Tarte Cosmetics Pure Delights 8-Piece LipSurgence Set

Swatches & Review

Another set I purchased from Tarte Cosmetics Holiday 2013 Tarte of Giving collection is their Pure Delights LipSurgence lip set. The past two years, Tarte has released LipSurgence sets that are full-sized, but this year, they made a set with eight deluxe-sized LipSurgence's. I was hoping for one that was all matte, but since half of this set is with their matte formula, I had to get it.

The four matte shades are: Glee, Generous, Destined & Cheerful.

Generous: Orange-ish, neutral. On their website, Generous is described as a pink-nude, but to me, it seems a bit more orange when swatched. I was surprised how wearable this nude was because nude lip colors normally wash me out.
Glee: Watermelon, coral-pink. This was very pigmented & glided on smoothly.
Destined: Raspberry pink. This was also very pigmented & glided on smoothly.
Cheerful: This is a coral shade, but it also kind of leans almost bubblegum pink on me. Out of all the matte shades, this shade seemed to show up dry spots on my lips more than the other three.

The four shades of their regular lip tint formula are: Enamored, Grateful, Believe & Lovely.

Lovely: Mauve-pink. It applied smooth & even on the lips.
Enamored: Cool toned red. After applying, I felt like this looks kind of uneven on the lips compared to the others I have tried. However, this was the most pigmented of the bunch, but was still a bit see through on the lips because it is more of a tint to the lips than to cover it up.
Grateful: Nude. Like Generous from the matte shades, I felt like this was more of a orange-nude, which made it wearable for me. This was one of the least pigmented ones in the set and seems more like a MLBB shade.
Believe: This is a medium pink & like Lovely, it applied smooth & even on the lips.

Comparison:

Compared to a full-sized LipSurgence, these deluxe-sized ones look a bit more than half of a full-sized. A full-sized contains 0.10 oz of product & the ones in the Pure Delights set contains 0.06 oz each.

Overall, I like this set more than I thought I would. When I first received it, I initially thought "Wow, these are SO small," but after comparing them to full-sized ones, I guess it really isn't THAT small. I really like the matte formula of LipSurgence's because they are not very drying & they pack a bunch of pigment as well. I feel like it would be faster to use up the regular formula lip tints because they use more products because the product itself feels very soft, while the mattes have a bit of a harder feel on the product itself. These have a slight peppermint scent to it & it feels kind of cool once applied to the lips, but the scent fades away after a while of wearing it. I believe the colors in this set are exclusive so once it's gone, it's gone. These are so cute, they would definitely make great stocking stuffers! The Pure Delights LipSurgence set retails for $34 and can be purchased from Sephora (in-store & online), Ulta (in-store mid October & online now) & tartecosmetics.com.

What do you think about this LipSurgence set? Do you like the matte LipSurgence formula?

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Tarte Cosmetics Leave Her Blushing Blush Set

Swatches & Review

Every year, Tarte Cosmetics comes out with holiday sets with amazing values to them so I was definitely looking forward to how the sets offered are for this year. When it was first released on Sephora, I was disappointed that they did not have individual deluxe-size blushes like last year's Fantastic Foursome (link). To my surprise, they actually released a set of three mini-blushes and a blush brush on their website a few days later. Tarte Cosmetics Leave Her Blushing set seems to be exclusive to tartecosmetics.com & has three blushes and one blush brush included.

Looking at the pan, the blushes look very bright.

The three blushes are Honored, Imagined & Treasured. Each of these blushes has 0.053 oz of product, which is about 1/4 of a full-sized blush from Tarte.

Taken with a light over them, you can see that the blushes look slightly shimmery. Treasured is the one with most shimmer visible under light.

Honored: To me, this looks like a neutral rose pink, which is pretty much how Tarte described it when they said it is a nude rose. This has a slight silvery sheen to it, but it was not too noticeable. This was smooth and pigmented.

Imagined: Tarte describes this as a candy pink shade. In the pan, this looks like it would be super bright and pigmented, but when swatched, it ended up being a light-lavender pink. I was actually very surprised because it looked like it would be very intense when swatched. Imagined was very stiff and not very pigmented. With a finger swatch, it was hard to pick up the product on my finger and with a brush, it was barely able to pick up any product at all. This was very chalky once applied & even when I tried on my cheeks, it just looked very dry-chalky looking. This also has a slight silver sheen, but I was very disappointed this this shade.

