Poupounette (108) Face & Eye Color by Paul & Joe Beaute

Paul & Joe Beaute is one of those brands that sucks me in with their cute packaging, although typically I admire from afar. To date this is only the second item of theirs that I've purchased, with the first having been one of their lipsticks, Toujours Heureux. So, let me introduce you to Poupounette, one of three Face & Eye Colors available from the Spring 2017 collection. Poupounette means sweetie or honey and is typically used to address little girls, although it can also used as slang for a certain sex act. Yep.

Source: Paul & Joe Beaute

The spring collection marks Joe & Paul's 15th anniversary, and is built around "makeup for love and romance", with a collection of pink hued makeup for the lips, cheeks, and eyes.  The Face & Eye Colors ($35) feature 3 shades in each palette that can be worn alone or blended together. When I was chosing mine there were few reviews online to guide me, but the softer tones of Poupounette appealed to me me the most.

The packaging is a sturdy cardboard, and the elastic will come in handy if you plan on keeping this in your makeup bag or traveling with it. It also comes with a decorative kitten's paw puff applicator. I say decorative because I will never use it to apply the powder :-) Here is how the tones of Poupounette is described on Beauty Habit:

A combination of cozy and neutral shades ideal for use day and night Hues in the palette include: Canal pink – a beautiful golden pearl, Cinnamon with hints of silver and gold pearl and Cream highlighted with red, gold and pearl accents.

The hearts will rub away upon first use, and each of the 3 colors are a satin/shimmer in finish. As an eye shadow they are extremely soft in color and best suited as a wash of color for natural makeup days.

Where Poupounette shines for me is as a blush/face color. I've been wearing it for over a month now and still find myself reaching for it regularly.  The powder is finely milled and applies smoothly.  I'm not someone who wears overly shimmery blushes, but this one has just the right amount for me. It's enough that I do no use a highlighter with it, but not so much that it emphasizes skin texture. It's a great spring/summer color for those with fair complexions. You can get different variations in color depending on what shades you mix together.

Paul & Joe Beaute products are manufactured by Albion, which is a Japanese company. My impression of Japanese powder based makeup is that they are more subtle and natural in finish and color, which is definitely the case here. Think "natural beauty" as opposed to "color impact".

As to whether Poupounette is worth $35, I think that totally depends on your perspective. I view items like this as both novelty and collector's item, so you are paying more for that. However, I do like the quality of the powder/formula, which includes:

• Orange Flower Water – Moisturizer  
• White Lily Extract – Moisturizer, prevents skin irritation
• Jojoba Oil – Emollient  
• Sodium Hyaluronate - Moisturizer 
• Rosemary Extract – Emollient  
• Rose Fruit Oil - Emollient 

So yes, for me it's worth it.

Fetish and Score Afterglow Blushes by Urban Decay

Fetish, Score

Disclaimer: I purchased these.

I picked up Urban Decay's Afterglow blushes in Fetish and Score during Ulta's 21 Days of Beauty last year in September, so I guess I'm a bit behind, considering the spring 21 Days of Beauty just finished. What prompted me to post them now was seeing that Ulta currently has 7 of the shades on sale for $15.60, which is 40% off of their $26 regular price. This makes me wonder if Urban Decay may be discontinuing the line, but I guess we shall see.

I do enjoy the Afterglow blush formula and find it to be finely milled with buildable color. Previously, I had purchased Rapture (full review here) and restrained myself from purchasing any others, but sales have a way of weakening what little resolve I have, and I believe these were half off. Fetish is a medium pink nude with a satin finish, and Score is a medium pink-peach with a slight shimmer.

When swatched, they are close in color and you probably don't need both, as I doubt the difference is dramatic enough to show up on the face. I don't really detect more shimmer in Score than in Fetish, but considering I prefer a satin finish, that's okay with me.

But yeah, the current sale at Ulta (plus the 20% coupon they sent to Platinum members) tempted me into buying Kinky, which is described as a light peach with shimmer. I'll have to swatch all three together when it arrives to see if Kinky is different enough from these two to make me not regret getting it.

