theNotice

theNotice’s #24Days ofTwistUp giveaway (Canadian & international!)

October 16, 2013

95 Comments

Today’s Twist-Up: Fizz

We’re sixteen days into #24Days of TwistUp, and with just over a week left to go, I thought today would be a good day to kick off the giveaway.

Annabelle Cosmetics has generously offered up a full set of TwistUp Retractable Lipstick Crayons (that’s two dozen lipsticks!) to give to one lucky Canadian winner, and due to a little product overlap, I have another three that I’d like to send out to an international reader. Both giveaways will close on the 28th at midnight MST with one randomly-selected winner each, so read on to find out how to enter!

For our Canadian readers

If you live in Canada, consider yourself lucky. Not only do you have publicly-funded healthcare and live in the same great country as yours truly, but you’re also about to be given the chance to win a full set of 24 Annabelle TwistUp lipsticks. Which, hey, just so happen to be one of my new favourite lipstick formulas, so it’s a pretty good day for you.

(Also, kittens are often free here. There is nothing better than free kittens.)

To enter, all you have to do is live in Canada and check off the right boxes in the form below. International entries are also allowed as long as you have a Canadian mailing address, but I’m not liable if your great aunt Maggie decides she loves lipstick more than she loves you and steals your prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For our international readers

If you don’t live in Canada, I’m very sorry. Unfortunately, you do not live in the same country as yours truly, and you may or may not have a healthcare system as great as ours. Also, kittens might not even exist where you live, or could instead be suspended in midair in the men’s bathroom of your local radio station.

That said, you are still about to get the chance to win three Annabelle TwistUp lipsticks, so it’s a pretty good day for you.

To enter, all you have to do is have a mailing address somewhere in the world reachable by post (winners living in uncharted territory populated by wildcats and spirits of evil are not guaranteed to receive their prize). Check off the right boxes in the form below and, hopefully, you’ll soon be the proud new owner of three new Annabelle TwistUps in Monroe, Vamp, and Cherry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!! And remember — tweets can be made every day for extra entries ;)

Tags: Annabelle TwistUp/Annabelle, Giveaway, Lips, Product Swatches

95 Comments

New 14/10/13 | Make Up For Ever brushes, Ardency Inn, and holiday collections coming out to play…

October 14, 2013

Rae Chen

4 Comments

Holiday Sets

The holidays are coming up, which means it’s time for all of your boxed sets and palettes to come out. Perfect for gift-giving, these guys are also an awesome way to score a great deal on bestsellers you’ve been lemming all year — but don’t let the savings fool you. If it’s not something you want, you’re not saving (you’re just spending)!

Formula X for Sephora

I’m not a nail girl, as I’m sure you all know by now, but I have to admit: some of these look pretty cool. At $13 CAD+ apiece, they’re not cheap, but the line has a surprisingly niche pull. With over 200 eye-catching nail lacquers covering everything from neutrals to holos, FORMULA X has all your bases covered.

Seriously. They have twelve different “effects” lines, plus nail wraps and nail care products and — I mean, this is excessive. (Excessively awesome, maybe.)

Explore the range here.

Make Up For Ever Artisan Brush Collection

Have I mentioned these before? I don’t think I have, but — well, MUFE came out with a few new brushes (76 of them, to be exact), in case you’ve magically missed hearing about their launch.

From odes to the line’s impressive artistic breadth to reviews mentioning the weird oiliness that some of the brushes come part & parcel with, the range sounds like it’s littered with both hits and misses. Christine (Temptalia) has notably great coverage on these, and Tracy (Beauty Reflections) has a couple that she adores, as well. I have a few coming in the mail as well, and will try to get reviews up as soon as possible!

Shop the brushes here.

ARDENCY INN: Punker, Modster, and Americana

An entire season later and I still haven’t decided if Ardency Inn is trying too hard to be cool… or if it’s actually so utterly cool that it’s not trying at all.

I haven’t noticed the line in my local Sephora, so I haven’t so much as swatched any of it, but — I don’t know. I feel like I may just be over-thinking this one.

Pumkin (yes, you read that right!)

How cute is this??! The autumn counterpart to Mumkin (which LUSH launched for a limited time last Mother’s Day), Pumkin retails for $5.95 CAD and is scented with LUSH’s year-round Figs and Leaves soap. Find it here on the LUSH site.