Treasured: Tarte describes this as a melon, but it is more of a apricot-pink to me, so goldish-pink. I was not able to capture the golden sheen well on camera, but this was very NARS Orgasm-like. It is like a subtle pink with a strong golden sheen to it, but it applied very smooth, I like it more than NARS Orgasm. This is not the most unique shade, but it is nice if you do not already have NARS Orgasm or a bunch of similar shades close to it.

Overall, I feel like this set is not something that is a "must have" like last years set. Last year, the blushes has 0.10 oz of product and this year, it is half of that size, which makes it come out to $6.50 per blush this year since a full-size retails for $26. This years set also has colors that seem like it can easily be duped, or it would be easy to find colors very similar to what this set has to offer. I did not picture the brush, but after using it, I actually like it. It is soft and it blends out blushes nicely. I tried the blush on other products such as theBalm's Instain blushes and since it was soft, it made it look very natural looking since theBalm's blushes tend to easily give you clown cheeks. Altogether, the blushes come out to be $19.50 & the brush is $28, which makes the total value of this set at $47.50, which is not an "amazing" deal since it's $13.50 less, but if you want this set for the new & exclusive shades, then this would probably be more of a collector's item. This set retails for $34 and can be purchased on tartecosmetics.com (not affiliated).

What do you think about Holiday sets? Have you indulged in any Holiday sets yet, or are you waiting until later on in the season since it is only a few days into fall?

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Tarte Aqualillies Amazonian Clay Waterproof Eye And Cheek Palette

Swatches & Review



For Summer 2013, Tarte has released their whole collection based on Aqualillies. One of the products in their summer collection is the Tarte Aqualillies Eye & Cheek palette, which is also waterproof. This palette consists of six eyeshadows, one bronzer, one highlighter, and one blush.

This is packaged in a plastic round case with the design printed onto it.


The eyeshadows, highlighter & bronzer form a circle around the blush.


From left to right:
Eyeshadows:
Hammock: Matte dark brown.
Bikini: Champagne with a satin finish.
Barefoot: Frosty light yellow-beige.
Parasol: Frosty white.
Sundeck: Matte light brown.
Poolside: Iridescent golden-blue.
Highlighter:
Champagne: Frosty champagne. This was pretty similar to the eyeshadow Bikini, which is also in this palette.
Bronzer:
Park Ave Princess: Matte light brown.
Blush:
Captivating: Matte coral.

I found that all of the eyeshadows were very smooth and pigmented and they are perfect to be used as an everyday eye color since it is mainly neutral. The highlighter was very similar to the eyeshadow Bikini, so I wish their highlighter was a bit different since there are some highlighters out there that lean a bit more yellow. The bronzer has a matte finish, so it is perfect for contouring, however, it applied kind of patchy for me (I have this problem with many bronzers). At first, I thought that the blush would be similar to Tipsy, but when I looked at it, Captivating seems to lean more orange than Tipsy.

I like that this palette is perfect to use for a full-face makeup because it comes with wearable eyeshadows, highlighter, bronzer, & blush. The thing that I do not really like about this is the packaging. The plastic packaging feels cheap and feels like it would easily break if it was dropped. When I bought this, it was SO HARD to open it, I kept breaking my nails trying to open it, but it was a lot easier to open it after I filed down the little plastic thing that keeps the product closed, but it was quite annoying. Another thing was that the bronze paint for my palette is already chipping off and I have only used it once. I have not dropped it or anything since I always keep the items in its original packaging, and the paint is just peeling off, which is kind of annoying as well. However, I was quite surprised at how well the eyeshadows were because with my past experiences with Tarte eyeshadows, they come off chalky & not pigmented.

This retails for $38 and the blush included in this palette is the size of their full-sized blush, which makes it a good deal considering the blush itself would retail for $26. This can be purchased at Sephora locations & tartecosmetics.com

What do you think about this palette? Is there a Tarte item that you love?

