Friday Frivolity: Polish Stash

I was so inspired by cilucia's latest stash post, I'm going to steal the whole thing, including her first paragraph. ;) Real Life has been kicking my arse, and shows no signs of letting up, but I will try my best to post at least once a week, begging your pardons if I miss one.

In the meantime, here's a state of the stash post: nail polish edition! With thanks to the commentators on my last nail post -- you can see the results of the edit now :)

Tops, Whites, Yellows

YSL Première Neige, Orly Love Each Other and Fifty Four, Models Own Jack Frost, A-England Morgan Le Fay,
Deborah Lippmann Amazing Grace, Kiko 355 Canary Yellow, Barry M 134 Yellow

Nudes and Metallics

OPI Barre My Soul and You Callin' Me A Lyre?, China Glaze Tinsel, I'm Not Lion and Swing Baby,
Butter London Tart With a Heart, Yummy Mummy and Wallis

Greys and Greyed Shades

Nail Pattern Boldness Oodiful, China Glaze Pelican Grey and Sea Spray, Butter London Lady Muck, CG Elephant Walk,
OPI Done Out In Deco, Catrice Steel My Heart, Rescue Beauty Lounge Insouciant, BL No More Waity Katie

Blues and Teals

Orly Pixie Dust, Essie Smooth Sailing, YSL Bleu Majorelle, OPI Get Your Number,
Butter London Artful Dodger and Victoriana, A-England St. George

Greens

Eyeko Vintage Polish, Essie Mojito Madness, China Glaze He's Going in Circles and Emerald Sparkle,
Smitten Polish I Want It Now, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Watermelon, Butter London Jack the Lad

Purples

Models Own Southern Lights, A-England Guinevere, Hare Polish Cast In Bronze and Medusa Luminosa,
Smitten Polish You're Turning Violet, Violet, Zoya Tru, Barry M Dusky Mauve, Kiko 255 Violet Microglitter

Pinks, Roses, Berries

Barry M 352 Pink Sapphire, Models Own Northern Lights, OPI Last Friday Night and The Impossible,
Kiko 283 Dark Coral Pink and 361 Raspberry Pink, Butter London Disco Biscuit,Pahlish Your Possible Heart, Zoya Blaze, China Glaze Stroll

Corals and Reds

Deborah Lippmann Daytripper, Kiko 362 Poppy Red, Pahlish Pianos Filled with Flames, OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry,
China Glaze Ruby Pumps, a franken by my darling sasquatch swatch, Elevation Polish Toubkal

Darks -- cream to shimmer

A-England Camelot, OPI Lincoln Park After Dark, Addiction Amaranto, Rescue Beauty Lounge Recherché,
Lex Lucky In Love, Estée Lauder Molten Lava, Clarins 230, Max Factor Fantasy Fire

Darks -- sparkles

A-England Beauty Never Fails, Crows Toes A Christmas Crow, China Glaze Midtown Magic,
OPI My Private Jet and Stay the Night, Orly Fowl Play

Glitters

Lynnderella Blue Rouge, Rescue Beauty Lounge Look Rich Be Cheap, Hare Why So Igneous? and Bury the Hatchetfish,
Pahlish Typewriter Keys, Lynnderella The Stars in Her Eyes, Butter London The Black Knight, Sasquatch franken

Jellies

OPI Big Hair Big Nails, Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em, Do You Think I'm Tex-y?, Houston We Have a Purple,
Zoya Paloma and Frida, Colorama Sombra, Gota, Bola de Gude 

Tops and Tails

CND Stickey, Butter London Nail Foundation, A-England The Knight and The Shield,
Gelous, Butter London Hardwear, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

Current Top Twelve

BL Tart With a Heart, Pahlish Typewriter Keys, Hare Bury the Hatchetfish, OPI Done Out in Deco,
CG He's Going in Circles, A-E St. George, YSL Bleu Majorelle, OPI Quarter of a Cent-Cherry,
CG Ruby Pumps, BL Disco Biscuit, Zoya Paloma, Orly Fowl Play

I have a few more bottles of RBL and Paul&Joe (left in Hong Kong) but in total I try to keep the collection at (just) under 100 bottles. They live in four stackable drawers from Muji, with a swatch fan 'table of contents' for each drawer bcause I'm crazy swatchsicles are fun to make, okay?