And everything else

Just because the holidays happen doesn’t mean that new products stop launching, much to my dismay. (What? It’s overwhelming! I’d never want a new launch not to launch, but couldn’t they just… wait a little while, or something?)

Silliness aside, here are a few products that caught my eye. But not literally, because that would be gross.

Tags: /New This Week (& etc)

4 Comments

L’Occitane Verveine EdT Fresh Roll-on review, photos | Summer echoes

October 11, 2013

Rae Chen

7 Comments

The product: L’Occitane Verveine (Verbena) Eau de Toilette Fresh Roll-on

Behind the collection: L’Occitane’s Verbena lineup contains organic verbena extract from Provence, and was created for use by both men and women. The Verbena Fresh Roll-on is a purse-friendly version of the original L’Occitane Verbena Eau de Toilette; the “Fresh” in the name is irrelevant (this is the same scent.)

L’Occitane has Mint and Citrus Verbena fragrances available as well this summer, in addition to the Eau Fraîche Collection of verbena-scented body products.

The notes: A soft, delicate fragrance in the green citrus family, the L’Occitane Verbena Eau de Toilette lists top notes of orange and lemon, heart notes of verbena and petitgrain, and base notes of rose and geranium.

A few fun facts: Unlike most flowers used in perfumery, Verbena (also known as vervain — yes, all you Vampire Diaries fans, that vervain) can sometimes deliver a second harvest in October, weather allowing. Used in everything from love potions to sleeping draughts, some plants in the Verbenaceae are odourless; others, delicately lemon scented.

My thoughts on the fragrance

I don’t love doing “verdicts” for perfumes, so I thought I’d change things up a little today.

I’m not entirely smitten with the Verbena fragrance, but it’s such an individual thing — I can easily think of half a dozen friends and family members who would absolutely love it. Very fresh, green, and lemony, Verveine opens as a freshly-zested lemon’s rind but sits a little too sharp and synthetic for my nose.

The Verveine Eau de Toilette Fresh Roll-on fragrance is very light, with little sillage and a wear time similar to that of most lemony-fresh fragrances. Without any heavy or heady notes to “cling” to the skin, this summery verbena is gone within a few hours; perhaps due in part to its formulation, or perhaps due to its delivery method (roll-ons and EdTs tend to have less throw and tenacity than EdP and parfum sprays).

I would recommend this most to someone who wants to smell fresh and refined, and is alright with touching up throughout the day. I feel almost as if I love perfume too much for this perfume: it feels very much like a chic home fragrance, or a green bouquet sitting aside a bowl of lemons in the kitchen.

Availability: $22 CAD/10ml, limited edition and in-stores now.

Tags: /Fragrance, L'Occitane, Product Photos, Product Review, Spring/Summer 2013

7 Comments

Lancôme announces a new ambassadress: Lily Collins

October 9, 2013

Rae Chen

Lancôme Artliner 24H review, swatches, photos & giveaway | An old favourite, reinvented

October 7, 2013

Rae Chen

37 Comments

The product: Lancôme Artliner 24H Bold Color Precision Eyeliner ($30 USD/$37 CAD)

↳ in 01 Black Diamond, 02 Gold, 03 Sapphire, 04 Amethyst, and 052 Emerald

The cult-classic Lancôme Artliner celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and to celebrate, the brand is launching a new 24 hour version of the formula. Available in 10 shades, the new “24H Bold Color Precision Eyeliners” boast a vinyl finish and their new “flex polymer” technology for longer wear.

The product

The wear: While I haven’t tested these for a full 24 hours (a girl’s gotta sleep and shower), I can tell you that the formula is made with us oily-lidded gals in mind. I don’t get any flaking or smudging when I wear these, no matter how long I wear them for, and oil seems to LOCK the product onto the skin — sort of like how a tubing mascara works.

These remove easily with warm water or an oil-free makeup remover, but don’t so much as budge during the day. My swatches of these liners didn’t even flake when I tried to “peel off” the product with my fingernails — which, for the record, was kind of painful. I lost a bit of arm to the cause–ouch–but can happily report that the liners stayed intact!

(What’s that? My product testing doesn’t actually need to be that rigorous? Don’t be silly; of course it does.)

