NARS Purple Rain for the well... rain

It's been raining all week (and sadly flooding back home in QLD) and my NARS Orgasm mani only last 3 days... washing the dishes bare hands will do that... Anyway, in keeping with the theme of NARS this week I present to you Purple Rain:

I picked this up along with the Orgasm polish because I was just dying for it. Then I left it in the closet for 7 months and forgot about it (mega sigh). This is a very dark purple polish and looks much darker in natural light:

Very dark and very purple. But it has a faint blue shimmer as you can see in the first flash shot and a little bit here:

And what a coincidence, the Glee version of Umbrella/Singing in the Rain just started in my iTunes. Well there you go.

Isn't the purple swirl in the bottle just gorgeous? I don't know how anyone could have resisted picking this up at the time (I believe it came out Spring 2010). Oh I'm a year late (sigh). Whooooops.

Well I haven't been around much this week. Too busy worrying about my friends and family in Brissy dealing with the floods. So far they are all good and have found higher ground. I just can't believe how nasty the wet season has been to QLD these last 5-6 years. If it's not floods, it's cyclones.

Anyway, I want to leave you on a lighter and happier note (well not happy for me, I was not impressed). Snails ate my darn mail:

I really hope this mail isn't important. FFS is all I can say...

NARS Orgasm Nail Polish for back to work nails ;-)

I'm going back to work tomorrow (sigh) and decided to try out the NARS orgasm nail polish. It looks very pretty in the bottle which translates beautifully onto the nails:

Flash shot above. Omg this polish is gorgeous! I used three coats and you can see it's still a bit sheer but that gorgeous peachy shimmer is just stunning. I don't know whether or not this lives up to the blush version but this colour is still something special. Natural (fading) light show below:

I don't believe this polish is available (easily) in Australia - while Mecca stocks NARS, they don't offer the nail polishes which quite frankly sucks. I picked mine up at Sephora last year, along with one of their spring polishes.

The NARS nail polish comes in a square bottle with 15mL or 0.5Fl Oz which is pretty much standard (same as OPI, Sephora by OPI, Essie, Illamasqua...) so more than MAC (10mL) and Chanel (13mL) but less than Orly (18mL). It retails for $16USD so quite a hefty price tag for USD but hey, if it was in Australia we'd probably be paying something like Chanel prices :-/ So while the dollar is close to parity, buy online and be happy :-D

On a side note, I'm really longing for kittens. I'm not allowed kittens yet but when the time is right, I'm getting two ragdolls pretties, much like these:

Aren't they just adorable.

NARS Rajasthan Duo Eyeshadow Swatches ...and cupcakes!

The NARS fall collection fell a little flat for me. I wasn't going to purchase anything but I stepped into Meccacosmetica today anyway just to do some swatches... and I liked Rajasthan :-)

Of course what attracted me at first was the gorgeous neutral shade on the left. Check below for swatches. From what I saw online I thought the colour on the right was some sort of deep blue but it's more of a charcoal so the duo makes a good smokey eye.

The other duo was a similar combination but not nearly as nice and pigmented as this one. But I did like the neutral shade again :-)

Decent pigmentation, nice shimmer.

Whilst we were out and about the bf wanted to stop by Jazz Apple Cupcakes, which made a pretty big claim:

We shall see I thought. Tucked away outside the Canberra Centre this cute little cake/cupcake shop had so many flavours!

Although not many were left after lunch :-( We managed to pick up some tasty cupcakes nonetheless!

Orange and mint chocolate cupcakes. And they were delicious. Very full on though! *Almost* as good as cupcakes on pitt in Sydney :-P

I also picked up some cute PJ's for the bf and myself at Peter Alexander:

I got two little pairs of shorts. All in all a good shopping day. I was very naughty as you will see in upcoming posts but I couldn't help myself. Clearly I have a shopping addiction.

New NARS Only You Eye and Cheek Palette!

What a brilliant start to the weekend! New package from Mecca Cosmetica and it's my new NARS palette :-D With something else that was super pricey that I'll review later :-) So I haven't known about NARS for all that long, and it's taken me a while to hunt down both previous limited edition eye shadow palettes (although I still think you can get the Day & Night palette on the NARS website if you are in the UK/US/EU) but NARS palettes make me extremely happy. I think it's because the colours are so darn expensive to buy individually. Palettes are definitely for the win. There's something different about this palette though, it's in a zipped pouch:

You can't remove it from the pouch and the zipper has the NARS logo engraved on it. Colours of the palette are still a sticker on the back of the pouch. What I love is that this palette takes beautiful colours from single and eye shadow duos - the colours are Alahambra (golden shimmery champagne), Mekong (dark shimmery brown), Eurydice (shimmery purple plum) and Pandora (matte black).

