Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty Eyeshadow Palette Swatches and Review

I bought this palette along with a few other Tarina Tarantino items when I first found out that they were 40% off. This palette had been on my wishlist since I saw Phyrra and Temptalia post about it. For $36 I was never quite willing to pull the trigger. But for $22, there were no second guesses.

I don’t know if the quality of the shadows in this palette is indicative of Tarina Tarantino’s shadows across the board, but I certainly hope so as these are AMAZING. I think I may like the formula better even than Urban Decay’s. The shadows, even the matte brown, are smooth, almost buttery but not too soft that they're powdery, and uber pigmented. There is no fallout and they apply easily and exactly where you want them to go. I know it is a bit of a cliché to say something practically applies itself, but that definitely fits here.

Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty Eyeshadow Palette

Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty Eyeshadow Palette

 I know quite a few people have complained about it, but this palette is HUGE. Here is is compared to my hand and I have quite large hands.

Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty Eyeshadow Palette

This was taken indoors with the flash so the colors are a little washed out.

Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty Eyeshadow Palette

This was taken in weak sunlight.

Tarina Tarantino Emerald Pretty Eyeshadow Palette

The swatches are dry over bare skin. You can see how nicely they apply just in the swatches. My swatches are usually incredibly messy and these are smooth and even. They may not be the most unique colors, but they are really pretty and the formula is amazing.

I think I used all the shadows but the matte brown here. The eyeliner is MAC Undercurrant.

I HIGHLY recommend this palette. The colors are beautiful, work well together, and the formula is one of the best, if not THE best I have ever used. You would be doing yourself a disservice not to purchase this palette. As of right now it is still available on Sephora’s website, but I’m not sure for how much longer. So don’t wait!

FOTD- Intrepid Old Gold

Ugh, so tired! Of course it's my own fault... if I could go to sleep at a decent hour I wouldn't be so exhausted. But my body seems to insist that days are 28 hours long instead of 24, so each night I want to stay up later and sleep later the next day. It doesn't hurt that I had like the worst Monday ever. I would say that two of the things people hate most is going to the dentist and going to a car dealership. Monday I did both. I woke up at the ass crack of early (aka 9 am, but early if you went to bed at 5 am) to go to the dentist. I got two fillings and two crowns. Cost me $1400 WITH insurance and I still need a crap ton of dental work to go. And apparently I got too much of the numbing crap so until 7pm that night it looked like I had a stroke because the left side of my face would not move. Which made for much merriment for my brother, whom I had to take to the car dealership to buy his first car. So not even a car for me. By this time I was nauseous from the numbing crap, having had 4 hours of sleep, and not having ate that day yet. And this whole time half my face was frozen like a victim of botched plastic surgery. We were at the dealership for 6 hours. I finally got home from the day from hell and fell asleep at the ridiculously early hour of 11:30 pm (I'm not being sarcastic. That is early for me).

So, this story has nothing to do with the makeup I'm going to show you, since I wore it last week, but I just wanted everyone to commiserate with me on my horrible day, haha.

My hair looks weird because it was wet!

Here is what I wore:

Eyes- MAC Old Gold pigment on the lid, L'Oreal HiP pigment in Intrepid, and Tarte Amazonian Clay eyeliner in Rich Green

Cheeks- Geek Chic blush in Strawberry Shortcake

Lips- Wet n Wild MegaLast lipstick 902C Bare It All and Kiss My Sass gloss in Caribbean Escape

I'm glad my facial paralysis was only temporary. Or I'd have to wear one of those half masks like the Phantom of the Opera guy.

FOTD- Poisoned Purple Orchids

I looooove purple eyeshadow. I like the way it looks with my green eyes and I just like it period. I have to force myself to wear other colors but purple. And now that I think about it I have more purple nail polishes than any other color as well, although I would probably say overall my favorite color is green. Anyway, I love purple eyeshadow and my favorite purple eyeshadow of them all is Two Faced Poison Orchid (see my blog post here). As I mention in my review I never buy single eyeshadows. And if I do I don't like to spend over around $8. Although this one costs $18, it was so worth it. What color of eyeshadow do you find yourself gravitating to?

This is Poison Orchid on the lid and lower lashline, Urban Decay Fishnet in the crease, and Essence holographic eyeshadow in Mystic Purple to highlight. On my lips is L'Oreal Colour Riche Caresse lipstick in Velvety Fuchsia.

This was way more sparkly in real life, but the flash only bounced off the sparkles on the from of my lid. Dumb flash. Look at the swatch picture here to get an idea of how sparkly it really is (I used a sticky base).

