Again, we bring you the deeds on all the major new makeup collections – this time for summer 2015. Confused, no time to browse the makeup aisles yourself, or just lazy? Grab a cup of coffee, lean back and let us do the work for you! So let’s have a look at the good, the bad and the somewhat weird that the big summer releases have in store for us!
Every spring, when the summer collections are rolled out, I get the feeling that most companies drop a barrel of bronzers on the heads of beauty junkies everywhere, add some turquoise nailpolish, and call it a day. I don’t know about you, but that concept (add a promo pic with some beauty lounging at the pool) doesn’t scream summer at me. The season I mostly wear bronzer is spring, and I’m actually for turquoise all year round. *shrug* And while we definitely don’t have a shortage of that, there’re also some surprisingly good and innovative products hidden in all that aqua and sand.
Yves Saint Laurent
Cara in a somewhat revealing jacket? A hodgepodge of products that are neither here nor there? Why, it could be YSL Spring all over again!
YSL just decided to drop a bevvy of new products on our head and to call it a day. A slight deviation of the successful (and really good) Glossy Stains are the Pop Water Glossy Stains which are less saturated and promising hydration and a ‘translucent splash of colour’ so you’re getting a slightly vamped up sticky gloss without the benefit of intense colour that the old Glossy Stains (which, you know, actually stained) had. Pass.
The Full Metal Shadow Metallic Color Liquid Eyeshadows are another new product. Could that name possibly be longer and more awkward, and am I the only one who thinks immediately of a very colourful remake of Full Metal Jacket?! If you know and love the Armani Eye Tints, don’t make the mistake and think that these are similar. Even if YSL and Armani share the same parent company, L’Oreal, these are completely different products, with the YSL worse in every way – sheerer, runnier, and more metallic. Pass.
And while you’re on it, also pass the Pop Water Nail Lacquer too. These aren’t meant to be opaque nailpolishes, but to be layered. Get the OPI Sheer Tints if you’re into nailart.
Guerlain
Guerlain apparently decided to keep this collection short and sweet (it is flanked, though, by a collection of bronzers called Jolie Teint and another Terracotta line with the famous Terracotta scent). Bronzer? Check. Cream eyeshadow? Check. Nailpolish? Check. Lipstick? Check.
The centrepieces of this collection are of course the two Terracotta Bronzing Powders. Guerlain’s bronzing powders are the best in the market, and every beauty enthusiast should own one if they’re into bronzing. Both bronzers come with a gimmicky sleeve, but nevermind that – that’s a really good, solid product. Speaking of gimmicky, the yellow Rouge Automatique isn’t yellow (who would’ve thought). It gives lips a slight golden shimmer, nothing what a translucent shimmery gloss couldn’t do. If you want a screaming pink highend lipstick, the Fluo Stiletto Rouge Automatique is your thing. Like the turquoise (hah!) nailpolish, the Waterproof Cream Eyeshadows seem to go on a bit sheer, but ymmv. (Go and get the Armani Eye Tint in Jade if you want a good cream e/s though.) All in all, a slightly lacklustre collection by a company that brought us stunning summer LEs like the Emilio Pucci one a few years back. Next!
Dior
I secretly hope for stunning bronzing powders, highlighters or blushes with every summer collection, and this year, Dior delivers. Oh yes. Sorry Chanel et al., Dior takes home this one – the Tie Dye Blushes are to die for. Rose is very light, coral is a bit more saturated – choose your poison and enjoy!
It’s a huge collection with two eyeshadow quints, Fluid Sticks, new Tie Dye Lipsticks with a different coloured logo in their bullet, eye liners, nailpolishes, a BB cream and mascara. The quints swatch nicely. The amount of shimmer is quite high though, so be warned if that’s not your thing. The nude palette will be permanent, and I’ve the feeling that they’re much better nude palettes around, especially since this one houses a cream eyeliner that will dry out in no time. In my experience you either love the Fluid Sticks, or you don’t (the colours we see here are all new) – Dior marketing touts these are a hybrid between a lipstick and a gloss, but in my experience their wear time is much too short to reach into lipstick territory.
Dior nailpolish usually has a nice formula, the mimosa coloured one may be worth a swatch. The colour palette of the whole collection is what you might expect of a summer LE – bronzey-nude tones with splashes of aqua and coral – but I appreciate the Tie Dye theme which ties the makeup collection into the fabrics of the fashion house. Well done, Dior!
Chanel
Although the somewhat blatantly named collection (“Méditerranée”) which states it draw its inspiration from the blue waters of the French Riviera should reduce me to tears of boredom, this is my favourite summer collection so far. Sure, its colour scheme isn’t something out of the ordinary, but they do it so, so well.
