As we head into the cooler months here in the southern hemisphere, gone are the bright, crazy festival eye makeups and the bronzed beach-goddess skin and say hello to sumptuous berry stained lips, clear, translucent perfected skin and flushed, wind-kissed cheeks! (and leg warmers!)

Winter tied with autumn is my favorite season! It's the one time of year my frustrating oily/combo skin actually behaves itself, which means I can rush out the door with a thin layer of BB cream splashed across my nose and feel like a picture of skin perfection! Sadly winter here lasts maybe all of 3 weeks LOL. 

I revel in being able to pull off chic, effortless, barely-there makeup that's natural and lightweight but has none of the fuss of taming my T-zone or figuring out if I really do need to use bronzer - le sigh, oh how I adore you cold weather!

Poetic waxing aside - in my impatience for the colder months to finally get here - coupled with a kickass bargain of 10% off all makeup over at good ol' strawberrynet last week - I finally purchased my Chanel cream blush in Inspiration you know, that one I won't shut up about and have been lusting so hard for? for about the same price as the US Chanel site's rrp, therefore justifying some of my spender's guilt!

*does happy dance*

isn't the packaging just beautiful?

so noir, so sophisticated!

On my lighter more neutral winter skin tone, this shade compliments/boosts perfectly that naturally-caused-by-the-chill-morning-air blush.

Aaaaaaaaaaand of course I couldn't help myself......I ended up applying "sale logic" to my order LOL. This resulted in two new acquisitions; Jouer's Cheek & Lip tint in the gorgeously wine-stained tone of Dahlia (love that name!) and Becca's Fine Pressed Powder in Spice for a soft contour/crease colour. Both are first time tries for me and so far have been very impressive!

"Sale-Logic" definition: a) when one spends the money saved on the original purchase due to sale discounts, on further items. b) Further justified shopping due to a savings from a sale

Add caption

Left to Right: Chanel Cream blush in Inspiration, Becca Fine Pressed Powder in Spice & Jouer Cheek & Lip tint in Dahlia

Here are some swatches of all three together - heavily layered then blended out for Inspiration and Spice but lightly dabbed and sheered out for Dahlia to showoff its beautiful just-bitten lip stain quality.

Top: Chanel Cream Blush in Inspiration, Bottom: Spice and Dahlia

All in all I'm very pleased with my petite pre-winter haul!

I even used all 3 products together in a single somewhat haphazardly assembled look recently, after an impromptu "gathering" resulted in a few or more alcoholic beverages being enjoyed and a decision to go on a late night adventure to the local pub. After my mad drunken dash to get ready, I can attest that these 3 are all fool proof to apply. If I can recreate it I'll put up a FOTD post with the results.