Loose Powder

I don’t know too much about the Korean brand, Lioele, but when I saw some of their products in a shop in Flushing, I had to get something! I picked this eyeshadow stick in 05 Gold, since I’ve been looking for an all over color to double as a base.

The cap shows the color of the eyeshadow and it’s true to shade. The shadow twists up and the cap snaps on securely.

The application wasn’t exactly smooth, but it blends out easily enough. It does work as a nice base for eye shadow, but I would definitely use  a primer to help  keep it from creasing and to extend wear time. The first photo below shows the eye shadow by itself. Next to it are two powders shadows on their own and then on top of the Lioele shadow.

It does work nice as a color that enhances other shadows and I can still use it on its own with an eye primer.

I believe I paid $6 for this, which was a good buy and I’ve used it several times since purchasing. If I see these again, I would probably buy more in other colors!

While visiting some family friends a couple months ago in Flushing, NY, I stopped into a small beauty supply store and found a selection of NYX palettes for $6 each! I picked up this one in Aquamarine.

The inside of the compact has a mirror and a double-ended sponge tip applicator. I never use the applicators included in palettes as they are usually cheap quality brushes or sponges.

The colors are fairly pigmented, but you should definitely use a base or a primer to prevent creasing and fading. You can see from the swatch in the third photo that without primer, the color on skin looks just as good as what’s in the palette.

Overall, I think this is a great palette and I’d love to get a couple more.

NYX Trio eye shadow palettes are available at Cherry Culture, Ulta and wherever NYX products are sold. Each palette retails for $8.

Beauty Army is a brand new sample box subscription service that launched on January 1st. I was lucky enough to be one of the first wave of people who managed to sign up during that first hectic day of us beauty junkies crushing the web servers.

For $12 per month, Beauty Army allows you to select up to 6 samples from a slightly larger list. I think it’s great that you can pick what you want to try and also that some months you can just pick 3 or 4, which is great if you’ve already got a bunch of samples you’re not going to use.

I was surprised at the size of the box that arrived! The outside mailing box is custom printed with “Beauty Army” printed in a band around the box. The samples are packed in a hinged black box that is spot glossed with various text.

Inside, the samples are wrapped loosely in pink tissue. If there was one criticism I would give, it would be to wrap the items a bit more securely since a few of them were floating around loose in the box. The notecard on the inside is printed on a lovely canvas textured card. Nice touch!

Here are some photos of the samples I picked:

For my first box, I chose Sun FX Body Wash, Shea Terra Organics Rose Hips Black Soap Facial Cleanser, Strivectin Get Even Brightening Serum, Boo Boo Coverup, and MyFace Cosmetics Blingtone Eyeshadow in Morocco. I also had picked the Cellceuticals Neocell skin treatment, but it somehow didn’t get photographed!

The eyeshadow is a creamy metallic pressed shadow. It’s a very light and would be good for a highlight color. Here’s a swatch:

The rose hips black soap was the first thing I tried. It’s a really great gentle exfoliating soap that left my skin very smooth. I would definitely purchase a full bottle of this one the sample runs out.

The next item that I really loved was the Boo Boo Cover-up. It’s meant to be used over scratches and wounds (not open wounds) since the natural ingredients help heal the injury. I tried this on a blemish that was on my chin and worked great! Best concealer product I have right now and I will certainly be buying a full sized tube of this.

I’m also using the Strivectin Brightening Serum, but it’ll be a few weeks before I can tell if it’s made any difference evening out my complexion.

Overall, I’m very happy with Beauty Army and look forward to choosing my samples next month!

Hello again! Here’s a quick look at the Wet n Wild Comfort Zone Color Icon palette.

I’ve seen this particular set reviewed on a lot of blogs and i was interested in the definer color on the right side of the palette – it’s a close dupe to the darker color in the BareMinerals Ready2.0 The Vision palette.

The Wet N Wild palette has been difficult to locate at the usual drug stores, but I found a stack of them at Ulta! At $4.99, how could I pass it up?

The one frustrating thing is that these palettes never have names for the individual colors. It’s not a huge thing, but it’s a little annoying! Anyway, the colors apply very smoothly and have good pigmentation.

I mostly bought this palette for the color in the top right of the third picture above. It’s a dark maroon/brown with a teal/aqua shimmer. Love it! Here are some swatches in direct and indirect sunlight:

This is a nice palette, especially for the price. The colors are easily workable for day and night looks.

