Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour Mica Rose #495 swatch

This is one of those Chanel nail colors that must have been released at least 2-3 times. Chanel does do variations of similar soft pinks quite often as well, so I wouldn't try too hard to track this color down actually.

#495 Mica Rose is a soft pink that goes relatively opaque after 2 coats. It's not completely opaque, but it does have a certain creaminess to the coverage once with 2 coats. It has tiny pink and silvery shimmers throughout. However, not enough to make it frosty nor metallic.

Overall rating 3.5/5.

Color is not all that original, and the wear does seem a bit weak- sometimes it just completely flakes off in 3 days, even with my normal Seche vite topcoat and Orly bonder base coat.

Kanebo Coffret D'or Nail Color OR43 swatch, PK152, YL08 (Summer 2010)

This is a bit of a late review given Coffret D'or is already releasing the 2011 Summer/Autumn new nail colors (and I think the packaging may have changed already?). Anyway, here were the 2010 summer edition colors, OR43, PK152 and YL08. I've only swatched OR-43 so far.

PK152 is a blossom light pink with silver flecks, OR43 is an apricot nude with silver/nude flecks of shimmer, YL08 is a very soft yellow with silver shimmers. They are all very soft, feminine colors easily wearable for spring and summer.

Here's the individual shots of OR43 which I will swatch today.

I think this picture below where I'm holding the bottle shows the best color both on nails and in the bottle- you can see the shimmers more clearly. On the nails it's a very gentle shimmer, just fine silver shimmers throughout evenly, it's a gorgeous office friendly color. Looks so feminine and pretty, usually the fear of wearing apricot nudes is it brings out too much yellowness or sallowness in my skintone, but this one doesn't.

A few more different shots under different lights and rooms to show what it looks like.

Coffret D'or nail colors wears very well, it lasts a good 4-5 days for me (which is how often I remove my polishes). I'm wearing seche vite top coat in these pictures and I think the base coat was Orly bonder.

The formula of Coffret d'or nailpolishes themselves are NOT quick dry, as is often with most Japanese nailpolishes. However a quick dry topcoat like Seche Vite easily fixes this problem, so my drying time is just similar  any OPI polishes with Seche vite on top.

Overall rating 5/5. You can find these on ebay or just google, a few websites probably sells these.

Products reviewed above are all self funded. Not affiliation with the brand.

Bobbi Brown Nude Eyes Palette 2010

Very quick review and lots of pics!

Bobbi Brown releases various eyeshadow palettes throughout the year, seems like at least for recent years, every year a nude eyes palette would be released, with a slight variation of eyeshadow colors (and finishes).
Bobbi Brown Nude Eyes Palette- I think this is a 2010 version. Unfortunately BB doesn't quite name them very differently so when you say Nude Eyes Palette from Bobbi Brown, there are probably over 5 versions out there.

From left to right the colors are:


1. Navajo Eyeshadow (plain vanilla white), not sure why Bobbi Brown almost compulsively include this eyeshadow in every single one of the nude eyeshadow palettes and often some other palettes, I find it a bit flat and boring. It works as a base, but not too exciting.

2. Pebble Metallic Eyeshadow (light silvery neutral/cool brown, with a light tinge of grey)

3. Chino eyeshadow (a sand grey, in a satin finish, no shimmer). Personally I'd rather another more exciting shade, Chino is also duped in various palettes quite often.

4. Beige Linen Shimmer Wash eyeshadow (a shimmery beige neutral, about same depth as Pebble- they are not very dark colors, probably used as accent or crease shade, not really for lining)

5. Maple Sugar metallic eyeshadow ( a beautiful brown sugar color, really does remind me of how raw sugar looks like, with a touch more brown. It's shimmery).

6. Caviar eyeshadow (matte charcoal black)- another snooze shade Bobbi seems to love to include in all the palettes.

Overall it's a lovely nude eyeshadow palette, I wish there'd be a more exciting shade for darker colors. They could easily take out Caviar and Navojo eyeshadows since it's duplicated in almost every single palette Bobbi Brown releases, I don't particularly collect the palettes from each season, even so I think I must have about 3-4 of Navajo and Caviar lying around!

It comes in the new palette format- so the individual eyeshadow duo pans can be popped out. I love the design. Wish they'd release a 8 pan eventually so I can put all my BB blushes in one place.

