Urban Decay’s Summer Pocket Rockets: Max & Colin
Urban Decay’s Pocket Rocket Lip Glosses ($19.00 for 0.27 oz.) are non-sticky, thick enough to be moisturizing but thin enough not to feel heavy, and have a burnt caramel scent (well, creme brulee, officially). I’ve always found the Pocket Rockets to be a little gimmicky for my taste, but the formula is really cushy–it gives lips a slightly plumper, fuller look (without actually plumping).
After reviewing a fair amount of Urban Decay lip products, I’ve noticed that there’s a definite debate on whether the scent of their lip products is yay or nay. It doesn’t bother me, but if you’re sensitive or particular about your scents, you may want to give these a sniff in-store before purchasing.
- Max is a semi-opaque pinky-nude cream with a glossy finish. Since it’s creamy and pale, it does settle a bit into lip lines, but it’s not too bad.
- Colin is almost like a coral-red that applies sheerly for the most part, but it does add quite a bit of red to your pucker. It kind of looks like you’ve been eating cherries and slicked some gloss on afterward. I found it did fall into my lip lines a tad, but again, from a normal viewing distance, it’s not a big deal. I did, however, think this one tended to give my lips a more splotchy look–I think the color may not work for me so much!
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- Product: 26/30
- Value: 9/10
- Ease of Use: 4/5
- Packaging: 4/5
Recommendation: If you love the idea of a gloss that also features a half-naked man, you might get a kick out of Urban Decay’s Pocket Rockets. There’s a nice non-sticky and moisturizing gloss that comes along with the near-nude model, too!
Availability: Urban Decay
Chanel Les Pop-Up de Chanel: Gloss Fluo de Chanel
I admit, when I initially saw photos the new Gloss Fluo de Chanel ($27) from Chanel’s Les Pop-Up de Chanel Collection, I was pretty excited. Bright fuchsia AND coral? That’s so me. Of course I’d be drawn to them! But I am sad to report that they’re incredibly sheer. (This is why one should not get excited purely by looking at photos!) I was curious as to why they appeared fluorescent in their tubes but ultra sheer on lips, so I figured I’d better take a harder look at what they are *supposed* to be.
Chanel describes Gloss Fluo de Chanel as, “Hot colour and high-wattage shine. The electric effect of bright, sheer, light GLOSS FLUO DE CHANEL Brilliant Lip Shine mixes and matches with equally vivid shades of ROUGE ALLURE Luminous Satin Lip Colour and LE VERNIS Nail Colour — perfect for going from the beach to a night out.”
So, they had me. They suckered me in! Gloss Fluo is *designed* to be “bright, sheer, light.” Is it just me or is that description kind of confusing? Bright and sheer? What? The way I review and rate a product is always based on what the product is supposed to do, not necessarily what I think it should do. I’m going to give Chanel the benefit of the doubt and just go with these are supposed to be sheer, lightweight “glosses” rather than over the top, electric color. Okay, now that that’s out of the way…
Gloss Fluo makes an excellent lip balm. It’s one of the weirdest “glosses” I’ve played with, because it doesn’t have the texture of the gloss. It’s like a squishy jelly in a glossimer tube. They’re sheer with no real shimmer but have a fairly glossy sheen/look to them.
- Laser looks like a brightened fuchsia pink in the tube but applies more like a lightened baby pink with just a smidgen of fuchsia in it. On my lips, it just gives it that slicked pinked pucker look — a tiny bit of enhanced rosiness to my natural lip color with lots of pretty glossiness.
- Pop looks like an electric coral-orange, but when swatched on skin, it takes on a much pinker hue. It’s more like a pink-coral than orange at all. On my lips, Pop looks like I put on a clear lipgloss–seriously. It does less for me than Laser, unfortunately.
So, they’re some of the sheerest lip products I’ve used that weren’t actually lip balm, but Gloss Fluos are ridiculously moisturizing without being heavy. I’d wear this to bed! For those who love glossier, thicker lip balms but hate that most of them are only available in pot-form, this might be something to consider. Since they apply straight out of a tube with a doe-foot wand, it makes it easy to apply, travel with, and use on the go. Not to mention, the sheerness makes it easy to apply without making mistakes. Gloss Fluos feel like a slippery jelly on lips–non-sticky, thick without being heavy or goopy. They did remind me a bit of MAC’s Tendertones, but in a gloss tube instead.
