theNotice: a beauty blog

Happy Saturday, lovelies! I just wanted to wrap-up our Black Box week & share a few more swatches with you all. Hope you enjoyed the series, and please feel free to leave any additional thoughts you may have in the comments!

To be honest, I kinda liked writing up everything for this week – it was a bit hectic and a bit crazy, seeing as I did most of it in the span of three or four days in addition to writing up posts for those days, but I don’t know. I guess I liked the coherency of it all? I kinda want to do it again, but of course, with a different focus next time ;)

(I’m thinking, maybe, MAC Pigments? Or a week of different makeup looks. Ooh, or perhaps Clinique’s Black Honey seasonal collection…)

Read the reviews

• Black Box Week: introduction

• Metal Daze Smoothliner

• Blast Off Glitterama Liquid Eyeliner

• Licoriche Smoothie Eyeshadow Pencil

• Black Spark Liquid Eyeliner

• Le BIG Show Mascara

How they stack up

One particularly awesome thing about this collection is that, though they’re all more or less black, there’s no redundancy in the products. They’re all different in shade, application, portability, texture, finish, purpose – I think it’s a bit brilliant, to be honest.

But then again, I’m easily amused.

Annabelle Black Box swatches, L-R: Le BIG Show mascara, Licoriche Smoothie, Metal Daze Smoothliner, Black Spark Liquid Eyeliner, Blast Off Glitterama Eyeliner.

Direct sunlight, no flash.

L-R: Le BIG Show, Licoriche, Metal Daze, Black Spark, Blast Off.

Indirect sunlight, no flash.

Recommendations

Try Le BIG Show if you’re looking for a lot of volume, an intensely black lash, or a glossy finish, but not necessarily lengthening or curling.

Try Licoriche if you’re looking for a super-blendable, super-black base or a really opaque waterline. It layers well, too, so you can get anything from a subtle, hazy shadow around your lashes to a dramatic smokey eye.

Try Metal Daze if you’re looking for a light black/dark gunmetal eyeliner to create a sharp or smokey line. The shimmer in this one adds a bit of interest to what would otherwise be another basic black, and it gives a softer, more ethereal effect.

Try Black Spark if you’re looking for a longwearing, budgeproof, easy-to-use, black-but-better liquid liner.

Try Blast Off if you’re looking to add some shine and glitter to a liner you already have. (Because of the translucent base in Glitterama liners, they’re even prettier when layered over a “regular” liner!)

Just a few more photos »

The product: Annabelle Glitterama liquid eyeliner in Blast Off

Blast Off is my fourth Glitterama eyeliner, which speaks for itself – I also have Plutonium (permanent), Dark Angel and Night Light (LE from Fall/Winter 2010), and Marcelle LUX Diamond Liquid Eyeliners in Silver and Pure Gold (which feature the same formula). So I suppose you could say I’m “sort of” a fan, in the way that I’m “sort of” a TSCC fan, or “sort of” a Who fan, or “sort of” a Sherlock fan.

(I am also “sort of” a fan of Alias, Buffy, Veronica Mars, Supernatural, Fringe, and White Collar. You know, just sort of. Generally.)

(Oh. Also, you can check out swatches of those other three liners here!)

Annabelle Glitterama Liquid Eyeliner in Blast Off, no flash, indirect sunlight

Annabelle Blast Off, no flash, indirect sunlight

The shade: Blast Off is a mixture of silver and black particles – the same silver bits from Plutonium (the larger size, not the smaller size), and the same black bits from Dark Angel. Needless to say, it’s quite pretty!

The good: Like the other Glitterama liners, Blast Off features a paraben-free ingredient list, a long-wearing formula, and an easy-to-use applicator (it’s fine, thin, & just the right length to deliver both control and a quick application). I don’t get any glitter fallout or transfer, and they’re well-priced – I want to say about $7 regular price, but they’re on sale quite often.

The bad: These take forever to dry - but it’s worth it for the wear time!

Also worth noting is that these get gloopy with time due to the packaging (my LUX Diamond liners are totally fine), but it’s not a huge deal. You’ve got about a year with zero issues, and because of the simple ingredient list, I’m willing to bet you could re-hydrate them with just a bit of distilled water and/or glycerine, easy-peasy.