This is an old pic, when I only had two boxes full. Last year *cough*

Les Merveilleuses Ladurée Cream Cheek Base 102

Older readers will know that my favourite blush colour is red, and in general I operate under the unspoken assumption that brighter is always better. The fevered macaque-butted clown-harlot aesthetic, y'know.

But! To balance that obsession is its kind-of opposite (doin' my bit for cosmic balance), my perennial hunt for pastel blushes that actually look pastel on my pasty skin. [Some shades often called pastel, chalky even, which are mid-tones on me: Illamasqua Katie, Benefit Georgia/Dandelion, Shu M 225, Mac Well Dressed, Fyrinnae Seduce, Nars Sex Appeal....] Having finally found a lavender-pink pale and cool enough to read as unspeakably hideously chalky to most / deliciously editorially chalky to me in Dainty Doll's Hippy Hippy Shake [better pics here], I've stepped up my efforts to find her a peachy sister.

Ladurée released two limited edition shades of its cream cheek base this spring, one of which seemed the truly-pastel peach of my dreams, and corrupted aided by So Lonely In Gorgeous, I managed to acquire a delicious macaron creme egg in shade 102:

PEEEEEEEACH!

Now the packaging is truly, stupendously, excessively hideous. My pictures can't convey just how ungainly and (though I hate this word) tacky the whole thing is -- it takes an act of evil genius to engineer something at once flimsy and clunky.

must work out how to depot. now.

In formula, like the Ladurée pressed powder blush I tried last year, this cream is quite dry, though thankfully not drying. The best way to apply is, as Ladurée themselves recommend, to draw on your face straight from the egg and then blend out with fingers or a brush -- it is very difficult to pick up any colour from the egg with a brush (however dense), and to pick up pigment evenly is almost impossible. Once on the skin, the high-silicone, silky-matte feel makes it easy to work with, much like a finely milled, silky powder blush (e.g. Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry), it's a snap to get a smoothly blended, unpatchy result. I do think that it'll get trickier to lay down more directional shapes once the dome wears down, but we'll see... update you in 5 years, mmmkay?

Because despite its high-whimsy stylings this blush is impressively pigmented. The right swatch is one swipe from the egg, and the left is the same, but blended out -- see how far it goes?

Once blended out, the strong white base on which this peachy pink sits also becomes dispersed so that the shade remains a pastel even on my pale skin, while never looking chalky / sitting too flatly on top of my clear colouring. (Grace has the best breakdown of this distinction here.)

More practically, blending also disperses the sparse white-gold glitter running through 102, making each speck easier to pick out :P Obviously zero shimmer is best for me (no catching on my dry skin), but large/sparse flecks I can work with, while fine/dense glitter presents more of a problem, hence my issues with Chanel Notorious or Tom Ford Narcissist.

Still not ideal, but as this Ladurée shade so perfectly fills a niche in my blush wardrobe, I'll live with it for now. Comparison with some peaches and pinks (since this is so well balanced in between):

Dolce & Gabbana Nude and Provocative

Shu Uemura M520 (Colour Atelier) and Sakura (limited edition Spring 2006)

Becca Guava and Lychee beach tints 

Illamasqua Rude cream blush

RMS Beauty Smile lip2cheek

The main thing to note is my tendency to acquire peach/pink pairs from the same lines 102's unusual bright-pastel effect, making most of the other shades appear dusty or ruddy in comparison, and Becca Lychee almost neon.

