Laura Mercier Silk creme foundation & Eye and cheek palette review

I thought I lost my camera a few days ago and I totally freaked out and was super depressed and felt so lost... How can I blog now without my camera omg?!!?

But to my relief my friend end up finding it... it's a long winded story but basically the whole thing made me realise that.. when you've lost something (whether it's a person or an item) that's when you really learn to appreciate it/them. So if you were lucky and was given a second chance you should really be grateful and start appreciating that item or person you thought you might have lost. 

I guess we only really appreciate something when it's gone and it's too late. I guess that's human nature to just take things we have at the moment for granted right? I guess sometimes we should stop and just think and appreciate the people around us and the things we have.

Can't believe losing a freaking camera for 2 days made me think all these sentimental stuff... but boy I was REALLY upset for those two days =.= I didn't even end up going out with my friends and just moped around at home for two days -__- and now I feel I was given and second chance so omg I'm never letting my camera out of my sight again!! >___<

Ok onto my post~~ Here's a first impression review of my new Laura Mercier products

Silk creme foundation in Ivory Beige and their Limited edition Eye and Cheek palette

I like to say it's a first impression review because this is what I think of the products after using it the first time. I might change my mind about anything I say in this review after more uses of the product but for now this is what I think...

This is the first time I've ever purchased/used Laura Mercier products and I kind of felt like I was cheated into buying them. I was originally interested in the Laura Mercier tinted moisturiser because I wanted to buy a tinted moisturiser and I was doing my research online and the most popular tinted moisturiser was by Laura Mercier.

So I went to the LM counter at David Jones to get some samples and omg the product was quite expensive than predicted! It was around 80aud (I forgot the exact price). The SA was super nice and said that the National makeup artist for LM is coming in two weeks and he's super talented. I can book a time with him where he colour matches me and helps me do my makeup and at the same time I can learn more about what eyeshadow colour suits me, what foundation colour I am etc. The catch is there's a booking fee of 40aud and I can claim it back later in products.

Sounds pretty good right? Since I was planning to get the tinted moisturiser I thought why not get a free makeup done and get some tips from the talented National makeup artist of Laura Mercier?

LM counter at David Jones

The eye and cheek palette he used on me which I bought later

National makeup artist doing my makeup

The finished result...

My honest opinion? He sucked!!! The SAs was all like omggg looks so good! Wow that colour suits you!! ooo ahhhh etc and I was thinking...wtf? Are you serious?!?! I look like a tranny!!

I don't know if it's because he was actually bad or it's because he just did a half assed job because he's not getting paid for it (I think?)... I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he just did a half assed job and he could've done better...

Because if I paid him to do my makeup and it turned out like this I would have been super pissed and would have asked for a refund!

I mean, he didn't even draw my eyebrows, or highlight and contour my face at all!! He did a HORRIBLE job with concealing my under eye. He only put eyeliner on the inner rim of my eyes which looked like I had no eyeliner and I had to ask him to put more for me. Hardly put any mascara on, not to mention didn't even bother to curl my lashes and when I asked him about highlighting and contouring he said: ohh you don't need it!!

........

 I was appalled... I felt so cheated, I felt he probably thinks I know nothing about makeup and just did some half assed job to make my face look different so I can be satisfied

And when I was about to choose my product the SA was like oh.. you have to choose two items. I was like .... what?! I don't remember anything about choosing two items! Apparently she told me on the day that I booked... and 90% of LM's products are around $80-90 unless I buy a lipstick or lipgloss which is around $40-50 which is still super expensive!

So in the end I bought the silk creme foundation which they are quite famous for and the eye and cheek palette which is a limited edition. It's really worth it because it's only around $70 something (forgot exact price) for two cheek colours and four eye colours when normally it cost around 60-70 just for one eye shadow colour or cheek colour.

I didn't end up buying the tinted moisturiser because I found it was really oily and left my hands feeling really oily and gross and not like an actual moisturiser at all. The whole point of getting a tinted moisturiser was so I can get a bit of coverage when putting on my moisturiser but that I didn't have to go wash my hands after.

Anyway... here's some interesting tips and information I got from the makeup artist so my time was not completely wasted...

• He lives in Melbourne so the Asian market is huge there. He says Indonesians and Koreans are the best customers because they don't bargain.
• He charges $150 for trial and depending how many people book him for the day his price vary between $90-$120 per person. (Using all Laura Mercier Products)
• He's from Paris so all the Asians love to hire him to "show off" that their makeup artist is French... (lol...typical arrogant French man)
• The real money is in hair styling. If you do a crash course on hair styling and combine that with freelance makeup, you will earn a lot of money!
• Never reduce your prices, don't give in to bartering. People will be happy to pay for the prices you set if they believe you are worth the price. Reducing your price is like reducing your worth as a makeup artist.

Onto the review!

 Laura Mercier Limited Edition Eye and Cheek Palette

 

The palace pink is more of a highlighter even though it's labelled as a "cheek colour", you will see why in the swatches later.

Swatches on a tissue paper

Swatches on skin

Even though the palace pink turns out pale pink on the tissue paper but on skin it just have subtle gold shimmers. So this definitely will not work as a blush but instead, I think it's a great highlighter. The gold shimmers catches the light perfectly on those places you want to highlight and I think I can use this now instead of buying the MAC Mineralise Skinfinish.

Golden Sands, Rare Taupe and Regal Violet on the lids

Lavender silk along the bottom of the eyes

Persian rose as the blush, palace pink as the highlighter

(See full face photo below)

The good: Great colour combination! I'm not very familiar with LM products but apparently these colours are only available with the Limited edition palette and you can't actually buy them separately! 

I'm not crazy about the packaging but I like the magnetic clasp and the mirror.

The bad: Nothing so far

Conclusion: 

I quite like this palette. I don't have anything similar in my eyeshadow collection and I really like the regal violet and the rare taupe colour. I also quite like the Persian rose blush which reminds me of orgasm by NARS or Peaches by MAC. It has that pretty deep peach tone. In terms of pigmentation I would say medium. I need to use this product more to comment accurately on that. Also ease of blending I can't really comment either till more uses of this product. But so far I quite like it ^__^

 Laura Mercier Silk Creme Foundation in Ivory Beige

It looks quite dark on the back of the hand, this little bit was enough to cover my whole face

And here is what it looks like with the product on my face

Note: I did NOT photoshop these photos at all because I want to show you the true coverage of the foundation, hence you can still see some puffiness under my eye because I didn't use any concealer

Before going out: 6pm

Using the exact same eyeshadow, blush and foundation I reckon I did a MUCH better job on my makeup than the "National" Laura Mercier makeup >__<

At home: 1.30am (Wearing my bath robe lol)

The good: Great coverage, makes my face look flawless and airbrushed! Stayed on well, still looked great after 7 hours. A little bit of product can cover the entire face

The bad: Pricey! Around $80 something for such a small tube

Ugly packaging!

 Conclusion: 

I quite like the silk creme foundation! When I look back on the photos from that day I felt my face looked really flawless and airbrushed! I might not even buy the MAC studio fix foundation now!

And that's the end of my review! Hope you found it useful! I'll be announcing the winner of the Cosme Eyes giveaway in my next post!! Last day to enter!

PS I just had a look at the LM official website and I think all the prices on the website are the prices of LM in the US... It's like half the price of LM products sold in Australia...FOL!!

But I guess it's like that for all international brands in Australia...Everything in the US is so much cheaper, especially now the AUD is so strong... so fellow US readers.. you guys are SO LUCKY!! >___<