Taupe of the Day: Bourjois Ombre Stretch Brun Nylon Swatch

As you know, from my stash pics here in this post, I have more taupes than I could ever use up. In fact, I suspect that there will be enough for me, my children, and my grandchildren - future generations will always have enough taupe!

So today I wil show you a taupe from my collection, but wasn't in my stash pics (horror!) - Bourjois Ombre Stretch Eyeshadow in Brun Nylon. Now I'm not that huge a fan of Bourjois - I mean, I don't hate the brand, but it's just never been one of those that caught my eye, although I've heard people rave about their blushes. But I think this shadow isn't shabby at all - in fact, I quite like it. As usual, feel free to click on all the pics for the full-sized picture.



That's the outside packaging. Please ignore that purple residue from the huge tag Superdrug likes to put on all its products.



And that's a closeup of the baby.



Oh yes. Hey there, gorgeous.
And of course, no review is complete without a swatch!



That swatch is in shaded natural light (in other words, me pressing my arm against my basement bedroom window, hoping enough light flows in to take a picture...) so there shouldn't be too much color distortion.

Anyway, here it is. It might surprise some people, since this isn't your expected 'taupe', like Satin Taupe or ME850, but it's a good bit lighter, and a tad browner. I kind of like it this way though, it's actually pretty unique in my stash, and that's saying something :P It's not a dark taupey, purply taupe, like MAC's Satin Taupe, but it's a good medium-to-light taupey color, with a good shot of silver, beige-ish-ness (I think that's what makes it medium-to-light, instead of a dark plummy taupe), and just a hint of purple. But it's still taupe. It reminds me of a more purple, less beige and brown Stila Wheat, since it's of a similar color depth. It's a little on the frosty side, but not so frosty that it's unwearable. Because of the mix of beige and purple in the color, I'd say this color is pretty neutral, maybe leaning a tad to the cool side. I think for most people, this would work as a lid color for most people, and would probably have to be paired with a darker colour for the crease - for my NC20 self, this shows up well enough on my skin. I personally really love this color, because for me a lot of the cult taupes out there tend to be on the dark side, and it's hard finding a nice light taupe. This for me is perfect - not too dark and not too light.

Pigmentation starts off sheer at first, but color is very buildable. I think that's what the 'Ombre Stretch' selling point means - the idea is that they have these nylon micro-spheres that allow the shadows to be 'stretched' out - i.e. stretched out sheer, or packed on opaque. I don't believe nylon particles are going to make an eyeshadow fantastic, but at least they got the description right on this one - it is buildable, and very nicely buildable, even if it starts off sheer. Just the whole thing about nylon-microspheres is such a terrible way to put it across to the consumer - I'm not sure if the average consumer is going to understand the mix of nylon and eyeshadow. Bu at least there's no false advertising here - it does start off sheer, and builds nicely. The texture of Brun Nylon is also pretty smooth, which is good, and it applies well.

I wore Brun Nylon for one entire day to try out how it wore as the day went on, and I'm pleased to say this is decent. It doesn't fade, but it does crease a little by the end of the day, but I wasn't wearing any primer or base (I don't have major eyeshadow issues so I've never found it necessary), so I think with a little primer this will be much better.

If you don't mind frosty eyeshadows, or the fact that you have to build up the pigment, and if you've been wanting a light taupe, not a deep, dark, taupe, this is worth a shot. It's harder to find a light taupe than a dark taupe, and good ones are hard to come by, so if you feel that alot of the taupey colors out there are too dark for you, this is worth a try. Brun Nylon isn't a flashy colour, and it isn't going to start any periods of obssessing on MUA, nor is it going to garner a whole host of cult followers, but it's a good workhorse basic.

Face Brushes Review and Comparison: Part 1 MAC 187 and 189

So I said in this post that I should do a post on my face brushes. And here you go! Over the next few days/weeks/however long it takes (with interruptions), I'll be doing reviews of my favourite brushes in my stash! Here they are. Not all of them are here, of course, but these are my favourites, my must-haves, and the ones I use the most often. Just a disclaimer: None of these brushes are free samples etc. I bought every single one of these with my own hard-earned money! I'm just reviewing them because...well they're in my stash, and well, a HG powder or blush brush can be the hardest thing to find sometimes, and it doesn't help that brushes tend to cost a lot of money:



L - R: Flirt! Feather Dust-Her, Body Shop blush brush, MAC 188, MAC 187, MAC 189, Stila #21, Stila #8, Stila #24

So here they are, after being washed, mostly dry. I thought it would be a good idea to take all the face brushes together, to give an idea of scale and relative size, so you can get a good idea of how big/small one brush is next to another. Sadly, the Stila #8 has been discontinued, much to my chagrin, because it was one of the best powder brushes I've ever had (and this is after trying the MAC 134 and the Shu Uemura 18R). *Shakes fist* When I contacted Stila Customer Service about it, the jokers at CS told me to go and look at the Stila #31, which is NOT AT ALL like the #8. The #8 is much better in quality than the #31, but then again I have a thing against retractable brushes in general (except my Too Faced Kabuki - wait, why is it not in the picture? Nevermind, it gets it's own review, then I guess).

Anyway, today I will kick off my Face Brushes Series with a review of the MAC 189, and the MAC 187, because I don't have much to say about them. To be honest, they're the least used and the least favourite in the bunch, but that's probably just me.

