Laura Mercier Limited-Edition Mini Lip Glacé Set for Holiday 2011

Every year, Laura Mercier creates fabulous limited-edition color sets and palettes. This year, the selections are too gorgeous to resist. I purchased the Limited-Edition Mini Lip Glacé Set ($48) because it's packed with great colors. There's not a dud in the bunch.

Laura Mercier Lip Glacé is a high-shine, perfectly pigmented lip gloss with rich, long-lasting color and brilliant shine that creates the appearance of fuller lips. With the unique blend of moisturizing, anti-aging, antioxidant, and plumping ingredients provided by the "Laura Mercier Lip Complex," the non-sticky gloss formula applies smoothly without feathering or bleeding.

Always available in a variety of coverages and finishes, this year's set features Rose, Blush, After Hours, Sparkling, and Quartz. That's the order, left to right, in which they are displayed in my photo above - and on my arm, top to bottom, in my swatch photos.

I took my photos in full sun. Rose, shown at the top of my arm, is a brilliant watermelon rose. Blush is apricot, sheer and wearable by all (even those of us who don't gravitate toward apricot shades). After Hours is the lightest of the set. It's a warm, fleshy pink. Sparkling does just that! It enlivens the lips with a peachy gold sparkle. It's fabulous over any lip color. Quartz is brown. It looks brown in the tube, and it's brown on my arm. It looks brown on my lips too, when worn alone. It's a fabulous color to pair with fall fashion.

Laura Mercier lip glosses are packed with good-for-you ingredients. They do contain retinol palmitate, my nemesis, but it doesn't bother me in these glosses. That probably means the concentration is very low. The glosses do have some fragrance/flavor that I could do without. It's not obnoxious, fortunately, because I really like the colors. It also dissipates quickly.

You can find this Mini Lip Glacé Set on Laura Mercier's Web site and at Laura Mercier counters. I purchased mine at Neiman Marcus. If you're a Sephora V.I.B., you might want to consider the four-piece set that's available there. The 20% V.I.B. discount starts tomorrow. The Nudes Mini Lip Glacé Set has four pieces and will cost just $30.40 after the discount is applied. Don't forget Laura Mercier's new Face Illuminator while you're shopping.

Photos by Best Things in Beauty