Sat Oct 27 21:04:31 PDT 2018
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I love my
Butter London Glazen Eye Gloss in
Oil Slick (
swatched here), and so I was curious about how a similar formula would function as a blush. The eyeshadow has intense glitter and dries very quickly--neither of which are qualities I'm looking for in a cream blush. And Butter London's promotional photos weren't very inspiring. (My Instagram stories commentary on their ad below.)
Actually, yeah, that is a pretty accurate photo, I suspect, if you just smeared an opaque layer of this blush on your cheek in a circle. If you want to avoid that look, like I do, it's kind of a tricky product to use. I'll get to that later.
First, the texture. It really is unusual. It's gelatinous and jiggly. I made you a GIF!
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At the end of the summer my husband and I will be moving--first to Texas for three months and then to California for the next nine months. Since we're going to be looking at temporary/shared housing, I'm trying to downsize as much as possible (or at least to minimize what I take with me rather than storing in my mother-in-law's basement). I'll be on a postdoc fellowship with a fairly scanty stipend, so I'm also trying to take whatever I can to avoid shopping during that time. It's a tricky line to walk between packing light and buying duplicate shit that I already have. So far my packing list includes clothes, a very few books (we'll need library cards), only the most vital kitchen supplies (like the french press and the smoothie blender), and sheets and towels. Of course, necessities also include makeup and toiletries for me, both because I want to use up things I already own rather than buying them new, and also because I want to continue blogging while I'm out west. Still, I've managed to weed out a ton of stuff, most of which I'll give away, and to store a few things rediscover a year from now. (Does anyone else have a recurring dream in which they go back to their parents' house and find a closet full of amazing clothes that they'd forgotten? No? I should probably have myself examined. Anyway, that's how I picture my reunion with my stored makeup.) I'm storing most of my nail polish, for instance, and only taking
these bottles along.
While organizing and packing (did I mention we're also moving into a local sublet this month where we'll be staying for six weeks?), I was inspired to swatch all of my blushes, so that's what this is all about. Because my skin tone is quite neutral, I'm able to wear all sorts of blush colors. The only ones I've had much trouble with are peaches that are too orangey, like
Milani Luminoso. I was pleased to realize when I looked at all of these blushes together that I didn't have many dupes or near-dupes.
This post is going to be pretty casual: I'll show you swatches and talk a little about each product. I haven't taken new photos of most of these blushes on my face, but where there are illustrations in previous posts, I've linked to them. The swatches here represent my entire blush hoard with the exception of a coupe of things I've already put into my discard pile and the blushes in a BareMinerals palette that I put into storage (one of which
I swatched here).
Here's the first batch, sort of grouped according to formula and then color:
Cream blushes, left to right:
Wet N Wild Silk Finish Lipstick in What's Up Doc? and NYX Cream Blush in Tea Rose
Please excuse the long scratch on my forearm in every photo here!
My foster cat loves to be picked up and carried around, but does not like to have her nails trimmed, so there's always a long claw left behind to get me. And I can't take photos with my left hand, so here we are.
For cream blushes, I made a heavy finger swatch of each blush and then blended it out with whatever was left on my finger. For the powder blushes I did the same thing with an eyeshadow brush that's particularly good for swatching (
used here, for example). It's easy to see how different your typical eyeshadow and blush are when you swatch them with the same brush!
I keep
What's Up Doc? with my blushes rather than with my lipsticks, because it makes a terrible lipstick and a great cream blush. The slipperiness that makes it a disaster on my lips makes it easy to blend as a blush, though since it's very pigmented, I have to use it extremely sparingly. It also stains, which personally I like. (If you want to see it on my lips,
here.)
Tea Rose is a terracotta shade that's on the neutral side but still warm enough that it looks best on me when my hair is dyed red, as it is now.
You can see it on my face in this post. It's getting a little old, but I love the formula and it seems to be in perfect shape, still, so it's a keeper for now. It's more susceptible to fluctuations in temperature than my other cream blushes, so I guess we'll have to see how well it survives the early-September road trip south.
Marcelle Cream Blusher in Raspberry, e.l.f. Cream Blush in Vixen, and Stila Convertible Color in Poppy
Raspberry is one the only blush here for which I've bought a replacement. This is my second one (and they've changed the packaging since). It's not flashy or anything, but it's a flattering shade on me and a formula that's easy to use. It's a subdued rosy plum (not berry!!), similar to my natural flush. It blends nicely and doesn't fade easily.
Raspberry is my default choice when I want some color but don't want my blush to stand out much. I think Marcelle is only available
in stores in Canada at this time, though they do have a
US website.
Vixen has been discontinued along with the other blushes of this type, but you can read
my full review here, if you want. The formula was just like those weird
Maybelline Bouncy Blushes. This color is somewhere between red and fuschia--it tends to pull more red on me. I'm pretty sure I will have this blush until the day I die and never finish it, even though I use it semi-regularly.
Poppy is my purest red blush, and it's more of A Look than the others. It does a kind of fairytale, Snow White thing on me, which I like, but which isn't something I go for every day. I don't use it as a lip product, by the way. Like most multi-use products, it's too drying for my lips.
Powder blushes, neutral/coral/peach, left to right:
Unknown very old Quo holiday palette
The left swatch is the panned matte dusty rose shade at the bottom left of the palette, and the right swatch is the shimmery peach at the top right. Now would be a good time to point out that swatches aren't an obvious way to demonstrate the quality of blushes. Especially for those of us with paler skin, blushes that swatch really pigmented and opaque are going to be tricky to use, so the sheerness above is actually a good sign for me. But it can still be hard to tell from a swatch how well a blush will blend, especially since there's a difference between the bare skin on my inner forearm and the skin on my face that may be covered in various other products before I apply my blush (even if only sunscreen).
Nevertheless, I've loved both of these blushes for well over a decade now and they are still going strong. I even wore them to my wedding (
you can see them on my face here), where I did something I often do: blended the two together. The peach is pretty orange/warm, and can look a little off on me depending what clothes or other makeup I'm wearing, but the combination of these two is really pretty. I recommend playing around with blush combinations if you haven't done that before. You can mix two together on your brush, for instance, or you can try using a darker or cooler shade further back on your cheekbones with a brighter or warmer shade on the apples of your cheeks.
Unknown Ulta brand GWP blush and Milani Baked Blush in Corallina
I don't use this anonymous Ulta blush often, but it's neutraliest blush I own, so I've been hanging on to it. The weird thing is that it has some colorless specks of weird glitter in it that don't do much other than being weird. You can see one of them in the top quarter of the farthest left swatch if you look closely.
Corallina applies much more nicely to my face than it appears in this swatch, and it's a more vibrant coral than it looks here. It's chock-full-o' pure gold glitter (you'll have to take my word for that too), which isn't an everyday look for me.
Wet N Wild Pearlescent Pink (the new version)
The new
Pearlescent Pink is a shimmery peach, which is
not the same as the old version. You can read all my
rants
the old and new versions of this blush here and see them both on my face. This blush is similar to the peachy Quo blush above, so I'm really just holding on to it for comparison swatching at this point. If I ever finishing that other blush, I'll start using this one, unless I've decided to give it away in the meantime.
Powder blushes, pink and plum (left to right):
Wet N Wild Pearlescent Pink (OG) and Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Fearless
The two versions of
Pearlescent Pink are different enough that I grouped this one with the pinks rather than with the peaches. Fortunately blushes last forever, because I'll miss this stuff when it's gone. The only downside is that the shimmer can be glitzier than I'd like in direct sunlight. As I said, I have a whole
Pearlescent Pink
comparison post with photos here.
Tarte describes
Fearless as "pink coral." Really? I mean, the plastic that the packaging is made out of could reasonably be described as coral, I suppose, but the blush itself is a completely different color. I think of this blush as more of a Barbie pink. It's not too warm and not too cool, a little bright, and fun but natural on my skin. This is my most expensive blush. I've used it many times, and as you can see from the photo above, the embossing isn't even worn down. Before buying it, I used a card sample that lasted many, many months. This is a blush that will never die.
Be a Bombshell Blush in Sweet Cheeks and theBalm Instain Blush in Pinstripe
Sweet Cheeks came in an Ipsy bag once upon a time. It's a nice, warm pink with some smooth shimmer, but it's quite pigmented and powdery, so I don't use it as often as I might otherwise.
Pinstripe is a deep, moody, slightly sickly plum. I like it a lot. The Instain formula is lovely. Pigmented with a very subtle, satin shimmer, easy to blend, and long-wearing. It really does stain. Here's the above swatch after removal with a makeup wipe:
Here is
Pinstripe on my face. I was experimenting with a low blush placement.
I would always recommend waiting until theBalm shows up on
HauteLook if you want one of their products, which is where I bought this blush. Most things will be included in the sale, and they're usually 50% off. They also have 50% off sales on the brand website now and then, but in the past there have been problems with the site crashing.
When I look at all of these blushes together I think, first, this is more blush than any one person actually needs, but also that my blush hoards pretty much covers all the bases for me. (Ok, I've been tempted on and off by
Urban Decay Bittersweet, but let's try to forget that.)
As for my favorites among the bunch, that's tricky. I mean, I really love
Stila Poppy, but it's not the most wearable blush here. If my favorites are the blushes I wear most often then right now they are
Marcelle
Raspberry,
OG
Pearlescent Pink, and (just while I have red hair)
NYX
Tea Rose. Price really isn't any indication of how much I'll like a blush or how well I'll think it performs (and I've tried out several higher end blushes that confirm that opinion).
