Holiday Beauty Haul & First Impressions

Today I want to share with you the portion of my December beauty haul that consists of the products that were not chosen out of necessity, but rather, out of want. The other part was all re-purchases and things that I already have a well formed opinion on that has also been previously expressed. No, these are items, cousins of which I already own in my collection, but figured, it's the holidays, and even though I don't strictly need another eyeshadow, gosh it's nice to play with something new.

First up is the most practical of the three purchases – the Guerlain Cils d'Enfer Maxi Lash Mascara. I'd seen glowing reviews of it here and there and became intrigues. My previous mascara, the Chanel Inimitable Intense, was all but dried up and flaky, and even though it's held the top position of my favourite mascaras, I wanted to try something new.

What drew me to the Guerlain was the dainty tube – it's quite small and flat, which I appreciate – the less space a mascara takes up in my makeup bag, the better. I loathe obnoxious, gigantic mascara tubes! And the other was that it has a straight forward, natural bristle brush, which the Chanel does not. Since I hadn't bought Inimitable in several years, I didn't understand why some people disliked the plastic/rubber wand and said it hurt – I couldn't recall that it did. Well, my eyes and skin must have gotten more sensitive since then, because after using it again, I concur, it does hurt. Every other day I feel like I've stabbed myself in the eye trying to do the most natural thing – get the brush to the very roots of the lashes. When the spikes hit the water line or the actual eye – instant pain. It's not a deal breaker for me, I'd still re-purchase the Chanel, but I wanted to try out something that might have the same fluttery, demure effect but with a natural brush.

First off, even though the tube is small, the brush is not so it took several days of getting used to it to not keep getting mascara on my eyelids. The tube itself feels very nice and despite the gold finish doesn't really show fingerprints, which is awesome. The first time I used it I was incredibly underwhelmed. I kept brushing my lashes and trying to build up the product and nothing happened. One coat of the Maxi Lash gives a very natural, your lashed but better, look. It's definitely lengthening and separating rather than volumizing. On a daily basis, I prefer the look that I achieve with the Chanel – slightly more volume and the tips of the lashes come to a very delicate, fine point. With the Maxi Lash, they appear more sparse, longer and the tips come to a somewhat abrupt, blunt point. I'd heard that this mascara could be built up later in the day if say you were going out, so I decided to test this, because I've never been able to layer more mascara on my lashes once it had dried – they just became too dry and stiff to allow more product to go on. With this, I could feel that it might actually work because once it dries, the lashes feel very soft, not at all, um, crusty. And it did work! I applied another coat maybe five hours later and a third one much later in the evening and it definitely built up the drama. For a daily look, the tip would be to do one eye, then the other, and come back once the first one had dried to get more volume. I definitely like the look once it's been built up. Also, the mascara is quite heavily fragranced, which based on your preference, you may or may not like. It's a perfumey scent, not a typical mascara one. I personally like it although I think it's what makes my eyes tingle uncomfortably just after having applied the mascara, but this feeling goes away after a minute.

On the negative side – I found this mascara incredibly hard to remove. INCREDIBLY! Even the one, barely there coat. Removing three coats was an epic undertaking. If you're impatient and waking up with still some residue, which you thought after all that hard work, you'd gotten all, irritates you, approach this product with caution. Its major flaw, however, is that it transfers on me like crazy. After about an hour or two, I can see a hazy grey circle forming under my eye and by the end of the day it looks like I haven't slept in years. In addition, I'll have black stripes of product settled in fine lines in the corner of my eye. This is mind boggling to me that it would travel so much and so far off my lashes, considering how hard it is to remove. I will use it up and the positives of the product are pleasant enough to do so, but realistically, I wouldn't re-purchase it because of that last point. I have to opt for smokier looks so it doesn't look so apparent that it's giving me panda-eyes, and wipe my under eye area with a tissue several times a day to look presentable.

I don't have a lot of eyeshadow, but what I do have is all high-end, and honestly, everything is of so-so quality when it comes to creasing, longevity, fallout and colour payoff, so I've become very skeptical of the product as a whole. Maybe wanting true-to-pan colour, that lasts, doesn't crease and stays on the lid and nowhere else, IS asking for the moon?? I don't know... I've always preferred singles, duos and trios to any larger compilations of shadows, as I feel like you're paying for wanting one or two colours anyway, and the rest are just a nuisance and waste of time, precious space and money. Smashbox isn't available where I live but I hear and read about it all the time in the beautysphere. Since this is a more “makeup artist” than “luxury/high-end/department store” brand, I wanted to give them a shot when the opportunity presented itself. Smashbox have lots and lots of trios, a no nonsense format I like. No useless little mirror, travel-friendly and compact. After an ungodly amount of time devoted to looking for swatches of their trios on the internet, I narrowed it down to two that I might want. Only one was available where I bought mine – Photo Op Eye Shadow Trio in Cover Shoot.

