theBalm Plump Your Pucker: Cocoa My Coconut

Swatches & Review

I purchased theBalm's Cocoa My Coconut a while ago, but I haven't opened it until recently. After purchasing it, I was debating on whether or not I should keep it since it looks like it might be too "nude" for my lips. theBalm's Plump Your Pucker Lip Gloss line is slightly tinted and is supposed to hydrate and make your lips look fuller.

Cocoa My Coconut is described on theBalm's website as a Coco-nutty Nude. Before opening it, I was afraid that there would be a strong coconut scent to it, but it was not bad. It smells like coconut, but not too unbearable. It is kind of like a coconut scent leaning more to a slight scent of hot chocolate & I actually like it.

This shade of this is definitely not too nude, like a sand-ish nude, but it is more of a warm pink nude. This is only slightly tinted and it has a creamy finish so it does not have any glitter/shimmer in it, which I love!

Although these claim to be "plumping" and "hydrating", I did not really feel like my lips looked fuller after using this, and it was drying after about an hour of wearing it. There was a slight tingling effect and cooling sensation on my lips after applying it, but it went away pretty quickly. The tingly feeling of this is not strong like Buxom, so if you do not like how Buxom's are, this may be a good alternative lip gloss for you! I like that this lip gloss was not sticky. It reminds me of Wet N' Wild's Bare it All, but in gloss form. I have used this with Bare it All and it matches with it perfectly. This retails on theBalm's website for $15.

What do you think about theBalm's lip glosses? Have you tried it? Or do you prefer the other makeup they offer?

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Buxom Lip Polish: April

Swatches & Review

I received April in the Buxom Time to Shine lip gloss set that I have reviewed a few days ago. I also own another mini-sized April from their lip set last year.

April is a icy pink with shimmer. According to the box, April is supposed to have a diamond finish, which is probably why it is very shimmery. It goes on kind of sheer, and it packed my lips with a ton of sparkle. After wearing it for a few hours, the gloss wore off & shimmer was left all over my lips!

Overall, I feel that April is just too shimmery for me. I like my lip glosses to be creamy, and sometimes with a minimal amount of shimmer, but April was packed with shimmer. I did not like how the shimmer would not wash off my lips, it stuck to my lips like glitter glue! Since I wore this alone, it was probably why it stuck to my lips more, so I would probably use this to layer on top of a lipstick that I would like to add a "pop" to and see if it still sticks to my lips. Out of the set, I would have been able to do without this one.

What do you think about sparkly, shimmery lip glosses? Like it? Hate it?

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Buxom Time To Shine Lip Gloss Set

Swatches & Review
Buxom's Time to Shine Lip Gloss set is part of their Holiday 2012 collection. Every year, Buxom comes with with lips set with deluxe sized samples of their lip products. Usually, it is four lip sticks with four lip glosses, however, they only came out with a set of six lip glosses this year. Since I have been collecting Buxom's lip sets every year, I purchased this one. If you have previous sets, I think the only repeat in this set is April, which was in last year's set as well.

This set contains two Buxom Lip Creams and four Lip Polishes. Two are sheer, two have a diamond finish, and two are creamy.

April: Icy Pink with shimmer.. a lot of shimmer (diamond finish)
Berry Blast: Fuchsia cream, looks smooth
White Russian: Nude Pink cream
Sugar: Rose, not creamy or shimmery, but has a silver sheen to it
Katie: Pale Pink (same as Sugar)
Gina: Hot Pink with a lot of shimmer

Out of this whole set, only Gina is exclusive to this set. All of the other colors are permanent colors in their Buxom lip line.