How do you do blush, if you do it at all? Do you have just that one versatile, natural shade that you wear with everything, or do you have a whole blush wardrobe that you switch up along with the rest of your makeup? Either way, what's your favorite?
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I like doing these
So Choix review posts, even though they're time consuming, because I get to write mini reviews of a bunch of fancy products that I would probably never buy. I hope they're interesting to you too. (If you want to read more about how this subscription works,
read my first post about it.) I won't write a detailed review with photos of everything here, because there are few things that I just don't have many feelings about.
One thing that changed about the
So Choix boxes this fall is that they started sending them in bubble mailers, instead of packing a small box inside a larger box. I don't know if that's less wasteful, but I like it better, because the bubble mailer fits in my mailbox and I don't have to trek down to my apartment office to pick it up (and the small box inside still protects things).
I think the theme of the last three months (or at least the last two) is Weird Shit I Wanted to Try Because What Even is It? That, combined with Is This Product Really Like This or Did This Happen When They Depotted It?
September
Nars Dual Intensity eyeshadow in Tarvos
This is a stunning, shimmery mint. I wonder if there is a NYX single similar to this (
Mermaid?). On its own,
Tarvos is sheer and glittery and lovely. It's also gorgeous over a darker shadow. The swatches below are over regular eyeshadow primer on the left (because it desperately needs a primer to adhere) and on the right over
NYX's glitter primer (awesome stuff, btw), which makes it look amazing. It's a little chunky/flaky, and here's the first place where I wonder if the actual product is like that or if it's something that happened when it was repressed. I haven't read anything like that in reviews, so I'm guessing it's the latter. It doesn't really cause problems, anyway.
Nars Audacious lipstick in Liv
When I first tried this on, I thought, "That's weird, I didn't think any of the Audacious lipsticks were sheer." It turns out that the lipstick was slightly separated in the pan with a sheer layer on top. Once I got through that, there was a more accurate (I assume) layer underneath. But see, weird things can happen when lipstick is melted down and repotted, so keep that in mind, though it's the first time I've seen it in this subscription.
Liv is a nice vampy purple but nothing really special. You have the typical settling into lip lines that dark purples tend to do.
Est�e Lauder matte lipstick in Shameless Violet
This lipstick, on the other hand, is
amazing. It's a little patchy on the first layer, but you can quickly build it up to be opaque. It's comfortable and a true purple shade that actually looks good on me. You can see it on my face in
this Instagram shot (sort of). It's very comfortable and wears well.
Comparison swatch (
taken from this post).
Left to right
: Revlon
Berry Haute
,
Urban Decay Revolution Rapture
, and
Est�e Lauder Matte
Shameless Violet.
Nars Sheer Glow foundation in Gobi
This is a decent foundation, though I would argue that it's neither really glowy nor sheer. More like semi-matte and medium coverage. It's a little too yellow to me, which is good news for pale folks on the warmer side. The main problem I had with it was that it highlighted flaky skin really badly, and that it settled into lines and creases. So it's not the one for me. Here is a swatch (second from the right) with comparisons (
from this post).
Left to right:
UD One & Done in
Light,
UD One & Done in
Medium Light
, TheBalm Balm Shelter in
Lighter than Light
(
reviewed here
), Maybelline Dream Pure BB in
Light
(
reviewed here
),
Nars Sheer Glow Foundation in
Gobi,
and Sephora Bright Future Gel Serum Concealer in
Buttercream
(
reviewed here
).
Um it's a primer? I think I'd tried a sample of it before, but I didn't remember how well it worked. I guess that's probably because for me it's neither better nor worse than most other primers I've tried.
October (box pictured above)
Laura Mercier powder foundation in 1-Shell
I've been looking for a powder foundation to replace my mini
P�r 4-in-1 powder when it runs out, because, although I like the finish, it doesn't last very long on my oily-combination skin. I'd heard that the Laura Mercier was a good option. I wasn't very impressed. It's pretty crumbly and doesn't provide much coverage at all (and this shade also happens to be too yellow for me--I probably should have chosen
4).
Dior Addict Lip Glow
This is one of the products that I chose with extreme skepticism, because I hate these "your perfect shade" color-adjusting lip products, in principle. (
Here's how they actually work.) It did nothing at all on my lips. Looked completely clear. There was a light pink tint on the end of the finger that I used to apply it, but that's it. I actually took a photo, but since it shows nothing, I won't bother including it. Again, I don't know if melting it down and repotting it affected it, or if it just "intuited" that my perfect lip color is nothing at all. Also, it was drying, but my lips are pretty picky.
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Ethereal Light
I'm working on completing the set, since I've tried three others.
Ethereal Light does have something of a blurring/light reflecting effect, but it's also very white. It makes me look paler, so I can imagine that it could show up as chalky on certain skin tones. I was wearing it in the photo above of Nars
Liv, if that shows you anything.
Tom Ford Cream Color for Eyes in Burnished Copper
Neither burnished nor copper! Maybe they were thinking of
tarnished/patinated bronze? These eye shadows are interesting, because they're very slick and they don't dry down. They're tricky to apply. They go on a bit patchy with a finger, but if you stick a small brush in the pot, it slides out without any product on it! You have to sort of scoop it. Despite the slickness, it didn't crease
excessively over primer, and the color is stunning.
Here's a thick swatch, though it sheers out somewhat when blended. Gorgeous color.
Left to right:
Tom Ford Burnished Copper and L'Oreal Infallible
Gilded Envy (
reviewed here).
Note the packaging for this on in the photo at the top of the page. A big improvement from how the Nars cream eyeshadow was sent during the summer (
discussed here), which dried up immediately! This little pot is actually air tight. Well done, So Choix. I appreciate that they regularly reevaluate how they package their samples.
I also want to take this opportunity to show you another of the
Tom Ford Cream Colors for Eyes in
Sphinx, a sample of which Sarah very generously sent me. Thank you! I posted a shitty
video of the shiftiness on Instagram, in which you can't really see all the pink and green. It's also a tricky product, because it's a sheer but very complex multichrome. I am determined to make it work. The best luck I have had so far is in patting it on over a grey powder eyeshadow like so:
That's the same product over the entire lid. And this is about the level of creasing you can expect from these creams.
Benefit Shy Beam highlighter
Yet another sample I ordered because I didn't understand what it was. I still don't get it. It looks like a sheer, matte, pink concealer, or something. It's supposed to be a matte highlighter, but it just added a little pink to my skin. It works ok as a color corrector for under the eyes if you're fair, but highlighter? Maybe if you have cool-toned skin just a couple of shades darker than this, it would work, but otherwise, I assume not. And why not just buy a concealer or foundation a couple of shades too light for the intended effect? Bah. Humbug.
Top to bottom: Benefit Shy Beam, Benefit High Beam (
reviewed here), Sephora Gel Serum Concealer in
Buttercream (
reviewed here).
November
Kevyn Aucoin The Exotique Eye Gloss in Moonlight
Another WTF sample. There weren't many reviews out there when I requested this and, still, the ones that exist are pretty vague. I was curious if this brand had somehow come up with a miraculous gloss that can be worn in some realistic way on the eyelids of normal people. But no, editorial only. There's no real difference between smearing this on your eyelids and use a clear, glittery lip gloss. They say you can/should apply it over eyeshadow, but that just makes a mess of the eyeshadow. The sparkle is sparse, so even if you want drama, there's not much to recommend it.
Notice that they took one of those airtight tubs like the Tom Ford came in, cut off the lid, and stuck in inside a screw-cap jar. But why???
Laura Mercier matte eyeshadow in Plum Smoke
Love, love, love, love, love! Remember when
I was looking for a powder alternative to the abysmal Maybelline Color Tattoo in Vintage Plum? I'd ruled
Plum Smoke out because it looked too warm in swatches and
tried Makeup Geek in Fairytale instead, which was a bit of a fail. Well, THIS IS IT. I love it. It's works as an interesting neutral on me. Now I'm considering getting the
Laura Mercier Eye Art Artist's Palette, which includes
Plum Smoke and a bunch of other gorgeous shades. The
palette is $55 and the
Plum Smoke single is $25, so it seems like maybe a better choice. Maybe.
It looks pretty brown next to
Fairytale (right), especially in this photo, but it really is purple.
Benefit Fake-up concealer in 01
This concealer claims to be non-creasing, which I think is always, always a lie. At least for me. But this one is actually worse than most. It comes as a stick with a translucent outer ring and a pigmented core, but the sample I got is the two components mixed together. I think probably the two-colored stick is just a gimmick, but it's possible that mixing them in the pan affected the performance in some way. As it was, this was very slick, almost greasy, with sheer coverage. Probably best for someone with dry skin and not too much to hide.
Nars Blush in Dolce Vita
A pretty rosy-plum blush that somehow isn't very flattering on me. It's also
extremely pigmented, and since I'm pale I find hard to apply it lightly enough that it will blend smoothly. It tends to end up a little blotchy, and that combined with the wrongness of the color kind of makes me look feverish. But on the plus side it does not fade at all during the day. Well, the plus side for someone else--if you want a very pigmented, long-lasting blush, this would be a good one to try.
Smashbox matte liquid lipstick in Stepping Out
I have no idea how I came to choose this shade, since browny-nudes never look good on me, and this is no exception. I swatched it next to Maybelline
Touch of Spice (right) just to make the color obvious.