The MAC 187 brush has reached cult status across makeupdom, and is the HG brush of many a liquid foundation user. Which herein lies why I don't like the MAC 187 as much as other people do - I don't use liquid foundation. I did use it to try to blend out my Kevin Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer, but somehow it didn't quite look 'right' even then. For blush application this is pretty good though - I like how the shape of the 187 fits just right onto my cheek area, not too small, and not too big. However, I tend to prefer the either the 188, the Stila #24, or the Body Shop blush brush, depending on what blushes I'm using (more on that in later reviews). So as a result, my 187 suffers from neglect. I do think this is a good quality brush though, it's just that the fact that I don't wear liquid foundation - coupled with the fact that I tend to use my other blush brushes over it - makes it rarely used.

The MAC 189 brush was first launched together with the MSF Naturals, and was touted as a blush that can be used for BOTH powder and cream. Now of course this flies against the face of all my makeup training and knowledge - traditional makeup theory says that synthetic brushes are best for cream, and natural brushes are best for powder, although of course in recent years the boundary has been blurred with the advent of better synthetic bristles etc etc. Anyway, I was curious to see how this worked for both powder and cream, and I have to say....I'm a bit ambivalent when it comes to poweder. Sure it applied face powder fairly well, but it just felt weird using a paddle synthetic brush to put on powder, if you know what I mean. I felt the finish was acceptable - it wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't le suckage either. I also tried using it for powder blush, but the effect wasn't as great as using an actualy blush brush, as the blending was a bit hard to do with the brush. I tried using this baby for cream blushes too, and once again, I found it a bit hard to blend out the cream blushes, as it tended to leave a hard line where the edges of the bristles were. Maybe I'm spoiled by all the skunk brushes out there, but this was just a meh for me. Not impressed.

So that's it for this brush post. I've no idea what brushes I'll cover for the next brush post, so feel free to comment and leave any suggestions :) I'll cover all of them eventually though :)

STASH PICS! Aka why I can swatch and compare from my stash alone

So early on in this blog I said I wouldn't be doing the whole checking-out-new-color-collections thing, and of course the only reason why I said this was because I already have TONS of my own makeup, and I'd like to swatch them for my own reference.

So of course, since stash pics are always a beauty to behold, no matter the eye of the beholder, without further ado, here you go, along with wordy running commentary courtesy of yours truly:



That is my stash of eye palettes. These are Stila, Becca and MAC, I believe. I like my MAC - I've always been fortunate enough to pick the colors that didn't suck, and I LOVE my Stila. I know right now they're pretty much an over-the-hill brand, but back then once upon a time it was the fashionable thing on MUA to collect Stila eyeshadows, believe it or not. And for good reason too - the older ones in the cardboard packaging were the softest, pigment-est, and blendable-est things ever, AND they had great staying power. I kind of feel that the quality of Stila has gone down the hill in recent years, even with the eyeshadows. I had a Stila Espresso once in a cardboard tin, and swapped it away. Later I had swapper's remorse and got another Stila Espresso (by then they were selling them in pans like they do now), and the quality was le suckage compared to the old one. Sigh. Sad but true. Now I'm holding on to my Stila palettes, which were depotted from the cardboard tins, and I'm never letting them go - they're memories of a brand long gone by..



That's my single eyeshadows stash. Since this picture was taken I've depotted some of them and paletted them. Only 1 15-pan palette though. I kind of feel like I use my shadows more when they're in singles than when not. I've no idea why, I'm weird like that. I'm totally partial to MAC when it comes to shadows (although I'll be the first to admit they're super hit-and-miss when it comes to quality, but still not as hit-and-miss as NARS is), although I do like WnW, Urban Decay, and some other brands like Chantecaille.




Mmmmmm....Blushes. There are fewer things that make me happier than blushes. Despite the fact that I have chronic acne and super sensitive skin, it hasn't stopped me from getting more blushes...As a result I've become really awesome at reading ingredients in blushes and picking out the comodegenic ingredients. LOL. Sadly since this photo was taken I've gotten rid of the NARS (I think it was the isopropyl palmitate inside breaking me out) sadly, but I love much of the rest, esp the BB, Stila and Becca for cream blushes, and the WnW for powder.




Lipglosses! This was my first foray into the world of makeup! I'm a huge fan of lipglosses, and I totally don't discriminate - as long as it has no huge bits of glitter (ahem MAC Dazzleglasses), I'm one happy kid. As you can see I'm partial to Stila, but I also really like Smashbox (totally underrated IMO), and NARS. But my good ol' stanby is that old dingy Sally Hansen gloss you see up there - top row, 2nd from left. Can you say HG?




Lipsticks....So recently I've gotten into lipsticks, and have proceeded to build up a collection of them. As you can tell I like the rosy-lipcolour look, since I don't really like nude lips. I had a lot of MAC in this picture, but honestly I found them kind of drying, so I swapped them all away, except for 2 or 3. My HG of HGs for lipstick would be the Covergirl Trushine in Blushberry, which @#%@#$#*%* Covergirl had to discontinue. *Shakes fist angrily*



Lastly, random misc stuff, like my cream eyeshadows, eyeliners and loose shadows. Since this picture was taken, I've discovered the wonderful world of gel eyeliners (esp love BB and MAC), and have swapped away my loose powder eyeshadows (I guess I'm too clumsy for them). Still mucho love to the rest that remain though! I still have all my Urban Decay 24/7 liners, if not more, since they're literally the best pencil liners around.

So there you have it, that is my happy stash. I hope to do swatches and comparisons from my own stash - maybe it'll help me weed out the dupes in my stash too!