Long Live the Queen
My mom has been totally obsessed with “The Tudors” lately. She basically watched the entire series in a few days and has been telling me all about it, so when I saw Smashbox’s Reign Collection for fall, she was the first person that I thought of. All of the palettes come packaged in lush, faux-leather compacts that look so much more luxurious than most products – like makeup that would belong on the dressing table of royalty. (The collection actually was inspired by the English Tudors, oddly enough). It’s all about bold colors and dark eyes, a look to carry you through fall and into the winter months.
For lips, the colors are either dramatic, like with the deep berry red shade of the Currant Doubletake Lip Color, or more nude, like with the Amaretto shade. I’m loving the Currant color. It has a liner at one end and a chubby pencil lip color on the other. I didn’t use to be a fan of pencil lipsticks because they were all so drying, but lately I’ve found a few that are super moisturizing and this is one of them. It’s almost like wearing a lip gloss, but with the added bonus of the lip pencil too. There’s also a Lip Gloss in Crowned, a soft peachy pink that looks great when paired with a smoky eye.
There are three different eye palettes in the collection. The Reign Eye Shadow Palettes are available in two different color combinations – Majesty and Monarch. Each has six baked shadows in it – a large circle of color with a smaller darker shade in the middle to use as an accent. The shadows can be used wet or dry and you get both matte and shimmer shades in each compact, so it really gives you a lot of options to create a look. My favorite is Monarch – it has brown, copper and gold shades that make my eyes look a lot greener than normal (love that!)
There’s also the Jet Set Palette, a compact with four shades of metallic gel-based liner. The liners are great – they’re waterproof and they really stay put, so if you have a long evening planned and want to make sure your smoky eye goes the distance, the matte black or metallic bronze shades are a great pick. What I really like about these palettes is that they all have big mirrors in them, so it makes it easy to see how you’re applying the shades or how your look is holding up when you’re on the go. (Isn’t it the worst when palettes have mirrors so tiny that you can barely see yourself in them? Or worse, no mirror at all?)
The collection also includes the Reign Fusion Blush, a dual-toned blush with both a matte and a shimmery peachy nude in it. (Use the matte shade during the day and the shimmer to sparkle at night!) The Reign Lash DNA mascara is available in Plum, a new shimmering black plum shade that’s a nice change from your ordinary dark black. It’s the same Lash DNA formula that’s been so popular for Smashbox, but it gives your lashes a tiny bit of shimmer and a hint of color.
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I LOVE The Tudors!!
And I love this line, the packaging and colors are fantastic!
Plum is a really good color for my olive skin, and I’m really intrigued by the plum black mascara.