The ingredients:

Water, Glycerine, Glyceryl Polyacrylate, Triethanolamine, Phenoxyethanol, Polyethelene Terephtalate

The verdict?

Blast Off isn’t one of my favourite Glitterama liners (it’s a little more subtle than I usually go for), but it’s still a great way to add some oomph to your usual eye looks. I love what a little bit of glitter can do, and these liners are as hassle-free as it gets: zero fallout, no finicky application tricks, and all-day wear.

(more…)

I’m having my wisdom teeth pulled this Monday (I know, erugh), so I wanted to run a weeklong series of pre-scheduled posts while I’m recovering. My drug of choice? Annabelle, of course!

So, without further adieu, I’d like to introduce The Black Box Week at theNotice. Monday through Friday, we’ll be running reviews on FIVE new Annabelle products featured in their Black Box collection, plus a wrap-up on Saturday. You’ll be seeing:

• Metal Daze, a sexy Smoothliner,
• Blast Off, a glitzy new Glitterama liner,
• Licoriche, a Smoothie eyeshadow pencil,
• Black Spark, an intense liquid liner, and finally,
• Le Big Show, Annabelle’s newest mascara.

For one reason or another, black seems to be the thing for Fall 2011 – there’s Annabelle’s Black Box, MAC’s The New Black (part of their MAC Me Over! campaign), YSL’s The Black Collection, Clinique’s Black Honey, which is sort-of-not-really black… Dior didn’t seem to get the memo, though; they’re doing Blue Tie for Fall 2011 :P

While companies almost always go dark for the fall, I feel like this is a step up from the normal. There’s the general darkening as the mercury drops, sure but there’s always a focus: 2010′s jewel tones, for instance. This year, the focus just happens to be black, and as a bit of a black liner addict*, it’s something I can totally get on board with!

*I think it is possibly an illness

I’ve got 19 of them going at the moment >.<

For the liquids, I’ve got ones by Ellis Faas, GOSH, Lancome, Annabelle (erm, four by Annabelle; Black Spark, Black Out, Blast Off, and Night Light), and Marcelle; then there’s the creams – MAC, FaceFront, and L’Oreal HiP; and finally, the pencils – Urban Decay, MUFE, La Bella Donna, three from Marcelle, and the two in this collection.

AND I CAN’T GIVE ANY OF THEM UP BECAUSE I LOVE THEM ALL FOR DIFFERENT REASONS.

Anyhow, I’ll stop rambling now & let you get on with your Sunday. I hope you enjoy the series!

I’ve been gearing up for something pretty exciting (well, I think it’s exciting, you may not) next week, but I got distracted partway through by shiny things.

I’m not even joking. I actually, legitimately, honestly got distracted by shiny things. More specifically, tubes of glitter. It happens on an embarrassingly frequent basis. These ones happen to be Annabelle Glitterama liners, which we’ve featured numerous times in the past; links to other reviews below (caption of the following photo).

P.S. I swear to god, I’m not part pigeon or anything, though that would probably actually explain a lot. I just – it’s shiny. How could you resist this much glitter?!

Annabelle Glitterama Liquid Eyeliners, L-R: Blast Off (upcoming), Plutonium (permanent), Night Light (F/W 2010), Dark Angel (F/W 2010).

Annabelle Glitterama Liquid Eyeliner swatches, L-R: Blast Off, Plutonium, Night Light, Dark Angel, Blast Off.

L-R: Blast Off, Plutonium, Night Light, Dark Angel, Blast Off – not sure why these picked up magenta, but either way, it’s a fairly good representation of how the colour temperature of a flash or bright light is reflected in the glitter particles of these liners!

Just to note, all the photos above (a) can be clicked to enlarge, and (b) were taken with flash as the main source of lighting and then colour-balanced to hell, seeing as it’s one in the morning here :P And not even, like, a proper flash, just the camera body flash. Quelle horreur!

The rest of these reviews will go up over the next week or two, as I need more time to test out the shadows before I’ll be able to properly review them! However, I’ve reviewed this eyeliner in the past, so I thought we may as well get this post out now ;)

For a full review of a Glitterama liquid eyeliner, check out our Plutonium post.