I'd heard that Smashbox's formula for liquid lipsticks was better than most others, but it seems about the same to me. It's on the thicker side, more like Stila than Colourpop, but it's no more comfortable, less drying, or more attractive than any other brand I've tried. I'm just not really a liquid lipstick person (with the exception of
Stila
Fiery, which you can see
here and
here).
So those are my fall
So Choix samples. Out of everything, while several things have been fun to play with, there's only one product I would want to buy:
Laura Mercier Plum Smoke. I guess
Nars
Tarvos is tempting. Ok, and
Est�e Lauder
Shameless Violet. But really, this is what I like best about the subscription--it eliminates products that I might be tempted to buy based on hype alone or that I might pick up on a whim. And it provides variety in my life at minimal expense. That said, I'm kind of running out of things I really want to try. Maybe I should just get five more pans if Hourglass
Dim Light.
Right now you can get an
annual subscription for $120 ($10 a month, obviously), which is what I paid. Use the code
SAVINGS at checkout. (Ordinarily it's $16/month.) You can cancel at any time during the year and get a pro-rated refund of what's remaining.
Do you have any of the products I tested here? What do you think?
Disclosure: Affiliate links. Provided free for review.
When I saw the first reviews of the
Bite Multisticks, my initial thought was that they weren't for me. I've never had particularly good luck with multi-use products. When something is intended to be used on both lips and cheeks, it tends to be either too drying on the lips or too hard to blend on the cheeks. I think this is the first time I have encountered a product designed for use on lips, cheeks,
and eyes, which is even a taller order.
Of course, as soon as I dismissed the product, Influenster promptly sent me three--
Blondie, Cocoa, and
Macaroon (yes, it is spelled that way)
--to test and review. Okay. A challenge! My thought was that these Multisticks would be ideal for travel. Not only would a single product that you could use on eyes, lips, and cheeks make for some very compact packing, but also when I travel, I like to pack as few brushes as possible, so I like cream products that can be applied with fingers. What is especially nice about the Bite Multisticks is that they have study magnetic lids. You don't even have to push the cap all the way on. Just slide it part way, let go, and it snaps right in place. That would be great for ensuring that it wouldn't come open in your bag and make a mess.
Unfortunately, these sticks fit in with my general experience of multi-use makeup. They work okay for each purpose, but they aren't spectacular for any of them. While I like the idea of getting several uses out of a single item, it's pretty rare.
Bite describes these sticks as having "35 percent powder," which . . . . okay, sure. But they do have a different texture from most matte lipsticks, and describing it as more powdery seems accurate enough. Unlike some of the other Bite lipsticks, these sticks are not scented.
When I tested the Multisticks, I applied them all using just the stick itself with my fingers to blend, going along with my idea that they would be best suited to travel. Indeed, this is the best method I've found for application. Trying to apply them with a brush makes them very sheer and patchy. Unfortunately the shape of the stick makes it a bit tricky to apply to the eyelid, but it's still the best method if you want as much saturation and opacity as possible.
The colors I received are interesting, but unfortunately none of them quite works on all three of my features.
Blondie is a beige with more yellow-brown than peach in it, which just doesn't work well as lipstick or blush with my coloring, though it's quite nice on my eyes.
Cocoa is a dark brown that is basically a much deeper version of
Blondie, i.e. more yellow than red in the brown. It's too dark for my cheeks, and while I can wear it on my lips, it's not a look I would choose. So that's limited to just eyeshadow too.
Macaroon is a nice, rosy pink. It's not the perfect pink lipstick for me, but it's wearable, and it makes a nice blush. I also tried it as eyeshadow, (photos later in the post) and while it wasn't as terrible as I'd expected, I doubt that it's something I'll wear on a regular basis. I've been following
Temptalia's swatches of the different shades as they appear, looking for one that I think I could truly use for all three things (lips, cheeks, eyes), and the only one that seems likely is the purple
Nectar, which would make an unusual but maybe interesting blush. The rest seem either too brown for my lips or too pink/red for my eyes. For those of you who can really pull of brown lipstick or pink/red eyeshadow, however, there are a lot of options!
Swatches and photos. Let's start with
Blondie. I compared it with the closest products I had, and you can see that it's really true beige, rather than being peachy like most other brown/beige/nude products I have.
Left to right above:
Bite Multistick in Blondie,
Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick in
Maple Kiss,
ModelCo Party Proof Lipstick in Kitty, and
Milani Shadow Eyez Pencil in
Almond Cream.
On my lips:
I had no real complaints about the application or wear of
Blondie as a lipstick. It's easy to apply in one opaque layer, though the blunt stick isn't the easiest to use precisely. It was comfortable and not drying, despite the "35 percent powder" content. It's just the color that I don't like on me.
On my eyes:
This I liked better than I expected to. It's subtle, but pretty. It did crease after a few hours (over primer), but it's light enough that it wasn't too noticeable.
I found that of the three shades I received,
Blondie is the least slippery, with means it doesn't settle into lines on lips easily and it doesn't crease as badly as the others on my eyelids. That also means, however, that it's more difficult to blend as a blush. It's actually a very good color for a bronzer on me, but I found it nearly impossible to blends smoothly enough to not look patchy. I'll stick with powder bronzers on the rare occasions that I use them.
Next up,
Macaroon. One of the thing Bite advertises for the Multisticks is that you can use them to create a monochromatic look, which is cool in theory, but as I said, you have to be able to use one color all over your face.
Macaroon was my best bet, so I gave it a shot.
Like I said, it wasn't as bad as I'd expected, but that's a bit too much pink for me.
Macaroon has the most slip, so it blends beautifully as a blush, but the slipperiness also causes
Macaroon to settle into lip lines a bit. On the other hand, it is a comfortable and quite long-wearing matte lipstick.
On the lips:
On the eyes:
Here are some comparisons with
Macaroon. It's very, very close to Tom Ford
Pussycat, if you've been looking for a cheaper dupe.
Left to right above:
Bite Multistick in Macaroon,
Maybelline Creamy Matte in
Lust for Blush,
Maybelline Creamy Matte in Touch of Spice,
Wet N Wild Megalast Lipstick in Rose-bud,
Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick in Rapture,
L'Oreal La Laque in
Choco-laque, and
Tom Ford
Pussycat.
And finally,
Cocoa, which only works as an eyeshadow on me. It's definitely brown! I don't have any comparable lipsticks at all.
Left to right above:
Bite Multistick in Cocoa,
Milani Shadow Eyez Pencil in
Cafe au Lait, and
Maybelline Creamy Matte in
Divine Wine.
On my lips:
It applied nicely and wears well. It's just not a great color for me.
On my eyes (the photos were taken within minutes of applying it, over primer, so you can see that the creasing is pretty immediate):
Despite the creasing and patchiness, I did like how it looked when applied from the stick and blended with a finger. It reminded me that I should use a wash of dark, matte brown more often as a simple eyeshadow look.
Cocoa also works very well as a cream base to intensify powder eyeshadows. When used that way (over primer) it doesn't crease at all. But I wouldn't buy a $24 product solely to use as a base for other shadows, especially since I still have to use a primer.
Unfortunately, none of these three shades is really a triple-threat for me. I think if you can find a shade that works that way for you, then you can get a lipstick, blush/contour, and cream eyeshadow base from it. But since it needs to be topped with powder eyeshadow, it's not a perfect travel product that eliminates the need to pack additional eyeshadow and brushes. In the end, I found the Multisticks fun to experiment with and better than I'd hoped (especially as a lipstick formula), but they're certainly not going to replace dedicated eyeshadows, blushes, or lipsticks in my hoard.
I am thinking that
a combination of
Cocoa and
Blondie could be used to make a pretty great sepia Halloween costume, though . . .
Have you ever found a multi-use product that actually excelled at multiple things? Any interest in the
Bite Multisticks? Is there a color there that you could use for that cool, grungy monochromatic look?
(By the way, I got these from
Influenster. Anyone can sign up--it's not a blogger thing, though you do need to use social media.)
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
So this is kind of fun: Racked recently linked to an
old post of mine, where I complained that people kept calling Milani
Luminoso an
Orgasm dupe, when it obviously isn't, in their
article about the rise of makeup dupe culture. So it seems like a good time to publish this post on another supposed-but-not-actual dupe for
Orgasm: Wet N Wild
Pearlescent Pink.
Wet N Wild recently reformulated their
Color Icon blushes and redesigned the packaging. Some of the new blushes, including
Pearlescent Pink, have the same names as the old ones, and there are also some new shades. The old
Pearlescent Pink is
one of my favorite blushes, but I could tell as soon as I looked at the new one on the store shelf that it wasn't the same, as I'm sure you can see in the photo above. It's weird talking about "dupes" when the two things are being presented as the same product, but this blush is not a dupe of itself. So I bought it (because why wouldn't I buy a blush that looks nothing like another blush I that really like?). Here's a comparison for you. Swatches first: (left to right)
new
Pearlescent Pink,
old
Pearlescent Pink, and Nars
Orgasm.
Clearly neither of these is an
Orgasm dupe, and to the overly picky eye of a makeup hoarder, the new and old
Pearlescent Pinks are completely different. While the old one isn't exactly pearlescent (rather it has some gold sparkle in it), the new one is neither pearlescent
nor pink. It's firmly in peach category. You can see the difference on my face, too.
