Tarte Charisma Blush

Today, I went into JCPenney's Sephora because I like to browse some of their items considering some are made exclusive for JCPenney Sephora's. Once I went in, I noticed they had two new Tarte sets with a sign "Exclusive to JCPenney" on it. Out of the two I saw, one caught my eye. It did not have a collection or set name, like the previous Achiote Set did, but it was a good value to me. Tarte is known for their amazing values on products anyway, so I was tempted to get it. I ended up not getting it because I felt like the color was somewhat similar to the Achiote blush color, but with a lot of glitter. However, I was able to swatch it.

Thus set contains three full-sized products and retails for $28. One of the product in there is a full-sized blush in Charisma. The only time I have heard of this blush was from a previous QVC set so this probably is not a permanent color. The other two products are both lip stain/gloss. They are double ended, where once side is a stain, and the other is a gloss. I did not swatch those, but the colors were nude and pink and they retail for $21 each.

You can click on it to enlarge. When the image is enlarged, you can see the glitter better.

Left: Achiote Right: Charisma
Since this reminded me of the blush from the Achiote set, I decided to compare it. The color looks very similar, but the finish of Charisma is definitely glittery, while Achiote is not. Charisma is also a bit darker shade of pink, but it comes very close.

If you are interested, I think $28 is a good value because their blush retails for $25 itself, so if you add on an additional $3, you get two lipstains/lipgloss. For me, I feel like this color is too glittery for me, so if you don't mind the glitter and you like the price, you should get it! The color is very pretty & again, this is an amazing deal. What do you think about this set? Would you get it?

Click to read more!

Zoya Diva Collection

Swatches & Review
The other day, I reviewed Zoya's Gloss collection, which is part of their Fall collection. Since their Fall collection is divided into three sub-collections, this is the second part to their Fall release. Zoya's Diva collection consists of 6 metallic nail polishes. Since it is fall, the colors in the release are expected to be more in the darker shade. Coming from the colorful & bright summer and spring collections, it is nice seeing some dark shades, even though Fall means school is going to start soon (boooo!). Anyway, here are the colors from the Diva collection:

Elisa is described as a Crimson red metallic, which is what it is, a vibrant, shimmery red. The description and the color reminds me of Crimson Chin from Fairly Odd Parents! It is extremely pigmented, so it can easily be a one coater. Although this is a Fall collection, this color reminds me of the reds during Christmas time.

Suri is a shimmery royal purple. Unlike Elisa, Suri required two coats because the first coat was sheer and patchy. I have two pictures of this because I had a hard time capturing the color of this with my camera. Although you can not really see it, there are red and blue sparkles under all the purple. It looks amazing in sunlight.

Song is described as an Egyptian blue metallic with a subtle sparkle. To me, this is like a royal blue packed with blue sparkles! The sparkles definitely were not subtle. This, like Elisa, is a one coater. It is absolutely gorgeous. The only thing I did not like about this color is that it stained my nails even with two base coats under it, which is what normally happens with blue shades for me.

Ray is a pine green color. It is a bit darker than pine green to me, but it is very close. Like Elisa, this reminds me of Christmas. I think this and Elisa would be a nice combo when the Holiday season comes around. The first coat for this was very sheer, but it was opaque by the second coat. The shimmer in this was very subtle.

FeiFei is a gorgeous sheer gray/blue-based foil metallic shade. It is packed with many sparkles that consists of larger shimmers than what I have shown in this collection so far. The sparkles really pop. Since this has a sheer base, it required three coats, but I think two thin coats would work for this too. I feel like I can just stare at this all day! It is so pretty, and it seems to have a slight pink duo-chrome to it. There is no gritty feeling to it at all. The downside to FeiFei is that it really, really stinks. For some reason, this smelled so bad while I was applying it. It basically smelled like skunk, no lie. After applying it and waiting for it to dry, the smell goes away so I guess that is okay. Just applying it smelled horrible.

Daul is a sheer purple-based foil metallic. It is similar to FeiFei, but with less colored shimmer because the main shimmer in Daul is gold. Daul does not have the smell while applying like FeiFei does, which is good. Like FeiFei, this required three coats, although I think two thick coats may work for this as well.
Overall, I like this collection. This collection consists of colors I do not normally wear, but it does not clash and make my skintone look bad with them on. My favorites from the Diva collection is FeiFei, Suri, and Song. My least favorite is Ray and Elisa. I found that half of this collection stains the nails, such as Elisa, Ray, and Song. The other three, Suri, FeiFei, and Daul were the easiest to remove, although FeiFei and Daul has a bunch of shimmer coming off with it. I like how this collection does not only consist of one type of metallic finish, but it gives a variety of metallic finishes. It is not like the foil metallic finishes that Zoya did for their Summer Surf collection. These take a while to dry, which is a problem I usually have with Zoya nail polishes. Unlike their Gloss collection, these do not dry super glossy, so wearing it with a top coat may look better.

