Poppy King x Boots

There is little that can make me feel so feminine as a fabulous lipstick. The gesture of uncapping a tube of color is just so wonderfully retro, the sort of thing that makes me want to shout “Put on your pearls, girls!”.

Poppy King x Boots in No. 5 Intrigue

Poppy King x Boots in No. 5 Intrigue

When a lipstick queen collaborates with a British drugstore giant, you know the results are going to be perfection – and so is the case with the Poppy King for Boots collaboration. I recently picked up a tube in “Intrigue“, as much for the wearable color as for the polka-dotted yellow packaging (and we all know how I feel about adorable packaging). If you don’t know Poppy King, she is the Australian, New York based self-proclaimed ‘Lipstick Queen‘ who has created some of the most unique shades on the market. Her products are highly coveted and she has collaborated with giants of style such as J. Crew. Boots, on the other hand, is a British drugstore chain known for its excellent selection and formidable, affordable in-house brand No. 7 – I have personally witnessed foreigners at Boots stores in Central London clearing off entire shelves –  it’s a spectacle to be witnessed. It should come as no surprise, then,  that their collaboration is nothing less than a hit.

Poppy King x Boots in No. 5 Intrigue, Swatched in Natural Light

Inside the box is a surprisingly small tube of lipstick, housed in a brushed lavender tin emblazoned with No7 and Poppy King, but fortunately, the formula did not disappoint. This lippie is moisturizing, pigmented but without being over the top bold with color – the effect is simply perfect. The formula wears more like a lip balm than it does a drying lipstick, and so my lips looked lush and hydrated. I was able to choose one coat for sheer color, or more for a bolder look. The color itself, Intrigue (No. 5), is incredibly wearable and natural. A nude, slightly warm pink, this color creates a perfect ‘lady’ look for daytime, all while feeling slick and pleasant on my mouth. The wear time is not exceptional – I got perhaps 3 hours of wear – however the adorable tube makes reapplication a pleasure. As you can see in my photos, this lippie pears well with pearls, but also a multitude of makeup looks. Here, a swipe of bold eyeliner, a bit of bronzer and the Poppy King x Boots lipstick in Intrigue were all I needed to pull together a polished look.

Poppy King x Boots… and Pearls !

Poppy King x Boots… and Pearls !

Poppy King x Boots is available at Boots in the UK, and at selection Target stores in the US, for about $9.99 USD / 12 GBP. There are complimentary products in the range including lip crayons and glosses, though the lipstick is genuinely the standout in this collaboration.

Cheap Thrill Sunday

In any good makeup arsenal, you’ll find the high blended with the low. I may have more NARS eyeshadows than I can count, but I’m never against a cheap purchase – sometimes really exceptional products can be found for under $5, and failing that, it’s an easy way to experiment with color and texture.

I picked up a few products from NYX Cosmetics recently, an American brand with a vast range of reasonably priced products.

NYX's Xtreme Lip Cream (Absolute Red, left), and Soft Matte Lip Cream (Sao Paolo, right)

NYX's Xtreme Lip Cream (Absolute Red, left), and Soft Matte Lip Cream (Sao Paolo, right)

I’ve been dying to try the Soft Matte Lip Creams and though I couldn’t find the color I wanted, I did pick one up in Sao Paolo, a bright (but still wearable) warm pink. The texture of this product is really lovely – very much like a rose petal. It applies like a gloss but dries down to a feather light, silky matte lip color that stays and stays. The texture is not 100 percent matte, as it does give a slight lustre to the pout, but isn’t shiny like a gloss either – rather, it looks very much like a cross between a stain and a lipstick. The odour, however, is sickeningly sweet, like artificial buttercream, which makes initial application torturous. That scent fades however, leaving only bright, lasting color with a gorgeous finish. Available in 11 shades,  mostly neutrals, this product retails for a steal at $6USD.

NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Sao Paolo

NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Sao Paolo

I also grabbed a tube of the Xtreme Lip Cream  , a recently launched product that is said to be a hybrid between a gloss, a lipstick, and a stain. This product goes on very thick – almost like honey – and doesn’t have amazing longevity considering the texture. It is, however, a fun way to experiment with color and does provide quite the bold look – though it is slightly difficult to apply precisely with its somewhat large, doe foot applicator. I picked this up in Absolute Red, a bright scarlet that leans slightly cool, pulling only the tiniest bit fuchsia. The odour problem here is the same as with the Soft Matte Lip Cream, but not as strong – it smells almost like a mix of vanilla and plastic, but fades quickly enough. These can also be found for $6, but aren’t as unique as the Soft Matte Lip Creams.

    

NYX Xtreme Lip Cream in Absolute Red

 

Lastly, I picked up two small shakers of the NYX‘s Loose Pearl Eyeshadow, a loose pigment with a fine, sparkly texture best suited to eyeshadow or highlighting purposes. These products are a reasonable dupe for MAC pigments, and can be mixed with water to use as liner, brushed on the eyelids, blended into glosses or patted on top of cheekbones. At $3 USD each, these are an absolute steal, and a good product to own due to versatility and quality. As shown in the photos, these come in tiny jars and can be a wee bit messy to apply (there is no sifter, only an open top to the jar), but dipping a small, wetted brush directly inside of the jar can avoid messy mishaps. I poured a bit of each pigment out to show the beautiful, sparkling textures of these – they really shine, and don’t apply with any gritiness. I can’t recommend these enough as a true ‘steal’ purchase !

NYX Loose Pearl Eyeshadow in Mink (left) and Baby Pink (right)

NYX Loose Pearl Eyeshadow in Mink (left) and Baby Pink (right)

 

 

Cheap Thrills – Rimmel’s Glam’Eyes HD Eyeshadow Palette

Alright, I know I am not on the ball on this one. These adorable Union Jack shaped eyeshadow quads have been on the market for a while – first in the UK, available on ASOS and at drugstores, then in France, and finally, in the US.

I managed to find one of these palettes for the modest sum of $6.49 USD recently, and although I certainly don’t need any more eyeshadow, I really couldn’t resist. Not only is the design adorable, but Rimmel is excellent in terms of price point and quality, and these shadows looked feminine and shimmery.

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD Eyeshadow Quad, English Rose

The shadows themselves are really lovely – they are smooth and buttery, eminently blendable, and pack a beautiful shimmer that never veers into frosty-your-grandmother-in-Boca territory. The palette I picked up is in ‘English Rose’ (005), and the shades are beautiful, including a pale shimmering pink, a silvered plum, a purpled taupe shade and finally a deep rusty plum shade for definition. The pale pink is the palette’s main shade – logical, since we tend to use the lightest shade of our eyeshadows the most – and creates the cross of the union jack. The other 3 shades are repeated in small triangles in each of the four corners of this palette.

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD Eyeshadow Quad, English Rose

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD Eyeshadow Quad, English Rose

So the drawback? It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again – while it’s easy to access the large cross of pale pink with brushes and fingers, the pans of the other 3 shades are miniscule! Even the included sponge tip applicator can’t really fit in these teeny tiny pans, so I used a small, angled eyeliner brush to get as much color as possible.

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD Eyeshadow Quad, English Rose, Swatched in Indoor Light

With that being said, for the price, this palette is worth it – I suppose the Union Jack design was adorable, but certainly not practical. I used this palette for my Valentine’s Day Look and was really pleased with the effect, not dissimilar to the sheer shimmering shadows offered by Bobbi Brown. If you are looking for a wash of color rather than a pop, and willing to deal with poor product design, then I would tell you to snap one of these palettes up while you can.

Rimmel Glam’Eyes HD Eyeshadow Palette – available widely at CVS, Walgreens (USA), Monoprix (France) and Boots (UK).