There’s a pretty bronzing powder (they call it an Illuminating Powder, but please! This one will only be illuminating if your skintone is medium to dark. For fairer folks, it’s a bronzing powder. So please swatch to see if it fits your illuminating/bronzing needs!), there’s the usual Chanel nailpolish line-up that combines the classic (red) with the not-so-classic (a silvery brown) and shiny, easy to wear lips (a coppery Rouge Coco Shine and a fiery red Glossimer – other shades in the line-up are permanent). The stars of the show are the five new Stylo Eyeshadows in violet, olive green, rose gold, bronze and turquoise. These are incredibly easy to use – just swipe them over your lids and blend upwards with your finger – and hold up incredibly well without creasing. Also, they look like you spend hours to do your makeup – they’re just that complex looking!
So this is how it’s done – take a known concept and pair it with exiting and incredibly well working products. Thank you Chanel. I’ll see you at my counter at the end of May (for reasons passing understanding this is when it’ll come out in Germany).
Estée Lauder
Estée Lauder has the whole Bronze Goddess thing down pat (this year’s collection is called “Shimmering Nudes”), given that they’ve been doing it for ages now. Every year they come out with variations of the same thing, together with the eponymous perfume whose slight variations awake curiosity (how is it this year?) and despair (nooooooo, it’s not like the 2008 one!) in perfume mavens.
But they do it well, especially since they started to include the beloved Gelee texture in the Bronze Goddess line-up. (Its texture is a tri-brid between powder, gel and fluid, and behaves much like MAC’s Extra Dimension stuff or Nars’ Dual-Intensity powders.) Ever since 2011, their Illuminating Powder Gelees have devoted followers that snatch up every incarnation. If you’re into highly shimmery, nearly wet looking highlighters, these are your thing. If you like more subtle highlighters, you may have a look at this year’s version. The Gelee texture also makes an appearance in the Shimmering Nudes Eyeshadow Palette that houses eight neutral shades and three Gelee shadows in metallic colours that can be paired with the neutrals to give them some oomph. Shimmering Nudes indeed!
The rest is pretty skippable – or pretty and skippable? Clicky gloss pens in nude shades, their permanent bronzing powders, an illuminating stick highlighter and a rose-beige nailpolish with shimmer that screams Granny to me. But, well – this collection has something for every age group, from daughter to mother to Gran. And that’s Estée Lauder in a nutshell.
Clarins
Clarins is always the slightly more boring little sister of Estée Lauder for me. Solid products, good quality, quite tame colours – but lacking the innovative approach that EL brings to some of their formulas. They seldom come out with something truly astonishing or daring, and in that vein their collection is called Aquatic Treasures Collection, inspired by aquatic nymphs (oooooo-kay), the sea and the sand.
Despite of the yawn-inducing theme, there’re some nice products here, especially the cream eyeshadows. In turquoise, rose and a lavender grey they’re all good colours in a nice formula, and I take my hat off to Clarins for adding that dusky lavender. The Instant Light Lip Balm Perfector has a cult following: They are slightly tinted balms that you may love or ditch for your tinted Labello or Baby Lips. The matte bronzer looks nice, but then, they come out with one that looks nice each year. Both eye pencils and mascaras are waterproof, which is nice. I’ve nothing bad to say about this collection, but I’m not jumping up and down my chair either. So let’s move on.
MAC
Ah, MAC. You make makeup addicts do silly things and drive us all crazy because you churn out one limited edition each week. (Or something like that.) No doubt people will also tear their hair and weep hot tears over the new summer collection called Wash & Dry. Honestly, who doesn’t smile while looking at the insane promo pics and the stunning packaging?
While the packaging and all that jazz is breath-taking, what’s inside is a bit more conservative. Colours range from nude to red (lipsticks and lipglosses), there’re coloured liners, bronzers, a peachy and a coral blush, and the ubiquitous blue and turquoise nailpolishes. Eyeshadows come in form of Veluxe Pearlfusion Trios (greens, sands and browns) that are highly shimmery and sometimes a pain in the behind to use because the colour strips are very narrow. There’s an orangey highlighter (careful, it comes with an overspray, so your nice highlighter will turn into a blush sometime soon!) that people will solely buy for collecting purposes and some brow products and brushes.
If you want to buy one of the four bronzers, go for the Studio Sculpt Defining Bronzing Powders, their texture is vastly superior to the Bronzing Powders. Morange and Creme D’Nude lipsticks are part of the permanent line-up. There’re better formulas than the Technakohl liners around, both at MAC’s perm line and at other brands for a similar price point, same with the Veluxe Pearlfusion trios. So sorry, MAC, but it seems like this year I’ll be skipping. But no worries, I’ll come back soon with the release of the new perm Extra Dimension eyeshadows!
So there you have it! Which collection is your fave? And will you splurge on anything? Let us know!
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