Urban Decay 15th Anniversary Palette Swatches and Review

So, I figured out why I was so tired yesterday! After sleeping for 16 hours straight (seriously), I woke up sick. Yay for having the crappiest immune system ever. the worst thing about being sick is having to go about your regular responsibilities anyway, even when all you want to do is hide under the covers. Sometimes I wonder why I signed up for this "being an adult" crap anyway. Hmm, it's still not too late to move back home!

Anyway, in addition to being sick, I'm a bad girl. I spend entirely too much money. I hated having to hide things I bought from my boyfriend and being ashamed because I really shouldn't have bought them. I wasn't making us go into debt or anything, but I recognize it could have got that bad if I let myself continue to spiral out of control. I still have a few orders still in in bubble mailers I haven't even opened that I received a month ago or so. That is when you know you have a problem. I'm terrible at self-control, but it's time I sucked it up and learned. Now where did I leave my big girl panties?

I know I'm a bad girl, but I'm glad I was able to sneak in Urban Decay's 15th Anniversary palette before I decided to clean up my act. It's absolutely gorgeous. I know everyone has seen a million and a half pictures of this by now, but I don't care. I'm pretty sure you need it.

I had the most ridiculous time taking pictures of this palette. It is so shiny and reflective it made good pictures impossible. I think I need a better camera!

It also attracts fingerprints. They magically appear if you even THINK about touching it. The palette comes in a pretty purple velvet box that I couldn't bring myself to throw away, and I'm not usually so sentimental about packaging.

Here is the whole shebang disassembled. The actual eyeshadow part sits in a little square that is shiny purple on the outside and lined with more of the purple velvety stuff on the inside. The top silver part with the "jewelled" UD initials fits over this part. This a large mirror on the inside of the lid.

This isn't a small palette by any means, but still probably smaller than 15 single eyeshadows (and cheaper, too!)

This picture was taken in the sun. Unfortunately this was the only sun picture I could get before the sun decided to be an asshole and hide behind the clouds. Or was it that the clouds were assholes and hid the sun? I'm not sure, but someone was definitely an asshole.

I swatched these as how they are grouped in columns.

Group 1 (1st column): Midnight Rodeo, Midnight 15, Vanilla, flow, Chase
Group 2 (2nd column): Tainted, Junkshow, Omen, Evidence, Deep End
Group 3 (3rd column): Deeper, M.I.A., Ace, Blackout, Half Truth

This was taken inside with the flash.

Urban Decay makes some of the best eyeshadows on the market and their palettes are usually "must buy"s for people. Urban Decay is also known for ruining perfectly good eyeshadows by sticking them full of craft glitter. Okay, I might be exaggerating the craft glitter bit, but I'm sure you guys know what I mean. Due to the fallout, it makes these color unusable for me, even if I used a sticky base. Luckily I haven't had an issues with  huge chunky glitter from this palette. Midnight Rodeo was the only one with the larger glitter, but I didn't have any problems when wearing it.

This palette is awesome because of it's huge range of colors. There are a good amount of neutrals, brights, and darker shades. I do wish they had taken out one of the neutrals and had a green shade though.

From left- Midnight Rodeo, Midnight 15, Vanilla, flow, Chase

From left- Tainted, Junkshow, Omen, Evidence, Deep End

From left- Deeper, M.I.A., Ace, Blackout, Half Truth

Like most matte blacks, Blackout was patchy, sheer, and a bit hard to work with. It wasn't the worst matte black I've used, however.

Look, look! I found dupes! Well, not perfect dupes, but pretty damn close. The two outer colors are from Wet n Wild's Blue Had Me At Hello palette (which I've reviewed here) and the inner two are from Urban Decay's 15 Anniversary palette. The WnW teal is a tad lighter and more green than Urban Decay's Deep End, and UD's Evidence has a slightly brighter blue sheen than the one from WnW, but I bet you would not be able to tell when worn on the eye. Also, the dark blue from Wet n wild was a bit more pigmented than Evidence.

Yay for dupes!

If you can still find this palette I highly recommend it. It is my favorite palette from Urban Decay either. I was impressed with swatches of the upcoming Book of Shadows palette and I'm glad I didn't pass up this one to get it!

Available:

• Retails for $55 and can be found on Urban Decay's website. I've also seen this in Ulta and Sephora stores recently.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Revlon Just Tinted Nail Polish Swatches

I had a poopy day today (well, technically yesterday by the time this posts in the morning), and I'm exhaaaaaaausted. It's only 9pm and I'm already ready for bed. 9 pm is obscenely early to me. No matter what time I have to wake up, I can't sleep unless it is already the next day, aka after midnight.