L'Oreal Colour Riche Caresse lipstick in Velvety Fuchsia

And just because, here is gratuitously cute picture of my pug.

EOTD- Shimmering Greens

Just a quick post while I wait for the 15 layers of polish on my nails dry enough so I can go to bed. My friend Christina took it upon herself to help me out of my makeup rut and formed a little challenge for us. Each week will we give each other a look to do and hopefully it will inspire us to be more creative. For this look she challenged me to use shimmery light and dark greens with brown liner. Here is what I came up with.

This is what I used- inner corner and highlight is a light green from a wet n wild palette, the lid is e.l.f. mineral eyeshadow in Earthy, the crease is e.l.f. mineral eyeshadow in Outdoorsy, under the lower lash line is L'Oreal HiP Pigment in Intrepid, and the liner is Urban Decay Corrupt.

This was really fun to to just play with makeup again for fun instead of HAVING to wear it for work. Of course I'm behind on the most recent challenge Christina gave me, but I'm looking forward to seeing what I can come up with!

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette Swatches and Review

This was my first high end makeup purchase in a loooooong time. I'll tell you how much I wanted this palette. I currently work at an Estee Lauder counter, but since the store I work at isn't Nordstrom (the Violet Underground collection is exclusive to Nordstrom and the Estee Lauder website) I actually bought it at a counter that wasn't my own and WITHOUT my employee discount. *GASP* Haha. At least I can say I was a fan of Estee Lauder before my job and still am that much of a fan I go out of my way to buy the products.

This will be my longest and most pic-heavy post in awhile so lets get right to it.

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette

 While I am more than happy with my purchase and the value I got for my money, I just noticed that a year and a half ago (January 2011) the 5 pan palettes were only $42. Then they jumped to $45 and now to $48. A $6 price increase in 2 years seems like a lot to me.

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette

 None of the shades have names, which always bothers me for some reason! Haha. Also this palette only contains .15oz while the regular powder eyeshadow palettes contain .27oz, almost twice as much product. I would never use up a whole palette anyway, but I just wanted to note that.

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette

The regular 5-pan palettes are gold, while this one is a blackened violet purple. And yes, I did set my palette in the grass to take this picture. ;)

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette

I don't think the colors in the palette are the most intuitive and easy to figure out as far as where to wear them on your eyes, but I think they are bold, edgy, fun, and a departure from what many expect from Estee Lauder. I knew from the first promo image I would have to have this palette even though I rarely buy anything without seeing many reviews first.

This palette has gelee eyeshadows instead of the regular powder ones. The texture is still a powder, but similar to Armani's Eyes To Kill or L'Oreal's Infallible shadows. According to Estee Lauder it is supposed to be a combination of a gel, powder, and liquid. I really like this eyeshadow formula. (Side Note- If anyone has one of the Bronze Sands palettes from Estee Lauder they aren't using I would totally buy it from you. It was LE and also the gelee formula and I'm so sad I missed it.)

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette swatches

 These are swatched dry over bare skin. They're smooth, nuanced, and not patchy in the least.

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette swatches

These are swatched dry over a sticky base. The highlight shade is absolutely gorgeous. I try to go through and pick my favorite color and it changes every time. Even the black is smooth and pigmented.

Estee Lauder Violet Underground Palette swatches

Here is a comparison between the two swatch types.

My one caveat is that I think you need primer as I noticed a little bit of fading when testing on my eye without primer. And I think the shadows apply and look better being patted on versus roughly sweeped across the lids due to the texture. They apply beautifully wet and over a sticky base as just using them dry tends to cause a little fallout. But after applying there is no fallout throughout the day like you would get from glittery shadows.

This palette may seem intimidating, but I actually think it's pretty versatile. Used dry (I always wear primer) the colors are softer and even the bold pink is surprisingly wearable. The picture above is just the shadows over primer (Too Faced Shadow Insurance).

For a bolder look you can use the shadows wet or put them over a sticky base. I used a sticky base for the look above (LA Splash Eyeshadow Sealer/Base). This picture is a little washed out by the flash (you can tell by how much lighter my skin looks here than the above picture) but the colors really were a lot more vibrant applied this way.

Here is my whole face using the softer eye look.


So what do you guys think? Kind of a bold showing for Estee Lauder, hmm? I like this new direction the color cosmetics for the brand seem to be moving (Thanks to Tom Pecheux!). I'm more of an eyeshadow girl, but the purple lipstick and gloss from the collection are really tempting me...

