Palette-Palooza Week 3

I took a little break there as I was getting overwhelmed with all this stuff! But, I'm back at it again.

1. Colourpop Fame
This is lovely, cool-toned palette. There aren't a lot of cool palettes out there, which is just such a shame. I really love the soft shimmers in this and these colors complement my fair skin and green eyes really well. I get compliments when I wear this one, and I think it's because I'm finally wearing colors appropriate for my undertone.


2. Huda Beauty Mauve Obsessions
Here's one I thought would be cool because it's mauve, but no! It's all red-leaning mauves, so it's more of a berry palette. I got it from Ipsy, so there's no returns, which is kind of a bummer. It's still pretty, but a little more dramatic than I had planned. Also, the colors I really like are already in other palettes I have- the two Revolution dupes for Soft Glam and Naked 3. However, this tiny little guy is great for on-the-go make up and you know I love to do my shadow on the train. I mean, what should I do? Get up earlier to do my make up before I leave the house? Pfffft.

3. Face Candy Disco Fever
Face Candy was a brand from ShopHush.com, a now defunct website that specialized in low priced, high quality dupes of high-end palettes. I hear a very similar site- ShopAlterEgo.com has taken their place with Alter Ego branded palettes instead of Face Candy or Bad Habit. This guy is an oddly named dupe for the Too Faced Chocolate Gold palette. I guess it's disco because of the shimmer? The shimmer shades in here really do pack a punch, and the quality is fantastic. Alas, it doesn't smell like chocolate. The good news is it also doesn't smell like a disco.


4. Wander Beauty Wandress Seascape
Meh. Meh, I say! This is probably one of my least liked palettes, and I only have it because it came in a subscription box. Wander has purple-y palette that looks really pretty, but I'm not a fan of how glittery these shimmers are. While it looks like this would be a pretty palette of pastels, gold, and one surprisingly deep blue, I had trouble blending this. I think the shimmers need a glitter glue which, honestly, ugh. I don't think blue complements my eye color, so I don't wear it, and these golds are a lot of glitter. I think the green and pink are pretty (I also have shades of pink shimmer in at least 4 other palettes I've worn this month) but the green pigment didn't last on my eyes. The green pigment faded and left the gold shimmer behind. The tan color they include for blending into the crease is also very warm on me. I'm going to round up my other non-faves and make a barely-used bundle on Poshmark to rehome this guy.

5. Lorac Mega Pro 4
I love Lorac. I love my pro palette, I love the mega pro, I love the blush.
I love them in a box, I love them with a fox. I love them here and there, I love them anywhere.
This one is another pastel with lots of cool tones. I feel like this is a springtime kind of palette, but I think that may be because it's pink. There are some darker, more fall kind of tones on the right side of the palette, but I tend to use the left side more. Now that the seasons are changing, I'm going to make an effort to branch out.


6. Urban Decay Elements
Isn't this just so pretty? It really is. This isn't the most practical palette since there aren't many mattes, but the shimmer and foils have a multidimensional look instead of just a flat "this is glitter now." Even though I have the Naked palette, the browns in here are really unique. I don't really use the bright pink or the blues at the top, but everything else is so shimmery and pigmented, I can just swipe it on and look like a magical elfin princess. Well, at least I have the lids of a magical elfin princess.

7. Smashbox Master Class Palette: Lighting Theory
Here's one I always forget about, which is a shame. For the longest time, I had this, the Lorac Pro, and an assortment of Clinique gift with purchase shadow duos and may be a Covergirl quad. The end. The shadows in here are a lovely mix of cool and warm, neutral and more vibrant colors. The blushes are all fairly universal and good quality- although they don't pack as much of a punch as they did when they were new. (I guess the same can said of us all.) I loved that this came with little inserts and diagrams of how to use the products to create different looks like the old Jane Cosmetics in-store kiosks use to have! I bought it when I first wanted to try contouring, but I really didn't know what I was doing and cream contours are difficult to use. Even after a couple years, the creams in here still work. I don't know what sorcery this is, or if they are just teeming with bacteria, but I just spritz a little rubbing alcohol on them and still smash 'em on my face. The color correcting creams are very effective, and the cream highlight isn't bad. Its not my favorite method because it tends to move around any liquid foundation, and I think that powder highlight blurs out any texture better than cream. I still don't like cream contour. But, as Marie Kondo teaches us, I can thank this product for teaching me what I like. (Not this.)

I'm realizing that I have a lot of palettes left my drawer and it kind of makes my stomach hurt.