While I don’t have many makeup palettes, I’ve really loved the Kat Von D palettes I’ve gotten from Sephora. Even though the cream shadows in this palettes are never my favorite (they dry out too quickly), the high pigmentation in these shadows is great. It’s even better when I can snag one on sale – this one was $14 on sale at Sephora.com.

Angeles is a brown and teal color palette with a cream shadow that has a blue/green shimmer. The white palette has various rosary crosses in black ink on the top and the plastic itself is rubberized. Like previous palettes, there’s a mirror on the inside of the lid and two small, double-ended brushes are included.

There is a bit of overlap with these colors and some others I have, but having them all in the same palette makes it easy to pack for a trip. It’s nice having a neutral brown set with teals and blues I can either combine with the neutrals or use on their own for a bolder look.

Morphine is the cream shadow. Out of the box, it’s a bit difficult to work with and I don’t imagine it’ll get much better as it ages. Thankfully, the rest of the shadows are soft and blend easily. Here are some more swatches under direct sunlight and indirect sunlight.

Overall, I’m definitely happy with this palette and have used it several times since purchasing it. It’s worth the $35 retail price, but at $14 it was definitely a steal!

Kat Von D products are available at Sephora.

BareMinerals loose mineral eyeshadow was the first type I started buying and using when I started to get more interested in make-up about 10 years ago. I liked the colors and the fact that they were made from minerals. However, after several years of use, I started developing a slight allergy to the loose eye shadow (as well as the foundation). My eyes would water and itch whenever I wore them and after some trial and error, I discovered it was most likely due to the bismuth oxychloride in their products – the same ingredient that they advertise  as giving you a “glow.”

A couple years ago, I tried their matte foundations, which are bismuth free. It works great and my skin doesn’t itch like it used to when I used the regular foundation. Hoping they’d also adjusted their eye shadows, I’ve been trying samples off and on to no avail.

BareMinerals recently released their READY Eyeshadow palettes. They come in palettes of two or four colors and each color is a pressed mineral eyeshadow and do not contain parabens, binders, or fillers.

I really loved the dark brown shadow with aqua duochrome in the Vision palette, but I really disliked the highlight color. Instead, I picked Showstopper, which has two colors I liked a lot, both shades of purple.

Here are some photos of the palette:

Bravo is a very light bluish-purple and Encore is a purple with a slight blue shimmer. The palette has a mirror on the inside of the lid and comes with a small sponge applicator. I never use those, so I’ll probably end up losing it or throwing it out at some point.

The set on the left is without primer and the set on the right is with. The shadows are very soft and easy to blend. Obviously, they wear much longer with a primer, but even without a base of some kind, they last quite a while.

After wearing these for several days, I’m glad to report that I had no eye irritation! These shadows do contain bismuth oxychloride, so I wonder if the pressed nature of the palette means there is less fall out to get into my eyes. I would definitely buy another one of these palettes.

BareMinerals Ready Eyeshadow palettes are available at Sephora, Ulta, QVC, and other beauty stores. The 2.0 palettes retail for $20 and the 4.0 palettes retail for $30.

My October Birchbox arrived yesterday and of course I had to open it up right away and see what goodies I got this month! The theme for this month is Prep & Finish.

I love the way Birchbox packages the items inside and it’s always fun to open them to see what I’ve gotten. I’m a huge fan of the items in this month’s box!

Here’s a list of the items from the box:

• blinc mascara
• Caudalie Vinoperfect Cell Renewal Night Cream
• Korres Guava Body Butter
• Stila Eyeshadow in Rain
• Extra: The Laundress Delicate Wash detergent

I’m pretty excited to try out the blinc mascara! I’ve tried a couple fiber mascaras before, but blinc is the brand lots of people love. I have tried the blinc eyeliner from a previous Birchbox, but I didn’t really like it.

The Stila eyeshadow is a nice brown color that will be great for contouring. I think I’m going to have to look into getting a Stila magnetic palette soon!

I love the Korres brand, of course, and this body butter will make a great travel item. The Caudalie night cream is not something I will probably use regularly, but it would be great for a travel bag.

My mom’s Birchbox came with a few different items like a Laura Geller tinted primer and a bag of bath salts. She also got a Stila Forever Your Curl mascara which she gave me since she doesn’t use mascara.