Overall, I like this set. Although I already have two of the shades in here, I do not mind it because Buxom is one of my favorite lip gloss brand out there. It is supposed to be "plumping", but I do not see my lips more plump with it. It has a faint vanilla scent to it, and when you put it on your lips, it feels very minty and fresh. A note to take about these is that if you put too much, you will start feeling the "freshness" inside your mouth, which tastes pretty disgusting after a while so do not put more than you need on your lips! The tingling stays around your lips for about half an hour so if you have sensitive lips or you do not like the tingling feeling, these are definitely not for you. Sometimes when I put too much on my lips, I feel a bitter taste in my mouth so I always have to be careful with these. If I put the right amount, that will not happen. Although it is a bit of a hassle, I like the shades they come in and these are not too sticky to me. This set retails for $29 and includes 6 lip glosses where each contain 0.07oz of product (which is half of the full sized product) so it is a pretty good deal. It is like getting 3 full sized lip polishes, but just in various colors! If you have not tried these, this will be a good set to test them out. I love this, but I know it is definitely not for everyone since not everyone likes the tingly feeling. What do you think about Holiday sets? Would you rather get mini sized items or full-sized?

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Wet N' Wild Cinnamon Spice

Swatches & Review
Last week, I reviewed Wet N' Wild's Bare It All lipstick. Since the sale was BOGO Free, I ended up getting Cinnamon Spice with it.

Cinnamon Spice is a red-brown shade. It reminds me of Revlon's Balm Stain in Adore.

Looking at it, the lipstick definitely seems more of a brick-red-brown when it is swatched on my arm and it was very pigmented. Once I applied it to my lips, that was not the case. While applying it, it was very dry and the gorgeous dark red shade did not transfer onto my lips. On my lips, it looks like a berry red, which is totally different from the swatch on my arm and the lipstick from the tube itself. It was not only hard, but it was patchy, so I used a few swipes on my lips for it to even out and it still was not the color I hoped that it would be. I think with this shade, it would be better to apply it with a brush.

I really wanted to love this color because I heard many people like it and it seems like it would be a nice shade for fall, but maybe I purchased a bad batch? Compared to Bare It All, I prefer the formula on Bare It All a lot better than Cinnamon Spice. I ended up buying two more shades from the Wet N' Wild Megalast Lipstick collection & I will be reviewing them soon!

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Simple Look

For a while now, I feel like I love using the colors brown and pink as an eyeshadow. My boyfriend always calls me weird because I am not a big fan of pink, yet I have a bunch of pink things (the keyboard cover for my MacBook is pink as well) lol! Now that the sun is slowly going away for fall & into the winter, I should stop using pink, but I really like this!

Eyes: Urban Decay: Woodstock
Urban Decay: Secret Service
theBalm: Mary Lou-Manizer
Bobbi Brown: Gel Liner
Urban Decay: El Dorado 24/7 Pencil Liner (lower lash)
Face: Urban Decay: NAKED Skin Foundation 6.0
Tarte: Amazonian Clay Blush Achiote
Lips: OCC: Memento Lip Tar

I did not curl my lashes or use mascara because my lashes always goes back to being stick straight after a while so I usually skip that step.

What has been your favorite eye combo lately? :)

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Influenster

What is Influenster?
According to their site, Influenster is a site that is free to join for a community of people who live to give opinions of products and experiences. Influenster creates links between brands and members to reward participation and influence future products.

They have recently relaunched their website late September and I find it a lot easier to navigate than before.

What I like about the change is that there are new badges, as well as a new point system. With the point system, I am currently at 79 points. However, I do not like how you are now limited to earn badges. Before the relaunch, a person with an Influenster account was able to earn more badges, but now, you are limited to an amount of badges depending on which area it is in. I have heard people say that they did not know that it was limited so they ended up filling out the questionnaires before they were able to get to the ones they really wanted, so keep that in mind!

I was able to get their most recent VoxBox, which is the Beauty Blogger VoxBox, so I will also be reviewing that when I get the chance to! :)

Are you an Influenster?

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Off Topic: Boyfriend

On my blog, I rarely ever post much about my personal life besides random facts or some tags. If you follow me on Instagram (TrueWrong), there's a few pictures of my boyfriend and I.

