Maybelline Color Tattoo: Leather Collection

Swatches & Review

Maybelline is releasing a bunch of new permanent items in the months of June & July, which is exciting because they are finally adding to their line of Color Tattoos! The new Color Tattoos will have the theme of Leather, so the shades are named after leather shades. There are five colors in the Leather Color Tattoo collection, however, I only want four so my boyfriend purchased four of the five for me to review. Out of the four shades I purchased, two were matte, and two had a shimmery finish.

Like all the Color Tattoo products from Maybelline, all of them are shrink-wrapped.

From left to right, the colors are: Creamy Beige (80), Deep Forest (85), Vintage Plum (90) & Chocolate Suede (95)

The full set of swatches show them in indoor lighting, and outdoor lighting.

Creamy Beige: Shimmery medium beige. This was very creamy and smooth. This applied very evenly and pigmented. The shimmer is not very noticeable unless you're in direct sunlight. This was my favorite in application, and color.

Deep Forest: Matte grey-ish/green. This did not feel creamy like Creamy Beige, but a bit stiff from the pot. It also applied patchy and uneven since it was a bit dry. I tried to layer it about four times in the swatches because the first layer was incredibly sheer and patchy.

Vintage Plum: Matte violet. It did not look very plum-like to me, but more of a purple/blue to me. This also applied patchy & uneven, but it was better than Deep Forest.

Chocolate Suede: Shimmery chocolate brown. Chocolate Suede was very pigmented, and applied evenly & smoothly. The color reminds me of leather couches whenever I'm furniture shopping.

I was expecting all the shades to be mattes from this collection so I was not expecting Creamy Beige & Chocolate Suede to be shimmery, but then they were two of the best applying ones because they were so creamy straight from the pot. The two matte ones applied patchy, similar to Just Beige from the Holiday Gilded in Gold Matte Color Tattoos collection, but Vintage Plum is buildable, while Deep Forest just was not working for me. What do you think about these new additions to the Color Tattoo line?

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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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theBalm Cosmetics: Smoke Balm Smokey Eye Palette

Swatches & Review

After seeing theBalm's new eyeshadow palettes on Kohls online, I waited for them to show up at the retail locations so that I can see them in person. My local Kohls was able to get them in this week so I went to Kohls as soon as I could. I do not know when the official release of these are supposed to be or if it is exclusive to Kohls because I have not seen it on theBalm's website. The Smoke Balm has two separate palettes, but they are only named by "Set One" & "Set Two". The one with the grey packaging is Set One, and the one with the green is Set Two. Each palette has three eyeshadow shades.

As always, the packaging for theBalm is super cute. In Set One, it says, "Warning: Men may stop drop and roll" & in Set Two, it says, "Warning: May cause shortness of breath in men." Totally theBalm-like. This is also packaged in cardboard packaging with the design on the sleeve exactly like the design on the product itself.

Set One: These were swatched with my fingers, but I will also have swatches with a brush later on as well.
Blaze: Black with silver glitter
Spark: Matte grey-taupe
Flame: Shimmery pearl

Set Two: These were also swatched with my fingers.
Kindle: Shimmery blackened-green
Glow: Matte light brown
Combust: Shimmery beige

Set One & Set Two applied with a brush with two swipes, except Flame & Combust, which only required one swipe.

When swatched using my fingers, both of the first two shades in each palette apply a bit patchy. The third shade in both palettes, the shimmery pearl & beige were very pigmented and a little goes a long way. However, the eyeshadows itself felt like most of theBalm's eyeshadows I have tried, which are smooth and buttery.

When swatched using a brush, the eyeshadows applied better, which was not as patchy as when I applied it with my fingers. The eyeshadows are very smooth, so it did kick up a bit of powder, which may lead to some fall-out, so tapping the brushes used with these are definitely recommended.

Overall, I feel like both of these are pretty similar to actually purchase both. These are perfect for a simple little palette for a smokey eye and each eyeshadow contains 0.12 oz of product, which is like twice the size of a full-size Urban Decay eyeshadow. I also like how it has different finishes in the three eyeshadows provided in each palette because there's a glittery one, a matte one, and a shimmery one. These retail for $12 and can be purchased online at Kohls(link)--non-affiliated & at Kohls with an extended beauty department.

What do you think about these Smoke Balm palettes? Do you prefer Set One, or Set Two?