This month’s Birchbox was a great selection of things I will certainly be using. Totally worth the subscription price!

This past August, I went to Woodbury Commons to spend a Lululemon gift certificate and discovered that they had opened a BareMinerals Outlet. I had to stop in and see what they had, of course!

There weren’t too many things I wanted to – the last time I used BareMinerals eyes hadows, my eyes always itched like crazy. The company has some great colors, though, so i was hoping to try some new products and see if I still had that reaction. for under $10, I found the Liner Shadow Compact Quad II!

The  compact comes with fours colors of loose powder and a small brush. There’s also a mirror on the inside of the lid.

The third photo above shows the four colors and their names.

• Aquamarine – teal blue with slight shimmer
• Coffee Bean – brown with a slight red
• Firefly – light copper with a slight shimmer
• Retro – dark brown

Here’s a swatch I made using a web brush:

Colors from left to right: Retro, Firefly, Coffee Bean, Aquamarine

I do like the colors, but when applied dry, they’re very light. I’d definitely have to use a sticky primer like Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy or apply the shadows with a wet brush. I haven’t used them used them often enough to see if I get any sort of allergic reaction, but at least I will be able to wear them occasionally.

The design of the compact looks great, but I think those lids are going to get pretty mess if you kept this in your purse or bag. There are also two wells that you can use to mix the powder with water, which is convenient, but will probably also be annoying to keep clean. The included brush is okay for drawing wider lines, but I’d probably use a different brush for finer lines.

Overall, I like the teal and copper shadows, but haven’t really like using powder shadows for eyeliner. Still, it was an in expensive way to try BareMinerals eye shadows again. Personally, I wasn’t that impressed, so I won’t be buying more eye shadows from this company.

Wonderful in Waikiki is Stila’s July 2011 Stila Girl Beach Palette. These $14 palettes are great for travel and each includes four eyeshadow colors, a blush, bronzer, and a mirror on the inside.

I wanted to get this palette for the coppery color – Sarong. It’s the sort of burnt orange-y color that I was on the search for and it’s a great shade!

Here are some more photos of the packaging and the makeup.

The eye colors in the palette are:

• Wahine (sandy shimmer)
• Sarong (coppery bronze)
• Coconut (brown with slight gold shimmer)
• Surf (bright matte blue)

You also get cheek colors in North Shore (orange-y blush) and Hanauma Bay (bronze orange).

From left to right: Wahine, Sarong, Coconut, Surf, North Shore, Hanauma Bay.

The quality of these shadows is nice and much improved on last year’s palette collection. They apply smoothly and blend well and, with a primer, last all day. I’m probably not getting any of the other collections this year as I don’t think the colors in them are good for my skin tone, but I would recommend them to anyone who wanted to try them out.

Stila Girl Beach Palettes are available from Stila’s website as well as Amazon and Zappos.

In my search for a peachy-copper eyeshadow, I stumbled across Glory Box Cosmetics, a San Diego based mineral make up company.

For my first order from them, I decided to go with their Sock It To Me set – a vegan eyeshadow primer plus three eyeshadow colors of my choice for $20 plus shipping.

The primer comes in a squeeze tube and the eye shadows come in the usual screw top containers with sifters. I also got two free samples in bags, which was a nice surprise.

The three colors I chose and the samples are described by the company as follows:

• Battersea – a beautiful, rich teal duochrome. While the shadow itself is teal, at certain angles, it flashes gold.
• Sun Will Set – a brilliant, deep peachy orange color. Do you ever want that slightly darker than skin tone shadow that makes you look like people on TV who “aren’t wearing makeup”? This is it!
• Bigger On the Inside – It is, of course, TARDIS blue! A perfect match to Eleven’s bowtie because ‘bowties are cool.’
• Lotion – It’s creamy, so creamy looking that it’s shocking it’s not actually a cream. And then it sheers out to a glimmering green highlight.
• We Belong – a blue-tinged black base with black and blue glitters (part of the Pat Benetar collection)

And of course, swatches!

From left to right: Sun Will Set, Battersea, Bigger On the Inside, Lotion, We Belong

Overall, I do like the consistency of these shadows. There is a minimal fallout and I would buy from this shop again.

The primer was a bit oily and difficult to use, but I’ll be reviewing that in more detail in another post.

Glory Box Cosmetics products are available on Etsy. Individual shadows are $5 each and the tube of primer is $12.