2009 In Review

Well, the year is almost over so I decided to take a quick look at some of my favorite products and trends from the year.

My favorite products of the year...

- MAC A Rose Romance (whole collection)
- Stella McCartney StellaNude
- Lippmann Collection Purple Rain Nail Polish
- Bobbi Brown Chrome Eye Shadow.'

Overall, this year, I feel that I spent the largest amount of money on makeup and body products out of any beauty categories. I still have lots of products in both categories that I have never opened and therefore will have to be reviewed in the new year. I think this year I spent more money on MAC than any previous year and may have actually spent more money on MAC than any other brand this year. I purchased most of the products in A Rose Romance and ended up buying a large amount of both lip and eye products from that company this year.

My favorite trend of the year was the popularity of rose in fragrances. I have loved rose forever but this year, it really came into the mainstream of beauty and so many different rose blends came out that I can wear rose everyday and never smell the same. Also with all the new fragrances, even those who previously hated this fragrance can find a scent that is appealing toe them. Another trend that I liked was the emphasis on lip products. I purchased and tried all different types of shades this year, especially reds. I really expanded my makeup collection and ended up loving many shades that I would never have picked up before.

Of course, there were some trends that I hated this year. I feel that a lot of the trends and makeup collections were very polarizing this year. The first one that leaps to my mind is the blue eye makeup and mermaid trend of the summer. It seemed that every single company offered tons of bronzers and sparkly blue eye makeup in their summer collections. Which didn't work for anyone with colored eyes of pale skin. So most of the summer collections were a complete wash for me and therefore I ended up purchasing a bit less than I normally would have that time of the year. Another very polarizing trend came in the fall collections, especially in MAC's Style Black. Many ladies will not wear heavy black eye makeup, let alone black lipstick shades or nail polish. I know many of use felt that one collection was okay but when multiple companies jumped on the bandwagon, we had a bit of harder time makeup shopping.

I think my least favorite beauty aspect of the year is what I consider to be the "cheapening" of the beauty industry. With Hard Candy now being available only in Wal-Mart and now Fekkai is heading down to Walgreens and other drugstores, I feel that some companies experienced a slight slump in sales,freaked out and decided to lower their prices to match those available in discount stores. What I really feel that they didn't fully take into account is that most beauty addicts don't shop in discount stores and now will not be purchasing their products at all. I was also disappointed in the demise of Bath and Body Works Flagship stores. I used to enjoy going in there to pick up high end beauty products and then being able to use coupons to pick up a free shower gel or two. With the lack of high end products, I end up going in there much less often and spend much less money there. Also with this "cheapening", some beauty brands that I used to love are getting much harder to find in stores. Some quick examples are Vincent Longo, Awake, Me! Bath, Biotherm, and Modern Organic Products. On the other side of this debate, I did notice that some high end companies released products that were much more expensive than there usual fare because of sumptuous packaging. Two examples that come readily to minds are MAC Baroque Boudoir collection and many Guerlain products.

In the new year, I am hoping to master tight-lining and loose eye makeup. I also am trying to embrace my curly haired texture and find products that help me to do this. The two major items that I am looking forward to so far are the Lady GaGa MAC collection and the SJP NYC perfume being released in the first few months of the year.