So, a little while ago, Urban Decay gave us a new shadow formula: stardust. Promising to be super sparkly with no fallout, I can tell you I was sure curious to try them! Well, as you can see, the two purples have found their ways into a dino's domain, and I've spent the past few days playing with them so I can give you my full thoughts.

Interested?

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Dude, with two new Viva Glam lipsticks hitting the stores, I couldn't not check them out! Plus, they're lustres, which just so happen to be one of my favourite MAC lipstick formula. If you don't know about MAC's Viva Glam campaign, you need to listen up: through the sale of Viva Glam products, they've raised over $150 million for people living with HIV/AIDS. Some companies may have a product that they give a percentage of the sale price to charity, or maybe even all the profit - but MAC takes this the step further by giving every cent of the sales price. That's something that truly grabs this dino's heart.

This latest campaign has the names of Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga attached to it, each with a shade named after them. These shades will be available for the next year, and I definitely recommend stocking up.

Nice touch having their signatures on the boxes and tubes, right? Right. So, swatches--!

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G'day all! It's been a sickly week here at Cosmetosaur headquarters. Boyfriend has been running a fever and is generally out of commission, and I'm sleeping like you wouldn't believe trying to fight off whatever he's got (I've put in a solid 20 hours in bed in the last day). Yeesh! Hopefully things clear up shortly. In the mean time, I figured I should finally start swatching my pigment collection for you all, and thought I'd start with what I personally think of as the worst set of pigments MAC has ever made!

Yes, I'm serious. These are the neon pigments MAC added to their PRO collection in 2008 or so, and they're pretty dreadful. Most are considered neither eye nor lip safe, and they're all quite chalky. These don't build up well, suck to blend and fade like whoa unless you use an ultra-sticky base. Gah! Actually, they rather remind me of using cheap water-activated water colour paint palettes intended for children.

Want more swatches?

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Mmm, eyeshadow. I love eyeshadow, dudes. Especially in fun colours! You know who makes shadows in fun colours? Make Up For Ever is one answer! And, today? I've got some swatches of the newest MUFE shadows to join my wee family to show you.

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Having heard and read many raves for Yves Saint Laurent's Rouge Volupte line of lipsticks, I knew I could only hold out so long before I finally captured one for my very own. At $34USD plus tax, this baby isn't just a lip colour - it's a bloody investment.

But the question is: is it worth it? Does it live up to the hype?

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As I promised at least one person out there, here are closeups of the shades in the expansion of MAC's permanent shadow line that I personally own:

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Morning everyone! How is your Wednesday going? I've just got a couple minutes, so I thought I'd show you the Urban Decay Afterglow blush I said in my last post about them I was waiting for. This one? Paranoid.

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Holy banana-pants, dude. I'm frigging loving MAC's latest addition to the permanent line up at free-standing stores. A mix of new shades, PRO shades and old limited-edition repromote action, it gives us eight vibrant colours to play with - and almost all of them are satins and mattes, score! Sorry these swatches are kind of shabby, but it was middle-of-the-mall-at-night photo or, well, none. I'll do better swatches for you of the few I have soon.

Some of these don't swatch incredibly well, but I imagine they'd apply much more smoothly with a brush. Some shadows I own swatch terribly, but work beautifully when blended out with a brush.

My top three picks from this collection for the average folk? Free to Be, Lucky Green and Winkle. All three are smooth and pigmented, and really quite lovely colours. I personally adore Sunny Spot, too. Beyond that, I'd love to have Atlantic Blue and Sunny Spot, but they don't seem to be as fool-proof as those first three. None of these are skips to me, but I would approach Goldenrod and Red Brick with caution, as they're harder to find everyday uses for, being more unusual colours. Additionally, they're all the trickier for the cool-skinned folks like myself, being so super warm.

Sorry this is a bit slap-dash, but I'm a bit shy on time this week. I'm work 8:30am to 10pm a couple days, eek! (including today) I'll do my best to keep getting stuff out to you all, but if a post goes astray here and there, you'll know why.

Dudes, I didn't give you lip swatches of the lip tars I've got! I didn't mean to leave you hanging. So, here I am to remedy the situation.

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Man, MAC sure seems to love their Shell Pearl beauty powder. Not that I'm complaining, but this is scheduled to be repromoted for the bajillionth time (that's an estimate) with Give Me Liberty of London this coming spring. I thought I'd offer my thoughts (and swatch action!) of this powder for anyone who hasn't yet seen it, and may be wondering about it given its pending repromote.

First off, what does one do with a beauty powder? Here's this large compact of powder and... what's the deal? A beauty powder serves different functions depending on the skintone and the pigmentation of the particular beauty powder in question. With less pigmented beauty powders, the lightest of skintones can use them as a soft blush, without any worry that there will be too much colour if the application is haphazard. On skintones for which it is too pale to be a blush, it can be used all over the face to brighten the complexion or buffed over a blush shade to soften it and diffuse the colour. The effect is really very pretty. If the beauty powder happens to be shimmery (some are, some aren't), it can also be used as a highlighter. More pigmented beauty powders can be used for a very natural flush of colour on many skintones, and can again be used to buff out blushes on those who actually have plenty of melanin in their skin.

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