I'm weak, I admit it. Oh, did I mention you get 5X points on Urban Decay products at the moment? That definitely factored in as well :-) I've already decided to forego the Sephora VIB sale with it's 15% code, as I much prefer Ulta's sales and rewards. I'll indulge in the Sephora fall VIB sale when the discount is 20% instead.

Fetish

Countdown to Gorgeous Days 22 and 23: Lola, the Girl Next Door FOTD

Days 22 (Be Nice) and 23 (Be Family) of the Countdown to Marvelous advent calendar from bareMinerals bring the Marvelous Moxie lip gloss in Girl Next Door and the blush Lola. When I opened Lola I thought "is this a blush or an eyeshadow?"

Well, I imagine you could use it for either, depending on your skin color. Since I'm fair and thought it wouldn't look right on me as a blush, I used it as an eyeshadow. It's quite pretty!

Girl Next Door is a sheer peach with fine gold shimmer. It reminded me of an earlier gloss from the calendar called Crowd Pleaser, so I pulled it to compare.

Crowd Pleaser is definitely more pink, so they are not as similar as I thought.

For this FOTD, I'm wearing Lola up to the crease, with the matte shadows Peachy Keen from Le Metier de Beaute and Fringe from the MetalMatte Kat von D palette as transition shades.

Blush and highlighter are from Makeup Revolution's Golden Sugar 2 Rose Gold palette. The individual pans don't have names, but here is a picture of the vanilla gold highlighter and mauve bronze blush. This is a really nice palette, I need to get around to posting a full review soon.

This blush makes me look tanned, and while I am using the Clarin's Radiance Plus self-tanner on my face and neck, the blush definitely adds that 'day in the sun' vibe. Which considering today is partly sunny and 75 degrees, I could actually have.

I spend Christmas Eve at my mom's house, where the dogs will be wearing their jingle bell collars and opening presents. As soon as I get those collars out they know it's a special day, and I hope yours will be as well :-)

Countdown to Gorgeous Day 2: Tropical Sunset and FOTD

Disclaimer: I purchased this. All links are to past reviews.

Day 2 of the Countdown to Gorgeous advent calendar by bareMinerals brings us a loose mineral powder blush called Tropical Sunset. It did not feel tropical in my house this morning so I decided it was time to turn on the heat, only to discover that my furnace did not want to cooperate. Joy. To. The. World.

I had my inside unit and air conditioner replaced in June, and I'm guessing something connected to the furnace is not operating correctly. Fortunately, the days are still hitting the upper 60's here in Mobile, so I will not freeze yet.

Tropical Sunset is actually a softer pink than you would think from looking at it in the container. It inspired me to pull out some of my loose shadows from bareMinerals, and I ended up using the dark peach Paradise (far right) and burnished brown Coconut Palm (middle) over Maybelline's Leather Color Tattoo in Creamy Beige.

As you can see, Creamy Beige is starting to dry out, but considering it's still over 2 years old and still usable, I've got no complaints. Except that it's limited edition and I can't get my hands on a new one.

For mascara I used Mally's Volumizing Mascara sample over Estee Lauder's Little Black Primer. The Mally's mascara is more wet than I care for and it tends to get a bit gloppy, both on the brush/tube and my lashes. Not really a fan.

I am a fan of my only Christmas mug, which was made by Design House Stockholm for Starbucks, circa 2008.

For foundation I chose It Cosmetic's CC+ Color Correcting Full Coverage Cream, which was a 100 point perk from Sephora if I'm not mistaken. The color match was pretty good and I'd say coverage is more medium than full. I initially used a large Mermaid brush to apply, but the cream tended to bunch up a bit, so I resorted to a damp Beauty Blender to smooth things out. I need to play with this a bit more, but initial impressions are positive.

For lips I went with Vincent Longo's Cupid's Breath to stain my lips, and then topped them with yesterday's Day 1 offering, Trail Blazer. I'm happy to report that the marvelous Moxie gloss formula agrees with my lips and I am enjoying it.

My highlighter of the day is Champagne Pop (bottom left) from the BECCA Champagne Collection Face Palette. After reading about how this palette is being released in other countries now that Estee Lauder purchased BECCA, I wouldn't be surprised if we see it again. The meaning of "limited-edition" is a moving target these days. I'm not complaining, just taking "limited-edition" releases with a grain of salt :-).

