Velvet

This looks like a great season for makeup. There's a wonderful abundance of textures and colors, so when a product manages to shine and stand out among the bounty, it has to be a good one.

Bobbi Brown Velvet Plum Metallics, one of the four limited edition mini palettes, lives up to the promises. It's a sparkly, color-rich and smooth formula. Despite the metallic finish, it isn't too bold or shiny, and the colors are sophisticated and actually toned down enough to make them very wearable and elegant.

I was surprised to see that the Velvet Plum trio is more neutral and brown than purple, and somewhat lighter than the colors appear online. They are rich and nicely pigmented, even the light Champagne Quartz, and shouldn't give you the black eye effect that many purples have on darker skin tones. They blend seamlessly into each other and create a lovely look.

The texture is smooth, long wearing and the shine keeps on for hours. I wear it over the Urban Decay primer, which ensure it stays put with no creasing or fading. The primer is important here because metallic colors tend to cling to skin and highlight its surface, so you want said surface to be as smooth as possible. Thus, if you find yourself lately seriously considering Botox, I'd recommend giving the metallics a full day test before committing to buying it.