Nars Velvet Matte and Velvet Gloss Lip Pencils in New Lover, Frivolous, Club Mix, Sex Machine, Mexican Rose, Dragon Girl, Toundra - Review, Photos, Swatches

It has come to my attention that, at some point over the last few years, I have gathered a small but substantial army of Nars lip pencils! I swear I don't know how this happened 8D I do like these products, though, so I though I'd throw up some photos of the shades I have in case anyone was curious.

Club Mix, a sheer warm grape

New Lover, a sheer medium strawberry pink

Frivolous, a sheer pink nude

Sex Machine, a matte muted mauve

Mexican Rose, a sheer, vibrant hot pink

Toundra, a matte, rusted bronze

Dragon Girl, a matte classic red

L to R: New Lover, Frivolous, Club Mix, Sex Machine, Mexican Rose, Dragon Girl, Toundra

My favorites would have to be Mexican Rose and Dragon Girl. Mexican Rose is a lovely mid-vibrant, everyday hot pink that gives your lips a burst of color without being too over the top of neon for the workplace. It is my most used Nars lip pencil! Dragon Girl is simply a gorgeous, gorgeous creation - this is my go-to matte, blue-based red. I love the matte look (so vintage and classy) and I feel Dragon Girl is subdued enough, without losing the sexy sophistication often associated with these hues, to be a good fit even for those apprehensive of reds. My least favorite is Toundra; I got in on sale for $5 and I'm glad I didn't spend more! It is very unforgiving to dry lips, and is not a good complement to my skin tone.

The Nars Velvet Matte Pencils wear really well (about 4 hours) with even, non-splotchy fading. Dragon Girls and Sex Machine are comfortable to wear, though, as mentioned earlier, Toundra is drying. The Velvet Gloss pencils have a pleasant texture - smooth and soft. They don't hold as well as the mattes (only about 2 hours), but they're still really nice and shiny.

Both the Velvet Matte and Velvet Gloss Nars Lip Pencils sell for $24 regularly at Sephora (here and here), the Nars online store, and at some department store makeup counters.

What do you think? I'm a fan, and even more so because they come in pencil form!

Thanks for looking! :)

Inglot AMC Lip Gloss 541, 543, 544, 546 - Review, Swatches, Photos

During Inglot's online Black Friday sale I ended up welcoming many new members into my makeup club/collection, including a few of the AMC lipglosses (I had already had and cherished 541 and decided he was in dire need of some friends..)!

This little line of glosses is beautiful, complicated, lustrous, wonderfully duochromatic, and woefully hard to capture photographically :( This is my best effort!

L to R: 541, 543, 544, 546

Here they are swatched -

541

541

541 is my first and probably most favorite of the AMCs - it's an iridescent, prismatic, futuristic sometime-pink sometime-lavender with fine, radiant shimmer. To me this is very alien and radioactive-looking; I would feel perfectly proper wearing this on an intergalactic vacation, if only such a thing were possible! Lovely.

543

543

543 is my least favorite of these glosses, though still decent. I was hoping for a light pink, though on me this looks more a light peachy nude.

544

Argh, my photo is awful! 544 is actually a rather lovely red-pink. It is the most pigmented of the four Inglot glosses I have, and is really a very pretty shade.

546

546

546 is much more beautiful and nuanced worn than in the bottle. It is the most gorgeous opalescent pearl with a creamy yellow shift - truly as if you would've (somehow) melted a pearl and spread it over your lips. So cool!

(All together now!)

L to R: 541, 543, 544, 546

Overall I like these very much, though I don't believe I would purchase 543 again - it is a nice color, but it's straight forward enough that you could find cheaper dupes. They last a good 2-2.5 hours and adhere well without being too sticky. They are fairly moisturizing, too, and each has a different fruity scent (some of the ones I detected were peach, melon, and cherry) that's moderately strong at the start but fades rather quickly. Inglot's AMC lipglosses are available at Inglot stores and online for $16 each.

~~I apologize for my sporadic posting lately... The holiday season is busy for everyone, and work has decided this is also a good time to unload on me. I promise I will be back to posting regularly in the new year. Thank you for reading, I appreciate you sticking with me! :)

Sephora Ultra Shine Lip Gloss Set - Review, Photos, Swatches

Here's another of my Sephora F&F sale purchases: the Sephora Ultra Shine Lip Gloss Set!

This collection contains eight mini Ultra Shine Lipglosses (0.1 oz each) and is available at Sephora for $22. I couldn't find the volume of the full-size product online, but regular tubes of these glosses can be purchased for $14 each.

Let's get to it!