I want to reiterate that as far as I can tell, Chanel wanted these to be sheer. They will work well with the lipsticks from the launch, as those are more vibrant (I’ve tried only one, but the other two seem promising), and designed to be more pigmented. I think these work as a moisturizing lip balm with a glossy finish, but I’m not sure I’d put my $27 towards a Chanel lip balm. It’s heaven on the lips, but I’d probably opt for one of Chanel’s Glossimers or Rouge Allures for the price and opt for a cheaper lip balm.
Don’t get me wrong, though, because these made my lips sigh in relief after a round of lip swatching. They were instantly hydrating, smooth, and wore for hours and kept my lips moisturized all afternoon.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
- Product: 28/30
- Value: 7/10
- Ease of Use: 4/5
- Packaging: 4/5
Recommendation: If the idea of a clear but glossy, ultra moisturizing lip balm in a tube gets your engine running and you don’t mind paying a little extra to get Chanel, you may like these. Not a must-have if you’ve found a solid balm that doesn’t break the bank already!
Availability: May 2010
Barielle High Steppin’ Collection for Summer 2010
For summer, Barielle is releasing six shades of summery shades in late April/early May. There are quite a few metallic finish shades in this collection, which made me a bit wary, as I cannot seem to minimize brushstrokes enough to feel good about wearing a metallic finish polish. Freestyle has only a slight metallic finish, so I was able to work with that one, but Passion Pirouette and Slow Motion are both distinctly metallic and were less easy for me to work with. Electric Boogie is absolutely divine and if you’re a fan of dark blues, you might just have to get this shade.
- Passion Pirouette is a reddened fuchsia-purple with a metallic finish with a silver-ish overlay. If you take your time with this shade, I think you can bang out a pretty fun, metallic-look with minimal brush strokes. With metallic finishes, less is definitely more — you don’t want to have to go back over the same area, because you want to minimize the brush strokes as much as possible. It is an opaque shade, though, as it only requires two coats for a good, opaque color.
- Slow Motion is a gray, lilac-tinged shade with a metallic finish. This shade takes about three coats to go opaque, but I found it was harder to disguise the brushstrokes, because the color itself is on the light side.
- Belly Dance is a slightly grayed fleshy beige with champagne shimmer. This applied beautifully; it was easy to apply and went on smoothly. I found two coats was about right, though I applied three for good measure.
- Night Moves is a silver with an almost pewter cast and a very glittery, more foil-like finish than a metallic-finish. Because the glitter is noticeable, it helps to disguise any brush stroke issues. This really did remind me of foil… but way, way more intense. It’s like foil met a disco ball and they had a glitter-tastic baby.
- Electric Boogie is a rich, deep water blue with night sky sparkle. This is truly the standout shade of the six. This is a seriously lush color that looks kind of sexy on nails. It has sky blue shimmer and larger, more obvious blue-teal flecks of glitter. Beautiful!
- Freestyle is a pastel mint green with champagne gold micro-glitter. This shade was the sheerest of the bunch and definitely needed three coats to look opaque, but three was good. It has a slightly metallic finish, so some brushstrokes are visible, but much less obvious than with Passion Pirouette and Slow Motion.
LOVE Electric Boogie, LIKE Freestyle and Night Moves, but would SKIP Passion Pirouette.
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
- Product: 26/30
- Value: 8/10
- Ease of Use: 4/5
- Packaging: 4/5
Recommendation: It’s not a solid collection, because not all shades are made equal, but there are some nice shades to be found within the collection as well. If you do like metallic finishes and have no issues working with them, though, then you may enjoy the entire collection!
Availability: May 2010
Summer of Nails with Urban Decay
Urban Decay Summer of Love Nail Kit ($28.00) includes seven miniature-sized bottles of nail polish in summery shades. Each bottle contains 5ml/0.17 fl. oz. of product in it.
