eyes

In my fog of sleepiness this morning, I managed to apply Urban Decay's cult Primer Potion onto only one of my eyelids.  How I managed this I have no idea, but it has served to remind me just why I love the stuff so much in the first place.

If you read my post on MAC Art Supplies last week, you might remember that I decided that this MAC collection, unlike many of their collections, contained some items which were a bit different from the norm.  And so, being the makeup addict that I am, I had to go out and buy some, for scientific review purposes.  I picked up the Greasepaint Stick in Charred Mauve, and also a lip stain, which I'll be reviewing next week.

Firstly; unlike the colour images on the website, the product is undoubtably black with the slightest undertones of colour.  I swatched a couple of these on my hands at MAC before I purchased, and the differences were very subtle.  I had thought that the colour was slightly stronger from the descriptions given.

The premise of this product is that it's a smooth, creamy, blendable shadow stick which is easily smoked out.  And indeed, that's exactly what you get - I can't really see how you'd get any other effect with it other than a smoky eye, as it goes on thick and needs to be blended down, and also as the shape of the bullet makes it difficult to get anything other than a thick line.  The texture is very smooth, and so long as you work fast, the creaminess makes this easy to blend.  Leave it too long, though, and the product will have dried down - further blending attempts result in flakes.  Ick.

I had high hopes for the longevity of this, particularly as it dried down much more than say a Paint Pot (all of which crease terribly on me), and as a bit of vigorous rubbing on the swatch on my hand failed to budge my smudgy line.  Unfortunately, my oily eyelids meant that it was not meant to be - about four hours in, I had creasing.  Not terrible creasing, as you can see, and four hours is a long time for a cream product to last on me, but still, that's enough to put me off.  Which is a shame, as I really did like the other aspects of the product.

If your eyelids aren't quite as oil-slick-y as mine, you might find that this holds on better for you; of all the MAC cream eye products, this is definitely the most long lasting I've tried.  The colour is pretty, and the texture is easy to blend.  If you're looking for a single product to get a smoky look, this is worth a try.  Get it from MAC Online for £13.50 for 1g - and bear in mind that it is a limited edition product.

I've been lusting after Guerlain's Terracotta loose powder kohl for years.  Mostly, I admit, because it's in such pretty packaging, and is so very very luxe, because at the end of the day, what you're buying is kohl powder on a stick.  Not that that's a bad thing of course; many of life's finer things come on sticks.  Toffee apples.  Lollipops.  Errr.  Kebabs?

Anyway.  The product is mostly made up of a deep well, which contacts sparkly black kohl (it also comes in many other colours).  The top part is made up of a handle which is as easy to hold securely as it is pretty, attached to a rounded stick.  Drawing the stick from the well brings a light coating of kohl, which you can then apply to the eyes in one of two ways: Eastern or Western.




To apply the Eastern way, you gently put the end of the stick in your inner corner, close your eye, and draw the stick between your closed eyelids.  In theory, this deposits plenty of black kohl on both the upper inner rim and waterline at the same time.  I found that while this definitely did blacken both inner rims, there was also a fair bit of fallout under my eye.

 I suspect that the process of application gets easier and less messy the more you try it out.  For me, this was definitely easier than holding my eyelid up and tickling myself with an eyeliner brush, which is how I usually line my inner rims.  Just a little messier.

The Western approach is to use the stick to dab the kohl onto the upper and/or lower lashlines.  Because this is a soft, smudgy powder, you get a rather pretty smoky look when you apply this way.

Applying the kohl in both ways results in a very high impact (on my pale skin) look which would be a good foundation for a quick smoky eye.  The kohl is soft enough to be easily blendable into lighter eyeshadow colours.  The wear is pretty average; about 4 to 5 hours in, my waterline was little a little bit patchy and less dramatically black.  Because of the fallout, I'd probably recommend applying this before your foundation and concealer, otherwise you might end up with a bit of a cleanup job on your hands, as I did the first time I tried it. 

The only thing that bothers me about the product is the hygiene factor.  This is not something you'd ever want to share or allow someone else to try, obviously.  The fact that I'm essentially poking a stick in my eye makes me feel slightly worried about bacteria build up and the risk of infection.  Whereas one can always sharpen a pencil or wash a brush, there is no way to sanitise this product.

