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NARS Pure Matte Lipstick Moscow: Review, Swatch, FOTD

NARS Pure Matte in Moscow is one of my favourite lipstick purchases of the past 12 months. It’s a beautiful autumnal terracotta red- a colour that I had been trying to hunt down for some time now (I even went so far as to create my own custom colour by mixing OCC Lip Tars ). Found this whilst browsing in Mecca last year and have been using it to death ever since.

Moscow has an almost dreamy, soft focus quality to it- a very easy to wear red that would be killer with a summer dress or jeans.

As I mentioned previously in my Burberry Lip Velvets review , the new generation matte lipstick formulas have come a long way from the (MAC) ‘Ruby Woo’ days when they used to dry my lips out like a prune. The Burberry Lip Velvets, Chanel Rouge Allure Velvets , and NARS Pure Matte (with the exception of Bangkok) are examples of beautifullly formulated matte lipsticks- non drying, light weight, and no chalkiness.

Moscow is one of these great new mattes- it applies smoothly with no tugging on the lips and does not dry my lips out. It is a medium opacity terracotta red, which is buildable to full opacity in two layers. Wear time is a good 5 hours on me (about average for a matte lipstick on my lips).

Swatches (full details in this haul post): NARS Pure Matte Moscow is the third from the left

FOTD makeup breakdown:

Eyes:

- Two faced shadow insurance to prime

- Maybelline Color Tattoo ‘Bad To The Bronze’all over mobile lid to crease

- MAC Mystery eyeshadow in outer V and smudged under bottom lashline

- Physicians formula shimmer strips eyeliner (black) to line upper and lower lashline

Cheeks:

- MAC Blushbaby

Lips:

- NARS Pure Matte Lipstick Moscow

Posted by myfunnyvalentine on Mar 20th, 2013 in FOTD, Lipstick, NARS, Reviews, Swatches | 0 comments.

Tags: matte lipstick

Beauty Haul: NARS, Burberry, YSL, MAC, and Revlon

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If you follow my tweets, you may have heard my angry rants about how Kiss And Makeup NY lost my parcel, and how awful their customer service was. I had spent over $100 on an order, which never arrived. After 4 weeks of waiting, I starting emailing them to find out whether there were any delays they knew about- each time I emailed them, they took forever to reply (with a generic ‘sometimes things take longer through customs, give it another few weeks’ answer). In the end I never received my package, and Kiss And Makeup NY customer service essentially told me that it was my fault that I didn’t insure my items.

I mourned for my lost package for about a month, then I decided to reorder some of the items and pick up a few more things at Nordstrom. Elise from Stuff That I Bought kindly offered to be my makeup mule since she is living in New York at the moment, so here are my new pretties! (thanks Elise, you are the best thing ever).

Hauled:

MAC Bronzer in Bronze

Jack Black Lip Balms Natural Mint

NARS Sheer Glow Foundation in Fiji

YSL Glossy Stain #9 Rouge Laque

Revlon Lip Butter Red Velvet

NARS Pure Matte Lipstick Moscow

Burberry Lip Velvet Antique Pink

Burberry Lip Velvet Rose Pink

MAC Pro Longwear Lip Pencil ‘What A Blast!’

Swatches (from left to right)

1. YSL Glossy Stain #9 Rouge Laque

2. Revlon Lip Butter Red Velvet

3. NARS Pure Matte Lipstick Moscow

4. Burberry Lip Velvet Antique Pink

5. Burberry Lip Velvet Rose Pink

6. MAC Pro Longwear Lip Pencil ‘What A Blast!’

I haven’t swatched the MAC Bronzer, the NARS foundation, and the Jack Black balms

Posted by myfunnyvalentine on Jan 11th, 2013 in Haul, MAC, NARS, Swatches | 0 comments.

Tags: Rant

Vera Wang S/S 2013 inspired bridal makeup FOTD

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Vera Wang S/S 2013 inspired bridal makeup FOTD

Hi all,

One of the looks from the last Ready To Wear shows at NYFW that I really wanted to try was the makeup done for Vera Wang Spring/Summer 2013 (see the images in my Fashion Week coverage post).

The ethereal quality and the warm of the makeup worked perfectly with the romanticism of the India- inspired spring collection in my opinion. I also thought that the look created for this Vera Wang show would be a great option for bridal makeup if you prefer a more natural look over a classic smokey eye. There is a nice subtle shimmer in both the lips and the eyes, which I quite like. The one thing missing is a Vera Wang wedding gown!

I hope you enjoy this FOTD, I’ve listed and photographed products used below

bridal makeup FOTD using blush as eyeshadow

Keep reading after the jump!

