Shu Uemura Mini Nail Trio- Phantasm (2009 Spring Mirage Collection)

While I'm compiling other Spring collection posts I thought I'd better keep the blog flowing...here's a quick one! This is the Spring 2009 Shu Uemura collection which includes two limited edition nail polish trio sets (they are a fair bit smaller than the full sized Shu Uemura nail polishes, exactly half the size- 5ml each, full sized ones are 10ml). Retails for 800NT in Taiwan, which is about 24USD. I got the first set 'Phantasm', which features three shades, Lilac, Glitter and Soft Pink:

• "Lilac" a pure lilac creme with glossy finish, no shimmers or glitters, very opaque in two coats.

However it's a disaster since perfect lilac creme just doesn't look right on the nails... (as sweet as it looks in the bottle i think it's one of those shades that struggles to look good on common nails, much like pale green cremes or pale blue cremes....unless u were doing a photoshoot or makeup promo..or using in small doses for decals or small prints.)

Swatch below playing with all the colors:

Right to left: (I dont like this pic and certainly would prefer better looking pics on my blog but for the sake of the review...): - Lilac topped with lots of glitter shade - Lilac topped with the smaller glitters (the glitter shade is versatile...you can put more or less depending on preference) - 1 coat lilac, with pale pink shade over it- looks like a strange grey pink- not good. - Pure lilac, 2 coats- you can see it does have a good finish. But on my fingers..the lilac base look so wrong..

• "Glitter" shade- this is much like the limited edition releases in Sonia Rykiel's Christmas polish collection and I know some Japanese brands occassional release glitters like this size. It's a clear nailpolish base with tonnes of various sized glitters (from standard small shimmers and glitters to larger circular glitter circular flakes), gives a very dramatic and cool effect if you do like glamorous or more into the intricate Japanese type of sparkly nails.

Here's my sloppy pic with glitter shade topped over the lilac. Personally I think the glitter shade would look amazing if you were doing a candy soft pink nails with sparkles or a dark vampy shade with dramatic glitters.

If you like pre-mixed glitters of varying size similar to this but in a pre-colored base, I suggest the Kanebo Coffret D'or line- they have some good glitter topping shades in red/pink/blue/green etc. The consistency is great too. I'll do a separate post on all the Coffret D'or polishes I have down the track.

• "Soft pink". A frosty pale pink pearl, it's like a silvery pale pink, I dont really like frosty shades but this is half frost + a pearly finish. It's a decent office shade and reminds me very much of OPI 'Pistol Pack'in Pink' polish. This is a little bit too generic a color, I'd wear this but not my top pick shade.

Here's my full mani photo with it, 2 coats, daylight soft flash, no base coat but with Seche Vite top coat:

Daylight, no flash, shade.

Shu Uemura brushes are good even in the smaller polishes, the pigment is rich and even for these three shades, unfortunately because the pale pink one is a frost finish, it has the same tendency as most frosty polishes that you'd need two good well painted coats to minimise streaking or uneven finish. One coat looks too uneven on my nails.

They are not quick dry, a good 30min later they'd still get dented and smudged without a fast dry topcoat (I applied Seche vite top coat). Werability is decent - I always use a topcoat though. Day 3 and still looking perfect.

Comparison of the regular sized nail polishes against the trio, mini ones are 5ml and regular full sized ones are 10ml: (the red one is "Deep Velvet", I think it's a limited edition shade from one or two collections ago).

Back of box set

The other set is called 'Rapsody', which features a pale blue creme, a glitter shade (looks same as the Phantasm set), and a frosty pearl champagne sand beige). I didn't get this set because the glitter looks the same (although it's good glitter!), the frosty pearl beige I probably got similar colors everywhere (and I dont really like frosty finishes), and the creme blue- what would I do with it!

Sonia Rykiel 2008 PINK KISS Collection (X'mas) Face Powder #01

Sonia Rykiel 2008 Christmas limited edtion collection is called the "Pink Kiss Collection". Features a range of products with the pink lips signature print in the middle, including 2 eyeglosses, 3 nailpolishes, 3 lipgloss pots and this "Face Powder 01" (I think that's it for this compact's official English name, strange eh..at least for the Chinese name they made up a name along the lines of 'Mysterious Kiss Sparkly Contour Compact").

The face powder retails for $1680NT which is approximately 55USD for 6.3g product, a bit on the hefty side. Product description indicates it's "a face powder/illuminator/contour or highlight powder all in one, to be brushed on T-zone, neck, decolletage and arms, to show off the sweet sexy female beauty blahblahblah. The pink lip section contains gold + white pearl pigments to bring natural shine, while the remaining refined powders gives a soft-focus effect to hideaway small flaws, to make skin complexion look more refined and translucent. Contains moisturising plant extracts to maintain supple skin."

Comes in a cute bright pink box, same color as the shiny metallic fuschia pink compact itself (non finger print magnet surface finish! yay). Very feminine.

Snap closure, contains a plastic tray which sits the soft brush, which is quite well made with soft bristles. Compact is very nice looking and very well made.

Contains two shades, the outter base shade is an off-white pearl, extremely subtly shimmery highlighter, or I'd rather call it an off-white translucent finish powder, it's subtle enough to be dusted all over face without showing visible shimmers, but applying a tad more, can definitely work well as a browbone or t-zone highlighter, extremely finely milled with a soft-focus effect.

The middle lip print section goes all the way through- it's a light pink based highlighter with very pale champagne-gold and white pearly shimmers, it's not deep enoguh to show up as any sort of pink on actual skin, the pink merely provides a pinkish base to it. This shade is more shimmery than the base shade, and pigment particles appear bigger (But still very fine compared to, e.g. MAC minieralised skinfinishes). Let's just say, even Snow White cannot carry off this as a blush...which is really what I hoped it was! a highlighter + blush in one.

Overall the powder is extremely high quality and finely milled, the shimmers are very nice and sophisticated sort of finish, makes a good higlighter. However, it's not very firmly pressed so there's some flyaway powder easily. For the pricetag and color selection, this is only yet another many, many, many highlighters I have and probably would not be a favorite.

Left: White layer alone, you can see it applies a soft-focused white shimmer, finely milled.

Middle: Pink section alone, you can see the faintest pink tint and how there is more pale pink-champagne gold shimmers to it.

Right: mixed, becomes a pastel pinkish white highlighter

Picture of other products from iswii.net, the blue polish is totally off color, it's meant to be a dark blackened eggplant