Happy Birthday, Dear Lipstick!

We're celebrating the 125th birthday of a very old and pretty lady very dear to most of us: The lipstick!


While humans used to color their lips for 1000s of years the swivel-up sort of lippy was just invented 125 years ago and according to a TV reportage I watched yesterday it's the most popular makeup item sold worldwide.

So let's give high five to the lipstick and enjoy it in all colors of the rainbow =D

Shiseido Maquillage 5th Anniversary Powder Celebration

A Happy New Year to everyone! =D I hope you had a great start to the new year! Since the kids are not in school these days I am too busy to really sit on the net but today I could get some time off to blog finally!
 
Shiseido released a special product to celebrate Maquillage´s 5th birthday! Wow, so long since that brand debuted, I can remember that time very well... I was a bit sad as they discontinued PN, MQ´s predecessor, but now I think that MQ has developed into a really good makeup brand so I am actually not missing PN at all.

The Powder Celebration is hands-down the most expensive makeup product I have purchased so far. It´s definitely a luxurious splurge but I couldn´t resist it nonetheless =)

The Powder Celebration is a huge beautiful vintage-style glass jar including 7 shades of loose powder, a pressed mini powder compact, a spatula and a brush. Everything comes housed in a pretty and sturdy golden cardboard box.
The powders are housed in a plastic container so you can just remove it when you´ve used up the powders to put other things in the glass jar (I imagine jewellery or luxe chocolates would be a nice filling).

Anyway, you get 7 shades of powder, but there is twice as much of the white color compared to the other shades.

The powders are arranged in a wheel with a compartment in the middle to mix the colors according to your needs (just take a little with the included spoon). For me the space in the center is not nearly huge enough to swirl my face brush comfortably though so I prefer to mix the colors in the powder´s cover. 

The texture of these loose powders is excellent, super finely milled and soft with a delicate floral scent. The colors are super sheer so they are really rather finishing powders than color powders in my opinion even though MQ suggest using the powders as eyeshadows and blushes, too.

The colors included are white (pearl finish), light beige, purple (pearl finish), green (pearl finish), pink, orange and yellow.
My dear friend Iris from Rouge Deluxe wrote this excellent and very detailed post on the Powder Celebration, like how to use the colors so I highly suggest checking her post out here!

I think it´s good that they included more of the white powder as I usually mix it with the other colors. 
I love using a mix of the white and purple or green all over my face and highlight and a bit of the pink on my cheeks..even though it´s not really adding color it makes my complexion look fresher in an instant.
The yellow color is great for setting eye concealer as it´s so finely milled it won´t settle into fine lines and in the same time the light yellow tint is correcting the bluish tones of the skin under my eyes.
I don´t use the beige and orange colors much...the beige is a good finishing powder and the orange is also a good skin-freshener but I just like the pink a bit more for this purpose.

Overall excellent quality powders but the included amount of 32g (which sounds a lot at first) won´t last that long as actually a considerable amount per application is being used. I wish MQ would sell an affordable refill of these powders as they are the first loose powder product I actually like!

This set also contains a pressed version including all 7 colors blended together into 1 compact. The small plastic compact contains a measly 4 g which will not last really long but it´s handy to use it on the go and it gives a really gorgeous ethereal glow to the skin. The color is very sheer so this should suit most skin-tones as either a finishing powder or a highlighter.
The cute pattern is just a glitter overspray that will vanish after the first use.




The brush is of really nice quality albeit to small to be used as a face brush, its good for punctual application like on the cheeks or below eyes. 
The spoon is a cheapo plastic thing, not exactly elegant but it does the trick.

Now let´s talk about the price. To me the price is downright obscene despite being a limited edition and the fancy glass jar.
I mean around US$150 for some powder? Take a break! I was lucky not to pay more than retail plus shipping but still it hurts =P 


Anyway, it gets a rating of 4/5 as the quality is excellent but the price is too steep. They should have included some cooler stuff like lipstick or eyeshadows I think =P