Maybelline Color Whisper Photos, Swatches, & Review

First there were the Revlon Lip Butter, then Loreal Color Riche, now Maybelline Color Whisper. How could Maybelline stay out the game? Well I'm glad they joined in because they are probably my favorite drugstore brand so I always have high hopes for their products. I will let you know my thoughts on them and how they compare to Loreal and Revlon.

The packaging I love! They are the slimmest and sleekest lipstick that I own which I can highly appreciate. I hate unnecessary packing and we all know when we have a small clutch with limited space how this comes in handy. The lids correspond to the color in the tube (for some but not all). The cap is easy to take off and put back on and unlike the Loreal ones you don't have to lock it into any groove. 

Left to Right:  A Plum Prospect, Oh La Lilac, Berry Ready, Coral Ambition, Faint for Fuchsia

Urban Decay Naked Basics Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches

The Urban Decay Naked Basics Eyeshadow palette was released very recently and has been advertised as an all matte palette. The palette is $27 and you get six full sized eyeshadows. This doesn't come with any primers or brushes like the other Naked palettes. I don't mind this though because it helps make the palette cost less money. Some of the colors are exclusive to this palette and some you can find elsewhere. For the month of December, I currently running a giveway of this palette. 

Naked Basics Palette

Tarte LipSurgence Holiday 2012 Collector's Set Swatches, Photos & Review

Before the Sephora VIB sale ends I wanted to share with you all two of the Tarte holiday sets that I picked up. This post will be about the LipSurgences and the next one will be the blush set. I picked up this limited edition set last year at Sephora and really fell in love with it. It's just too good of a deal to pass up. One LipSurgence sells for $24. In this set you get 5 for $34 which comes to $6.8 for each month and even less with the 20% off. These have in them Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Peppermint Oil, and Jojoba Seed Oil which really is great for your lips. They are free of Parabens, Sulfates, Synthetic Fragrances, Petrochemicals, Phthalates, GMOs, and Triclosan. 

Mac Lipstick Collection Swatches, Photos, and Review

My Mac lipstick is currently small but ever growing. With the Back to Mac program it's hard not to want to buy their lipsticks. They aren't as crazy priced as many Sephora lipsticks and they have such a great color selection. I currently have 4 lipsticks that I am going to share with you all today.

Left to Right: Syrup, Sweetie, Hue, and Costa Chic

Dior Amber Diamond Powder Shimmer: Swatches, Photos & Review

Dior Amber Diamond is one of those cult favorite product's. It's one of those products that everyone talks so much about that many often wonder if it's worth the hype. I think most people are hesitant about purchasing this because of its high price tag. Dior Amber Diamond doesn't come cheap at $44 USD for .35 oz. You do get a lot of product which so that helps a bit. Amber Diamond has 5 separate colors that are described as Ivory, Champagne, Tan, Bronze, and Peach. Sephora describes it as, "These five micro-shimmering tones set off sparks of brilliance, highlighting your complexion. The ultra-fine, super-blendable formula virtually fuses with your skin for a sheer, radiant luminosity."

Dior Amber Diamond

Laura Mercier Artist's Palette For Eyes: Swatches, Photos & Review

Laura Mercier recently launched at Sephora the exclusive and limited edition Artist's Palette for Eyes. The palette retails for $48 USD but is an $88 value. The palette is a dozen eye shadow colors, hand-selected by Laura Mercier, in shimmer and matte finishes. The top row features a range of dark to light shimmer shades in Chocolate, African Violet, Sable, Guava, Cameo, and Sunlit. The bottom row includes light to dark matte finishes in Vanilla Nuts, Plum Smoke, Cafe au Lait, Coffee Ground, Deep Night, and Rich Coffee. I had originally picked up a single in African Violet but ended up returning it when this palette came out.

Favorite Fall & Winter Lipsticks Swatches, Photos, & Review

To continue along with my favorite Fall & Winter makeup series I will be discussing some of my favorite lipsticks in this post. This was harder for me than the blushes because I have a ton of lipsticks and not as many Fall/Winter blushes. I also have more drugstore lipsticks than high end. I think I went through a phase of buying a lot of drugstore lipsticks. I've stopped doing that now though since its so hard to know if the color will work for you without trying it out first. I've bought too many colors that I haven't really liked. I hope you will find a color in this post that might work for you.