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It Cosmetics Naturally Pretty Matte Luxe Eyeshadow Palette

Swatches & Review

Since matte eyeshadows are my favorite finish, I had to purchase It Cosmetic's Matte eyeshadow palette. I purchased this when they had their 25% off friends & family sale and finally got around to trying it. The Naturally Pretty Matte Luxe Eyeshadow Palette Vol. 1 comes with fifteen shades. Fourteen of the shades are supposed to be matte and one of them is a transforming pearl shade, which you can layer over the matte shades for a pearl finish, or used alone.

The palette itself is packaged in a pink soft suede-like cover on the outside, and the inside is a reflective gold, which I actually do not like because the gold looks a bit tacky and the cover would easily get dirty and it would be hard to clean.

The format of it reminds me of LORAC's Pro Palette with 8 eyeshadows on the top, but the bottom of this palette has the Transforming Pearl shade that takes up two eyeshadow spaces.

First Row:

Sheer Joy: Pink-ish white with a slight sheen.
Soft Light: Matte light taupe
Warmth: Matte light/medium warm brown
Soulful: Light copper with a slight sheen
Mocha: Brown with a slight sheen
Violet: Demi-matte lavender
Midnight: Matte navy blue
Noir: Matte black, but chalky

With the Transforming Pearl over the eyeshadows:

Second Row:

Love: Champaign w/ a slight sheen
Sunrise: Copper with a slight sheen
Sunset: Reddish-orange with a slight sheen
All Heart: Pink-ish brown
Java: Matte dark brown. This applied chalky and was a bit dry
Iconic: Matte grey. This was also chalky and a bit dry
Transforming Pearl: Sheer white with a pearl finish

With the Transforming Pearl over the eyeshadows:

Although the matte is supposed to be a matte palette, some shades were not fully matte, but had a slight sheen to them. Most of the shades were buttery and applied smoothly, but I feel like some of the true matte shades applied pretty chalky because they were a bit dry (Noir, Java & Iconic). There is a bit of fall out with the eyeshadows because they were either too soft, or a bit powdery so I would recommend tapping your brush before applying. I just wish all of the shades were really matte instead of having a slight sheen to them.
When layered with the transforming pearl, the colors do lighten a bit, but the concept is pretty nice.

Even though this is not about the palette, I would like to say that they have amazing customer service. When I purchased this, they had a guaranteed delivery within 7 business days. Since I had free shipping, it was supposed to be delivered with standard ground shipping, but because they were backed up in processing, they upgraded my shipping to next-day air so I would get the palette within the time-frame free of charge. They were quick to respond to messages via e-mail and were super helpful, which is definitely a good thing about the company.

This palette retails for $42 and can be purchased from itcosmetics online (non-affiliated link) & Ulta locations that carry the brand.

What do you think about this palette? Do you like matte finish eyeshadows, or do you prefer other finishes?

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LORAC Solid Gold Eyeshadow Palette

Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while, I have been loaded with school work, taking care of my family members as well as moving so I have not had much time to blog in a while. Anyway, LORAC has released two new 5-pan eyeshadow palettes that are limited edition and exclusive to Ulta. Since last year's black Friday, LORAC has released a total of five 5-pan eyeshadow palettes, which I like to call the $12 palettes because they were all priced at $12 whether it has been sold at Ulta or Nordstrom Rack. Solid Gold is one of the ones for the Holiday at Ulta and it has a semi-matte bronze packaging and neutral shades inside.

The colors seem like they would complement the other 5-pan palettes in Uptown Allure & Sweet Luxuries because it has neutral shades.

Like I have said in my previous posts about these palettes, I wish they were named.
1) Frosty white: This was smooth and pigmented.
2) Frosty beige: Although this leans a bit more yellow, it still looks very similar to the first shade. This was not as smooth and pigmented as the frosty white.
3) Metallic gold: It was stiff and hard to apply. I had high hopes for this because I feel like this palette was based off of this shade because it's a gold and normally, gold shadows apply super well for me, but this was not. It was hard to swatch with finger and it was hard for me to pick up any color with a brush.
4) Brown with slight sheen: This was also a bit hard to apply, but it was better than the metallic gold.
5) Matte black with gold glitter: This applied like the fourth shade, but the glitter does fall-out and does not stick to the lids so I would definitely recommend tapping your brush to get some glitter out.

