Summer Blogsale

right here

And yes, this means that out of the EIGHT items I've purchased so far (discounting replacements) for my twelve-a-year pledge, I've fallen out of love with FOUR (Ladurée 11, Shiseido Fire, Kanebo Sensai Shirafuji and Suqqu Himesango).

But overall, despite taking a free month of hauling at will in June, my collection has shrunk to about half its size at the beginning of the year. Carry on with what feels like a bit of a pointless exercise or pat self on back for keeping to the spirit if not the letter? Would love to here your thoughts :)

Field Notes: Autumn 2012 Swatches

A mixed bag of recent dabblings in department stores: Chanel Blue Illusion, YSL Rouge Pur Couture Les Mats, and Estée Lauder Vivid Shine collections.

1. Chanel Blue Illusion was previewed at the Haute Couture SS 2012 show and I'd been anticipating the two new (limited edition) Illusion D'Ombre cream shadows (both blues! one light, one dark) ever since -- given the idiosyncrasy of fashion seasons, we're talking months of calf-eyed mooning over backstage closeups here.
And after swatching them repeatedly over the past month? Resounding meh.

Swatches fom least to most light (natural):

The liner (Blue Aerien) is a moderately pigmented mid-tone blue matte with sparse silver shimmer that's only visible once blended out (second swatch). As with all non-shimmery Chanel pencil liners, I found it to apply patchily and to tug on my dry skin.
Both Illusion D'Ombre Apparition (deep blue-grey with silver, green and very sparse pink microshimmer) and Destination (silvery blue with the same microshimmer) are softly shimmery, moderately pigmented mousses like Rivière rather than the creamier, denser, more pigmented and much sparklier original lineup of shades (or the latter releases Abstraction and Vision).
All shades are limited edition and are available in the Oxford Street John Lewis and Selfridges in London -- may be able to order these by phone.


2. YSL Rouge Pur Couture Les Mats is a new, permanent collection of six shades of modern matte lipsticks: touted-as-moisturising, with a good bit of siliconey slip to ease application, but long lasting and highly pigmented, corrective satin rather than flat matte -- cf. Chanel Rouge Allure Velvets or Lancôme Colour Design Mattes.
I found these very impressive -- in particular 202 Rose Crazy, 203 Rouge Rock and 204 Rouge Scandal were intensely and smoothly pigmented -- although the darker 205 Prune Virgin (!) and 206 Grenat Satisfaction looked a little patchy on one swipe, and 201 Orange Imagine needed three-four layers to reach the opacity of the other shades.

Based on the look and performance of 203 Rouge Rock on my delicious friend Mira Sundari, even through some epic ice-cream-and-waffle-nomming, I think these are worth every penny of their £23.50 pricetag and tacky gold packaging.


3. Estée Lauder Vivid Shine features a mix of limited edition and permanent shades, providing a bonanza of autumn-collection-awesome: saturated jewel tones, icy pastels, and unashamed sparkle being the main themes.
The eyeshadows are re-stamped but not reformulated from last year's Cyber Eyes release and the molten wet-or-dry "Illuminating Powder Gelee" formula was also used in this summer's limited edition Bronze Sands quint; a step up from MAC's Extra Dimension formula from spring. I finger-swatched these dry, because the EL counters were heaving in contrast to Dior, Lancôme and others, but you can hopefully extrapolate how much more intense they would be used wet based on Lipglossiping's excellent swatches from last year.

All swatches in natural light, without flash. I angled for fuzziness in the bottom pictures. Starred items are limited edition.

Arctic Sky is the only sheer sparkle in this batch; Cyber Silver and Cyber Pink are more pigmented and metallic-glittery while Cyber Ice is an all-out frost.

As you can see, Cyber Green hasn't been tweaked to match its name since the original release. It's still a black warmed by copper, green and gold sparkle. Cyber Green along with Lights Out and Cyber Copper were the driest in texture and would need to be packed on with a very heavy hand or foiled with water/mixing medium to display much complexity on the eye.

Cyber Lilac is the most complex and pigmented of this batch, and one of the shades that really show off this new formula's balance of pigment, creaminess and complex sparkle -- a great
illustration of why Estée Lauder makeup has been making a comeback in recent seasons. Cyber Ruby is a rich rose-brown with, yep, ruby and fuchsia shimmer; even softer are Electric Orchid and Magenta which balance gloriously unsubtle the-eighties-are-back tones with less textural bling.

This last set mixes a sheer sparkle (Fire Sapphire) with two moderately-pigmented shimmers (yellow-green Pop Pistachio and blue-green Ultramarine) and another complex metallic glitter, Cyber Teal.
The first thing that struck me about these was their similarity to a few Addiction Aurora Reflection shades I owned. While Addiction are a step up still in texture, complexity and greater colour payoff, these EL shades are worth looking into as accessible relations. (Ignore Magenta peeking out on the right there.)
Estée Lauder Fire Sapphire is the less-pigmented twin to Addiction Blue Moon.
Estée Lauder Pop Pistachio is a flatter, less-sparkly, yellower cousin to Addiction Silent Scream.
Estée Lauder Cyber Teal is much more tauped (greyed and browned) and less, well, teal than Addiction Deep Forest.

Finally, some very messy field swatches of what seemed to be to be the four sparkliest nail polishes in the new line. From index to pinky: Smashed, Molten Lava, Explosif and Chaos.

