theNotice: a beauty blog

The product: Chloé Love, Chloé Eau de Parfum Purse Spray

I have, admittedly, been sitting on this review for quite a while – but can you blame me? There’s something just so utterly photogenic about a well-designed perfume bottle, and the purse-sized Love, Chloé is no exception.

Anyhow; I ended up being more than a little overwhelmed by the chic gold casing of this particular flacon, and the number of photos I had sitting on my computer was… a bit intimidating, to say the least.

The scent

Love, Chloé is described as “[the embodiment] of all the olfactory vocabulary of cosmetics… a fine, powdery scent, light and sensual with a flowery wake, iridescent and musky with talc and rice.” And, to be entirely honest, I don’t think it can be put any more succinctly than that.

Created by Louise Turner and Nathalie Cetto-Gracia (Givaudain), Love, Chloé features top notes of orange blossom and pink pepper; heart notes focusing on iris absolute, but adding a blend of lilac, hyacinth, wisteria blossom, and heliotropine (for its suggestion of almond and vanilla); and finally, base notes of musk, talc, and rice powder.

What I love about this scent is how effortlessly feminine it is - feminine, not the overly-powdered girlishness of so many celebrity fragrances. It’s certainly not for everyone (my sister, who hates powder notes, can’t stand this one), but I was quite surprised to feel as strongly about it as I do.

The blend of powders, florals, and musks is just so, and despite quite disliking about the original Chloé, I’ve been reaching for this one much more often than I’d anticipated.

The packaging

The Love, Chloé Purse Spray is actually a small, refillable casing about 3 1/2″ tall and 1 3/4″ wide. Its build is plastic, surprisingly, with a glossy outer finish – giving it a more expensive feel without sacrificing its lightweight nature.

The refills (10ml x3) are the usual glass-and-spray combination, and fit quite securely into the bottle. The chained lid is a good fit as well; it’s nice not to have to worry about losing the cap on the go, and it sits snugly enough that I wouldn’t worry about it coming off in my bag.

My one qualm with the entire product is the twist-off base – I changed the refill just to see how it would go, and warped the slot a bit while I was at it. The purse spray is limited edition at the moment (and I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s still on shelves), but I’d really like to see it added to the permanent Love, Chloé lineup.

In which case: it would be really nice to see the addition of a metal base, Chloé!

The bottom line

Packaging aside, I fell a bit in love with Love, Chloé this winter. It’s not my typical sort of scent (I tend to stray more toward unisex fragrances; think amber and patchouli rather than soap and citrus), but it snuck under my skin and I couldn’t (didn’t even want to) get it out.

Love, Chloé smells like something from the past; a classy, demure blend of powder and florals that would pair just as well with ’40s hair and red lips as it would with a neutral eye and a silk shift.

Availability and a couple more photos »

The product: Hello Kitty Graffiti Eyeshadow and Blush Palette

The packaging: Alright, so I’ll start with the packaging, because I’m a little love/hate about it. On one hand, I’m not twelve, I’ve never understood the Hello Kitty appeal, and I can definitively say that I dislike the graffiti-ness of the Graffiti palette*.

*Partly because I’m not big on random splashes and speckles of colour; partly because it “pays tribute to the daring artists who decorate Hello Kitty’s favorite downtown sidewalks.” I happen to disagree vehemently with the whole “defacement of public property is cool!” mentality, so.

(I  mean, don’t get me wrong – street art is very cool, but only when it’s been encouraged and/or commissioned!)

On the other hand, though, I like the solid build of the packaging, the bi-layer design, the inclusion of a mirror, and (dare I say it?) I’m even a little fond of the silver bow. Plus, each palette’s packaging is unique (compare this one to the Sephora stock image if you’re confused), which is quite cool.

The eyeshadows: On the Sephora site, the four shades are listed as a shimmery gray, a greyish teal, a soft pink, and a charcoal. Unlike a lot of product listings, I’d say those descriptions are actually spot on, which is a nice deviation from the norm!

The shimmery grey is on the sheer side, with a watery, translucent vibe and a bit of taupe hidden in the shade. The greyish teal is a breathtaking, intense, slightly desaturated teal. (Aside: I’m really liking this “greyish teal” thing — here’s to hoping we see more of it in the next few months.)