- Shine On is a brightened bronze with gilded bronze shimmer. You can see a few brush strokes in this one, but they’re not too bad. I found the formula on this one to be a little goop-y but watery. You can’t rush this one — you have to let it dry quite a bit between coats. I found three were necessary for overall smoothness and color.
- Woodstock is a bright neon pink. Like most neons, it’ll dry on the matte side, but a shiny top coat like Seche Vite will give it a glossy look. This went opaque in two coats, and it was a fuss-free formula.
- Love Light is a sheer champagne shimmer. Even with three coats, you’ll still see the nail beneath it, but there’s plenty of shimmer here. The formula is sheer but easy to work with.
- Hashbury is a magenta-fuchsia purple. It has a lot of red in it, and in the light, it looks much lighter than it does in the dark (where it looks more like an eggplant-y purple). Compared to the other two shimmery/metallic shades like Shine On and Aquarius, this one was easy to use and was just a bit on the runny side but not difficult to work with.
- Magic Bus is a darkened neon orange. It’s like construction cone orange to me. Like Woodstock, it has a very smooth, easy to use formula that applies opaque in two coats.
- Aquarius is a metallic-y aqua blue with teal sheen/shimmer. This one is both a pain to photograph and apply. It applies sheerly, so you need at least three coats for an opaque look. The problem with the formula is that it’s both goop-y and watery — it’s difficult to get enough for a thin coat, because if you do a medium-thick or thick coat, you’ll end up with goop-y looking nails (see my index finger in the swatch) that looks terrible. This was the problem child of the bunch for sure. Like Shine On, make sure you give each coat time to dry.
- Psychedelic Sister is a neon coral-red. Again, like the other two neons (Woodstock and Magic Bus) in this kit, Psychedelic Sister applies smoothly and evenly without any work.
Three of the seven shades have an excellent formula–Woodstock, Magic Bus, and Psychedelic Sister–while three aren’t so hot–Shine On, Hashbury, and Aquarius. Love Light was neither excellent nor problematic; it just was, you know? Shine On and Hashbury weren’t too bad, but the formulas had a bit of a goop-y yet watery feel to them. Aquarius had this issue, but it also showed brush strokes the most and required nearly four coats to look right. With my larger hands, I found the tiny bottles harder to work with (I felt like I had meathooks!), but I was able to get used to that pretty quickly so it wasn’t a huge issue.
I like that it comes in a cute little bag that you can reuse later on for whatever makeup essentials you might want to put in it. It’ll fit your 24/7 Eyeliners, a few eyeshadows, glosses, and a blush. It’s not huge, but it has enough space for an overnight adventure.
If it was just the neons, these would be an A! Unfortunately, the metallic shades are harder to work with, and between Shine On and Aquarius, they have more of a low-B/mid-C formula, respectively, to me. The kit, in total, is thus somewhere in between–just to clarify how everything came together. I didn’t feel that comfortable rating it as a whole, just because some were great, some weren’t so great!
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
- Product: 25/30
- Value: 8/10
- Ease of Use: 4/5
- Packaging: 4/5
Recommendation: If you love trying lots of shades at once, this nail kit is a great way to grab some metallics and neons without breaking the bank. If you don’t mind a little patience, the metallics are workable, while the neons apply like a dream.
Availability: UrbanDecay.com on March 30th
Going Green with Urban Decay, Part 1
Urban Decay Chronic Eyeshadow ($17.00 for 0.05 oz.) is a near-matte grass green shade. What’s interesting about the matte formula is that you can see little specks of shimmer/glitter, but when you use it (whether just to swatch or on the lid), none of the shimmer/glitter shows up. It’s almost like a very, very near-matte eyeshadow with perhaps the slightest pearl sheen. I used it a couple of weeks ago in my St. Patrick’s Day look, and I really found it surprisingly easy to work with. It blended nicely, and it didn’t look chalky at all (which is often an issue with matte textures) nor was it dusty. I also got a good level of color intensity without having to pack on the eyeshadow, and with a color like that, I’m definitely looking for that richness of color.
I actually think the packaging is well-done, too. I feel like the case goes above and beyond the typical eyeshadow compact, because Urban Decay makes it uniquely theirs. It’s functional without being flimsy or cheap, but it still looks fun and totally fits with the brand’s image. Of course, I’d love Urban Decay to sell empty palettes and allow you to customize your own, but they do put out eyeshadow palettes throughout the year, so there is always that, I suppose!
