Liner Love: Bobbi Brown Lip Liner: Ballet Pink & Lancome Khol: Black Coffee

Bobbi Brown Lip Liner: Ballet Pink & Lancome Le Crayon Kohl: Black Coffee

A quick post on two recent pencil purchases, Bobbi Brown Lip Liner in Ballet Pink and Lancome Eyeliner pencil in Black Coffee. I picked these up just before Christmas from Cheapsmells and have been using both on a daily basis since.

Bobbi Brown’s Lip Liners are described as being long-wearing, non-drying and are supposed to help prevent feathering. Ballet Pink is described as ‘a pale neutral pink’ on the Bobbi Brown site, which is a fairly accurate description. I mainly purchased to use with paler lipsticks and glosses as a base to tone down my naturally pigmented lips, and it does actually work well used like this. The shade is slightly lighter than my natural lip colour, but still looks very subtle and natural after it’s been applied and blended.

The pencil itself is quite soft, but not overly so, applies well without dragging or pulling, and the formula is comfortable and as promised, is non-drying. I find the colour lasts well on lips too, and fades evenly throughout the day. 

Bobbi Brown Lip Liner: Ballet Pink & Lancome Le Crayon Kohl: Black Coffee

Lancome’s Le Crayon Kohl’s are described as ‘smudgy, creamy-smooth eye pencils, which glide on effortlessly and blend beautifully’. Black coffee is a dark, natural brown. It’s not quite as harsh as black and not as soft as some of the other brown liners I have, it's perfect for everyday wear and creating natural looks. The pencil applies well, feels really soft and creamy and again, doesn’t drag or pull. The formula is creamy enough to smudge and works beautifully at creating a fairly natural, smoky eye look. 

I mainly use kohl pencils to line my upper lash line and used in this way, Black coffee stays put all day. Once it’s been applied, it really doesn’t budge. I have used it on my lower lash line and waterline on a couple of occasions and found it also lasted well. It doesn’t hold up quite as well used in this way, but lasting power is still pretty impressive. 

 

Swatches of both shades, and below a photo to give an idea of what they look like applied. 

Ballet Pink applied all over lips with a little bit of balm, and below, Black Coffee applied on the upper lash line. The photo was taken at the end of the day after about 8 hours of wear, so my shadow has started to crease, the liner is still is still pretty much perfect though.

I don’t often get excited about lip liners or eye pencils, but I am really pleased with both of these. Both shades are flattering and perfect for creating natural make up looks and they both apply and wear really well. As I said, I purchased both from Cheapsmells for quite a lot less than I’d have paid if I’d purchased them from the official Lancome or Bobbi Brown sites. I believe the only difference with the pencils Cheapsmells are selling is the liners come without boxes and sharpeners. The boxes certainly don’t bother me and I’ve collected a ridiculous amount of sharpeners over the years with various different lip, eye and brow pencils, so that’s definitely not a problem either. 

Both pencils are still available on the site. The Bobbi Brown liner costs £10.95 & the Lancome kohl is £10.45. 

Bobbi Brown Bronze Shimmer Brick Swatches & Review

Bobbi Brown's Bronze Shimmer brick Compact is the newest addition to my bronzer/highlighter collection. It's described on the Bobbi Brown site as a shimmering, brush on powder which is perfect for creating a deep, bronzy glow. 

Bobbi Brown Shimmer Brick: Bronze

 Bronze is actually my second Shimmer Brick, the first was Rose which was nice, but didn't seem to show up well on my skin and mainly added quite a large amount of shimmer. After searching around online and checking out swatches of Bronze, I was confident that it would offer more in terms of colour pay-off than Rose and would possibly make a nice alternative to Dior's Amber Diamond powder. 

The palette consists of five bars or shades which can be used individually as shadows or swirled together and applied as highlighter/bronzer. The top bar is a white shade laced with gold shimmer, the second bar a pinky brown, the third is a warm bronze, the fourth is a rose colour and at the bottom there's a dark brown shade.

Bobbi Brown Bronze Shimmer Brick

The shades have been swatched fairly heavily in the photo below to give a good idea of what the individual shades look like. The picture below it is a swatch of all five shades blended together.

Bobbi Brown Bronze Shimmer Brick Swatches

As mentioned above, the individual shades can be used as eye shadows. I have tried this with a couple of the colours and they do work fairly well. The white/gold makes quite a nice brow highlighter and the darkest brown shade looks quite pretty used on the lid. I don't use them often for this purpose though because I find them to be a tiny bit too sheer for my taste. Used as a highlighter, the palette of bronzes and pinks does create a nice glowy effect on cheeks and while they are very shimmery, they're not in the least bit chunky or glittery.

The powder itself is soft and a couple of swipes of a brush over the bars is all that's needed to pick up enough colour. The shades blend together nicely and create a pretty golden bronze shade which does add a nice sun kissed glow to cheeks. The powder seems to be fairly long lasting even on my oily skin and when it does start to wear, it fades evenly

All in all, Bronze Shimmer brick is a nice product, but £30.00 seems like a lot to pay for a highlighting powder which can only be used on one area of the face. The product is just far too shimmery to be used on other areas which is a little bit of a shame. For this reason I probably wouldn't repurchase when it runs out and will probably be sticking with Dior's Amber Diamond  which seems to look more subtle than Bronze. I may even have a look around for a cheaper alternative. I've seen some lovely swatches of similar products recently which cost a lot less and seem to create a very similar finish. It is still a nice product though and if you're a big shimmer fan, Bobbi Brown's Shimmer Bricks are definitely worth checking out.

Shimmer Bricks are available on quite a few online sites including the Bobbi Brown website and cost around £30.00 for 10.3g of product.

Are you a Shimmer Brick fan?

Bronzer comparison swatches

I posted a couple of pictures of the most recent addition to the bronzer collection last week (Becca's pressed bronzer) and mentioned a few others that I've tried so I thought it might be helpful to swatch a few of the ones that I have in my stash for comparison.

L-R Dior essential bronzer Amber, Vincent Longo terra bronzer, Nars Zen, Becca Calypso, Bobbi Brown Light 1, Benefit Dallas

As above only with flash

Dior's essential bronzer in 040 Amber I purchased last year when my skin was quite a bit darker than it is now so it's a little bit too dark for my nc15 ish skin at the moment. It has a slight shimmer to it which is a lot more prominent in the pan than it is on skin. 

I've had Vincent Longo terra gold bronzer lying around for ages and rarely use it because it's looks quite orange on my skin. Again it has shimmer which is slightly more noticeable than Dior essential.

I know NARS Zen is actually a blush but I find it dark enough and pigmented enough to use as a bronzer. I love the fact that it's shimmer free and looks incredibly natural and I also find it works really well as a contour powder. 

Becca pressed bronzer I wrote about last week. This one has shimmer in it but I find it looks really natural and leaves a transparent hint of colour with a pretty glowy finish. Really liking this one at the moment.

Bobbi Brown bronzing powder in Light 1 is another totally glitter/shimmer free bronzer that I've had for a while. I find this one to also be really natural looking and like Zen it also works well as a contour powder. Out of the two though, I definitely prefer Zen to contour with.

Benefit Dallas is not actually a bronzer but I thought I'd include it since it does create a healthy bronzed look when I use it. The pink in the powder obviously means it can only be used on cheeks and not all over the face but it looks pretty when it's used in this way.

What's your favourite bronzer? Do you prefer matte, or do you like a bit of shimmer?