Swatches: ELF Mineral Eyeshadows

I am really liking the pigmentation of most of these eyeshadows. There are some duds in this group, but the vast majority of them are really awesome. These are definitely comparable to BE eyeshadows, only these are $3 a piece.

I tried as hard as possible to get the clearest swatch pictures. These are very true to life,  but as with most swatches photos, you need to see these in person to get the full effect of these.

I was surprised that most of these shadows are very neutral and work appropriate.

All swatched dry on my inner wrist with no base. NC20 skin

Caffeinated

Celebrity

Confident

Earthy

Girly

Mysterious

Natural

Partier

Royal

Sassy

Socialite

Temptress

Trendy

Wild

New Product: NYX Palette Runway Collection

NYX recently came out with three new types of eyeshadow palettes, which will join their already huge selection of eye products. The news of these palettes has already been lighting up different makeup communities, such as Makeup Alley and Makeup Talk. Two of these new palettes contains 10 shadows, while the other one has 5 different shadows.

The first new palette that is available is the Runway Collection that has ten different colors, that will create a variety of looks. Each palette costs $9.

Here are the available palettes:

Jazz Night

Strike A Pose

Catwalk

Champagne & Cavier

Super Model

Romance

Versus

Secret World

These palettes are only available on the NYX website as of right now. They can be purchased here.

Mega NYX Anniversary Haul from Cherry Culture & NYX Cosmetics

I finally got around to taking pictures of my two NYX hauls from Cherry Culture and the NYX Cosmetics website.  I spent around $90, including shipping. I was very happy with everything I bought.

Sheer Gloss Tubes: I reviewed two of these babies here, and I loved them so much, despite their cons, that I decided to buy one in almost every color. I even bought 4 tubes of the clear, because I want to mix it with different pigments for personalized lipglosses. I’ll probably take up close and personal pictures of the glosses once I place them into pots. I already placed a few into pots, as you can see in the picture

Pink

Plum

Red

Blush

Clear (4x)

Peach

Lilac

Nude

Taupe

Kiss

Beige

Posey

Gold

Fuchsia

Concealer in a Jars: I already own and love my Concealer in a Jar in the Light shade reviewed here, so I thought I would give the Green and Yellow colors a go. The green is suposed to counteract redness, and the yellow is for brightening up dark circles.

Yellow

Green

NYX Chrome Eyeshadows: I already owned several of these, and I really like their finely milled texture, so I picked up a couple of more colors.

Beauty Queen (Purple w/ Puple Glitter)

Geisha (Pink w/ Gold)

NYX Rouge Cream Blushes: I had never tried these before, but I was super curious, so I picked up two to try.

Rose Petal (Pinky / Peach)

Tea Rose (Tan / Pink)

NYX Shadow Trios: I had recieved testers of all of these in my Rep kit, but these were marked down to $2 a peice, so I picked up some of my favorite trios, so I would have them in the compacts.

Back Row (Left to Right):

Dandy

Shimmer/Peach/Copper

Princess Pink/Flamcenco/Violet

Front Row (Left to Right):

Guru

Beanie/Red Bronze/Red Bean

Anti Diva

Olive Grove

Eyeshadow Singles:

I picked up 15 of these singles from the sale. They were a buck and change on the NYX Cosmetics, so I went a little happy.

All together (Clickable – to make larger):

Broken up into groups:

Top Row (Left to Right):

Slate (On the End)

Toffee

Skin

Aqua Marine

Golden Sky

Aqua

Ceder Wood

Eutopia

Bottom Row (Left to Right):

Ballerina

Alaska

24 Karet

Dallas

Luster

Grey

Dune

Here are some close ups:

Well, that’s it of my NYX Cosmetics haul. If you guys want swatches or close up images of anything, please let me know. Also leave a comment if you want a review of anything listed here. Don’t forget I’ve already written a couple of reviews on these products.

CVS Memorial Weekend Haul

Here is my CVS haul from Memorial Day weekend. This haul is all about L’Oreal and Milani products.  I ended up buying a backup of one of the L’Oreal eyeshadows – Baby Spice. It is a gorgeous sheer taupe color that is going to be a fave!!!