In summary: for a quick and easy way to get both inner rims lined, this is pretty fantastic.  Given that it's a good smoky-eye all rounder, and that it's very luxe (AND looks great on my dressing table), I will probably repurchase - if I ever use it up!  If you'd like to try it yourself, you can find it at SlapItOn.tv for £20.

Given my new found love of NYX lipstick, my last Cherry Culture order contained a few more NYX items to see whether any of their other products would cause me to fall in love. One of these products was their Jumbo Eyeshadow Pencil, a creamy solid shadow stick which is available in 24 colours.

I purchased the Purple and Slate shades, swatches of which can be seen below. The colour is extremely smooth and creamy; it glides onto the skin and is easy to smudge and blend. Because it's so easy to blend, you can sheer the colour out to a pretty wash, or layer it up for a more intense finish.

The colours I tried were both rich and ever so slightly shimmery; not overly glittery, but a gentle, almost metallic pearl. The purple, in particular, really brings out the green in my eyes, and the deep grey Slate colour is a great base for a smoky, smudged eye.

Unfortunately, as with many cream products, this remains creamy and emollient on the lid, and doesn't dry down. I have oily eyelids, and I saw creasing within 5 minutes. Setting with a touch of powder eyeshadow didn't really make a huge amount of difference, probably because I had layered the colour up for a more intense result.

For me and my oily lids, the usages of this product are somewhat limited; it looks fabulous smudged into the upper and lower lashline, either for a bit of eye-enhancing colour (with the purple) or for a bit of smoke (with the slate). I won't be putting it anywhere near my crease again, though!

If you'd like to try these for yourself, you can get hold of them at CherryCulture.com, for just $3.00 each.

One of the comments on last weeks' Waterproof Eyeliner Showdown post suggested that a great way to roadtest waterproof liners was to test their effectivity on the waterline. It sounded like a great idea to me, so on Friday I applied the MUFE Aqua Eyes and GOSH Velvet Touch pencils to my inner rims and waited six hours to see how they fared.


It's worth noting that the GOSH pencil was much easier to apply on the waterline than the MUFE; one or two passes across the waterline gave a good, deep black, whereas the MUFE pencil took a good five or six passes to build up the same level of blackness. The GOSH pencil is the softer of the two, and as you can see, the colour smudged outside of the waterline onto the lower lash line much more than the MUFE pencil did.

Six hours later, neither pencil had stayed on completely - both had worn off around the outer and inner corners, with some black still showing in the middle part of the waterline. The GOSH Velvet Touch pencil transferred down under the lower lashes much more than the MUFE Aqua Eyes, probably because of it's softer texture.

The performance is again very similar between the two pencils, and once again, I'd still say that they are more water resistant than waterproof. If you'd like to try either one, you can get the GOSH Velvet Touch liner from Superdrug for £5, or the Makeup Forever Aqua Eyes liner from Guru Makeup Emporium for £11.95.

Disclosure: OCC gave us samples of Authentic to try out.

This is OCC's Loose Color Concentrate in Authentic, a metallic orangey-copper. In these pictures I've foiled the pigment onto the lid using a touch of mixing medium, and blended out the edges with some dry pigment. As you can see, it's a very intense colour with a gorgeous metallic sheen when applied damp.

This is pretty much everything I'd hoped that Illamasqua's Liquid Metals would be on the lid. Intense, metallic, beautiful. But the Loose Color Concentrate, being a powder and not a cream, doesn't crease like the Liquid Metal did. The tradeoff is that the OCC product isn't quite as opulently metallic as the Illamasqua.

Still - if you want to bring out the green in your eyes, this is beautiful. And the application is much better than my other favourite copper pigment, MAC Copper Sparkle, which is a bugger to apply due to its gritty texture - the OCC offering is uniformly smooth.

If you'd like to try this for yourself, you can find it at OCC's website, where it'll cost you $10 for 2.5g.

I currently have two black eyeliners that claim to be waterproof; Makeup Forever's Aqua Eyes, and GOSH's Velvet Touch. Both are great eyeliners; richly pigmented, smooth to apply, fairly long lasting.. everything you could want from a basic black eyeliner really. But what of this waterproof claim? Presumably, as with waterproof mascara, the point is that should you get caught in an unexpected rainshower or have a bit of a cry, you won't end up looking panda-eyed.

I decided to give the waterproof moniker an extreme test by wearing both liners swimming. I wear googles, so it's not like I've expected them to bear 40 lengths of immersion; the level of exposure is more condensation from my skin within the goggles and a few quick dips underwater.

