New makeup and skincare lines are popping up all the time. Some go far and some fizzle quickly, but for you product-junkies out there looking for the next big thing, I thought I'd do a quick wrap-up of what's new.
Hourglass
What It's About:
This line is all about old-Hollywood glamour and luxury. It does good-quality products with high-impact color. Best feature? The line is dedicated to paraben-free products, and most of the products are fragrance-free as well. Downside? The expense, luxury doesn't come cheap in this line. It may be expensive, but Hourglass doesn't make a bad product. You can certainly find products that are as good or better for less, but you know if it's got the Hourglass name on it, it's going to be solid and high-quality.
Who It's For:
The woman who loves quality and predictable excellence. You may be paying $26 for a lipgloss, but you know you're getting a moisturizing, non-sticky, pricey-ingredient-list lipgloss.
What to Buy:
I'm a fan of the aforementioned $26 lipgloss. I only have one shade, in part because of the expense and in part because of the limited selection. Nevertheless, it's a good every-day shade, a medium peach-nude. The best thing about this lipgloss is the moisturizing Vitamin E formula. It's very silky and lightweight, and it leaves your lips feeling soft and hydrated for hours.
The Veil Mineral Primer is another standout product. It's not cheap at $52 for an ounce, but it has SPF 15 and it leaves your skin feeling smooth and looking pore-free. It also absorbs this excess oil in the skin, so you get a perfectly matte but still luminous base for applying makeup. This is one of the best primers, if not the best, I've tried. You can read more about it in my Prime Time article.
Where to Buy:
Right now, Hourglass is available at Sephora stores and on their web site. It's also available at www.hourglasscosmetics.com and www.dermstore.com
Buxom
What It's About:
Buxom is a playful offshoot of Bare Escentuals. It started as part of the Bare Escentuals line with a plumping lipgloss called the Big and Healthy Lip Polish. From there, the line has expanded to include a plumping lipstick, lip balm, mascara, eyeshadow, and eyeliner. And it's constantly growing. Best feature? Color selection. There is truly something for everyone. Downside? VERY sticky lipgloss.
Who It's For:
The woman who loves bright colors and kitsch. Buxom is full of kitsch from the scantily-clad Buxom characters who appear on the packaging to the creative marketing, including salacious stories about the Buxom girls' adventures. (I recently bought the "Laura Does London" gift-set just because it boasted my name, so I guess I fell into the kitschy marketing gimmick).
What to Buy:
I'm just not a fan of the Big and Healthy Lip Polish. I wanted to like it, and I particularly wanted to like the shade with my namesake, but it's just not working for me so back to the store it goes. Even though I think that the colors are great, the names and packaging are cute, and the menthol-induced tingly plumping action is bearable, I just don't like the formula. It's far too sticky. Let's face it: it's silly to be walking around with sticky lips just because the package has a cute little cartoon character with your name in a pin-up costume. So the lipgloss for me is more of a "what not to buy."
The lipstick on the other hand is a winner. It gives a creamy matte finish, and it comes in a slender package, sort of half-way in shape and size between a lipstick and a lipliner. And in fact, it does both. It also comes with a detachable sharpener on the other end so that you can keep the tip sharp to line and then fill in the lips. It gives the same menthol-plumping action of the lip polish (great as long as you don't mind a lot of minty tingle but not the best plumper I've ever tried. The real benefit of the lipstick is not so much the plumping, but the smooth creamy staying power. It's formulated with vitamins A, C, and E, so it leaves your lips feeling soft. Also, a light application gives you a powerful punch of color, particularly in the bright shades. I tried Monte Carlo, a bright fuchsia-magenta shade, and I loved it. This is actually a very wearable shade for most-every skintone (I'm fair with auburn hair and green eyes), but I think it would look particularly amazing on medium tanned-to-olive skin. I'm dying to try it on my lovely Lebanese friend. She has warm medium-golden skin, and I think this shade would look amazing on her.
The Buxom eyeshadow is also surprisingly good. It's very silky and lightweight in texture. It blends easily and stays well without creasing. This is a new product for Buxom and it's still very limited in shade-selection, but I'm hoping it will expand because this has a very similar texture to NARS eyeshadow, but it's less expensive at $17.