Rimmel USA

Wet n Wild Eye Make-Up Remover

One of my favorite things about returning to the USA are my 2am adventures at CVS with my mother, where we fill our shopping caddies with cheap delights unavailable to me in Paris. One of the brands I’ve been hearing more about is Wet n Wild, who have apparently started to produce some incredibly cheap and surprisingly good quality products. When I realized I had left my eye makeup remover back in Paris and very little selection at the drug store I visited, I decided to grab their pretty, purple eye makeup remover off the shelf – at only $1.99, I figured I could see if it worked and if not, the low price wouldn’t prevent me from chucking this in the garbage bin.

Frankly? $1.99 was too much to pay for this awful product – it isn’t even worth the plastic it’s housed in. I know that Wet n Wild has made great strides from when they were known for glittery glosses favored by 12 year olds, but this product was downright awful ! It looks much like nail polish remover, which should have been my first warning – and is oil free (which is worrying to someone who adores cleansing oils as much as I do).

Not only did this product not remove my makeup – even just a coat of mascara and a light eyeshadow wash – it stung my eyes worse than ANY product ever has. The product claims to me suitable for sensitive eyes and hypoallergenic, opthamologist-tested, but these claims seem to be a little bit dubious – my eyelids were red and swollen for HOURS after using this ! I literally only saved it to blog about how awful it is.

I know that quality is often relative to price, but Sephora makes a wonderful bi-phase eyemakeup remover for about the same price for a similarly sized bottle, as does my local Monoprix supermarket – so Wet N Wild has NO excuse. The ingredient list gave me a fright – the second ingredient listed after water is  butylene glycol, an alcohol product and a known skin and eye irritant. That Wet N Wild would choose to use this as the primary ingredient for their product really boggles the mind. The product also contains several types of fragrance and linalool, so I very much doubt that their claim of being hypoallergenic and suitable for contact lens wearers is valid.

For the 2 dollars, you might be better off buying vaseline, which isn’t ideal, but will remove your eye makeup in a pinch !

Nivea Cream – your winter skin solution ?

I haven’t used Nivea for a long time, since I’ve found a skin care line that works really well for my skin. However, with winter fast approaching, I found myself putting a tub of Nivea’s classic cream in my cart of groceries without even really realizing it – and two weeks later, my skin is thanking me !

For those of you who don’t know Nivea’s eponymous and iconic skin cream, it’s been a staple in the beauty routines of women for 100 years and there has been some talk of it being an appropriate dupe for the incredibly expensive Crème de la Mer. Let my explain : if you take out the ‘miracle broth’ from Crème de la Mer and compare the list of ingredients with the Nivea cream, the ingredient list is pretty much the same.

I’ve had the pleasure of trying Crème de la Mer, and while I don’t think the Nivea cream is an exact dupe, I do think it is an amazing solution for parched winter skin…. but there’s a catch! You have to buy GERMAN MADE Nivea ! Why ? You see, the Nivea cream widely available in the US is made in Mexico, and contains two chemical preservatives not included in the German formula: methylchloriosothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone, two parabens that have antifungal properties, but have also been banned for cosmetic use in Canada. I don’t really think they’re that harmful, but because this is a cream that is going on your face and body, if you can avoid them, you should.

You can find German-made Nivea on the internet or in certain specialty stores in the US: I’ve heard that you can find the German-made Nivea in not only European specialty stores but also Mexican stores, etc. It comes in plastic tubs now, but the original, as always, is the best : a shiny blue tin (that will last ages) and looks so retro !

Why I love the cream? This stuff is THICK – It’s not the kind of moisturizer you can put on wet skin, making this best for nighttime use. Much like Crème de la Mer, you should use a ‘warm between the fingers’ technique to apply the cream, otherwise you’ll end up with splotches of thick, white cream (this happens when I apply it directly to damp skin). I have to rub this into the skin thoroughly, which can be annoying if I’m in a rush, but is wonderful when I have time to spend pampering my skin.