This picture was taken at Sephora Powell Street in San Francisco

I just want to say that I am thankful for everything he does for me. Most the products in this blog that I have reviewed have been purchased by him for me. He is not one of those guys who are against me collecting makeup as a hobby, knowing it is very expensive. He respects me and does not judge me on what I like to do. Without him, I do not think I would have many of the products that I do now. With us both being college students, money is always tight for us, but he makes it work and I appreciate that. I also appreciate how he would go above and beyond to help me find products. We spent this weekend going to over 30 CVS stores looking for the limited edition Wet n' Wild palettes. Although out of over 30 CVS stores we went to, we only found one with one palette left, he did not make me feel bad about spending so much gas going to look for the products. He never complains about anything he does for me, and to me, he's truly one in a million. There's so much more to our relationship, but I just wanted to let you guys know where most of my products come from & that's from my boyfriend.

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Mirenesse Lip Bomb 4

Swatches & Review
For this month's MyGlam/Ipsy bag, subscribers were sent out Mirenesse Lip Bombs in shades 2, 4 and 9. I received 4, which is a vibrant pink shade.

Mirenesse's Lip Bombs are like liquid lipsticks with a glossy finish. It is similar to OCC Lip Tar's since it does not require a lot of product for your lips, but lip tars dry to more of a matte finish and these lip bombs are glossy.

When I smelled it from the applicator, it smelled a little bit plastic-y, but after I put it on my lips, it had a faint minty scent to it, which did not bother me. This color is bright, but not as bright as Revlon's Sweetheart Balm Stain that I tried a few weeks ago. I actually like this color because it does not make me look like I have clown lips. While applying, I used a brush (like I do with lip tars) and a little bit of product so that it would not feather.

Overall, I like this lip bomb and I'm glad I received a color I did not mind using. I wonder how it would look like if I mixed this with lip tars and if it would change the finish for it. This lasted on me for about 6 hours before almost completely fading away. The only complaint I have about this is that when I opened it for the first time, it exploded on me (..like a bomb, ironically) and got on my shorts. I feel like this has been opened before because of this, but maybe the transit made it explode? These STAIN so be careful while using it because you wouldn't want to ruin a favorite shirt of yours because of this! However, I would definitely buy more if I had the chance to just to try them out, but they are expensive. Some shades are currently on sale on their site, but it is still $28 for one of these. What do you think about liquid lipsticks? Have you tried it?

*This is not related, but I am excited for Taylor Swift's RED album coming out tomorrow! :D At some point, my life revolved around music and I used to have my own "music" blog and I was named as "S0ULFRESHH". Since then, everything has been deleted, but it's nice to think back about it once in a while :) Are there any albums you're looking forward to?

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Zoya Ornate Collection

Swatches & Review
Zoya's Ornate collection is their 2012 Holiday/Winter collection. This collection contains six shades that are super shimmery and eye-catching.

Electra, Ziv, Logan, Storm, Blaze, & Aurora

Electra is holographic bar glitters in a clear base. The holographic glitter is definitely eye-catching, it reminds me of putting bar glitters all over a fake Christmas tree when I was younger. This can be worn alone, or layered over colored nail polishes. I thought that this was very thick, so putting a bit of thinner in it before using it might help. I used one coat for my pinky, two coats for my ring finger, three coats for my middle finger, and four coats for my pointer.

Ziv is a shimmery gold with gold glitter in it. It is not warm like OPI's GoldenEye, but it is a warm gold. It is very shiny in the sun, but it takes a while to dry. Removing it was kind of hard too since it is glittery and the gold flecks sticks to skin. I used two coats for this.

Logan is a shimmery green foil with lighter green and gold flecks of shimmer. I love this one! It reminds me of Christmas. I used two coats for the swatches, but I think one thick coat would work as well.

Storm is a black with a scattered holographic finish. The first coat was very thin and sheer, but it definitely built up by the second coat. It is gorgeous in the sun & it is not gritty at all. I used two coats for the swatches.