Culling My Collection: 2016 Blush Declutter

I love watching makeup decluttering videos, which is what I've been doing to get me ready for the Cull the Collection series I've been wanting to do. "To cull" means to control or reduce the size of by removal. While I do periodically go through and weed out items that have gone bad, I wanted to take a more KonMari approach to downsizing and decluttering my makeup.  I started with my powder blushes, as I own an inordinate amount.  So, here we go with Part 1 of my collection cull, and be aware this is picture heavy.

Powder blush collection

These two drawers contain my powder blushes.  For those not familiar with the KonMari method, you are supposed to hold everything in your hands and ask yourself "does this spark joy?" or essentially bring happiness into your life.  If it doesn't, then it is time to thank the item for it's service and send it to a better home, even if that's the trash bin.

I started this process at about 7 am on a Saturday morning and finished at 11 am, so it took 4 hours.  I tried to arrange the blushes by color family so that I could distinguish similar colors. For some of my favorite blush brands, I also looked at all of a certain brand together.  I tried not to be sentimental or let the price of a particular item influence me, with varying levels of success. While this did take a while, I actually enjoyed the process quite a bit!

I started with the Makeup Geek pan blushes, which I recently took out of my Z palette in order to make room for depotted Le Metier de Beaute eye shadows. I put the Makeup Geek pans back into the empty kaleidoscopes, although I'd like to get another Z palette to keep them in. These are the original Makeup Geek blushes that I was able to purchase 9 of for $45 prior to the new blush formula release.  It was a great bundle deal but some of the colors were not quite right for me, either too light to show up on my skin, too cool toned, or too pink :-)

Smitten does not show up on me at all, plus it is a bit yellow toned.  Bliss is a better shade for me, although it is also a light shade that barely shows on my skin.  Head Over Heels is another barely there color on me, although it's very pretty.

Secret Admirer is a lovely lilac shade that I totally cannot pull off.  It's not  as lavender as it appears in this photo (inside natural light), but definitely leans in that direction.  Summer Fling is another that I have not reached for often, as it's intense orange shade scares me a bit.

Hanky Panky is a lovely medium pink, but I just don't wear blush colors like this. So, my original cull looked like this, plus a LMdB blush from the 2015 VIP palette.  Tally:  10 blushes, culled 6.  Not bad.

Smitten, Secret Admirer, Head Over Heels, Summer Fling, Hanky Panky, LMdB single

Next, I pulled out my peach/coral/peachy pink blushes, which I have a ridiculous amount of.  This is clearly the color family I'm most drawn to and wear the most, as I'm counting 21 blushes here..

Out of all these blushes, I decided to part with 4: bareMineral's The Natural High, Lancome's Peachy Keen, theBalm's Hot Mama, and Chantecaille's Fun.  I'm not a huge fan of blushes with a heavy gold shimmer, which characterizes both The Natural High and Hot Mama.  Fun by Chantecaille barely registers on my skin, and while I've used it quite a bit, I'm ready to part company.  I've hardly used the Lancome palette at all and it's gone bad, based on smell. So, out it goes.

I kept Estee Lauder's Peach Passion, Wild Sunset, and Bronze Goddess palette, Tarte's Achiote, Thankful and Magic, NYX's Apricot, Rose Garden and Wanderlust, Laura Geller's Dreamsicle, BECCA's Flowerchild, ColourPop's Tasty, Too Faced's Love Hangover, Clinique's Peach Pop, and MAKE Beauty's Geisha and Czarina.  Tally:  21 peach/coral peachy pink bluses, 4 culled.  Total 31 blushes, 10 culled.

Next are my pink blushes, with a total of 13 items. The cull results indicate I can be more cut throat in this category.

Culled were two Lancome GWP blushes, Rose Romantique and Shimmer Pink Pool, the Tarina Tarintino Dollskin cheek palette, an Estee Lauder GWP face palette, Tarte's Fantastic Amazonian Clay blush, stila's Lyric Countless Color Pigment, and DHC's Poppy Face Color Palette.  A recent "Loving Your Unloved" concentration on the Dollskin palette showed me I really only used the first peachy shade, and let's face it I've got plenty of those. The Estee Lauder face palette with Pink Kiss as the blush color did see some use, but the bronze pan has hardened and it's seen better days.  The DHC Poppy palette is too light for my complexion and I just don't reach for the others, so out they go.

