Old Reliables | Luxury Makeup GRWM

Bonjour tout le monde. Hi everyone. It's me, Ali, your fancy friend in Montreal. And for today's video, I want to talk about my emotional support makeup. I saw Michelle Wong do this a few days ago and she was talking about emotional support makeup, sort of products that are very reliable and also maybe have a little bit of nostalgia to them. And I thought that was a really fun idea. So that is the concept for today's video. But before we go any further, let's take a second to grab our iced coffee or a hot coffee. Let's take a sip and let's get started. Now, the eyeshadow palette that sprung to mind for me as a reliable workhorse palette that never fails, gives me the emotional support I need in eyeshadow for me was from Dior. And this is Soft Kashmir. This is a beautiful, neutral, cool, leaning palette. Yes, there are five colors here, but we're not going to use all five. We'll use two, maybe three. And every time I wear this, it looks gorgeous. It is really a no-brainer. It's very reliable in the sense that it's very easy to use. And I never really have to rack my brain trying to make it work. I think it's really fun to sit back and think through the items that always pull through. I think that's what Michelle was trying to convey. And I think it'd be fun if you also shared in the comments down below the items that you just reach for that are just always there for you. Because some days you just want to get ready and you want to look cute. And there are some products that are just more finicky or more difficult to use, but these ones here, that's never the case. So I'm going to actually start by going into a little bit of this darker, matte color here. I'm knocking off a little bit of the excess on a tissue here, just to make sure this doesn't get too dark too quickly. And those of you who are following me on Instagram, I was in the Dominican Republic recently. I was there for one week with my husband. We actually went with friends. It was really nice. I'm not sure if that's really like a nostalgic, but maybe it's very, um, what's the word? Emotional support, emotional support friends, emotional support husband, emotional support beach vacation in winter. It was amazing. I was, we were so lucky to be there. We picked really the perfect week. Somehow that week here in Montreal, it was like minus 27 for a whole week straight. And we were in plus 27, 30 degrees. So I'm just taking a big fluffy brush and this brush here, it's makeup forever. I've owned this brush about a decade now. So it's an emotional support makeup brush as well. I have a lot of makeup brushes, like I'm sure many of you watching, but there's, there are some that rise to the top. No matter how many makeup brushes I have, there are certain ones that I will always make sure are clean because I don't want to use anything else. So I'm just sort of tapping back here. I'm making this a little bit deeper and then blending it out. And anyway, our time in the Dominican, amazing. Of course it was beach, coconuts. What else could you want? Are you more beach or pool? I'm beach all the way. I just, like, I have pools. There's like, there's pools here in Montreal. I want a beach while I have access to it. And it was so nice. And I was really impressed by how many people at the resort, not tourists, like there were a lot of tourists who are Canadian at the resort, of course, we're everywhere, but also just people at the resort who work there, who speak fluent Spanish, French, and English. So impressive. So if I have any Canadian viewers who were maybe a little bit reticent, like especially Francophones who don't really speak much English, you'll be fine in the Dominican. Honestly, I was really impressed. Okay. So I'm just going to keep blending this out. I just tapped a little bit of the center shade here just to help smooth this out. And I remember when this eyeshadow came out, Soft Cashmere, I almost called it Smooth Cashmere. No, it's Soft Cashmere. It was, I think, part of the first grand reformulation of the eyeshadow palettes for the brand. And I was really excited. I bought this one and I bought Denim, the blue eyeshadow at the same time. Some of you watching may be surprised that my emotional support eyeshadow is not in fact blue. I am a woman of versatile taste. Thank you. I do love blue eyeshadow, but I mean, I was going to say, I do find that blue eyeshadow for me lifts my mood and my spirit. Sometimes, especially in the middle of winter, I do love to go like eyelash eyebrow with blue eyeshadow, because to me, blue eyeshadow reminds me of the ocean. It's the color of the ocean. Why wouldn't I want to look like that? But if I want something a little bit more no-brainer, I might go for something neutral like this. And this palette here, just because there are five colors does not mean that you need to be using all five at once. I think I'm using one and a half right now. I might move it up to two, possibly three. Okay, moving on. I'm using this MAC makeup brush here. I have owned this brush, I believe, 17 years, because I am 38 now. And I definitely purchased this when I was still in my undergraduate degree. It's a good 17 years old. And guess what? It still holds up, it still does its job, it still works. So it's a little hair, but it still works. It still does everything it needs to. So I'm going to go ahead and use this. And I'm going into this beautiful satin metallic color here. This one is more cool tone. So it's going to give me this. It's so pretty. I just love this formula because it's so smooth. It's so buttery. And because