Top 5 Favorite Fall & Winter Blushes Swatches, Photos, & Review

I picked out for you my favorite Fall & Winter blushes. I have a lot of pink blushes but wanted to pick out for you the ones that I would reach for more in the Fall & Winter and not as much during the rest of the year.  I tend to lean toward mauve & plum colors with golden shimmer in some. I am very fair skin so with some of these I have to really use a light hand but I still love all of these colors. 

Top Row: Tarte Exposed, Estee Lauder Audacious Plum, Illamasqua Naked Rose
Bottom Row: Nars Sin, Nars Luster

Laura Mercier Foundation Primer-Radiance Swatches, Photos, & Review

Laura Mercier is well known for her primers and for many they are holy grail. In the last year or so she came out with the Radiance primer. This primer is meant to be the canvas for your foundation giving you a smooth and silky surface while adding a sheer healthy glow.

Partially Used Laura Mercier Foundation Primer in Radiance

Tarte LipSurgence Collection Swatches, Photos & Review

I've gotten quite a few requests to do a post on my Tarte LipSurgence collection. I have 7 of them and gave a few to my mother. These sell for $24 each and you get .1 oz of product. They come in three different types including lip tints, matte lip tints, and lip lusters. I counted 23 colors on Sephora's website. They always are coming out with limited edition shades though in holiday boxes or on places like QVC. There is a enough variety that I think there is a color to fit everyone's preferences.

Left to Right: Flashy, Frisky, Lucky, Adored, Dazzled, Glitzy, Perky

Lorac Pro Palette: Swatches, Photos & Review

Lorac recently came out with their Pro Palette which has gotten a ton of hype recently. This came out around the same time as the Unzipped palette. I first heard a lot about the Unzipped which I still don't have but once I heard about this palette I knew I had to add it to my wishlist. This palette comes with 16 eyeshadows, 8 of which are matte and 8 are shimmer. The 8 matte shades are: white, cream, taupe, light pink, mauve, sable, espresso, and black. This is a great mix of mattes that you could use as a highlight, all over the lid, crease color, inner corner, etc. For the 8 shimmer shades they are: nude, champagne, gold, light bronze, pewter, garnet, deep purple, and slate. These are amazing shimmery metallic colors that will work great with the mattes and none of the shimmer contain glitter. The problem with a lot of eyeshadow palettes is that they are all metallic or shimmery shades and no mattes or not enough mattes. This is a perfect mix of both as I personally don't like wearing all shimmer on my eyes.

NYX Blush in Angel: Swatches, Photos, & Review

This review is on the NYX powder blush in Angel. For some reason it seems like there is a lot of variability in what color people get. I've heard that from a few people and when I was looking at swatches online it seemed like they looked different on many blogs. For the price, these are excellent blushes. I usually get mine from either Harmon's which is located in Bed, Bath, and Beyond or online at Cherry Culture. You get .18 oz/5.2 grams of product and they retail for around $6. I try to get them when Cherry Culture is having a sale. The color is a peachy/pink color with some sheen but the sheen doesn't show up as much on the cheeks. I think this blush would work well for fair to medium skin tones. Any darker and it would be too light of a blush.

Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain Swatches, Photos & Review

I know I'm a bit late on doing this post but I didn't start blogging until the beginning of July and so I'm just now getting to talk about some of the more popular drugstore items as of late. This post will be on probably one of the most popular drugstore items from this Summer which are the Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains. I have purchased six of them but ended up returning one because it was too dark. There has been a lot of talk about these being similiar to Tarte Lip Surgence and/or Clinique Chubby Sticks. In my mind they are all three different products. I'll probably doing another post comparing the three but for now lets just say that they aren't really alike in terms of staying power and pigmentation and of course price.

Left to Right: Cherish, Charm, Darling, Smitten, Honey

Burberry Eyeshadow Collection +Swatches

Since Burberry eyeshadows have been so popular over the past year or so I thought I would do a post on my collection with some swatches. I have 5 shadows. 2 I purchased myself and the other 3 were given to me by a sales rep at Nordstrom's. It was so random that she even gave them to me but I was extremely grateful. Those 3 are displays so they don't come in the packaging but I still can enjoy them. I know a lot of people who don't have these shadows wonder if they are really worth the hype or not. I hope that this posts help you decide whether or not you need.  Burberry shadow in your collection or help you decide to maybe add more. They have four new colors in their Autumn/Winter collection in Gold Trench, Dark Sable, Mulberry, and Porcelain White. The five shades that I have are Rosewood, Pale Barley, Antique Rose, Midnight Brown, and Midnight Plum.

