Addendum: Addiction Eyeliner Pencil

As featured in the last post and which formed part of my Japanese birthday haul -- Addiction Eyeliner Pencils in Moonwalk (silver) and Lady of the Lake (red), both new for summer 2012, but permanent additions to the range of thirteen shades.

These pencils are automatic (fully retractable, yay!) and packaged in a capped plastic twist-up tube in Addiction's usual sleek black.

Moonwalk is a neutral steely silver that layers paler microshimmer into a smooth metallic base, so it shifts from a darker gunmetal to a sparkly silver to an almost wet-look moonlit glow (it can read as texture without colour on my pale skin) depending on lighting.
Lady of the Lake is a cool-toned blood-red satin with very sparse tonal microshimmer that's barely/rarely visible but adds dimension. It's this dimensionality as well as a lack of muddy brown  warmth which make this supremely easy to wear -- it looks like (intentional and awesome) makeup, never like rabbity red-eye.

Arm swatches

Paper swatches

I went out of my comfort zone with Moonwalk (silver! hisses) so have nothing close in my collection but here's Lady of the Lake with Chanel Ebloui (cream), Kryolan Skinliner 31 (liquid) and Estee Lauder Vintage Violet (cream):

the Addiction shade is a much clearer, truer red compare with Chanel or Estee Lauder but next to Kryolan's primary brightness its magenta coolness and depth are more evident.

Formula: Moonwalk is lovely creamy blendable goodness, and can double as a base/eyeshadow. Lady of the Lake is much drier and sets almost immediately on my dry lids, so is tricky even to smoke out without irritation, let alone smudge all over as a base. I suspect this in particular will have phenomenal lasting power on oilier skins -- on @cosme these liners are rated very highly in general, which usually testifies to tenacity on hooded lids / humid weather.

What Lady of the Lake sacrifices in creaminess is made up for in ultra-precision: with most pencils I need a separate tool to handle wings and flicks (a firm brush or the attached smudger on those THREE flash performance liners), but with this drier satin formula the most fiddly angles are a breeze.
Here's a comparison with the Rouge Bunny Rouge Automatic Eye Pencil in Lola to illustrate how fine a line the Addiction draws:

It's taken me a month of usage to appreciate the thoughtfulness of the two different Addiction formulas (the love-affair with THREE was more precipitous) -- Moonwalk blends out to a beautiful wash of iridescent light on the lid or by the tearduct, even built up to full its sparkle gives it a delicacy instead of a flat metallic wall; Lady of the Lake makes an uncompromisingly vivid statement, made for clean lines and graphic shapes and liner-without-eyeshadow looks (perfectly suited to my kind of minimalism in fact) and its very unblendability saves me from my own unhealthy leanings to over-softened hazy consumptive looks (never as pretty as they look in my head) with red.

Here's a close-up of the eye from Monday's look, playing to the individual strengths of these liners. Lady of the Lake sharply along the upper and Moonwalk softly along the lower lashlines. A bit more of Moonwalk blended out in the centre of the upper lid as purely textural highlight.

lid redness is all my natural beauty, ahem, not the effect of the liner 

Addiction eyeliner pencils are currently exclusive to Japan and retail for ¥2625 each.

Guerlain M25 Colère Rouge G L'Extrait: First Look

This season is the season of the liquid lipstick, and I for one will be exalting and worshipping at their footstool [which like most real biblical phrases, sounds like totally made-up Pratchettian, cf. 'the blind are leading the blind and they shall fall into ditches.']

Anyway, thanksgiving&worship&all that -- I'm sure your appetites have already been whetted as mine were by delicious reviews at Get Lippie, Messy Wands and Temptalia. So let's roll on with the shade that I personally came home with, M25 Colère:

note that the inner tubes are a uniform dark red -- I thought at first that the SA had given me the wrong shade 

On my pale, neutral skintone, Colère reads as a neon-bright coral red -- quite close to how Gourmandise looks on Temptalia's Christine.

Comparison swatches

The pinkness in Colère really comes through in contrast to orange-red YSL Glossy Stain #9 Rouge Laque; but it's also evident against the other corals I own, contrasting with the stronger orange tones in Revlon Strawberry Suede, Illamasqua Intense Gloss Mistress and Hourglass Femme Rouge Muse.
Lancôme Colour Design Matte Corset is closest to Colère, but with more muted rosiness in contrast to Colère's saturated brightness. Corset's more traditional matte finish also contributes to its softer look, whereas Colère surface is so smooth as to glow from within:

Lip swatch

Application: I used a lip brush (Hakuhodo Misako Portable), not the included doefoot, because on my dry lips (even over balm) this lightweight formula starts setting as soon as it hits skin and needs to be worked in carefully then quickly smoothed out to avoid streaking. Glooping on too much at once or trying to patch up afterwards can cause the colour to ball up. It's quite unique in my experience of lip stuff [the closest might be ByTerry's silicone- and pigment-rich Rouge Terrybly formula] and there's a bit of a learning curve; the best analogues would be tubing mascaras or oil-controlling primers or rubber-finish nail polishes but, like those, once you get the hang of it, these Rouge G L'Extraits don't take longer to apply than any other product.

The ingredients list reads to me (not a nexpert, remember) like a very advanced face primer with pigments in and Colère does have a texture-blurring and line-filling effect on lips. It also does feel like a very luxe primer if you press your lips together -- there's no stickiness, heaviness or creaminess but it isn't truly weightless like an Beauté stain or Addiction Colour Lipstick either.

As for wear-time, we're deep into your-mileage-may-vary territory, because unlike previous reviewers I found these quite average for a saturated lipstick -- no eight-hours-plus-meals perfection here and no shadow of a challenge to the YSL Glossy Stains.

After a few drinks (it will transfer slightly to cups/glasses, if you're bothered by that):

The slight patchiness towards the centre of the lips is only clearly visible in close-up, definitely liveable-with in real life.

After a typical pig-out meal, a pretty, even coral sheer-matte tint: 

See, this is what I mean by average wear. Not a diss in any way -- I actually adore the shade this ends up as. Even so, it's not quite a stain: if you try to refresh it with lipbalm as with a traditional stain (Hourglass, Beaute etc.) the Guerlain colour will readily transfer onto the balm, and move around the lips; a gloss will sheer out the colour further and mix into it rather than going over the top neatly. 

It's a trade-off I personally am fine with -- as you can see from the last picture, this Rouge G L'Extrait leaves my lips looking plump and feeling comfortable for hours without balm touch-ups and, and I'd much rather this than a more indelible formula that looks dry from the get-go and then deteriorates steadily (Rouge D'Armani, Lancôme Rouge In Love). After four days of continuous wear, it's clear that Rouge G L'Extrait is kinder on my lips than YSL or Beauté/Hourglass stains, although unsurprisingly less moisturising than my favoured creamy lipsticks.

Sorry if I've been uncharacteristically muted in this review. I'm trying my very hardest to be fair about the formula because the shade, people, the shade. OMG IT IS SO PERFECT I DON'T EVEN.

eyes: Addiction Lady of the Lake and Moonwalk liners, Lancôme Hypnose Drama WP // cheeks: RMS Modest // base: Shu  Uemura UV Brightening Mousse, Burberry concealer, copious amounts of RBR Sea of Clouds highlighter

Guerlain Rouge G L'Extrait (made in France) are lightly candied-violet-scented, demi-matte-finish liquid lipsticks in the signature clunky mirrored packaging wot I hate. It comes in seven permanent shades (named somewhat surreally for the seven deadly sins -- envious orange, really?) and retail at £29.50 for 6ml.