L'Oreal Love

A couple of weeks ago, I braved the frozen New York wasteland to attend the launch of L’Oreal’s spring/summer 2011 collections. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? WELL IT WAS. Honestly, it was amazing. The event took place at the Andaz on Fifth Avenue: a gorgeous, gorgeous hotel created to make people happy. This was achieved primarily through liberal application of booze and food. Yum.

Unfortunately booze and food does not guarantee great results from good products. Happily, the name L’Oreal apparently does. In all honesty, it’s never been a brand that’s front of mind for me but when I delved into my make up bag while trying to make myself decent for the event (you should see the girls at these things out here) I found myself using Voluminous Millionize Mascara, my trusty True Match pressed powder and my newest favourite thing ever, Infallible Never Fail lip colour in Beyonce Red. No, really. It’s taken becoming a redhead to give me the balls to start wearing red lipstick and this bad boy Does Not Move. So, with a face smothered in L’Oreal products I didn’t realise I already loved, I went to see what I could find.

The first big thing they wanted to tell us about was a foam new hair colour. At first I was a wee bit confused. Colour Mousse was an epic part of my teenage years but here they were, telling me that this was a brand new breakthrough. Turns out they’re right, this new product is permanent as opposed to Wella’s wonderful paint-the-bathroom temporary paintbox colours of my youth. Well, temporary on my hair, permanent on my mum’s bathroom carpet (sorry mum).

After that, we moved into a new smoothing hair system, EverSleek, that claims to smooth frizzy hair without the use of parabens, silicone and all the usual baddies. I’ve passed this over to someone who actually suffers the frizzies and will be reporting back soon. Early indications suggest it’s good shit.

And finally we entered my happy place. Make up. First up, a fab new Magic Smooth ‘souffle’ foundation which, HURRAH, comes in a shade pale enough for my deathly pallor. I’ve been adding it into rotation for the last week or so and I have to say, I quite like it. I’m usually a bit of a snob about foundations but this is nice. The texture really is beautiful and the medium coverage is pretty even and nice. Win one for L’Oreal. After that, we looked at the new addition to the Double Extend mascara range. I love the original so this new version, with eye colour enhancing pigments (aka sparkly bits) was another win for me. I've never really been sold on coloured mascaras but this is pretty subtle. And you know, sparkly.

The final product was the new Infallible Le Rouge, a traditional lipstick style product rather than a paint on stain. Now, just like Ms Keren in the previous post, I've always struggled with lipsticks. I'm a gloss girl, a tinted balm preferably so lipstick is a struggle for me. The Beyonce Red Infallible Never Fail was such a big deal, my friends thought it was a turning 30 crisis. Well, no more because O to the M to the G, this lipstick is amazing. It's not quite as long lasting as the Never Fail but it is sort of wonderful. Less drying than other long wear colours, tons of pigment and here in the US, only $9.99.
Amaze.

So in summary - L'Oreal* = good. Snow = bad. Moving house = bloody awful.

*I also want to say, the lovely ladies of L'Oreal totally gave me a memory stick with images for all these products on it but I lost it mid-move. When I find it, I'll repost.
Sorry L'Oreal but you know, excellent work.