Old
Pearlescent Pink, which on me is a flattering shade of pink that looks like a natural flush
:
New
Pearlescent Pink, which isn't a bad blush color, but is so peachy it actually leans toward nude/beige on my face:
The formulas of the old and new versions are similar in some ways. They're both soft and kick up quite a bit of powder when you stick your brush in them. They both have some sparkle. The old version is more pigmented, so that I have to use a light touch, whereas I've found that I actually need to build up the new one a bit to get the look I want. How pigmented you want your blush to be is a matter of preference. It's easier to add more layers than to remove it if you go overboard, but it can also be more work to get a visible flush if a blush is too sheer. On the plus side, the new blush is a bit bigger at 0.2 oz. to the old 0.14 oz for the same price ($2.99). It's pretty rare that a makeup company redesigns packaging and actually gives you more product.
The new blush is fine, but I'm annoyed that my old favorite is gone and that they're pretending this new one is somehow the same thing. It's not fucking pink. It's a different product, so it should have a different name. I probably have a few good years left with my original
Pearlescent Pink, since it's a huge pan (even in the old size) and I only need to use a very small amount at a time. If, however, you like it as much as I do and want to stock up while you still can,
Amazon still has the old Pearlescent Pink available for under $5 with free shipping.
>
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
For more information about this subscription, take a look at the
detailed review of my first two boxes. For now, I'm going to jump right in to the products I sampled in June (I'm already way behind, since I got my July box over a week ago already). This subscription is a fun way for me to test and review some higher end products that I normally wouldn't pick up.
My third box was full of surprises--things I liked more that I expected, and things that made for disappointing swatches but worked much better in actual use. Here are the samples I picked this time:
Chanel Le Vernis in Vamp and
Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer in Sx01.
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Ethereal Glow,
Tom Ford Matte Lip Color in Pussy Cat, and
Laura Mercier Baked Eyeshadow in Black Karat. They actually managed to preserve the "bacon" marbling in the Hourglass blush when repressing it! Impressive.
I also got these applicators, which as usual I could pretty much do without. I actually have no idea what the third thing is. This is the second time they've sent one of those. Any ideas?
Many, many photos below!
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
I wrote a post like this
way back when I started my blog, so I thought it might be interesting to update it and see how many of my favorites have stayed the same and how many have changed, now that I've tried a lot of new shit. I've also compared a lot of cheaper things to more expensive products along the way, and in all cases, the makeup in this list equals or outperforms pricier alternatives. I'm just doing makeup today, but I'll follow up with another post about my cheap favorites from other categories like skin care and hair products.
My cheap favorites are reliable and inexpensive. They're things that I replace when I finish them. Obviously I don't use these products exclusively, but I keep coming back to them because I prefer them to others. Below I've included links to previous reviews on my blog, if they exist. I've also tried to link to the best places online to buy these things, to my knowledge. Most of them are easy to find in any drugstore or Target/Walmart, etc.--in which case you might be able to get them on sale. But you might be like me and prefer online shopping when possible, so I've linked them below.
There are a few categories of makeup for which I don't have a current cheap favorite. For example, foundation: I'm picky about it and haven't found anything I absolutely love at any price point, though the Maybelline SuperStay Better Skin Foundation,
reviewed here, is decent when sheered out, and
Boots No. 7 Lift & Luminate Foundation is
amazing if you can find a good color match (I can't). As for concealer, I have a favorite (
reviewed here), but it's not cheap. I've used some good drugstore concealers, like
Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Dark Circles, but I tend to run into problems with the range of shades available. I had a favorite powder (
Maybelline Mineral Power Finishing Veil Translucent Powder--lots of Maybelline here in the "almost" category) but of course it's been discontinued, so I'll have to find something else soon. I don't have a favorite bronzer, because I almost never wear bronzer. I also don't currently have a favorite lip gloss, I guess because it's not a product I
love to wear in general. There a plenty of perfectly fine lip glosses out there, but nothing that I am particularly excited about.
But let's get to my actual favorites. My photos aren't the prettiest, because I am currently using most of these things and, in many cases, have been using them for a long time, so they're a bit beat up. (Lots of images after the jump.)
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
I got this a few months ago as a free gift with purchase from Paula's Choice. All of the reviews I've read of this palette have been glowing, but I don't love it, so I thought it might be worth putting a dissenting voice out there. We all know how much I like to be a dissenting voice.
Although it has the word "contour" in the name, it's not really a contouring palette in the same sense as others out there like the ones from
Anastasia or
NYX. It's really a blush palette with a highlighter and bronzer included. I think that the color of the bronzer would make it unsuitable for contouring on most people (more on that below), so really the only contouring product in here is the highlighter.
I'll start with the part of the palette I like best: the highlighter (
Pearl). In fact, if I could buy this on its own, I would. It's very natural looking. The best part is that I can use it on large areas of my face (like the middle of my forehead) and it just gives a subtle glow without emphasizing pores or texture in a way that I don't like. Usually, even with the best powder highlighters I've tried (like
The Balm's Mary-Lou Manizer), I have to limit highlighting to pretty small zones to avoid that. Because this is so subtle on my skin, I originally assumed that it was extremely translucent. But then I swatched it over black eyeliner to test the translucency, and it turns out that it's not. It's quite opaque, in fact. It's just a near-exact match for my pasty face. Interesting! I suppose that means that it will be more dramatic the darker your skin is.
Heres an angle so you can get a better idea of the very smooth shimmer it contains. Though it looks slightly pink in the pan, the sheen is mostly just pearly with maybe a hint of yellow gold.
Now the worst part: the bronzer (
Bronze). It's possible that this shade of bronzer would work for someone out there, but it is really awful on me. My skin tone is pretty neutral, leaning just slightly warm/yellow. This bronzer looks like dirt on my face. It's quite pigmented and not easy to blend, so it gets patchy, which only worsens the effect. The color is very brown, with a little red in it, which isn't good for me at all. I don't know if some people tan that color, but I certainly don't. Here it is compared to some other products I have for reference (left to right):
Wet N Wild ColorIcon Bronzer in Princess,
Tarte Park Avenue Princess, Paula's Choice
Bronze, and
NYX Blush in Taupe (which is not a bronzer, but works well for contouring pale skin since it's cool).
The Wet N Wild is warmer, maybe, but it's more of an orange-gold warmness than red, which makes it look less dirty on my face. Closer to an actual tan, I suppose. In the swatches, the Paula's Choice doesn't look
so far off from the Tarte bronzer, but the Tarte works just fine for me - so that slightly cooler and slightly yellower color apparently makes a big difference. The nice thing about the Paula's Choice bronzer is that it has no shimmer in it, so on someone for whom the color worked, it would look more natural than a glittery bronzer. Presumably.
The blushes are somewhere in between the highlighter and the bronzer: they're okay, but they don't really work for me either. They have the same type of formula as the bronzer, i.e. matte, quite pigmented and difficult to blend smoothly. They are also all very warm and a little ruddy. They're just not colors I can use easily, and because they are
all so warm, there isn't one in the bunch that I can really wear. Which isn't to say I can't ever wear coral or warm pink blushes - but not these ones. All of these, even
Peony and
Soft Mauve from the far right side of the palette - which look relatively cool next to the other two - are still too ruddy and just not flattering on me.
Top row: on the left,
Delicate Coral; on the right,
Peony:
Bottom row: on the left,
Dusty Rose; on the right,
Soft Mauve.
Delicate? Dusty? Soft? Not so much. See how, even though they look fairly different in the pans, they somehow look very similar on my skin? Not identical, but there's not exactly a great variety here. Disappointing.
The blushes cause the same problems with blending as the bronzer. Because they are quite pigmented and the colors are iffy to begin with, they create a blotchy, unnatural effect on my face. Blush is supposed to give you a healthy flush, but instead I end up looking sicker. The patchiness is worse if I wear moisturizer (or on days that my skin is particularly oily). In the photo below, I applied moisturizer to my arm and let it soak in for 10-15 minutes, and then swatched one of the blushes (unfortunately I didn't note which one, and they all look so similar that I can't tell what it is from the photo).
This is as smooth as I could blend it out with a nice, soft brush, and then it wouldn't budge. It's even worse on my face, because the skin on the inner side of my forearm here is smoother and less oily than the skin on my face. Primer doesn't seem to help. I would highly recommend using a stippling brush with these blushes, like
the one e.l.f. sells for $3. That makes the application a million times easier, because it doesn't deposit all the blush in a couple of spots that you then have to blend out. In fact, I never really understood the point of a stippling brush until I used it with these blushes. I've never had a blush that applied like this. I get it now. On the plus side, the Paula's Choice blushes are quite long lasting, so if you can master the blending and want something that will stick, this is an option.
In the end, this palette was an interesting concept that
really didn't work for me. I was excited about the vibrant colors, but I think they'd be better for someone with a different skin tone from mine (who also owns a stippling brush!). Warmer and maybe less pale? I considered keeping the whole palette just for the lovely highlighter, but I have enough other highlighters that are perfectly functional. At $38, I don't think it is worth buying for the little pan of highlighter alone (and I'm glad I didn't spend that money on it). My general experience is that while Paula's Choice makes great skin care products, their makeup is hit and miss and rarely worth the high prices.
I'm really curious how this might work for someone with different coloring from mine, so here's what I'm going to do. If you would like to try it and report back, I'd be happy to send it to you for the cost of shipping (in a small, flat rate USPS Priority box: $5.95, US only, Paypal). Send me an email at ramaffiliate AT gmail DOT com and it's yours. First come, first served! (Though I will send it to the second (or third or fourth) person who contacts me if I don't receive the shipping money within 48 hours of my responding to the first one.)
