Lancome Hypnose 'Doll Eyes' Review

Hypnose Doll Eyes

You know those dolls that close their eyes when you lie them flat? They have great lashes.... long, shiny, glossy, thick and black. In fact most dolls have beautiful lashes, so I can kind of see where Lancome are coming from. They launched a small range of products to make you look pretty wide-eyed and oh-so kawaii (that's Japanese for cute/sweet/darling don't you know).

Before this mascara (which was a lovely birthday present) I was using the original Hypnose mascara which I consider  to be the classic little black dress of the mascara world.

I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo of the original Hypnose wand to compare it to the Doll Eyes one because they are very different. Doll Eyes looks like a little fir tree whilst the original has a regular looking brush which is slightly concave in the centre.

Christmas tree shaped wand.... well, almost.

I'll tell you straight up that I much prefer the original over Doll Eyes, but that's because I want my mascara to do everything at once: lengthen, volumise and curl. Doll Eyes does a lovely job of lengthening but I have to go over the lashes multiple times to get the amount of volume I want. It's not a dramatic mascara, it gives a fluttery, pretty effect and when used on the bottom lashes too you really do look a bit dolly like, but in a good way!

Two issues that may bother some girls are the fact that it is overwhelmingly fragranced with a rose perfume, so sensitive eyes may have a problem with this and it doesn't hold a curl that well. I don't really understand how the unusual brush makes 'doll lashes' compared to any other brush but I'm not a mascara scientist so there probably is a highly technical and ground-breaking reason why this particular wand makes you look like a dolly.

Flutter flutter :)

Overall though, I can't really complain about this mascara because at the end of the day it actually delivers the lashes it promises and I do enjoy using it, but I've had to switch to something more volumising when I want a more defined look in the evenings. Therefore, it's a good daytime option or just a nice option in general if you just want some fluttery definition.

Score: 7/10

Greeks bearing gifts!

In this case I had nothing to fear. My dear friend came to stay with me last week and decided not to bring a giant wooden horse (they've stopped selling them at Athens Airport duty free don't you know) but to bring me some beautiful make-up goodies instead. Swoon.....

From MAC she had bought me the new-ish mascara,  Haute and Naughty Lash,  which I was raving about when I saw how great it made her lashes look. It has two wands in one, if that makes sense. I couldn't photograph them together as each wand forms a part of the other and if you try and pull both out at once you end up in a mess with a wand in one hand and a bare stick in the other. So here are the too brushes photographed separately.

MAC Haute and Naughty Lash - lengthening wand

MAC Haute and Naughty Lash - volumising wand

I've used this a few times now and I like the double wand concept, it's fun and makes the mascara chore less boring. I wouldn't use it when I'm in a hurry as it doesn't really give me 'fast' volume and length, it takes some building up to do that. The lengthening wand gives pretty fluttering eyelashes which are perfect for a natural daytime look, but I like full-on thick, long lashes all the time so for me it's not quite enough. I tried using the volumising wand separately too, but this was unsatisfactory for me. Not enough length and separation. The lengthening wand is also supposed to be the lash separating one so I can see how they work well together. Overall the effect of both used together is quite good, but on me it's not as great as on my friend, proving that mascara suitability is totally a personal thing. You'd think that lashes are just, well, lashes and that what works for one will work for all, but this really isn't the case. I do like it though and will use it up happily. It doesn't flake or smudge which is a huge bonus. Score: 7/10

Also from MAC she bought me the Summer Stash crushed pigments from the Surf Baby collection. Now these I initially wasn't that interested in but OH MY GOD, they are just divine!  I'll let the swatches speak for themselves.

MAC Summer Stash

All four shades of Summer Stash swatched

Close-up of the violet-plum and golden-champagne shades

Close-up of the bronze-brown and palest pink-champagne shades

The colours don't seem to have names which is such a shame as you'll have to make do with my naff 1980's paint-chart colour descriptions. (Misty buff, anyone?)
We had a great deal of fun using the pigments to create the most stunningly elegant and expensive looking smokey eye. I can finally see why people use loose pigments, the effect on the skin is just something else, another level of quality. The texture of these ones is different to the regular MAC pigment powders. As you can see from the photo above, they are like little pots of dust and rubble. I won't lie, they are difficult to apply without making a complete mess. I actually think that using them wet will minimise the fall-out and stop you looking like a human disco ball. I also think that applying them with fingers may also work, at least just to lay down the colour. I used a combination of blending brushes and flat eyeshadow brushes and although they blend like a dream I just could not minimise the amount of fall-out. So absolutely, definitely use them BEFORE you put on your foundation as you're going to have to clean your face of glitter once you've finished your eyes. This is not for when you're in a hurry. The colours are so versatile and work equally well applied on their own or blended together. It is worth checking them out next time you go to MAC. I'm in love with them and hope to be putting them to good use this summer. Score 9/10

Last but not least came the new Diorskin Nude Glow Healthy Glow Summer Powder in Aurora (phew.... ). I blogged about seeing this about two weeks ago and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I told my friend and the sweetheart bought it for me.

