Palettes

Meet the MAC Power Hungry Palette From the New MAC Girls Collection

August 2nd, 2017 by Karen 19 Comments

I keep telling myself, “Karen, let it go, girl. LET IT GOOOOOOO.” But I just can’t! So this one’s for my fellow word nerds who also noticed an absence of alliteration in the name of the new MAC Power Hungry Palette and can’t let that sh*t go (oh, gawd, please tell me I’m not the only one!).

13 Alternate Alliterative Appellations for the MAC Power Hungry Palette

Power Perfectionist
Power Professional
Power Player (thanks, Kim, for mentioning this one in the comments!)
Power Performer
Power Participant
Power Producer
Power Provider
Power Protagonist (my personal pick)
Power Partner
Power Principal
Power Person
Power Professor
Power Patrician

I mean…a little alliteration never hurt anyone. 🙂

Power Hungry is the second palette I’ve played with from the MAC Girls collection (I really liked the first one, Rockin’ Rebel), and it’s the neutral palette in the girl gang.

mac power hungry swatches — I’m an NC42 for reference.

It’s sort of like MAC’s take on a UD Naked palette, except without a black or gray shadow, and with an additional big pan of highlighter.

Lots of layering

I have mixed feelings about it… Browns are my jam — you know this — and I like how soft these feel when I touch them, but I need to do A LOT of layering for them to show up.

mac power hungry palette k closeup — Check the highlight, though!

Even for this natural-ish eye makeup look I’m wearing, I must’ve put on six or seven layers of Bling Mistress, Bossing It and Something’s Fishy. I actually lost count!

It was a lot… Let’s just say that.

Frowsy Foils

Even then, I wasn’t very happy, because the powders, which are in MAC’s Foil formula, aren’t as finely milled as the Foils in Rockin’ Rebel. The grains are larger this time, and they reeeeeeally like to drop from my lids and my brush onto my cheekbones.

The highlight is the highlighter

I do love the highlighter, though! It’s more blinged-out than my preferred soft and glowing highlight style, but I like the soft opalescent effect I get from using a tiny touch on my skin.

You can also reach spotlight status easily, too, if brighter, bolder boss-lady bling is more your thing (the look is similar to what you get from the MAC Extra Dimension Skinfinishes).

mac power hungry palette k — That’s Power Hungry on my lids, my upper cheekbones and down the bridge of my nose.

I really love the colors themselves, but you might have to bust out a base like the Paint Pots if you’re an NC42 or darker to get them to translate truthfully on your skin. Maybe something beige…like Painterly or Bare Study. Soft Ochre would work, too.

Power Hungry arrives with the rest of the MAC Girls collection August 3rd at select MAC locations and online. Like the other palettes, it’s $39.50 and will only be available for a limited time.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Meet the MAC Girls, and Rock Out With Rockin’ Rebel

July 27th, 2017 by Karen 13 Comments

mac girls collection review top1 — Howdy, MAC Girls!

Hmm… Looks like a few palettes are missing from the new MAC Girls collection. (Coming soon! August 3rd!)

I see a Rockin’ Rebel, a Fashion Fanatic and a Mischief Minx…but where’s Feline Friend? Or Pooped Parent? Or Nutella Nut? Methinks MAC missed an opportunity. Those would have spoken to many real life MAC Girls.

Which MAC girl are you?

MAC’s limited edition MAC Girls collection contains six $39.50 palettes, each with eight eyeshadows and a big pan of highlighter. Every palette has a different personality. There’s Rockin’ Rebel, which is the one I’m wearing today, with blues, greens and golds. Mischief Minx, a.k.a. “the warm palette,” keeps cozy with toasty tones of orange, gold and brown. Fashion Fanatic flirts with bright berries, purples and pinks. Basic Bitch — the smokey palette — is a bad-@ss bevy of cool grays, purples and silvers. In Prissy Princess, pinks, grays, browns and taupes reign supreme. And Power Hungry is the only palette in the release that doesn’t have an alliterative name…and it’s bugging me because I can’t think of a catchy pun that starts with “P.” It’s the palette with neutral beiges, browns and bronze.

A couple things are jumping out at me. Like, I can’t remember the last time MAC released a collection that was exclusively comprised of palettes. Can you? Because their palettes are usually just one component of a larger launch, like they usually do for holiday. So that’s cool (and weird!).

mac rockin rebel — I’m about as rebellious as a slice of cheese…but I’d still wear Rockin’ Rebel.

