BA Star Midnight Smoky Eye Palette

Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of reviews these past few months. It has been a hell of a semester at school, but if you have been following me on instagram, I am graduating this semester (this coming week)! But of course, I still have finals up until the day that I graduate. Anyway, I today, I have a review of the BA Star Midnight Smoky Eyeshadow Palette from a BrandBacker campaign. There were two shade selections for the palettes, and I was sent the Smoky palette. I have never tried anything from BA Star before so I was curious to try it, especially since I love eyeshadows.

The Midnight Smoky Palette came with a small primer.

The top part did not have primer, and the bottom part had primer. It is the most noticeable with the black shade since it has a line where the primer begins.
I don't believe there were any names to the shades so I will go from left to right:
One: Pearly white. This applied sheer, but would be nice to use as a topper for other shades. It wasn't very powdery either.
Two: Shimmery silver. This also applied sheer.
Three: Shimmery grey. This applied sheer, but was build-able.
Four: Matte black. This shade was dry, chalky, and powdery.
Five: Shimmery blue. This is the most pigmented shade, and the least powdery shade in the palette.

The primer I used on the bottom half were from the primer provided with the palette, however, there is not much difference when it is used. I found that the primer was easy to use and non-sticky, but it did not really help in keeping the eyeshadow in place. When I wiped the eyeshadow on my arm with a tissue, I found that the half with the primer came right off, while the half without the primer stayed better on my arm. The shade that performed the best for me was the blue shade on the right, and the one that performed the worst was the black shade. Even when I used a brush, the black shade was super powdery and gave a lot of fall-out, despite tapping my brush. Overall, I was not a big fan of the palette itself.

Here are a few other things I noticed:

There was hair, or strands of black string in the white eyeshadow, and black dots all over, which did not make it look appealing.

The brush: Even though I barely ever use the brushes the come with palettes, this one looked terrible. Not only was it hard and scratchy, the hair of the brush was sticking out on the other side of the brush, which looked poorly made to me. I understand that this is a low-price makeup palette & I should not expect much, but these two problems I noticed would make me not even want to buy it if I saw it in person.

This palette retails for $8.75 and can be purchased at www.bastar.com.

*Disclaimer: The products in this post were provided to me for my honest opinion/review from the brand via BrandBacker. I was not paid for this review & all opinions are my own.

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Zoya Fall Cashmeres Collection

Swatches & Review

In addition to the Fall PixieDust collection, Zoya also has two additional collections for fall called Cashmeres and Satins. The Cashmeres part of the collection consists of six creme finish nail polishes for fall.

Flynn: A camel nude creme. It is a nice nude that is not too light so it actually works well with my skin-tone. I used two coats for the swatches.

Louise: Dark brown creme. This applied kind of streaky, but it evened out by the time I put on the third coat.

Hunter: Dark green creme. I did not really like apply this because it was super watery, so I had to use very very thin coats. I used three coats for swatches.

Livingston: Bright cherry red. I feel like this is a sheer creme, almost jelly-like because it is sheer. I loved the formula because it applied smooth & gave me no problems at all, but you can still see my nail line after three coats. This also stains the nails so I recommend using a base coat.

Pepper: Brick red creme. This has the perfect formula and everything! This is actually my favorite from the whole collection & will be my favorite for the fall season. I used two coats in the swatches.

Sailor: Dusty navy blue. This was a bit on the sheer side, so I used three coats. After three coats, I was still able to see my nail line so I think four coats may have been best for this.

Overall, I felt that this collection is okay. The only color that stood out to me that I loved was Pepper because it does not look like a lot of the nail polishes that I already own. The other colors does not seem too unique like Pepper was to me, so I can easily have done without some of the colors from this collection. What I actually liked from this collection as a whole is that it actually dried quickly for me, which normally does not happen when I use Zoya creme finish nail polishes.

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

What do you think about Fall collections? Do you think they come too soon since it's not even the end of summer yet?


**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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Zoya Fall PixieDust

Swatches & Review

We're still in the middle of Summer & Fall collections are out already? Yes, this is how it normally is, but this just reminds me that Fall semester for school is coming closer and closer. Anyway, Zoya always has amazing Fall collections and this year, they decided to also make a PixieDust collection for Fall. The new Fall PixieDust collection has been provided for me free to review from Zoya, and just when I thought I was over the textured nail polish craze, some of the new colors have got me hooked again!

Like the previous two PixieDust collections, the Fall set also comes with six shades. Although some of the shades look similar than ones from past seasons, they actually aren't exactly the same.

Tomoko: Champagne nude with a silver glitter. This shade is very soft looking & is super sparkly when it is out in the sunlight. This was a bit on the sheer side so I used three coats for swatches.

Chita: Forest green with light green glitter. Chita was very pigmented and it can definitely be a one coater, but I used two for swatches. To me, Chita was very thick so it is best wait a bit longer to add on the second coat if you plan to do so or it will drag a bit on the nails. This stained my nails so I would recommend using a base coat with it.

Sunshine: Denim navy blue. Sunshine was also very pigmented and this was easier to apply than Chita. I used two coats for swatches and to my surprise, it did not stain (since blues normally stain on me).

Carter: Royal purple. The first coat applied very sheer & uneven, which is not what I expected from this since I have never had a PixieDust apply sheer on me for the first coat like this one has before (picture below).

With one coat, it looked like it had a black jelly base with a bunch of glitter packed together, like a confetti. Indoor, it looked a bit darker, but outdoor, it was lighter. With the first coat, you were able to see all the glitters clearly.

Since the first coat applied sheer, I thought that I would need more layers, but by the second coat, it looked just like how it does in the bottle, so I used two coats for the swatches. This was a surprise favorite for me because like I have said before, I am not a big fan of purple, but this was absolutely amazing on the nails. It is like a blackened purple with lavender, magenta & silver glitter. The color kind of shifts in different angles, and it was just gorgeous! Removing this was a bit harder because the glitter gets everywhere around the nail & I assume it might be because this has more glitter than the other ones do.

Here's an upclose picture of Carter to show you the multi-glitters in it. Doesn't it look super pretty?

Arabella: Zoya describes this as a rich fuchsia, but to me, it looks more raspberry. This was very pigmented & I used two coats for swatches. Out of the whole collection, this was the only color I did not like because it did not look to well with my skintone.

Dhara: Juicy bright orange. This looks like a nice shade to transition into fall because the orange of this reminds me of pumpkins. This was also super pigmented & I used two coats for the swatches.

I liked most of the colors in this collection. If I were to choose a few, I would choose Carter, Dhara & Tomoko because they were three of the most sparkly ones that looked amazing in different lighting. The feeling of these are exactly the same as the ones that Zoya previously came out with, which is textured/gritty when it dries, but if you want it softer, you can run it under water a few times after it is completely dry and the gritty texture ends up being more of a sugary texture feeling instead of a hard gritty feeling. These are also easy to remove like the previous PixieDusts as long as you hold the cotton ball with remover on top of the nail for about a minute before wiping it off.

These are available for purchase on Zoya.com now, and they retail for $9 per 0.5oz bottle.

What do you think about the new PixieDust collection? Do you still love the textured finish nail polishes? What fall collection are you most excited for?

**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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