(more…)

Posted by myfunnyvalentine on Nov 14th, 2012 in Blush, FOTD, MAC, NARS, Runway | 0 comments.

Tags: Runway Inspired, Soft and Feminine Makeup, Work Friendly

Smoking in the nude: A Lipstick Bandits post

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*Boom-tish!*
It seems that every time I blog about a ‘nude’ a product I feel e need to make the post title more and more cheeky. Indulge me if you can.

So this September, it was decided at BanditHQ (aka twitter) that we were going to bring you posts of our favorite nudes. If you haven’t previously read one of our Lipstick Bandit posts, you are in for a treat as the Bandit group of beauty bloggers around the world simultaneously post on the subject du jour. We each have different personal styles and skin tones so you will get a unique perspective from each blog.

Nude lipstick FOTD with NARS Tzigane

The nude lipstick featured here with a smokey eye is NARS Tzigane (swatched here as part of my NARS lipstick collection). Tzigane is one of my all time favourite nude shades and something that I feel goes perfectly with almost any look. It’s not a super pale nude- more of a MLBB peachy toned nude which I feel suits my skin tone best (pale nudes like MAC Myth lipstick makes me look like the walking dead).

NARS Tzigane is moderately pigmented with a subtle glossy finish and wears comfortably on the lips. Love love love it.

NARS Tzigane lipstick, Rouge Bunny Rouge Bejewelled Skylark eyeshadow, Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Bronze

FOTD makeup breakdown:

Eyes:

- Two faced shadow insurance to prime lids

- Rouge Bunny Rouge Bejewelled Skylark eyeshadow (swatched and reviewed here) blended on mobile lid to crease, and extended out a little towards the temples.

- Rouge Bunny Rouge Bejewelled Skylark eyeshadow smudged under bottom lashline.

- MAC Omega eyeshadow to blend any harsh edges around the RBR eyeshadow

- Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick in Bronze applied to the inner corners of eyes and tear duct area as a highlight. I used the pinkish shades for the beautiful pink quartz coloured shimmer which goes so well with Tzigane and the burgundy tones in the RBR eyeshadow.

- MAC Blacktrack Fluidline to line upper and bottom lashlines and waterline.

- Majorca Majolica Lash Expander Plus fiber mascara.

Cheeks:

- MAC Golden Bronzer to contour

- MAC Blushbaby powder blush on apples (swatched here forever and a day ago)

Keep reading after the jump!

(more…)

Posted by myfunnyvalentine on Sep 24th, 2012 in Bobbi Brown, FOTD, Lipstick, Lipstick Bandits, NARS | 0 comments.

Tags: Lipstick Bandits

NARS Dogon Eyeshadow Duo: review, swatches, FOTD.

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NARS Dogon Eyeshadow Duo

NARS Dogon eyeshadow duo was released as part of the Spring 2011 collection, and is (sadly) a limited edition product. I nabbed this from Lilit’s blog sale about a month ago and have been getting a lot of use out of this gorgeous duo.

Normally I try to avoid posting about discontinued products, but I love Dogon so much that I’m going to go ahead and gush about it anyway. There are a number of ebay sellers currently stocking this duo, although I’ve never bought NARS on ebay so can’t recommend any one in particular.

It is so good for creating smouldering evening looks, and the blue and green undertones in Dogon look fantastic with brown eyes.

Colour

The left side of Dogon is a duochrome shadow with a pinkish taupe base colour and an icy green sheen.

The right side is a charcoal black with a subtle deep blue undertone.

When you layer the left side of Dogon duo on top of the right side shadow, you get this magical opalescent beauty of a colour as shown below. It’s like MAC Club’s more sophisticated older sister.

NARS Dogon Eyeshadow Duo swatched: lighter shade over darker shade (left); darker shade (middle), lighter shade (right)

Texture

The lighter shade in the duo has a smooth texture which is easy to blend on the eye.

The darker shade on the right side of the duo has your typical NARS matte texture- slightly chalky, takes more than the usual amount of patience to blend, and applies patchily on the eye.

I get around this issue by applying my Becca Eye Tint in Pewter underneath, which works remarkably well at improving how the dark side of Dogon applies. It also brings out more of the blue undertone.

Performance

Dogon has reasonable wear time and resists creasing for most of the day. When I used Becca Eye Tint in Pewter, the wear time and crease resistance increases significantly. I haven’t tried Dogon on top of any other cream eyeshadows but it would be interesting to see how it looks and performs on top of MAC Blackground Paint Pot.