Favourites | My Favourite Fall/Winter Nail Polishes

As soon as the weather starts to get slightly colder and the sky a bit greyer, it's time for me to get out those neutral and darker nail colours. These are my current picks for fall/winter. Honestly speaking, I would probably like to wear some of these shades all year round, but try to stick to a bit of colour during the warmer seasons.

Neutrals & Taupes

Chanel Frenzy, OPI Wooden Shoe Like To Know, Essie Don't Sweater It, Chanel Particuliere

 
Chanel Frenzy - Beautiful creamy light taupe with hints of warmth that looks great with my olive skin tone. This was released as part of the Chanel Fall 2012 collection. It seems like Chanel have improved their formula. This nail polish will last a good 6 days with no chipping (with a top coat!).

OPI Wooden Shoe Like To Know - This shade was released with the Holland collection for spring/summer. My sister picked up this gorgeous nail polish in Copenhagen. I honestly think that this beautiful brown shade with gold shimmer is a great warm toned alternative for fall/winter and would not be my pick for spring or summer.

Essie Don't Sweater It - This shade was released with the latest Stylenomics Collection. Even though it's limited edition, this beautiful dark taupe is quite dupable. OPI's You don't know Jacques is a very close dupe. Don't let the colour in the bottle fool you, on the nails it applies quite dark.

Chanel Particuliere - This shade is slightly lighter on the nails than Essie's Don't sweater it, but has been a staple since I bought it a couple of years ago. It's the perfect mid-tone taupe, that I dare to wear all year round!

Deep Colours

Sephora Amethyst Stiletto, Orly Androgynie, Catrice Caught on the red carpet

Sephora Amethyst Stiletto - This is another shade that my sister picked up at Sephora in Copenhagen. It's a pretty shimmery purple colour, that's perfect for the season.

Orly Androgynie - Galaxy nails anyone? Androgynie was released with last year's holiday collection. I picked up this shade during my travels and can't wait to wear it around holiday season or as an accent nail. I don't own anything similar to this in my collection. It is a black nail polish with beautiful multi coloured glitters and particals of different sizes in it.

Catrice Caught on the red carpet - Fall/Winter must have No 1? A classy rich red nail polish! This one is by Catrice, but many brands have similar shades. On the nails this particular colour applies darker and slightly cooler.

What are your favourite nail polish picks for the colder seasons?

Love,
Maya

Initial Review | Mac Pro Sculpting Cream in Coffee Walnut

MAC recently came out with the Pro Sculpting Creams, that are meant to be used for shaping and sculpting. I wasn't really on the hunt for a contour shade, but after reading and hearing about them I just had to check them out in person. Coffee Walnut in particular has been getting quite a bit of attention in the beauty community.

Coffee Walnut  may very well be the perfect contour shade. It's a mid-tone brown that slightly leans olive. Compared to swatches of Chanel's Bronze Universal below, you can see that it is more ashy and has no orange to it. When blended out though, it looks like a very natural shadow. There's quite a lot of pigment to the product, but it can also be sheered out.

The formula seems quite solid, but is very soft to the touch. It applies smoothly and dries down to a powder finish. After almost 10 hours, the swatch from this morning has hardly faded.

The shade and consistency of the product make it versatile enough to be used from light to dark skin tones. Coffee Walnut will most likely look most flattering and natural on warmer skin tones ranging from an NC25 - NC42.Cooler skin tones may be able to pull it off, however it would be advisable to first try it in store.


The product comes in 6 shades. You get 5 grams of product for 20 USD/23.50 EUR/17.50 GBP.

 

 

MAC Coffee Walnut & Chanel Bronze Universal

Top: Chanel Bronze Universal; Bottom MAC Coffee Walnut

Have you checked out any of the Sculpting Creams? What are your thought?

Love,

Maya

recent beauty purchases

Hello beauties,

After a recent allergic reaction on my face, I went on a hunt to find skin care items free of SLS, parabens and alcohol. I was pretty much looking for a new skin care regimen that included products specifically tailored for sensitive skin and without all the crap that most companies love to put in their skin care line. I checked out Avene and most high-end brands, but to my dismay most of the products contained parabens, SLS or Alcohol.


As a last resort, I stopped by the Vichy counter at my local pharmacy to see if they included any of the above mentioned ingredients. I found these 2 items that didn't:

I got the Purete Thermale Purifying Foaming Cream Cleanser and Cleansing Micellar Solution (Bioderma solution dupe). They were reasonable priced and also 30% off! I was a happy shopper.

I will post a skin care routine post soon.




















I also decided to place an order on strawberrynet.com for the Laura Mercier Mineral Powder in Natural Beige. The Mineral foundation is supposed to be dewy looking and is also paraben free. Score! I haven't really used it yet, but will post a review once I have used the product enough.

Last but not least, I caved in and placed an ebay order to get my hands on the discontinued Chanel Soleil Tan de Chanel make-up base and bronzer. This came only recently and so far I have only smelled it. I must say, it smells divine! The only down side is that the bronzer has 5 different parabens on the list of ingredients. This is a shame. Especially since I am trying to buy paraben-free products as much as possible as of recent.

So far I like the Vichy items I got and can't wait to use the make-up products as well.

Have you tried any of these products? Which brush do you use for the Chanel bronzer?

Love,

Maya

Chanel Haul

Hi lovelies,

After hearing about Chanel discontinuing their Pro Lumiere foundation, I finally decided to cave in and buy it. I am currently a MAC NC25 in SFF. I tried both 30 and 40, but found that 30 was slightly darker than NC25. The difference between 30 and 40 is about half a shade, so technically I could get away with either. 40 would probably be an NC30 - 35 equivalent and great as my summer shade. That being said, I did find that this foundation is a little heavier and probably best for spring/fall and winter. So I went ahead and chose 30 cendre.

I had also heard amazing things about the Teint Innocence foundation (liquid) and that it was unfortunately discontinued as well. However, the counter I went to, still had them! Woohooo! And with a $20 discount and vouchers from work, I simply had to try it as well. I chose 40 in the Teint Innocence as it felt lighter and suitable for summer. I will probably use this more in summer or even mix the 2 throughout the year.





I will write an in-depth review with swatches once I have tested the foundations enough.

Have you tried Chanel foundations?

Love,
Maya