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I have a lot of little guys from subscription boxes; if I hadn't unsubscribed already, this definitely would have been the kick in the pants to do so. I don't know how people can subscribe to several of these boxes at a time for years, but I see it online all the time. I had one a month, switching between brands, for not even a year and I'm awash in colorful pigments. After three weeks of a palette a day, I'm becoming more conscious of what I have and more inclined to use what I own instead of just letting it sit around taking up space, so I guess that's a positive?

Stuff I don't like- wrong undertones

Ever get a beautiful lipstick or bronzer or highlighter or whatever that looked amazing on someone else and find it looks like death warmed over on you?

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I have found that when shades are too warm/golden like the original Naked palette or every highlighter made from 2012-2017, they tend to have a pronounced yellow undertone to them. My skin has a pink undertone that I try to tone down through neutral foundation, but gets emphasized with golden make-up. Just a take a spin around the color wheel to see what happens when you mix these color families: Gold (yellow)+ Pink (red)= Orange. Warm tones can give me serious early 2000's fake tan vibes.

Ross knows what I'm talking about.

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Palette-Palooza: Week 2

1. Tarte Tartlette
Tarte eye shadows smell really good. Let's just get that out there. They smell like vanilla and people lose their minds for eye shadows that smell good. (See: all the Too Faced palettes) The Tarte formula is fantastic. They promote the use of a lot of natural ingredients, most famously their Amazonian clay, and they really do blend out beautifully. This is an all-matte palette, which is a huge help for hooded eyes, but I like to have a little shimmer on the lid to bring a little more focus and give the illusion of more lid space and more even depth. With hooded eyes, a little shimmer on the lid helps reduce the heavy look you can sometimes get, but shimmer anywhere else makes the eyes look puffy. This collection has three rows with one each of warm, cool, and neutral shadows. They are all muted shades that make really pretty, everyday looks. I would have been bonkers for this in high school, if I could have gotten myself together enough to put on make up. I usually go for the center row because I love me some cool shades.

2. Lovecraft Beauty Blush Palette
I forgot to take shadow with me when I ran out the door for the train, but I did have this blush in my bag. Powder is powder, basically. This is why people like face palettes. I haven't been super impressed with this blush as a blush, but it actually made a great eye shadow in a pinch. I used the coral shade for all over, then the darker rose for the outer corner and lighter pink for the lid. Not too shabs.

3. Makeup Revolution Reloaded in Velvet Rose
Another MUR dupe! This time, it's for Anastasia Beverly Hills Soft Glam. (Does it also share some mattes with the Tartelette? I believe it does.) It has some similar pinks and mauves to those in the Iconic 3.0/ Urban Decay Naked 3, but is much warmer with more tans, corals, golds, and warm browns. I have an actual Anastasia Palette- the Sultry palette- and the formulas are super soft, powdery, and pigmented. While this formula has a firmer texture (not a bad thing, I couldn't never use Sultry on a train) the colors are pretty much identical. I made a very pretty and work-appropriate tan and pink shimmer pretty quickly with this. The real deal is $42.

4. Coastal Scents Revealed 3
Coastal Scents is a budget brand that kind of flies under the radar. I got this "free" with shipping. They have a few dupe palettes, but this seems to be a collection of tones similar to Urban Decay Naked 1-3. Much like the Cargo palette, this is packed hard and needs to built up. You can make some very pretty, natural looks with this, but it takes some time. I like to throw this in my bag for train make-up since it's not going to fall apart and the pigments are sheer enough that I really can't completely screw up my makeup in a moving vehicle.


5. Anastasia Beverly Hills Sultry
Now a fancy palette! I got this during a half price sale when I was lured in by the siren song of glitter encrusted packaging. Glitter! Encrusted! ABH is known for powdery, highly pigmented shades and this one falls in line. This is not for train make-up. I made a very pretty eye look with the cool browns and shimmery golds, which blended out smoothly and stayed on for hours. It would be really easy to overboard with this palette, so I stuck to some lighter shades.

6. BH Cosmetics Royal Affair
Oh, BH Cosmetics, sometimes you're not great. This was a limited release for the holidays, I think. I got for, like, $5 in March. I usually like BH a lot, so I was disappointed that some of the shades in here are patchy and hard to blend. I used the dark green and it looked almost black and refused to blend. The gray was so sheer I couldn't see it. I've used the browns before, and they are pretty good, but how many browns do you really need in life? The shimmer shades are very pretty, but fade away quickly. Maybe I need to use glitter glue? It's a great mix of colors, but it's just not super easy to use.

And, on the 7th day, I rested. And cleaned my brushes, because, ew.

