New Neutral Quads! Review

I have never tried the Maybelline Eyestudio products.  The eyeshadow quads always looked tempting, but I personally don't enjoy getting quads that have only shimmery shades or only matte shades. I appreciate the variety of textures when it comes to my palettes so that I can create an entire eye look just using that one palette...versus having to pull from other palettes if I happen to need a matte or shimmery shade. After watching Amarixe's drugstore eye tutorial using the new, limited edition Strut it Suede quad, I knew I had to have it.  Finding this quad was a bit of a quest. They were sold out at my Walgreens and CVS because they are only a couple of them on each Maybelline display.  Luckily, I found mine at a local Ulta store.  When I went to reach for the Strut it Suede quad, I fell in love with Makeover Mocha.  I love neutral quads, I just can't seem to get enough of them!  I have to be completely honest, I absolutely love these two palettes!!! 

The first three shades are incredibly silky smooth.  The light champagne color is a frosty cream shade. The second and third shade are very wearable shades brown.  They have a satin-like finish, and they come off looking matte on my eyes.  The last shade is a little more gritty-feeling because there is some fine glitters, but the shade is gorgeous. I'm not usually into dark, charcoal shades--but I love this one!

The first shade is another satin-finish brown. The second shimmery taupe shade is the real winner in this palette and really brightens up your eyes.  The third and fourth shade are both browns with gold micro-glitters within the shadow.  These shades are perfect for fall. 

As you can see from the swatches, they are insanely pigmented. Just keep in mind that these shadows are also very easily blended and sometimes the intensity can be blended away.  So the key with these shadows is to layer! 

The third neutral quad I purchased was bought on a whim.  All Sonia Kashuk quads were $10.00 versus the normal $12.99, so I decided to give this one a chance--especially since I was on a neutral eyeshadow kick.  I was intrigued by the bottom left shade...which look beautifully, shiny. I thought the shadow was going to appear as if I was wearing liquid metal. Unfortunately, the shade was just glitter packed very tightly into the pan. When I was rubbing the shade for swatches, the shadow actually started crumbling and falling apart underneath my finger.  I was sorely disappointed in this quad.  

Even though the other shades are nice, pigmented, smooth, etc...that shimmery, gold, bottom-left shade just really turned me off from the rest of the palette. 

If you're looking for a nice neutral quad for fall or just for your collection, I highly recommend the Maybelline Eyestudio limited edition quads.  The Sonia Kashuk one seems to be more readily available (Target), but if you can get your hands on the Maybelline--then go with it! 

Milani Baked Face Products

Recently, I purchased a few Milani baked products from cherryculture.com.  They have gotten a lot of hype on youtube, and I was very very interested in trying them out myself.  The blushes retail around $7.00 at the drugstore and $6.99 on the website. The bronzer was $8.99 on cherryculture.com.  

Honestly, I thought I would enjoy these baked products a lot more than I did.  They have wonderful pigmentation and are absolutely stunning to look at, but I wasn't that pleased. I think it may have to do with the packaging, along with the gold shimmer. 

When you open the package, the actual blush part does not hook into the bottom compartment where the brush is stored. It makes the container feel cheap and not secure. I also hate that the packaging is so bulky. It's really not necessary to use that much plastic to store the blush. 

If you enjoy baked products and don't mind the gold shimmer, then these products would work well for you! I think I would enjoy them a lot more if I wasn't so turned off by the packaging. 

Too Faced Chocolate Soleil Bronzer

I have been eyeing this bronzer for so long! Every single time I walk into an Ulta or a Sephora, I walk over to the Too Faced isle, pick up this bronzer, take a whiff, swatch it with my finger, look at the price, take a big sigh, and then put it back down. 

I finally bought it! I decided I needed a high-end splurge after my first three weeks of teaching first grade :) I'm thinking my next big splurge is going to be some of those Tarte Amazonian 12 hour blushes which are BEAUTIFUL and always being raved about on youtube and beauty blogs.

The Chocolate Soleil Bronzer is a matte bronzing powder made with real cocoa. Let me tell you, the smell of it is absolutely amazing. It smells like hot cocoa powder with marshmellows. I think 60% of the reason why I bought it was because of the small.  The other 40% is due to the fact that it is very pigmented, soft, smooth, and matte.  I love it as an all-over bronzer as well as a contouring powder. It retails for about $30.00 at Sephora and Ulta, but if you can afford it, it's a lovely product! :)

UPDATE!

