April 2017 archive

Dark Season Lip Gloss: Chanel Coco Rouge Moisturizing Glossimer and Top Coat

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Even as a lighter Dark Autumn, lip gloss isn’t a product I’ve had much luck finding. Most of the ones on the market don’t have enough pigment for me to wear on their own, and just simply putting a clear gloss on top generally leads to the color underneath pulling too pink or just losing its necessary depth. A lot of dark seasons favor mattes, but I like my lip products to feel like a balm and I don’t think that matte is the most flattering finish for my particular lip shape.

I don’t like to admit it, but I think we’ve all bought a makeup or skincare product after seeing one of those YouTube “guru” put it in their favorites or use it in a tutorial. When I saw the new Coco Rouge Moisturizing Glossimer, it seemed like an answer to my Dark Autumn prayers. An opaque lip gloss that feels like a balm?! Where have you been all my life?!

Chanel describes their new gloss formula as “a non-sticky, ultra-light formula leaves lips visibly smooth and plump, and perfectly brilliant. An innovative, dual-sided applicator ensures optimal, even coverage and high precision. In 24 shades to collect, layer and love. Enriched with Coconut Oil, Peptides and Vitamin E, along with an exclusive Hydraboost Complex, to offer hours of comfort and moisture.” It really does feel like a balm and it looks great, and comes in a wide range of colors with several different finishes (sheer, opaque, semi-opaque). You can see a breakdown of all the shades here, although I have to say that the shade I have (Opulence) looks more like it does on the swatch on the Chanel website than it does the one on the blog post.

Opulence swatch

I went with Opulence because, while there are colors that seem darker (Decadent, blackberry, and Epique, oxblood), Opulence (described as cranberry) is warmer. I might get Epique at a later date, but to start, I wanted a color that would make a good everyday color for me.

I did end up getting two, because it was just one of those weeks where you stand in front of the Chanel counter and say, “Screw it. This is a two lip gloss kind of week.” I ended up getting Caviar, which is a limited-edition transforming topcoat. This is something that is really handy for both Dark Autumns and Dark Winters. It’s a sheer black lip gloss meant to deepen the color of whatever lipstick you’re wearing underneath, which solves the problem of lip glosses making lipsticks lose their depth. (They also have an orange one for warmth and a gold for brightness, for True warms and Brights).

lip glosses

I swatched them, and then used Caviar on top of MAC’s All Out Gorgeous.

swatches

L to R: Opulence, Caviar, Caviar on top of All Out Gorgeous, All Out Gorgeous

So if you’re a Dark Autumn or a Dark Winter and you struggle to find lip glosses that retain their depth, I suggest checking these out, and if you can only get one, pick up Caviar while it’s still available so you can use it with all your other lipsticks. There are colors for other seasons too, of course, but I’ve never found glosses that work so well for Dark Autumn before.

Animal Familiars

Kati has revamped her Fantastical Beauty system, replacing Base 5 (a yin/yang-based system with clear parallels to Kibbe Image IDs) with Animal Familiars, which plays the same role in her system as Base 5 did–accounting for things like height, scale, and line. I’m glad to see that Kati has moved away from something where you can make a one-to-one association with a Kibbe Image ID (i.e., Gamine Linear=Flamboyant Gamine), and has come up with something original that adds to your knowledge of yourself and the lines of your body and face.

The Animal Familiars are fairly straightforward, ranging from the tall and angular Hawk to the short and round Rabbit. Although there is some personalization possible, height isn’t really flexible, so you can immediately dismiss the ones that are out of your height range–I consider myself at 5’4″ to be on the shorter side of medium, so looking at the list, I decided I’d likely be found in either Cat, Ocelot, or Koala:

Cat
Medium-Short, medium-small build, full and sharp mix of features. Large eyes, full mouth, sloping nose, and always up to something.
Alyson Stoner, Claire Boucher, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan.

Ocelot
Short-Medium, narrow build, mixed features with accent touches of sharp/angular. Sleek and sharp in a smaller package.
Kristen Stewart, Ellen Page, Natalie Portman, Daniel Radcliffe.

Koala
Short-Medium, wide/full build, blunt features. Wide spaced features, straighter figure, mix of blunt/full features.
Melissa McCarthy, Lena Dunham, Mila Kunis, Johnny Galecki.

Looking at the rest of the characteristics, I don’t see myself as particularly narrow or wide/full. I feel like you get a different feeling from my face than either the sharp/angular/mix in Ocelot or the blunt/full in Koala. The full and sharp facial features and the build that is on the smaller side without being noticeably narrow seemed to describe me very well, so Cat was the obvious choice.

On Facebook, lots of us have been making collages. Collages are fun and so is discussing, but I really suggest narrowing the list down to which height description is realisitic for you, and then looking at the build and face descriptions. Still, though, when I made a collage, Cat seems like a good fit for me:

cat collag

Not that many materials are available yet–I can’t really do anything with the information that I am a Cat–but there is a Snake Guide, and a few Pinterest boards. Hopefully more guides and boards will be coming soon, though!

I’ve also been looking at the nine Fantastical Beauty types again, and have gotten the Mermaid guide, but that is a blog post for another day…

Have you looked at the Animal Familiars yet? Have you found yourself?