Look 1: White

A wash of whites on the eye for maximum exaggeration if 102's unique bright-pastel base: Kiko long-lasting eyeshadow stick 01 Pearly White [swatch], the white satin from Suqqu 09 Koju (discontinued, spring 2009), the blue-white from Suqqu EX-12 Hisuidama (limited edition spring 2013 [swatch]), Sugarpill Tako as the most matte and pigmented white to 'shade' the upper lashline, and GOSH white kohl on the waterline.

To stop my eyes from disappearing altogether under this blanket of snow, I ran Rouge Bunny Rouge Sweet Dust Seriema under the lower lashline and very, very lightly through the socket.

Lips: YSL Glossy Stain 27 Peche Cerra Cola

Cheeks: Laudree 102, duh, in a circular, apples of the cheek placement

Highlight: More white, courtesy of Shiseido High Beam White through the centre of the face

Look 2: Grey

A more wearable modulation of the white-out eye -- Suqqu's grey-based purple quad 10 Sakuragi (discontinued, spring 2009) in a soft vertical gradation on the eyes, paired with a more 'natural' blush placement for me: placed on the apples and blended up and out along the cheekbone. The lip is another limited edition Suqqu (Noble Nuance lipstick EX-03 Shumomo from spring 2010), which shares Ladurée 102's bright-pastel peachy-pinkness.

Look 3: Brights

To show that this blush can also function as an unobtrusive neutral/balancing element tying a bold lip and eye together, I've paired it with Shu Uemura Smoky Velvet (LE Christmas 2012, N. American version) and Addiction Le Mépris Lip Crayon.
Foundation to ground this stronger look: Koh Gen Do Maifanshi Moisture 001.

This time, I applied the blush very lightly along the lower edge of my cheekbone and blended lightly inwards -- almost like a contour.

Constants: Shu Uemura Underbase Cream Pink and RBR Sea of Clouds highlighter as base; Shu Uemura Hard 9 Seal Brown brow pencil and Suqqu 02 Brown brow pen; Fasio Full Dynamic Volume mascara BR300.

Undereye Concealers -- Swatches and Reviewlets

Major base-geekery ahead. Seriously, there are nested footnotes.

Quick recap of the story so far:

1. I didn't so much have dark circles as an amorphous lowering zone of doom around my eye area (size varying depending on insomnia, allergies etc.).
2. Then came Korres Materia Herba Anti Dark Circles Eye Cream (part 3 here)...
3. ...which enabled me to ditch the correctors, heavier coverage concealers and all the texture-mitigating priming/prepping blah blah that they required, for one neat click of Burberry's Sheer Touch pen, more a divinely-textured, more-pigmented-than-usual illuminator than a traditional spackle, dabbed at the corners of each eye.
4. Korres discontinues the Materia Herba eye cream, and there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
5. I try all teh other Korres eye creams, and a few from other brands... and go crawling back to hideously overpriced Sisleya. Which, while perfect in every other way, cannot stem the resurgent tide of pigmentation during particularly sleepless / stressful times (er, that'd be almost every day then?), so....
6. CONCEALATHON 2013!

Featuring:

Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer Chantilly and Vanilla

Burberry Sheer Touch Concealer 01 Light Beige

Cle de Peau Concealer Ivory

Amazing Cosmetics Concealer Fair

Bobbi Brown Corrector Porcelain Bisque and Light Bisque [both older, creamier formula]

RMS Beauty "Un" Cover-Up 11

Illamasqua Under Eye Concealer 100

Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer Fair

Ellis Faas Concealer S201

Swatches

I swatched these in what I thought was the correct order of darkness (dabbing first on the back of my hand) BUT as you can see, some formulas set/dry considerably darker, throwing off the order -- in particular, Nars. This picture was taken about 5-10 minutes of setting, and the final order from dark to light[1] (give or take exaggerated undertones[2]) runs:

Cle de Peau Ivory (warm peach) 