[Continue reading…]

Both the Lune + Aster Sunrise Bronzer & Blush Palette, and the Moonrise Glow & Contour Bronzing Palette, Love Minimal Base Makeup on Skin

July 27th, 2017 by Karen 4 Comments

lune aster sunrise moonrise palettes — The Lune + Aster Sunrise Bronzer & Blush Palette, and the Moonrise Glow & Contour Bronzing Palette ($46 each and available meow)

I think it’s so weird that some powder face products, like blush, bronzer and highlighter, seem to look better to me when I wear them with very minimal base products, like maybe just a sheer BB or CC cream, or even just bare skin.

Because the long-term makeup-addicted part of my brain expects them to look better layered on top of a full-coverage foundation or a medium-coverage tinted moisturizer.

First time I wore these Lune + Aster face duos (one is the Moonrise Glow + Contour Bronzing Palette, and the other is the Sunrise Bronze & Blush Duo), I wore them on top of a full face of makeup — primer, medium-coverage foundation, concealer and powder, and I thought the powder grains looked a little heavy. In the case of the highlighter, it looked frosty and obvious.

Not flattering.

Then I tried the same products on top of the Lune + Aster CC Cream, and it was a bold nude squirrel! The highlighter looked dainty and delicate, and the blush gave me a natural-looking flush. Even the bronzer, which I was a little iffy about at first. It thought it would be a little too cool-toned and sparkly for me, but it looked downright good on a that light base.

What’s up with that?

Lune + Aster makeup is made for looks that can be done in mere minutes, and apparently the powders are formulated to flatter skin wearing minimal base makeup.

lune aster sunrise moonrise k — I’m wearing a mix of the blush and bronzer from the Sunrise Bronzer & Blush Palette on the apples of my cheeks, and the lighter shade from the Glow & Contour Bronzing Palette on my upper cheek bones, down the bridge of my nose and on my Cupid’s bow.

[Continue reading…]

The Lune + Aster Midnight Sun Eyeshadow Palette: Bobbi and Trish Fans, You’re Gonna Love This

July 25th, 2017 by Karen 4 Comments

lune aster midnight sun eyeshadow palette final — Bobbi and/or Trish fans, you’re gonna love this!

Time: the great equalizer. More precious than tiny tabbies, Tom Ford, platinum and diamonds. I went to high tea a few weeks ago with my college crew, and we got to talking about time and how it seems like there’s less and less of it every year. Life, love, school, work, hobbies, kids and cats (of course!) happen, and then all of a sudden you realize how little time you have left for yourself at the end of the day.

Time is precious and valuable, and saving more of it is the name of the game for this cool little brand called Lune + Aster. It’s a vegan, paraben-free makeup line exclusively available at Bluemercury stores, and it was started by CEO Marla Beck in 2016. Everything in the line is focused on getting you made up and out the door in five minutes or less.

It’s not a huge line, but they do have a range of products, including a CC cream, an eyeshadow palette, a few cheek palettes, bronzers, brushes and lip glosses in prices from $18 (for a gloss) to $56 for the eyeshadow palette I’m wearing here called Midnight Sun.

lune aster midnight sun swatches — Midnight Sun swatch-a-rooni

[Continue reading…]

The $9.99 NYX Lid Lingerie Makes It Perfectly Acceptable to Wear Lingerie in Public

July 19th, 2017 by Karen 10 Comments

Is this the best drugstore palette out there right meow?

If the $9.99 NYX Lid Lingerie Shadow Palette were a bra, it would be one that you wouldn’t normally pick out for yourself, but, because it was, like, on super deep discount, you buy it anyway, and even though it doesn’t fit as well as your go-to favorite bra, you come to realize, after wearing it a few times, that you love it more, the more you wear it.

Yup, that about summarizes this six-pan palette of neutral powder shadows, in a nutshell.

nyx lid lingerie swatches — Look at my lingerie!

A more affordable alternative to the Viseart Neutral Palette

Lid Lingerie, which is available now at Ulta and other drugstores, has been out a while, but it only recently caught my eye, and I think it did because of how much I’ve been thinking about my beloved Viseart Neutral Matte Palette.

I love that thing, but damn! — it’s so freaking expensive. So I’ve been looking for a drugstore option, and I think Lid Lingerie is it.

nyx lid lingerie swatches k2 — FYI (TMI?), I’m wearing my most comfortable bra in this pic. Oh, and Lid Lingerie is on my lids.

[Continue reading…]

How Much of a Punch Does the Soap & Glory Kick Into Neutral Palette Pack?

July 17th, 2017 by Karen 7 Comments

soap glory kick into neutrals packaging — I wanna kick it with these Soap & Glory shadows.

There are nine shimmers and a matte in the $20 Kick into Neutral Eyeshadow Palette by Soap & Glory, of which the “kicks” are closer to light instep taps than drag queen chorus line high kicks.

