July 24, 2012

Review: Sephora Collection Retractable Brow Pencil- Waterproof

As someone with brows that naturally light and unfortunately sparse, I find it's really important to fill them in, lest I look something like this:


Usually my hair is dyed jet black, and I'd fill in my eyebrows to match, using the following:
  • Kat Von D's eyeshadow in Lucifer
  • Kat Von D's angled eyebrow brush
  • Anastasia clear brow wax
However, I've let my hair go a little lighter, and those black brows are now WAY too harsh. Enter Sephora's Retractable Brow Pencil.


COLOR: I bought this in 04 Midnight Brown, which is the darkest available. It's a little lighter than my dyed hair color, but not so light that it looks blonde.  I think it works a little better for my "lighter" looks, as I find myself adding some darker color to my brow when I'm doing something super bright or dark on my eye.



PACKAGING: As the title implies, this is a retractable pencil.  I have had no problems with the twist-up mechanism.  At the opposite end, there is a little brow comb, which I controls product distribution better than a mascara spoolie brush.  The overall pencil is a great size for my makeup bag-- not so tiny that it will get lost, but not so huge that it won't fit.  The downside to the smaller size is that it only contains 0.003oz of product.

Comb end 
"Pencil" end


PRODUCT: The product itself is slightly creamy, so it glides on really well without having to do 1000 strokes over the same area for something to show up.  It's also very skinny, so I can get super defined eyebrows without going overboard (which sometimes happened with the shadow + KvD brush).  I haven't done any waterproofing tests with it, but it has been lasting on my sweaty face during this stupid hot summer.

OVERALL: At a $12 pricetag, this is definitely a worthy buy.  I do wish it came in one shade darker for when my hair is darker, because I can't see myself going back to eyeshadow for my brows after this!
My sad, natural eyebrow.

Filled in!
HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO ANASTASIA'S BROW WIZ?
When I bought Sephora's retractable eyebrow pencil, it was in the running against Anastasia's very similar Brow Wiz product.  The differences in Brow Wiz are: it contains more product (0.08 oz), has a much drier formula, has a spoolie brush on the end, and costs $20.  I figure the price increase has something to do with the fact that it has more product, but the dry formula was the deal breaker.  Granted, I only did comparison swatches with testers, so there's a chance that Anastasia's tester had dried out from everyone using it.  Regardless, I didn't mind saving $8!


July 17, 2012

Kat Von D Fall 2012

It's the most wonderful time of the year-- for me at least-- because new products and fashion for Fall is being unveiled!  And really, what would this blog be without mentioning Kat Von D's new products for Fall/2012?

This season, not much in the way of color cosmetics as the focus seems to be on skin.  Let's take a look!

LOCK-IT TATTOO FOUNDATION ($35.00)
The first foundation from KvD!  This will come in 14 shades total, and has a 3 shade categories- Light, Medium, and Deep- so a large range of skin tones is covered.  I will assume this is supposed to be a full-coverage foundation (even though Sephora's description doesn't say so), since the pigmentation is emphasized in the description.  Speaking of, Sephora notes this has 21% pigment-- does anyone else know the percentage of pigments in their foundation?  The packaging looks great, and  I'm anxious to return to a foundation with a pump.

LOCK-IT TATTOO CONCEALER ($25.00)
As a lover of the original Tattoo Concealer, I'm curious about this.  Besides the new name system and packaging, is the formula different?  I'm not sure how many shades of the original packaging it came in, but the Lock-It tattoo concealer comes in 8, with the same shade Light-Medium-Deep shade categories as the foundation.

FOILED LOVE LIQUID LIPSTICK ($19.00)

If this is a shimmery version of the Everlasting Love Liquid Lipstick, which I loved, then count me in.  Foiled Love Liquid Lipstick (which is available now!) comes in four colors:
Forever & Never- "Shimmering Light Bronze"
Backstage Bambi- "Bold Pink"
Adora- "Bright Red"
Hellbent- "Deep Maroon Red"
All descriptions are according to Sephora.


SHADE SHIFTER EYESHADOW ($TBD)
These aren't on Sephora's site (yet), but I've seen the display for them in-store.  These might be duochromes, but I remember the display text saying something about "water activation." It's coming in four colors.  I don't remember the names, but this is what the colors looked like:
gold/copper or bronze
blue/purple
plum/burgundy
reddish brown/green (a la Urban Decay Lounge, MAC Club or the similar color that's in the KvD Gypsy palette from way back)
Needless to say, I'm really curious to see these in person.

I'm SUPER excited for the foundation, as so far I've found her face products to be worthwhile.  Also, my theory is that since there is only one new color cosmetic (which is probably very similar to something previously launched), I want to believe the makeup scientists worked really hard and took a lot of time to create an awesome foundation.  

How are you feeling about the KvD fall 2012 collection? Let me know in the comments!