She Sparkles

Sassy Soiree

Fresh Peach

Perfect Nude

Pop Princess

Pink Diamond

Purple Red

Cinnamon Spice

L to R: She Sparkles, Sassy Soiree, Fresh Peach, Perfect Nude, Pop Princess, Pink Diamond, Red Purple, Cinnamon Spice

Color me pleasantly surprised! I think this little set offers a nice variety of colors in a good mix of finishes (glitter, shimmer, and creme). The glosses have a generous amount of pigment and I can tell that the sheerer ones, like She Sparkles, were formulated as such intentionally to provide a veil of sparkle atop a lipstick base, and aren't just accidental duds. Fresh Peach looks positively glowing and gorgeous on its own, while the rest of the shades (with the exception of She Sparkles) would work splendidly both by themselves and layered. Very festive conglomerate of colors, and I love that with Sephora's Ultra Shine Lipgloss Set one can easily maneuver between a subtle look and a glamorous look as one sees fit. At the price point this product is great for those who like to change at up or are commitment-phobic when it comes to their makeup choices (I'll admit I'm one of the latter lasses!). Sephora uses a sponge hourglass applicator:

Sephora's Ultra Shine glosses have a nice, soft texture and a vanilla scent. They wear well for a gloss (roughly two hours) and they aren't drying in the slightest (perhaps even a bit moisturizing?). The quality of these products exceeded my expectations; definitely worth checking out!

Have you tried any of Sephora's lip glosses?

Sinful Colors Extra Shiny Lipgloss in Pucker Up, Carnival - Review, Swatches, Photos

I feel like I'm the only person in the world who didn't know that Sinful Colors made a product other than nail lacquer, until a few days ago when I ran into their lipglosses at Walgreens... literally. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and I literally body-checked the hanging display so hard it rattled and swayed precariously on its flimsy little hooks. Some tubes even decided to abandon ship and jumped overboard. The girl who was stocking haircare items further down the aisle gave me a long, unimpressed stare before going back to work, pretending not to have noticed my embarrassing fumble 8D

After I got over that awkward snafu I purchased two colors, Pucker Up and Carnival, at $1.99 a piece.

L to R: Carnival, Pucker Up

Note - if you decide to purchase SC's Extra Shiny Lipgloss I recommend twisting off the top to make sure that the stopper (which wipes excess product from the wand as you take it out of the tube) is there. Carnival was missing this piece, so when I unknowingly whipped the applicator out I got gooey gloss everywhere. Luckily I was still in the Walgreens parking lot and was able to run in and get it exchanged, but save yourself the hassle and check beforehand!

The applicator is your standard sponge-tip doe-foot affair -

Here's Pucker Up, a pale pink nude -

No Flash

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This is Carnival, a deep berry red -

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Pucker Up is the more opaque of the two shades, though neither provide full coverage. Carnival is sheer, probably best for layering, and I imagine it would look absolutely breathtaking atop Make Up For Ever's  Moulin Rouge! The texture of the formulas is quite different across these two glosses; Pucker Up is thicker, tackier, and more globby, while Carnival is very, VERY thin - like, I thought it might run off my lips if I applied too much! (It doesn't, though, just feels that way.) The scent is pleasant, a light vanilla odor similar to that found in MAC lipsticks, and it fades within a few minutes. If, like me, you hate being overwhelmed by the sickeningly sweet or fruity scents commonly found in drugstore cosmetics, this smell should not bother you! In terms of longevity, these last about 1.5-2 hours on me - not particularly stellar, but fair for a gloss.

Overall, I think these are great for the price. There were shimmer shades available as well if that's what you're looking for. Have you gotten any of the Sinful Colors lip glosses? How do you like them?

Thanks for reading! :)

Givenchy Gloss Interdit Ultra-Shiny Color Plumping Effect in 07 Glamorous Fuchsia - Review, Photos, Swatches

If nothing else this blog has taught me to be more adventurous in my beauty purchases--as long as the vendor has a good return policy--buying product with little to no prior experience or knowledge of the brand/item. I'm usually an impulsive shopper, but not so with makeup; there's just so much that could go wrong, and I already often feel one stray brush stroke away from looking like an 80's drag queen who got done up in the dark using her toes. Plain old 'drag queen' is a fun look I often return to, especially for nights out, but when your coworkers, quite immune to your makeup experiments, give you the side glance, you know it's time to put down the glitter mascara!

Anyway, since lipgloss is fairly foolproof and only dangerous if you're half asleep and really really really distracted (this is how I got gloss in my nose, once), it was a good experimental buy to start with. I picked up Givenchy's Gloss Interdit Ultra-Shiny Color Plumping Effect in 07 Glamorous Fuchsia ($26.50 for 0.21oz) at Sephora.

I'm a fan of doe-foot wands but I must say, I quite like this brush! The stiffness and density of the bristles allows for perfect control and easy application.

Glamorous Fuchsia is a vibrant hot pink with delicate microglitter!

I'm a bit in love with this gloss; the color is opaque, vivid, and very, very nice. A bit tacky but fairly resistant to movement and not sticky. This pink lasts 3-4 hours on me, which is spot on for a lipgloss. Yes, Glamorous Fuchsia is a gem, nailing every trait I look for in a lip product... except scent. Oh, goodness, the scent! Why? D:

So I'm exaggerating a bit, and the smell does fade as time wears on--but I can't help but be disappointed at the strange berry/floral mixture. Because it reminds me of Essence lipgloss (which I adore), I associate it with cheap drugstore cosmetics. [This isn't a bad thing, but not pleasing when you shelled out $26.50 for a cosmetic!] I realize this is totally a matter of personal preference and I happen to prefer unscented, light vanilla, or light rose. It might be right up your alley, though!

Overall, I'm satisfied with my Givenchy purchase and look forward to try more from the brand. Have you tried Givenchy's lipgloss?