Milani Color Statement Lipstick: Uptown Mauve

Swatches & Review


This year, Milani has released a new line of their lipsticks called the Color Statement Lipsticks. Their lipsticks have a variety of colors, as well as finishes, such as cream, matte, vinyl, and metallic. Uptown Mauve is one of the lipsticks with a cream finish.

Milani's Color Statement Lipsticks are packaged in a golden plastic tube. I like how the bottom of the lipstick has the color of what the lipstick color itself would be, which makes it easy to pick out the color that you want.

Uptown Mauve is a creamy berry shade. I have tried some of their lipsticks for a while and what I like about Uptown Mauve is that it is one of the creamiest ones that I have tried from their new lipstick line. Normally, berry shades would be kind of dark, but Uptown Mauve seems like it is a berry that would be perfect to use all year-round. The lipstick scent has definitely improved since their older line of lipsticks, but the scent is one of the things that I do not like because it is a very strong fruity scent. Another thing that I do not like is that the plastic packaging attracts fingerprints like crazy! I feel like after I use it, I have to wipe it down with a microfiber cloth so that it will look nice and new again. For me, Uptown Mauve was creamy, applied without tugging and long-lasting. I applied it with one swipe and it was super pigmented. It lasted about four hours for me with some drinking in between and it left a stain on my lips until I wiped it off with makeup remover.

What do you think about Milani's Color Statement Lipsticks? Have you tried any of their new lipsticks? Which shades are your favorite?

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Rimmel London Show Off Lip Lacquer: Big Bang

Swatches & Review

Today, I will be reviewing Rimmel London's Show Off (Apocalips) Lip Lacquer in Big Bang.



These are packaged in a plastic tube with an asteroid-like cap and the color of the shade is shown through the tube.


The Show Off Lip Lacquer has a soft doe-foot applicator and there is a little hole in it where the product falls into.



Big Bang is a bright red. When I first heard about Rimmel's Apocalips, Big Bang was one of the most talked about shades. The lip lacquers are like an opaque lip gloss. They are glossy, but the lasting power is not that well, so you may have to reapply these after a while. Big Bang last about four hours for me, and the glossy finish lasted about an hour and a half. Even without eating, I find that these start fading within the first two hours, but there's a slight stain that stays around until you wipe it off. I did not find any bleeding/feathering from Big Bang and this was applied without any base or gloss on top.

Have you purchased any of the Rimmel London's Lip Lacquer? Which shades are you most interested in?

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Zoya Summer Stunning Collection

Swatches & Review

Zoya always has amazing summer collections and this year, they definitely delivered by having three collection sets. The Stunning collection is a part of their 2013 Summer collection.


Zoya's Stunning collection has six creme-like shades. The reason I say it is creme-like is because although they look like they have a creme finish, some of them actually have very subtle shimmer in them, however, it is not very noticeable unless you are in direct sunlight.


Darcy: Bright mustard yellow with subtle shimmer. I found that this applied very streaky, so I used three coats to even it out. I did not like Darcy too much because it seemed to clash with my skintone.


Thandie: Bright orange coral creme with subtle shimmer. This applied smoothly and even, so I used two coats for the swatches. The color of this reminds me of the orange Prius C.


Micky: Bright medium coral pink with silver shimmer. This applied sheer, but the color was build0able. I used three coats for the swatches. This is one of my favorites from the collection.


Yana: Hot pink creme with subtle shimmer. Yana is super bright and pigmented. I used two coats for the swatches, but you can get away with one coat.


Josie: Bright medium green creme. This kind of reminds me of summertime grass. Like Yana, this was very pigmented. I used two coats for the swatches, but this can definitely be a one-coater.


Rocky: Sky blue creme. I absolutely love this blue! Every time I buy a blue off Zoya, I wanted it to be this blue, but it always ended up too dark (Yummy & Breezi). This is the perfect blue and does not look bad against my skintone. This was a bit streaky, and three coats were used in the swatches.

Overall, I like this collection. All the colors except Darcy looked nice. Like cremes, they apply kind of streaky, and I think that Yana and Josie were the two that applied the best without being streaky. I initially thought that these were all creme-finish nail polishes, but four out of six of them are cremes with subtle shimmer. To me, I feel like these looked brighter in the bottle than on the nails, but these are perfect summer colors. My favorites are Micky, Josie & Rocky. The downside is that these take a while to dry on its own, but with a fast-dry top coat, you are good to go!

What do you think about Zoya's Stunning Collection? Have you purchased any nail polishes from their summer collection?

These are available for purchase on Zoya.com now, and they retail for $8 per 0.5oz bottle.

*The products in this post were provided to me for my honest opinion/review. I was not paid nor compensated for the review.

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NARS Pierre Hardy Blush: Rotonde

Swatches & Review

Rotonde is one of the two blushes released for NARS x Pierre Hardy Summer 2013 collection. When I first saw the blushes online, I thought that they looked amazing, but the price tag on these made it hard for me to order them immediately. When they were released at Sephora, I swatched them at the store and I knew I had to have them. NARS Rotonde is described as "tiger lily."


The front of the packaging says Pierre Hardy on it.


This blush was incredibly hard to capture on capture, no matter what lighting I used indoor or outdoor. It is definitely brighter in person. It is a bright orange with golden over-spray to create a pattern on it. It was too pretty to touch so I waited a week before messing it up :P


On the left, it is swatched without the over-spray and on the right, it is swatched with the over-spray. It is a bit hard to see, but you can kind of see some shimmer with the over-spray. Without the over-spray, it is a matte vibrant orange.


Left is without the over-spray and right is with the over-spray.

Although it is $41 the one thing that made me have to have this was it was incredibly pigmented. This blush is very very smooth, pigmented, and easy to blend. When I swatched these, only one swipe was used and it stained my finger. I have tried these on my cheeks and on the cheeks, it looks a bit like a bronze-ish orange, which does not look bad at all. It is important to use a light-hand with these because it can easily be overdone & just a dab with a brush onto the pan is enough. After using it twice, the golden over-spray on the parts I have been using is pretty much gone. It lasted about seven hours on me before it started fading, which was really good for a blush.

For $41, you get 0.45 oz of product, which is not bad considering one NARS blush is $29 for 0.16 oz of product, so this is about three times the amount of a regular NARS blush.

What do you think about NARS x Pierre Hardy collection for Summer?

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