RMS 11 (neutral yellow) // Bobbi Brown Light Bisque (very warm salmon pink)
Nars Vanilla (warm pink)
Ellis Faas S201 (neutral yellow)
Burberry 01 (neutral peach-pink) // Amazing Fair (warm peach)
Nars Chantilly (neutral yellow-olive)
Tarte Fair (beige pink)
Kevyn Aucoin SX-01 (cool yellow) [swatched for colour reference only -- this is my blemish concealer]
Bobbi Brown Porcelain Bisque (cool pink)
Illamasqua 100 (true white) -- my mixer

In order of pigmentation
full opacity: Kevyn Aucoin
very pigmented: Cle de Peau // Bobbi Brown corrector // Tarte
pigmented: RMS // Ellis Faas // Nars // Amazing
sheer-medium: Burberry // Illamasqua white

Finishes [I never powder over concealer, so these are the finishes of the products themselves]
dewy: RMS // Bobbi Brown
creamy: Tarte
invisible, 'skinlike': Burberry
satin-matte: Amazing // Illamasqua // Ellis Faas
matte/powdery: Kevyn Aucoin // Cle de Peau // Nars

Most emollient to driest to touch [i.e. most to least blendable on my dry skin]
very creamy: RMS // Bobbi Brown corrector // Burberry [despite its drier feel, it has a lot of silky slip]
creamy: Kevyn Aucoin // Nars upon initial application // Ellis Faas
medium: Amazing // Tarte -- both require warming up between fingers before application
dry and drags on skin: Cle de Peau // Illamasqua

Most moisturising to most drying in practice
moisturising: RMS // BB corrector // Burberry
neutral: Illamasqua // Tarte // Ellis Faas
drying: Cle de Peau // Kevyn Aucoin // Amazing
what fresh hell is this: Nars Radiant Creamy, which once set, becomes a horrific, powdery parody of its name -- over several days of testing (with various combinations of creams and primers under, over and mixed into) it would invariably leave me with desperately shrivelled tree-bark crone eyes by noon.

The Final Arsenal

Burberry Sheer Touch for lazy days / good days
Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer on top for extra polish -- on its own, this lacks the warmer pink tones I need to cancel out my blue/green veininess and can be a little tricky to blend over my skin, but layered over a light coat of the Burberry, it can handle anything, without the need for a corrector. As a bonus, it is sufficiently pigmented, neutral and pale to work as a blemish concealer too, and sits a bit prettier on my winter skin than Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer, which I'll still keep around for those fresh and luridly red!!! blemishes that need more yellow.

In practice (warning, scary high def pics ahead)

Bare

This is average for me -- the goal is to conceal the blurple quarter-moon below my inner corner and a bit of redness at the outer edge, without exacerbating chicken skin / fine lines.

(There is some peachy discolouration on my lids, but as it's not serious enough to mess with my eyeshadows, I care not. For very sheer formulas, I may lay down a wash of Shiseido High Beam White as a base first.)

One click of Burberry Sheer Touch 01 brushed from the inner corner, remaining product drawn with one stroke over the outer corner redness.

Blended out with MAC 286:

Not bad, right? Note especially that the texture under my eyes looks a little better (this is why I adore this pen). But my circles are so cool toned that while Burberry's salmon tones takes care of the worse of the blueness, some lavender ashiness still shows through its semi-translucent formula.

A tiny pinhead dot of Tarte Maracuja Creaseless Concealer Fair, warmed between ring fingers and pressed on (even warmed up well, it remains a thick, dense balm texture):

Blended out with MAC 286 and more finger-pressing:

After 10 minutes of setting:

So everything else is an Ignominious Out. For reasons.

Nars Radiant Creamy: sets so apocalyptically dry and crevasse-y D: DNW.

Cle de Peau: cream-to-powder formulas never play well with my dry skin, and this is a great example. The palest shade is far too dark for me and the extremely thick, dry texture does not mix well.

Amazing: the darker, drier, and far inferior red-headed step-cousin to Tarte Maracuja.

