M.A.C Holiday 2012 GlamourDaze collection

 

 By now I'm sure you've all heard that the MAC Holiday collections are out! Temptalia has great reviews and swatches, they explain all the different collections and have great photos of everything. 

I initially went crazy adding stuff to my cart, but when I realized it would cost at least $700 to buy everything I wanted really badly, I forced myself to pare it down considerably to what I actually will wear. Which yes, that's not as "fun" as splurging on a huge order, but realistically I have so much other makeup to go through that it's just not necessary. 

I ended up purchasing the Skinfinish Illuminizer in Whisper of Guilt. This is a re-release, as are several components of this collection. That doesn't bother me because Whisper of Guilt is my all time favorite highlighter that I reach for again and again. You can see a review of it on a previous post of mine here.

I also picked up an eyeshadow in A Natural Flirt, which is the top left in this promo photo [property of MAC cosmetics]. I picked it because it's a nice champagne sort of neutral, and that's what I tend to wear in my daily makeup. The other colors are gorgeous, but I can't wear purples, blue eyeshadow looks odd on me, and the black is just sooo dark.

Next I decided to get a blush, because I am trying to wear it, and most of the blush I own tends to be really dark coral colors. I wanted a pretty, fresh looking pink color, and "I'm the One" looked like exactly what I was looking for. It's the one in the middle here.

When I saw that "Whisper of Guilt" was back, I had to restrain from purchasing about 4 of these. Realistically, that would be kind of silly, as much as I wanted to, and understand why some people actually did purchase multiples! It's my all time favorite highlighter. The formula is smooth, it leaves a nice glow, and I've seriously gotten soooo many compliments on how nice "my skin" looks since using this. I had other women asking me what I used in my cheeks because it looks so pretty. It's just a pretty champagne and I use it for eyeshadow sometimes too, even though the formula is a bit face powdery feeling for that. 

 I'm also trying to expand into wearing lipstick, since it's something that's always been sort of beyond me makeup wise.
The two colors that were purchased are Beauty, which is the cool toned pink that's second from left, and then Innocence, the coral color that's second from the right. I love the plum and know it's trendy for fall, but for me personally it's more than I would feel comfortable wearing.

 Now for some real photos! I had a really really hard time capturing the colors of the products with my camera. It kept on cooling everything down considerably.

The blusher is not quite so hot pink looking in person, but it can look that way depending on the lighting.
Whisper of Guilt and A Natural Flirt are close in appearance, but A Natural Flirt actually is more cool toned, and has bits of pink shimmer in it. Whisper of Guilt is a warmer true champagne color.

 Here is another photo that includes the lipsticks. [click on any of my photos to make them larger!]

You can see the cooler tone of the eyeshadow better in this photo.

 Swatch time! From right to left are: Beauty, Innocence, I'm the One, Whisper of Guilt and A Natural Flirt.
I really encourage viewing this at full size just to see the swatches more clearly.

My skintone is NW15, and Ivory in most other makeups, Fair in Bare Minerals.

The blush has a really nice color payoff, I was really surprised by how dark it was on my face! If you're pale, a little bit goes a long ways. You'll easily get a nice flushed look with this pretty color!

 Here you can see A Whisper of Guilt really well next to the blusher swatch of pink. Beauty is a frost lipstick, and Innocence is a Glaze finish.

Both of them tended to make my lips look a bit flaky and dry, so I would highly encourage lip exfoliant and lip balm before putting either of these colors on.
However, I love both of the colors and the formula of MAC lipsticks is my favorite so far.

Please excuse my apparently hairy hands. It's hard to see, because they are neutrals and shimmery and I'm pale.
But to the left is A Natural Flirt, and to the right is Whisper of Guilt.

Both have really nice smooth formulas. I was surprised by how silky the eyeshadow feels. Sephora made one that looked similar, it had a seashell wave pattern, but the Sephora one has such a terrible formula in comparison. The MAC one is smooth and blends easily while the Sephora tends to crumble and get everywhere.

All in all, I am extremely pleased with all the things I got from this collection. I know it's not a big amount, and the colors are probably what are considered the "boring" ones of the lot, since they are mostly neutrals. But I really suggest them for people who want to play around with color, are fair, and like a more "natural" but still special looking makeup look.

What are you guys picking up?

I really really wanted the pink and blue brush sets, but there was just no way to justify them. I have plenty of makeup brushes thanks to my ELF haul.

Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite items are from the collection! I love hearing peoples favorites and what they ended up with.

The collection should be in stores right now. Nordstroms has some of it, as does the MAC website.

Thanks for reading!

*all products featured were purchased with my own money, nothing was given to me to review by this company.

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick Swatches and Review

Don't worry, this site IS still about reviews! I am using a bunch of products with intent of reviewing them soon, I just like to actually use things for awhile before giving reviews so that they're more useful to people!

