Sucker.

Some time ago I saw an ad for Avon's Spectracolor lipstick featuring Reese Witherspoon, darling of the direct selling cosmetics universe. It's supposed to give you 7 colours in 1 lipstick, enabling you to carry only a very small purse to the Emmy awards, just like Reese Witherspoon. I talked to a friend about it, who also confessed to having an urge to buy this lipstick after seeing the ad. We're not really huge Avon people and I have only seen Reese Witherspoon in God-awful movies like Sweet Home Alabama (Legally Blonde was kinda good), so it was all a bit odd.


Anyway, I ended up buying that lipstick off Ebay and it's a total lie.

Does this look like seven colours to you?



No. It looks like two, maybe three different shades if I'm being generous.

The pretext for this lipstick is a terrible pretense. Most of the colours are the same, and the dial exists mostly because we're suckers for gimmicks (see: Vibrating Mascara). There's a dial which ostensibly allows you to 'turn up the intensity' but realistically, since the lipstick is much lighter and less pigmented than real lipstick, you have two shades to work with: sheer pink, and sheer purple which, to its credit, if you layer it on does look kind of like what Reese Witherspoon has on in the commercial, if you'd applied it carefully and heavily and used lipliner.

Which is another thing. What are these seven lip products that this chunky plastic monstrosity wishes to replace? I need lip balm and possibly a lipstick or a lipgloss, or for very fancy occasions, a lipliner. Any spare lip products rattling around in my bag remain because I'm lazy. I suggest that most of this lip product handbag clutter that supposedly inflicts women on a regular basis revolves around things that a 7-in-one lipstick and lipgloss can't replace, like lipbalm, lip pencils, and lip brushes. Anyway, why would I take a bulky twisty lipstick with a cap that keeps falling off, when I can pack a flat lip palette that will take up less space. The lipstick itself is huge, far bigger than any normal lipsticks I have. A lipstick, lipgloss and lipliner would take up less space in my bag than this Spectracolor thing does.

The applicator sucks ass too. It's similar to the Too Faced Glamour Gloss applicator except with a weird smooth plastic tip with large perforations instead of a sponge-tip which would make more sense, and feel less cold and hard and cheap on your mouth.

The other colour you see in the swatch is Mary Kay's Apple Berry lipstick.

I'm not really sure why I have it even.

It's apparently Mary Kay's best selling colour, and the colour of choice for "A Kiss of Country", a campaign that country music, battered women and Jewel Kilcher. I got it from Ebay which is apparently what you do to a) buy Mary Kay lipsticks for 1.99, and b) avoid scary Mary Kay ladies.

It's okay. I'd describe it as a very Mary Kay colour, a kind of grown-up colour that is mostly inoffensive but just a little bit in your face.



It's a kind of metallic berry-orange-red and I mean, it's okay. It looks like it's an attractive colour on camera so maybe I'd wear it if I needed a photo taken. Otherwise I'd wear this colour to work or an official worky thing or a (large) family dinner or something, but not for fun. No. Not fun.

Collection 2000 BMX Bandit

One layer of Collection 2000 BMX Bandit. It's so much better than Barry M nail polishes which are more expensive and go on watery and streaky. This applies easily and covers well with one coat, dries quickly, and is the prettiest periwinkle blue. I think it actually might be the colour of my Periwinkle Crayola crayon I liked when I was little. Total win.

BMX Bandit is part of the Collection 2000 Hot Looks nail polish which includes 80s colour names like Button Moon (weirdly a blue-green not yellow),and Dynasty (lilac). They're like less than 2 quid each but are often discounted at 2 for £3 or something like that.

Cargo in Boots

I am fond of the Cargo blush, even though I only ever had one and my husband hated the colour passionately (The Big Easy blush, kind of glow-in-the-dark on me).

There was a time when you could only get Cargo at selected large Sainsburys around the country. In Central London you could get it from the Gloucester Road Sainsburys, and you could only choose from a limited range of Cargo products. Now an even more limited range of Cargo products are available right in Boots, namely the Lash Activator they're advertising in Grazia, and this 7 in 7 kit that gives you 7 Cargo products (individual products not sold in Boots, but possibly available in a Cargo-carrying Sainsburys some distance away) and it's £35.



Contents:
Cargo OneBase foundation in 02 (Light medium) - the 7 in 7 kits available in American Sephora comes in three different kits with different colours, but I think Boots has a different kit with only has the Light medium foundation.
Essential palette in warm neutral - each strip is labelled with where you should apply it.
LashActivator
BeachBlush
Black eye pencil
Lipliner in a 'neutral rose'
Lipgloss with 'Timestrip' in a 'shimmering dusty rose'. Timestrip is a little window in the lipgloss cap that turns red. When it's totally red it's time for you to throw out your gloss. Apparently this lasts nine months.

The kit contains the traditional default neutral colours in kits. Good for Christmas. Possibly excellent for Christmas, since everything's full-size and you could technically separate the items and repackage them for different people.

The Timestrip lipgloss is kind of gimmicky (like many things in Cargo: blu-ray, Timestrip, plantlove), but it's things like it that make me feel all old school and frugal, and only have two or three lipglosses at a time, and throw them out every year in an organised way. The downside to the Timestrip gloss would be the guilt you feel when tossing out a relatively new, not inexpensive gloss when you know you've got years of gloss in your kit. Giant Juicy Tubes and tubs of tinted lip conditioner.