The advantage is that the cream works on both body and face – I apply all over, including my face, arms, legs and torso at night, and it really does hydrate incredibly. When the cream melts, it leaves a bit a shiny film on my face, meaning I can’t wear this under my makeup, but it works a charm for a night cream – when I wake up, my skin is dewy and hydrated. I’ve noticed that my skin seems smoother and has a nicer texture, a rosier color, and the small patches of flakiness on my cheeks and around my nose seem to have disappeared. As for my legs, it has been a cure for the redness and irritation I get after shaving and, for some reason, I feel like it inhibits the regrowth of hair (which could, admittedly, be due to the colder temperatures).

I feel as rosy as a Boucher painting...

Those with oily skin might not like this stuff on their face, but those who have combination or dry and sensitive skin in winter might just find this to be a really inexpensive miracle. It’s heavy enough for overnight, dry skin emergencies, but not greasy enough to make you break out or clog pores. If you don’t like this on your face, it’s worth it for the body – even after a shower, I didn’t feel the need to reapply ! If you do a google search, you’ll find a wealth of women who swear by it.. but also tell stories of their mothers and grandmothers, many of whom are European, who have sworn by it for decades. I think the product really speaks for itself – it doesn’t need fancy packaging or ad campaigns to be the go-to product for generations of women, because it just WORKS ! This also fits really well into the ‘old school’ skincare regimen I’ve been trying lately, complete with soap made with milk and my homemade sugar scrubs.

Nivea cream over the years!

When I took this out the other night at a friend’s house, where we were having a sleepover, she LOVED the smell – her mother and grandmother both use this cream and the clean, floral scent took her back in time. The scent is almost as iconic as the product itself !

My tip ? Use this on dry, winter hands – it keeps my disastrous cuticles neat and hydrated, and seems to fill in all the cracks in my hands from dry winter weather.

A tin of German-made Nivea cream should cost you between 7 and 10 USD, compared to hundreds for a small jar of Crème de la Mer. It’s not exactly the same product but it’s close enough, and for such a small price… ? WORTH IT !

Visit the Nivea website:

http://www.niveausa.com/

You can find the German-made stuff on Amazon, but also at natural apothecary, small flower:

http://www.smallflower.com/brand/nivea

Color Wheel Beauty – Painting for the Face

A comment I received earlier from reader Megan inspired me to do a post about the color wheel. Referring to my ‘marinière’ look, she said that browns and golds really make blue eyes pop. That reminded me of my former life as an artist, and basic color theory.

You see, when learning about art, you learn about colors. There is something called a color wheel which shows complimentary, and basic colors.

This can be, and should be, applied when doing your makeup. As a blue-eyed girl with blue and pink undertones to my skin, I know that green eyeshadow, for example, looks a little bit odd on me. I’ve always admired girls with deep brown eyes who seem to be able to pull off the most flashy colors of eyeshadow – but why?

In the color wheel below, identify the color closest to your eyes. The color directly opposite is the complimentary color, the one that makes the shade of your eyes really POP. The neighboring colors are clashing colors, ones that either diminish or go poorly with your eye color.

For example, with my blue-green eyes, I should choose shades in red-orange. Girls with green eyes should choose red, and so and so forth. The problem is, who wants to wear such bold colors on their eyes ?

So do as I do and choose a shade that sits within that range. Here is a chart showing you a range of shades within each complimentary color:

For example, in the red-orange shades, I might choose a true brown with slight orange undertones (example: Urban Decay’s Twice Baked), or black with red pearls (Nars’ Night Fever).

When I want to highlight the gold flecks around my pupils, I can choose tones of Violet.  If I want my eyes to look more blue, I’ll go towards more orange shades. If I want them to appear true green, I can choose shades that are more red. I found that Urban Decay’s ‘Last Call’, a reddened burgundy eyeshadow with high shimmer, made my eyes look incredible. However, using it all over the eyelid made me look sick, because of my very cool skin, so now I use it on the lower light, with a light touch, to give a ‘wow’ factor to my evening makeup. Stick to nude tones when possible, within your shade range (eg: instead of hot pink for green Eyes, choose a flesh-colored pink), otherwise the intended effect will be overshadowed by the color quotient of your shadow. If you must go bold, use touches, like a colorful eyeliner. You will very rarely see girls in Paris wearing bright colors on their eyes, so keep the Parisian refinement in mind !

