lovely!

I don't have a wear report for you since I'm honestly in the middle of swatching a basket full of polishes. It's your standard Dior Gel Vernis- normal wear times for that formula will apply.


Here's comparison #1: To Dior Princess.

I decided to actually use my fingers as a live swatch wheel to pull out the undertone differences. I've got Princess on my pointer and ring fingers (otherwise known as the shorter 2 nails) and Cruise on my middle and pinky fingers (with the longer nails).

Pretty clear now, right?

Comparison #2: Here's a fun nail wheel with some girly light pinks. I can' t find a dupe outside of Princess for the glitter that Cruise has.

I purchased Cruise at my local Nordstrom, but had to ask about the new shades since there wasn't a special display for the reformulated glosses available. It's available online via Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

Bottom Line: if you're as much of a sucker for a light, glittery, super girly pink as I am, Cruise is your shade out of the new Dior trio released with the new glosses.

February 2016 Favorites and Empties

I'm much more on top of things when it comes to favorites/empties this month. There's a simple explanation for that: I wrote this post throughout February and updated as I noticed I was reaching for items over and over- or finished products. All I had to do at the end of the month was update, photograph, and be done.

First, my favorites. I've linked reviews when they exist.

Face:

I stumbled onto an easy combo this month that I wore most days. MAC Pro Longwear Nourishing Foundation is by far the best CCO purchase I've ever made. Sephora Collection Bright Future Gel Concealer in Bavarian Cream has actually surpassed my love for NARS Creamy Concealer for undereye brightening. It's less than half the price! I also rediscovered how awesome MAC Pro Longwear Concealer is.

In terms of blush, I got lazy. Although I tried a number of blushes for the blog this month, on days when I wasn't actively testing I had a couple of go-tos. MAC x Ellie Goulding I'll Catch My Breath makes its second consecutive appearance here and is my workhorse for warmer makeup days. Is there any wonder why I have 2 backups squirreled away? I also fell in love with MAC Pink Swoon for the days when I wanted a cooler makeup look. NARS Impassioned also stole my heart.

I'm a highlighter addict. A year ago, I didn't consider highlighter necessary for daily makeup. Now I feel naked without it.  MAC Lustre Drops in Pink Rebel and Chanel Perles et Fantaisies were in heavy rotation this month. I also cannot be without my two Becca Shimmering Skin Perfector Spotlight Light and Lit Travel Pens- Moonstone and Pearl. I'm on the hunt for a way to DIY these once these pens are finished. They're perfect for tiny, finishing work- especially in the larger eye area (note: don't put these on your eye, but they're perfect for just under the brow or to illuminate the inner eye area). Diorkin Nude Air Glowing Gardens Highlighter in Glowing Pink also made it into my top list of highlighters. Yes, lots of pink and white.


Eyes:

My hands were literally forced on this first one. Since Burberry discontinued my beloved Trench, I've been looking for a suitable replacement for when I finish my 6 backups. MAC Eyeshadow in Grain is just that. Now, I hope that they don't discontinue it. I played around with a few distinct looks this month. First, the warm, bronzy favorites. MAC x Ellie Goulding Halycon Nights makes another appearance, but this time paired with MAC Foiled Eyeshadow in Enchanted Forest. Those pair with Sephora Collection Wink-It Liquid Liners.

I also became smitten with NARS Hammamet duo after an auspicious start and it became my go-to neutral eye, alternated with Charlotte Tilbury The Uptown Girl Luxury Palette. Lastly, MAC eyeshadow x 9 in Flamingo Park was my go-to for a springy, pastel eye, alternated with Chanel Tisse Rhapsodie and Marc Jacobs Highliner in (Luna)tic.

Lips:

I'd originally planned to review this on the blog, but Tatcha Lipstick in Sunrise: A Plum Blossom arrived just as it sold out on the website. It's amazing. Given my hesitancy to review sold out products, I shelved that review. Christian Louboutin Bikini remains one of my favorites (I promise a full review later), along with MAC Petite Indulgence and MAC Speed Dial. MAC Hot Tahiti also snuck back into my lip rotation for those darker lip days this month. MAC Huggable Glass in Mega Hug also crept into my makeup bag more than 25% of this month. Lastly, I carried around and tried out Chanel Rouge Coco Stylo Script. It's a lovely neutral.


Nails:

No surprise here, but Chanel Longwear Vernis in Ballerina takes top billing here, along with Chanel Le Gel Coat and Chanel Longwear Vernis in Rouge Essentiel. Although I haven't featured it on the blog, Essie Madison Ave-hue was another favorite along with Lancome Ciel de Parisien.



Yes, I had a lot of favorites, but I also love showing products that I haven't gotten to review on the blog to you if they're truly in my rotation.

Now, onto the empties.

Body Products:

First, I finished that bit of shower gel visible before the end of the month!  Here we have Bath and Body Works Body Lotion & Shower Gel in Cozy Sunday Morning, Bath and Body Works Shower Gel in Fresh Sparkling Snow, and my absolute winter staple, the mega-sized refill of L'Occitane Almond Shower Oil. No surprises here.

Hair Care:

Pretty mild this month- just lots of Living Proof. Living Proof Restore Shampoo & Conditioner are staples in my routine (I've upgraded to the large size of the conditioner and will do so with the shampoo once I run out). I also like to boost my hair in the winter with Living Proof Restore Mask Treatment.

Skincare:

I've been cleansing a lot lately! Philosophy Purity Cleansing Wipes are something I keep around a lot. Shiseido Eye & Lip Makeup Remover was a new-to-me product that I got in a GWP. I have multiple backups of Simple Micilier Water in my backup drawer. This is the first Ole Henrichsen African Red Tea Foaming Cleanser that I've finished- it took almost a year. A GWP-sized Shisiedo Benefiance Creamy Cleanser also was finished up- something I've finished over and over. I also finished my second Tatcha Cleansing Oil.

The cleansing continued with Chanel Mousse Douceur cleanser. That's my second one that I've finished in less than 12 months. I also finished another Shiseido Facial Cotton and 2 packages of cotton rounds.

Some skincare here. I tried 2 GWP-sized Guerlain Blanc de Perle toners. I really liked them, but admittedly the price point is a little high for my tastes. There were also 2 facial oil samples here. I finally finished my Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Eye Cream- I've been using it as a treatment. I'm going to give it a month to see if I miss it.

Makeup:

Wow, a productive month this time!  I finished MAC Haute and Naughty Lash Mascara, which I raved about already. I also finished my first Sephora Collection Wink-It Liquid Eyeliner in Little Black Dress- a must-have in my opinion. I also finished my second Chanel Stylo Yeux Waterproof in Perle de Lune- I keep praying it'll come back permanently.

The empty products keep coming. Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment, an Almay gloss, Guerlain Terracotta 4 Seasons Bronzer in 00 Nude,  and Sephora Collection Bright Future Gel Serum Concealer- my new fave.

That's just insane for me! This was in about a year's time.


What did you love this month?