Lipstick on the cheap: Gorgeous Cosmetics

April 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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A few weeks ago I splurged and picked up five lipsticks for $25.00 when I attended Salon Melbourne. You read that right, I picked up five for $25! Normally, Gorgeous lipstick retails for $35.00/tube — I took this as a sign to try something new.

Out of the five colours I chose, I was only happy with how well two performed. The other three, while pretty in hue, were disappointing. Hey, we can’t win ‘em all!

The chosen few

The chosen few

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Swatches from left to right: Berry Intense, Innocence, Brigitte, Inspiration & Warm Mauve

Swatches from left to right: Berry Intense, Innocence, Brigitte, Inspiration & Warm Mauve

Working from love to loathe, here are a few “tasting” notes I took down while test-driving all five colours.

Wearing Berry Intense

Wearing Berry Intense

Gorgeous Cosmetics' Berry Intense

Gorgeous Cosmetics’ Berry Intense

Berry Intense is the star performer out of the bunch. The formula was creamy, the colour wore evenly and lasted for well over eight hours. By quitting time, I had to scrub my lips in addition to washing my face. Berry Intense is another true red within my lip collection and most certainly passes for a dupe of Giorgio Armani’s Rouge d’Armani 400. Pick this colour up before it sells out!

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Wearing Innocence

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Gorgeous Cosmetics’ Innocence

Innocence is a muted rose red with subtle purple undertones. After four hours of wear it still managed to hold onto its glossy finish; hour eight marked colour dry out. Unfortunately, Innocence is sold out, check your local stockist for availability.

Wearing Brigitte

Wearing Brigitte

Gorgeous Cosmetics' Brigitte

Gorgeous Cosmetics’ Brigitte

Brigitte, a soft pink with a touch of frost, wore unevenly over eight hours of wear, was drying and even emphasized flakes as the day progressed. While Brigitte is a beautiful colour, my gut’s telling me there are better performers out there. Give Brigitte a miss.

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Wearing Inspiration

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Gorgeous Cosmetics’ Inspiration

Inspiration was less than inspirational. A tawny pink with orange undertones, Inspiration lasted six hours and sucked all the moisture out of my lips; I made it a point to scrub my lips in the ladies bathroom and start fresh with a random lippie in my purse. A definite skip in my book.

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Wearing Warm Mauve

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Gorgeous Cosmetics’ Warm Mauve

First off, let me start things off by saying Warm Mauve has to be an insult to “old lady pink” lipsticks. Warm Mauve is the worst of the worst. It was difficult to apply, drying from the start and didn’t even last two hours. When I removed Warm Mauve last Friday, I think I also removed the top layer of skin on my lips. Bin this baby.

In the end I walked away with five colours for less than the price of one; reason being these colours have been discontinued as Gorgeous Cosmetics have released 30 new colours. The darker shades were the best performers and the most interesting — they performed as good as, if not better than, Giorgio Armani and Burberry. My biggest hope for the newer colours is consistency in terms of wear, feel and overall performance.

Each colour has a personality of its own and adds a bit of flare to the day; I just don’t want to have to worry about my lips looking like joke, because they are my pride and joy.

The Bagful breakdown:

Total amount for Gorgeous Lipstick:

  • Five for $25.00 AUS on this occasion, however they normally retail for $35.00 AUS / $25.00 USD. Discontinued shades are now selling for $12.95 AUS until they sell out.

Value for money spent (performance and quality):

  • 10 out of 10 bags for Innocence and Berry Intense
  • 6 out of 10 bags for Brigitte
  • 4 out of 10 for Inspiration
  • 1 out of 10 for Warm Mauve

Would another purchase be on the horizon?:

Haven’t heard of Gorgeous Cosmetics? They are a Melbourne-based company with a penchant for the stage, the screen and the runway. Their colours are on trend and vibrant. Recently, Gorgeous made their move to the States and Karen of MBB seems to like what she’s tried so far :)

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Burberry Beauty Spring 2012 review

March 19, 2012 by 2 Comments

As January came to a finish, I started receiving notifications about the latest Spring collections about to hit the local beauty counters; keep in mind it’s now Autumn here.  Lucky for me I had something fresh in my mind about what I wanted to purchase, because you can always count on pastels to make a re-appearance every year.  I really needed to separate the wheat from the chaff; why go for the typical when you can have the extraordinary?

