Category Archives: Makeup

essence Water Kiss Glossy Lip Colour (Review & Swatches)

November 15, 2017Makeup, Reviews, SwatchesessenceChelle

essence Water Kiss Glossy Lip Colour

New in by essence: Water Kiss Glossy Lip Colours! You may have seen me mention them in my essence Fall Winter 2017 Collection – PR Haul video from a few weeks ago – I was so interested in the texture of these lip products that I felt they warranted a full review.

For North Americans, the essence Water Kisses seem to be an essencemakeup.com exclusive item as I haven’t seen them in stores nor on ulta.com. There are six shades in the range, although only three are depicted in this post. The Water Kiss Glossy Lip Colours have a “super-light, medium-coverage gloss [that] glides on easily, creating an aqua-like sensation on the lips without bleeding or feathering.”

When I first swatched them on my hand I was taken aback – they felt so, SO liquid and just… WET! And yet, they weren’t slopping around on my hand so I had some confidence that they would stay put on my lips. There is a very faint raw/frozen berry scent when you sniff the tube, but I didn’t find it had much taste on my lips.

essence Water Kiss Glossy Lip Colours swatched - Deep Sea Love, Aquatic Chic & Ocean Girl — essence Water Kiss Glossy Lip Colours swatched – Deep Sea Love, Aquatic Chic & Ocean Girl

Swatched out, you can see there’s plenty of pigment in the essence Water Kisses. These are more medium to full coverage, but you will get a hint of your own lip colour peeking through at times.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about these Water Kisses is that while it goes on very fluid and and has that wet-look shine – that particular consistency eventually goes away. As you can see in the middle of each swatch shot, the formula becomes more of a satin finish once it’s had a little bit of time to dry down.

My favourite shade out of the three I tried – this is Deep Sea Love. It’s a beautiful juicy, vibrant red.

Aquatic Chic is a deep raspberry.

Perhaps the most surprising to me, I was impressed with just how much I liked Ocean Girl on my complexion. This is definitely not the kind of shade I gravitate towards, but I really like this one!

Final Thoughts

Although the essence Water Kisses claim to be a “glossy lip colour”, I’d have to argue and say that fundamentally, while they do go on very wet and slick, they don’t actually stay that way. Once they dry down they look far more matte/satin – which is fine by me since the finish is beautiful. However, since they’re billed as a glossy lip colour, I thought it was worth pointing out that that texture will not stick around on your lips. When they dried down, I expected them to either stain or become transferproof – they did neither of those. Which is great for easy removal, but it also means be careful where you put your lips!

Aside from the changing finish of the product, the texture is wonderful and it does stay put on the lips. As with all lip products, I did test these with a primer (I have to guys, I’m not going to work without lip primer on and watching my lipstick gravitate up my lip crevices towards my nose), and these didn’t travel outside my lip line (which I have seen some lip products do despite the primer!). In fact, the edge was very, very similar to the sharpness that you can achieve with a matte liquid lipstick. Super impressed!

Between the texture, colours, longevity and comfort… the essence Water Kisses are a good solid buy… and they’re only $4.99 USD on essencemakeup.com!

The products featured in this post were given to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.

Swatch Sunday: Kat Von D Shade+ Light Glimmer Eye

November 12, 2017Makeup, SwatchesKat Von DChelle

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette

A sister palette to the original Kat Von D Shade + Light Eye Palette, the Shade Light + Light Glimmer Eye Palette is just as you found expect it to be: chockful of shimmer and shine to accompany its older, all matte sister.

Although it’s labelled as a Glimmer palette, and while the bulk of the shadows are glittery, there are some softer shimmer/satin-sheens in the mix as well. I wouldn’t call it a standalone palette though – this is definitely more of accompaniment to the original Shade + Light palette.

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette Swatches

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Porcelain — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Porcelain

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Copper — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Copper

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Bronze — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Bronze

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Sterling — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Sterling

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Dusk — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Dusk

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Cinder — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Cinder

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Onyx — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Onyx

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Glacier — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Glacier

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Dune — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Dune

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Rust — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Rust

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Jasper — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Jasper

Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette - Quartz — Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette – Quartz

The Kat Von D Shade + Light Glimmer Eye Palette is available on sephora.ca for $64 CAD or on sephora.com for $49 USD.