When I swatched a bunch of these trios at the store, they wowed me with how pigmented they were. However, I have to conclude that it was just a couple of them that had darker browns and blacks that stuck in my mind, because the really nude ones were barely registrable and very similar, so my initial impression of great pigmentation is really hit or miss depending on the trio. I chose Cover Shoot because I thought it was purple and would compliment a couple of other eyeshadows I already have. When I got it home I realized two things – it wasn't nearly as pigmented as I had thought, and it was definitely not purple. The colours are a sort of blend of the two families of colour I dislike the most (on my eyes) – brown and grey - while being neither. This combo is actually very flattering on me and depending on the light I still feel like there's some purple in there, something that would definitely be set off if paired with a purple liner or cream shadow.

All of the colours are a step down from what I expected them to be in terms of pigmentation. I thought the lightest shade, Flirt, would be a good all over the lid shade, but it's more like an inner corner highlight/center of the lid pop. I imagined I'd use the middle shade, Dusk, for drama in the outer corner, however it's more like an all over lid shade. And finally, I thought the darkest, Haze, would be strictly useful for liner, but it's more like a crease/outer v shade. It depends on how you look at things – are these shadows not very pigmented, or are they effortless and impossible to overdo? It's a case of glass half full or empty. You decide.

I actually love the look that I get with these. If I worked in an office and saved my vampier, more adventurous looks for evenings out and days off, this would be my go to everyday look that says “I'm alluring but I also mean business”. Which is why I'm so sad that these crease on me, fast and badly... Base or no base. Also, these are the most powdery eyeshadows I have – so much product kicks up when you barely touch it with a brush... Just, ugh! I feel like this has SO much potential to be so much better. Coupled with the Maxi Lash mascara, let's just say I've been rocking a very worn in grungy look trying these out lately =p. In spite of the underwhelming performance of the Cover Shoot trio, I'm actually not deterred from trying more of them, Quick Take, which was the other one I wanted, in particular, should I see it in-store someday.

Last but not least, I got the Clarins Colours of Brazil Summer Bronzng Compact. Now, I'm not about to start collecting an overwhelming amount of face colour products – neither my budget nor space allowance can really hold much more than I already have. In fact, I hadn't really placed much importance on blush and bronzer until recently, so when I unexpectedly hit pan on my Guerlain 4 Seasons Bronzer, I panicked and NEEDED a backup. I wasn't really looking to try anything new, but then I learned that they weren't carrying that particular line of Guerlain bronzers where I shop. Some other counters didn't either, others had some but not my colour, 00 Nude. I panicked!

I needed to find something similar. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything suitable for fair skin that also had a sort of blush shade incorporated, like the Guerlain. Boo! I did however decide my new one needed to have several colours that I could play around with. I had a couple of candidates – Dior Nude, but the way the colour is pressed you don't really have any other option than to swirl it all together, same with the mosaic bronzer Guerlain make. I ended up narrowing my options down to Clarins – either their bronzing duo from their permanent line, or last summer's limited edition one. Even though I couldn't swatch the Colours of Brazil bronzer, I ended up choosing it because you get twice the amount of product for just slightly more money, in stunning packaging. In fact, as I'm writing this, the Clarins UK site has this compact on sale, so you get twice the amount of product for 7GBP LESS than the regular one!

The compact is nice and big, something I didn't expect to like having become accustomed to using the little quadrants of my Guerlain bronzer. It comes in a velvet pouch and a spectacularly useless little brush that's housed in a little pocket, crookedly sewn onto the back of said pouch. The compact itself is beautiful however. It doesn't feel as nice and heavy as the Guerlain, which isn't a tragedy by any means. The mirror opens to a full 180 degrees, which I think should be the norm.

You get three shades, a lighter and darker bronze and a tiny square of shimmery peach, which you can't really access on its own unless you use an eye brush. All of this is embossed with a design that mimics that of the lid. The powder is as tightly packed as the Guerlain bronzer – not a single visible speck of product kicks up when you put your brush in it, so feel free to swirl with gusto, you won't make a mess! The Clarins bronzer has better colour payoff, which is great, but I wasn't expecting it, so I sort of over did it the first couple of applications. Overall, it provides a similar, heathy summer glow that the 4 Seasons Bronzer does. I use both my Fine Kalla KK002 and RMK powder brush to apply it, depending on my mood, but I really prefer the RMK because of how quick and easy it is to add colour to my face, neck and decolletage.

The only thing I dislike about the powder, is the fragrance. It's not strong, but if you don't like the plastic scent of those room fresheners you plug in the wall, you won't care for this either and despite it being faint, might obsess about it like me. But it's really a minor thing and all down to preference.

Of all of my holiday beauty purchases, the Clarins Bronzing Powder is by far my favourite. I shouldn't be running out of bronzer any time soon! As for eyeshadows, I'm a little bit discouraged at this point, but the search for the perfect formula will continue. And the next mascara I'll try when the Guerlain is gone, will either be Volume de Chanel or... Something else ;). Hope everyone had a marvelous new year's eve and here's to 2015 bringing new and exciting things =).