Lancôme Artliner 24H swatches, L-R: 01 Black Diamond, 02 Gold, 03 Sapphire, 04 Amethyst, and 052 Emerald

The shades: 01 Black Diamond is a rich, opaque black with a glossy finish and no noticeable shimmer. 02 Gold is a metallic yellow-gold; a hair less opaque but definitely still a full finish. 03 Sapphire is an opaque, amazingly vibrant blue, without shimmer but with an eye-catching vinyl finish.

04 Amethyst is a medium-opacity purple with blue shimmer, but (as Lancôme notes) it is not suitable for contact lens wearers, as it can stain the contact lens. I would have liked to have seen more pigment from it, at $37 CAD, and its swatch washed off my arm noticeably sooner than the other shades I tested. 052 Emerald is a medium-opacity dark green with light green shimmer.

Lancôme Black Diamond, Gold, Sapphire, Amethyst, and Emerald 24H Artliner swatches

A look in black and gold

I wanted to put together something basic-but-pretty for this post, so here’s a quick eye look with simple black and gold liner. It’s super easy to do, and eye-catching without being, you know, eye-catching. Think of it as holiday party appropriate and lunch date appropriate, all in one.

Perilously Pale, Ton Petit Look, Simply Stacie, and Beautezine have all created looks with the Artliner 24Hs today as well — make sure to check out their posts!

Wearing Lancôme Artliner 24H in 01 Black Diamond and 02 Gold (any metallic shade would work) with their Hypnôse Star mascara in Noir Midnight and Aquatique Waterproof Eyecolour Base in Nude.

The giveaway (plus 10% off and a free sample!)

I didn’t really have time to for this post, but when Lancôme generously offered to give away three 24H Artliners and one tube of Hypnôse Star (value of $144) to one of our Canadian readers… how could I say no?

The original Lancôme Artliner was my very first eyeliner, and I loved it to bits. This new version? Even better. To try them out for yourself, enter using the form below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Keep reading for 10% off, free samples, and the ingredients! »

Tags: sponsored/Eyes, Fall/Winter 2013, Giveaway, Lancome, Product Photos, Product Review, Product Swatches

37 Comments

24 Days of TwistUp with Annabelle Cosmetics | Swatches, reviews, & more!

October 2, 2013

Rae Chen

12 Comments

Today’s TwistUp: Naked

This October, Annabelle Cosmetics is running one heck of a swatch fest: with 24 Days of TwistUp, a bunch of Canadian fashion and beauty bloggers (myself included) will be photographing, reviewing, and swatching the entire Annabelle Cosmetics TwistUp Retractable Lipstick Crayon range.

The posts will go up on our blogs and social media accounts (look for the #24Days or #24Jours hashtag), featuring one shade a day from the 1st until the 24th of October. I’ll be starting a little late, as my package didn’t get here until late on the 30th, but I promise to start swatching ASAP!

The day-by-day (shade-by-day?) calendar

Want to join in (or win your own set of 24 TwistUps)?

I wasn’t going to do 24 Days, but there are two things about it that I couldn’t pass up on. Firstly, I’m really excited to see these lipsticks on such a wide range of skintones. Everyone wears colour differently (remember when all of the Lipstick Bandits wore MAC Viva Glam V together?), and I think it’s going to be such a treat to see everything from nudes to reds on all of the participants.

And secondly? Annabelle has offered to send a full set of 24 TwistUps to one of theNotice’s Canadian or American readers (sorry, international lovelies), and I just couldn’t pass it up. I’ll hammer out the details over the next couple of days, then let you know how the giveaway will work — I’m thinking I might start it on the last day of the collaboration.

If you can’t wait, all shades of the Annabelle TwistUp Retractable Lipstick Crayon range are on sale for $7.25 CAD each (that’s 25% off) on the Annabelle site, from now until the 24th. Shipping is free over $25 in Canada or $50 to the States, so it’s a good time to indulge!

Don’t miss a single day…

Make sure you’re subscribed to theNotice to make sure you see each shade! To see the posts going up on theNotice (a review + photos of a few of my favourite shades), make sure to follow it through FeedBurner/RSS, email, or Bloglovin’.

Then, for all of the other photos and swatches, be sure to subscribe to our social media channels (Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest) to see the rest of the TwistUp coverage.

