Makeup and Beauty Blog | Makeup Reviews, Swatches and How-To Makeup
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File Too Faced’s Lip of Luxury Lipstick ($20) under “makeup that looks like it belongs on the tip of a pimp cane.” Or, alternately, “Oh, sheaaaa!” 🙂
The jeweled cap isn’t the only thing that glistens in this line of 12 shea butter laced lippies. Creamy, feather light and moisturizing, to boot, their reflective finishes glisten like diamond dust in the light.
I think the shade I’ve been wearing, Free Love (a shimmery light pink), plays especially well with smokey eyes.
From left: Benefit Lipgloss in Kiss You, Benefit Ultra Shines in Wild Child, Benefit Ultra Shines in Kiss You (this is a new addition to the Ultra Shine line, swatches and details to come!) and the old school, discontinued Benefit Kiss You Lip Gloss (RIP).
That’s a lot of purple. And kisses. LOL!
The limited edition Sonia Kashuk Facing Stardom Face Palette ($19.99) is like a spontaneous red carpet moment. One second I’m sitting at my desk in black stretchy pants (you know, the ones with the hole in the butt?), but the second that first swipe of smokey eye and rosy cheek/lip makeup dances onto my face, BAM! I’m strutting my stuff at a Hollywood premiere, waiting for Ryan Reynolds to introduce me as “his close friend, confidante and shoulder to cry on” to the paparazzi.
Looking like a star with this 12-piece holiday palette, which includes two powder eyeliners, six eyeshadows, two lipglosses and two cream blushes, doesn’t require an actual acting career. All you need are brushes and your imagination. 🙂
Eyeliners (upper left), lipglosses (lower left), eyeshadows (center) and cream blushes (right)
Eyeliners: The matte powder eyeliners can be worn wet or dry along the lash and/or waterlines. They have a little fallout when applied dry, so I keep makeup wipes on standby just in case I need to clean up.
Eyeshadows: Cool-toned and smokey is the name of the game. The glitter shadows (a glittery gray, taupe and purplish taupe) are more pigmented than the ones in the What Glitters Glows Palette, which is a big plus. The three mattes (a gray, purplish taupe and taupe) apply sheer and blend with ease.
Cream Blushes: A creamy rose and a pink designed to be worn on bare skin or on top of foundation. The texture’s very thin, slick and slippery, so I dust a blush or translucent face powder on top to help set the color.
Lipglosses: I’m not sure why S.K. calls the rosy shade on the left a gloss because it sure as heck feels and looks like a lipstick, but semantics, schemantics. I think both the unflavored and unscented lip products add the perfect amount of natural-looking color to my pucker.
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When Tabs was on safari in Tanzania earlier this year, he met a serval who told him the tale of a leopard named Nix (pronounced NYX), who spent every day sunning himself way up high in the branches of a big acacia tree.
Later, when he got back home to Novato, Tabs took the story and turned it into his first book, titled “When Leopard Gets a Tan.”
And that’s where NYX got the idea for Tango With Bronzing Powder in When Leopard Gets a Tan. 🙂
Okay, okay, that’s not true at all. But it sure would have made a great story, right?
When Leopard Gets a tan, one of the new NYX bronzers for fall, reminded me of Too Faced Pink Leopard from the pan, but once applied the color’s more bronzy, less peach and less shimmery — a soft sheen as opposed to Pink Leopard’s frost.
Doesn’t NYX Tango With Bronzing Powder in When Leopard Gets a Tan ($16) look like Too Faced Pink Leopard Bronzer ($12.50) from here?
Make Up For Ever Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks, front row from left: 32, 36, 39, 42 and 21; back row: Moulin Rouge, Mat 1, 17, 28 and 29
Stand tall, my little lipstick soldiers! Paint the clouds with your awesomeness, and shower your pretty pigments down upon the planet like makeup Skittles!
I’ve been meaning to swatch the 10 Make Up For Ever Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks ($19) I received for placing in the Rouge Artist Contest, but I just keep chickening out, unable to bear the thought of disturbing them in their perfect little tubes.
And then it started raining here yesterday. And raining. And raining. And I thought, “Hmm… I remember those Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks being awfully pretty and colorful.”
I’m kinda glad I waited to swatch these, because with all the rain today today I really needed a pick-me-up.
Available in a monstrously huge selection of 50 unscented, unflavored colors in matte, pearl and satin finishes, the pigmented, full-coverage Rouge Artist Intense Lipsticks are designed to drench puckers in pure, unadulterated color — opaque after just one swipe. They joined the Make Up For Ever permanent line last fall.
Seriously, 50 colors? With so many to choose from, Make Up For Ever created an an online tool to help you find colors that’ll work with your skin tone and hair color.
To promote the tool, MUFE’s giving away 10 lipsticks each and every day through December 22. See their Facebook page for full details.
Sometimes, like when you’re a lipstick, it’s good to be dense, and these are really, really dense, although the ones with satin and pearly finishes feel a little thinner on my lips than the mattes.
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The chai latte from Panera Bread is the bomb.com!
The limited edition holiday Sonia Kashuk Facing Stardom Face Palette, $19.99.
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OMG! Have you heard about the party at Target?! Well, not at Target. It’s more inside Target, down by the cosmetics aisle, right in front of the Sonia Kashuk display.
Just look for the disco ball…packaging for Sonia’s limited edition What Glitters Glows Eye Palette ($15).
If it looks familiar… If it looks familiar (déjà vu!), you may be recalling last year’s Starry Eyes Palette, which also had big pans of shadow like these and came in similar packaging. Oh, and it had the same price ($15).
For this palette, Sonia swapped out the three cool-toned, smooth and pigmented mattes from Starry Eyes with three dynamic, neutral-toned shadows with a fascinating combination of matte/glitter finish.
I can’t believe the gray, black and brown shadows in the bottom row are available at Target, because they seem like higher end department store material to me. They come in a matte base that’s pigmented, yet still soft and easy to blend, and they’re infused with subtle flecks of sophisticated black-tie glitter (as opposed to 1996 rave glitter), which reminds me: did you ever dance with a glow stick at a rave? Yup, good times…
So I think it you like your glitter on the subtle side, like glitter good for understated holiday party looks, the shadows in the bottom row might appeal to you.