I love my
Butter London Glazen Eye Gloss in
Oil Slick (
swatched here), and so I was curious about how a similar formula would function as a blush. The eyeshadow has intense glitter and dries very quickly--neither of which are qualities I'm looking for in a cream blush. And Butter London's promotional photos weren't very inspiring. (My Instagram stories commentary on their ad below.)
First, the texture. It really is unusual. It's gelatinous and jiggly. I made you a GIF!
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At the end of the summer my husband and I will be moving--first to Texas for three months and then to California for the next nine months. Since we're going to be looking at temporary/shared housing, I'm trying to downsize as much as possible (or at least to minimize what I take with me rather than storing in my mother-in-law's basement). I'll be on a postdoc fellowship with a fairly scanty stipend, so I'm also trying to take whatever I can to avoid shopping during that time. It's a tricky line to walk between packing light and buying duplicate shit that I already have. So far my packing list includes clothes, a very few books (we'll need library cards), only the most vital kitchen supplies (like the french press and the smoothie blender), and sheets and towels. Of course, necessities also include makeup and toiletries for me, both because I want to use up things I already own rather than buying them new, and also because I want to continue blogging while I'm out west. Still, I've managed to weed out a ton of stuff, most of which I'll give away, and to store a few things rediscover a year from now. (Does anyone else have a recurring dream in which they go back to their parents' house and find a closet full of amazing clothes that they'd forgotten? No? I should probably have myself examined. Anyway, that's how I picture my reunion with my stored makeup.) I'm storing most of my nail polish, for instance, and only taking
these bottles along.
While organizing and packing (did I mention we're also moving into a local sublet this month where we'll be staying for six weeks?), I was inspired to swatch all of my blushes, so that's what this is all about. Because my skin tone is quite neutral, I'm able to wear all sorts of blush colors. The only ones I've had much trouble with are peaches that are too orangey, like
Milani Luminoso. I was pleased to realize when I looked at all of these blushes together that I didn't have many dupes or near-dupes.
This post is going to be pretty casual: I'll show you swatches and talk a little about each product. I haven't taken new photos of most of these blushes on my face, but where there are illustrations in previous posts, I've linked to them. The swatches here represent my entire blush hoard with the exception of a coupe of things I've already put into my discard pile and the blushes in a BareMinerals palette that I put into storage (one of which
I swatched here).
Here's the first batch, sort of grouped according to formula and then color:
Cream blushes, left to right:
Wet N Wild Silk Finish Lipstick in What's Up Doc? and NYX Cream Blush in Tea Rose
Please excuse the long scratch on my forearm in every photo here!
My foster cat loves to be picked up and carried around, but does not like to have her nails trimmed, so there's always a long claw left behind to get me. And I can't take photos with my left hand, so here we are.
For cream blushes, I made a heavy finger swatch of each blush and then blended it out with whatever was left on my finger. For the powder blushes I did the same thing with an eyeshadow brush that's particularly good for swatching (
used here, for example). It's easy to see how different your typical eyeshadow and blush are when you swatch them with the same brush!
I keep
What's Up Doc? with my blushes rather than with my lipsticks, because it makes a terrible lipstick and a great cream blush. The slipperiness that makes it a disaster on my lips makes it easy to blend as a blush, though since it's very pigmented, I have to use it extremely sparingly. It also stains, which personally I like. (If you want to see it on my lips,
here.)
Tea Rose is a terracotta shade that's on the neutral side but still warm enough that it looks best on me when my hair is dyed red, as it is now.
You can see it on my face in this post. It's getting a little old, but I love the formula and it seems to be in perfect shape, still, so it's a keeper for now. It's more susceptible to fluctuations in temperature than my other cream blushes, so I guess we'll have to see how well it survives the early-September road trip south.
Marcelle Cream Blusher in Raspberry, e.l.f. Cream Blush in Vixen, and Stila Convertible Color in Poppy
Raspberry is one the only blush here for which I've bought a replacement. This is my second one (and they've changed the packaging since). It's not flashy or anything, but it's a flattering shade on me and a formula that's easy to use. It's a subdued rosy plum (not berry!!), similar to my natural flush. It blends nicely and doesn't fade easily.
Raspberry is my default choice when I want some color but don't want my blush to stand out much. I think Marcelle is only available
in stores in Canada at this time, though they do have a
US website.
Vixen has been discontinued along with the other blushes of this type, but you can read
my full review here, if you want. The formula was just like those weird
Maybelline Bouncy Blushes. This color is somewhere between red and fuschia--it tends to pull more red on me. I'm pretty sure I will have this blush until the day I die and never finish it, even though I use it semi-regularly.
Poppy is my purest red blush, and it's more of A Look than the others. It does a kind of fairytale, Snow White thing on me, which I like, but which isn't something I go for every day. I don't use it as a lip product, by the way. Like most multi-use products, it's too drying for my lips.
Unknown very old Quo holiday palette
The left swatch is the panned matte dusty rose shade at the bottom left of the palette, and the right swatch is the shimmery peach at the top right. Now would be a good time to point out that swatches aren't an obvious way to demonstrate the quality of blushes. Especially for those of us with paler skin, blushes that swatch really pigmented and opaque are going to be tricky to use, so the sheerness above is actually a good sign for me. But it can still be hard to tell from a swatch how well a blush will blend, especially since there's a difference between the bare skin on my inner forearm and the skin on my face that may be covered in various other products before I apply my blush (even if only sunscreen).
Nevertheless, I've loved both of these blushes for well over a decade now and they are still going strong. I even wore them to my wedding (
you can see them on my face here), where I did something I often do: blended the two together. The peach is pretty orange/warm, and can look a little off on me depending what clothes or other makeup I'm wearing, but the combination of these two is really pretty. I recommend playing around with blush combinations if you haven't done that before. You can mix two together on your brush, for instance, or you can try using a darker or cooler shade further back on your cheekbones with a brighter or warmer shade on the apples of your cheeks.
Unknown Ulta brand GWP blush and Milani Baked Blush in Corallina
I don't use this anonymous Ulta blush often, but it's neutraliest blush I own, so I've been hanging on to it. The weird thing is that it has some colorless specks of weird glitter in it that don't do much other than being weird. You can see one of them in the top quarter of the farthest left swatch if you look closely.
Corallina applies much more nicely to my face than it appears in this swatch, and it's a more vibrant coral than it looks here. It's chock-full-o' pure gold glitter (you'll have to take my word for that too), which isn't an everyday look for me.
Wet N Wild Pearlescent Pink (the new version)
The new
Pearlescent Pink is a shimmery peach, which is
not the same as the old version. You can read all my
rants
the old and new versions of this blush here and see them both on my face. This blush is similar to the peachy Quo blush above, so I'm really just holding on to it for comparison swatching at this point. If I ever finishing that other blush, I'll start using this one, unless I've decided to give it away in the meantime.
Powder blushes, pink and plum (left to right):
Wet N Wild Pearlescent Pink (OG) and Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush in Fearless
The two versions of
Pearlescent Pink are different enough that I grouped this one with the pinks rather than with the peaches. Fortunately blushes last forever, because I'll miss this stuff when it's gone. The only downside is that the shimmer can be glitzier than I'd like in direct sunlight. As I said, I have a whole
Pearlescent Pink
comparison post with photos here.
Tarte describes
Fearless as "pink coral." Really? I mean, the plastic that the packaging is made out of could reasonably be described as coral, I suppose, but the blush itself is a completely different color. I think of this blush as more of a Barbie pink. It's not too warm and not too cool, a little bright, and fun but natural on my skin. This is my most expensive blush. I've used it many times, and as you can see from the photo above, the embossing isn't even worn down. Before buying it, I used a card sample that lasted many, many months. This is a blush that will never die.
Be a Bombshell Blush in Sweet Cheeks and theBalm Instain Blush in Pinstripe
Sweet Cheeks came in an Ipsy bag once upon a time. It's a nice, warm pink with some smooth shimmer, but it's quite pigmented and powdery, so I don't use it as often as I might otherwise.
Pinstripe is a deep, moody, slightly sickly plum. I like it a lot. The Instain formula is lovely. Pigmented with a very subtle, satin shimmer, easy to blend, and long-wearing. It really does stain. Here's the above swatch after removal with a makeup wipe:
Here is
Pinstripe on my face. I was experimenting with a low blush placement.
I would always recommend waiting until theBalm shows up on
HauteLook if you want one of their products, which is where I bought this blush. Most things will be included in the sale, and they're usually 50% off. They also have 50% off sales on the brand website now and then, but in the past there have been problems with the site crashing.
When I look at all of these blushes together I think, first, this is more blush than any one person actually needs, but also that my blush hoards pretty much covers all the bases for me. (Ok, I've been tempted on and off by
Urban Decay Bittersweet, but let's try to forget that.)
As for my favorites among the bunch, that's tricky. I mean, I really love
Stila Poppy, but it's not the most wearable blush here. If my favorites are the blushes I wear most often then right now they are
Marcelle
Raspberry,
OG
Pearlescent Pink, and (just while I have red hair)
NYX
Tea Rose. Price really isn't any indication of how much I'll like a blush or how well I'll think it performs (and I've tried out several higher end blushes that confirm that opinion).