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Tarte Amazonian 12-Hour Clay Blush: Amused

Swatches & Review

After my last haul, I told myself I was not going to buy anymore makeup, but that was definitely a fail. Yesterday when I went to the mall, I picked up Tarte's Amused blush. At first, I was not sure if I wanted it, but after trying it on in the store, I wanted it so my boyfriend bought me it. Amused is a bright pink blush.

Like always, the Tarte blushes packaging is the color of what the blush is supposed to be like.

Since it has been raining all day in the Bay Area, it was kind of hard to capture how bright this blush is. On the left, you can see the pink glowing from the pan. It is a bright pink!

I swatched it over two different lighting's. Even when it is a bit dim in the room, you can definitely see the pink glowing off my skin.

Amused is a bright cool-toned pink. It is very smooth and pigmented so this blush can be easily overdone. With a light-hand, this blush gives a very nice flush to the cheeks, which I really like.

Overall, I really like this blush. This blush kind of reminds me of NARS Gaiety & Desire, but Gaiety is a bit cooler and Desire is a bit pinker. It stayed on my for about 6-hours before seeing it noticeably fading from my cheeks. Although Tarte claims these to last 12-hours, the ones that I have tried has not lasted over 6 hours without fading. However, I am loving Tarte blushes, I'm becoming a Tartelette! In the beginning of the year, the only blushes I had were NARS, MAC, Urban Decay, Milani, Tarina Tarantino & theBalm, but now that it's the end of the year, I have about 9 Tarte blushes!

What do you think about Amused? Have you tried Tarte's Amazonian 12-hour Clay Blushes? What is your favorite Tarte blush?

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Neutral Blushes

Comparisons & Swatches

Throughout the year, I have purchased many blushes. After getting Tarte's Exposed, I looked at my blush collection and noticed that I have two other "neutral" blushes, so I decided to compare them to see the difference. The blushes that I will be comparing is Tarte's Exposed, Sleek's Suede, and MAC Cosmetics Darkly My Dear.

Exposed, Suede, Darkly My Dear

From the swatches, you can tell that they would all make nice everyday neutral blushes, but they are definitely not the same.

Tarte's Exposed is a pink-nude
Sleek's Suede is a peach-nude
MAC Cosmetics Darkly My Dear is a plum-nude.

They all have a matte finish, and are very pigmented. I think my favorite from the comparisons is Darkly My Dear, but it was a Limited Edition blush that came out two Holiday seasons ago for the Venomous Villains collection. The other two, Tarte Exposed and Sleek Suede are in their permanent line with Tarte retailing for $25 and Sleek retailing for $5.99.

Now, being the blush hoarder that I am, I'm interested in trying NARS Douceur, which is also a neutral blush that is described as a soft pink-brown.

What do you think of these blushes? Are there any other neutral blushes that you would recommend me?

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Tarte Amazonian 12-Hour Clay Blush: Exposed

Swatches & Review

Tarte's Amazonian Clay Blush in Exposed blush is a nude blush. After hearing many good things about Exposed, I decided to finally buy this since I have been loving neutral blushes lately.

In the pan, it looked like a muddy light brown shade when I first looked at it, but in different lighting, you're about to see the pink-ish tone to it.

Initially, I thought Exposed would be kind of like a light bronzer, but when swatched, it is a gorgeous pink-nude, so it does not look like a bronzer at all!

Overall, I think this is a nice neutral-pink blush shade as an everyday blush. It is pigmented, but this will not easily give you clown cheeks like Flush would, since it is more on the neutral side.

Also, Tarte is currently running their Friends and Family sale, which is 30% off their site so if you are interested in trying their blushes, you should definitely order now! Their Holiday sets are also included, such as the 4-piece blush set that I have reviewed in the past (link here). The code is FFDEC and is valid from today through the 13th of December at tartecosmetics.com

What do you think about neutral blushes? Are there any that are you favorites? What is your everyday blush?

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Tarte Amazonian 12-Hour Clay Blush: Flush

Swatches & Review

Tarte's Amazonian Clay blush in Flush is a bright berry pink color. I purchased this in the Balanced and Beautiful set from Ulta on Black Friday.

In the pan, the blush looks very intimidating since it seems so bright, but it is not as bad as I thought it was just looking it from the pan.