The entire haul:

Milani Lipsticks:

Glamorous: (Coral), Delicious (Pink)

Swatches:

Milani Quad: Wild Violets

Milani Crystal Gloss: Innocent (Clear Shimmer), Plush Baby (Mauve Shimmer)

L’Oreal Colour Juice Stick: Strawberry Fields, Plum Crazy, Watermelon Ice, Chai Love You (2x)

(Forgot to take a solo picture of these)

These are my favorite lipsticks. The scent is amazing and they are extremely glossy. These are backups for my favorite colors.

L’Oreal Bare Naturale Eyeshadow: Bare Gold, Bare Lavendar, Baby Spice (2x), Bare Olive

This whole haul came in around $23. I was super excited!!

Target Haul

I finally got around to taking pictures of my Target haul, that did a while ago. I have lots of hauls to catch up with, so expect a lot of haul posts to appear. I didn’t purchase everything at once. So don’t think it was one gigantic mega haul. LOL.

At Target, a lot of Sonia Kashuk products had been clearanced out, so naturally I took advantage of the deep discount to pick a few items. Because, of course, I don’t have enough product already.

Sonia Kashuk Lip Palettes:

Shimmering Sorbets: This is a very pretty shimmery palette that go from natural and sheer to a bright pop of color for the summer. I, of course had to swatch everything ASAP and you can see where I accidently dug my lip brush into the lippie and messed it up. LOL.

Closed:

Opened:

Natural Nudes:

Closed:

Opened:

Sonia Kashuk Enhanced Eyeshadow:

Burnished: This is a grayish – taupe color that is extremely pigmented and very soft and blendable. Gorgeous!!

Closed:

Opened:

Sonia Kashuk Eye Shadow Quad:

Striking Jewels: This is a gorgeous quad with a deep emerald green, a matte tan, a shimmery bronzy brown and a deep bronzy purple.

Closed:

Opened:

Revlon Super Lustrous:

Shine That Pink: This is a meduim pink that is absolutely beautiful. The best part is that this has an SPF of 15!

Studio Tools:

Dual Finish Brush: This is the newest skunk brush on the market, and in my opinion, it’s the best quality one with the very best price: $6.99

In package:

Out of the Packaging:

That’s all for now!

Swatches: NYX Trios

I was cleaning out my pictures on my laptop and I came across these swatches I made over a year ago. I never got around to posting these, so I thought today was as good as any. These are swatches of all 45 NYX trios.

Enjoy!! The images are clickable, so you can see a supersized version of the swatches.

Trios 1-25

1. White / Gray / Black
2. Baby Pink / Barely There / Cotton Candy
3. Nude / Taupe / Dark Brown
4. Bay Blue / October Sky / Pacific
5. Baby Pink / Cotton Candy / Spring Flower
6. Purple / Deep Purple / Prune
7. Baby Blue / Pacific / Navy
8. Spring Leaf / Lime Green / Green Tea
9. Frosted Lilac / Pacific / Kiwi
10. Tropical / Yellow / Lime Green
11. Orange / Golden Orange / Peach
12. Golden / Rust / Walnut Bronze
13. Cherry / Cool Blue / Hot Pink
14. Highlight / Brown / Suede
15. Aloha / Mink Brown / Deep Bronze
16. Opal / Platinum Silver / Luster
17. Frosted Flake / Slate / Iced Mocha
18. Yellow Pearl / Antique Gold / Golden
19. Barely There / Champagne / Root Beer
20. White Pearl / Silver / Charcoal
21. Copper / Rust / Bronze
22. Sahara / Suede / Chocolate
23. Sweet Lagoon / Aqua / Ocean
24. Shimmer / Peach / Copper
25. Beanie / Red Bronze / Red Bean

Trios 26-45

26. Velvet Blue / Ocean Frost / Space

27. Platinum Pink / Salmon / Jazzy Bronze

28. Princess Pink / Flamenco / Violet

29. White / Tropical / Silver

30. Baby Pink / White Pearl / Baby Blue

31. Copacabana

32. Olive Grove

33. Lake Moss

34. Team Spirit

35. Ultra Chic

36. Ceramic

37. Shangri-La

38. Perpetual

39. Dandy

40. Aquamarine

41. Anti Diva

42. Casablanca

43. Guru

44. Serengeti

45. Hippi-Chic

Review: Physician’s Formula Baked Sweets Trio

Name: Baked Sweets Trio

Product: 2/5

Price: $7.99

Available: Wherever Physician’s Formula is sold

Out of all the Baked Trios that I purchased, this was the one I wanted the most, and the one that also disappointed the most. I was hoping that the goldish lavender color would make a good substitute for my beloved Drama Queen from Mad Minerals. I had heard conflicting reviews on this particular trio, but I decided to give it a go anyway. Unlike the other two trios, this one had absolutely no pigment what so ever. When I swatched onto my NC 25 skin, I was barely able to get any to show up on skin. When I tried to apply it wet, I actually got LESS pigment wet than dry.