Here are some comparisons. Bear in mind I didn't put any effort into applying the liner (I wasn't expecting it to really stick around long) - just stroked a line along my lash line and went to the pool.


As you can see, both have transferred and smudged a little bit underneath the eye, and in the case of the Makeup Forever Aqua Eyes, transferred to the lid too. However, both pencils stayed put a good deal more than I expected them to, and neither of them looked excessively messy post-swim. Comparing the two, they are pretty much on a par, which is interesting given that the MUFE offering costs £11.95, and the GOSH alternative costs just £5.

Either of these pencils would be viable if you're aiming to protect against heavy rain or tears, although I'd probably call them water resistant instead of waterproof. The only truly waterproof eyeliner I've tried is MAC's Liquid Last Liner, which is so waterproof that it's a bugger to get off.

If you'd like to conduct your own water-related eyeliner test, you can grab the GOSH Velvet Touch liner from Superdrug for £5, or the Makeup Forever Aqua Eyes liner from Guru Makeup Emporium for £11.95.

This Yaby palette is easily my most extravagant makeup purchase of 2010 so far. Even with the IMATS show discount, it was pretty pricy at £64.99. I decided I had to have it on the Sunday of the show after buying a few of the single shades on the Saturday.

Best of Both Worlds is one of Yaby's pre-filled kits, with 40 shadow pans in one of their customisable palettes. This isn't the exact Best of Both Worlds layout. I have swapped a few pans with the singles I bought. Like "Highlighted", that neon yellow.



It's extremely easily to change the pans around or replace empties. You just press down on the edge of the pan with your finger and out it pops. Very well designed. The palette generally is a solid piece of work, with a decent mirror and a pleasant, smooth weightiness in the hand. If Apple made palettes, they might look a bit like this.


I think one of the most powerful draws for me was the miniature-ness of the pans. They're like adorable little buttons. I've always been a sucker for tiny things, and when tininess is combined with cosmetic-ness, I'm sort of helpless to resist. The palettes also remind me of the Bobbi Brown Brights LE palette which was around last summer and which I wanted quite badly at the time.

There are two textures in this palette (hence Best of Both), regular eyeshadows, and Pearl Paints. The Pearl Paints are buttery opaque shimmer dreaminess, and the regular shadows aren't half bad either - very pigmented and smooth.

Here's my attempt to create a suitably bright look with my new toy. I'm not entirely happy with this (nnng at not getting shadow in crease exactly) but it does give a suggestion of the finish and opacity these shadows can achieve. My camera has washed the colours out quite a bit.



Yaby cosmetics are available in the UK from The Makeup Artist Boutique. The Best of Both palette costs a rather daunting £79.99, but it is quite a special bit of kit. And you won't need to say "I don't have any [x colour] eyeshadow" ever, ever again.

My recent trip to New York yielded slightly more than just goodies for you chaps to win - I also picked up a few products for myself, one of which is Philosophy's Eye Believe, which contrary to its name is an eye and lip peptide balm.

Supposedly, this is a bit of an all-in-one wonder product: it claims to "instantly smooth out the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles while reducing the appearance of dark shadows under the eyes and upper lip". It also has "long term anti-ageing effects". The formula of this stuff is lovely - it's one of those terribly smooth and velvety balms which just glides over the skin. You need very little get an even application under the eyes. It's also pleasantly unscented.

I've been applying it under my eyes only for a few weeks, and while the skin under my eyes certainly does feel much more smooth and hydrated, I can't say I've noticed any immediate wrinkle-smoothing. Granted, I don't exactly have a lot of wrinkles under my eyes, but I do have a couple of fine lines; I didn't see any difference. I have, however, seen a difference in the depth of my dark circles - they're still too dark, but they do seem lighter, so perhaps with more use they'll diminish further.

One thing to note about this one - if you usually just apply your eye creams all around your eye without reading the instructions, be very careful. This stuff really STINGS when it gets into your eye, as it did when I slapped it on my eyelid. Similarly, even if you've applied it just to your under eye area, and your face gets wet, it will still sting - so this has become a night-time product only for me.

All in all, while this is a very nice product to use and it does seem to be working on one level at least, I'm not totally bowled over, and probably won't be repurchasing when it eventually runs out. That is, unless my dark circles disappear completely, in which case I'll let you know!

If you'd like to try it yourself, you can get it at QVC at £24.50 for 14.2g (£2.50 cheaper than HQHair!).