Top Row (left to right): Rosewood, Pale Barley
Bottom Row (left to right): Antique Rose, Midnight Brown, Midnight Plum

OCC Lip Tar Collection + Swatches

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics is a 100% vegan and cruelty free company based in NYC. They are best known for their lip tars but also sell loose pigments, tinted moisturizer, concealer, airbrush foundation, nail polish, and other beauty items. To learn more about the company you can visit their website here.

I first purchased my lip tars at the NYC IMATS this past year. I picked them up since they were discounted. Normally the lip tars sell for $15 USD each and you get .33 fl oz of product. I picked up two more recently through beauty.com since they were giving you a free one if you spent $10. I believe that Sephora is going to be selling them soon as well. They have over 30 colors so you can really have fun with these products. They have blue and purple for example which you can mix with reds and pinks to change the color for your lips. The possibilities are endless. They are highly pigmented and really do stain your lips without feathering as long as you use a lipliner. 

The lip tars are a liquid/cream consistency and the packaging is great so that only a little bit of product comes out of the tube. These are the most pigmented lip product out there. The lip tars can be a bit intimidating but are so much fun to use. You can wear these as a full on lipstick or as a stain if you blot your lips after you apply it. These wear pretty well and last quite a while on your lips. The stain will be there throughout most of the day. 

Nars Blush Collection + Swatches

I have a large blush collection so I thought I would start off by sharing with you my Nars collection. I really enjoy Nars blushes. They are nicely pigmented but when used with the right brush can either be very soft or you can build up to a lot of color. I have fair skin and all of these colors work well for me. Nars has a nice variety of shimmer, satins, and mattes in their blush collection. I think I have a nice variety here to show you as well. Nars blushes retail for $28 USD. You can purchase them at Sephora or on Nars website.

Nars Blush Collection

My Cream Blush Collection + Swatches

This is probably one of the smallest's parts of my makeup collection. For some reason I haven't gotten obsessed yet (yet is the key word here) with cream blush. I think I'm afraid to go crazy with these since I know that they take forever to go through and also since they are a cream product that they will go bad faster then my powder blushes which I probably have 30 plus of. A collection post to come soon on those too.

I tend to wear cream blush everyday under whatever powder blush that I am wearing. I think it helps to make the powder last longer. Half of my cream blushes are high end and half are drugstore. I have my eye on a lot of high end ones at the moment, especially the Bobbi Brown pot rouge formula. Also I do want to point out that I am pretty fair skin so these colors work well for me. So here is what's in my cream blush collection:

My Entire Cream Blush Collection 

Top 10 Favorite Summer Lip Glosses

This blog post will be on my top 10 favorite summer lip glosses. Typically in the summer I enjoy bright pinks, peachy colors, pale pinks, and corals. Most of my favorite lip glosses are drugstore as I haven't really gotten into yet high end lip glosses. If you all have any suggestions I would love to hear though.

Tonya, Creamsicle, White Russian

Creamsicle, White Russian, Tonya

Inglot Eyeshadow Palette

In this post I will be sharing with you all my inglot eyeshadow palette. I apologize in advance for the poor camera quality. These pictures were taken on my iphone as the quality is better somehow than my  actual camera. I'm looking into investing in a camera and if you have any suggestions let me know.

Living in NYC I am fortunate to be close to several Inglot stores in Manhattan as well as in NJ closeby. I also attended IMATS in NYC this year and was planning on purchasing additional colors but that didnt work out due to the craziness of IMATS. I am overall very pleased with my palette and enjoy the shadows.

Something important to know is that Inglot sells these magentic sticks that you can buy for like $5 at their stores (maybe online too, I'm not sure). After I bought the stick I went to Michaels and purchased  small mini magnets to attach to it. Then I use that to remove my shadows from the palette if necessary. It is so crucial to have if you plan on needing to switch around or take out your shadows.

What I Like About the Palette/Shadows:
-Colors are very soft
-Amazing color payoff
-Wide variety of colors (mattes, shimmers, glitters, etc)
-Fairly inexpensive

What I Don't Like:
-Palettes are bulky
-Colors are identified by numbers and not names
-Colors are not very easy to remove form palette
-Website is very confusing if you want to place an online order

Overall though I would say that the pro's outweigh the cons and I highly recommend Inglot eyeshadows.

On to my palette....

Top Row (left to right): Pearl 419, AMC Shine 30, DS 467, Matte 358, Pearl 420

Bottom Row (left to right): Pearl 409, Matte 349, Pearl 451, Matte 348, DS 483