I feel like I've been MIA for so long :(

Work has been taking over my life, and I haven't been able to think about anything else--especially makeup.  Fortunately for this blog and all who enjoy reading my posts, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on allcosmeticshwolesale.com and cherryculture.com.  I couldn't help myself...I was having makeup withdrawals!

I mostly purchased face products...more specifically, blushes.  I purchased a couple of Milani baked blushes, Milani powder blushes, Loreal HIP cream blushes.  I also got some other random face things like NYX concealers in a jar, Bobbi Brown color corrector in Bisque, and Loreal Magic Studio Perfecting Base.

Items are currently shipping so hopefully I'll be able to do a haul video soon. I hope you all are enjoying life and taking it easy! :)

ELF Studio Cream Eyeshadows

WARNING: I didn't do as a great of a job taking pictures of these swatches and labeling them so just bare with me :)

I know many of you have been dying to try this product.  I just began the training for my job, and I haven't been able to fully review/test these babies out because I don't want them to start fading during my 7-hour day! However, I imagined most of you would appreciate seeing swatches and hearing what I think so far...

(****THE FIRST SHADE ON THE LEFT IS Natural Glow)

Originally, I just had one shade: Dawn.  I did research and read reviews on these cream shadows and Dawn seemed to get the most hype. Just as a heads up, Candlelight is still the one that gives people the most trouble as far as the product's consistency goes. 

Although Dawn is a beautiful, shimmery, taupe shade...I realized that after receiving the rest of my cream eyeshadows, I noticed that the consistency and feel of Dawn wasn't as creamy and smooth as all the other ones I had purchased at a later date.  Understand that my product may be a faulty one, but regardless...I still enjoy the shade. This is the only one that I have worn on it's own, and it seemed to hold up pretty well without creasing.

Natural Glow is a very shimmery, gold color with flecks of gold glitter.

Teal Party is a light, teal blue with golden shimmer.

Bronzed is a very pigmented copper color.

Eggplant is a medium purple with a metallic sheen.

Finally, Dawn is the cool-toned, taupe shade.  You can see in the swatch that there is a little clump of the cream eyeshadow. I haven't had that problem with the other cream eyeshadows, the clumping, but I haven't used the other ones enough to know if that happens later or not.

Hopefully I can review these more in-depth later and actually place them on my lids so you can see!

 Stay tuned for that!

Blog Award!

The rules are:

01. Thank the person that gave you the awards, and link back to them.

02. Post seven things about yourself.

03. Pass the love to 15 bloggers.

                                                   04. Let them know they receive an award

Thanks Kat @Kaleidoscope Colors for giving me my first award ever =)

1.  I love nail polish, but I don't have the patience to let my hands dry before I start working on something that usually causes them to chip immediately or rub off. 

2.  I am going to be a first grade teacher in two weeks! 

3.  I am a huge writing utensil addict.  I love to have as many colors as I can in markers, gel pens, ink pens, ball-point pens, colored pencils, crayons, sharpies, felt-tip pens, etc. 

4.  I am a social butterfly.  I can/will spend any day and every day with my friends if it were possible!

5.  I rarely splurge on a makeup product or spend full price on a product. I am always waiting for a sale.

6.  Eating = love.  I like trying new restaurants every opportunity I get, and I enjoy eating foods from different cultures.

7.  I have a ginormous soft spot for animals. I tend to like them more than people.. =P 

Now I pass this award to the following people:

Silly Lilacs
a-noelle
Savvy Sidd Speaks

Nouveau Cheap

Pammy Blogs Beauty

Pink Cupcake

Product Rater

xteeener

The Makeup Drawer

The Lacquer Log

In Her Makeup Bag

Affordable Beauty

Beauty Defined By Pang

Everyday Makeup Blog

Will Work For Makeup

MAC Amber Lights Dupe!

I try not to blog more than once a day, but this dupe is too awesome to not share right away! I only have a few MAC eyeshadows because they are pricey, and I think there are cheaper alternatives that are just as pigmented, smooth, etc.  Anyways, if you have been wanting to get your hands on MAC's Amber Lights..here is a dupe that is pretty darn close. 