Bobbi Brown Corrector: surplus to requirements, as Burberry has enough inbuilt warm pink tones to correct, and Tarte is so well pigmented. As the reformulated Corrector is too dry for me, it was probably a good idea to wean myself off them in any case.

RMS Beauty "Un" Cover-Up: while still the most emollient of the lot, the Tarte-over-Burberry combo works well enough even in the coldest winter days for me to ditch this too-yellow, too-dark shade.

Illamasqua Under Eye Concealer 100: not nearly as heinous as every other base formula Illamasqua makes, I was never really happy with this, and am glad not to have to mix any more.

Ellis Faas: my go-to for the many years I needed a yellow-toned undereye concealer, I borrowed this tube from my mum for swatching purposes only.

Note [1] For undereye concealing I opt for a colour half a shade to a full shade darker than my skin, to counter the naturally ashy tendencies of my circles, for better coverage with less product[3] and to achieve a more realistic look (an exact match, even without ashiness, takes away all the natural dimension from that area, leaving a very obviously made-up wax doll look). Obviously, this varies from my winter palest (Graftobian Glamour Cream Porcelain this year) to summer darkest (Laura Mercier Silk Cream Soft Ivory), but in general terms Ellis Faas S201 is the darkest I can go in summer, while Porcelain Bisque/SX-01 are too light even in winter.

Note [2] Undertones vary wildly in my collection because I used to need yellower tones to combat purple/brown discolouration; during my Korres honeymoon I found warm pink tones most effective in taking the edge off the blue/green bruisiness visible through the especially thin skin around my eyes; now a mix of yellow and pink (peach) works best for my blurple circles.

Note [3] For me, concealer is the one aspect of base makeup that must always aim at total invisibility, if there's to be any point in it. There's nothing worse than adding texture in the interests of subtracting colour, so I would rather have some darkness/discolouration showing through a great (i.e. undetectable) texture than a totally uniform colour achieved by an opaque cement wall of an unflattering texture, caking steadily into every fine line, pore and hair [yeah, I hadn't quite twigged that I had so many giant crater pores / a forest of peach fuzz right under my eyes before the Nars Radiant Creamy fiasco, either. Cheers for that, François!]

Finally, to aid your extrapolation, some things commonly cited in concealer reviews which I don't care about:
creasing/melting/fading/too rich/moves around and never sets/results in milia or breakouts -- my skin's v. dry, too dry for any of these to be issues
lasting power / how the concealer plays with setting powder -- I never use powder
reverse-panda effect -- hate, natch, but unless I slap on some opaque white, aint gonna happen....
white/ghostly flash in photos -- I don't use flash in my own photos for the blog, and don't exactly get papped on the regular, so I care not for TiO2 / ZO content and whether or not it's micronised blah blah

Shiseido Night and Day

When playing with new acquisitions from a brand e.g. my new Shiseido Perfect Rouges [review/swatch] I often like to pair them with items I already own from that brand, while I get an early idea of what kinds of things will/won't work, and a better handle on the (hemi)(semi)demitones lurking within the new shade. Because at this point, a new pink or red lipstick -- even if its texture and finish are satisfactory and the shade coheres with the rest of my makeup wardrobe -- requires a lot of (hemi)(semi)demi-tonal uniqueness to retain a place in that wardrobe.

Occasionally this contraint on choice can throw up an interesting new colour-combination; more often, it turns out a jarring mess that makes me grab the cleansing oil and opt for a makeup-free day in preference, or wish I had. I still do it, because by wearing the new shinies with old reliables, the newbies' most glaring faults emerge most quickly when I'm not distracted by other new shinies being given a spin, and conversely even if the product genres are different (lip vs eye, for example) a really great new textural or tonal innovation can show up a dated quality in an old reliable... this time, if you read my Perfect Rouge review, it was the newbies which headed straight back out again.

