Canadian Beauty

This collection is large, with a lot of new releases which I’ll be reviewing later, so for now, here’s what’s in the entire Dior 2014 spring colour collection. There are new polishes, a new shade of Lip Glow, new makeup primers, an eyeshadow primer and matte cream shadows. The colour palette is similar to Sophia Coppola’s movie Marie Antoinette – remember the cake scene/macaron/shoe scene? These are all the same colours: pale blues, pinks, greens, and golds all of which we’re going to be seeing lots of from other brands as well. The trick will be to find shades that look good on your own skin tone.

Dior’s popular Fusion Mono shadow, now comes in Matte shades ($32)… except for Nocturne, which is a matte base with silver glitter in it. These work so nicely for a daytime look, and even Nocturne makes for a wonderfully easy smokey eye. They suggest using it as a liner, but the fallout when I used an eyeliner brush was so bad, that I basically had to do my makeup over. With the number of cream eyeliners out there that work well, this doesn’t work well for that.
Shades are:

091 Nocturne: Black with silver glitter
121 Céleste: Lavender mauve (LE)
641 Fantaisie: Pale pink
761 Mirage: Chocolate taupe

The 5 shadow quint is called 234 Pastel Fontanges – with pastels it’s best to try on the colours before you buy, but the darkest shade is a beautiful taupe that would work well on many skin tons or as a crease shade when paired with the pastels.

The new colours of Dior Vernis ($26) are:

187 Perlé: Pearl frost (Limited Edition) – This is a top coat that has a shimmery matte effect. The shimmer is pink and blue which looks purplish from far.
204 Porcelaine: Cornflower blue (Limited Edition) – amazing colour
457 Bouquet: Soft peach (Limited Edition)
777 Bloom: Pure fuchsia (Limited Edition) – pass on this. If you like pinks, there’s a good chance you already own something like this.

I think it goes without saying that the Porcelaine is going to be the must-have shade from this collection.

The lipsticks and lip glosses are paired with the Bouquet and Bloom nail polishes, so you can have your lips and nails match.

Rouge Dior Lipstick ($36) colours are

531 Rose Crinoline: Coral
774 Allégresse: Fuchsia pink

While the Dior Addict Lip Gloss ($31) colours are

442 Pétillante: Peach
772 Exquise: Bold pink

Also worth checking our is a new coral version of the Dior Addict Lip Glow ($35) which is a sheer moisturizing gloss.

And premiering at Sephora is are two new primers from Dior – called Pore Minimizer and Glow Maximizer ($42 each). Both do a good job of helping makeup go on smoothly and stay put, but the Pore Minimizer is silicone-heavy, while the Glow Maximizer isn’t. As the name implies, the Glow Maximizer is a shimmery lotion, while the Pore Minimizer is a matte one. These will be available at Sephora on January 17th, and everywhere else on January 30th.

Finally, there’s Dior Backstage Prime, Dior’s answer to eyeshadow primers. It’s a matte tacky beige-coloured cream that is to be dabbed on to lids before applying eyeshadow. Just like most other primers, this one helps shadow stick to the lid, and colours show up brighter and more true. It really does work, but I did find that it was a little bit difficult to spread on the lid and dabbing motions were really the best way to apply it without too much tugging.

Check out the entire collection at Dior counters this month.

At this point, I have already tested out almost everything in the collection and am working through writing reviews and posting pictures, so if you want to know about something before heading to a counter, leave me a comment.