Tag Archives: Parfümerie Pieper

Reviewing Three G’s of Luxury Beauty

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The title of today’s post refers to me reviewing a product from Givenchy, Guerlain, and Gucci! They’re three G-named luxury beauty brands with products I tend to like when I try them. Rather than reviewing them separately, I decided to combine them into a single post.

Let’s begin!

Givenchy Prisme Libre Skin-Caring Glow Foundation in W385

The Givenchy Prisme Libre concealers are in my top five favorites, so my interest in the glow version of the foundation began from there. When I saw this shade available for half price, I jumped at the chance to try it!

I’m sure it seems strange that I chose a foundation shade that’s lighter than the concealers I use, but my face color comprises of multiple shades: mainly the lightest sections (cheek area, chin, parts of my nose, and center of my forehead), medium section (forehead and perimeter of my face), and the darkest parts (dark under eye circles, dark spots, scars, and hyperpigmentation). Most of my foundations are either a middle ground shade between the lightest and medium colors on my face, or matching the medium color alone. Because of my severely dark under eyes, using a concealer that’s around my skintone depth (instead of brightening) looks best. It’s a long way to say that N390 is close enough to my skin tone depth, so I figured W385 might work. It’s not the best match for me, but it’s hard to be able to tell since the coverage is so sheer.

This foundation is supposed to be “buildable,” but it only goes as high as medium coverage with 4 full pumps for the whole face. It’s typical for me to use 1 or 2 pumps of any foundation at most. I used 1 full pump for one half of my face in the photo below, yet got hardly any coverage.
Because I don’t enjoy the feeling of having too many layers of product on my face, I wouldn’t surpass three pumps. After a point, adding more doesn’t increase the coverage and it hinders the foundation’s ability to dry down on the skin. Using more drops also increases the ease of transfer.

Other than the foundation on one side, both sides have a little concealer around the eyes and mouth.

The Givenchy Prisme Libre foundation sets without needing powder, as long as I’m not heavy on the emollient skincare and stick to using no more than 2 pumps of foundation. Powdering, to me, would defeat the purpose of having a luminous foundation.

This has about the same amount of glow as the Chanel No. 1 Foundation in the beginning, but by midday and onward, the Chanel foundation gives more glow.

The dispenser part of my bottle top arrived broken. It spins around 360 degrees. If I don’t remember to hold it steady when pressing down the pump, it’ll spray everywhere. I don’t have the best memory, so I’ve made that mistake three times already since June. Since I bought this at such a high discount, I didn’t bother contacting customer service.

The darker and warmer color is the Armani foundation, but the squirts all around is the Givenchy foundation when I planned to wear them mixed them together.


As a side note, the Douglas retail website is wild! I’ve never seen prices fluctuate so much on a website before! When I checked again, some shades of this foundation dropped to 16 Euros, whereas other shades (including mine) went back up in price!

I find more use for this product as a mixer to sheer out foundations that are on the thicker side while getting a little more natural finish and coverage. For example, the Armani Luminous Silk foundation is one that never reaches luminous level and I can get a natural finish at best. The Givenchy product mixed with it improves it on every front. So, even though I don’t like this as a standalone product, it’s still useful for me.

*I’d just like to add that all photos were taken early in Summer, so I’m darker now. Definitely too dark to wear this foundation alone now.

Guerlain Terracotta Blush in 03 Deep Nude

I admittedly don’t feel like I can fully appreciate this because I bought it at the same time as the Chanel trio, and they’re basically the same color. It’s not as “nude” of a shade as I thought either. It’s basically just dark pink and I wish it had more brown.
Color aside, I also wish it wasn’t so matte. I would have loved for there to be a sheen in this. This is why I didn’t get more shades, even though they were at least 33% off on websites I came across (I bought mine from Parfümerie Pieper).

I’ve had no issues with longevity. I can’t speak for the whole line, but this particular shade is pigmented. I try not to load up too much product on my brush. It’s better to build it up because it’s hard to try and buff it away. If I apply too much, I have to tone it down with a finishing powder or foundation. In a sheer amount, it looks pretty. The powder quality is nice, but not worth full price to me. What I paid is more in line, in my opinion, with what it should have been at the start.

As for the packaging, I think I remember reading some complaints about Guerlain’s Terracotta compacts looking boring and people wanting the blush components to be different, but I like it. I’m more concerned with the formula. I think the quality is decent, but I fail to see anything special about it that would make it stand out from other brands. For a similar price, the Armani Luminous Silk Glow Blushes, which are also matte, are ones I like better.

Gucci Poudre De Beauté Matte Compact Powder (refill) in 10

This is a very smooth finely milled powder. Although I opted to buy the refill so that I could keep the cost low, the intended component is just as luxe as the bronzer packaging and in a pretty shade of pink. Between the formula and compact, I can understand the price tag. For anyone wanting to do what I did and house it in an empty magnetic palette, just know that the pan itself isn’t magnetic. I had to add a metal sticker to the bottom. The sticker I purchased from Amazon and the powder I bought from Selfridges.

The shade I bought is perfect for me. It doesn’t darken when put on top of wet skin. I can see how this is dry skin friendly, but it’s a bit too weak. It tones down shine, but can’t hold at bay an actual dewy product. Also, despite what the product description says on the website, I don’t notice any blurring.