Blaze is a cranberry red with a scattered holographic finish. The holographic finish on this is not as strong as the other two, but it is very pigmented. It reminds me of Thanksgiving and drinking cranberry juice! lol. It is not gritty and for a red, this did not stain my nails like reds normally do. I used two coats for the swatches, but one coat would have worked as well.

& the last shade in this collection is Aurora! Aurora is a plum purple with a scattered holographic finish. Out of the three holographic finishes in this collection, Aurora is definitely the one with the strongest holographic finish effect. It reminds me of OPI's DS Extravagance and Orly's Miss Conduct, but purple. The first coat on this was sheer, but it was fully opaque by the third coat. This is definitely my favorite in the collection (and I'm not even too big of a purple fan).

Overall, I really like this collection. With the exception of Electra, all of these were very easy to apply and were fully opaque. I did not like Electra because I am not too fond of bar glitters. I think the finish of the bar glitter feels weird and when I'm applying it, there's just strings coming off the edge of my nails and I think that my nail is growing nail hair, haha! I really like the holographic-ness of Electra, but I wish it was in smaller pieces of glitter. My two favorites in this collection has to be Aurora and Logan. I see myself wearing those a lot for the Holidays. What I like also like about this collection is that you can wear these year-round, especially the holographic finish ones since wearing them when the sun is out makes them ten times better than when it's indoors.

What do you think about these? Are you going to get some of the nail polishes from this collection?

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.

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Sleek Suede Blush

Swatches & Review
Sleek's Suede Blush was part of their Nude collection about a year ago. Since the collection, they have made Suede part of their permanent blush line. With that said, Suede is supposed to be a neutral blush and I have been looking for a nice neutral blush for the winter season.

In the pan, it looks like a pink-ish tan, which is a nice shade for neutral.

The swatches show it more tan than the pan does, and it leans kind of peach-ish. The blush itself is very smooth and not powdery. Since it is more of a neutral shade, I used a few swipes when I used it for it to show up a bit more. When I received this, I was surprised how small it is, but I think that it would actually last a while.

Compared to an Altoids tin box.

Overall, I think this is a nice blush for the winter. I have been curious to try "nude" blushes (I have to try Tarte's Exposed!) and this was a nice one to start with. It is definitely affordable & Sleek now offers cheaper shipping (depending on weight) than the flat-rate $10 it was before. This blush contains 0.27oz of product and retails for $5.99. What do you think about sleek blushes? What is your favorite blush for the cooler weather?

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China Glaze Glitter All The Way

Swatches & Review
Glitter All The Way is part of China Glaze's Holiday Joy collection. Holiday Joy is their 2012 Holiday collection. This collection contains twelve shades. Seven of the shades have a glitter finish to them. Looking at the shades, it seems like Angel Wings is the exact same shade as Ultamate Holiday, which was an Ulta exclusive last year. I ended up only purchasing one shade out of twelve, which is Glitter All The Way.

From the bottle, it shows that there are many multi-colored glitters, such as purple, red, gold, and green.

Index: Two Coats
Middle: One Coat
Ring: Two Coats with Black Base
Pinky: One Coat with Black Base

From the swatches, it shows that the green glitters are the biggest in glitter size of the bunch. It only required two coats for full coverage of the nails. Like all glitters, these are super gritty, but it's nothing that two thick top coats can't fix. The first coat get kind of patchy, but if you let it fully dry before applying the second coat, it covers the patchy-ness. These dried pretty fast, although they were kind of the the thick side (which is how most glitters are).

Overall, I love this glitter polish! It is definitely like confetti on the nails. I see myself using this as an accent for Christmas and New Years! What I like about this unlike the glitter from previous years is that you can use this for many occasions, whereas glitters in the past were mainly just red, green and gold. In person, it is super sparkly and shiny, definitely eye-catching. For me, this is a must-have! If you like glitters, this is definitely a good choice :) What do you think about glitter polish? Are you ready for the Holidays?

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Tarte LipSurgence: Enchanted

Swatches & Review
The second color I tested from the Statement Lips set is Enchanted. Enchanted is part of their permanent line of LipSurgence.