Product featured in this post was sent for consideration by PR. Post contains affiliate links.

Annabelle Chrome Single Eye Shadows (Review & Swatches)

November 10, 2017Makeup, Reviews, SwatchesAnnabelleChelle

Annabelle Chrome Eye Shadows

As a Canadian, I find we often tend to overlook some of our homegrown brands. I can only assume because they’re so readily accessible, that we just think “oh I’ll get it another time”, and for whatever reason that results in us outright ignoring some of the Canadian brands at the drugstore! So let’s take a closer look at one of my favourite recent(ish) launches by Annabelle.

The Annabelle Chrome Single Eye Shadows launched in Canada for Spring 2017 and I did a video review rounding up some of the products back in January of this year (you can see that video here). Out of that entire launch, the Chrome shadows are definitely what got me the most excited. At the time I only had the shade Rose Gold, but now I’ve got the whole range and can speak with a little bit more authority on the whole range instead of just the first impressions I gave in the video.

The Annabelle Chrome Shadows come in a pot with a twist off top. With each shadow you’ll get two grams of product which I feel is a decent amount. Prices will vary depending on where you buy them, but they’re under $10 – more often closer to $7-8 each. They’re billed as a creamy single eyeshadow with an intense chrome finish that promises a six hour hold.

Annabelle Chrome Eye Shadows - swatches — Annabelle Chrome Eye Shadows – swatches

At this time, there are only five shades in the range, but they’re good solid staple colours. I would love to see this range get expanded to more unique bright colours!

Rose Gold: More of a deeper shade of rose gold since I see hints of bronze in it.
Germanium: The ultimate “brown smokey eye” shade.
Mercury: My personal favourite! It’s a tarnished platinum with hints of mauve.
Gold: Flakier in texture than the others, Gold is a super shiny pale gold.
Silver: Much like Gold, this one is flakier and super reflective. It has some hint of white to it as well.

Wearing Mercury on the lid and some powder shadows to round out the look.

Mercury on my closed eye. This was taken right after application, and you can see a faint hint of creasing (I’ll get to that in detail down below).

Wearing Gold on the lid with other powder shadows to finish the look.

With Gold, you can see it has a flakier texture that adds a bit more shine and sparkle to the overall look in comparison to Mercury.

The number one thing that terrifies me about cream shadows is creasing. I have hooded lids that rip through even powdered eyeshadow if I don’t double prime my eyelids. However, double priming is still not enough to stand up to the likes of cream shadows, so for that reason I almost always have problems. With that in mind, I was a little bit surprised by these chrome shadows. Yes, they creased on me in that very deep ridge that I get when I open my eyes – however… the creasing that happened right after application (despite me trying to smudge it out) was how my eyeshadow stayed all day. It’s a bit bizarre to me that the cream shadow didn’t continue to crease even further over the course of the day, but hey… that does speak to the longevity of it. Generally a cream shadow will crease after application and then continue to dissolve throughout the day for me. These didn’t do that. They creased once, left a faint whisper of a line behind and then stayed put. And for me, that’s really, REALLY good wear time.

Final Thoughts

If you’re someone who isn’t prone to creasing, the Annabelle Chrome shadows will be an absolute winner for you I believe. Even for me, someone who has ridiculous amounts of problems with creasing, these still managed to stay put for entire work days. I could easily get 9-10 hours of wear with very minimal creasing.

I will point out that the texture on these is a bit different across the board. Rose Gold, Mercury and Germanium are the smoothest of the bunch – they apply like a dream. Gold and Silver are a bit different – they kind of go on like a foiled texture with more sparkle and shine. You will notice flakier bits in the Gold and Silver which I think really make them stand out. These would work really well for a halo eye, or even just to amp up an otherwise ordinary look by putting them in the inner corner of the eye. I like the flaky aspect of those shades, but I know they may not be for everyone.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with these! The texture is quite lovely and they apply smoothly to the lid without much fiddling around.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for review.