Stuff that smells good- eyelid edition

You know what is a ridiculous beauty trend? Scented skin products. Fragrance is universally known to be a skin irritant, but it's in so many products. Moisturizers, serums, shampoo- all perfumed to death. There's even fragrance in make-up products, which is ridiculous because the scent dissipates almost immediately and the chemicals stick around.

You know I buy a lot of anyway? Scented skin products. I think the one brand that exemplifies the scented skin product madness more than any other is Too Faced. Too Faced realized that people just can't resist makeup that smells like foodstuffs and has latched on to this fact with a grappling hook.

Too Faced: "Would you like to buy a $50 palette of brown eye shadow colors you probably already have?"
Me: "No. That doesn't make any sense."
Too Faced: "But it smells like Jolly Ranchers."
Me:

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Palette-Palooza!

Week one of Palette-Palooza! I've realized that I basically do the same look matter the palette, and that I have more colors than I will ever need in just the palettes I've used this week alone. I tried taking photos of my eye looks, but they all look sort of washed out and kind of like I should have today's newspaper underneath as proof of life. I don't know how other people get such beautiful photos.

1. Cargo Cosmetics Limited Edition Tokyo In Bloom
I love the design of this palette. I saw it TJ Maxx and said to myself, “I definitely already have all these colors,” and then I bought it. This has lovely, cool-toned mauves and pinks which is just entirely my jam. I didn’t like this when I first used it because I’m used to more pigmented shadow. I wasn’t getting much color and they were just mixing into a big bleh.  Once I figured out I had to build up each color, I liked it much more. It starts out sheer, so it can be very natural, and they blend well at transitions between colors. The packaging, while beautiful, is also very clunky. It's a bunch of layers of cardboard stacked so high, it's difficult to get the brush out of its cavern. Unnecessary and annoying.  But, I really like that it’s set up in quads and duos because the less I have to think about my makeup in the morning, the better.

 




2.  BH Cosmetics Cosmic Chic
This is all metallic palette that looks like little planets. It’s adorable. I really like BH Cosmetics and I bought a few palettes when they had one of their big sales. While the products are always affordable, the web site also always runs some sort of sale and gift with purchase. I wasn’t sure how I would make a look from a metallic only palette, but I think it actually worked out pretty well. I did cheat a little bit by setting my primer with Coty Airspun, but then I used two grays for the lid. I put the darker one in the outer half and really blended it into the crease to blend out most of the shine. I pat the lighter gray in the inner half to keep as much shine as possible. It was OK, but I wanted a it to look a little less dramatic so I put the chocolate brown over the dark gray and blended it in too. I think that made it a little  more daytime appropriate for the grocery trip I was about to on. (Less Emo, more Aldi.) I’m really happy to see how well these blend and the different finishes I can make from all all- metallic palette. I took the photos in sunlight, and the metallic finish threw back light, making the shadow seems lighter. I could probably sheer it out to look like this, but in person this is a more steely grey/ mauve brown.
  

3. Too Faced White Peach
There was a lot of debate over this palette. I actually bought and returned it when it came out. The first palette I got had very faint, crumbly glitter shades and I figured that at this price, I wouldn't keep a palette around when I couldn't use 1/4 of the shades.  When I saw it half off at TJ Maxx, I picked it up again for the rest of the shades- which were always very pretty. I guess there were a couple batches of this palette out there, because all the shades in this one work beautifully! I love these peachy shades, and I really like that they are lighter than the usual super warm coral and peach palettes our there that are just too dramatic for my fair skin.

This one turned out really poorly, so I gave up on photos

4. BH Cosmetics Afternoon Rendezvous
I got this for free with a BH order. They always have some sort of giveaway happening. I wan't super stoked for another warm toned palette, but this little mini palette is perfect for keeping in my bag when I do my make up on the train. The pans are just so teeny and cute! There are enough colors that I can add a little something different whenever I use this depending on what I happen to be wearing that day, which is wonderful for mass-transit make-up.


5. Lorac Mega Pro 2
Lorac is an amazing brand for shadows, and really any powder product. I got a blush set and it's amazing as well. I have a few Lorac eye shadow palettes, and the colors are always pigmented, blendable, and notoriously powdery. I think it helps the blending. I have the 4 and the 2, both have a lot of cool shades and some pretty pastels. Since most people have warmer toned skin, and warm tones are just so much more popular now, these palettes are not the most popular. But, if you have cool, fair skin like me- they are a great fit.





