Saturday Surfing Round Up

Here's a couple of things I came across this week you might like:

• Bubblegarm has a some great swatches on MAC Pigments and Barry M Dazzledust
• Beauty Blogging Junkie has the NARS Spring 2010 collection. I am super excited about this, especially the Carmugue cream eyeshadow duo.
• Fashionista has the low down on the Mulberry Alexa bag. I have a Mulberry Bayswater and love it with all my heart, but OMG I've never wanted a bag so much in my life.
• Liparazzi finds a dupe for Bobbi Brown Golden Peach in ELF Natural. I ordered this and it arrived today, but I haven't had a chance to go through all my mail yet. Excited!

Find a great post this week? Wrote something yourself you want me to check out? Leave it in the comments and I'll follow up. :)

MAC All Races All Ages All Sexes Collection Haul

Wait, did MAC launch another neutral collection just 2 weeks after Warm & Cozy? Yes, they did. So of course I headed down and checked it out. What, did you think I would be able to contain myself and keep my credit card in my purse? Puh-lease.

You know what though? I was not super impressed with this collection. I wasn't sure about what I expected, and maybe I should not have brought Moose to the MAC store as it meant I couldn't spend a super long time poring over things. For example, I didn't even look at the brow products, although my store (did I ever tell you my MAC store is just 5 blocks from my house. Isn't that insane? Sephora is 7. New York can be a killer sometimes!) didn't appear to have it. As you probably should be aware, my biggest weakness is eyeshadow, and right now, particularly mattes. I was fully expecting to get at least 3 shades. I ended with just two: All Races and Showstopper. All Races is a lovely unique matte super pale gray lilac color. It is pretty pigmented but swatched pale on my warm. Showstopper is a matte dark charcoal brown. According to other bloggers, it is similar to Embark, which I don't have. I think that's also a little weird of MAC given that Embark was repromoted as part of Warm & Cozy. The other two shades, Cross-cultural, which was a mid-tone red brown, and Banshee, a shimmery pink, didn't catch my attention. Cross-cultural seemed pretty blah, and Banshee shimmer mayhem.

There were 4 lipsticks with this collection: Myself, Empowered, 5N, and Equality. Equality wasn't at my counter, Myself was soo extremely sheer that I couldn't see it, and Empowered and 5N were pretty. I ended up with 5N as it seemed to have a slightly more glossy finish.

Out of the 4 lipglosses, I ended up picking up 2: Liquer and Spirit & Soul. All but Glamour For All have a high shimmer factor. Glamour For All is a nice nudey pink, but I thought it looked dupable for Underage which I have and use regularly. Plus I seem to have a gazillion milky pinks from MAC right now. Equality was a shimmery cool gold, which might be flattering on some, but killed me. Liquer and Spirit & Soul are definitely in the browny gold family, with Spirit & Soul being slightly richer and warmer.

I did not end up getting any of the pigments or beauty powders. There has been a big furore over the change in pigment jar size (my mac store only has new pigment sizes, but I'll check Macys later today), but more importantly, I just didn't get too excited about the actual colors. Universal Mix seemed dupable with one of the white colors that MAC has (I did swatch this, I'm just having a brain melt here!), and Rich Ground was equally unimpressive, and the pigment wasn't super nice either. Meh.

The beauty powders both looked super neutral. At first I blew them off. As I type this though, I really feel like I ought to go back and give them some quality time thinking about highlighting and contouring when my store is quiet and I am not dragging an inquisitive puppy!

Do I think this was a stellar collection? Eh, no. Definitely not. Not even as strong as Warm & Cozy. Actually, I think it's a shame that neither of these collections were ohmigod amazing, as from what I can see from upcoming collections, we're not going to see any emphasis on neutrals from MAC for a while. It is is keeping with the very 90s feeling we all have going on here. I'm going to put on my flowery dress and heavy boots whilst slicking a brown shimmer gloss on now.

Etsy Find of the Week: Maple Marshmallows

I'm on a real foods kick right now from Etsy. Whimsy & Spice are based in Brooklyn and I picked these up in Dean & Deluca and they are super yummy. Homemade marshmallows will make you never want factory made ones again. Actually, I once made marshmallows once, back in the day when I could bake. So, actually, over 10 years ago. Oh super dear. Anyways, these are way better than mine. Go forth and order these.

Cheapie of the Week: Cover Girl Lipstains

CoverGirl Lipstains are amazing. They are literally felt tip pens for your mouth. They provide an instant pop of color, and since it is a stain, that always suits you as it takes on whatever tint your lips are already. You can wear them on their own or as a base for another color. They last about 4-5hrs on me, and the only drawback is they can be a little drying, and the pen tips can actually dry out. On my arm, I've had Berry Smooch for a year, and the rest of the stains were all bought last week, so you can see a bit of a difference there. They retail for $7.49, and according to the CoverGirl website, they come in 10 different shades. For that price, you can try them all! MAC are bringing out a similar product to this in April which I'll be keen to compare too, but honestly, I really think that this product does exactly what it says it will. Awesomeness.