Too Faced Unicorn Survival Kit (Review & Swatches)

November 8, 2017Makeup, Reviews, SwatchesToo FacedChelle

Too Faced Unicorn Survival Kit

One of the items I was deadset on getting throughout the (incessant) holiday launches was the Too Faced Unicorn Survival Kit!

Not a whole heck of a lot was known about this set when they originally previewed it on Too Faced‘s snapchat. Since the whole set plays off the Unicorn Tears La Crème lipstick – an Ulta exclusive item – we were left wondering if this set was going to be exclusive to Ulta as well. And sure enough, it is. It was briefly available on Too Faced‘s web site before the Ulta launch and this sucker sold out in a matter of an hour. It seems I wasn’t the only one wanting this beauty!

My makeup saviour Julie of Swatch and Review was also planning on getting this set, and one morning – just as I was crawling out of bed and headed to the toilet – I got a Facebook message telling me she had bought it for us (one for her, one for me) and she hoped that was okay. With eyes still crusty from the dead sleep I’d awoken from, I thanked her profusely for not only handling that Ulta order for us, but also for being so obsessed with makeup that she was checking for that sucker at 6 am on a Tuesday!

So why is this set so exciting? It’s got three mini products all named “Unicorn Tears” but in a variety of formats:

La Crème Lipstick – the original Unicorn Tears lipstick!
Melted Latex Liquified Lipstick – AT LONG LAST! This sucker took forever to come out after the initial launch of the Melted Latexes.
Highlighter – this one is brand new and I’m not sure if it’s a preview of a launch that’ll be coming up in the future.

Too Faced Unicorn Survival Kit Unicorn Tears swatches

The colour story behind this set is very monochromatic blue-purple.

The highlighter was the least pigmented (makes sense – it is a highlighter after all) that has a frosty blue-purple twinge to it.
The La Crème Lipstick is such a wild colour – it goes on iridescent blue-purple and then leaves behind a purple-red stain. It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever tried and certainly one of the most unique shades in my collection.
The Melted Latex isn’t quite the same as the La Crème – it has more of a cooler purple twinge with silver sparkle. The Melted Latex formula is more a lipgloss than a lipstick in my opinion.

Wearing Too Faced Highlighter in Unicorn Tears

The Unicorn Tears Highlighter was the most shocking item to me in this set. On first swatch I *hated* it. It was a chalky, patchy mess with absolutely no semblance of any kind of iridescent twinge. It reminded me so much of the garbage Hard Candy highlighter that I verbally slaughtered in both my review and a disappointing products video.

But, as we’re constantly reminded… do NOT judge a product by the swatch – it really only tells part of the story. On application to the cheeks with a brush I got a whole ‘nother experience. On the tops of my cheekbones this highlighter turns quite purple-pink, which is in stark contrast to the swatch on my arm above!

Wearing Too Faced La Crème lipstick in Unicorn Tears

The La Crème lipstick in Unicorn Tears isn’t a new item to me (you can see me try it on in this video from early 2016), but it is *always* sold out at Ulta whenever I’m there. The colour is absolutely unreal – it’s a silver-lavender-blue that turns your lips a deep berry shade once you’ve removed it. You can see a little bit of the berry tone peeking through the lipstick in the picture above actually! This a fairly finicky colour – it is a bit patchy and will move around a little bit, so I’d recommend using this as a topper on top of one of your regular lipsticks just so you don’t get any patches. If you’re only interested in this item, you can buy the La Crème lipstick by itself at Ulta.com for $22 USD.

Wearing Too Faced Melted Latex in Unicorn Tears

Following in the footsteps of the La Crème lipstick, the Unicorn Tears Melted Latex was only just released as a full size item even though the Melted Latex range was released about half a year ago. Not sure why this particular shade took so long to be released, but hey, now we have access to it! The Melted Latex formula is billed a liquidified lipstick… but it’s not. It’s a gloss. It’s a pigmented gloss, but it’s still a gloss. There is no real scent to the product (whereas the La Crème formula has a sweet lemon scent) and it applies rather thickly on the lips. It’s spreadable, but since there’s a lot of pigment and it has a shiny finish, there’s a bit of a tackiness to it to make sure it holds in place. This doesn’t bother me, but I know some people aren’t fans of a sticky lipgloss. It’ll last about two hours on my lips before I need to re-apply, which is fairly standard for a lipgloss on me. And I have to point out… just like the La Crème lipstick, the Melted Latex is fairly patchy as well.