Tally:  13 pink blush items, 7 culled.  Total 44 blushes, 17 culled.

Kept: Cargo Bali, Sue Devitt Solomon Islands, Too Faced Justify My Love, Clinique Plum Pop, theBalm Toile

Next is another favorite blush color family, the beige/tan category.  Apparently I love every beige/tan blush I own, as I did not want to part with any of the 7 blushes.

Blushes kept are Estee Lauder's Sensuous Rose, True Cosmetic's Blushing Beige, Sue Devitt Tralee, Nvey Eco 957, Rouge Bunny Rouge Starina, Tarte Peaceful, NYX Chiffon.  Tally:  7 Beige/tan blush items, 0 culled.  Total 51 blushes, 17 culled.

Berrie and mauves blushes as next, and I have only 5 blushes in this color family. I ended up keeping four and culling one.  I kept Flush by Tarte, Your Love is King by Too Faced, Rapture by Urban Decay, and Houndstooth by theBalm.

I culled Nvey Eco's Blushing Bliss 958.  Tally:  5 berry/mauve blushes, 1 culled. Total 56 blushes, 18 culled.

Nvey Echo 958

Next are 3 similar items:Tarte's Park Avenue Prince Pink Bronze, Clarin's Graphic Expressions, and Covergirl's Roses Clean Glow Blusher.

Covergirl's Roses did not make the cut. It's quite nice but almost identical in color to Graphic Expressions. The Park Avenue Princess is similar in color but has a soft shimmer that kept it in my collection. Total blushes 59 blushes, 19 culled.

I love my Hourglass blushes, as they are skin flattering and wear exceptionally well on my oily skin. However, I don't reach for Radiant Magenta often at all. Mood Exposure is probably my favorite, followed by the peachy Incandescent Electra. It was painful, but I decided to cull Radiant Magenta. Or at least I thought I did. Total blushes 62 blushes, 20 culled.

Next are what I'm calling my orange blushes, although Sephora's Let's Dance and Benefit's Sugarbomb are not orange. But they do have an orange segment, so let's pretend. They are also very similar in color. Surratt's Canteloupe is a straight up light orange, and completely unique to my collection. It's a difficult color to wear on it's own for my skintone, but the formula keeps it in my collection and I use it as a color adjuster. I also think it's really pretty layered under the other two in this picture. So which one of those did I cull?

Benefit's Sugarbomb got culled. The huge Let's Dance is more versatile as I can use different strips separately if I like, and the quality is on par.

Total 65 blushes, 21 culled.

Last are some some palettes and the ColourPop Monster highlighter that is kept with my blushes, so it got included. Shown are Estee Lauder's Lover's Blush/Rebel Rose, LMdB's Cheeky Chic kaleidoscope, and the Urban Decay Gwen Stenfani blush palette.

I kept Monster, Lover's Blush/Rebel Rose, and the Gwen Stefani blush palette. I've hit pan on Lo-Fi, which has become a favorite bronzer/contour shade.

The Cheeky Chic kaleidoscope was culled, as I never reached for it and was not overly impressed with the blush formula. Also, the contour shade has hardened and you can not pick up ANY pigment. I've noticed that with a few of my LMdB shadows as well, although I fixed those,  More on that in a later post. Total 69 blush items, 22 culled.

After going through every item and collecting all the blushes culled from my collection, it was time to take another once over to see if there were any items that I wanted to reconsider.

Blushes culled from collection

There were a few that were tugging at the corners of my mind, namely Radiant Magenta by Hourglass and the Makeup Geek blushes Head Over Heels and Summer Fling.  I ended up returning them to my collection.  If they don't see some use gong forward, I'll re-evaluate.

Now my powder blushes fit into one drawer. I've reacquited myself with what I own, which reinforces that I have quite enough and can be content "shopping" my own collection.

Final tally:  69 blush items, 19 culled from collection = 50 blushes. I purged almost 28% of my collection!  My next foray will be into my cream blushes, so stay tuned for that :-)