For today’s video, I’m collaborating with Natalie of Ivory Avenue to create a makeup look inspired by a particular flower. I opted for lily of the valley because we had a lot of them around my house while I was growing up. To see Natalie’s look, check her out here.
Category Archives: Makeup
Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer (Review, Swatch & Time Trial)

While my face may be on the dry side of things, I struggle with super freaking oily eyelids. If you’ve seen any of my makeup tutorials on my YouTube channel, you’ll often see me applying two separate eyeshadow primers to make sure my eyeshadow doesn’t crease on me throughout the day. Long gone are the days of using a single eyeshadow primer (although the Maybelline Master Prime gives me *almost* creaseless perfection!) for me it seems!

That being said, I am ALWAYS happy to try a new one out! Kat Von D recently released her Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer in a whopping five shades. You may think five shades is nothing, but have you ever stopped to consider that eyeshadow primers are (for the most part) quite clear? Most of them offer little to no coverage for our veiny eyelids which is a struggle for people who enjoy wearing paler eyeshadow shades but also have a lot of veins and discolouration on their eyelids that they want to cover. The five shades range from fair to deep and I think it’s actually an impressive array considering that this is “only” an eyeshadow primer! (For example, there are brands out there that ONLY have four shades of foundation! Looking at you Joe Fresh!)

The brand indicates that the “formula color corrects your specific skintone to neutralize lids so that you can show off super-saturated, true color payoff.” It also comes in a nifty twist up stick for easy application.

It does come with a sharpener on the opposite end, but I can’t imagine why you’d need to sharpen this product – it’s not like precise lines are needed to cover your eyes. Regardless, it’s there if you need it!

The shade Fair is quite brightening on my skin and a tad bit pinker. I will point out the formula is on the dry side of things, so I end up applying the Lock-It primer by first running it on my eyelids, then blending it out with a finger to help warm up and spread the product out.

I know people like comparisons, so here we go! The shot on the left is from 7:30 am before I went to work, and the short on the right is when I got home at 5:00 pm. It looks flawless doesn’t it? There is no creasing whatsoever, and the colours are just as vibrant as ever (except for maybe my transition shade). However… this photo kind of annoyed me, because this is not an accurate reflection of how the primer always behaved. Sometimes I had severe creasing on my lids, and sometimes I didn’t. It was almost impossible to tell which days my eyeshadow would crease and which days it wouldn’t. I actually took the above time lapse photos to show you how much it could crease on me, but instead that very same day my eyeshadows stayed intact. *throws hands up in the air*
Final Thoughts
The Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer worked for me… sometimes. And that’s not a claim I’m overly comfortable with. If I can’t rely on my primer to work 100% of the time, then I’m going to double up on primers because I am not going to risk having my eyeshadow crease on me while I’m out. (Doubled up, this worked just fine for me!)
I love that Kat Von D offers five different shades to create a blank canvas on a wide variety of skintones. I think that’s especially important because it highlights the fact that companies are finally realizing there isn’t a one colour fits all for beauty products, and that’s extremely encouraging.
If you’re someone that doesn’t struggle with greasepit eyelids, I think this is a perfectly satisfactory eyeshadow primer that creates a blank canvas that makes your eyeshadows pop. But if you’re like me, and you need something more like super glue for your eyelids, I don’t think this is a primer you can wear on its own. That being said, I have blogger friends that this worked far better on, so please check out Swatch and Review and Workaday Beauty‘s posts on this primer!
The Kat Von D Lock-It Color Correcting Eyeshadow Primer can be purchased on sephora.ca for $33 CAD or on sephora.com for $25 USD.
The product featured in this post was went to be for consideration.
Swatch Sunday: Naked Cosmetics Ivory Stack
This Naked Cosmetics Ivory Stack is a group of absolutely gorgeous duochrome pigment that all start off with a white base, but reflects a beautiful colour!

Since the colours are so pale, I decided to swatch them with both a white and a black base so you can see just how much the colour changes.
Naked Cosmetics Ivory Stack






Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious Full Fan Effect Mascara (Review & Comparison)
Maybelline, like any drug store brand, has put out a lot of mascaras over the years. I’ve tried a few of them, but I’ve never come to the point of falling in love with any of them… until now.

The new Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious Full Fan Effect mascara (WHAT THE HELL – long enough name???) was sitting at the back of my stash of products to “get to” and it was only once I’d finished my beloved Make Up For Ever Smoky Stretch that I finally reached for this one. And funnily enough, this mascara shares a lot of similar properties with the far more expensive MUFE one.

The brush is made of plastic, which I know will turn some people off right away, but honestly, it’s worth it to try new things sometimes! I used to hate plastic wands myself but I’ve come around! It starts larger and comes to a more tapered point. The bristles are spaced out enough to allow a lot of product to collect into the crevices of the wand.
The first thing I noticed, and that I’ve continued to notice now that I’ve been using it for over a month, is that this one hell of a wet formula. Probably the wettest one I have ever tried. It also hasn’t dried out yet and it’s already a half and a month later and it’s performing exactly the same as when I opened it. I *love* wet formula mascaras so this is an enormous bonus for me.

And that’s how it plays out on my lashes. I’m a one coat mascara kind of person and this mascara delivers right away. I honestly don’t see much of a difference between one and two coats… maybe a slight increase in volume at the roots? For me, this really beefed up the size of my lashes and made them enormous. I do love the way it fans out my lashes and I’m honestly okay with the little amount of clumping there is because there’s enough lashes that are fanned out to make it look both defining and volumizing, which isn’t something I get to experience often (usually I get one or the other).
Final Thoughts
The Maybelline Lash Sensational Full Fan Effect mascara is giving my higher end MUFE mascara a solid run for the money. I’m at the point where I’m starting to build my Sephora VIB sale event list (I’m writing this in March btw, in case the sale has already happened!) and I’m half wondering if I should even bother getting it because I’m so freaking in love with this Maybelline one. (I’m a little surprised at myself for even typing that out quite frankly.)
I love the super wet formula. I love that it doesn’t flake as badly as most mascaras do on me (nothing is perfect however, I will get a flake or two throughout the work day). I love how voluminous it makes my lashes and I LOVE that it’s not a break the bank kind of product. Well done Maybelline. Well done!
Note: I think this is called the Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious with Oil Blend in the US.
The Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious mascara can be purchased on ulta.com for $8.99 USD.