You can buy this one in a full size format on both Ulta.com and Sephora.com.

Final Thoughts

I’m a little bit torn on how I feel about this whole set to be honest. On one hand, the higlighter surprised the heck out of me and I was quite pleased with it in terms of colour payoff and how pretty it looked on my cheekbones. However, from a consistency standpoint I think a lot of people are going to be annoyed that both the La Crème lipstick and the Melted Latex items are patchy. They are definitely finicky items… but they’re also both incredibly unique. I own nothing like that La Crème lipstick and it’s one I have a lot of fun pulling out to wear every now and again. I don’t see myself wearing the Melted Latex again, but that’s because I’m not really keen on lipgloss. That being said… I did really want to try it and I was super happy to be able to buy it in a mini format in a relatively inexpensive set.

And that’s part of what makes this set so good – each item is a mini product but there’s plenty of product in there. The whole set retails for $26 USD on Ulta.com and I think that’s an excellent price tag for three very unique items.

This post contains some affiliate links.

MAC Snow Ball Holiday 2017 – Here Comes Joy (Review & Swatches)

November 6, 2017Makeup, Reviews, SwatchesMACChelle

MAC Face Powder (Opalescent) in Here Comes Joy

There are some products and packaging that simply take my breath away… and the entire launch of MAC‘s Holiday 2017 collection did that to me. Called “Snow Ball”, the entire collection is a gorgeous scintillating mixture of beautiful products and stunning packaging.

I mean, come on – just look at that! It’s a muted gold-silver packaging that feels smooth to the touch but has a kind of crackled-foiled appearance.

And when you look even closer… it looks like snow frosted on a window or car hood! It’s beautiful, ethereal and so simply stunning that I’m surprised they have done something like this sooner for their packaging. It suits the name Snow Ball so well!

MAC - Here Comes Joy — MAC – Here Comes Joy

Anyway, enough about the (gorgeous) packaging! Although I wanted the entire collection, I really tailored down what I was getting and opted for the Face Powder (Opalescent) in Here Comes Joy. Here Comes Joy is a peachy-gold with shimmer that MAC says “transforms cheeks into pearly orbs that light up the night. Adds the perfect high-impact shimmering glow to skin”. There is a gold highlighter as well, but I have enough golds in my life so I wanted something a bit more unique.

What threw me off a bit about this powder initially is that it’s labeled as a face powder. Not a highlighter, not an extra dimension finish and not a skinfinish – a face powder. So I was a little bit worried about how strong the highlight was going to be. We’re so used to the screamingly bright highlighters that something that seems softer may not fit the bill of what I was wanting.

MAC - Here Comes Joy - swatch — MAC – Here Comes Joy – swatch

Swatched out, Here Comes Joy is definitely a peach-to-gold shifting colour. The pigmentation did seem strong and it definitely looked like there was quite a sheen on it.

Wearing MAC - Here Comes Joy — Wearing MAC – Here Comes Joy

But uh… where did it go on my cheeks? I mean, it IS there – there is a slight sheen bouncing light off the top of my cheekbones.. but it’s not enough for me. In person, Here Comes Joy is a soft, subtle highlighter that is perfect for people who want a “lit from within” look. For me? It’s just not enough (and I applied it HEAVILY here!).

Final Thoughts

I wanted to love this product so badly – the packaging, the beautiful imprint, even the shade of it is beautiful. But, in the end, Here Comes Joy just doesn’t have enough reflective properties to make me want to use this with any kind of regularity. I wore this highlighter for a week straight trying to make myself fall in love with it… and I was just never satisfied with how my cheekbones looked. I kept wanting to reach for something more vibrant, more luminescent to add on top of it.

All that being said… if you dislike the beaming bright highlighters that become such an enormous trend in the last few years because they’re just too much, then this might be a product suited more towards you.

The MAC Face Powder (Opalescent) in Here Comes Joy can be purchased on nordstrom.com for $34 USD. Oddly, Nordstrom refers to this as a “Impalpable Glare Powder”… which uh… is not listed on my packaging at all.