Girls with brown eyes have the advantage of being able to use ALL of the colors on the wheel, though shades of violet and deep blues, in particular, are flattering. Hazel-eyed ladies can choose which color they’d like to highlight (gold, green, brown) and choose shades accordingly.

So many companies now offer eyeshadow palettes and eyeliner, mascaras, etc to make your eye shade pop. However, if you’re like me, you might want to use shades you already have in your palettes, or experiment with single eyeshadow, so referring to a color wheel will help to get you the look you want!

My final tip: Substitute black mascara and eyeliner for a deep, navy blue – almost black but with a blue tinge, to make the whites of your eyes pop. I don’t use navy mascara personally, but I love to use a navy instead of black in the crease, or a deep blue liquid liner, to make my eyes look bright and awake.

If you are interested in kits that have all of the shades to make your eyes pop in the same palette, try:

1. Pop Beauty

Their eye cakes have 5 shades in one pan, coordinated by eye color.

http://www.popbeauty.co.uk/Popbeauty_Products/Eyes/Eye_Cakes/

2.  Smashbox

Smashbox makes a 6 color eyeshadow palette for each eye color.

http://www.sephora.com/browse/brand_hierarchy.jhtml?brandId=Smashbox&categoryId=C105

3. CoverGirl

CoverGirl provides an entire range, including liner and mascara, for each eye color.

Here is a link to their Exact Eyebrights Eyeshadow palettes

http://www.covergirl.com/exacteyelights-eyebrightening-eyeshadows

Would you coordinate your eyeshadow to your eye color ? Do you already ? Any questions, leave a comment and I’d be delighted to answer!

XX La Coquette

DIY Beauty

Since my last post featured expensive skin care, I thought I’d share with you some of my homemade skin care tips.

So I love to cook. I also love cosmetics. Sometimes I like to combine the two.

HOW, you may ask ?

Well, I like to whip up products in my kitchen!

You see, with a tight budget (Paris is expensive) and a beauty habit (makeup is expensive), sometimes I just don’t have the desire, or the money, to spend on fancy skin creams and masks, so I make my own !

It’s hard to find good quality bargain skin care here ( sometimes I would give anything to spend a few hours roaming around a CVS), so my solution is to use natural products from my kitchen to make things like face scrubs. Lately I’ve been using a sugar scrub that works beautifully, and leaves my skin bright, clean, hydrated and peps up my pale skin with a much-needed boost of blood flow and pinkiness.

Ingredients:

Sugar (white, or brown), Olive Oil, a small pot or jar that you don’t mind using in the shower (I use the little glass jars that yogurt sometimes comes in here).

In these photos I’m using brown sugar, or Cassonade (which doesn’t have molasses, like brown sugar in the US), but white sugar will do too, though the grains are smaller.

yum

 

Step 1: Pour sugar into the pot, about half full.

 

 

Step 2: Add about 2 tablespoons of good olive oil to the sugar. There should be far more sugar than olive oil (it should just moisten the sugar, really).

 

 

Step 3: Mix the sugar and Olive Oil together, and you’ve got yourself a face and body exfoliant !

 

 

When used on my face, I follow this with a good facial cleanser, to make sure all traces of the Olive Oil are gone. This works really well before I shave or wax my legs, getting all of the tiny ingrown hairs out, and leaving my skin really really soft and smooth afterwards.

I like using sugar in my homemade scrubs, because it doesn’t dehydrate my skin, but those with oily or acne prone skin can also use salt. I would recommend investing in good kosher salt or sea salt with large grains, because the entire point is the texture ! Also, needless to say, avoid open wounds.

Stay tuned for more cheapskate beauty !!

 

XX La Coquette