Fall Trend: Bold Lips with Borghese
Borghese Grappa B Moisture Advanced Care Lipcolour ($24.00 for 0.15 oz.) is a creamy berry red wine with a soft sheen and high color. It is a creme finish, which accounts for how easily it glides over lips. It’s full color and very hydrating on lips and lasts me about five hours without eating/drinking. The color can bleed if your lips have this tendency already, so I do recommend a lip liner for best wear.
The packaging is a combination of black and silver metal, with the black portion kind of looking like a licorice twist, actually. I don’t love the packaging, but it’s functional and does the job. While the price is steep, you do get more lipstick for your dollar than usual, as the average lipstick size is about 0.12 oz. By the ounce, this lipstick is just a bit more expensive than MAC and Illamasqua, but cheaper than Urban Decay and NARS.
- Product: 8/10
- Value: 8/10
- Ease of Use: 8/10
- Packaging: 7/10
Recommendation: If creamy, full color lipsticks are your passion, Borghese’s lipsticks are worth a peek!
Availability: Borghese.com
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Sonia Kashuk Eyeshadow Duo: Secret Admirer
Sonia Kashuk Secret Admirer Eyeshadow Duo ($6.99) is a stunning duo of shimmery violet-lilac and a softer, matte pale lilac. Both shades run cool, but with the right pairing of warmer or more neutral shades, can easily be worn by most. I’ve always found Sonia Kashuk to be a brand that is reliable and affordable, and this eyeshadow duo lives up to that expectation. Both shades are well pigmented and don’t require lots of layering to get color pay off. Big thumbs up for eyeshadow on a budget!
- Product: 8/10
- Value: 9/10
- Ease of Use: 8/10
- Packaging: 8/10
Recommendation: If you’re on a budget but are jonesing for some eyeshadow, Sonia Kashuk has you covered!
Availability: Target
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Smashbox Reign Collection: Regal Fusion Blush
Smashbox Regal Fusion Blush
($32.00 for 0.25 oz.) is a combination blush with one half with a matte finish and the other half with a shimmer finish. It’s described by Smashbox as a “peachy nude.”
When I swatched it, it looked more like a peachy orange to me, but it does work well to flush cheeks on those with warm undertones. I think there is a fair bit of warmth to this shade, so it may not be as suitable on those with cooler skin tones. Like the eyeshadow palettes, it’s difficult to keep the matte and shimmer sides from mixing, and it’s not easy to keep a matte clean of shimmer. Once shimmer crosses over the border… it is such a pain to push it back!
The palette, though, is large enough to grab the half you’d like to use, which is a huge plus. Often you’ll get multiple strips of color in products, but they’ll be so small that it’s near impossible to use them alone. You also get a lot of product for your buck. Normally, Smashbox Blushes are $24 a pop for 0.13 oz. You get nearly double the amount of product for $8 more — so it actually has good value. The Reign packaging just didn’t do it for me, but I know others liked it, so you may want to see it in person to judge for yourself.
- Product: 7/10
- Value: 8/10
- Ease of Use: 7/10
- Packaging: 7/10
Recommendation: I liked the concept of a matte/shimmer duo blush, but it’s not as practical as I’d like it to be. The shade is flattering on warm skin tones, but those with cooler skin tones may want to see it in person first.
Availability: Sephora
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American Grown Hand Soaps & Shower Gels
Bath & Body Works’ American Grown Hand & Body Soaps
($7.50 to $12.50) is a limited edition collection of hand soaps and shower gels that has customers clamoring to give this line permanent-status. The collection is based on the concept of hand soaps and shower gels that are inspired by great American destinations with affordability in mine.
American Grown Destinations
- Washington Apple In the fertile valleys of Washington State in America’s far west, growers tend orchards that produce the world’s most crisp, ripe apples. Formulated with Apple Extract to help nourish skin, Washington Apple instantly evokes your first bite of a shiny red apple, an unmistakably juicy flavor.
- Napa Grape In the rolling hills of Napa Valley’s wine country, the alluring scent of ripe grapes wafts through the air. Breathe in this irresistible fragrance and experience the intoxicating aroma as grape seed oil conditions and protects skin.
- Siesta Key Lemon Nothing says summer like fresh-cut Meyer lemons from Florida. Sweeter than other lemons, the plump, smooth-skinned citrus produces a sparklingly fresh fragrance. Take an instant vacation to Siesta Key as Lemon Oil refreshes and brightens the skin.
- Savannah Mint A frosty glass of iced tea in a hot Savannah summer is twice as refreshing with a cool sprig of mint. Breathe in this invigorating fragrance and experience the romance of southern charm and gentility while Peppermint Oil energizes your skin and your senses.
- Montana Sky Experience the clear, crisp quality of the mountain air in big sky country with formulas inspired by the vast beauty of an endless blue sky. Bathe your skin in calming spring waters as you inhale a rush of fresh air.
I’ve tried two scents: Napa Grape Hand Soap ($7.50 for 16 oz.) and Siesta Key Lemon Shower Gel ($12.50 for 24 oz.). Napa Grape smells like a lightly sweetened grape, almost like a very fragrance, sweet wine or sangria. As a soap, a little goes a long way (in fact, I find one pump to be too much!) and it lathers up easily. I felt like these didn’t dry my hands out as some soaps are prone to do.