Here are swatches of Revlon's Just Tinted nail polish collection. This one is a limited edition summer collection. I'm not sure if it's still available in stores or not as I bought these like 2 months ago and am barely posting them. I'm such a procrastinator!  I was really looking forward to these as I thought they would be similar to OPI's "sorbets" from the Texas collection, which I surprisingly liked. These are more sheer. I don't love them and can't decide if I even like them. Oh, they also dry to a semi-matte/satiny finish, which is weird since they look kinda jelly-ish. I didn't like the satin look so all of these are swatched with a top coat.

These are all 2 coats of the polishes over one coat of an opaque nude polish on my index finger and 4 coats on my other 3 fingers.

Revlon Dawn in the sun

Revlon Dawn in the shade

Revlon Victorian in the sun

Revlon Victorian in the shade

Revlon Desire in the sun

Revlon Desire in the shade

Revlon Mystical in the sun

Revlon Mystical in the shade

Okay, now I'm really going to bed. Sleep sounds freaking amazing right about now.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

FOTD: Tantalizing

I start school today and I'm always nervous the first day of new classes! I'm still lamenting my lack of a summer break, though! Oh well, I really needed to take the classes I did this summer. And I managed to get a pretty good schedule this semester. I only have classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from like 8:30 to 12:30. Oh, and I have a 3 hour lab on Wednesdays after my regular classes. Yay, that is still 4 days a week I can sleep late!

Here is a look I did whole week and a half ago when I was still in the midst of my summer classes. This post is called "Tantalizing" because the eyeshadows are from LORAC's TANtalEYES palette, but they was no way I was going to keep typing "TANtalEYES". I get the play on words, but typing it like that is annoying, haha.

Eyes:

•  Two Faced Shadow Insurance
• LORAC TANtalEYES palette
• MAC Dark Diversion on upper lash line and water line
• A mix of CoverGirl Lashblast mascara and Wet n Wild MegaLash Clinical Mascara on lashes
• Physician's Formula Canyon Classic quad matte eyeshadow in brows (darkest shade)

Face:

• Physician's Formula CircleRx concealer in Fair Light under eyes
• Maybelline SuperStay concealer in Ivory also under eyes
• Physician's Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation in Translucent Light

Cheeks

• Smashbox Cream Cheek Duo in Blushing/Peony
• Benefit High Beam

Lips

• Pixi Succulent Lip Twin in Coral Camellia (tint only)
• Maybelline Color Sensational Lipgloss in Coral Glow

 

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe Swatches

This polish retails for $18, which is waaaay more than I normally spend on nail polish. there are so many great brand and colors for much less than this, so it isn't often I feel the need to buy high end nail polish. But a needed a few extra dollars to meet the $39 minimum for free shipping at beautybar.com. $18 is far from a few dollars, but I had a coupon code for $15 off an order of $50 so I ended up paying only $3 for the polish. Not bad, huh?

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe in the sun

To be honest, I didn't really like this polish when I first put in on. I LOVE pictures of it, but somehow it doesn't translate as well to real life for me. But it has slowly grown on me and I now love it. Even though removal is the biggest pain in the ass ever. When i was done I had the big chunks of glitter EVERYWHERE. I even found them on my dogs.

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe in the shade

What you're seeing in this picture isn't tipwear. It's just one of those polishes that applies really sheerly at the tips for some reason. I need to try layering this over a dark blue next time to mask the tip issue.


Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

LORAC TANtalEYES Palette Swatches

Here is a quick review of LORAC's TANtalEYES palette. Of course, being the terrible procrastinator that I am, I'm posting this when most retailers don't even have it in stock any more. If you're going to buy it (and you should because it's awesome!) I highly recommend you buy it from BeautyBar.com. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, I just got some amazing customer service from them. Check my post from yesterday to read about it!

This normally comes as a set with a tube of shimmery bronzing stuff, but I like being pale so I gave it away.

Ooooh, look at the shiny! The outer packaging is really cool, it's gold rainbow-y at the same time. It's a tad bulky for an eyeshadow quad, but not too bad.

It's even pretty on the inside! The eyeshadows are baked and come in the little dome form typical of baked makeup.

The shadows themselves are insanely soft and pigmented. These may be the best formula of eyeshadow i have ever used. The colors themselves are a little warm-toned for my liking, but the formula is just so freaking amazing I had to have it. This is just one swipe. Usually I have to go over a swatch several times to get it the size I want, but just a tiny bit when a long way. These aren't powdery at all, but buttery, smooth, and pigmented. LOVE.

Baked shadows are notorious for being sheer and difficult to work with, and these may be the exception as they are a far cry from sheer and difficult to work with.

This was my first look I did with this palette.

And the second look.



I love, love, love this formula and I wonder if LORAC's other baked shadows are just as good...