I picked up these lipsticks earlier this week at Walmart. I've been trying out lipstick after not wearing any since high school.
When I first tried out lipsticks, everything came in super dark colors, which I am not into at all, and everything I tried tasted and smelled like crayons or wax. So I wrote off lipstick and haven't tried it until now.

I feel like the companies FINALLY have started releasing a true variety of colors instead of just all goth dark colors, or weird bright neon colors I can't wear, or orange, or old lady pink. Now they have nudes, and neutrals, and even the dark colors and shimmers have been redone so they look more modern.

Revlon has a huge display in my walmart, with at least 30 different versions of the Super Lustrous lipsticks. They have them broken into color groupings, which I like, and also broken up by finish.

I like matte or peal finish lipsticks so I decided to go with those for my first two.

 The package is a standard lipstick tube. The regular Super Lustrous Lipstick comes with a gold tube, and the Matte comes with a Silver. I'm not sure if other varieties also have the silver tube instead.

It's nice sleek standard lipstick packaging, but I like that.

 Here are the two colors I purchased side by side so you can see the difference. (If you click on the photo you can see it full size)

The one on the left is Silver City Pink, and on the right is Nude Attitude.

I picked Silver City Pink because it actually reminds me of my very first real lipstick. It was a Mary Kay one that was hot pink and frosted. It came in a gold tube and looked so pretty! I remember they also had a frosted white version that my friend and I would wear. This reminds me of that, but in an updated more wearable way.
Nude Attitude is a matte, which I also wanted to get. I've been wanting to get a nude lipstick to see how it is to have a real one. In high school I used to actually wear my concealer on my lips as lipstick because at the time there were no nude lipsticks that I could find! So funny.
So both of these are an homage to my teenage self in a way.

 Here they are swatched on my hand. (click the photo to see full sized!) Top is Silver City Pink and bottom is Nude Attitude.

As you can see, the nude is a bit dark/orange for my NW15 skintone, but I really like it.
The Silver City Pink is a nice shimmery pink that is very neutral and easy to wear. It's subtle, not bright hot pink like most pearl finish pinks tend to be.

 Swatched on my lips is the Nude Nuances.
I'm curious how this compares to some of the MAC Nudes from their recent lines. But on me this color is a pretty peachy orange nude.
The formula is a little drying though, so I think I would suggest exfoliating your lips and putting chapstick on before or after applying this color.
It also shows every line as you can tell.

Silver City Pink. This is a much cooler toned lipstick, but I like that even though it's shimmery it doesn't look crazy or like I'm wearing a grandma lipstick either.
[you know what I'm talking about!]

The formula is more moisturizing than the matte is, which is to be expected. It's a pretty sheer pink color that is very wearable and I'm super happy with it.



All in all, I highly recommend checking out these lipsticks. They have a TON of color selections available, especially in the huge display at Walmart. I believe I paid about $6 each for these, but I would have to double check.
I'm not a lipstick person and I found these to be super wearable and pretty, which surprised me.

If you own these already, what's your favorite color in them?

New Nail Polish Swatches: Julep Alicia, China Glaze Aquadelic

Once the color Alicia arrived, I noticed that it reminded me an awful lot of a Wet N Wild color that I already own from last year! The Julep Alicia is like a more pale muted version of the same exact color! So funny.

Painting my nails with the color Alicia proved to be somewhat of a challenge. Generally I haven't had issues with "gloppy" formulas from Julep, but I have heard others mention that their polishes were like that in the past. Well this bottle is "gloppy" for lack of a better term. Getting it to paint on was tricky, because it wasn't like my other polishes that flow smoothly and thinly off of the brush. Instead it kind of just came off in big pools and I had to shove it around on my nail. This resulted in a really thick streaky first layer.
After letting that dry, I put on a second coat to cover up the streakiness, but it looked REALLY thick on my nails.
I definitely need to invest in some nail polish thinner! I've noticed that my creme finish polishes are the ones that I have issues with texture from. My shimmer ones are usually a breeze to apply. Glitters are thicker as well, but I only usually need one coat with them as well, so it's not an issue.

Sorry for the terrible looking manicure! I really like this color though. It's a really pretty coral, very 80s to me.

The texture however, is really bad. So I'll have to get the thinner and try again!

The next color came in my order in the mail. It's my order from BeBeautiful and I highly recommend them if you are looking for a place online to purchase nail polish from! Shipping was fast, everything was packaged REALLY well. It came in a cardboard box, inside of which they had put the polishes into boxes, wrapped them with bubble wrap and then put paper around for more cushioning.

I got Aquadelic from the China Glaze Electropop line, Techno from China Glaze also, and then the Hunger Games colors I was missing, because my Sally's ended up selling out of them really quickly. They also sold out of the blues from the Electropop line, and did not have Techno.