6. Makeup Revolution Iconic 3.0
This is a $7 dupe for the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. I really like these shades, and Makeup Revolution usually kills it with their formulas. While I love the cool Urban Decay/ adorable Too Faced-style packaging, you can't beat $7. This is a plain, although sleek, plastic case with no mirror. The pans are huge, and the colors are gorgeous. I loved the Naked 3, but I just couldn't part with $50 for a bunch of pink eye shadow. These colors complement my green eyes, a lot like the Tokyo in Bloom. This one has more pigment than the Cargo one, while that has a little more diversity in shades.


7. BH Cosmetics Zodiac
Another BH palette. I love these eye shadows. This palette has a mix of pressed and baked shadows, and the design is just so fun. I'm a big astrology and astronomy fan (not an expert, but I know my sign and like seeing eclipses.) I find that I need an additional color to set my primer and use as an all-over shade since there aren't any light mattes.

That's it for this week, see you next time with more conspicuous consumption!

Eyeshadow

I don’t know what happened in my life a couple years ago, but I have lost my mind with make up. I joined some subscription boxes and somehow accrued 1000 points at Ulta. Like, what? I don’t know if it was stress (it was totally stress) but I’ve noticed I have too much stuff and I’m trying to get back to my old, simpler ways.

Now, I don’t want to get entirely back to my old routine. When I say I had a simple approach to make up, I mean I bought a soap and a lipstick at Clinique during bonus time and just used the eyeshadow duo/mascara/moisturizer in the bonus until they were dead. That was pretty much it aside from some drugstore eyeshadow here and there, and I have always loved lipstick. I wore foundation for about two weeks in high school, decided I hated it, and only ever wore “make up” - more than the occasional mascara and lip balm/stick- for interviews or photos for years.

In my late 20’s/early 30’s, I figured out that some daily makeup made me look more professional. I usually kept some concealer, lipstick, and mascara in my bag and slapped them on in the car. I finally bought an actual eyeshadow palette when Urban Decay Naked came out and it suddenly became the law that everybody had to have a palette or your grown-up adult grooming routine might as well be using Lip Smackers and stick-on glitter gem earrings. Funnily enough, I did not buy the Naked palette (don't worry, that has since been rectified.) I went to Sephora with my sister and we each bought the Lorac Pro.

Yes, I still have it. I’m sure it’s fine. 

This palette had a wider range of colors while still being neutral, and had a equal amount of matte and shimmer. At the time, I looked at the Naked palette and thought, “Why would I ever want to put glitter on my eyelids?”

This month, I’ll be using a different palette every day to see it I really them and which ones I want to keep. I haven’t counted them up, but I if I run out of days before I run out of palettes, I’m worse off than I thought.

Hair stuff- an update

So, I still have a metric ton of hair stuff. I finally finished off a shampoo/conditioner set I got in an Ulta Black Friday sale, which took forever (no, it was not from this most recent Black Friday . . .) because I switched off with other random stuff.

Good-bye!

I wouldn’t go out of my way to repurchase these. They were nice- left my hair clean and fairly shiny, but so do a lot of other shampoos that don’t cost this much. I have used other Bed Head products, and they are always good quality, so I would have been surprised if these Urban Antidotes left my hair gross. I have definitely used other shampoo that either left my hair dry and tangled or looking greasy and heavy. These just left it clean and smelled pleasant; kind of a citrus candy soap smell. I may have seen more impact from the higher numbers in this series (I got 1) but I was concerned it would weigh down my hair.

The biggest impact I find in hair products is my leave in spray. I have baby fine, thin hair. It’s like I was born and my scalp said, “Yeah, this is probably ok.” And that was that. The best thing I’ve used is It’s a 10 leave in spray. I need literally two spritzes and I can comb right through my wet hair like magic.  I also really dig the Briogio leave in sprays, although not quite as much. I can’t tell the difference between the different Briogio sprays I’ve used, but I’m sure there is one.

I am still determined to de-stuff my home. I did buy a set of Living Proof shampoo, and I already have shampoo to use, but c’est la vie. I’m currently using Yes To shampoo & conditioner in Tea Tree & Sage. I’ve read that tea tree shampoo can improve scalp health, so maybe I can start growing stronger hair. I also really like how tea tree smells, so this is a good fit. I’m also getting down to the half an inch of my It’s a 10 leave in, so I’ll be switching over to the Briogio I have stockpiled from old Boxycharm boxes when that’s gone.

In other stuff related stuff, I cancelled my subscriptions to FabFitFun and Ipsy so I won’t have that stuff coming in. (I did get the fall PopSugar box because I can never take take two steps forward without one step back.)