How do you do blush, if you do it at all? Do you have just that one versatile, natural shade that you wear with everything, or do you have a whole blush wardrobe that you switch up along with the rest of your makeup? Either way, what's your favorite?
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 |
| October's (upside down) box (contents reviewed below) |
So Choix review posts, even though they're time consuming, because I get to write mini reviews of a bunch of fancy products that I would probably never buy. I hope they're interesting to you too. (If you want to read more about how this subscription works,
read my first post about it.) I won't write a detailed review with photos of everything here, because there are few things that I just don't have many feelings about.
One thing that changed about the
So Choix boxes this fall is that they started sending them in bubble mailers, instead of packing a small box inside a larger box. I don't know if that's less wasteful, but I like it better, because the bubble mailer fits in my mailbox and I don't have to trek down to my apartment office to pick it up (and the small box inside still protects things).
I think the theme of the last three months (or at least the last two) is Weird Shit I Wanted to Try Because What Even is It? That, combined with Is This Product Really Like This or Did This Happen When They Depotted It?
September
Nars Dual Intensity eyeshadow in Tarvos
This is a stunning, shimmery mint. I wonder if there is a NYX single similar to this (
Mermaid?). On its own,
Tarvos is sheer and glittery and lovely. It's also gorgeous over a darker shadow. The swatches below are over regular eyeshadow primer on the left (because it desperately needs a primer to adhere) and on the right over
NYX's glitter primer (awesome stuff, btw), which makes it look amazing. It's a little chunky/flaky, and here's the first place where I wonder if the actual product is like that or if it's something that happened when it was repressed. I haven't read anything like that in reviews, so I'm guessing it's the latter. It doesn't really cause problems, anyway.
Nars Audacious lipstick in Liv
When I first tried this on, I thought, "That's weird, I didn't think any of the Audacious lipsticks were sheer." It turns out that the lipstick was slightly separated in the pan with a sheer layer on top. Once I got through that, there was a more accurate (I assume) layer underneath. But see, weird things can happen when lipstick is melted down and repotted, so keep that in mind, though it's the first time I've seen it in this subscription.
Liv is a nice vampy purple but nothing really special. You have the typical settling into lip lines that dark purples tend to do.
 |
| A messy application in need of some lip liner. |
Est�e Lauder matte lipstick in Shameless Violet
This lipstick, on the other hand, is
amazing. It's a little patchy on the first layer, but you can quickly build it up to be opaque. It's comfortable and a true purple shade that actually looks good on me. You can see it on my face in
this Instagram shot (sort of). It's very comfortable and wears well.
 |
| Good enough close up, but from a normal distance it looks totally even. |
taken from this post).
Left to right
: Revlon
Berry Haute
,
Urban Decay Revolution Rapture
, and
Est�e Lauder Matte
Shameless Violet.
Nars Sheer Glow foundation in Gobi
This is a decent foundation, though I would argue that it's neither really glowy nor sheer. More like semi-matte and medium coverage. It's a little too yellow to me, which is good news for pale folks on the warmer side. The main problem I had with it was that it highlighted flaky skin really badly, and that it settled into lines and creases. So it's not the one for me. Here is a swatch (second from the right) with comparisons (
from this post).
Left to right:
UD One & Done in
Light,
UD One & Done in
Medium Light
, TheBalm Balm Shelter in
Lighter than Light
(
reviewed here
), Maybelline Dream Pure BB in
Light
(
reviewed here
),
Nars Sheer Glow Foundation in
Gobi,
and Sephora Bright Future Gel Serum Concealer in
Buttercream
(
reviewed here
).
October (box pictured above)
Laura Mercier powder foundation in 1-Shell
I've been looking for a powder foundation to replace my mini
P�r 4-in-1 powder when it runs out, because, although I like the finish, it doesn't last very long on my oily-combination skin. I'd heard that the Laura Mercier was a good option. I wasn't very impressed. It's pretty crumbly and doesn't provide much coverage at all (and this shade also happens to be too yellow for me--I probably should have chosen
4).
Dior Addict Lip Glow
This is one of the products that I chose with extreme skepticism, because I hate these "your perfect shade" color-adjusting lip products, in principle. (
Here's how they actually work.) It did nothing at all on my lips. Looked completely clear. There was a light pink tint on the end of the finger that I used to apply it, but that's it. I actually took a photo, but since it shows nothing, I won't bother including it. Again, I don't know if melting it down and repotting it affected it, or if it just "intuited" that my perfect lip color is nothing at all. Also, it was drying, but my lips are pretty picky.
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Ethereal Light
Ethereal Light does have something of a blurring/light reflecting effect, but it's also very white. It makes me look paler, so I can imagine that it could show up as chalky on certain skin tones. I was wearing it in the photo above of Nars
Liv, if that shows you anything.
Tom Ford Cream Color for Eyes in Burnished Copper
Neither burnished nor copper! Maybe they were thinking of
tarnished/patinated bronze? These eye shadows are interesting, because they're very slick and they don't dry down. They're tricky to apply. They go on a bit patchy with a finger, but if you stick a small brush in the pot, it slides out without any product on it! You have to sort of scoop it. Despite the slickness, it didn't crease
excessively over primer, and the color is stunning.
Here's a thick swatch, though it sheers out somewhat when blended. Gorgeous color.
Left to right:
Tom Ford Burnished Copper and L'Oreal Infallible
Gilded Envy (
reviewed here).
Note the packaging for this on in the photo at the top of the page. A big improvement from how the Nars cream eyeshadow was sent during the summer (
discussed here), which dried up immediately! This little pot is actually air tight. Well done, So Choix. I appreciate that they regularly reevaluate how they package their samples.
I also want to take this opportunity to show you another of the
Tom Ford Cream Colors for Eyes in
Sphinx, a sample of which Sarah very generously sent me. Thank you! I posted a shitty
video of the shiftiness on Instagram, in which you can't really see all the pink and green. It's also a tricky product, because it's a sheer but very complex multichrome. I am determined to make it work. The best luck I have had so far is in patting it on over a grey powder eyeshadow like so:
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Benefit Shy Beam highlighter
Yet another sample I ordered because I didn't understand what it was. I still don't get it. It looks like a sheer, matte, pink concealer, or something. It's supposed to be a matte highlighter, but it just added a little pink to my skin. It works ok as a color corrector for under the eyes if you're fair, but highlighter? Maybe if you have cool-toned skin just a couple of shades darker than this, it would work, but otherwise, I assume not. And why not just buy a concealer or foundation a couple of shades too light for the intended effect? Bah. Humbug.
Top to bottom: Benefit Shy Beam, Benefit High Beam (
reviewed here), Sephora Gel Serum Concealer in
Buttercream (
reviewed here).
November
Kevyn Aucoin The Exotique Eye Gloss in Moonlight
Another WTF sample. There weren't many reviews out there when I requested this and, still, the ones that exist are pretty vague. I was curious if this brand had somehow come up with a miraculous gloss that can be worn in some realistic way on the eyelids of normal people. But no, editorial only. There's no real difference between smearing this on your eyelids and use a clear, glittery lip gloss. They say you can/should apply it over eyeshadow, but that just makes a mess of the eyeshadow. The sparkle is sparse, so even if you want drama, there's not much to recommend it.
Notice that they took one of those airtight tubs like the Tom Ford came in, cut off the lid, and stuck in inside a screw-cap jar. But why???
Laura Mercier matte eyeshadow in Plum Smoke
Love, love, love, love, love! Remember when
I was looking for a powder alternative to the abysmal Maybelline Color Tattoo in Vintage Plum? I'd ruled
Plum Smoke out because it looked too warm in swatches and
tried Makeup Geek in Fairytale instead, which was a bit of a fail. Well, THIS IS IT. I love it. It's works as an interesting neutral on me. Now I'm considering getting the
Laura Mercier Eye Art Artist's Palette, which includes
Plum Smoke and a bunch of other gorgeous shades. The
palette is $55 and the
Plum Smoke single is $25, so it seems like maybe a better choice. Maybe.
It looks pretty brown next to
Fairytale (right), especially in this photo, but it really is purple.
Benefit Fake-up concealer in 01
This concealer claims to be non-creasing, which I think is always, always a lie. At least for me. But this one is actually worse than most. It comes as a stick with a translucent outer ring and a pigmented core, but the sample I got is the two components mixed together. I think probably the two-colored stick is just a gimmick, but it's possible that mixing them in the pan affected the performance in some way. As it was, this was very slick, almost greasy, with sheer coverage. Probably best for someone with dry skin and not too much to hide.
Nars Blush in Dolce Vita
A pretty rosy-plum blush that somehow isn't very flattering on me. It's also
extremely pigmented, and since I'm pale I find hard to apply it lightly enough that it will blend smoothly. It tends to end up a little blotchy, and that combined with the wrongness of the color kind of makes me look feverish. But on the plus side it does not fade at all during the day. Well, the plus side for someone else--if you want a very pigmented, long-lasting blush, this would be a good one to try.
Smashbox matte liquid lipstick in Stepping Out
I have no idea how I came to choose this shade, since browny-nudes never look good on me, and this is no exception. I swatched it next to Maybelline
Touch of Spice (right) just to make the color obvious.
I'd heard that Smashbox's formula for liquid lipsticks was better than most others, but it seems about the same to me. It's on the thicker side, more like Stila than Colourpop, but it's no more comfortable, less drying, or more attractive than any other brand I've tried. I'm just not really a liquid lipstick person (with the exception of
Stila
Fiery, which you can see
here and
here).