Spreading the Love Around: Brand Loyalism vs Brand Whorism

Here is one of my beauty confessions: I am incredibly brand loyal. Really. I find it hard to break out of brand habits. For example, my make up drawer is almost exclusively MAC, NARS, and Bobbi Brown, with a touch of Benefit, NYX, and Covergirl thrown in. My skin routine is currently entirely Philosophy, and for body, I swear by Kiehls Creme De Corps line. I do like Kiehsl for skin too, and I have a bunch of moisterisers and masks waiting to be tried. I hear great things about other luxury (and drugstore!) brands like Chanel and Dior, but I can never make the emotional connection. This year, though, I am going to do my best to change that and branch out


My products and brands to try out in 2010 are:

1. ELF cosmetics - the prices are so low, it's hard to know if this will be a total bust or not. I actually just placed my order as they were offering $10 worth of products free. Review coming up shortly, for sure. I picked out a bunch of brushes, a mineral eyeshadow, some lip products, and whatever the free $10 products were. Fingers crossed for a bargain gem!

2. Aveeno - everyone raves about this line, especially the Daily Brightening Scrub. It's a definite one to try out, as goodness knows I love a scrub!


3. Lush! Oh, there is so much Lush! stuff I want to try. I think that this brand might be bigger in the UK than the USA, so I'll have to be a cheerleader to raise awareness. Basically, it is natural, handmade products on a grander scale. They have a glorious range of shampoos, face masks, and also a foot mask that I am just dying to try out, with great names such as Angels on Bare Skin and Buffy. Swoon. Can't wait.

4. Anything by Chanel. Oh please, let me treat myself this year to something from Chanel. Especially something like a lipstick (Christine from Temptalia raves about their Rouge Allure line), or an eyeshadow quad.

4. Make Up Forever. I hear great things about this brand, especially the foundation, which is my dammit I have to find something that works product of the year. I have a wee teeny primer from MUFE in my cupboard that has made the cut as part of the great primer test of January 2010. Yes, more details will be coming soon.

5. Smashbox. Again, another potentially great foundation product that I've heard rave reviews about.

6. Benefit. Okay, Benefit and I are weird. I adore all the cute packaging, but have been burnt by less than stellar products about five years ago. However, the word on the street is that they are back back back, and with great products like Sugarbomb, well worth a second look.

7. Korres Skin Care. These products have always caught my eye with their gorgeous packaging. Time for me to make the leap!

8. Etsy. There are hundreds of great sellers out there making body products and makeup from scratch, and I'm dying to try out a bunch and see what can come from the handmade community. 

That doesn't mean that I am going to stop with my old favorites. MAC will probably always be my go-to for a quick fix, but by broadening my horizons I'm hoping to find some awesome new products to share with you all. Ooooh, my Sephora Beauty Insider account is going to be embarassing!

Do you think it's better to stick to one brand? What are you excited about trying out in 2010?

Nails of the Week: China Glaze Sneaker Head

Apologies for the less than perfect mani here. These pics were taken on Tuesday and I had done them on Friday, so that's a good couple of days of wear on them. The color is China Glaze's Sneaker Head, a bright corally pink. It came out much redder than the bottle led me to believe. I normally don't love this color, but it was fun to wear for a few days. First picture is in natural sunlight, the second with flash.

Tuesday Mood Session

Moonrise view from the apartment

It's Tuesday, so time to check in on my moooood!

1. What's my mood?
Excellent. Very relaxed. As one should be after 4 days beside the pool and an extra day off work for good measure.


2. What am I wearing?
Even though I really have only left the house today to go to CVS (2 blocks away) and the park to walk the dog, I dressed myself up today. Sequinned t shirt from Topshop, tweed shorts from topshop, grey cardigan from American Apparel. I even did an FOTD which will be up later in the week. 








3. What am I obsessing over?
Blog formatting issues. Urgh. UK stuff - good! Am going home in just under a month and am very looking forward to seeing friends and family.

4. How was New Year?
Well, we dashed into the apartment at 11.50 and had drinks in hand on the patio for midnight. New Year itself was fabulous - friends, husband, warm nights, a bit too much booze.

5. What's happening this week?
A light week at work (3 days!!), drinks with a friend tomorrow night, and keeping it chill apart from that to give my wallet and liver some time to recover.

6. Go on, admit it, what did you buy last week?
Last week - a  NYX haul from Cherry Culture which I'm looking forward to swatching. The last 2hrs - eesh. Spent my drugstore.com dollars on shampoo, makeup removers and mascara, and then took advantage of an ELF offer because I really want to try them out.


7. Even after all that, are you planning on buying anything this week?
Maybe something from the MAC All Races All Ages collection, but the more I see it swatched, the less excited I get. I'm totally off clothes shopping for January, but I keep eyeing up UK companies like Topshop and ASOS for putting an order in for my Feb 1st visit. Actually, I'll have a very short window to shop as I normally go off clothes shopping for Lent as well. Eesh.

8. Random question - coffee or tea?
Coffee, but really in the form of skinny capuccinos, vanilla lattes, and anything iced. I do love a random lemon tea from our weird in office coffee machine in the morning as well, and iced tea in the summer. Yep, all over the shop.