Where to Buy:
Right now, you can find the full collection of Buxom products at Sephora exclusively, but the Bare Escentuals and ULTA web sites also have a limited selection of the lipglosses.
Josie Maran
What It's About:
Josie Maran is all about eco-friendly, organic, recyclable, and biodegradable packaging and products. The entire line of skincare and cosmetics is green, nontoxic, and free of animal-testing.
Who It's For:
The environmentally-conscious eco-chic woman who wants simple, high-quality products. All the products are made with high-quality organic ingredients, most famously, Argan oil, which is a famous beauty-secret for literally everything from skin to fingernails to hair to eyelashes.
What to Buy:
Definitely get at least a little bottle of the Argan Oil to try it. A half-ounce is only $14, and it's a great introduction to the line as Argan Oil is a star ingredient in almost all of Maran's products. But it's also a great cure-all on its own. It's rich in antioxidants and good-for-you fatty acids. It's an all-in-one skin treatment and moisturizer. It's great and very gentle around the eyes. It helps with fine lines and firming, but it also nourishes dry skin. I love to rub a tiny bit into the ends of my hair after washing and before drying to moisturize and ward off split ends. You can also use it pretty much anywhere that could use some softening and hyrdration, especially the nailbeds and lips.
I'm also a fan of the mascara. It has the Argan oil, and it also has jojoba oil, which nourish the lashes to prevent lash-fallout. If you tend to lose lashes when you remove your mascara, this one's for you. It's a lash treatment in addition to being a good basic mascara. The wand is nothing fancy, just simple and classic, but it gives good clean coverage and lengthening without clumping. This is no revolution in mascara, but it's gentle and good for the lashes, and of course, eco-friendly.
Sephora also has a great introductory Josie Maran kit with a small Argan Oil, a full-size mascara, a full-size eyeliner, a full-size lipgloss, and a cream blush for a great price, $24, which is how I got acquainted with the line. I have a link to the kit below.
Where to Buy:
You can find Josie Maran products at www.josiemarancosmetics.com, and of course, Sephora.
Illamasqua
What It's About:
This U.K. brand was designed to be an edgy nighttime line, inspired by 1920's Berlin nightclubs. The colors are highly-pigmented and dramatic. It's a high-quality and long-lasting color makeup line, meaning no skincare. If I was Lady Gaga's makeup artist, I'd use this line. Best feature? Quality product in sleek and chic packaging. Downside? Limited color-selection for the faint of heart, many of the shades are highly pigmented, dark, bright, or some combination thereof. Then again, this is only a downside for me because I'm fair-skinned and work in a conservative office environment. This would be a definite plus for many women of color who feel washed out in standard-fare lipsticks.
Who It's For:
The edgy, trendy makeup connoisseur. Also excellent for the woman of color who is looking for a selection of highly-pigmented brighter/darker lipsticks and eyeshadows that don't wash her out. But even though many of the colors are daring, Illamasqua makes one of my favorite day-time lipsticks as well.
What to Buy:
Definitely get one of the lipsticks. They're all matte in formula and very rich in pigment. They go on smooth and creamy and they stay put all day. Illamasqua has some truly gorgeous bright reds, magentas, oranges, eggplants, and even a black lipstick (not my cup of tea, but certainly hard to find for those in need of a black lipstick). For daytime, I love Scandal, a pretty medium-toned warm coral-pink. For a bit more evening drama, I think that Illamasqua makes two of the best of-the-moment orange-red lipsticks, Blaze (a true matte tangerine) and Ignite (a more reddish orange).
Check out Illamasqua's Liquid Metal eyeshadows is you like metallics on the eye. They're a light-as-air whipped cream in highly-pigmented metallic colors. It blends easily and stays well without creasing. It also makes a great base for other powder eyeshadow shades if you just want to add some soft shimmer that glows underneath your eyeshadow and helps it to stay in place all day. I tend to wear more matte eye-shades than shimmer or metallic, so I'd love it if they brought out this formula for matte eyeshadow shades.
Where to Buy:
You can find Illamasqua at Sephora and www.illamasqua.com
No comments:
Post a Comment