Dior Healthy Glow Summer Powder in Aurora

One of the prettiest compacts this summer, n'est-ce pas?

 

 

 This will probably be my most used product this summer. I'm not a fan of full-on bronzers but this is pale enough to be applied liberally and haphazardly to provide that gorgeous summer glow without looking like an extra from The Only Way is Essex. It is slightly shimmery, but it needs that touch of shimmer to give that 'glow'. I normally prefer bronzing powders to be matte, but this is somehow a hybrid between bronze, blush and radiance powder so it gets away with it. It is beautiful to look it, beautiful to hold, and luxurious to use. The brush it comes with is beautifully soft and a welcome change to the scratchy cheap brushes that usually come with compacts. It's a bit small to sweep all over the face, but for cheek top-ups on the go it's perfect. I've been sweeping it all over my face over my BB cream with my Ecotools blusher brush, concentrating it on my cheeks. The colour on me is a peachy pale bronze and I can skip blusher if I want to go for an au-naturel California beach babe type look. Very apt as I'll be in California in three weeks and this baby is definitely coming with me. Score 10/10

Thank you, my dearest darling friend for these wonderful presents! A gift of beauty is a joy forever :)

Barcelona Beautiful

So, this Easter weekend just gone Mr P and I packed our bags and headed for sunny Barcelona. Well, it wasn't that sunny really, with temperatures in Brussels reaching a record breaking 28 degrees and a very sorry 17 degrees in Barcelona we were almost tempted to cancel our trip, but hey ho, on we went.

I had spent a good deal of time prepping myself for 'sunny' Barcelona. Mr P had to endure 3 days of me smelling like a rank old digestive biscuit in my bid to turn myself from lowly milkmaid into a bronzed goddess. It never fails to surprise me that despite all the advances in the manufacture of cosmetics no company has yet managed to come up with a fake tan that doesn't make you smell like the contents of a  mouldy cupboard. Anyhow, despite the smell I was very happy with the results. I used a combination of L'Oreal's Nutri Summer gradual tan moisturising lotion and then topped up my legs with L'Oreal Sublime Bronze tinted self tanner for the legs which I tried for the first time on Friday. I recommend both products heartily, if it weren't for the smell I'd probably use them more, but I'm just so self-conscious of the odour when I'm out and about.

Other essential prep included a leg wax, rigorous exfoliation, pedicure and manicure. And to think that once in Barcelona the most flesh I got to bare was on my arms, for like an hour only. What a waste of goddessness!

Still, better hot than not I suppose. 

We were not alone in Barcelona. Two other friends came along, one of whom was my dear carnival queen some months back. She came along on the condition that I would do her make-up twice a day on every day that we were there. And because she wanted to see Barcelona.....but mostly because of the make-up :)

This for me is no hardship. It's easy to get creative when you have a stunning canvas to begin with. Big beautiful green/blue eyes and the most luscious lips you can imagine make my job easy peasy. All I had to do was colour her in!

I'm also lucky that she is as much of a make-up obsessive as I am and has a make-up bag that dreams are made of, full of MAC, Helena Rubinstein, Dior, La Prairie etc. I had particular fun working with the Reelers and Rockers palette from the MAC Tartan Tale collection which launched before Christmas. It contained, amongst other colours, a gorgeous warm toned gold-y green along with a very wearable copper- burgundy. It worked both on her and me and our complexions and colourings couldn't be more different. How I wished I had picked up one of those palettes when they were still available.

I also got to trial the MAC Haute and Naughty Lash mascara which she brought along. This two wand mascara is supposed to define and separate with the finer wand and then build volume with the second. It looked like a bit of a gimmick, but I can honestly say it works. It's also really cool how one wand seems to 'fit' into the other.