Overall, I feel like this was pretty disappointing. I own many LORAC palettes I feel like this was also not up to LORAC's normal eyeshadow quality, like how Downtown Drama was. I was really hoping that it would be like Sweet Luxuries and Uptown Allure because I loved those. I also did not like that LORAC put two similar shades in this palette like they did with Uptown Allure because the Frosty White and Frosty Beige looks very similar to each other. I have heard from some people that theirs applied better than mine did so maybe there are some good ones, but there were inconsistent batches maybe? But this is definitely a skip for me.

This palette retails for $12 and each eyeshadow is about 0.06 oz in size (which pretty much a full-sized Urban Decay eyeshadow). This is limited edition and exclusive to Ulta in-stores and online.

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Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm & Lacquer Balms;Maybelline Gilded in Gold

Best Boyfriend EVER:

Since NouveauCheap has mentioned that these had landed, I HAD to look for them. Although I spent all weekend hunting, they were nowhere to be found. When it's the weekdays, I have no car, so I have no access to stalk products & normally by the time it's weekend, the things I want are sold out. Well, my boyfriend is the sweetest ever! Knowing that I have been looking for these & after showing him pictures while I was hunting over the weekend, he ended up going to look for them for me himself so I would not miss out on them. This morning when he told me they had it in & I was SO excited!

Here's some display pictures:

Revlon's new Lacquer Balms & Matte Balms. My boyfriend had a full display, but he took the picture after he took the ones that he was going to buy for me, which is why it's not full, but he did good! I like how half the display itself is glossy, and the other half is matte!

The next collection he found that I was looking for was Maybelline's Holiday Gilded in Gold collection. Normally, I do not use their Color Tattoos, but the fact that the ones in this display are matte and limited edition, I just had to have them, so he picked all three up for me as well.

The few that he purchased for me:

A few of both the Revlon Lacquer Balms in Vivacious, Provacateur & Enticing, Revlon Matte Balms in Standout, Shameless, Sultry & Showly, as well as the three color Tattoos in Matte Brown, Just Beige, and Nude Pink.

One thing I would like to note is that 6 of the 10 matte Revlon Matte Balm shades only have one for each display, such as Shameless (the purple) & Standout (deep red), so they may be harder to find. I was lucky enough to have my boyfriend be able to go look for these everyday & for them to put them up when he was there.

I cannot wait until I get to see him later on this week so that I can see these in person! & I will definitely try them out when I have the time to if I am not loaded up with homework this weekend so I can have swatches & review up for you guys! :) Like I have mentioned before, I appreciate my boyfriend SO much and for him to understand and be so helpful with this makeup obsession of mine is amazing! I seriously do not know what I would do without him because he seriously is the best I have ever had.

Do you think you will be picking up some of these new Holiday Collection items?

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Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette

Preview:

For a few weeks now, I have seen some pictures about the Vice 2 palette and I have been super excited about it because I really like that the last Vice Palette was not as bulky as the previous Book of Shadows palettes. This Holiday, Urban Decay is coming back with Vice 2, which is the second year of them making Vice! The outside of the palette is kind of like a tie-dye look compared to a solid color from the first version. I found a few pictures on instagram, but these two were the best that shows the inside of the palette.

Credits to the Instagram of SephoraMX (Sephora Mexico) & fer_rosas29

From the looks of it, some of the shades seem to be new shades because of the shade names that I was able to make out from the pictures.

The few shade names I was able to get from this are:
Coal, X-Rated, Poison, Derailed, Rewind, Ambush, Betrayal, Stash, Voodoo, Habit, Strike, Dope, Radar, Prank, Smokeout, Toxic & Damaged.

It also seems that this palette, like the Vice Palette does not have much matte shades, which is a bummer because Urban Decay has had amazing matte shades that they have discontinued & it seems like half the shades are also neutral, which is like almost all their palettes now. I would love more color & mattes (maybe Vice 3? I will not give up hope!), but this looks nice enough to grab too! I heard the release for this is not until November, but the date can always change since it is not official yet & for the last few years, their Holiday sets are usually offered around mid to late September.