So those are my fall
So Choix samples. Out of everything, while several things have been fun to play with, there's only one product I would want to buy:
Laura Mercier Plum Smoke. I guess
Nars
Tarvos is tempting. Ok, and
Est�e Lauder
Shameless Violet. But really, this is what I like best about the subscription--it eliminates products that I might be tempted to buy based on hype alone or that I might pick up on a whim. And it provides variety in my life at minimal expense. That said, I'm kind of running out of things I really want to try. Maybe I should just get five more pans if Hourglass
Dim Light.
Right now you can get an
annual subscription for $120 ($10 a month, obviously), which is what I paid. Use the code
SAVINGS at checkout. (Ordinarily it's $16/month.) You can cancel at any time during the year and get a pro-rated refund of what's remaining.
Do you have any of the products I tested here? What do you think?
Disclosure: Affiliate links. Provided free for review.
Bite Multisticks, my initial thought was that they weren't for me. I've never had particularly good luck with multi-use products. When something is intended to be used on both lips and cheeks, it tends to be either too drying on the lips or too hard to blend on the cheeks. I think this is the first time I have encountered a product designed for use on lips, cheeks,
and eyes, which is even a taller order.
Of course, as soon as I dismissed the product, Influenster promptly sent me three--
Blondie, Cocoa, and
Macaroon (yes, it is spelled that way)
--to test and review. Okay. A challenge! My thought was that these Multisticks would be ideal for travel. Not only would a single product that you could use on eyes, lips, and cheeks make for some very compact packing, but also when I travel, I like to pack as few brushes as possible, so I like cream products that can be applied with fingers. What is especially nice about the Bite Multisticks is that they have study magnetic lids. You don't even have to push the cap all the way on. Just slide it part way, let go, and it snaps right in place. That would be great for ensuring that it wouldn't come open in your bag and make a mess.
Unfortunately, these sticks fit in with my general experience of multi-use makeup. They work okay for each purpose, but they aren't spectacular for any of them. While I like the idea of getting several uses out of a single item, it's pretty rare.
Bite describes these sticks as having "35 percent powder," which . . . . okay, sure. But they do have a different texture from most matte lipsticks, and describing it as more powdery seems accurate enough. Unlike some of the other Bite lipsticks, these sticks are not scented.
When I tested the Multisticks, I applied them all using just the stick itself with my fingers to blend, going along with my idea that they would be best suited to travel. Indeed, this is the best method I've found for application. Trying to apply them with a brush makes them very sheer and patchy. Unfortunately the shape of the stick makes it a bit tricky to apply to the eyelid, but it's still the best method if you want as much saturation and opacity as possible.
The colors I received are interesting, but unfortunately none of them quite works on all three of my features.
Blondie is a beige with more yellow-brown than peach in it, which just doesn't work well as lipstick or blush with my coloring, though it's quite nice on my eyes.
Cocoa is a dark brown that is basically a much deeper version of
Blondie, i.e. more yellow than red in the brown. It's too dark for my cheeks, and while I can wear it on my lips, it's not a look I would choose. So that's limited to just eyeshadow too.
Macaroon is a nice, rosy pink. It's not the perfect pink lipstick for me, but it's wearable, and it makes a nice blush. I also tried it as eyeshadow, (photos later in the post) and while it wasn't as terrible as I'd expected, I doubt that it's something I'll wear on a regular basis. I've been following
Temptalia's swatches of the different shades as they appear, looking for one that I think I could truly use for all three things (lips, cheeks, eyes), and the only one that seems likely is the purple
Nectar, which would make an unusual but maybe interesting blush. The rest seem either too brown for my lips or too pink/red for my eyes. For those of you who can really pull of brown lipstick or pink/red eyeshadow, however, there are a lot of options!
Swatches and photos. Let's start with
Blondie. I compared it with the closest products I had, and you can see that it's really true beige, rather than being peachy like most other brown/beige/nude products I have.
Left to right above:
Bite Multistick in Blondie,
Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick in
Maple Kiss,
ModelCo Party Proof Lipstick in Kitty, and
Milani Shadow Eyez Pencil in
Almond Cream.
On my lips:
I had no real complaints about the application or wear of
Blondie as a lipstick. It's easy to apply in one opaque layer, though the blunt stick isn't the easiest to use precisely. It was comfortable and not drying, despite the "35 percent powder" content. It's just the color that I don't like on me.
On my eyes:
This I liked better than I expected to. It's subtle, but pretty. It did crease after a few hours (over primer), but it's light enough that it wasn't too noticeable.
I found that of the three shades I received,
Blondie is the least slippery, with means it doesn't settle into lines on lips easily and it doesn't crease as badly as the others on my eyelids. That also means, however, that it's more difficult to blend as a blush. It's actually a very good color for a bronzer on me, but I found it nearly impossible to blends smoothly enough to not look patchy. I'll stick with powder bronzers on the rare occasions that I use them.
Next up,
Macaroon. One of the thing Bite advertises for the Multisticks is that you can use them to create a monochromatic look, which is cool in theory, but as I said, you have to be able to use one color all over your face.
Macaroon was my best bet, so I gave it a shot.
Like I said, it wasn't as bad as I'd expected, but that's a bit too much pink for me.
Macaroon has the most slip, so it blends beautifully as a blush, but the slipperiness also causes
Macaroon to settle into lip lines a bit. On the other hand, it is a comfortable and quite long-wearing matte lipstick.
On the lips:
On the eyes:
Here are some comparisons with
Macaroon. It's very, very close to Tom Ford
Pussycat, if you've been looking for a cheaper dupe.
Left to right above:
Bite Multistick in Macaroon,
Maybelline Creamy Matte in
Lust for Blush,
Maybelline Creamy Matte in Touch of Spice,
Wet N Wild Megalast Lipstick in Rose-bud,
Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick in Rapture,
L'Oreal La Laque in
Choco-laque, and
Tom Ford
Pussycat.
And finally,
Cocoa, which only works as an eyeshadow on me. It's definitely brown! I don't have any comparable lipsticks at all.
Left to right above:
Bite Multistick in Cocoa,
Milani Shadow Eyez Pencil in
Cafe au Lait, and
Maybelline Creamy Matte in
Divine Wine.
On my lips:
It applied nicely and wears well. It's just not a great color for me.
On my eyes (the photos were taken within minutes of applying it, over primer, so you can see that the creasing is pretty immediate):
Despite the creasing and patchiness, I did like how it looked when applied from the stick and blended with a finger. It reminded me that I should use a wash of dark, matte brown more often as a simple eyeshadow look.
Cocoa also works very well as a cream base to intensify powder eyeshadows. When used that way (over primer) it doesn't crease at all. But I wouldn't buy a $24 product solely to use as a base for other shadows, especially since I still have to use a primer.
Unfortunately, none of these three shades is really a triple-threat for me. I think if you can find a shade that works that way for you, then you can get a lipstick, blush/contour, and cream eyeshadow base from it. But since it needs to be topped with powder eyeshadow, it's not a perfect travel product that eliminates the need to pack additional eyeshadow and brushes. In the end, I found the Multisticks fun to experiment with and better than I'd hoped (especially as a lipstick formula), but they're certainly not going to replace dedicated eyeshadows, blushes, or lipsticks in my hoard.
I am thinking that
a combination of
Cocoa and
Blondie could be used to make a pretty great sepia Halloween costume, though . . .
Have you ever found a multi-use product that actually excelled at multiple things? Any interest in the
Bite Multisticks? Is there a color there that you could use for that cool, grungy monochromatic look?
(By the way, I got these from
Influenster. Anyone can sign up--it's not a blogger thing, though you do need to use social media.)
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
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| Top: New Wet N Wild Color Icon Blush in Pearlescent Pink; bottom: the old Pearlescent Pink |
old post of mine, where I complained that people kept calling Milani
Luminoso an
Orgasm dupe, when it obviously isn't, in their
article about the rise of makeup dupe culture. So it seems like a good time to publish this post on another supposed-but-not-actual dupe for
Orgasm: Wet N Wild
Pearlescent Pink.
Wet N Wild recently reformulated their
Color Icon blushes and redesigned the packaging. Some of the new blushes, including
Pearlescent Pink, have the same names as the old ones, and there are also some new shades. The old
Pearlescent Pink is
one of my favorite blushes, but I could tell as soon as I looked at the new one on the store shelf that it wasn't the same, as I'm sure you can see in the photo above. It's weird talking about "dupes" when the two things are being presented as the same product, but this blush is not a dupe of itself. So I bought it (because why wouldn't I buy a blush that looks nothing like another blush I that really like?). Here's a comparison for you. Swatches first: (left to right)
new
Pearlescent Pink,
old
Pearlescent Pink, and Nars
Orgasm.
Clearly neither of these is an
Orgasm dupe, and to the overly picky eye of a makeup hoarder, the new and old
Pearlescent Pinks are completely different. While the old one isn't exactly pearlescent (rather it has some gold sparkle in it), the new one is neither pearlescent
nor pink. It's firmly in peach category. You can see the difference on my face, too.