It is very pigmented. I just swiped the blush once with my finger and I was able to do a hard swatch AND a blended out swatch from that one swipe. It was easy to blend and with a light-hand, this blush will definitely look good on the cheeks.

Since the weather in North California has been sucky lately, I had to use flash to show you how it looks like on my cheeks. What I noticed when I use flash is it makes the blush on the cheeks look more harsh when it really isn't. There were times when my boyfriend and I would take pictures with flash and he would be like "whoa, your cheeks look so red here," but it was just the flash that makes the blush stand out a lot more, and makes my skin look very pale.

Without flash, you can see that Flush gives a nice glow to my cheeks. I applied it with a light hand and it was more than enough for both my cheeks with one swipe onto my blush brush.

Overall, I like this blush a lot! I have ordered more full-sized blushes from Tarte's Amazonian Clay line with my Sephora's VIB reward card & I can't wait for it to come! The only downside to this is that it does not last for 12-hours like it claims. For me, it lasted for a good 6 hours before you can noticeably see the fading.

What do you think about this blush? Have you tried Tarte blushes? Which one is your favorite?

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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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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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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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Tarte Statement Lips 5-Piece LipSurgence Collector's Set

Swatches & Review
Today, I have some swatches from Tarte's Holiday Statement Lips set. When I purchased the Fantastic Foursome Set, I also ordered this as well. This set contains 5 full-sized LipSurgence. When I purchased this, Sephora said it was an "all matte" set, but after getting it, I realized only one is matte. I notice now that they have changed the description of it (I also called in to tell them about it as well).

The five shades that are in this is Escape, Enchanted, Exposed, Sweet, & Elite. From what I noticed, four of these shade names begin with the letter E! Maybe it is just a coincidence?

Two of the shades have a Lip Luster finish: Escape & Sweet.
Two are Lip Tints in Enchanted and Elite.
One has a matte finish.

If you did not know, the Lip Luster finish is shimmery, the Lip Tint finish is a soft sheen with no shimmer, and the Matte finish is a flat finish with no sheen so that it would look natural. All of these have a peppermint scent to it.

Escape: Shimmery light pink
Enchanted: Light mauve
Exposed: Matte nude rose pink
Sweet: Shimmery bright pink
Elite: Rose pink

After having it on for about fifteen minutes, I wiped these off with a dry tissue. You can see a slight tint from these. The most noticeable ones are Enchanted, Exposed, and Elite.

I will do individual reviews on each of them and have lip pictures for them as well. From the swatches, it seems like the colors are very similar to one another since they are just different shades of pink. Honestly, I thought Enchanted would be the darkest one, but it wasn't. However, Enchanted left a stain that is more noticeable than the rest of them. If you are interested in the set, I feel like this is a good value since it is 5 full-sized lip tints/lusters for $34, when they retail for $24 EACH. These will also make good presents since you can just split them up. Are you interested in this set?

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Sephora Favorites

Every once in a while, Sephora releases "Sephora Favorites". Sometimes, the items catches my eyes, but sometimes it's just "meh" to me. I just spotted some newer items on their website so I decided to share!

This is the In The Glow set. I remember they had another In The Glow set earlier this year & it was more of skincare items? It seems that this time, it's more of bronzer and blushes.
According to Sephora, this set contains:
- 0.13 oz Benefit High Beam
- 0.08 oz Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Matte Bronzing Powder
- 0.17 oz Tarte Natural Cheek Stain in Flush
- 0.07 oz Stila Convertible Color in Peony
- 0.11 oz Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 Hour Blush in Splendor
- 0.106 oz Lorac Perfectly Lit Oil-Free Luminizing Powder in Spotlight
- 0.02 oz bareMinerals All Over Face Color in Pure Radiance
- 0.14 oz Laura Mercier Shimmer Bloc in Golden Mosaic
- 0.08 oz Nars Bronzing Powder in Laguna
This retails for $45.
From this set, I am interested in the Tarte blush in Splendor. It seems that the shade is exclusive to this set since I can not find any information on it. I like how this includes Too Faced's Chocolate Soleil bronzer because that is one of my favorite bronzers.

