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Beauty Finds
From the archives: new products that have come out this year and are worth taking the time to discover.
This body oil is reasonably priced and still made with natural ingredients!
Here are some organic products worth discovering.
I went on a quest to find the best tinted moisturizer out there.
I also tested coloured mascara to see what all the fuss was about.
I wanted to see whether certain products were worth the hype.
This year will bring so much more!
Coloured Mascara Wrap-up
So the great Canadian Beauty coloured mascara test driving has officially come to an end. In the midst of all the colour testing, we found out which mascaras were worth their salt and which weren’t. Overall: blue mascara shows up as mostly black and I think that it would be a great choice for anyone who has blue black hair. There was a minute brightening effect, but if you really want to brighten your eyes take a nap, use Visine, or wear your glasses instead of contacts. The most highly pigmented mascara that I found was the Dior Show and after that the Bourjois Pump Up The Volume.
Overall, I was left wondering whether all mascaras (regardless of the colour) were very pigmented or not and whether this made a difference on the effect they added. Maybe, having a more pigmented mascara would make your lashes seem longer or thicker and maybe that’s the difference between a good mascara and a great mascara!
In any case, if you want to go through all the reviews once more, click here.
Canadian Beauty News: April 27, 2007
This week, some lovely new summer products are now in, so here’s a rundown of what’s on shelves and what’s worth a peek:
Dior Event and Products:
I had a chance to go down to Holt Renfrew and took part in one of their Beauty Cuisine events, one run by the Christian Dior counter (the event continues all weekend) and was thoroughly impressed. My makeup was touched up by one of their national make-up artists (the girl who did mine was Erica, and she was really good), who knew all the products inside and out.
I had a bit of bronzer put on me from the new Dior Bronze Sun Couture palette and I loved the effect. Instead of being too orange or shimmery, my skin looked glowy and the tan was reddish because the darkest shade of the palette was used. The lip gloss is also really nice and matches tanned skin beautifully. This palette is now in stores, so if you’re in the market for a beautiful bronzer, my pick is this one.
Dior has also added to their backstage collection by adding a line of blushes and eyeshadows. Check out the Pro Cheeks Ultra-Radiant Blush and Eye Show. Both products use the new mousse technology that we’re seeing in all cosmetics these days. The formulations are nice and the products are smooth to feel. The blushes have shimmer but with the exception of the colour on the left (called Limelight) they don’t have that much shimmer in them. The eyeshadows do, but that’s to be expected I suppose. If you like Dior and you’re a fan of mousse blushes and eyeshadows, you will probably like these products too!
New Benefit Line
Hate though I do their packaging, I love Benefit and could not wait to check out their new collection that just came out. Included in the line is a new kind of lipstick in many colours, 3 new blushes, and a range of cream shadow/liner.
The star of the collection is most definitely the Silky-Finish Lipstick. Before I had a chance to see the lipstick I thought that it would be something silicon-based and would glide on to my lips. It’s not silicon-based and it’s not really silky-finished either. This lipstick is more of a gloss with a medium amount of pigment in it. Like all glosses, the colour can be worn sheer or at full potential and the lipsticks have a high amount of shine and absolutely no stickiness. I truly had a difficult time finding a favorite colour because they’re all amazing! Because the lipsticks go on so sheer, I found that I could pull of a variety of colours, from reds to raisins, neutrals to nudes. In the end, I found that my favorite colour was Candy Store which was a pink with a nice copper shimmer in it. Still, like I said, the colour selection is awesome and the lipstick goes on sheer and glossy so chances are that you’ll find something you like too!
The blush is nice but it’s a pretty standard cream-to-powder formula, and the Creaseless Cream Shadow/Liner is a good option if you’ve been looking for a creaseless shadow that comes in dark colours. The pots that the shadows are in are pretty big too, so you do get bang for your buck.
Fragrance Winner
The 2007 Canadian Fragrance Awards were last night, and Tom Ford Black Orchid won the award for “Best Luxe Launch”! Congratulations Tom Ford Perfumes!
British Line Launched in Canada
Last week, I was flipping through this month’s Glow magazine and I saw that Shoppers Drug Mart will not be selling No. 7 and Botanics in their stores. The advertising campaign says that this is a popular British line that is finally coming to Canada!
“Meh,” say I.
Let me break it down for you: Boots is a British drug store much like our own Shoppers Drug Mart except perhaps more widespread as the market in England is larger. Both the No. 7 line and the Botanics line is Boots own line of products. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what it means is that they’re pretty much the same as Shopper Drug Mart’s own Life Brand and Quo makeup lines.
Why Shoppers would want to peddle the products of other drug stores is absolutely beyond me. They’re introducing a line that competes directly with their own! All the lines usually carry cheaper imitations of regular products – for example Quo has a makeup primer that is a lot like the Smashbox one – it even comes in a similar-looking bottle. No. 7 (the makeup line) and Botanics (body care) usually play by those same rules – they’ll have imitation bronzers, self-tanners, serums, etc. that are cheaper and packaged to fool you into thinking they’re the same. How they stack up against the products they copy is yet to be determined but you get the idea.
The British brands are also offered south of the border, but I still don’t see what the fuss is about. Yes they’re good but they’re not exactly anything revolutionary. If I’m going to buy a cheap(er) drugstore brand of anything (and I do once in a while) I’m going to be sticking to the Canadian Life Brand or even Quo.
Great Beauty Reads:
Elke reviews the Nivea Microdermabrasion Kit.
eBeauty Daily tests the GlowFusion spray tanner.
That’s all for this week! I’m going to continue to review a few more coloured mascaras next week so I’ll be back to reviewing those tomorrow! If you haven’t seen the mascaras reviewd so far, click here to see the coloured mascara reviews! Have a lovely weekend.