it's satiny, with a little bit of a metallic finish, it looks like it's several different eyeshadows when it's really just one. For the eyeliner, I'm going into this Prada shade in 04 Ember. Look at how much I love this. This was, you know, a full size, it's being whittled down. I love it. It's a brown, but almost like a smoky brown. It has a little bit of a shift to it. Sometimes I do want just like a pitch black eyeliner, but something a little bit softer like this has a little bit of mystery and depth. And with all of these tones, I just find that it works really well. And this eyeliner works so well with this entire palette, regardless of which shades I end up pulling from. So I'm just going to do a thin line here and like a little in the corner. This eyeliner gives my eyes definition without looking stark or harsh, which is just a really old faithful, super reliable eyeliner. And then for the mascara, I'm going into the Benefit Bad Gal Bang. I honestly have a couple very reliable mascaras. The YSL Lash Clash also topped here, but this one from Benefit also is really great. I like something that gives me a fake lash effect. That way my eyes look really bright and awake. And I really like this one. I think that the Bad Gal Bang gives me a little bit more length than the YSL Lash Clash, but honestly either one will do. I for one am very grateful to be alive while mascara exists. Look at the difference. This is fantastic. There is a tiny bit of fallout here with the satin color, so my old reliable method is taking a q-tip. I take a little dot of eye cream just to clean this up. I cannot stand using eye makeup remover to clean up the under eye. Yes, it works, but at what cost? At what cost? I find that eye makeup remover after skincare just dries everything out. And then skincare is expensive. It takes time in the morning as well. Why would I want to wash off all that gorgeous eye care I just applied? No. Just taking a little dot of eye cream and it cleans it up and you end up adding just a little bit more eye cream. Why not? For the complexion, I'm going into the L'Oreal Lumi Glow-tion. A glow-tion. A glowing lotion. It's a makeup primer and this is the shade 902. It's a makeup primer that gives you hydration and glow. I often wear it without foundation. I will wear a foundation in a moment but this is just really great on its own and no makeup makeup day. I'm being very lazy. I'm just putting it directly on a foundation brush here so you can sort of see how light and luminous it makes the skin look. Fantastic. And as many of you know, over the holiday period, I did a fundraiser on my YouTube channel here. It was my first time doing one and I did it for Centrepole Roulant which is a Meals on Wheels program here in Montreal and every year they do an annual winter fundraiser. Sorry guys, I had an eyelash that was like on the top lash curling inward. Very rude. What was I saying? Okay so Centrepole Roulant, they do their annual winter fundraising campaign. They do that every year and then I just did my own little fundraiser here on my YouTube channel and I'm certain that some of you may have or will be receiving your thank you notes in the mail. They have started to go out and anyway, I received the newsletter from the organization when I was in the Dominican and in the newsletter it says that the winter campaign, the fundraising that just ended, was the most successful fundraising in the organization's history. That is in part because of you. Because of people like you. Many of you donated to an organization that isn't even in your city. Many of you liked and shared and commented and it's just so important to recognize that here on YouTube I have I don't know 29,000 barely 30,000 subscribers and listen I'm not saying that to sound ungrateful. I'm simply stating that in the grand scheme of social media 30,000 is really quite small and we were able to have a significantly important and positive impact on an organization such as this with the numbers we have here. We don't need a grand title, a grand role. We don't need anything like that. We can actually do very very good with what we have. So I thought that was fantastic and I thought that was very emotional support, uplifting, inspiring. I was just like wow we guys I don't need anyone to give me like the title and tell me okay you you have permission to go out and do these things. I'm like no we can in fact just go out and do these things. How fantastic. Moving on let's go into foundation. I'm going into the NARS. This is the light reflecting foundation. This is the shade Punjab. Now one thing about NARS I think that their products are very underrated especially their complexion products and I love NARS as a brand. I also specifically love their makeup events. Every time I go to one of their makeup events I guess it's a bit more niche but whenever I go to a makeup event for NARS it always feels like a makeup artistry event more than like an influencer event. Every time I go to a NARS makeup event I meet more makeup artists than influencers. I see old colleagues that I used to work with. I see makeup artists. I see pros who work in television and media and things like that and it just feels like a a creative artistry night more than social media night and I just I just really enjoy that atmosphere. I always find that I learn so much. I always catch up with old friends, old co-workers and just have a grand time so this foundation makes me think of those times together which is always great. For the concealer I cracked open a new Clé de Peau concealer. I'm using a shade almond. I