The soft pink is the sheerest shade of the four, with wearable yellow undertones and a very low likelihood of making you look like you have pink eye. Finally, the charcoal is a deliciously pigmented, easy-to-blend dark grey.

All four shades are soft, blendable, even-textured and shimmery.

Hello Kitty Graffiti Palette – eyeshadow swatches, dry on primed skin.

The blushers: I admittedly paid less attention to the two cheek products in this palette, but I can tell you that they’re really quite pretty. And I swear, whoever produced this palette got right into my brain when they did the finishes – the eyeshadows are just the right kind of shimmery, and the blushers are spot-on as well.

The shades are described as a bronzy peach (completely matte; think of a cross between a peach blush and a contour powder) and a dusty pink (that newfangled sort of matte – you know the one; where it’s matte but if you look really closely at the pan, you can see a few super-tiny bits of shimmer?).

And, well, yeah. They’re both kind of lovely; pigmented and smooth. Both shades are medium-toned, as well, so most skintones won’t have to worry about them showing up – they’ll be more obvious on lighter complexions, of course, but I can see them working on most.

Hello Kitty Graffiti Palette – blusher swatches; heavily then blended out.

The verdict?

You guys. You guys. This is perfect, absolutely perfect, for Spring.

I’m in love! I’m in love with a ridiculous-looking Hello Kitty palette and I can’t even bring myself to care because everything inside it is just so pretty!

On a more serious note, though, I was actually quite impressed by the quality of this palette – the shades are gorgeous, both individually and together, and the quality of each of the six (four eyeshadows, two blushers) products ranges from “good” to “great.” It’s hard–harder than it should be–to find a palette without a “weakest link,” but Graffiti manages it with grace.

And it’s paraben-free. And on sale. I don’t think it gets any better.

Ingredients, Graffiti vs. Blue Sky, & a whole bunch more photos »

Come on. I can’t be the only one who thinks so, right? I mean, obviously, the palettes aren’t dupes of one another, but I do feel like they run on the same idea: one shimmery charcoal, one gorgeously desaturated teal, and two lighter shades to add brightness.

Review, swatches, and (probably way too many) additional photos of the Hello Kitty palette are in the works. (And on that note — seriously, you guys, Hello Kitty?! I did not expect to get along with this palette, much less actually like it. But I do, which I’m finding a bit mind-boggling.)

Because I’m slow While you wait extremely patiently because you are wonderful humans In the meantime, be sure to give this Clarins Blue Sky review a look if you haven’t seen it yet, and don’t miss last Monday’s Blue Sky eye look.

The product: Clarins Ombre Minérale 4 Couleurs (Wet & Dry Eye Quartet Mineral Palette Long-Lasting) in Blue Sky

The aesthetic: It feels like the sort of day to start off with the good stuff and work our way down, so I think that’s what I’ll do. The four shades in Blue Sky work brilliantly together, creating a number of gorgeous, soft eye looks with (depending on which shades you use & where) a lovely aqua, charcoal, or teal undercurrent.

Honestly, I don’t know how they could have done a better job with the colour scheme of this palette. It’s very light, ethereal, and Spring; it feels like a new season without being either bright! bright! bright! or boring pastels. It very much lives up to Clarins’ promise of an ode to lightness, creating a very forgiving, wearable blue eye.

The shades: Clarins describes the colours in Blue Sky as “subtle-shine shades,” with a silvery turquoise, a greenish grey, a grey eyeliner, and a white illuminator.

I didn’t love the super-sheer, shimmery white, but I’ll give it a pass, as it’s described as an illuminator. (I think it would make a great inclusion in a palette of mattes or satins, but with three other shimmery shades, I’d have preferred a more opaque off-white illuminating shade). I liked the bright aqua (“silvery turquoise”) more – it has a really lovely, subtle duochrome, the light blue flashing silver when tilted.

Clarins Blue Sky Eye Quartet swatches – dry on primed skin

The darker two shades are my favourites of the palette. The greenish grey (I like to think of it as a desaturated teal) is a gorgeously unique shade; enough grey to make it sophisticated rather than sloppy, but still green enough to add some colour to the eye area. The shimmery charcoal, on the other hand, is intense and sooty (just like a charcoal should be), but with enough finely-milled silver shimmer to keep it interesting rather than just another boring dark grey.