This batch of Shiseido oldies consists of things I use frequently but haven't reviewed yet i.e. two Luminizing Satin Eye Colour singles (VI720 Ghost and PK305 Peony), Shimmering Cream Eye Colour BK912 Caviar, Luminizing Face Colour WT905 High Beam White [now this one I have drivelled about!], and one of my favourite neutral palettes, from Asia-exclusive sub-brand Maquillage: Alexander Wang BR365.

Maquillage Eyes Creator 3D Alexander Wang BR365 was a limited edition quint released autumn 2009. The two horizontal pans are dryish, silky creams [which have not changed texture since 2009] -- one a sheer ivory base with gold sparkles, the other a pigmented, complex plum/brown with sparse red, purple and cool gold shimmer. The trio of powders at the top remain the best textures Maquillage have ever released, as finely milled, pigmented and blendable as the Shiseido Luminizing powder formula (or golden-age Stila shimmers), and likewise so soft they're slightly prone to powder kick-up; the shades are on the cool side of neutral: sandy brown shimmer, mushroom taupe shimmery-satin [a shittin? ....sorry], and a light champagne frost, peachier than the ivory cream. 

Swatched clockwise from bottom left, one swipe with sponge applicators:

I most often wear this palette as a palette, according to the back-of-the-box instructions: ivory cream as base, sandy brown as a wash, taupe to shade inner and outer corners, champagne to highlight centre of lid and plum/brown liner to, er, line, as in the second look here. Today I'll be going off-box :P

While none of their trios have ended up working for me, Shiseido Caviar, Ghost and Peony are three singles I could not do without. Caviar is a cream shadow which blends like water, pigmented enough to stand against any black liner yet can be sheered out to a fine, sparkly veil that's as illuminating as shadowing, even on my pasty skin. It is a slightly warm-based black, which becomes more obvious as you sheer it out (notice the edges of the swatch) scattered with fine shimmer, predominantly pale green and white gold.

Ghost is suitably impossible to photograph -- a greyed lavender satin base densely packed with shimmer in oyster pink, gold, blue and purple shimmer. Yes, I know you can't tell from this pic... or indeed from any of the others I'm abou to post....

Peony is a cool cherry-blossom pink satin, which I mostly use as a blush (adore Shiseido's blush texture, find all the shades too muddy/muted).

Preamble done, on with the looks, all built around the new Perfect Rouge lipsticks:

Sublime Day

Eye: Maquillage ivory cream and sandy gold on lid and lower lashline with taupe smudged along upper lashline; Ghost in socket. Fasio Full Dynamic Volume BR300 mascara.

impossible to photograph ghost D:

Lip and cheek: Shiseido Sublime. High Beam White to highlight.

2. Ballet Day

Eye: Maquillage ivory on inner half of lid eye, Shiseido Peony on outer; taupe to line bottom lashline and curved up and around onto the very outer corner. Maybelline Rocket WP black mascara.

Lip: Ballet. Cheek: Peony. High Beam White used as finishing powder.

Sublime Night

Eye: Caviar used sheerly as a smudgy base and strongly as a wing, Ghost patted on top starting from the inner corner, blended inwards. Maybelline Rocket WP black mascara.

Lip and Cheek: Sublime. Foundation: Koh Gen Do Mahfanshi Moisture 001. High Beam White to highlight.

Ballet Night

Eye: Maquillage brown/plum cream all over as a wash and pulled out into a wing and back in to meet the inner brow in a 1920s influenced shape. Peony patted over the centre of the lid and Ghost on the inner third, with Maquillage champagne to highlight inner corner.

Cheek: Ballet, used extremely lightly at the outer edge of cheekbone. Lip: Ballet. Foundation: Graftobian Porcelain mixed with moisturiser and Rouge Bunny Rouge Sea of Clouds.

Constants: Shu Uemura UV Base Cream Pink as base, Tarte Maracuja concealer in Fair under eyes, GOSH white kohl, Shu Hard 9 brow pencil Stone Grey.