Revlon Colorburst Matte Balm

Swatches & Review

A few days ago, my boyfriend found the new Revlon items I have been searching for. In addition to the ones he purchased, I also purchased Striking for a total of five out of the ten new matte balms from Revlon. I was super excited to try these since I love a matte finish lip products so I just had to dive in as soon as I could and test some out, as well as swatch the rest in the collection.

The new matte balms are packaged like their Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain's, however, these are on the Colorburst line instead of the Just Bitten line. Since these are matte, the packaging has a matte look & feel to it. These twist up so that you would not need to sharpen them as well.

From left to right: Showy, Sultry, Striking, Standout, Shameless

Unlike the Balm Stain's, these are not shrink-wrapped. They have a small piece of tape and I don't like it because it makes it easier for people to open it to tamper with it. I tried to peel it off & seal it back to see if it is noticeable if it has been tampered with & I was not really able to tell because it just taped right back on to how it was before.

These are the lip swatches I have also posted on my instagram.

Full-face with the lip products.

Showy: Bright candy pink. Although in the full-face picture it shows more as a bubble-gum pink, I feel like it looks a lot more like the lip swatch in person where it has a slight lavender tint to it. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like bright and light colors like these normally shows up a bit lavender on me while it does not to many others (such as Candy Yum Yum) so it might be different on me depending on my skintone/lip pigmentation. This applied a lot lighter than I thought it would because it looked like it would be a magenta from the packaging. This shade definitely shows the dry patches on the lips a lot more than the other shades so I would recommend exfoliating before using this.
Sultry: Mauvey-pink. This was very pigmented and one of my favorites. It is a nice shade for everyday wear because it is like a neutral, but not very neutral.
Striking: Tomato Red/Red-Orange. This was a surprise favorite because I thought it would be more of an orange, but after trying it, it kind of reminded me of Maybelline's Vibrant Mandarin, but this is more on the red side. This is very wearable.
Standout: Classic red. This is similar to many reds that I own so this is not a "must" have if you have a lot of reds, but it was very nice.
Shameless: This shade was the shade I was most excited for because I absolutely love purple lip colors! However, this was not as pigmented as the others I have tried because it required more swipes and it applied a bit patchy. It definitely reminds me of one of the recent limited edition Maybelline purple lipsticks.

Overall, these dried into a nice matte shade, but nothing that is super matte like MAC Cosmetics Retro Matte, but more of a regular matte where it is not very drying. Although it is not as moisturizing as the Revlon's Balm Stains since these are not balms, they did not feel drying the first two hours of wear, but it felt drying a while after that. It has a very lightweight feeling so that is good because sometimes, mattes sit weirdly on my lips. Like the Balm Stains, these have a minty scent to it and it has a slight tingle to it, but nothing that tingles too much, so if you do not like the Balm Stains for the scent, these would probably not be for you. I find that after these set, they do not transfer much. The formula was also pretty consistent with all the ones I have tried except for Shameless, which was a bit patchy. They glided on smoothly without tug & it was perfect! The only thing I would have liked better is if these were shrink-wrapped rather than it having just a piece of tape over it.

My boyfriend picked them up for me from Bed Bath & Beyond for $6.99 each and I am still unsure if these are supposed to be a part of the Holiday/Winter collection or Spring because when I first heard about these, they were supposed to be a part of the Spring collection. Since these are already at Bed Bath & Beyond, these may pop up soon at local drugstores that usually carries Revlon, but the price may vary. I would also like to note that six out of the ten of the matte balms only have one of each color per display, while the lacquer balms have two of each color in the display. The ones with only one each are Shameless, Standout, Mischievous, Elusive, Striking & Complex.

What do you think about these Matte Balms from Revlon? Are you a fan of mattes? Are you looking forward to the Lacquer Balms more?

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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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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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