Tags: Annabelle TwistUp, Fall/Winter 2013/Annabelle, Canadian beauty, Lips, Product Photos, Product snapshots

12 Comments

On finding your niche, and making the most of it | Elie Saab: an overview

September 26, 2013

Rae Chen

13 Comments

ELIE SAAB Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2013-2014

Yeah, I don’t really have a good reason for posting any of these images (which, by the way, are all from Style.com). I just felt like taking a bit of a beauty break, you know?

We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled reviewing, flailing, and photo-taking shortly, but in the meantime, here are a few of my favourite Elie Saab pieces from the past few seasons. The Elie Saab aesthetic may not be the most innovative, or the most exciting, but I absolutely love the delicate embellishments and ethereal, flowing silhouettes that are repeated so often in the line.

I think, for many, that Elie Saab seems like a bit of a one trick pony. I prefer to look at it another way, however: the familiar, recognizable couture collections are a wonderful example of finding your niche and working with it, exploring its depths to their fullest extent before moving onto new textiles, new colour palettes, new shapes.

How breathtaking is that dress on the left? I would love to see that on the red carpet — I think it would be perfect for someone like Claire Danes.

Same with the dress on the right, here — but I think it’s better suited to someone who’s more of a risk-taker, no?

Oh, and with the reds — I loved seeing these against the red runway; it usually doesn’t work, but the glossy floors and lighting really helped provide contrast.

Keep reading! »

Tags: /Fashion

13 Comments

YSL Marrakesh Sunset Palette swatches, review, photos | YSL’s Summer 2013 5 Colour Eyeshadow Palette

September 23, 2013

Rae Chen

17 Comments

The product: Yves Saint Laurent Marrakesh Sunset Palette (Ombrés 5 Lumières/5 Colour Eye Shadow Summer Look 2013)

Summer may be over, but I couldn’t not share this gorgeous YSL palette with you anyways. From the packaging, to the formulas, to the eyeshadow shades, this is one palette that really can’t be missed — um, so I’m really very sorry that I’ve taken so long to get this post up.

The packaging: To start us off, this palette is packaged in a gorgeous gold case, unique to this collection. The same in size and function as the regular 5 Colour Eye Shadow palettes, the Marrakesh Sunset Palette features a Moroccan arabesque design on the front, “engraved with golden satin contrasting against shiny golden reflects.”

Their words, not mine. You know palettes mean business when they come engraved — and though this one fingerprints like crazy, I have to admit: it’s pretty unique.

YSL Marrakesh Sunset 5 Colour Eye Shadow Palette packaging

YSL Marrakesh Sunset Ombrés 5 Lumières Eyeshadow Palette

The eyeshadows: The shades of the Marrakesh Sunset palette are, well, made to be representative of a beautiful Moroccan sunset, and they do a wonderful job of it.

The centre highlighter and bottom two shades create the impression of a warm, hazy sky, brightening and lifting the eye area with shimmering finishes and peachy undertones. The highlighter, softer than the other four shades, swatches almost like a shimmer finish within a frost — from a distance, it has a watery, metallic effect, and it makes a beautiful inner corner highlight.

YSL Marrakesh Sunset Palette swatches: bottom left, centre, bottom right, top left, top right

The top two shades are the accents of this palette, but while both are gorgeous, I felt like they could have used a little more pigment.

The medium brown has green-yellow undertones, and on the lids (where the gold shimmer is more diffuse than in the swatch), the undertones make my eyes look rather haggard. On someone warmer, darker, more peach, or even just a little bronzed, I think they’d have worked much better.

YSL Marrakesh Sunset 5 Colour Eye Shadow Palette swatches

Finally, the violet. Oh, god — this one is absolutely beautiful both swatched or in the pan, but like the bronze, it doesn’t quite work. It’s a medium-opacity shade with most divine undertones, perfect for both warm or cool skintones, and they’re complemented with absolutely mesmerizing fuchsia and blue (!) microshimmer.

The shimmer, however, has a terrible tendency to fall down during application — it actually has less shimmer than the other four shades, but it was the only one that speckled my cheeks as I blended. While beautiful, at the price point, I was left wanting more from this one: more pigment, a more buttery texture, more adhesion to the skin.

The verdict?

At $72 CAD, this palette isn’t a must-have. I love the shades in theory, but they’re best on warmer, darker, more bronzed skintones — on anyone who can pull off sheer golds and peaches well.