Aquadelic is also a creme finish, and I had some problems with it being kind of thick as well! So this problem is definitely not brand specific. I think the creme formulas just end up being thicker so that they are more opaque? But I want to get some thinner for this polish as well. Again sorry for the REALLY sloppy paint job. I didn't clean up my mistakes before taking a photo! But you can see that the color is very opaque and it has a shiny finish on it.

Aquadelic is a really gorgeous aqua/teal color, like the tiles on a swimming pool. This is my all time favorite color, especially with coral. I wear a lot of coral and a lot of teal, so I like being able to paint my nails in either one to contrast with my clothing. I feel like both colors are fun, summery colors and they definitely make me happy.

I also went to CVS and purchased one of the Wet N Wild Sinful line colors. It's called Distant Memory. It's a shimmer finish teal that's like a more green version of Aquadelic. I had a hard time photographing them accurately because the lighting was bad. In person it's much more vibrant and doesn't look like a creme finish as it does in this photo!
Hopefully I can get swatches of it soon.




After that haul I'm taking a hiatus from Nail Polish shopping because it's just to tempting! As it was, I restricted myself to just the two blue colors from the Electropop line. I wanted to buy the whole collection, but realistically, I won't wear most of them so it would just be a waste of money.
But I'm really happy with the colors I got, I think they'll be perfect for this summer.

Julep October Boxes American Beauty & Boho Glam unboxing!

First off, apologies for being away for a week. I helped my grandparents move down from Oregon, so I went up there for a week in order to help them pack, and I was one of the drivers on the way down. The drive took 14 hrs on sunday, so I recovered yesterday. But now I am back!

My October Julep Maven boxes arrived while I was up there, and I have been dying to get to open them up!

If you're not sure what the Julep Maven program is, here is a link to a previous post about the program, and here is a link to their website so you can go check it out. If you use the coupon code FB, your intro box only costs $5! Not too shabby.



First, I unboxed the American Beauty profile box. I'm not sure if you can tell, but Julep made the boxes that they send the products in smaller. I am so glad! I kept one of my previous months boxes in order to store my polishes, and another for the hand creams and things that they sent. The boxes are nice and sturdy, so they would also be great for wrapping Christmas presents in! You could also redecorate the gift bags and reuse them as well.

Opening the box, the two nail polishes [yay we got 2 this month like the intro box!] were wrapped in tissue, and then the new Age Defying Hand Brightening cream! I haven't had a chance to test it out yet, but I'll definitely let you know.



Another difference this month is that there were no product samples included. That's okay though, because I really do not need more samples of either the hand scrub or the SPF hand cream.



The two colors in the American Beauty box are one of the New Holiday 2011 collection colors, Brooklyn, which is a GORGEOUS sparkly true crimson red. It's stunning. So so pretty. I cannot wait to wear it. The second color included is Dendrie, a "chic, dove grey"


Admittedly, I was less excited about this one because from the photo it looks like an exact dupe of Annette, which the company also described as a "dove grey". However, I compared the two colors and they are distinct from one another. But I probably don't need any more grey nail polishes between the two of those. Here's a comparison shot of Annette and Dendrie next to one another so you can see. Annette is on the right, Dendrie on the Left.


I was wary of the bright sparkly red, but I think that's going to be my fun holiday color that I end up wearing to holiday parties, along with Sienna, their gold polish.



Here is a shot of Dendrie separately, so you can get a better sense of how it looks. Brooklyn turned out beautifully in the above photo, but Dendrie looked washed out. My camera tends to focus on the darker color, and the lighter one gets washed out next to it.






For the Boho Glam Box, the packaging is the same deal. A smaller box, with a gift bag tied with ribbon [love the attention to detail!], and inside the bag is a tissue wrapped set of the two nail polishes, and the box of hand cream. There's also the nice profile card on top so you can see what you are getting inside.




The colors included in this months Boho Glam profile are their 2011 Holiday color of Gayle, which is a deep creme finish purple eggplant color, and then Malin, a "pink champagne" color.

Unfortunately, since the colors are so drastically different I had a hard time getting a good shot of both.

Here's a shot of Gayle alone. I plan on swatching Gayle, I'm still a bit skeptical about it because I don't generally wear purple. But I am hoping it looks good on, and I know the quality is good!



Here's a better photo of Malin so you can see.


Out of the two, I have to say Malin is the one I am more excited to wear, but that it also looks almost exactly like the color Jennifer. Malin in on the left, Jennifer on the right.


Comparing the two, they are not exactly the same. While they are the same color, Jennifer is a creme finish and Malin is shimmery. I prefer the shimmery version so I am excited to add Malin to my collection. It's a nice neutral, and those are always useful to have, so I'm not upset about it being so close.

All in all, I love both my profile boxes. They are completely different from each other, and that's great! My favorite is Brooklyn, and second favorite is Milan. So neither box was a bad choice and I'm happy to own all the colors.

It should also be interesting to try out the hand cream and see how it works.
Thanks so much for reading!