I also like how the eyeshadows are not full sized pans of one color, effectively it's like 4-full sized eyeshadow contents but you get 8 colors since the pans are split. You cannot buy eyeshadow duo pans like this from BB's regular line.

Overall rating : 4/5

Buy this if you want an eyeshadow palette on the go- however if you have a few nude/neutral / brown eyeshadows from previous Bobbi Brown collections, you can probably skip this.

Fancl Lucent Pressed Powder

Fancl Lucent Pressed Powder was released in late 2010 or early 2011 I think. I use and LOVE Fancl "Skincare Base Creamy" which is a lightly luminous foundation base/ primer. I thought the pressed powder might equally impress me.

Comes in a separate refill and foundation case (they probably standardised the compact sizings so the foudnation case can fit pressed powders refill too).

Ingredients:

Everything's SEALED in plastic, very clean. This is because Fancl prides in adding minimal preservatives or none, to their products, so they have a short shelf life (1 year from manufacturing date and 3 months for liquds after opening and about 6 mths for powders after opening). Personally I've used Fancl products a bit past the suggested expiry date (because it is very hard to finish some skincare products within 3 months!) and I never notice a change in consistency or anything....so I'd say it's more a 'recommended' use by date.

Fitting it into the compact:

The puff'sponge included is a very short fur type furry sponge. It's a bit useless, albeit very soft. You can see I struggle to pick up any powder even after a full swipe.

Here's BEFORE application

Here's AFTER.

Basically as the name says, it's LUCENT, as in translucent, so I cannot detect ANYTHING on my skin really because the powder is so finely milled. Do I like this? I wish I could've gotten a refund! I'm not sure whether it does anything, it doesn't cover anything because it's basically colorless. It doesn't 'set' my makeup after liquid foundation because it's just very hard to pick up enough from the compact.

I tried using a brush like a kabuki or powder brush with this, still did nothing.

Rating of 0 out of 5.

OPI Ayers Rock Nail Vernis Lacquer Polish

A quickest post ever! I got this through work for one of those charity paint your nail thing. So I dont have the actual bottle polish myself, here's the manicure with just 2 coats of OPI Ayers Rock (from the OPI Australian collection). 

It's a bright vivid red, I think it's cool/ neutral toned, I'm pale but I do have some yellow tone which will show through if the red is warm based.

I don't wear bright reds all that often, but I really do enjoy this one, a lot of colleagues also commented on how they liked this!

This was taken like day 4 after application, so I've cropped out the other nails since some tipwear started.

Orbis Hand Treatment

Orbis is a bit like Fancl, one of the large Japanese skincare/ (with some cosmetics) company that started with mail order. They are relatively cheap, probably what you would call drug store prices. Most items are likely to be below 30USD, majority around 10-25USD.

The Hand Treatment was released in 2011 along with the new nail collection.

I work in an air conditioned office so it can get quite drying, especially when I handle a lot of paper files during some days. So having a hand cream by my side is quite helpful, especially something that's non sticky or staining or greasy.

Orbis hand treatment is one of those! It's a lot less greasy than L'Occitane and Jurlique (both of which are like luscious creams, but also leaves the cream residue sort of feel on hands). Orbis is a light cream, which absorbs very quickly.

It's in a 70g sized pink tube, very minimalistic. It's that small so probably best left in the office rather than handbags.

Ingredients (mostly in Japanese I cant read )

Product code is 9482 (most Orbis products have an unique product code printed on the bottom left hand corner), for ease of order.

Squeeze tube:

Consistency- you can see it's a fairly lightweight cream.

Spreaded out on the skin- it dries velvet finish very quickly- so it doesn't leave that oily shine a lot of handcreams tend to do.

Overall I think this is a 4 out of 5. Suitable for those who like a non-greasy handcream that dries very quickly. Again this will not be enough for those with chornic dry hands or cuticles. It's minimally scented.

Orbis is available in Japan, HK and Taiwan (and probably some other Asian countries). You can probably find this in online stores or ebay.

Dr. Andrew Weil for Origins Conditioning Lip Balm with Tumeric review

Origins x Dr Andrew Weil has a range of products releases steadily since around 2010. I'm not familiar with Dr Weil but do love a few of Origins items.

The Conditioning Lip balm is in a 4g roll up tube, not like a normal chapstick. There's a 'dial' on the bottom you use to twist it up.

It's not a round tube either but sort of oval like. Very simplistic packaging.

