theNotice: a beauty blog

I’m trying to get a review up for the Senna Cosmetics Haute Nudes Multi Makeup Palette in Mystic ($48 USD) as quickly as possible, but the long and short of it is simple: Mystic gets two thumbs way up from this particular peanut gallery.

With gorgeous textures (as you could expect from a brand like Senna) and an absolutely divine colour palette of cool-toned mauvey-neutrals, this might just be my favourite palette of the year. Until I can find time to get a review up, here are a few photos and swatches to tide you over!

The product: Korres Goddess Beauty Colour Collection

Lovingly boxed up at Sephora this Holiday season is the gorgeous Korres Goddess Beauty Colour Collection. While I think the name is a little awkward (is it the Goddess collection? Is it the Goddess Beauty collection?), the products themselves more than make up for it.  

The Volcanic Minerals Volumizing Mascara

Also included is a small tube of Korres’ Volcanic Minerals mascara, in Obsidian Black. I have to say, I love the packaging of this one — even though it isn’t full-sized, the design is great. Slim, easy to handle, and intricately patterned, the rich brown hue just feels very Korres (as it probably should!)

The brush is fairly standard, as is the product itself. I can get a full day’s wear out of this, if you define a full day as 6 hours, but I do have to sweep under my lower lashes with a cotton bud at least twice before hitting the 12 hour mark. It leaves my lashes feeling (and looking) full & a little heavy after just one swipe, dropping the curl a bit but going on clump-free enough to make up for it.

Korres Volcanic Minerals Volumizing Mascara ingredients

The Cherry Lip Gloss in (Pale Pink)

If you thought this looked familiar, you’re not wrong: Pale Pink is numbered as Cherry Lip Gloss #23. If you think back to last Holiday season, though, you might remember seeing a similar product on theNotice — Light Purple, incidentally also #23.

Check out swatches and photos behind the cut, but the two are the same gloss, re-imagined. The new version has less chunky shimmer and more pigment, but while it’s slightly easier to wear than Light Purple, I still find it to be a little too milky & shimmery for my liking.

Lipgloss ingredients

Korres Goddess Beauty Colour Collection swatches

The Magic Light/Face Contouring Powder Trio (in Santorini)

And, finally, the one you’ve all been waiting for!

The Santorini cheek trio is absolutely gorgeous — easily one of the most beautiful pressed powders in my collection, just based off the way it looks in the pan. The detailed top does wear off, but the shimmer goes right down, so what you see (product-wise) is what you get.

Shimmery and glowy, this trio is optimal for light skintones of any temperature. It’ll fit a much broader range, though; cool to warm skintones from fair to medium should be able to pull this off without a hitch.

The blush and bronzer are warmer and more pigmented than the highlighter, but both build up & sheer out easily. My issue with the palette, though, is that for as luminescent as it applies… it’s pretty glittery, at least for me. The glitter isn’t hugely obvious in indoor lighting, and photographs absolutely beautifully, but it is there if you go looking for it — which I can’t stand.

I can still see this on my cheeks after a good 12 hours of wear (and a nap!), but I like my shimmer a lot more subtle than most bloggers. Every other review I’ve read for this face trio has described the shades as finely-milled and glowy–and have even recommended it for use as an all-over face powder–so do my little neurosis in mind.

Cheek trio ingredients

The verdict?

This set was originally $42, which made it a good deal — but it’s been marked down to $29 USD/$39 CAD, which absolutely makes it a great one. (In Canada, the price works out to just $9.75 per product. Yep, that $36 cheek trio just got a whole bunch cheaper.)

Paraben-free and just so, so pretty, the Goddess set is a great gift for a natural beauty lover – even if that beauty lover is you. It’s not perfect in my mind (I think the cheek palette is just too glittery for that), but I think my shimmer-sensitive eye is alone on this: most other bloggers describe Santorini as a sheer product with a gorgeous “natural glow,” after all.

One last note: this set includes a mini Quercetin & Oak Antiageing Primer (10 mL), which is a great way to give Korres primers a proper try before committing to a whole tube. Check out a full review here.

Keep reading; I’m not done yet! »

The product: Karl Lagerfeld for Shu Uemura Eye & Cheek Palette in Smoky Velvet

And here’s the holiday aspect of the Karl for Shu collection, I suppose! The Smoky Velvet Eye & Cheek Palette doesn’t feel too Christmasy on first glance, but if you look at the shades, we’re actually working with black, white, green, red, and gold — all very Holiday-typical colour families, but in less typical hues. 

This palette contains the same texture breakdown as in the Prestigious Bordeaux palette (review here.)

Shu Uemura Smoky Velvet swatches, dry on primed skin. Indirect sunlight; click to enlarge.

The shade breakdown for this one: 

• Glitter black (top left; silk smooth) - a shimmery black (medium pigmentation and good texture; sheers easily for less intensity) shot with plenty of silver sparkle.
• Deep khaki (top right; silk smooth) – a dark, frosty olive green with gold shimmer.
• Light silver (middle left; glitter) – by far my favourite shade from the two Karl for Shu palettes! The shimmer in this is absolutely gorgeous — white/silver shards paired with mulitcoloured reflects. When I described the Shu glitters as “mesmerizing,” this is the one I had in mind.
• Mint green (middle right; frost) – a smooth, light green with yellow undertones. This shadow has the same (lovely) texture as the light brown in the Prestigious Bordeaux palette, but is a bit more sheer.
• Glitter beige (bottom left; glitter) - gold microshimmer in a base of shimmery gold pigment… with a few gold-green reflects. A lot of gold in this one!
• Dusty rose (bottom right; blush) – a blue-red blush that sheers out well. Satin finish with additional gold microshimmer.

