Laura Mercier Signature Colour Essentials for Face, Eyes & Lips: Review and Swatches Part 1

During my holidays in London I did some beauty shopping. One of my purchases is this set of make-up products from Laura Mercier, and as the sales associate said, exclusively available for the department store John Lewis. I paid 50£ (63€/80$) for it.

It comes in a carton packaging with a photo of all the items, which I threw away right after purchasing to reduce my baggage. Plus there is an advice card which suggets a look you can create with the products.

I never used Laura Mercier before because it is rarely available in Germany and the prices are so high, e.g. the Tinted Moisturizer is 48€ which equals 62$, while it costs only 43$ (before tax) in the US. So this kit was a really nice way to explore some of her products. I really do love sets like this, because they are usually a good deal and further more you can try something you perhaps wouldn’t have bought on your own. I made the experience that many products I felt skeptical about turned out to be really interesting.

The set includes:

-        -   A foundation primer (30 ml/ 1 fl.oz.)

-          - An eye shadow (à 1.1 g/ 0.03 oz) and blush (3.6 g/ 0.13 oz) palette

o   “Morning Dew” (permanently available as single matte e/s)

o   “Primrose” (permanently available as single sateen e/s)

o   “Topaz” (permanently available as single luster e/s)

o   “Kir Royal” (permanently available as single sateen e/s)

o   Blush in “Vintage Pink”

-          - A Lip Glacé in “Sweetheart” (4.5 g/ 0.15 oz)

-          - A Caviar Stick in “Twilight” (1.64 g/ 0.05 oz)

-          - A Full Blown Mascara in "Black" (5.7 g/ 0.2 oz) 

-        -   An  All Over Eye Colour Brush

In the first part, I would like to review the Lip Glacé, the Caviar Stick, the mascara and the brush. In the second part the primer as well as the palette will follow. 

The Lip Glacé was one (out of two) of my surprise products in this set. It doesn’t feel like a conventional lip gloss at all. It is more like a lip balm and I was totally surprised that a lip gloss could feel so nice and even nurturing. I’m not a big fan of lip glosses because my hair tends to stick on my mouth. Therefore I don’t own many glosses but if I decide to use them I usually choose one on days I band my hair. In addition I think that lip stick looks more chic and grown-up. So yes, it does feel surprisingly better on lips but in the end, my hair can stick on it. Now to the color: in the tube it appears like a soft pink with champagne sheen but on my lips it looks almost like a clear gloss. I didn’t check out the other colors in the lip glace range but if every color would be that sheer I guess you don’t have to own more than one.

Lip Glacé in "Sweetheart" swatched on NW25-skin (different lighting)

The second surprise product was the Caviar Stick. It comes in the color “Twilight”, which is a grayish taupe. It has some small silver and charcoal sparkles. According to the little information card which was included these sticks are meant to be used as an eye lining color. For that purpose I found it a little bit inconvenient as it is pretty big, but I managed to use it as a liner near to my upper lashes. According to Laura Mercier’s homepage it is meant to serve as eye liner and shadow. Anyway, the color payoff is really good and it is gentle in application, meaning you don’t have to rub several times over your eye lid to pack some color on. Until now I only used it as a liner and it works really well. The color stays where you put it and I couldn’t experience any creasing, which is always my fear with cream products.

Caviar Stick in "Twilight" swatched on NW25-skin

Application is possible as a thin line or a thicker one to serve as a shadow

I was thinking I don't need another mascara when I bought the set. I have a bunch of sample sized mascara and it’s been approximately one year that I had to buy a full size mascara. But I actually like the mascara. Keeping that in mind that I don’t have high expectations in mascara. This dramatic false lashes look won’t be achieved by mascara, or why do you think they still sell false lashes like hell? For me mascara should deliver some volume and curling, but I like to support the effect by dark eye lining. My demand is that it is tear-proof as I have a huge problem with watering eyes as soon as there blows a little bit of wind. And that is the thing I like about this mascara: it can stand some tears and it delivers some volume, curling and even a little bit of lengthening, without applying mascara in *exaggerated* ten coats. I really appreciate the generosity of the sample size (5.7 g/ 0.2 oz) which would be almost a full size of other brands.

The eye shadow brush is, as the sales associate claimed, a full size brush which has only a shorter handle. The hair is really soft and feels nice on the lids. Due to its dimension it is used best for applying base colors all over the lids, as the brush’s name suggests. I experienced no shedding yet. 

This far I'm very happy with my purchase. The next blog post will be about the rest of the set and I will share my overall opinion.