Yves St. Laurent to offer an exclusive eyeshadow quad on Facebook [UPDATED]

On Thursday,  July 19, YSL will release a new, limited-edition eye shadow palette, "Devoted to Fans," on Facebook. 

The "Devoted to Fans" quad was produced to thank YSL's Facebook fans. YSL claims that this palette is "the first exclusive entirely digital product for Facebook fans." 

Only 1650 pieces will be produced world-wide, with 500 of these available in the United States. No word yet on price or what the logistics of the sale will be, although you have to have "liked" YSL to be able to buy the palette.

Do I need yet another eye shadow quad? No, I do not. Do I predict a crazy stampede? Yes, I do. Am I fascinated by major high-end cosmetics companies not just marketing, but actually selling cosmetics on Facebook? You bet.

UPDATE: OK, here's the scoop. The quad costs $55. It's sold through YvesSaintLaurent.com. To get it, you have to "Like" Yves Saint Laurent Fragrances and Beauty on Facebook. Then click through the icon of the palette and it will take you to the YSL site.

Review: Chanel's Rives Eye Shadow quad (35)

I came home from Nordstrom with the complete Anniversary Exclusive collections from Chanel, Dior, and Bobbi Brown. I'm planning on reviewing every item between now and August 6, the last day of the sale. Nordstrom card holders have early access to the sale, which doesn't start officially until July 20.

Chanel Rives 35 indoors by lamplight

I thought I'd start by reviewing the Chanel beauty exclusives, because they received the least amount of press. This collection wasn't pictured in the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale catalog, and I've heard that some Nordstroms only received half a dozen or so of each item.

The Chanel Rives 35 eye quad, originally available only in Asia as part of this spring's Fleur de Lotus collection, is the unloved stepchild of the collection. It hasn't generated much buzz, even among Chanel fans.

Rives features four shades of brown and a white. Even die-hard Chanel fanatics are probably wondering whether it would be worth it to buy Yet Another Chanel Neutral Eye Quad. Are these colors unique and special enough to justify Chanel's ridiculous prices?

I'm a huge fan of neutral eye shadows--I really prefer them for those of us past our first youth. They're universally flattering, and they can be light and subtle or dark and dramatic.  As a result, I've accumulated a scary number of neutral Chanel quads.

Poppy's Chanel eye quads.

I hate to say this, but I find the Rives quad unique. Some of the Chanel neutral shades are a bit murky (Prèlude and Enigma, I'm looking at you) but the shades in Rives are sheer, straightforward browns with a beautiful shimmer and without a hint of plum or gray. I think they'd work with every eye color and skin tone, whether your complexion was warm, neutral, or cool.

As with most Chanel quads, pigment varies from shade to shade. In general, the finish is sheer and the shades are blendable. The lighter shades are meant to be used as a wash and don't leave a lot of pigment. The white looks chalky in the pan, but applies as a wash of sheer, shimmery lightness. The darkest shade is designed to be used as a liner and is much more heavily pigmented.

With makeup fanatics, it's a cliche that the applicators that come packaged with eye shadow and blushes are complete garbage, and should be immediately pitched. This is especially true of sponge-tipped applicators. And it's true that the small, hard black sponge-tipped applicators that come in American Chanel quads are horrible.

However, I got my best results applying these shadows with the plush sponge-tipped applicators they came with. I use a silicone-based concealer as a primer, and I find that other, very pigmented shadows (e.g., Urban Decay or MAC) grab the primer so hard that they become difficult to blend. Not these shadows. They're so soft, it's like working with confectioner's sugar. They blended beautifully when I applied them onto primed eyelids with the sponge-tipped applicators.

Swatches

Here they are in the early morning light. I applied concealer first. For the left four stripes, I used a brush to apply. I started with the lightest shade and worked my way up to the darkest. Unfortunately, the white shade doesn't show at all. You can only see a hint of the shimmer.

Chanel Rives 35 quad, applied over primer (left) with a brush, and (right) with the sponge-tipped applicator

The four stripes on the right are swatched fairly heavily with the sponge-tip. As you can see, the white shade shows up much better.

Here's the quad, outdoors in morning light. The sun has finally come out enough to reveal some of the shimmer.

In this picture, I swatched all four shades on the paper, so again, it's impossible to see the white.

It's rare that I use all four shades in a quad, but these shades work beautifully together.

To buy, or not to buy

Rives is much prettier, less murky, and works better with my fair skin and hazel eyes than either Prèlude, Enigma, or Dunes. This quad is definitely worth a buy--if you're comfortable paying $58 for four eye shadows, and don't, like some people I know, already own 5,000 shades of brown eye shadow.

I don't know whether these are going to sell out, so if you're interested, call Nordstrom. The pre-sale started July 11th; the sale officially starts July 20th and ends August 6th.

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Elsewhere:


The entire Fleur de Lotus collection is previewed on Rouge Deluxe.


Another review, from a Singapore beauty blogger.

