Hey Everyone!
Like many of you, The Body Shop and I go way back. I grew up in an American International school and The Body Shop’s strawberry lip balm was a fad item amongst my 12 year old peers. At that time, it was the in-thing, along with the addidas superstar shoes with the three stripes and acting like a ditz. Now, the brow and liner kit has been one of my favourite products and I happen to love the scents especially Passion fruit, Grapefruit and Mango of their well-know body butters. I am also in full support of The Body Shop’s goal and morals of cruelty free and environmentally friendly products.
So when they contacted me about their Brush with Fashion Limited Edition Makeup Collection, I was happy to be given a chance to furthur experience the makeup line from The Body Shop.
So what’s this “Brush With Fashion” Deal?
Simple. For Spring 2011, The Body Shop collaborated with the London College of Fashion to produce a makeup line that is fashion forward and incorporated built in brushes. It also has Community Fair Trade ingredients and speaks portability, style and convenience.
In a nutshell from the press release:
“Ann Massal, International Brand and Innovation Director, The Body Shop, comments, “In the first of an exciting series of partnerships with the world of fashion, The Body Shop has joined forces with London College of Fashion. Our new Limited edition “Brush with Fashion” Spring Make-Up collection is a true collaboration. The Body Shop has integrated award-winning cruetly free brush technology and ethically sourced ingredients into its makeup products. London College of Fashion has created a truly covetable packaging design. Our expertise in colour has provided the perfect Spring Shade palette; their makeup artists have created the catwalk-inspired looks.”
Cool enough, the packaging was selected from a student competion and won by Katarina Voloder, a German 21 year old BA fashion illustration undergraduate. She included sketches of an eye, lips , brush and included splashes of colour to convey the shades of the collection. From Katarina herself, she states “for this project, I only had one word on my mind: BRUSH. This led me to create a brush-stroke motif, which allowed me to keep a simplicity to the design whilst enabling it to stand out,”. The Body Shop chose her design because it was fierce and fashion forward to represent their “cutting-edge” makeup.
Ingredients wise – The Body Shop has incorporated community fair trade ingredients like marula oil from Namibia which are acquired through The Body Shop’s unique Community fair trade programme that has actually been around for 23 years already.
So now that we have a background about what this collection is all about, let’s get to the haul shall we?
1. “Brush with Fashion” Illuminating Face Base – S$29.90
Packed with apricot pigments, light diffusing pearls and mica to create a soft-focus effect, this is a brush on primer. You would apply this before your foundation and after your sunscreen. It really reminds me of the Rimmel Fix & Perfect primer – same orange looking tint that blends seamlessly and colorlessly – and it gives a soft feel to your skin after. The only thing I’m a little worried about is a bit of a yellow tint but because it blends colorlessly, I shouldn’t be concerned. All you have to do to work this thing is to twist, it clicks, and the product comes out!
It’s pretty easy to apply but I’m not used to applying foundations with a click on brush. Don’t mistake this for a tinted moisturiser though. Again, it blends colorless-ly.
2. A La Mode Eyeshadow Quad – S$39.90
The A La Mode quad features a smoky color palette that’s fun and flirty for spring. Including a silver, white, black and pink, The Body Shop boasts that the colors complement each other for a catwalk worthy look. The quad also includes a pencil liner and a synthetic shadow brush which I think is pretty convenient because that’s basically all you really need to create that eye-look, minus the mascara.
The packaging is cute too. I’d prefer though that the background was not white but a more intense color, especially since this Spring is going bold in beauty trends.
The shadows are surprisingly highly pigmented and have great texture. See, you don’t actually have to pay too much for quality. This palette includes three frosts and a matte to smoke things up.
3. Boho Beauty Eyeshadow Quad – S$39.90
This has a more neutral palette and I find the apricot orange shadow a unique addition to the quad. I haven’t seen anything like this color and I’m looking forward to seeing how I can integrate it into my everyday looks. I don’t know how I would look like with orange eye-shadow actually. Again, this quad comes with a this time brown instead of black eye-liner and a synthetic brush to apply the shadows.
In contrast to the last palette, all the shadows in boho beauty feature matte shadows. The quality is the same – pigmented and true to color even without a primer.
4. Hi – Shine Lip Treatment (Pink Cream) – $18.90
These lip glosses smell so good! They smell like the passionfruit scent from The Body Shop which of course is my all time favourite scent from there. Highly pleased with the smell. However, I am not at all a lipgloss fan. I barely wear it because it’s sticky and it sort of ruins my day. That being said, I can’t place too much judgement on these glosses. They are however very similar to NARS lipglosses. You can feel them but they aren’t sticky but rather smooth.
Although the color is Pink Cream – in the bottle, it’s more a darker beige I reckon. Nonethelss, on the lips, it’s quite transparent and clear. So much for pigmentation.
5. Hi-Shine Lip Treatment (Juicy Peach) – S$18.90
Again, the same consistency and texture as the latter. I do like the brush applicator as I’m not a fan of the angled sponge that most glosses carry. I feel it’s alot easier to brush on the gloss and the small size of these brushes make gloss application much easier and precise.
As with pink creme, there’s not much pigmentation at all. I can’t tell the difference between the two swatches either. Both also smell the same.
6. Tailored Cheek Tint ($19.90)
I have never been a fan of cheek tints. I always end up looking like a clown or I miss blending a patch and it becomes all sticky and it gets everywhere, yuck. So I don’t know if I’ll like this tint actually. Under no circumstances do I think that this is the appropriate brush for the cheek tint. The gel turns pink very, very quickly, even on the brush so if you were to apply it on your cheeks straight off (like you’re apparently supposed to) then you have to be speedy Gonzalez or you will look like you just got scratched by a mad monkey. Nonethelss, this is very similar to the Smashbox O-glow in technology and texture. It has a very silicon smooth consistency especially when applied.
It’s a pretty fuschia pink but I suggest practicing first before you do this at 7 AM in the morning in prep for work. If you do, I sincerely hope you get to work in time.
Here are the product snippets from the press release:
and here as well:
My Initial Thoughts:
I would say we have a pretty good set of products here. I’m impressed with the shadow quads and the high pigmentation and very decent texture of the eye-shadows. I don’t know about the color combinations just yet because I’m a bit turned off by the apricot but I guess we’ll see. The packaging is cute but I reckon a more fashion forward package would be bolder in color. We’ll see how this plays out in the next few days.
That being said, this collection launches in Singapore on Feb. 15, 2011 so look out for it and do your own swatching at the store. You never know, you might just find your next spring makeup favourite.
What do you think about the collection?
Love,
Roseanne