The next set is Draw The Line:

Draw the Line basically contains eyeliners in them. From the images, it seems like this set includes a full-sized Urban Decay 24/7 Liquid Liner, which retails for $19 itself. This whole set retails for $28
This contains:
- 0.12 oz Smashbox Jet Set Waterproof Eye Liner in Midnight Black
- 0.025 oz MAKE UP FOR EVER Aqua Eyes Waterproof Eyeliner in Mat Black 0L
- 0.007 oz Buxom Insider Eyeliner in Black Jasper
- 0.007 oz Kat Von D Tattoo Liner in Trooper
- 0.058 oz Urban Decay 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner in Perversion
- 0.011 oz Sephora Collection Waterproof Retractable Eyeliner in 09 Glitter Black

The last set that caught my eye was the Super Stars Beauty Essentials.

This set is more expensive than the other two I listed. This set retails for $75, but it includes a full-sized NARS Orgasm blush, a full-sized Stila liquid liner, a full-sized Benefit they're real! mascara, AND a full-sized Buxom lipgloss. Those full-sized items included pretty much is the whole set itself with some extras included.
This set contains:
- 0.035 oz Make Up For Ever HD Microfinish Powder
- 0.063 oz Sephora Collection Microsmooth Baked Eyeshadow Trio in Sunset
- 0.16 oz Nars Blush in Orgasm
- 0.33 oz Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer
- 0.50 oz Kate Somerville ExfoliKate Intensive Exfoliating Treatment
- 0.50 oz Josie Maran 100% Pure Argan Oil
- 0.3 oz Benefit They're Real! Mascara
- 0.15 oz Buxom Big & Healthy Lip Polish in Dolly
- 0.016 oz Stila Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner
- 0.20 oz Chloé Rollerball

Overall, I feel like these are a good value. I am definitely eying the In the Glow set because I am a sucker for cheek items, but the liner set seems amazing too! I think these sets are good if you want to try new things because they are a generous size for you to try it out to see if you like it. These will also make great gifts as well since you can just open it and split up the items. What do you think about these?

All images and description from this post were found on Sephora.com

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Tarte Fantastic Foursome 4-Piece Enthusiast Blush Set

Swatches & Review
Yesterday, I posted my haul from Sephora & have already reviewed Benefit's High Flyin' Glosses. Today, I will review Tarte's amazing blush set for the Holidays. It is called the Fantastic Foursome 4-Piece Amazonian Clay 12-Hour Blush Enthusiast Set, which is a really long title. Anyway, this consists of four brand new Tarte blushes. These are not full-sized, but they are half of a full-sized blush.

The four shades in this collection is Angelic, Stellar, Magic, and Fantastic. What I noticed in these are that the print/engraving in these are popped up, as opposed to the full-sized where the embossing of it goes in.

Angelic: A shimmery champagne

Stellar: Shimmery bronze

Magic: Matte coral

Fantastic: Matte light fuchsia.

My swatches from left to right are: Angelic, Stellar, Magic & Fantastic

It's been dim all morning since there is no sun this morning so I'm sorry about the swatches if they're very low-lighted. These were all very smooth, but I felt like Angelic and Stellar did not show up on my skin as well as Magic and Fantastic did. Angelic is more of a shimmery highlighter and Stellar is more of a shimmery bronzer than a blush. What I noticed about Angelic is that the packaging for that is kind of rough, while the others are a smooth kind of plastic. Magic is a coral shade and Fantastic is a light fuchsia. I really like Magic because it is not like a shade I own and Fantastic kind of reminds me of Gaiety from NARS.

Some comparisons to the full-sized ones

Overall, I feel like this is a good deal not only for people who do not own a lot of Tarte blushes, but for people who own many of them since these are all new shades. Although they are half-sized, I feel like it is still a good deal considering one full-sized itself is $25 for 0.20oz, while this set is $35 for 4 0.10oz blushes, which makes this a $50 value (even though the box states $60 value). They are very smooth and although Angelic and Stellar needed a few swipes to show up on my skin, I think it's understandable since they are more of a highlighter and bronzer, which highlighters and bronzers do not show up on me well. I like how these are half-sized since I am a blush hoarder I will never finish my blushes anyway so these will last me a while. I love how it is almost the Holidays & all these amazing sets are coming out! These would be perfect for personal use if you love blushes, but it would also be perfect as stocking stuffers since they're mini sized :)
....& this is my 100th post on the blog!

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