These are available for purchase on Zoya.com now, and they retail for $8 per 0.5oz bottle.

*The products in this post were provided to me for my honest opinion/review. I was not paid nor compensated for the review.

Click to read more!

China Glaze New Bohemian Over Black

Here they are layered over black. L to R: Deviantly Daring, Unpredictable, No Plain Jane, Want My Bawdy.

After layering it over black, I think the one with the best duo-chrome finish is No Plain Jane. Other than that, Unpredictable also has a nice duo-chrome finish. Deviantly Daring & Want My Bawdy does not really seem duo-chrome at all. Maybe this is not the best swatches of it since I never actually tried to swatch duo-chromes, but I tried.

Click to read more!

China Glaze New Bohemian Swatches

Swatches & Review
Today, I have the new China Glaze New Bohemian Luster Chromes to review. I went out and purchased four of the six shades in this collection. The colors I purchased are, Want My Bawdy, No Plain Jane, Deviantly Daring & Unpredictable. I did not get the other two because one of them just did not appeal to me and the other one seems very similar to OPI's Just Spotted the Lizard & Jessica's Iridescent Eye, which is a color I own.

My index& middle finger is No Plain Jane, and my ring & pinky is Want My Bawdy.
No Plain Jane is supposed to be a Lavender Pink, but to me, it's more lavender than it is pink. Want My Bawdy is supposed to be a sapphire blue. In the bottle it looks like a purple, but on the nail, it definitely looks more of a blurple, which means more to the blue side. Both are pictured with two coats. No Plain Jane is a bit on the sheer side so three coats would probably be better.

For this, I have Unpredictable on my index & middle finger, and Deviantly Daring on my ring & pinky.
Unpredictable is supposed to be a gorgeous green described by China Glaze, it is basically a green that shifts teal from time to time. It is seems similar to OPI Just Spotted the Lizard, but a lighter version of it. Deviantly Daring was actually one of my favorites because it was a one coater! My swatches for this color was pictured with one coat. It is described as a peacock teal, but I don't think the duochrome is too strong on this. After staring at the swatch for a while, it kind of reminded me of Zoya Charla, but with less sparkle? Unpredictable is pictured with two coats.

Overall, I thought I would like this collection more, but I don't. The duochromes look more amazing on the bottle than it does on the nail. On the nail, the duochrome effect just seems less "wowing" to me as when I purchased it. Other than Deviantly Daring, the first coat for the other three were really thin, but it definitely built up by the second coat, although Unpredictable and No Plain Jane could use a third coat for it to look better. Since I found it at my local supply store, it should be out everywhere soon! What do you think about this collection? Are you going to buy any? Which color seems the best? :)

Oh & here is how my brush from Want My Bawdy looked like. It was really frayed out.. What is up with that, China Glaze? :(

Click to read more!

Zoya Gloss Collection

Swatches & Review

Zoya's Gloss collection is part of their fall collection. Their fall collection consists of three parts, and this is one of them. Although this collection only consists of three nail colors, the other two each has six in them, for a total of 15 nail polishes in the collection overall. The Gloss collection is the collection where the finishes of the polishes are a jelly-like texture, which is comes out sheer. Although the color in the bottle looks dark, it is definitely a lot lighter on the nail.

Zoya Katherine is described to be a sheer aubergine jelly gloss, which is basically like a burgundy color. This color is also a color that was originally designed for Peter Som. In the bottle, it just seemed like a very dark color, but the since it is expected for this to be sheer, the first layer seemed berry-like to me. My swatches show 3 coats of the polish.

Here, I layered on Nubar's White Polka dot on my ring finger and I put another coat of Katherine over it to show you how sheer one coat of the polish itself is. You can definitely see the white glitter under it, which now looks like a reddish-brown glitter instead.

Zoya Frida is described to be a sheer teal blue jelly gloss, but to me, it seems more like a pine green color because it definitely leans more to the green side than blue. I also used 3 coats pictured on my nails for Frida.

Zoya Paloma is described to be a sheer berry red jelly, which is basically the color it is described as, although it leans a bit more on the pink side, like raspberries, since they're more of a dark, bright pink instead of red. This was also three coats. I think out of the other two, I like this one the most, although this one was the only one that stained on me when I was removing it.

Overall, I like these shades more than I thought I would. I do not own too much jelly-finish polishes, but these look like they will be nice to use for layering. The first two coats for all of the polishes look like they were uneven & patchy, so for my third layer, I gave it a thick-generous coat to even it out. Since I used a thick coat, it ended up taking a long time to dry, which was the down-side to it. These have a very glossy finish, and I did not use any top coats for the swatches.
What do you think of jelly-finish polishes? Like it? Don't like it?

*The products in this post were provided to me for my honest opinion/review. I was not paid nor compensated for the review.

Click to read more!