Enchanted is one of the tinted LipSurgences in the set. Looking at it, I expected it to be a darker berry color (kind of like Revlon's Crush). However, Tarte describes it as a Rose color.

On the lips, it only gives a slight sheen because it is not matte, but it is not shimmery like Escape was. Since it looked like it would be a darker shade, I was disappointed that this applied out to be a berry pink. On my arm it looked like it would be a bit mauve, but it is not. Like Escape, this has a peppermint scent to it.

Overall, I wish it was more pigmented. However, I like that after a while of wearing it, it left a slight stain on my lips unlike Escape. This was not as drying as Escape was, but after about two hours of wearing it, I felt like I needed to apply lip balm on my lips because my lips started to feel dry. I would not buy this full-priced, but I think that it is still a good value considering I purchased this in a set for $34. What do you think about LipSurgences? Do you like them, or do you prefer other Balm Stains?

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Wet N' Wild Bare It All

Swatches & Review
This week, CVS is having a buy one, get one free sale on Wet N' Wild products. I went to several CVS locations to look for their new Holiday 8-pan palettes, but the stores I went to were either all sold out, or did not have them in stock yet, boo! :( After going about 8 locations, I ended up purchasing two lipsticks to make me feel a bit better. I have never actually tried Wet N' Wild's Megalast Lip Color before and since it is currently buy one, get one free, it's like paying $1 each!

After hearing so much about Bare It All, I decided to get it as one of the two I have purchased. I was originally going to get it since almost all my lip colors are in the nude range, but I just had to get it since it was so cheap!

Looking at it, I thought it would be more of a light beige nude, but after swatching it it seems more like a pinky-brown nude. Normally when I wear nude lipsticks, it totally washes out my skintone so I am very picky with my nudes and go for a darker brown one, this was a surprise because it does not wash my skin out at all. It actually looks quite natural.

Overall, I like this shade, It has a matte finish, so if your lips are kind of dry, it will make it look very flaky so it is best to exfoliate before using it. It does also get drying after a while of wearing it so putting a lip balm on before using it will help as well. On my swatch, I only used one swipe. Yes, it is THAT pigmented! It is a bit darker on the skin than it looks in the tube, but I like it! What are your thoughts on nude lipsticks? Do you own a lot of nudes, or do you prefer brights? :)

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OPI GoldenEye

Swatches & Review
Yesterday, I reviewed one of the two nail polishes I purchased from OPI's Skyfall Holiday Collection. The second nail polish from the collection I purchased was GoldenEye.

GoldenEye is a metallic gold with gold flakies. I did not think that it is glitter because while I was removing it, it was not gritty like glitter usually is, but it came off in flakes. It is loaded with gold flakes. It is very thin so more coats would be better. I only used two coats, but you can tell from my swatches that you can still see my nail line from the two coats.

From some angles, it kind of looks like there are some gold-ish-bronze flecks to it, but it is very minimal.

Normally, I am NOT a gold kind of girl. I do not like things that are gold, but this was amazing! When I saw this, I knew I had to have it, which was definitely a surprise! It is very shiny and it looks very flattering on my skin-tone. I think this shade would work with many skin-tones without making your fingers look like a off-shade. I love this color, but the removal sucks! Although it is not like glitter, I think it would be best to use the foil method so removing it would not be very messy. The gold flakes get everywhere on your fingers & they are so hard to remove. It just clings onto your skin so the foil method may be best. Although I am not originally a fan of golds, I think this is a good shade & is definitely a must have from the OPI Holiday collection! What do you think? Are you a fan of gold? Do you like the gold from the nail polish? Interested in any of the nail polishes in the Skyfall collection? :)

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Comparison: OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Zoya FeiFei

Swatches & Review
This past weekend, I went and purchased two colors from OPI's Holiday collection. One of the colors I purchased was On Her Majesty's Secret Service. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is part of OPI's Holiday James Bond: Skyfall collection. Zoya's FeiFei was part of their Fall Diva collection. While purchasing On Her Majesty's Secret Service, I thought it looked similar to FeiFei, but I still purchased it anyway because I felt like OHMSS was less blue than FeiFei is.