Random EOTDs Part 5

Ugh. I don't know what's wrong with with me. I just can't get back into the swing of blogging. I've lost my mojo! And it's not just with blogging either. I'm just sort of passively letting the days go by, not accomplishing anything or really even doing anything at all. I still feel like I'm living in my life in limbo and just waiting for something to happen. What that something is I don't know anymore. Hrm. I'm curious what everyone else does when they find themselves stuck in these ruts. You know things are bad when I'm wearing really boring makeup. The makeup apathy is fairly new and I managed to do a few interesting things to my eyes before I devolved into just wearing ONE (gasp!) eyeshadow on my eyes nearly every day. Of course I don't remember any of the products I used, haha. I still haven't learned to write these things down.

Okay, editing these pictures made me want to go play with makeup again. Even though I just washed/moisturized my face, haha. The good news is that all my makeup and nail polish was just brought to me. To be honest I'm a bit overwhelmed by all that I have. I really need to go through it all and hopefully have a blog sale. I just don't know if I would have enough interest for it to be worth it. I have a $3000 estimate from the dentist to fix my teeth. And I need to get it done before I run out of insurance in a few months. Fun. So needless to say I need some money!

Random EOTDs Part 4

I was just poking around in the depths on my computer and found a folder of EOTDs from approximately one lifetime ago (about 10 months). They aren't too exciting, but I thought I would share them anyway. I'm sad because I think instead of improving my makeup skills have gone down! Haha. I still don't have 95% of my makeup with me, but hopefully that will be rectified soon. I've been promised anyway. But I've heard that before so we'll see. Looking at these I miss my gold liquid eyeliner! I hope it hasn't dried out by now because I certainly can't afford MAC these days. Of course after this long I have no idea what eyeshadows I used. Haha, I really should start writing it down as I don't even remember from the pictures I took last week. I have more faith in my memory than I should, haha

And the obligatory pug picture. She is in the act of one of her favorite activities, licking.

FOTD- Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Hey guys! I finally prettied up my blog a little! It had the same boring, ugly look since I first started blogging over a year ago. I know it is still amateur-ish looking, but I don't mind since I'm not trying to be professional here. I made my banner in a Paint-esque program. I have Photoshop, but I don't feel like learning it, haha. I opened it, clicked around for about 30 seconds, said "Fuck it" and went back to my cheapo program.

I don't have much to say so I'll just leave you some pictures of some makeup I wore last week. I'm becoming more comfortable with bolder lips. They're so much fun! (PS- The title is a line from one of my favorite poems. I'll post the poem at the end if anyone is interested. Poetry doesn't often resonate with me, but this one really does.)

I don't 'member everything I'm wearing; I'm so bad. The lips are Revlon lip butter in Lollipop with LORAC Tie Dye For Gloss in Shocking Twist over it. On my eyes the silver is a cream eyeshadow from Essence, the little bit of gold is a L'Oreal Infallible shadow, and I have Skinny Jeans cream eyeshadow from Benefit in my crease.

And here is the poem. My favorite part is bolded.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The Day That Never Comes And Teal Liner For Work

I'm sorry guys; I haven't much felt like blogging lately. I'm starting to wonder if I still really love makeup and nail polish or if it's just me trying to force things. I'm still waiting to feel "normal" again, but it hasn't happened yet. I guess I need to redefine what normal is for me, but I don't want this to be my new normal. Still holding out hope for things to get better. I mean, I can't give up right? Just keep on truckin'. More out of habit than any real desire to do so.

I guess I'm just (understandably) questioning everything. Who am I really, what do I want, am I doing the right thing, etc? I guess I still do enjoy my pretty sparkly things. I had fun doing a neutral lid with a sparkly teal liner under my lower lashes for work a few days ago.

Eyes:

• Maybelline Color Tattoo in Tough as Taupe on lid
• Maybelline Color Tattoo in Edgy Emerald below lower lash line
• darker teal color from LA Colors palette in Water Lily (swatch here)
   over Edgy Emerald below lower lash line
• Urban Decay Shadow Pencil in Sin in inner corner
• Urban Decay Virgin to highlight
• Urban Decay eyeliner in Zero to line upper lash line and water line
• Revlon Grow Luscious mascara in Black on lashes
• Urban Decay Buck on eyebrows

Face:

• Estee Lauder BB Creme in Light
• Estee Lauder Double Wear foundation in Shell as concealer
• Physician's Formula Healthy Wear SPF 50 Powder Foundation in Translucent Light

Cheeks

• Milani blush in Luminous

Lips

• Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey

And just because I can and my doggies make me happy, here is a picture of my parents' beagle Layla sleeping on my bed.