I've just invented a new acronym, NASII, which stands for Nordstrom Anniversary Sale induced insanity

OK, it doesn't look like much--NASII--but it's pronounced nay-see to rhyme with crazy, which is pretty much how I acted.

So let me get you up to speed.

First of all, until July 20th, the Anniversary Sale is only available to Nordstrom card holders. You can't even access that section of their website without typing in the last four digits of your Nordstrom credit card number.

I wanted to grab some pictures and maybe find out whether Nordstrom was actually offering Chanel's formerly-exclusive-to-Asia Fleur de Lotus collection, so I dug through my box of rarely-used credit cards, looking for my Nordstrom card. And I couldn't find it.

Because I was a makeup hoor* on a mission, I called customer service, where I was told that they had no record of my having a card. So I applied for a new one.

Then, after a visit to the gym, where my daughter hummed a little hum and pedaled 20 miles on a stationary bike without breaking a sweat and I was reduced to a limp, sweaty, incoherent rag by my personal trainer, we cleaned up our act, fueled ourselves with Mocha smoothies (caffeine and protein FTW!) and headed to the Nordstrom at Old Orchard mall.

Where I promptly lost. my. mind. I've shopped the Anniversary Sale online, but this scene was beyond exciting. It was electric. Not ridiculously crowded, and with lots of sales associates ready and willing to help out. But with sections of the store draped off as seductive little private shopping enclaves, it's very easy to lose it.

Don't believe me? Well, see these collections?

Dior

Chanel

Bobbi Brown

I bought every single item.

And then escaped to the relative sanity of the shoe department. And yes, I understand the irony of calling the shoe department of the department store that sells more shoes than any other--during a sale where merchandise is marked down 30 percent--sane.

I don't know about you, but I blame my trainer.

Swatches and reviews to come. 


* Deliberately misspelled in a feeble attempt to clean up my act.

Ten Things

Blackbird posted recently about ten things that have been good at the office. I'm coming down with something, so at the moment, my office is my king sized bed--but I have 10 good things to tell you about:

1. On the personal front, in the last two weeks, I've survived: a trip to the dentist, two school concerts, three annual meetings, three non-annual meeting-related ladies' luncheons, a Girl Scout's Cadet's flying up ceremony, an engagement party, and Mother's Day. Internet, that is a LOT of irreproachably ladylike behavior from the somewhat loud, obnoxious, and irreverent likes of me.

2. Jen Lancaster's latest book, My Fair Lazy, came out on May 5, and it's already a best-seller. I appear as a character in this book, which means I'm even more famous than I was a month ago. You'll be glad to hear that fame hasn't made some kind of monster of me. I'm pretty humble about the whole thing. But not so humble that I wouldn't want to make sure that the internet realizes Jen didn't actually make me up.

3. Physician's Formula matte eyeshadow quads are rocking my world. They're dirt cheap and the quality is excellent. They're so soft, subtle, blendable, and fun to play with that I'm doing a full-on three-shades-of-eyeshadow dealio every day--even when the only time I see another human being is when I'm wheeling out the recycling bin.

4. Milani has a retractable lip pencil that has stolen the crown from my previous faves, Chanel Nude and Prestige Angora. It's creamier, more of a my-lips-but-better-shade, and I don't have to sharpen it. Mind you, I don't wear it as a liner. I use it all over my lips as a base for gloss. And at $3.49, it's cheap, cheap, cheap.

5. I snagged this pair of Fly London purple Mary Janes on Amazon for something like $50. They are so comfortable! Who cares if my daughter asked me why I always wear such silly shoes? And anyway, it could have been worse. I could have clicked over to Gravity Pope and bought these:

so really, I don't know what her problem is.

6. The Garnier Nutritioniste moisturizer that I love so much that I'm on my fourth bottle? And was afraid had been discontinued? Has NOT been discontinued. The packaging was re-designed. I snagged five bottles of the old design for $2.49 each. (Although the shipping costs were a heinous $14.50.)

7. Lancome's Divine Lasting Curves curling mascara actually works. It is perfect for keeping in my makeup bag, because who wants to carry around an eyelash curler? (This is a rhetorical question being asked by the woman who found three eyelash curlers in her bag the last time she cleaned it out.)

8. Lancome also has an eyeshadow that I got recently as a GWP and just adore. So should you if you have hazel//green eyes. The shade is  called Designer. It's a olive green shade with lots of shimmer--but it's incredibly subtle. I know I'm a strong advocate of a basic, neutral eye shadow, but this stuff goes on sheer and is much more subtle than it looks.

9. Kari at Fabulous Over Forty has called my attention to a root touch-up product that comes packaged like a marker pen. I can't wait to head to Ulta to try it. This sounds like a perfect product for those EEK MY ROOTS ARE SHOWING days.

10. I've accumulated a bunch of neutral eyeshadow quads to tell you about soon. I promise. (When I'm not lying here on my bed of pain, that is.) And some of them are really nice!