Old
Pearlescent Pink, which on me is a flattering shade of pink that looks like a natural flush
:
New
Pearlescent Pink, which isn't a bad blush color, but is so peachy it actually leans toward nude/beige on my face:
The formulas of the old and new versions are similar in some ways. They're both soft and kick up quite a bit of powder when you stick your brush in them. They both have some sparkle. The old version is more pigmented, so that I have to use a light touch, whereas I've found that I actually need to build up the new one a bit to get the look I want. How pigmented you want your blush to be is a matter of preference. It's easier to add more layers than to remove it if you go overboard, but it can also be more work to get a visible flush if a blush is too sheer. On the plus side, the new blush is a bit bigger at 0.2 oz. to the old 0.14 oz for the same price ($2.99). It's pretty rare that a makeup company redesigns packaging and actually gives you more product.
The new blush is fine, but I'm annoyed that my old favorite is gone and that they're pretending this new one is somehow the same thing. It's not fucking pink. It's a different product, so it should have a different name. I probably have a few good years left with my original
Pearlescent Pink, since it's a huge pan (even in the old size) and I only need to use a very small amount at a time. If, however, you like it as much as I do and want to stock up while you still can,
Amazon still has the old Pearlescent Pink available for under $5 with free shipping.
>
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
For more information about this subscription, take a look at the
detailed review of my first two boxes. For now, I'm going to jump right in to the products I sampled in June (I'm already way behind, since I got my July box over a week ago already). This subscription is a fun way for me to test and review some higher end products that I normally wouldn't pick up.
My third box was full of surprises--things I liked more that I expected, and things that made for disappointing swatches but worked much better in actual use. Here are the samples I picked this time:
Chanel Le Vernis in Vamp and
Kevyn Aucoin Sensual Skin Enhancer in Sx01.
Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush in Ethereal Glow,
Tom Ford Matte Lip Color in Pussy Cat, and
Laura Mercier Baked Eyeshadow in Black Karat. They actually managed to preserve the "bacon" marbling in the Hourglass blush when repressing it! Impressive.
I also got these applicators, which as usual I could pretty much do without. I actually have no idea what the third thing is. This is the second time they've sent one of those. Any ideas?
Many, many photos below!
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
I wrote a post like this
way back when I started my blog, so I thought it might be interesting to update it and see how many of my favorites have stayed the same and how many have changed, now that I've tried a lot of new shit. I've also compared a lot of cheaper things to more expensive products along the way, and in all cases, the makeup in this list equals or outperforms pricier alternatives. I'm just doing makeup today, but I'll follow up with another post about my cheap favorites from other categories like skin care and hair products.
My cheap favorites are reliable and inexpensive. They're things that I replace when I finish them. Obviously I don't use these products exclusively, but I keep coming back to them because I prefer them to others. Below I've included links to previous reviews on my blog, if they exist. I've also tried to link to the best places online to buy these things, to my knowledge. Most of them are easy to find in any drugstore or Target/Walmart, etc.--in which case you might be able to get them on sale. But you might be like me and prefer online shopping when possible, so I've linked them below.
There are a few categories of makeup for which I don't have a current cheap favorite. For example, foundation: I'm picky about it and haven't found anything I absolutely love at any price point, though the Maybelline SuperStay Better Skin Foundation,
reviewed here, is decent when sheered out, and
Boots No. 7 Lift & Luminate Foundation is
amazing if you can find a good color match (I can't). As for concealer, I have a favorite (
reviewed here), but it's not cheap. I've used some good drugstore concealers, like
Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Dark Circles, but I tend to run into problems with the range of shades available. I had a favorite powder (
Maybelline Mineral Power Finishing Veil Translucent Powder--lots of Maybelline here in the "almost" category) but of course it's been discontinued, so I'll have to find something else soon. I don't have a favorite bronzer, because I almost never wear bronzer. I also don't currently have a favorite lip gloss, I guess because it's not a product I
love to wear in general. There a plenty of perfectly fine lip glosses out there, but nothing that I am particularly excited about.
But let's get to my actual favorites. My photos aren't the prettiest, because I am currently using most of these things and, in many cases, have been using them for a long time, so they're a bit beat up. (Lots of images after the jump.)
Disclosure: Affiliate links.
I got this a few months ago as a free gift with purchase from Paula's Choice. All of the reviews I've read of this palette have been glowing, but I don't love it, so I thought it might be worth putting a dissenting voice out there. We all know how much I like to be a dissenting voice.
Although it has the word "contour" in the name, it's not really a contouring palette in the same sense as others out there like the ones from
Anastasia or
NYX. It's really a blush palette with a highlighter and bronzer included. I think that the color of the bronzer would make it unsuitable for contouring on most people (more on that below), so really the only contouring product in here is the highlighter.
Pearl). In fact, if I could buy this on its own, I would. It's very natural looking. The best part is that I can use it on large areas of my face (like the middle of my forehead) and it just gives a subtle glow without emphasizing pores or texture in a way that I don't like. Usually, even with the best powder highlighters I've tried (like
The Balm's Mary-Lou Manizer), I have to limit highlighting to pretty small zones to avoid that. Because this is so subtle on my skin, I originally assumed that it was extremely translucent. But then I swatched it over black eyeliner to test the translucency, and it turns out that it's not. It's quite opaque, in fact. It's just a near-exact match for my pasty face. Interesting! I suppose that means that it will be more dramatic the darker your skin is.
Heres an angle so you can get a better idea of the very smooth shimmer it contains. Though it looks slightly pink in the pan, the sheen is mostly just pearly with maybe a hint of yellow gold.
Now the worst part: the bronzer (
Bronze). It's possible that this shade of bronzer would work for someone out there, but it is really awful on me. My skin tone is pretty neutral, leaning just slightly warm/yellow. This bronzer looks like dirt on my face. It's quite pigmented and not easy to blend, so it gets patchy, which only worsens the effect. The color is very brown, with a little red in it, which isn't good for me at all. I don't know if some people tan that color, but I certainly don't. Here it is compared to some other products I have for reference (left to right):
Wet N Wild ColorIcon Bronzer in Princess,
Tarte Park Avenue Princess, Paula's Choice
Bronze, and
NYX Blush in Taupe (which is not a bronzer, but works well for contouring pale skin since it's cool).
The Wet N Wild is warmer, maybe, but it's more of an orange-gold warmness than red, which makes it look less dirty on my face. Closer to an actual tan, I suppose. In the swatches, the Paula's Choice doesn't look
so far off from the Tarte bronzer, but the Tarte works just fine for me - so that slightly cooler and slightly yellower color apparently makes a big difference. The nice thing about the Paula's Choice bronzer is that it has no shimmer in it, so on someone for whom the color worked, it would look more natural than a glittery bronzer. Presumably.
The blushes are somewhere in between the highlighter and the bronzer: they're okay, but they don't really work for me either. They have the same type of formula as the bronzer, i.e. matte, quite pigmented and difficult to blend smoothly. They are also all very warm and a little ruddy. They're just not colors I can use easily, and because they are
all so warm, there isn't one in the bunch that I can really wear. Which isn't to say I can't ever wear coral or warm pink blushes - but not these ones. All of these, even
Peony and
Soft Mauve from the far right side of the palette - which look relatively cool next to the other two - are still too ruddy and just not flattering on me.
Top row: on the left,
Delicate Coral; on the right,
Peony:
Bottom row: on the left,
Dusty Rose; on the right,
Soft Mauve.
Delicate? Dusty? Soft? Not so much. See how, even though they look fairly different in the pans, they somehow look very similar on my skin? Not identical, but there's not exactly a great variety here. Disappointing.
The blushes cause the same problems with blending as the bronzer. Because they are quite pigmented and the colors are iffy to begin with, they create a blotchy, unnatural effect on my face. Blush is supposed to give you a healthy flush, but instead I end up looking sicker. The patchiness is worse if I wear moisturizer (or on days that my skin is particularly oily). In the photo below, I applied moisturizer to my arm and let it soak in for 10-15 minutes, and then swatched one of the blushes (unfortunately I didn't note which one, and they all look so similar that I can't tell what it is from the photo).
This is as smooth as I could blend it out with a nice, soft brush, and then it wouldn't budge. It's even worse on my face, because the skin on the inner side of my forearm here is smoother and less oily than the skin on my face. Primer doesn't seem to help. I would highly recommend using a stippling brush with these blushes, like
the one e.l.f. sells for $3. That makes the application a million times easier, because it doesn't deposit all the blush in a couple of spots that you then have to blend out. In fact, I never really understood the point of a stippling brush until I used it with these blushes. I've never had a blush that applied like this. I get it now. On the plus side, the Paula's Choice blushes are quite long lasting, so if you can master the blending and want something that will stick, this is an option.
In the end, this palette was an interesting concept that
really didn't work for me. I was excited about the vibrant colors, but I think they'd be better for someone with a different skin tone from mine (who also owns a stippling brush!). Warmer and maybe less pale? I considered keeping the whole palette just for the lovely highlighter, but I have enough other highlighters that are perfectly functional. At $38, I don't think it is worth buying for the little pan of highlighter alone (and I'm glad I didn't spend that money on it). My general experience is that while Paula's Choice makes great skin care products, their makeup is hit and miss and rarely worth the high prices.
I'm really curious how this might work for someone with different coloring from mine, so here's what I'm going to do. If you would like to try it and report back, I'd be happy to send it to you for the cost of shipping (in a small, flat rate USPS Priority box: $5.95, US only, Paypal). Send me an email at ramaffiliate AT gmail DOT com and it's yours. First come, first served! (Though I will send it to the second (or third or fourth) person who contacts me if I don't receive the shipping money within 48 hours of my responding to the first one.)
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