[While I can't fault Tom Pecheux's eye, I do question whose nose in Haus Lauder is responsible for keeping that lurid fig scent in their lip products, season after season -- the latest batch of Pure Colour lipsticks did seem wonderfully moisturising and lushly pigmented, for those of you who like that kind of thing. There was a killer coral in the line too, from what I could tell between dry-heaves.]

Sunday Sundries

i.e. my belated entry into Yumeko's Weekly Photo Challenge #11: Hey, How Was Your Week?

1. Something you ate this week

I am a stress-baker. And -eater. Awesome combo as you can imagine, usually leading to my leaving ranty sugarhigh 400-words-a-minute PSA's on people's answerphones at 3 am about how I Am Now Self-Sufficiency Woman Hear Me Roar/Burp. If I have your phone number I will apologise now, because this will happen to you eventually. 

As there's been no shortage of stress lately...

Tiny green tea sables with demerara sugar crust for extra maltiness (from the bits that melt) and crunch (from the bits that don't)

I put too much matcha powder in. This happens every time because it ensures that everyone finds them too bitterly caffeinated and they end up mine all mine.

Flowery Earl Grey tea biscuits -- check out my poncy Harrods loose-leaf, what. (Srsly though, use the most fragrant tea you have or chuck in some oils / dried flowers -- it makes a huge diff.)

It's sweltering in London so no proper tea to go with -- but hey, a glass of elderflower cordial for English twee counts, surely?
As if you couldn't tell, I cut round a real teaspoon for these... then decided even heroic procrastination couldn't justify this utter pointlessness and fetched a mug to stamp out the rest of the dough. Most hostesses have more mostestness than I do, so do feel free to steal this cutesy idea (which I nicked from a Japanese cake book.)

In case of precipitous drop in blood sugar levels while stranded far from oven:

How glad am I that bubble teas have hit the UK Azn Mnstrm? Tearfully, vowelessly glad. Left: brown sugar milk tea and right: matcha milk tea (I love matcha okay), both with delicious chewy tapioca 'pearls'. From Candy Cafe in Chinatown.

2. Something you bought this week

Dolce&Gabbana Sole blush (the big ball of hotness in the sky, not the fish / shoe component) -- eight of twelve, if anyone's still counting.

And 'no pics without tea,' I hear you cry? MOAR TEA it is then:

From the always delightful Postcard Teas, a refill of Big Smoke [gutsy Indian black mix smoked over cinnamon wood mixed with delicate Darjeeling] and two caddies of Green Mulberry [dried young Thai mulberry leaves] and Tea Flower Tea [Sri Lankan black, with the flowers of the plant] to try. Cannot recommend this shop highly enough -- you can probably tell how deadly tempting it is from the packaging alone -- note, their China teas are just okay (well, I'm spoiled by biannual Hong Kong trips) but the rest are gold.

3. Something you wore this week

I finally made something from the vinage pattern book I got for Christmas with that greenyblue silk/merino yarn from May -- which, after halving the blousoniness of the sleeves (man those 1940s ladies were built), I am frankly besotted with:

sorry this pic is fuzzy -- wanted to show the clever 'darts' underneath both boobs and at the elbow (there's one at the centre back too)? So stealing this construction for my modern knits.

I will never not-love a good puff sleeve.

I'm not big on accessories but the iridescence of this supremely simple COS ring caught my eye while stocking up on shirts and knickers, and it's been garnering compliments ever since:

 My HK sale steal, Tsumori Chisato sunnies. ^_^

RBR liquid bronzer looking supernaturally glowy // Essence Candybar gloss 

4. Something you read this week

Beauty books: Ugly Beauty by Ruth Brandon (a loose, journalistic skim through the stories of Helena Rubinstein and, especially, Eugene Schueller and his Vichy collaboration-or-not) and Beauty Imagined by Geoffrey Jones (much meatier, but less cultural analysis and more bizniz stats and numbers than is to my taste).

September issues: So-En, Voce, and Biteki.

A friend recently challenged me to give this year's crop of literary fiction (hiss, spit) a fair chance [in return he gets to gambol through the list of 'Shiny, Shiny Stories from the Last Three Millenia' I put together] so I'm starting with the obvious Booker/Orange/Pulitzer prize nominees but any recommendations would be welcome! Especially if they are properly enjoyable like Jane Harris' Gillespie and I, Stella Tillyard's Tides of War, Emma Donoghue's The Sealed Letter [uh, is it obvious that I beelined for the hist-fic crossovers on the lists?], Michael Frayn's Skios or Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues [not pictured, still feel ridiculous photographing kindle screen] -- when did litfic get so good?

5. Something that made you smile this week

In material terms,

a. This freebie ad / fan handed out by a poor dude from Yamamoto Removals melting outside the Japan Centre was like an instant imaginary ticket to Tokyo (no tissues to be had, sadly).

b. A proper souvenir this time, from my dad's recent E. Asia trip: a DesignComplicity umbrella/parasol printed with a leaf canopy, perfect for napping under with a book post-picnic or running under after the suddenbutinevitable thunderstorm.

c. Nicked from my mum after Sunday dinner last week: softly squidgy bee-charmed flats by Pilcro & The Letterpress. They are cut very wide so wear more like flipflops on me and can be kicked off in an instant -- perfect for the park, especially with their stripy trim peeking out. It's going to feel like the end of summer when I return these to her tomorrow.

I especially enjoyed taking part this particular photo challenge and reading Lost In Omo's and Rouge Deluxe's entries -- please drop me a comment and a link if you decide to join in too.