Here it is in the tube- doesn't look very pretty at all. It's a yellow lipbalm with a moderate firmness, which makes is really rather 'balmy' but I don't have trouble applying it (not as hard as carmex in the tub).  It's got a light lemon scent which is sort of nice, and not at all irritating.

Swatch on the skin- it leaves a light shine, not ultra shiny type of lipbalm, but it does provide a coat to the lip with 1 or 2 swipes easily.

Rest of the ingredient list, seems the main base is beeswax/ various seed oils and cocoa butter.

I have quite sensitive lips and find this rather non irritating. However it will not cure any active irritation like severely chapped lips. I'm on the fence about whether I'd repurchase- given the RRP is around 15USD which is on the very steep side.

For the texture, product itself alone without considering the price, I would give this 4.5/5. However for 15USD this probably is a 4/5 for me. I still prefer my Yuskin lip cream.

OPI A Rose At Dawn Broke By Noon V11 + Design Series DS Perfection Nail Lacquer review/ swatch

OPI "A Rose At Dawn Broke by Noon" (color code V11) was from OPI Las Vegas collection.

The color is a gleaming brightened rose pink, it has a gleam sheen to it, not quite shimmery or frosty but just that glow.

I haven't taken a photo of the shade on its own because I got so bored of it after 1 coat. It honestly looks just like the color in the bottle I'm holding, a plain old average slightly tacky looking pink. Then I decided to salvage the poor nail color choice by adding another color top coat- wow the amazing thing is the finished look was SO pretty and this was a total accident.

Below are all pictures with 1 coat A rose at Dawn, Broke by Noon then topped with 2 coats of OPI DS Perfectoin.

Look how amazing it looks under sun light- I'm still holding A Rose at Dawn Broke by noon in my hand.

Below I'm holding the DS Perfection shade.

This is by far the favorite nail combination I've found lately. DS Perfection is a darked fuschia pink with a desnse shimmer and a slightly chrome effect (as can be seen from the bottle- it's reflecting a gold/bronze glow).

The finished look is this very pretty shimmering foiled rose, not too light and not too dark.

Overall 2/5 for A Rose at Dawn, Broke by Noon, and 5/5 for the DS Perfection shade, which is such a pretty top coat. (Having another opaque color underneath DS Perfection will richen the look of it, and take away any too much metallicness).

Beaute de Kose Esprique Precious Fit Up Concealer #40 Light-Beige review/swatch

Beaute de Kose Esprique Precious line is the mid price ranged line from the Kose group. Most items are under 40USD.

This is the "Fit up Concealer" in the lightest shade #40, Light-Beige. It's in a squeeze pink tube packaging, with a small nozzle, which makes it easy to control the amount.

 

On the very left is how it would look like under the eye and blended in. It's a very pigmented concealer, and dries quickly. I usually just pat it under eye with my finger tips.  As you can see it definitely has a strong yellow tone, which is too yellow for my face but ok for undereye.

However I find it a bit too drying and the opacity means it can look ashy under eye and a bit unnatural looking.

It has the added bonus of SPF25/ PA++. Contains 15g.

Overall 2/5. Unfortunately I find the majority of the Kose foundation lines to be very yellow, when I purchase something called light beige I really don't expect it to have this much yellow tone to it. The formula is also a bit drying and the pigment could be finer to make it look more natural on the skin.

Bobbi Brown Cream Blush Stick #1 Pale Pink review/ swatch

Bobbi Brown Cream Blush Stick is in a metal black tube like the foundation sticks, however it contains 4.3g of product (and foundation stick contains 9.5g.

Top is the foundation stick and bottom is blush stick:

Here's #1 Pale Pink- Interestingly I have pale pink in the powder form and they are NOTHING alike. The pale pink powder blush from Bobbi Brown is a hot baby doll pink, while the pale pink in cream blush stick is a peachy pink.

Here's how it looks when swiped straight onto the skin. On left it's on top of the Bobbi Brown foundation in #02 sand, on right it's on clean skin. You can see it doesn't change much color even when applied on top of foundation.

 Here it is blended out, on clean skin on the very left blended very sheerly, on the very right a bit heavier. In the middle it's blended on top of foundation in #02 sand again. The color when applied on my skin is honestly just a peachy pink, no other fancy way to describe it. It has more pink than peach.

 Overall 4/5. The color is very pretty. The stick blush is of high quality for a cream blush, and it blends out really easily on the cheek without looking blotchy.

It is now discontinued and replaced by the pot rouges and sheer color cheek tints.