MAC Haul + an unexpected surprise

By the looks of my last post you would have thought that I had sworn off make-up purchases until my trip to California next week. Well, I a recent influx of money into my bank account has had me itching to go shopping, and since I'm not patient enough to wait a full week until my trip I figured I'd hit up the local MAC counter to see what goodies I could bring home.

Nothing spectacular, although I did really like their latest collection To The Beach, which was basically sold-out by the time I came to check it out. I ended up purchasing five items—three of which are brushes, and two are makeup products. The first is a mineralize skin finish that I let myself get talked into buying, so I will skip that. Now, on to the last remaining purchase. Drum roll please...

Studio Moisture Tint! I've been on the tinted moisturizer bandwagon for about six months now and so far I've had no complaints. As I've gotten older my skin has "mellowed out," if you will, and I've found that I haven't needed a full-on foundation for quite some time.

Previous to this purchase I had been using Smashbox's Sheer Focus Tinted Moisturizer (shade: light) with mixed feelings. Sure it evened out my skin-tone, but I feel like it didn't do much else. I also felt that it disappeared from my face quicker than I would like, even after setting with MAC Blot Powder.

After a lot of googling I noticed several brands kept popping up—Laura Mercier, Shiseido, Korres and Stila seem to sell the most popular tinted moisturizers at the moment, but on a whim I thought I would check to see what MAC had to offer.

Enter Studio Moisture Tint

I was a bit surprised to see what a great rating the Studio Moisture Tint (SMT from here on out) received on makeupalley.com. While MAC is one of, if not the best brands in make-up it hasn't exactly wowed many people (myself included) with their skincare line—which is what SMT is classified under on the MAC website.

After I read many of the reviews on Makeup Alley I figured I would pop on over to MAC to have a look myself, and I wasn't disappointed. The woman who helped me at MAC determined the shade that suited me best was "medium dark." After applying the SMT to my the area around my jawline I immediately noticed how much better the coverage was compared to the Smashbox TM that I had been using over the last six months. Not only was the coverage better, but the color suited me perfectly.

Sold!

Update: August 10th


I love, LOVE, love this tinted moisturizer. It has been my go-to product just about every day since I bought it in June. Although I would still like to experiment with a couple other brands I believe know this is will be a repurchase. Definitely two enthusiastic thumbs up!

New Beginnings

The first post on anyone's blog can be a daunting task. Where exactly do you start, anyway? I created this blog back in November of 2008 (on Thanksgiving for you Americans who are reading), and I'm ashamed to say that yes, this is my first blog post—a year and a half later. It's not that I haven't had anything to talk about. On the contrary, I am always bitching looking for ways to express my feelings, views and opinions to anyone that can listen. Unfortunately for me I tend to lean on the introverted side of life and always viewed blogging with a leery eye. The truth is I have tried blogging on and off for over five years now (I've even managed to save some blog posts from my MySpace days) and I just never stuck with it. I guess the feeling of over-sharing myself with potentially millions of strangers sort of freaked me out.

I am also habitually lazy.

So I suppose I should introduce myself. Well, I'm a self-proclaimed beauty junkie and fashion addict who, on occasion (I told you, habitually lazy), writes for www.runwaypassport.com. Originally I am from Southern California but I now reside in the frigid (and I'm not just referring to the weather) and minimalist city of Stockholm, Sweden—where I can happily wear black year-round and not get strange sideways glances from people walking down the street.

Most of my posts here will be dedicated to fashion, beauty and the pursuit of all things fabulous. Did I really just write that? I'm already making myself cringe and I haven't even finished my first post.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what you read here and that this will become an open-forum for people to comment on my posts and share their passion, disgust, love, hate, WHATEVER!

Thanks for your time.

XO,

Andie