think I discovered the Clé de Peau concealer when I was in like year two of my channel. I uploaded my first youtube video in like August of 2016 so this year will be a decade and I discovered this early on in my journey and I'm glad I did. Honestly Clé de Peau is so pricey and they really get you with the concealer. They really lure you into like or they lull you into a false sense of security like oh it's so reasonable that one concealer and then next thing you know you love the eyeshadows and the lipsticks and the skincare. That's where they get you but the concealer it's so good. It's creamy. It's a stick but it's very creamy. It's not drying. Honestly there are some liquid concealers that somehow are more drying than the stick one. I always let my concealer sit for a few seconds just to let it cover a little bit more and then I'm going in with my Emotional Support Prada Beauty concealer brush. I'm keeping this very simple. I'm keeping this very ally. I'm skipping powder and bronzer. I just don't think I need it. It's winter. The jig is up. Yes I did go to the Dominican but if you expect me to have like a glowy tan right now send me back to the Dominican. I'm going into my Sisley blush. This is the Orchidée No. 3 the coral one. I lusted after this blush for years. I kept seeing it in person online. I kept hemming and hawing over it back and forth and I finally bought it and it's everything that I thought it was going to be and then some. It's gorgeous like I'm really sorry to tell you this it's a very expensive blush but it is worth every single penny I promise and it's part of this list today the holy grail the comfort emotional support blah blah blah because I bought this I think it was when I took my sabbatical remember that I just took like what six seven eight months off and I really allowed myself to have like makeup lust again you know instead of buying everything the second it comes out just like wait and see if I still want it and I still did and I bought it and it was so much better because of it so it's part of today's list so I'm just going to swirl you have like these I think three different colors and I got the coral one but I'm not considering getting the pink one because I just think that would be nice and it's luminous it's glowy but it doesn't have like a chunky glitter or anything like that it just looks so lovely and it lasts all day some blushes sort of fade not this one for the lips I'm going into my very favorite French girl makeup brand Violette FR. I adore this brand I adore this woman we are perfect strangers she has no idea that I exist but I think she's fantastic she's French but she lives in Brooklyn it very much shows she's very chic I love her brand it's very concise it's very skincare and also color orientated almost everything she comes out with is a punch of vibrant color which I love and I love her liquid lipsticks I have two shades here I have Amour Fou and Coeur Infidel I'm going to mix both they're both deep dark liquid reds the first one Amour Fou is a little bit more of a classic red ouch did I say ouch like I should have said ew just got the liquid lipstick all over my fingers so the first one Amour Fou is like a classic red think of like a deep dark rose petal and then Coeur Infidel is a bit more berry colored but because my blush is a little bit more coral I don't think just berry would do so I'm going to mix both of these together I think they're both great which is why I ended up getting both and I also have several of her liquid eyeshadows and I am hemming and hawing over getting her new liquid glitter not glitter but like sparkle eyeliner I'm very tempted but I'm allowing myself to build up the anticipation and then actually try it and hopefully I'm sure it'll be worth it but I'm just gonna wait so I'm going to do a contour with Amour Fou and then do like an ombre in the center with Coeur Infidel okay not to toot my own horn actually I will toot my own horn I think I look amazing I think this looks great the red it really brings it up a notch I could have done a nude but I'm not that woman for the perfume I'm going into the Miss Dior this is the perfume this is the one that came out a couple of years ago I am deeply nostalgic and I would pay some good money if they would like to re-release the Miss Dior Cherie circa 2010-2011 I would buy that again that is not available this is available the perfume version I think it's as close as we'll get I'm very nostalgic for that fragrance because I used to wear it all the time I had friends in university who could smell me coming because it was my signature fragrance but anyway what did we learn today uh we learned that makeup is part of self-esteem and wellness I think we knew that already uh we learned that you don't need a huge following or any following at all to uh make a good impact on the world and to do nice things for people because sometimes it's just nice to be nice what a grand idea let's let's snowball this let's keep it going and I also learned that liquid lipstick is very staining I think I also knew that already but anyway that's it for today's video if you're to my channel please make sure to like and subscribe I do lots of reviews and lots of tutorials and I like to mix and match new and old releases so you won't necessarily get that same sort of FOMO if you like that style like that pace much more leisurely here go ahead and hit subscribe if you made it to the end of the video leave a red heart emoji for the red lipstick and I think that's it for today's video thank you so much for stopping by and I'll see you next time bye