The first coat with the fine wand is very natural and delicate but at the same time delivers length and good definition. The second application manages to deliver volume and curl without clumping the lashes together. My friend has much finer lashes than me and they remained beautifully separated even when I got a bit mascara-happy with the volume wand. Definitely one to check out when next in MAC.

Also in the make-up bag of dreams were some samples of La Prairie foundation which I insisted on using on her instead of the powder foundation she was using (also La Prairie..... *sigh*).

 
Oh my, what a beautiful foundation, so soft and blendable, creating a lovely second-skin effect and natural radiant finish. It was about a million times better for her dry skin and she glowed. I made a mental note to check it out at the airport on my return flight. When I did I nearly fell over...... €138!!!!!! Methinks I'll have to decline. You better make those samples last sweetheart.

I was hoping to find a Sephora in Barcelona, but I was cruelly misled by seeing a shop window with Sephora branded all over it, only to go there and find that the store was still being built. I could see products sprawled over the floor waiting to be put to bed on the shelves of paradise. And then stairs.... stairs! It was a multi-storey Sephora and I was not in time to see it in all it's glory. Oh the disappointment.

Luckily my darling friend had brought some things for me from Greece which is obviously more civilised as Sephora is thriving there. She picked up the Perfecting Cover Foundation for me (which I love, review to come). She also brought me the MAC Cream Colour Base in Virgin Isle which I've wanted for over a year and never managed to find. Again, love love love.

The Barcelona beauty haul did not stop there. At the airport I succumbed to the Yves Saint Laurent spring 2011 collection. Actually I was torn between the Chanel Vanities palette and the Yves Saint Laurent one but YSL won over the originality of the colours. I just couldn't resist when I saw that shimmery pink stare up at me.
I also picked up the Golden Gloss in number 40, incidently the colour used in the publicity shoot.

Being totally impatient, I opened up my goodies on the plane and, much to embarassment of Mr P, proceeded to photograph them on my fold-away table before I tarnished them with use.

But just look at those colours! Don't they just invite you to play? And I accepted that invitation immediately, giving myself an in-flight make-over.

Who says patience is a virtue?

Maybelline Volum' Express "The One by One" Mascara

Wow, what a long drawn out title for a mascara, huh? I wish Maybelline would come out with a different name for each new mascara rather than confusing us (or is it just me?) with adding a subtitle to an old product name. There seem to be a never-ending variety of mascaras to choose from, and a number of them have Volum' Express in the title. So, which one to go for?

To be honest the only mascaras I've bought from Maybelline in the past have been the original Great Lash, and the hideous Define-A-Lash, probably a contender for the most pathetic mascara I've ever used and absolutely not to be recommended. I was at the checkout in Superdrug last month when this new One by One mascara was "sold" to me by the checkout lad. Yes, a bloke in Superdrug sold me a mascara by telling me that 1) It was on special offer, 2) It had a washable brush & 3) It had vitamin C in it to condition the lashes! It was too cute, he was really trying, so I made him happy and I bought it. I didn't really like the look of the applicator though, it looked to big and bulky and I usually prefer a longer finer applicator, such as that of my Rimmel "Sexy Curves" (love that name).

It took me a good week or so before I ripped it out of it's packaging. The applicator comes separately from the tube which is bizarre, and the tube itself is closed by a little cap. The first time I used it I was determined to wash the brush and keep the cap on the tube so it stayed "hygienic".... but what a faff that turned out to be. I washed the applicator after use and as all the little invisible eye bugs washed down the drain so did half the product. And the state of the sink afterwards??? No, no... I quickly decided the whole washable wand thing is a total waste of time, especially if your mascara is yours alone and you won't be sharing (never advisable in any rate).

But...washable wand disaster aside..... what lashes! I was so happy with the results! Long, thickened, separated lashes, fanning out beautifully to create a lovely big doe-eyed effect, and with just one coat. It was SO much easier to use this than I thought, and I hardly smudged my eyelids at all, despite the fact that the applicator is quite big. It's a really well designed silicone/plastic brush and the "bristles" are arranged so as to separate and coat each lash equally. It really works. At least, it really works for me. It has not become my mascara of choice, leaving my poor Rimmel one languishing at the bottom of my make-up case.

If you find that volumising mascaras tend to make your lashes clump together then this could be the mascara for you. Even after two coats my lashes were perfectly separated. Lash comb, get thee hence... thy services are no longer required!

Score: 9/10
(1 point deducted for faffy, excessive packaging and amount of mascara lost while trying to wash the wand!)