The illuminator, teal, and charcoal are all shimmery, with particles that (as clichéd as it is) rather twinkle against the skin. The aqua, on the other hand, has that metal-smooth finish that doesn’t sparkle so much as it shifts.

Clarins Blue Sky quad swatches – foiled on primed skin

The opacity: Alright, so here’s the catch. With the exception of the charcoal, the shades in Blue Sky range from extremely sheer to fairly sheer, when applied dry. They’re a good deal more opaque when applied wet (and/or over primer), of course, but I just think they’re too sheer to warrant the price tag.

The illuminator is excusably translucent, and the dark charcoal is perfectly intense, but the blues (the most important shades in the quad) are a bit lacking. I just can’t get the vividness that I want out of them without foiling, which is extremely frustrating, because I’m crazy about the shades in the pan. Blue Sky is still a good quad (particularly against darker skintones), but it doesn’t quite reach the Clarins standard of excellence. 

The verdict?

As much as I love this quad, I can’t help but feel it’s a tiny bit of a letdown. Of my three Clarins quads (and that’s a whole other can of worms – how do I only have three? How on earth do I manage to talk about them so much if I only have three?), this is my least favourite. The shadows just don’t seem quite as smooth, and (with the exception of the lovely, shimmery charcoal), they’re less pigmented, too.

While I think the colour scheme is spot-on, $42 is a lot to pay when two of the four shades could be better (read: when both the teals should have, in my opinion, been more pigmented).

Try it if you’re looking for wearable, age-appropriate (all-ages-appropriate) blues. Because, honestly? Aqua is a hard colour for any age to pull off, but Clarins manages to make it totally chic.

Skip it if you like your shadows to be more than medium-sheer; you only want to pick up one Colour Breeze item (I think this is the weakest product in the collection); or you just want to try out a Clarins quad (again, I think there are better ones).

With everything said and done, I’d give this quad a very tentative yes. For a quad of blues, just in general, it’s good. For Clarins, however, (a brand that I’m quickly learning to love), I had expected more!

Keep reading »

The product: Vasanti Microionized Silky Blush in Rockies 

The shade: Rockies, despite the tangerine-coral look of the product on the Vasanti site and its description as a “beautiful coral that brightens and hilights all skintones,” is more of a bright, peachy pink than a straight-up coral in real life. It has quite a bit of gold shimmer worked into the shade, aligning it with products like NARS Orgasm in my head – because my head makes weird logic leaps like that; not actually because they’re dupes (or even close to being such).

If you ask me, Rockies is first and foremost a pink blush, and it just so happened to have been attacked by a bit of coral and a lot of shimmer before leaving the factory – not the other way around.

Vasanti Rockies swatches – lightly, then heavily.

The formula: I’m not, admittedly, the most strict tester when it comes to blushers – with fair, dry skin and reasonably small pores, a blush has to be pretty darn terrible in order to completely disappoint me.

That said, though, I did like the formula of this blush. It’s not too powdery in the pan, and goes on with just the right intensity: there’s no chalkiness whatsoever, but it’s also not so pigmented that it’s hard to work with. While I’m not personally a fan of shimmery blushers, Rockies does give a very pretty glow, blending out evenly and lasting all day.

Wearing Vasanti Rockies blush

(Rest of the face: Clinique Chubby Stick in Whole Lotta Honey, Senna Sketch-A-Brow in Mink, and Clinique Quickliner for Eyes in Charcoal.)

The verdict?

At $15 each, Vasanti’s blushers are a great drugstore find. If I compare Rockies to the other shimmery blushers in my collection, it can hold its own against products both in its price range (high end of the drugstore) as well as in the more expensive department-store/high-end bracket: I’d reach for this over my NARS Orgasm or 100% Pure Mimosa (both shimmery peaches) any day.

While Rockies isn’t a shade that I can see myself wearing on a frequent basis, I do think that (objectively), it’s a very solid formula at a price point that’s well worth it. Pair that with the fact that it’s a Canadian product free of animal testing, parabens, silicones, and fragrances, and I think we have a winner!

Ingredients, additional photos, and more swatches »