This palette has plenty of things going for it, including a bevvy of everyday cool tones. In fact, the cool tones are why I wanted to try it.

First, though, before we get to that…Soap & Glory makes makeup now? Who knew??

I think it’s a relatively recent development, but yeah, they moved beyond the realm of body products and now have a pretty extensive makeup line, with lots of lip products (so many lipsticks!), a sprinkling of foundation and face powder, highlighters (of course), blushes and even a couple of eyeshadow palettes. Kick into Neutral is one of them.

soap glory kick into neutral swatches — Swatch it to me!

Most of the shadows in the 10-pan palette lean cool, so if you like your neutrals with a kiss of cool gray or taupe, this could be the palette for you. After busting it out a few times, though, overall…I think this palette might actually be TOO cool-toned for me.

I dunno… I’m not sure how I feel about the cool gray tones. Something about ’em isn’t sitting right with me. Normally, I like the contrast of cool shadows on warm skin, but in this case I feel like it’s a little jarring.

Oh, well. I guess you can’t win ’em all, Karen (although the #makeuphoarder in me really wants to!).

soap glory kick into neutral k — I’m wearing Cuddly Bare in my crease, Pink-a-little on my inner lids, Mice-tro in the outer corer and Spookstar on my lash line.

[Continue reading…]

The Models Own Barely There Eyeshadow Palette Is a Perfect Way to Dip Your Toe Into the World of Neutral Shadows

July 14th, 2017 by Karen 5 Comments

This week in the comments on the Monday Poll, we were talking about advice we’d give to makeup newbies, and Kerrie cleverly mentioned a tip about how when you start your makeup journey, it makes a lot of sense to stock your makeup bag with things that aren’t too expensive. That way, you can afford to take the time to figure what kinds of things you like, and what kinds of products work well for you, without spending a ton of money up front.

So smart, right?

Along those lines, I feel like the $17.99 Barely There Eyeshadow Palette by Models Own is a perfect way to dip your toe into the wide, wild world of neutral shadows.

Models Own is a British brand now (as of recently) available at Ulta. They have a bunch of products for eyes, cheeks, lips and faces all in the Sonia Kashuk price range, so they aren’t as inexpensive as Wet ‘N’ Wild or ELF, but they aren’t as pricey as MAC or Estée Lauder either. Barely There is their take on the nude palette craze.

And guess what? It’s pretty darned good for $17.99! It has 10 powder shadows in it — five mattes and five shimmers — and the mattes, in particular, are the special sauces/keys.

Any time I start with an eyeshadow look that I intend to do with a few colors, I like to begin by deepening my crease with a matte golden brown or taupe-brown, because the cooler/neutral tones sort of simulate the effect of shadows being cast on the face, which I think makes your eyes look like they’re set deeper.

Barely There is perfect for that effect because it comes loaded with workhorse golden shades and taupe-browns, which makes it a rarity these days among the sea of nude palettes that skew warm with their orange browns and reddish browns.

models own barely there eyeshadow palette swatches — Gimme all the browns!

[Continue reading…]

This New Palette By Too Faced Is a Glitter Bomb, and That’s a Good Thing

July 7th, 2017 by Karen 28 Comments

too faced glitter bomb palette — The Too Faced Glitter Bomb Palette, also known as “An Explosion o’ Glitter!”

First time I played with this new palette from Too Faced, I reached a point during which glitter was seconds away from ending up all over the place…so I came to the following conclusion: why not put it in the crease, too? And the inner corner? And on my lower lash line?! Basically, why not put this glitter everywhere!?

I mean, if you’re gonna go there already, don’t just dip a toe in the glitter pool. GO. ALL. IN.

This fun $45 LE lioness is available right meow with eight powder glitter shadows, as well as two bases that you can layer under the shadows if you want. There’s a matte white base to brighten colors and a black shade to darken them.

too faced glitter bomb palette 1 — GLITTER!!!

I think that the name, Glitter Bomb, is a ref to something that anyone who plays with glittery makeup knows. “That shadow is a glitter bomb!” You know, when it gets all over the place, which you have to expect when you’re working/playing with glitter sometimes. And it happens here.

This lives up to its name. It is a glitter bomb, but it helps to layer a little glitter glue on your lids first, and then apply the glitters with a wet brush.

Also, for sure, do you eyes first. Then clean up whatever bits land on your face after you’re done. Or, you can just leave the glitter in you brows and on your nose like you meant to do it, haha. Like I said…ALL. IN.

too faced glitter bomb palette k2 — I’m wearing Glitter Goals on my lids, Oh Its On in the crease, Rose All Day in the inner corner and Splash along the lower lash line.

[Continue reading…]