Go out to your drugstore and purchase Maybelline's Trio in Bronze Glitz.  The top shade resembles it's high-end counterpart, and I don't think you'll be disappointed.  The whole quad in itself is very pigmented and smooth, but most importantly, the texture of that top shade feels just as creamy and butter-smooth as Amber Lights. 

From the swatch, you can tell that Amber Lights is slightly more golden, but I promise the difference is so slight that they look almost identical on the eyelids. Yay for cheap alternatives! :D

ELF Mineral Eyeshadows

If you want to experiment with loose pigments at an affordable cost, you have to get your hands on some ELF Mineral Eyeshadows. The colors are absolutely gorgeous! I love placing the color onto the center of my lids because some of the eyeshadows look like liquid metal and give your eye that instant brightening look! These shadows retail for $3.00 each and can be found at eyeslipsface.com

I swatched all the ELF mineral eyeshadows that I have below.  Please forgive the images. I'm new to blogging so they aren't all aligned the same way and don't have that professional touch yet.  However, all the pictures were taken without flash, without a primer, and in natural lighting.  Also, remember that these shadows may appear differently on your skin!

Make sure to check out Kat's blog on an easy trick to use when applying these loose shadows or pigments so that there is no fall-out on your face. :)

There are many more colors on the site, but as you'll come to see...I love sticking to my neutrals. I used to have more of the colors, but I gave them away to people who would actually wear them.  If you're into color, you should definitely check out their green shade in Earthy and their intense pink shade called Sweet. 

Hope you enjoyed! :)

Blog Giveaway!

http://prettymaking.blogspot.com/2011/07/prettymakings-almost-200-followers.html is doing a giveaway with amazing prizes! It's not hard to enter. Check it out! :)

ELF Haul!

ELF (Eyes Lips Face) had a site-wide sale where everything was priced at 60% off!!! I couldn't help myself and picked up quite a few things as you can see below:

Shimmering Facial Whip in the shade Toasted

Hypershine Lip Gloss in the shade Fairy

Both Toasted and Fairy were recommended by one of my favorite youtube gurus, Emilynoel83. If you haven't seen her videos, you should definitely check them out. 

Studio Cream Blushes in the shades Tease and Vixen

I already have one of these studio blushes featured in one of my past posts on cream blushes called Heartbreaker. That product convinced me to purchase two more shades because of their lasting power and the way they apply onto the face.  The texture is also too unique to pass up with a 60%  sale going on! I thought Tease was a more natural color, while Vixen would be a great shade to wear during the fall season.

Mineral Lipstick in Rosy Raisin and

Mineral Eye shadows in Natural, Celebrity, Caffeinated, Confident, and Sassy

This will be my first time trying a mineral lipstick. I have purchased all these mineral eye shadows in the past but decided to give them away to a friend.  However, I decided that I missed having them in my collection.  These mineral eye shadows are loose, pigmented, and shimmery.  They are beautiful when layered on top of the eyelid! I'm sure I will do a post soon showing the swatches of all my ELF mineral eye shadows.

Duo Cream Eye Shadow in Olive

I also already have two of these duo cream eye shadows, so this is just another one added to my collection!  They are extremely pigmented and work as an amazing eye shadow base.  They will crease when you wear them on your bare lid, but if you are wearing a green eye shadow, for example, you can make the green eye shadow appear brighter and more vibrant when you place the green cream eye shadow in a thin layer before applying the green eye shadow. 

Studio Cream Eye Shadows

Finally, I have been waiting to get these babies in so that I can do a review and application post for one of my followers, Kat . For now, I can say that they are pigmented, smooth, and creamy! I have high hopes for these as I would love them to replace my expensive MAC Paint Pots. 

Professional Blending Brush and Studio Stippling Brush

After almost 3 years, my professional blending brush is finally giving out and starting to come loose from the ferrule.  3 years is a pretty long time for such a soft, dense brush that only cost me $1.00.  I also purchased the Studio Stippling brush because I have been wanting to try it out as a blush brush. I'll see how that works.

If you love makeup or you're a beginner...definitely check out ELF at eyeslipsface.com.  The site sells quality, affordable makeup that you can try!