Siseta Key Lemon is exactly that — lemony goodness. I love, love lemon scented stuff, particular for soaps and the like. (I think it was a childhood of growing up with Joy dish soap.) Just like the soap, a little goes a long way and the product lathers up easily and smells amazing–very natural, not a perfume-y lemon, but a freshly squeezed lemon with just a touch of sugar.
The packaging is simple and functional, but the bold colors of the products themselves really make them standout in your shower/counter-top. American Grown is an extremely affordable line of products. No frills packaging and effective products at a low cost? Really? I know these are supposed to disappear in September, so I urge you to check it out next time you’re near Bath & Body Works!
- Product: 8/10
- Value: 9/10
- Ease of Use: 7/10
- Packaging: 7/10
Recommendation: Love natural scents that aren’t perfume-y, consider American Grown for your hand soap and shower gel needs.
Availability: Bath & Body Works
Dolce & Gabbana: Champagne Smooth Eye Colour Quad
Dolce & Gabbana Champagne Smooth Eye Colour Quad ($59.00) is D&G’s take on the smoky eyes palette. It contains four shades of eyeshadow: a pale, silvery-white; a medium-dark matte black; a mauve-tinged silver; and a subdued, cool-toned dark brown.
Like Dazzling, the Champagne consists of smooth, well-pigmented eyeshadows that feel like buttery goodness to the touch. They apply easily and softly, and they never look garish. They blend seamlessly together, and they work well with all of your favorite eyeshadow bases. They also still blend well when used with other brand eyeshadows.
One of things I like about the Dolce & Gabbana quads I’ve tried so far is that the colors go on as they’re pictured. They’re apply and swatch true-to-color, so there is a whole lot less guesswork to be done. I can also appreciate the “honesty” of the palette in that sense, too. Champagne, in particular, works well together, because the shades are diverse enough to create gradients, but they can be worn in pairs of triplets.
For those who find the price a bit steep, D&G is priced competitively with other major high-end brands like Chanel ($56), Dior ($56), and Guerlain ($58). The packaging is hefty and looks like gold (though it does hold fingerprints). It’s sleek and elegant, so it does look lovely when you hold it. If it didn’t hold fingerprints, the packaging would definitely help sway me even more.
- Product: 9/10
- Value: 7/10
- Ease of Use: 8/10
- Packaging: 8/10
Recommendation: If you’re a fan of high-end, luxury brands, Dolce & Gabbana has put out a quality line of makeup. Champagne is a great quad to travel with to be able to create several evening smoky eyes.
Availability: Saks
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MAC Nail Trend F/W ’09 Collection: Review
OVERALL, the shades are creamy and cool-toned, going on mostly opaque with two medium-thick coats of lacquer, and they have a soft glossy sheen. These are not matte polishes (as I know some have asked me), but they’re definitely colors perfect for the fall and winter season. I liked For Fun and Cool Reserve the most, though Rich, Dark, Delicious is lovely and I’ll find myself wearing at least once in the next few months. Dry Martini, while different, just didn’t suit my skin tone, and Beyond Jealous was a bit too dark for my personal taste. Dance All Night is classic, so it just depends on your taste/collection on whether it’s worthwhile to pick up.
Nail Lacquer
- For Fun is a creamy magenta-purple with a subtle red tone. It is nearly opaque in two medium-thick coats, though a third coat would really bring it home.
- Dry Martini is a creamy deep olive-green with a bit more olive than green in it. I didn’t detect any shimmer, and I found this one to be the hardest to apply. It was a bit streaky, and I felt like thicker coats made it easier to apply overall. I’m not feeling the color myself, but it’s one of those shades you don’t see too often.
- Cool Reserve is a creamy, cool-toned grayed purple. It’s a soft grayish lilac almost. Like For Fun, two medium-thick coats made it just nearly opaque, and a third coat would make it totally solid. This one was one of my favorites — even on my warm skin tone, I liked it on myself.
- Beyond Jealous is a creamy, green-black. It goes totally opaque with two medium-thick coats, and it has a glossy finish that’s more apparent in this shade than the other five. It is really a very dark, very deep green that runs very close to black in natural light.
- Rich, Dark, Delicious is a deep dark chocolate black-brown that runs a little neutral-cool and has nearly imperceptible flecks of shimmer. I can only see the shimmer if I look really hard in sunlight, otherwise it appears mostly as a creme. Two coats made it opaque with no application issues.
- Dance All Night is a rich, blood red that goes on nearly opaque with two coats. I do recommend using three thinner coats with this particular shade, because I found medium to thick coats to be a bit overwhelming. This one is all creme–no shimmer whatsoever–and is quite fitting it is so.
- Product: 8/10
- Value: 8/10
- Ease of Use: 7/10
- Packaging: 7/10
Recommendation: Nail polish fanatics hoping for an improved MAC formula might find in the latest lacquers created by nail guru Jin Soon Choi!
Availability: MAC Cosmetics (August 27th)
What did you think of MAC’s latest polishes? Did you pick up any?