The violet (oh, the beautiful violet!) has a tendency to produce shimmer fallout during application, and none of the shades were as pigmented or buttery as I would have liked them to be. Though beautiful, Marrakesh Sunset simply doesn’t make enough of an argument to justify its price tag, and I think it can be skipped.

Availability: $58 USD/$72 CAD where still available. (Limited edition Summer 2013).

Additional photos & more »

Tags: /Eyes, Paraben-free, Product Photos, Product Review, Product Swatches, Yves Saint Laurent / YSL

17 Comments

L’Oreal Collection Privée by Colour Riche review, swatches, photos | A Tale of Two Freidas

September 19, 2013

Rae Chen

10 Comments

A tale of two Freidas

If you didn’t notice it in Tuesday’s post (the nail polish half of the Collection Privée), there are two sets of Freida’s Nude in my photos of the collection. From group shots to lipstick swatches, it appears once on the left, and then again on the right.

This wasn’t some great ploy or easter egg, however — I’m not that good. Rather, I’ve been operating on auto-pilot for the past few weeks, and I completely blanked on the fact that the press kit for this collection included two of each of Freida’s products.

My apologies for any confusion!

The Colour Riche Lipcolours ($10.99 CAD)

Packaged in matte black tubes with shiny gold accents, the Collection Privée Colour Riche Lipcolours are pretty darn chic for the drugstore — and at $10.99 each, they darn well better be. (What? It’s the drugstore; I like to keep my price expectations low!)

Each tube contains a sheer, pearl-finish nude lipstick. Like all L’Oreal Colour Riche lipsticks, these lip colours are fairly perfumed, so be sure to give a tester a sniff in-store if you haven’t used the line before.

The microshimmer/pearl finish of the Collection Privée by Colour Riche lipsticks

Despite its darkness in the tube, Freida’s Nude applies as a very soft violet with a brightening sheen. Even on my very fair skin, it’s no more bold than a sheer Fresh Sugar lip balm or Clinique Chubby Stick, and picks up my complexion rather than muddying it (as many darker nudes will do).

Eva’s Nude is much more full-on; with medium opacity and a slightly thicker texture, it’s also more of a traditional frost. A warm, orange nude with only a hint of pink in its undertones undertones, it’s much better suited for skintones like Eva’s — against my complexion, it’s very noticeable and rather dated.

Collection Privée by Colour Riche: Freida’s Nude

Collection Privée by Colour Riche: Eva’s Nude

L’Oreal Collection Privée by Colour Riche Lipsticks swatched very heavily L-R: Freida, Eva, Doutzen, J Lo, Freida

Keep reading! »

Tags: /Fall/Winter 2013, L'Oreal, Lips, Paraben-free, Product Photos, Product Review, Product Swatches, Spring/Summer 2013

10 Comments

L’Oreal Collection Privée by Colour Riche review, swatches, photos | Nudes fit for the TIFF red carpet

September 17, 2013

Rae Chen

23 Comments

Made-to-measure “perfect nudes”

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, L’Oreal Paris had the honour this year of releasing the official TIFF Festival Collection, a limited edition colour collection currently available in most drugstores throughout Canada.

The collection contains nudes created to suit four different skintones: that of Doutzen Kroes (Barely Pink), Eva Longoria (Barely Golden), Freida Pinto (Barely Parma), and Jennifer Lopez (Barely Greige). They’re not your normal nudes, either. Rather than flesh tones and too-milky pinks, the Collection Privée by Colour Riche encompasses everything from a cement grey to a dark brown-red — perhaps more “naturals” than nudes, if even that.

Either way, they’re gorgeous.

The Colour Riche Nail Colours ($3.99 CAD)

If you ask me, the real stunners in this collection–er, aside from the incredibly gorgeous spokesmodels–are the four Colour Riche Nail Colours. The wide, thin applicator is fantastic for distributing colour evenly, and the formulas settle into opaque, streak-free finishes in only 2-3 coats.

When it comes to getting the perfect nail, the brush is just as important as the formula and shades, and the Colour Riche polishes nail it in every category (pun intended).

Swatched L-R: L’Oreal Collection Privée by Colour Riche Nail Polishes in Freida, Eva, Doutzen, and J Lo (indirect sunlight)

Keep reading! »

Tags: /Fall/Winter 2013, L'Oreal, Nails, Product Photos, Product Review, Product Swatches, Spring/Summer 2013

23 Comments