I especially love Alahambra (will this replace my MAC grand entrance?) which can also be purchased as an eye shadow duo. Swatches are below:

All up a great palette. Not only do you have a gorgeous quad of eye shadow colours, you have a blush and highlighter as well. Great for travel! And given that NARS orgasm is the only blush I took on my last holiday, this seems like the perfect travel companion. Hungry heart didn't show up well on my arm, but it was there and it was pretty :-)

Massive Sephora Haul and... Hawaii!

Finally some decent 'haulage'. I haven't been spending my money because I knew I would be on vacation this week. Onwards with 'the haul'...



Apologies for boxed things, I actually got:

• NARS Laguna Bronzer


• NARS Purple Rain nail polish


• NARS Orgasm nail polish


• Tokidoki (yay!) Bastardino Eye Shadow Palette


• Tokidoki kabuki brush


• Tokidoki Luminosa Powder


• Tokidoki Eye Shadow in Choco


• Tokidoki nail files


• Urban Decay summer of love palette


• Urban Decay Primer Potion in Eden


• Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin


• Make up forever aqua smokey lash


• Sephora by OPI Havana Nights miniature polish set


• Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams (light blue)


• Sephora by OPI Caribbean Cocktail (metallic blue)


• Sephora by OPI It's Bouquet With Me (purple glitter, yay!)


• Sephora by OPI Mermaid To Order (Green Aqua pretty)

Hmm I think that was it. I got waterproof brow pencils as freebies so that was good! I forgot a few things and was umm'ing and ahh'ing about a few things but after a huge sephora haul and subsequently a MAC haul (picture to come), I'm fairly concerned about my ability to take said hauls home to Australia :-P I think I need a nice new handbag to fit more stuff on carry on :-D

As for Hawaii, the weather is beautiful:



I want to go back and get my photo with this birdie:



So touristy and everyone does it, I know. But it's cool :-P Oh room service is here! Byeee

Beauty Haul preview

Bad Leanne! Meant to be saving for holidays and what do I do? Oh let me show you:



Particularly exxy purchases include NARS Cruising lipstick from the Spring collection, the By Terry Baume de rose and a number of benefit things... What's worse is that I have an online kit cosmetics purchase still to come. Gah!

I'm yet to try the By Terry, but I have already fallen in love with Cruising. I am thankful I don't already have something similar in my collection. Even the bf noticed the new shade!

Things I still want but don't have: the NARS Kuala Lumpur duo eyeshadow and the NARS Orgasm illuminator. Sigh.

Mecca Cosmetics Purchase

Last weekend I was perusing Mecca Cosmetics at my local shopping centre when I came across the By Terry range. I had seen Laura's collective haul and thought that an ultra sheer blush is something I'd like to try (despite it's hefty price tag). Sadly, the Fresh Rose was sold out, so I ordered the Coral Rose. Since I was ordering online I decided to add another product so I could get the most out of my shipping costs (2 products for $10). I would have gone back to the store but once you factor in petrol, pay parking, and my ever-so-urgent need for blush, online shopping seemed like the way to go. And I don't know about you, but hectic holiday shopping is NOT something I enjoy. So this is what I got:

I was pleasantly surprised by the free samples you were offered upon check-out so I added the two creams at the back of the photo. And yes my second purchase was a Nars blush in that colour:

I tried the By Terry blush today, it's quite lovely and it *does* smell so sweet. I was walking around today and still smelling it. Not as sheer as I expected but I like it. And for 110AUD I'm using every last drop :-)

And to their credit, the Mecca order was beautifully wrapped in purple tissue paper and placed in their gift bag:

I'm such a sucker for lovely packaging. I was actually shopping again today when I saw a lady in front of me carrying THREE large sized Mecca gift bags. I wonder what was in them! I really liked the Mecca Cosmetics website so I followed up my purchase with a second order - this time as a Christmas gift for my bf, which was in the Kiehl's range:

I'm interested to know how it goes because my bf definitely needs a decent pre-shave scrub. Have given him a few things from the Clinique and Clarins range so we'll see how this goes.

As a follow up to my last post, I tried OPI's Mauving to Manitoba and I don't mind it. It's not really my colour, it's too 'safe' for me. It's a nice burgundy but I really wanted something bright and fuchsia coloured, so maybe next time :-)

I think next post will be a Holiday Lush related post. Seriously, who doesn't love lush!