I booked my appointment, paid my booking fee and waited with bated breath for the 11th of February to roll around.  Champagne was on offer when I arrived, but I couldn’t fathom even one drop as I was still full from breakfast.  And then the waiting commenced, I may’ve gotten there a few minutes early, but the customers seemingly outnumbered the artists – I later learned the artist who was to work on me was a tad late. Eventually, I was left in another artist’s capable hands.  We chatted for a few moments and settled on using Burberry’s newest colours.  I was dying to try Pale Barley eye shadow after reading Karen’s, of MBB, review; I am always on a quest to find a beautiful, but subdued neutral.  MAC’s shroom and I go back to my days in college and Covergirl’s Tapestry Taupe was a shade my mom purchased for me when I was 14-years-old.  If you’re looking for a dupe to Burberry’s Pale Barley, definitely go for the latter.

For close to 45-minutes I was pampered even though I had nowhere special to go that day.  After inspecting the artistry, I narrowed down the potential winners; I couldn’t afford to invest in everything we tried!  For my lips we went with Primrose Hill Pink No. 30 (not to be confused with Butter London’s nail polish), Blossom Blush No. 5 for my cheeks and a smoky duo of Pale Barley No. 22 and Midnight Brown No. 21.  From there I whittled down the contenders a bit more and I decided to just go with Pale Barley eye shadow and Primrose Hill Pink lippie; for good measure they threw in a miniature version of Rosewood No. 4 lipstick.

Pale Barley is a buttery cream with a hint of gold; it’s great to wear alone or paired with another shade for more depth and variety.  Most mornings, I pop this shade over a good eye primer, coat my lashes, dust a random blush on my cheeks and fill in my lips with Primrose Hill Pink.  In just under five minutes I am good to go.  As for Primrose Hill Pink, the colour matches that of its name – creamy pink, soft and lasts about four hours.

 

The Bagful breakdown:

Total amount for Burberry Pale Barley and Primrose Hill Pink:

  • $45.00 and $49.00 AUS respectively

Value for money spent (performance and quality):

  • 8 out of 10 bags – cost is a major factor here

Likelihood to purchase again:

  • I’m good for a while now.  Even though I recieved another invite to check out their Luminosity range, I think I can manage to get by for the time being ;)
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LMFF night one (for me)

March 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Now that you’ve seen what I wore, here’s a closer look at my makeup.

On my lips I wore NARS Mexican Rose, for cheeks I dabbed on a bit of Blush Horizon de Chanel and on my eyes I smoked them out with Chanel’s Illusion D’Ombre in Illusoire.  I tried to recapture most of the look Marina created for me the night before; last Saturday Scott booked me in for another appointment with Chanel for me to really enjoy.

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Lead in lipstick, who knew?!

February 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I have a bit of a tendency to live under a rock during the week; news and current events are pretty much off my radar until the weekend is upon us or when Scott shoots me an e-mail or text about something super newsworthy.  Case in point, I received this little gem last week..

Colour me shocked!  Could you hear the sarcasm in there?  If you keep up with celebrity gossip as much as I do, you would know that something bad would eventually happen.  This is the only mention WH gets on here, because I’ve found the excessive coverage about her to be completely nauseating.

Onto much, um, lighter things in the news.  According the Washington Post, the FDA (America’s Food and Drug Administration) have tested and found 400 shades of lipstick from various brands sold across the U.S. contain “trace amounts of lead.”  But how much is too much, especially when many women reapply throughout the course of the day?  There’s a reason why lead-based paint used in homes remained a hot button issue for so many years.

Here’s a list of the top ten culprits that contain the highest amounts of lead:

1. Maybelline’s Color Sensation in Pink Petal. (Lead content: 7.19 ppm)

2. L’Oreal Colour Riche in Volcanic. (Lead content: 7.00 ppm)

3. NARS Semi-Matte in Red Lizard. (Lead content: 4.93 ppm)

4. Cover Girl Queen Collection Vibrant Hues Color in Ruby Remix (Lead content: 4.92 ppm)

5. NARS Semi-Matte in Funny Face. (Lead content: 4.89)

6. L’Oreal Colour Rich in Tickled Pink. (Lead content: 4.45)

7. L’Oreal Intensely Moisturizing Lipcolor in Heroic. (Lead content: 4.41)

8. Cover Girl Continuous Color in Warm Brick. (Lead content: 4.28)

9. Maybelline Color Sensational in Mauve Me. (Lead content: 4.23)

10. Stargazer lipstick in shade “c.” (Lead content: 4.12)

Halzack, Sarah. Lead in lipsticks: Which brands are the worst offenders? The Washington Post, 14 February 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-checkup/post/lead-in-lipsticks-which-brands-are-the-worst-offenders/2012/02/14/gIQAfNkiDR_blog.html

 

The other thing worth mentioning was the fact that there was no direct correlation between price point and lead content.

Will you give your shade of choice a second thought before applying?

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