If you don’t like perfume in makeup, just know that every product I reviewed today has it listed in the ingredients. I don’t find the smell of any of them to be alluring, but none are bad either.

This is what the 3 G’s look like when used all together on my face! I tried to use as many “G” branded products as possible to fit the theme! The Gucci powder was all over the face, but the Givenchy powder was under the eyes.

I’d like to take this time to correct my feelings towards the Gucci Bronzer. In my ranking post, I put it in the category of “nice but not a standout formula, in a shade that wasn’t perfect for me.” It’s amazing how a different undertone can really change things! I got my hands on Shade 4 and liked it so much better! It’s still not in my top 10 formulas, but it’s better than I initially felt. With Shade 4, I can get it to blend into my skin better and have it look more natural. I can finally see that it’s smoother than I originally gave it credit for, especially considering how I was still able to make Shade 5 work despite being so off.

Anyway, that’s all for today! Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Was the Chanel Les Beiges Trio Worth Getting?

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The compact photo above is better at showing the depth level, but the compact photo below is more accurate to the undertones.

I have more than enough makeup for one person, even though I currently only have access to about a quarter of my collection. For that reason, I tried my hardest to not be tempted into buying this Chanel product. I love their blushes, but I don’t use them enough. I have heard fantastic things about their highlighters, but most are too light for me (and the one I bought wasn’t as refined as I expected). I don’t own any bronzers from the brand, so that would be a new experience.

I watched a video from French for a Day to talk myself down from Chanel products in general, but even she seemed excited for the trio. It was ultimately the assurance that this would work on my skin tone from watching the video from I Am Jamila that kept me interested in this product. In addition, so many people I follow on YouTube and Instagram continued to rave about it even beyond the initial release, indicating that it’s not just temporary hype. The final nudge I needed was a small discount from the retailer Parfümerie Pieper, and I was sold!

Chanel Les Beiges Poudre Belle Mine Ensoleilleé in Deep Rose Gold

The blush is nice. It’s not difficult to nail a blush formula though, so I expected it would be good. It’s not my favorite tone of pink, but it’s pretty. For those that have the Guerlain Terracotta blush in Deep Nude, this is basically the same color.

The bronzer is also pretty good. If you’ve seen my ranking of bronzers that I purchased in 2023 exclusively, I would say it performs as well as MAC’s Sunstruck bronzers, Pat Mcgrath’s Divine Powder bronzers, and perhaps even Nars Laguna Talc-Free Bronzing Powders. This means that it’s among bronzers I like a lot, but not quite enough to make the top 10. I didn’t watch French for a Day’s actual review of the trios until I finished my first draft of this post, and in her opinion the powders are average quality for Chanel. That doesn’t make them bad, just not the best that the brand is capable of producing. I felt strangely reassured when hearing this because it matched my feelings, after using this product for a while, that perhaps this being called “phenomenal” is an over-exaggeration.

I had mixed feelings about the highlighter initially. I love a subtle highlighter, but this is too subtle for me to want to use alone. It’s along the same vein of the Guerlain Météorites, but even less shimmery. I built it up as much as I could in the photos above.
What made me start to like this highlighter is that it offers something I don’t have in my collection, which is the ability to turn the bronzer and/or blush into a glowy one without changing the color or making it overly shimmery. It lightens the color, but not by much. I have a few products that I mix with others to achieve this effect, but they are pigmented products that will alter the final color by adding more of a brown tone, warmth or make it cooler toned, etc. This one is sheer enough to transform other products too. In practical usage, I don’t know how often I would pair this with other products besides the ones in this compact, but the option is there.

In the previous photos, I was wearing the Lisa Eldridge Foundation which is a little dark and leans orange on me. In the photo with the blue shirt above, I’m wearing a combination of the Givenchy and Armani foundations, which are a better match (and it’s also a slightly sunnier day, so this is why I look a bit lighter). As for the Chanel products, I wore the amount I normally would, rather than building it up for photos, like the previous ones. The sheerer application of blush with the highlighter on top accounts for the depth differences in the photos.

I have no issues with fading or longevity with this product. These aren’t the smoothest powders I’ve used, but they blend pretty well, especially with a fox or saikoho goat brush. I also have some smaller sized brushes that can fit well in the compact, so it isn’t too much of a hassle having all three colors that close together. A tip I learned for getting into the blush easier is to turn the compact 180 degrees so that it’s the top stripe and the highlighter is on the bottom instead. Then I can dip the angled part of my brush into the blush and can see what I’m doing from top to bottom rather than trying to avoid the brush getting into the bronzer while having the back of the brush hitting the edge of the compact.

Sometimes luxury products look pretty, but don’t feel luxurious. This does feel like a luxury product in the hand, and because the retailer I purchased from included a few Chanel samples, just like the official Chanel website does, I still had the luxury experience.

Having three products in one feels like the pricing is appropriate, especially for a brand like Chanel. I posed the question in the title as to whether this was worth me buying. Considering the discounted price I paid, I think it technically was. However, from a personal standpoint looking at all the makeup I own and factoring in how often I’ll use this palette, perhaps it wasn’t. Time will tell, but for now, I am happy I made this purchase.

DISCLOSURE: I posted several links, including the retailer, but they are normal links, not affiliate links. I paid for these myself and these opinions are my own. At this time, I have no personal or professional connections to the companies or influencers mentioned.

Thank you for reading! I hope it has been helpful.

-Lili ❤