I do want to say that I haven’t tried any of the other shades in this formulation, so my review is truly for this shade only! The Matte Eyeshadow formula is also available in: ABC Gum (pale peach), Cult (eggplant), Electric (electric blue), Foxy (light neutral), Heist (dusty purple), Illegal (smoky rose), Naked (buff nude), Narcotic (bright turquoise), Perversion (jet black), Purple Haze (bright purple), Revolver (stone gray), Secret Service (medium brown), Shakedown (taupe), and Yeyo (powder white).
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
- Product: 28/30
- Value: 8/10
- Ease of Use: 4/5
- Packaging: 5/5
Recommendation: If you love colorful, matte textures for your eyeshadows, Urban Decay’s Chronic was a pleasant surprise!
Going Zen with Laura Mercier for Spring
Laura Mercier Zen Face Palette
($60.00) is a new-for-spring (into summer!) palette that includes one blush, four eyeshadows, and four lip glazes housed in a metal-rimmed palette with a cushy, dusty blue cover.
I was surprised at how much I liked the palette packaging, but I thought it was cute without being cheesy. It’s definitely apropos for spring! The palette also feels sturdy, weighty, but it doesn’t feel bulky, so I like the slimness and overall shape of it. I also LOVED! that they included a little plastic sheet with the names printed on top so you knew what product was what. Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out in a palette!
Eyeshadows
- Willow is a soft, pastel green with yellow undertones and a silvery shimmer. It has a bit of a frostier finish. It almost seemed un-Laura Mercier-like to me, just because it was such a nice pop of color, though it is a light pop of color!
- Haze is a powder blue with silver shimmer. It’s more of a satin finish, less frost, in comparison to Willow.
- Wisteria is a browned plum with a frosty sheen. It’s quite pigmented and smooth.
- Midnight Jade is a darkened, grayed teal with a pearly sheen and just a light dusting of shimmer. I found this shade to be the least pigmented out of the four, but it still had decent pigmentation.
Blush
- Plum is a very rosy plum shade. It’s less purple plum as it is red-plum. It has a low-level pearly sheen that’s very, very subtle. There’s no obvious shimmer here!
Lip Glazes
- Black Currant is a brownish red that goes on very sheerly and has a glossy sheen.
- Lotus Bloom is a sheer tinge of pinky-red with flecks of red shimmer.
- Stone Beige is a creamier, semi-sheer nude beige with subtle gold shimmer.
- Peach Blossom is an orange-y peach cream with a high gloss finish.
The good: It’s a fun palette with a good range of eye colors to give you a few new looks for spring. The pigmentation is pretty good (Midnight Jade needs to be layered for better pigmentation, though), and the texture is smooth, soft, and applies evenly. I like that there’s a good variety of colors in the lip glazes as well, because it gives you a lot of ways you can mix and match. I also think the packaging is fun, travel-friendly, and classy.
The bad: Palettes that mix powders and creams (or glazes, in this particular case) are not my favorite, because sometimes the powder finds its way into the creams, which is kind of gross. For most, it’s probably not a deal-breaker, but it’s something I thought I should mention. I don’t think the Plum blush is the most suitable for the palette–it almost seems too dark for this palette. I think it could work, but I’m not totally sold on it being the best match here.
There’s one thing I noticed right at end: there are no brushes! It’s almost curious and yet I’m not displeased that they didn’t include them. I know some think for the price that they should have, but I never find myself using those brushes that are included in palettes. I always find them so inferior to my normal brushes and much prefer to take my brushes with me when I travel (even if it’s just a few), so it’s more of a neutral to me. It just depends on your preference!
If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ!
- Product: 27/30
- Value: 7/10
- Ease of Use: 4/5
- Packaging: 4/5
Recommendation: If you like Laura Mercier’s eyeshadows and have always wanted a little more color, you might enjoy the way she’s played with color in this spring palette. I think cooler skin tones will find this especially flattering, as most of the shades tend to be on the cooler end of the spectrum.