FeiFei is a grey/blue metallic, whereas On Her Majesty's Secret Service looks more like a gunmetal with a hint blue in the bottle.

On the first coat, these two definitely looks the same! There was no difference to me at all. I only put FeiFei on my ring finger because I wanted the focus to also be more on OPI since I do not have an individual review for it.

Although the first coat was sheer, it was definitely enough after the second coat. I used two coats for the OPI and three coats for the Zoya. After putting on the second coat, you can see a bit of a difference between the two. OPI leans more grey, while Zoya leans a tiny bit more blue. If you're in low light, there is no difference at all, but when you're where there's more sunlight, you can definitely see the slight difference. The shimmers on these are amazing. They both have flecks of gold and silver in them. It seems that FeiFei has some slight pink shimmers in it, while On Her Majesty's Secret Service has slight purple ones in it. (It is not noticeable in the pictures, but when it's in person, it is definitely amazing!) It also seems that the OPI one dries slightly gritty, while Zoya does not.

Overall, I feel like you would not need both of them since they are so similar. Like how I mentioned on my Diva post, FeiFei smells REALLY bad. There was no exception for On Her Majesty's Secret Service, they both smell horrible. Both of them smelled like skunk. There are similarities with their shade, and finish, but their smell also? They probably both have some of the same ingredients in there that makes it smell so horrible (maybe it's the shimmers used?). The smell does go away after it dries though, so if you do not mind the smell, this would be a good nail polish too. I really love the finish of these two so I would probably just use something to cover my nose while applying these. What do you think about these? Would you mind the smell? Do you hate it whenever you get two shades that are very similar?

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Orly Miss Conduct

Swatches & Review
Orly Miss Conduct is from their Holiday 2012 Naughty or Nice collection. Normally, I am not too big on Orly's Holiday collections because they are very glittery, but when I saw Miss Conduct, I just had to get it.

Miss Conduct is a berry magenta with a scattered holographic finish. Since it is holographic, it dries into a smooth finish. I originally thought that this would be a glitter holographic, which would have made this gritty, but this is just scattered holographic with no glitter in it!

This is very similar to OPI DS Extravagance (which I have posted a picture of it a few weeks ago), but it is not a deep magenta like Extravagance is. The formula on this was perfect & it applied very easily. If you give it a generous coat, this could be a one-coater, but I used two for my swatches.

Overall, I like this color. It is not pink, but berry! It reminds me of Holiday drinks and since it has a scattered holo finish, it is perfect for the Holidays since the Holidays are usually very colorful and cheery! :) What do you think? Are you a fan of scattered holographics?

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Tarte LipSurgence: Escape

Swatches & Review
Yesterday, I swatched the Statement Lips Collector's Set as a whole on my arm. Escape is from the Statement Lips set. I am not sure, but I think Escape is exclusive to this set because I have not seen it around before.

Escape is one of the two LipSurgence that is a Lip Luster, which has a shimmery finish. On the lips, it is a shimmery light pink. It goes on very sheer, so the shade made my lips just a tint lighter, and with shimmer in it. I have gone over it a few times to have the shown a lot better.

Honestly, I was hoping for this to be less sheer than it was. Maybe my expectations for it was a bit high considering how my Revlon Balm Stains are very pigmented. It definitely does not seem to be the case with Tarte because it goes on very lightly. It has a peppermint scent, but it does not bother me. I gave Escape a full wear test yesterday and after about two hours, it wore off. There was no stain left or anything & my lips felt incredibly dry so its claim of "softening and moisturizing lips" was not true to this.

I was pretty disappointed with this shade because it was pretty much just shimmer. Since it was drying to the lips, I recommend using an additional lip balm before it. I think this would be a good shade to put on the top of darker lip colors if you want to give it a little "pop" with shimmer, otherwise, I am not impressed with this shade.

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