This article says to keep lipstick only a year, and cream blush even less.

Maybe it's time they started making smaller (and proportionately cheaper) tubes of lipgloss and lipstick, and especially mascara. Tubes one person could actually use up. I like those small gwp mascaras from Estee Lauder or whatever because I change mascara every three months, which is apparently what you should do. My current favourite mascara is Benefit Bad Gal Lash, and I sure as hell won't buy a full size every three months.

It's great though. It's great. I like the big bristly brush

Alternatively, I (and you) could pare down our more perishable/non-powder cosmetics to the most basic, bearing in mind that most colours could be mixed. And we don't really need 10 shades of pinky-peach lipstick in our collection.

Urban Decay Gash

,I've still been hunting for a good dark red lipstick. I've always liked Urban Decay and hopped by their counter to try some on. I used to have the Gash lipgunk but it made me look like a tranny - just not a good look for me - so I tried the Gash lipstick and lipliner, which look kind of different.



Gash looks like a true red rather than the deep blood red I wanted, and the 24/7 lip pencil looks purple. I'm glad I didn't get them both off the internet. I could use the lipliner with the old UD pleather pencils in Rubber and Perversion but it's too cool toned to give that blood red look I want.

Illamasqua Dixie cream blush

My mama came over last week for my graduation. We went to lovely places like The Laden Showroom, Absolute Vintage, and Selfridges.

I bought Illamasqua's Dixie cream blush from Selfridges. I was debating between that and Rude, and my mama decided that Dixie looks more natural on my skin.

I personally prefer cream blushes to powder. I have a harder time blending in powder to achieve a natural look (it seems to sit on my skin more), and cream blushes are more convenient to carry around with me since I don't need a brush.

Dixie is supposed to be a peachy-pink but looks much more pink on me. My skin seems to suck the warm tones out of colours.



The texture is a lot wetter and more slippery to apply than Nars cream blushes. Nars' is definitely less oily but Illamasqua's is sheerer and easier to blend due to its texture. I find that Nars lasts longer on my skin. I dislike the texture of MAC blushcremes which are hard yet kind of greasy, so Illamasqua outshines MAC.

The prices for MAC and Illamasqua cream blushes here are the same at £16, but for 6g vs 4g. Nars is also cheaper than Illamasqua at £18 for 5.5g.

MAC and Nars cream blushes are both cheaper than Illamasqua, at £16 for 6g and £18g for 5.5g, vs £16 for 4g. I like both, but prefer the drier texture of a Nars cream blush myself. I'd say it's a matter of personal preference.

Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection foundation vs Rimmel Lasting Finish 16 Hour Foundation

Both Collection 2000 and Rimmel have come up with a foundation that's supposed to last sixteen hours. They both come in pretty limited shades. The darkest shade that Collection 2000 offers is too light for me, while the darkest Rimmel shade just matches me. To put things in perspective, I wear a Bobbi Brown foundation in Honey.



Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Foundation in Honey (top) and Rimmel Lasting Finish 16 Hour Foundation in Natural Beige (bottom).

I ended up with Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse foundation in Sun Bronze - I don't know what the equivalent American shade is. The October issue of British Cosmopolitan mag (Cosmo's Beauty Awards issue) claims that Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse is the Ultimate Foundation, but they also claim that Great Lash is the Ultimate Mascara, so I don't know. I'll be test driving this foundation for a while.

Barry M blusher swatches

ltr: pink orchid, rose, strawberry, raspberry, apricot, terracotta

Since I'm unemployed newly graduated, today I had nothing much to do except some housework and browse job sites, so I walked into Superdrug and swatched all the Barry M blushers.

They're new in. It's taken Barry M forever to come up with blushers, but these look pretty good. They go for £4.50 each in Superdrug and are highly pigmented. Like most other Barry M products the blushers address your basic need, ie. to put colour on your face, so all the blushers look pretty matte and not shimmery, which is good I guess. I know people are turned off by shimmer in blushers sometimes because they're more mature and have strict job roles, etc. I know that the Barry M website describes them as sheer, and I reckon they could be applied sheerlyw, but they're pretty bright. You'll have to be careful to not go overboard with them.

My favourite out of the lot is Strawberry. It looks like a cute reddish pink on my skin and I'd buy it, except I've got quite a few blushers I don't use regularly and I feel a bit guilty buying more, especially when I'm not in education employment or training.

Apricot looks a vivid orange in the pan rather than apricot - I've never used any blushers that are quite so brazenly orange but I must admit I like it. It looks like it could give a really good burnt flush if used right. I'd like to see someone do a comparison between Apricot and the ever popular orange blush Nars Exhibit A.

The Terracotta: I thought it looked brown in the pan but it looks kind of mauvey/mauvey-brown on me. If you're ordering it off the internet and you think it's brown, well, it ain't. Maybe it'll look browner if you're fairer or have a cool skintone or something. I don't know. It's my second favourite and the most subtle of the lot.

I'd say all the colours look good on darker skin except for Pink Orchid, which looks a bit chalky and purply on me. It shows up easily, just looks a bit weird.