The Face Shop: PK102 Blusher

Swatches & Review
The Face Shop is a Korean make-up and skincare brand. I have never tried their items so when I went into their store, I roamed around for a while & the cute packaging for the Me:EX blushers caught my eye and I had to buy it to try it out. From what I heard, The Face Shop is a drugstore brand, so the items sold there is not too expensive.

The PK102 blush is a light pink cotton candy blush with a subtle shimmer finish, even though it looks like a light orange in the pan. It is not incredibly pigmented, but it is buildable and it blends easily. The blush in the pan itself is so smooth and buttery though! I like the feeling of it, lol!

Overall, I like this blush, but I wish it was more pigmented. It would definitely look nicer for people with lighter skin tone because of its soft color. For me, it seems to work as a highlighter/blush as well since it looks soft on my cheeks and not very pink, it kind of reminds me of the Crew highlighter from MAC's recent collection because of the pink that comes out when the highlighter is combined together. Anyway, have you tried any of The Face Shop products? :)

Click to read more!

NARS Joie De Vivre vs Danmari

Since I have both the cheek palettes released by NARS with the same design and everything, I decided to do a comparison of them. Both the palettes contain one bronzer, one highlighter, and four blushes.
In the Danmari, the colors included are: Hungry Heart Duo II, Casino, Orgasm, Super Orgasm, Desire, & Sin.
In Joie de Vivre, the colors included are: Albatross, Laguna, Gaiety, Orgasm, Luster, & Angelika.
From the packaging, Danmari has the bulkier packaging, where the lid of the box comes off, while Joie de Vivre is a slimmer box with openings on the side for the palette to slide out.

Click image to enlarge
Left to Right: Sin, Desire, Super Orgasm, Orgasm, Casino, & Hungry Heart (it's there, but barely visible)
Left to right: Angelika, Luster, Orgasm, Gaiety, Laguna
In the comparison picture of the palettes, it seems like Angelika and Desire are similar, but not the same. However, they are very similar when swatched. The main difference between Desire & Angelika is that Desire is matte, and Angelika is glittery. Other than that, the colors for both to palettes are quite similar with the exception of Sin & Luster. Sin is a berry-colored blush in the Danmari, and Luster is a peachy-colored blush in Joie de Vivre. I think because Sin is more appropriate for Winter, and Luster is more appropriate for Summer. When I compare the bronzers, I definitely like Laguna better. Although Laguna was kind of patchy, Casino lacked pigmentation from the Danmari palette. From both to palettes, I also noticed that Orgasm felt different in both of the palettes. To me, Orgasm was a lot less smooth in the Danmari than it was in Joie de Vivre. It took a few swipes more for Orgasm from the Danmari to show up for me than it did from Joie de Vivre.

Overall, I feel like both palettes are nice, but if I were to choose, I would choose Joie de Vivre because I feel like it has a better combination than the Danmari because the Danmari included both Orgasm & Super Orgasm, which I felt was totally not needed at all.

Click to read more!

NARS Joie De Vivre Cheek Palette

Swatches & Review
Since this palette is out for cardholders right now, my boyfriend actually purchased this for me before the actual public release date, which is on July 20th. This palette is exclusive to Nordstrom for their anniversary sale & it consists of 6 colors. It has one highlighter: Albatross, one bronzer: Laguna, and four blushes: Gaiety, Orgasm, Luster, and Angelika.

Top: Albatross, Gaiety, Luster
Bottom: Laguna, Orgasm, Angelika

Left to right: Angelika, Luster, Orgasm, Gaiety, Laguna

In daylight.

They all contain 0.12oz of product which is a good size for each pan of them. After swatching, I realized I forgot to swatch Albatross as well.. oops =x. Anyway, I really like the shades in this palette. Although I thought Gaiety and Angelika would be very similar, you can see that Angelika is a lot darker pink than Gaiety is. Although Angelika is supposed to be glittery, it was not too glittery when swatched. One of the blush I had a problem with is Gaiety, which is a matte pink and it came out pretty chalky. Orgasm is a peach with a gold sheen to it. Luster seems peachy on me. Luster was actually one of the shades I was afraid that would not work for me because I heard a lot of people saying how it turned out too orange for them, but Luster is actually my favorite shade from the palette and it is one of the smoothest color from the palette. The bronzer, Laguna was the second color in the palette that was hard for me to work with because it came out patchy.

Overall, I like the colors in this palette more than the Danmari cheek palette last holiday from Sephora, mainly because the Danmari has both Orgasm and Super Orgasm. Although some colors gave me a problem (Gaiety & Laguna), the color is buildable and workable with a bit of effort into it. Luster was the easiest to apply, and Angelika was my second favorite. I also wish that Orgasm was not in this palette because Orgasm is in every single palette or item NARS comes out with. If you are just starting with NARS, this is definitely a good palette to start with because it gives you a variety of colors. What do you think about this palette? Will you buy it/have you already purchased it?

Click to read more!