The entire set had a very hard and chalky texture – which is a huge jump from the previous two trios. The only color with any viable substance was the dark purple color, and it was also way too sheer compared to the other sets. The middle pinky color goes onto the skin as a pure shimmer, you don’t get any color either dry or wet. It’s actually extremely similar to the taupey color in the Baked Oatmeal trio. Only it doesn’t perform nearly as well. So I recommend that you just completely pass up Baked Sweets and check out the other colors available. In fact, I have returned this back to Walgreens, in search of something else.

Review: Physician’s Formula Baked Sands Trio

Name: Baked Sands Trio

Product: 4/5

Price: $7.99

Available: Anywhere Physician’s Formula is sold

This is the second Baked Collections Trio that I purchased. The first one was the Baked Oatmeal Trio, which I’ve already reviewed and the third one, Baked Sweets will be posted in a few days. This trio is pretty different from Baked Oatmeal, in that Oatmeal was focused on light neutral colors, while this one is all about darker neutrals.

The colors in this trio include a light shimmery beige white color that reminds me of Stila Kitten without the pinky undertones. The second lightest color is that of a deep bronzy color that has a little bit of a copper undertone. The darkest color is a meduim brown with less shimmer than the other two colors. However, this is in no way a matte color, because non of the shadows in these trios are matte, but it’s close enough to work in the crease of an all matte look. The staying power of these is decent enough, applied with a good primer, these will last all day. Like the other trios, these can be applied both wet and dry. Wet, the colors are more pigmented and are more sheer when dry. I definitely think these are a great buy for the amount of product that you get, and the quality of the product.

Review: Benefit Creaseless Cream Eyeshadow in Pre-Nup

Name: Creaseless Cream Shadow in Pre-Nup

Product: 0/5

Price: $14.25-$19.00

Available: Sephora, Benefit Counters

Lately, I’ve been all about cream shadows, always looking for the best base that will give me long wearing, non creasing eyeshadow. So far there are only three things that do not crease on me, two I’ve reviewed, and another one that I haven’t yet. Those are MAC Paint Pots, UDPP, and L’Oreal HiP Color Rich Cream Crayons. I was hoping that this would be one I could add to my list, but unfortunately, that was a no go.

The texture of the Creaseless Cream Shadows are very similar to Maybeline’s Dream Mousse products, they are very soft and easily spreadable. I found these to be much softer than the MAC Paint Pots and oilier as well.  I applied Pre Nup which is a warm pinky color to my naked lids around 2pm, and when I got off work at 7pm, it had faded, and creased terribly. Some people would use these with UDPP to stop creasing, but for me, the point of these type of shadows is to not need UDPP as a base. That pretty much ruins the product for me, because I want to use these instead of UDPP, not with UDPP. So there is no reason for me to keep these, since they don’t do the job I want them to be able to do.

Review: Physician’s Formula Baked Oatmeal Trio

Name: Baked Oatmeal Trio

Product: 4/5

Price: $7.99

Available: Anywhere Physician’s Formula is available

Whenever a brand goes on sale, I try to grab something to review for this site. This past week I Walgreens had Physician’s Formula on sale, and it’s a brand that I like – but don’t love. However I have been interested in the Baked Collection Trios, so I grabbed a few to review. I got Baked Oatmeal, Baked Sands and Baked Sweets. This review is for Baked Oatmeal.

Baked Oatmeal has three colors, a very light taupey beige color, a light true beige and a darker plummy brown. All three colors are very shimmery and are very smooth – these can be applied either dry or wet for a stronger pigmentation. All three colors work together to make a subtle daytime look for the office, and can be upgraded to a night look when applied wet. The main difference between the baked shadows and the normal shadows is that the baked ones can be used with water, and it does not ruin the entire shadow. This makes this palette very versatile, and you get plenty of products in the little bubbles of shadow. However, don’t travel with this palette, because it’s quite fragile, and the shadows can easily be broken.

I totally recommend this to anyone who wants a quality neutral palette, that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I think that these lighter colors will brighten up the eyes without bringing too much attention to the face. This is great for everyday office work!