M.A.C. Mineralize Eyeshadow Quad in Assemblage ($23.50 CDN): A great quad for a smokey eye! The quad includes a white with silver pearl, deep grey, black with silver glitter and a warm yellow gold. The shadow has a beautiful velvet finish with shimmer. Don't feel like doing a smokey eye? Swipe on the white silver pearl on the lid and inner corner. With a slightly damp angled brush, dip into the black shadow and line your and wing it out for a flirty effect. For a sunkissed look, swipe the warm yellow gold across the lid and load on the mascara!
M.A.C. Mineralize Blush in Cheek Cheerful ($25 CDN): Perfect for enhancing a summer tan! Cheek Cheerful is a bronzy brown with yellow gold veining. The texture is much like my fave Mineralize Skinfinish but with more colour and a lot more shimmer. Use a light hand when applying to avoid looking oily! Otherwise, this blush will leave you glowing and flushed in all the right places!
Mineralize Skinfinish in Porcelain Pink ($32.50 CDN): It's no secret that I've been a fan of M.A.C.'s Mineralize Skinfinish line. I first fell in love with Shimpagne, the perfect highlighter. Porcelain Pink has been a round for a while and keeps being relaunched for good reason. This soft pinky-coral with gold veining is gorgeous! It's innocent, it's girly, it's the perfect blushing pink!
M.A.C. Marbleized Lipgloss in Nice Mix Up ($21.50 CDN): Add this gloss to your summer beauty stash! Nice Mix Up is a lovely burnt ginger shade that adds the right amount of colour. I've always been on the fence with M.A.C. glosses. These glosses feel smooth on the lips, but still found it to be a bit tacky. The up side about tacky glosses are that your lips stay glossier longer!
L'Occitane is celebrating over 20 years of Shea!In the early 1880's, Olivier Baussan, founder of L'Occitane, made his first trip to Burkina Faso and discovered shea butter, its incredible benefits and story.
Far from Provence, in Burkina Faso, Africa, grows the sacred Shea tree. Only the local women are entrusted with the secrets of Shea Butter preparation, and only they can benefit from its trade – which is why it is called “Women’s Gold.” Through a long-standing partnership, L'Occitane is celebrating over 20 years of Shea!
The women of Burkina Faso harvest the Shea fruit, extract and dry the nuts, grind them to make a fine paste and transform the paste into Shea Butter – a universal and irreplaceable beauty care product. Shea Butter protects the skin against the sun as well as the hot winds carrying dust and fine sand that dry the skin. Thanks to precious Shea Butter, the women of this region protect, nourish and moisturize their skin. The women also traditionally protect newborns against harsh environmental elements by applying Shea Butter daily to their delicate skin.
L’OCCITANE’s Shea Butter range brings these same benefits to the face, hair and body in products that contain a high percentage of Shea Butter, which is particularly recommended for dry and very dry skin.
If you haven’t already heard, Shu Uemura opened its third counter in Canada at the Holt Renfrew on Bloor St. and Makeup Junkie was there to get the inside scoop!
Let us introduce you to Mr. Shu Uemura, one of the greatest makeup artists of our time, and his philosophy behind the Shu Uemura brand. “Beautiful makeup starts with beautiful skin.” With the company's philosophy of ‘nature, science and art', this theme is evident throughout the line. We have known Shu Uemura for the eyelash curler (which we swear by – this product should be a staple in any woman’s makeup case), but we were unfamiliar with some of the other products Shu Uemura had to offer.
The Holt Renfrew staff were most enthusiastic about the Cleansing Oil (shown above), another star product the brand is known for. Just apply on a dry face and it will gently rub off any makeup. Our Makeup Junkie staff have tried it for several days now and have fallen in love with the Cleansing Oil. More products to be excited about is a new skin care line launching this Fall called Red Juvenus. The line consists of 5 rejuvenating skin care products which will help correct the first signs of ageing (pictured below). After trying some of the products, our writers found that it immediately made their skin feel more supple and re-vitalized.
A favourite among us Makeup Junkies was their Tokyo Lash Bar. We loved the displays of the brand's fake lashes, ranging from natural to fantasy to theatrical.
Makeup Junkie also had a chance to speak with Taca Ozawa, the new principle makeup artist in Canada. He was very helpful and informative showing us different products from the UV Under Base SPF 10 (mousse-like tinted primer good underneath foundation, minimizes pores and gives skin a healthy glow) to the blush (with good pigmentation that only a little is required) to the eyeshadows and lipsticks (a wide range of colours and long-lasting pigment). He even demonstrated on one of our writers, Donna, the "Shu Uemura way" of applying blush.
All you need to do is take one side of your blush brush and dip it into your blush. Next, starting at the top of the cheek bone, stroke your brush forward only once in one fluid motion. Then sweep up to the temple using the clean side of the brush. And then 3 small strokes downward and forward to blend.