I have also heard that this Holiday, they may be coming back with their old beloved face palettes. Here's a few images of the face palettes Urban Decay has offered in 2010:

Image from makeupandbeautyblog.com

& the ones from 2004:

Image from londonbeautyreview.com


So far, what do you think about the Vice 2? Does it look pretty enough for you to indulge? & what do you think the return of the face palettes would be? :)

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Wet n Wild Beauty Army: Enlisting for Beauty Palette

Swatches & Review

Wet n Wild's newest release is their Fall Beauty Army collection. The collection consists of four packs of their Coloricon Eyeshadow Trios along with their Mega Protein Mascara. Although there were four different palettes to purchase, I only purchased the trio with all brown eyeshadows called Enlisting for Beauty.

The trios are in the same format as the ones from the permanent line with the browbone color on top, crease in the middle, and eyelid on the bottom.

All of the eyeshadows have been swatched on top of Too Faced's Shadow Insurance
Browbone: Matte creamy light brown. This was kind of chalky, but the pigmentation is build-able.
Crease: Dark brown with subtle shimmer. The shimmer is not too noticeable so the crease color looks kind of matte. This was smooth and very pigmented. Because it is smooth, there is slight fall out with this.
Eyelid: Shimmery taupe. This was also smooth and pigmented, but with a bit of fall out.

After trying their Pop Art Craze trios, I was kind of underwhelmed because I felt that the shades from the Pop Art Craze collection were not as good as how they are normally, but after trying this, I am definitely loving Wet n Wild again. The eyeshadows in these were a lot better than the ones I have tried from Pop Art Craze because they are not sheer and super chalky. This palette is a good palette for everyday use because the colors go together very nicely. Although the browbone shade is kind of chalky, it is still better than others that I have tried from them before.

I purchased this at K-mart for $2.99 & I hear NouveauCheap is going to put up a sightings map for these so keep a lookout on her blog!

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Wet n Wild Pop Art Craze: A Regular at the Factory

Swatches & Review

The latest drugstore craze has been over Wet n Wild's new Pop Art Craze Collection, which consists of six eyeshadow trios. For the past week, I have been searching high and low for the new palettes & I was finally able to find the three that I wanted yesterday. The one I wanted the most was A Regular at the Factory, which is what I will be reviewing first.

A Regular at the Factory consists a sheer shimmery yellow, a bright medium blue, and a bright orange.

All were applied over Too Faced Cosmetics Shadow Insurance
Browbone: Shimmery yellow. This color is super sheer so it took about five layers for this to actually show up a bit for me. In the pan, it looks like it would be a lot more yellow, but it comes off more as just shimmer. This one was super chalky and even with just two layers of it, not much showed up, not even much of the shimmer, so it was a bit disappointing.
Crease: Bright medium blue. This blue had a slight sheen to it, but it was incredibly pigmented & applied the best. I only had to use one layer of this for swatches. Since it is smooth, there is a bit of fallout with this.
Eyelid: Bright orange. The orange also had a slight sheen to it, but it was more on the matte side. This was also pigmented, but it was a tiny bit chalky.

Overall, I liked two out of the three shades in this palette. I was hoping the yellow would actually show a bit more, but with the yellow being super sheer, it would work well together with the other two shades in the palette. I think that for the price, these are worth checking out if you are experimenting with bright colors, but if you have a big collection, you might be able to find similar colors in your collection, which isn't worth searching everywhere for these. This retails for $2.99 at most locations, but I purchased mine for $3.49 at Walgreens (Walgreens here in the Bay Area always marks everything more than it's supposed to retail).

If you are interested in these, nouveaucheap (link) has a sighting map for these.

What do you think about the new limited edition Wet n Wild eyeshadow trios? Have you purchased any?

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NARS Voulez Vous Eye & Cheek Palette

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NARS Voulez Vous Eye & Cheek Palette

Preview:

Last year, NARS came out with a second version of their cheek palette for Nordstrom's Anniversary sale. I was hoping for something similar to that again, but unfortunately, it will be an eye & cheek palette, which is what their palettes have been like these past few months. Here is a preview of the Voulez Vous Palette:

Image found from Nordstrom.com

I don't know how to feel about this, but I DO like that they do not include their bronzer OR Orgasm blush in this. Instead, it will have Dolce Vita & Deep Throat, along with four new exclusive eyeshadow shades for this palette. This will retail for $59, and the each of the blush sizes are 0.15 oz, which isn't too bad of a deal considering one full-size blush has 0.16oz of product & retails for $29, so it's like buying two blushes and getting the eyeshadows with it.

What do you think about this palette? I'm on the fence about it, but since I don't have Deep Throat & Dolce Vita, I might end up picking this up.


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