Pros:

• Extremely pigmented
• Soft, buttery smooth texture
• Blend well
• No fallout

 Cons:

•  $36 is a bit high for an eyeshadow quad

Available:

• Retails for $36 and can be found on LORAC's website and BeautyBar.com

Thanks you reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Awesome Customer Service Makes Me Happy! BeautyBar.com Review

I've never written a post like this because it takes A LOT to impress me customer service wise. But I just wanted to let you guys know about one of my best customer service experiences ever. If you've never purchased from BeautyBar.com, you really need to!

Several weeks ago I decided I NEEDED the Hot Off the Red Carpet set from LORAC. Everywhere I checked was sold out. I found this website called Beauty Bar that I had never heard of before (it's affiliated with soap.com, diapers.com, and wag.com) that still stocked it. They has free 1-2 day shipping on all orders over $39, which is freakin awesome. I also found a coupon online (BBCATALOG) for $15 off a $50 purchase or $30 off a $100 purchase. They have a fairly limited selection compared to say, Sephora, but still have similar items. Anyway, I ended up buying a bottle of Deborah Lippmann's Across the Universe, too and my total came out to $39 (didn't have to pay taxes either, woohoo!), the exact amount for free shipping. The set sells for $36 and the polish for $18, so this would have cost me $54 plus tax and shipping elsewhere. The only only bad thing is that they only ship to the US, boo.


So my order came really quickly. Annnnd, I promptly forgot I bought it and it sat in the box unopened for 3 weeks. On Sunday I opened it and realized that one of the baked shadows was smashed. I sent them an email saying what happened (this was at 4pm Sunday afternoon). I checked my email around 9:30 pm and saw that I had gotten an email saying that they had shipped me out a replacement and it would be here Wednesday. I had no idea they would react that quickly! And then I remember I was going out of town and wasn't going to be at home Wednesday - Sunday and I would miss the package. I have terrible phone anxiety, but I called the customer service number anyway. By this time it was 10 pm Sunday night and I didn't think anyone would answer. A guy answered on the second ring. I was shocked. I first asked if I needed to return the broken items and he said I didn't need to, which was awesome. I then told him about me being out of town in the coming week. My package had already left the warehouse, but he gave me the option of a refund on my debit card, having the package rerouted to my parent's address (which is where I'm going this week) or he would call UPS tomorrow and ask them to hold the package at the nearest location to my house until I returned. I had them reroute the package. He said it may delay it a day at the most. He was ridiculously nice, professional, and helpful and I think I might be in love with him. Heh.

Sorry for the long ass sorry, but it's not often we receive mind blowing customer service like that and I just wanted to share.

Cult Nails Hypnotic Collection Bottle Pics

Yay, look what came in the mail on Tuesday!

No, they aren't extremely inedible-looking eggrolls, they're nail polishes! Cult Nails' Fall 2011 Hypnotic Collection, to be precise.

From left- Awakening, Enigmatic, In A Trance, Hypnotize Me

Sigh, aren't they beautiful? I can officially say that I own every single polish that Cult Nails has released. I think this has become an obsession within an obsession as I'm already obsessed with nail polish in general. I didn't have time to swatch these before I left to visit my parents, but I'll get on it first thing when I get back.

You can purchase Cult Nails' polishes from their website here- http://shop.cultnails.com/


Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Makeup I Packed For a Short Trip

So classes start on Monday for me and my boyfriend and I are gathering up our dogs for one more trip to parents' before I won't have time to visit for several months. I probably won't get to see them again until December, which makes me sad. :( It takes 5 hours to drive there so we're leaving early today and we'll be there until Sunday afternoon. I showed you guys what I brought with me when I visited them for a week and a half earlier this year (that post is here). I thought I brought more than enough makeup then, but I ended up not wanting to wear anything I brought, haha!  This is a shorter trip so I'm bringing much less and it was so hard to narrow it down.

Haha, editing the pictures right now I realized that I forgot to pack mascara! Phew, glad I didn't forget that. If I could only pick one item of makeup to wear it would be mascara as it alters my appearance the most. Invisible eyelashes for the loss!

This time I picked the the bag I was going to use BEFORE I picked the makeup I was taking. This definitely helped me not try and bring my whole collection. And I am inordinately proud of myself that I only brought one blush. Haha, I have the worst willpower ever if I'm proud of that. I'm seriously considering trying to stuff another one in the bag, but I must resist!

Here is everything shoved inside the bag. It fits, I promise!

I love this bag; it's from Tarte.I'm on 2 different auto-delivery things of Tarte makeup from QVC and each time I get sent a different purple bag. I have 3 right now and love them all!


Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Wet n Wild Idol Eyes Creme Shadow swatches and review

It seems like every brand has a cream eye shadow stick these days- from cult favorite NYX to Urban Decay.  But at just $1.99 Wet n Wild's just might be the cheapest. First I'll show you some swatches and then get to the meat of the review.

Wet n Wild Idol Eyes Creme Shadows

From top to bottom- Pixie, Envy, Techno, and Distress

From left- Pixie, Envy, Techno, and Distress (Techno blended out at the very end)

The swatches look decent don't they? The only one I had issues swatching is Techno, which is a bit sheer.

From the beginning I knew that these weren't going to be a miracle non-creasing product to rival the high end brands.  This is what they claim, "Soft-blending, creamy eyeshadow at the convenience of a pencil. Silky-smooth formula glides on easily for high-impact, light-infused color that lasts for hours." (Quote from wnwbeauty.com)

I'm going to ago over each claim and let you know how it stacks up. The following is probably going to come off a bit snarky. I love Wet n Wild as a brand, though, I really do. But you can expect every brand to have a few duds.

Soft-blending-  I'm not sure what "soft" blending is but yes, these blend pretty well.  But, they sheer out really quickly so you are losing that intense color.

Creamy- Yes, these are very creamy.  Too creamy actually.  They never really set on their own (without powder on top).

Silky-smooth formula- Yes, I will give them that.  They aren't clumpy or lumpy.  But once again it is that creamy smoothness that gives us the problems.

High-impact- If you don't blend these a few of the shades are what I would consider high-impact (the blue and the green). The purple is quite sheer and the beige is neutral.

Light-infused- Well, they aren't matte.  I guess being shimmers makes them "light-infused".

Lasts for hours- Aaaand here is the kicker.  They don't.  Not by themselves anyway.  On a bare eyelid with no primer the don't last more than 5 minutes.  Well I suppose they last if you consider bunching together and having a little party in your eyelid creases lasting.  And that is applied straight from the pencil and blended (sheered) out.

The best way to back up any claim. Proof. And here is mine. (Be warned- scary, gross, creased eye makeup ahead!)

After 10 minutes- Applied thickly with no primer

I wasn't expecting this test to go so well. And it didn't. Applied like this they actually creased immediately. You can tell by looking at my lid how "wet" looking it is. And sorry, I forgot to wear mascara in all these pics, haha.

After 10 minutes- Applied sheerly with no primer

My next test was to apply as thin a layer as possible to see if it would crease. As you can tell, it did.

After 10 minutes- Applied a medium amount over primer

This time I used a primer, Too Faced Shadow Insurance. After 10 minutes the creasing isn't as horrific as the first picture, but it's still pretty damn bad. Unwearably bad.

After 10 minutes- Worn with primer and set with powder eyeshadow

This time I used the pencils as a base for powder eyeshadow. I used similar colors as the pencils (sorry, I don't remember which ones!). After 10 minutes I did not have any creasing and I like the way it looks better than just the powder shadows alone.

After 3 hours- Worn with primer and set with powder eyeshadow

So after 3 hours I still didn't have any creasing. Sorry for the crappy pic, but it was getting really late and I was so tired of messing with these things. At least I found a way to wear them that works for me!


Really, the only way these can be worn for me is as a base for other eye shadows. I have normal eyelids that rarely get oily, so I'm not sure how these would fare for those of you that do get oily. For $1.99 they are worth a try if you see a color you like. Plus, you can always take it back to the drugstore if it didn't work and you have your receipt.

To be honest, I don't really use these that often because they add another step to my makeup routine and that extra step is an extra 2 minutes I could have spent sleeping, haha. These do not live up the claims at all, but you might get them to work with a little work.

Oh, another thing. I hate the packaging. The plastic cap has a tendency to crack really easily making it loose. On all the pencils I have this happened and the cap mushes down on the top of the pencil, ruining it. I would either depot these and be very very careful with them.

Pros:

• Work as a base for powder eyeshadows
• Inexpensive

Cons:

• Crease instantly, even with primer unless used as a base for powder shadows
• Would like a broader color range. A white would be nice.
• Techno is pretty sheer
• The packaging is terrible and tends to ruin the pencils

Available:

• These retail for $1.99 and are sold at drugstores and where ever you can find Wet n Wild

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Chanel Peridot Swatches

This post is going to be short on words and looooong on pictures. I recently bought my first Chanel polish- Peridot. $25 is an obscene amount of money to spend on nail polish, but I don't regret it. It's a gorgeous color and completely unlike anything I have.   I know everyone has seen a million pictures of this by now, but oh well. After this you'll only have seen a million and ten.

First of all, here is my super cool gif!

Here it is with a matte top coat. The awesome duo/multi chrome action is still evident.

So what do you guys think? Was it worth it?.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!