This past August I began to wear makeup again on a daily basis, mainly inspired by a sudden addiction to YouTube beauty tutorials. While I had enough makeup already to sustain daily use, I couldn't help but start buying more!! I delved into drugstore brands, exploring L'Oreal HIP Duos and Physicians Formula baked eyeshadow trios. Then, I got the tweet and the 411 on the new
Prescriptives fall makeup line....literally, it was a "tweet" on Twitter from
beauty411, a blog that has quickly become one of my most useful beauty reads.
I have always used Prescriptives. I got "color printed" a million years ago (the process that determines to which of 4 skintone families one belongs; I'm a blue-red, by the way), and this brand saved me from makeup disaster. I have been wearing Prescriptives foundations ever since.
The Prescriptives method is fool-proof, since you get a foundation and powder that matches your skintone perfectly. You create classic and neutral looks by sticking to your color family for eyes, lips, and cheeks, but get more dramatic looks by venturing into the opposite color family. In addition, Prescriptives comes out with awesome seasonal offerings.
I have always used blue-red blushers, lipsticks, and eyeshadows, mixed in with a liberal dose of red (blue-red and red making up the cool colors), and an occasional yellow-orange for more drama.
So, then, when I got the tweet with information on the new collection, I sped over to my neighborhood Nordstrom's. This fall's release is called "Well-Suited" because it is inspired by menswear. Aptly, the compacts have a cute design mimicking pinstripes and pearls. I picked up the "cool" and "neutral" eyeshadow quints, but unfortunately, the store did not have a Prescriptives representative working there to show me the new eyeshadows and lipsticks, not to mention the intriguingly pink finishing powder. I'll have to catch the rep at a Prescriptives counter at a mall further away to find out more, not to mention be shown some looks with the quints I got.
Each quint features four eyeshadows with one shadow for lining and defining.
The Prescriptives site includes a
how-to for the cool palette of the Well-Suited Collection. I'd like to check out the Posh Nude lipstick, myself. The cool shadow quint features Shell, Velour, Pinstripe, Cassis, and Blackberry.
Swatches made using my finger, trying to catch the light at different angles, top three colors are Shell, Velour, and Pinstripe (a nice gray!), bottom two are Cassis and Blackberry, the latter being the liner.
The neutral quint features a mix of shadows from both the cool and warm shadow families. I hadn't seen a neutral palette from Prescriptives before, so I was intrigued. The shadows are: Champagne, Clove, Sultry, Storm, and Jet. The
how-to on the website tells you how to put the neutral look together. I am not sure, to tell the truth, what the point of a neutral palette is, since one's own color family would be the neutral palette for an individual. I obviously need to find a Prescriptives rep and get the scoop on the company's current thinking.
And some swatches, this time trying to mimick the shape of the shadows in the compact: l-r Champagne, Clove, Sultry, Storm, and Jet.
I just realized that I have a vein or something sticking out on my hand. Gross! That is not always there.
I didn't buy the warm quint, which contains Silk, Bean, Olive, Moss, and Espresso eye colors, since I have a lot of new eyeshadows already in what I consider dramatic colors for me.
The palettes are easy to open and include mirrors. Keeping with the collection's theme, the looks are very classic---nothing crazy-trendy. Of course, if one wants different sets of shadows than these, no problem! Just put together your own compact by buying shadows as singles and putting them in a Prescriptives quad compact. You can do all four shadows or combine a couple of shadows with a blusher.
These compacts are retailing for $40 (not a bad deal at $8 a shadow if, like me, you balk at that amount) at Prescriptives.com or your local Prescriptives counter.