Karl for Shu Smoky Velvet Eye & Cheek Palette swatches

A glittery love letter

A simple photograph can’t possibly give you the full effect of Shu’s gorgeous glitters, but an eye swatch is at the very least a bit better than an arm swatch, right?

Here’s a quick look with the Smoky Velvet white/clear shade on bare lids, with a flick of Blackish Satin Purple along the lashline. The way it moves (particularly under artificial light) is absoulutely divine — it’s like the shimmer is a technicolour motion picture film, but you’ve been looking at sepia stop-motion all your life.

See an up-close shot behind the cut to get a really good look at the shimmer. (I know some people can be squeamish about macro lid photographs, so consider yourself warned!)

The verdict?

Again, at $65 USD/$85 CAD, this is a bit of a stretch for most wallets — but there aren’t any “flops” in this palette either, and they’re a step above most holiday textures.

I love, love, love the silver shimmer in this palette, but I do think I could live without it overall. Smoky Velvets is a less wearable palette than Prestigious Bordeaux, and at the price, I think a few of the gorgeous Rouge Unlimited lipsticks in this collection (review upcoming) would be a better buy.

Availability: online at Shu Uemura; in stores at Holt Renfrew in Canada.

Please note, there are two versions of this palette! Depending on your country, the Smoky Velvet palette may contain a light silver-grey in place of the white/silver, a mint green instead of a light grassy green, and a champagne-gold glitter instead of a yellow-gold glitter. See swatches of the alternate version on Beautezine and Beauty by poc.

Additional photos & more »

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m awful at planning things in advance, as you might have noticed. (Full disclosure; I managed to schedule tomorrow’s review for this morning. It was up for a little over three hours, so if any of you are wondering where it went — well, went to go hide behind Nov. 1st for the meantime.)

So, here’s one for all of you who want a cool, wearable Halloween look that requires almost no planning. Because, let’s be honest, sometimes planning is just one of those things that should (but totally never manages to) happen.

For a full tutorial, don’t miss this post on She Said Beauty! 

Not just easy to co-ordinate, this look is pretty easy to assemble, too. Start out with a basic face; medium-coverage foundation; plenty of powder and contouring. The lip and cheek colours are up to you (I love a good reddish lip in the fall), as is the brow shape — just make sure to fill them; with a focal point away from your eyes, you’ll want to make sure they’re still adequately framed.

If you’re adding illuminator to your cheekbones, try to pick a powder product to get better wear out of the stars.

Start your eyes with a basic, matte smokey eye, then add a little bit of interest for Halloween’s sake. I went with a metallic gold, lining my upper lashline with LUSH Fantasy & taking Fyrinnae Polar Bear through the inner corners. Then, after mascara, I took Fantasy along a few of the tips of my upper lashes, too. (You can see it more in the flash photo, later in this post.)

Another option that’s just as easy is to sparkle with pointed intent — pick a loose pigment with a larger particle size of shimmer, then pat it onto the middle of your lids and/or the inner corners. Don’t blend it too well, leaving it instead to juxtapose with the matte lid shades, and choose something with coloured reflects (eg. red at an angle or with flash, but unnoticeable straight-on) for extra impact.

From there, grab some lash glue & craft store confetti to take the look from pretty to Halloween-levels-of-awesome. I kind of cheated on both, to be honest; instead of lash glue, I used an Annabelle Glitterama Liquid Eyeliner (glitter liners are my stash secret for when I’m out of proper fixatives) & picked the gold and silver stars out of a rainbow mix of loose stars.

What? It’s not poor planning; it’s totally innovation.

Keep reading! »

The product: MAC Powder Blush in Harmony (Matte)

After seeing Harmony (one of my first MAC products) on Makeup and Beauty Blog this week, I had to put up a proper post about it. I love being able to see the same product on a range of different skintones, and I thought this was the perfect example.

I know a lot of you read MABB, but for those of you who don’t, here’s a quick primer: it’s written by a lovely terrifyingly awesome crazy cat lady named Karen, whose skin is about an NC42 (though sometimes here forearms are a little lighter). By contrast, I sit somewhere around an NC15, and despite absolutely adoring cats as long as they’re not kittens, I’ve never owned one.

Or even cat-sat for one, to be honest. I’m not the best at keeping things alive.

The shade: What’s cool about a blush like Harmony is that it can span a really wide range of skintones, but it’s quite different on them all. On Karen, it’s a really natural, bare-cheek blush; on me, it’s a warm, dark contour shade.

While I love the depth and pigmentation of this one, I find that it’s best to use a light hand with it, and I find that I’ll often mix it with a matte grey shade to cool it down a bit. That said, though, it’s not unwearably warm, the way some bronzers can be — it’s just not quite perfect on cool skintones.

(Read Karen’s MAC Unsung Heroes post on Harmony, where the below swatch has been sourced from, too!)

The verdict?

Despite the fact that Harmony was my first MAC blusher, and I still use it on a pretty frequent basis, I can’t see myself re-buying it — for what I want it to be, it’s too warm to be perfect. That said, though, if you’re looking for an easy-to-find contouring shade (for fair-to-medium neutral-to-warm skintones) or a matte natural-nude blush (for warm medium-to-dark skintones), it’s definitely worth a look.

While I think $20 US/$24 CAD (less for the pro pan) is a touch high for some of MAC’s sheerer blushes, the formula and amount of pigment in this one makes it well worth the price. There are far too few easy-to-find contouring shades out there, and at the very least, this one doesn’t have Chanel Notorious’ $42 price tag.

(And for an even more affordable contouring shade, try NYX Taupe — I’ve heard quite good things about it, at least for fair to light-medium skintones!)

Keep reading! »