I'll admit a nagging, ghostly urge to wear neutrals. It comes and goes but I should just, once and for all, deal with the fact that they don't really work with my particular suite of facial blessings. My face just sort of eats them, like they were all the carbs on All The Carbs Friday. It's a game nobody wins. But enough about me. There are plenty of bitches out there who look hott shit in warm toffee or dust pink. This review is for you people. That green polish is Zoya Veruschka, just FYI. Much excite. Very recommend. | Pepper (smaller Amuse Bouche version) reminded me of MAC Whirl in that it inhabits the same clade of demure, somewhat austere stony mauve-pinks. (Leather-pink is a phrase that springs to mind but I don't know how useful that is to you.) I sent Whirl on to someone more deserving since it was just slightly too cool and flinty on me and never really made it out of the starting gate. However, shuffling through the archive pics revealed that Whirl is quite a bit darker and that something like MAC Riri Bad Girl (LE) is intermediary between them. I don't have anything else much like it. That's because I usually move these shades on after initially gritting my teeth and trying to be all mature in my choices and shit. The flatness, the tastefulness of them etc. starts getting on my tits and I divest. Not so with Pepper. Why? Well, it fits snugly into that incredibly narrow niche of cool, lighter neutrals that I can work with, and wearing it out today prompted me to marvel at the technological wonder it represents. There are no fuckdoll connotations, no lip-parching dryness, just smooth, effortless satin. Pepper feels like a sigh sounds. It is textural chocolate, exceptionally pigmented and astonishingly even without feeling the slightest bit lanolin-greasy or creepily clingy. |
Bite has issued a number of these modest, organic pinks and in my opinion does a better job of them than MAC, perhaps because they serve a slightly more sophisticated demographic. Yeah, I'll say it; MAC's neutrals are outclassed on most fronts these days. Seriously, stop buying fucking Velvet Teddy, people. You can do better.
Nars Dolce Vita pencil, Verve