This swatch post is heavily delayed but I only just got my hands on this Ulta-exclusive Too Faced palette. The Merry Macarons palette was released as an Ulta exclusive item during the 2016 holiday season.
Avon is a brand that has typically slid right under my radar. They’ve been around for decades and they were a brand I associated with housewives awkwardly getting together to be sold makeup in bulk by the local Avon lady. I recently had my mind changed on that matter when I tried out one of their daily moisturizers from their Anew range – I love, loved, LOVED it so much and it piqued my interest a bit more in this brand that I had long associated with grandmas.
One my recent finds amidst Avon‘s massive collection of products are these True Color Lip Crayons. They’re fairly inexpensive to begin with ($10 CAD, currently on sale for $7.99!), so I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from them. I was super pleased to find out I was quite wrong! These are so lovely!
The True Color Lip Crayons are a chubby twist-up pencil style lipstick. The finish varies across the shades, but for the most part they have a creamy formula with a bit of a sheen. There are 12 colours in the entire collection, although I only have five to show you.
As you can tell from the swatches, these are quite pigmented and definitely have that creamy sheen to them. Two of the shades I have had flat out glitter particles in them – Reddy For Me and Mauve Model. While I thought the glitter was going to be absolute overkill on the lips, in the end I thought it blended in seamlessly with the lipstick and looked quite nice. There is a bit of a grit to the glitter particles – so while those shades are uncomfortable to wear, if you do happen to rub your lips together, you will feel those specks of glitter.
This one is called Just Rosy, but I see this as more of a pink-based coral. LOVE this shade!
Pink Premier is a deeper bubble-gum pink.
Reddy For Me is a red with gold glitter.
Fairest Nude pulls quite a bit more pink on me than the swatch would suggest. Love this one too.
Mauve Model is a berry shade with gold glitter.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Avon True Color Lip Crayons! They’re easy to use and extremely comfortable to wear. They feel partially like a balm and really lock onto your lips once they’re in place. They’re not transfer proof (nor do they claim to be), but I found that I had very little transfer in general.
I did find the ones with glitter seemed like a weird departure from their claim that they’re creamy in texture – because while the glitter ones are creamy to apply, I also don’t expect to suddenly find glitter particles in a cream lipstick, you know? (In looking these up, the US site actually indicates there are shimmer and cream shades. I didn’t see this listed on the Canadian site.)
Overall, these definitely get a thumbs up from me and you definitely cannot beat their price point!
The Avon True Color Lip Crayons are available on avon.ca for $10 CAD each (currently on sale for $7.99!) and on avon.com for $8 USD eachavon.com for $8 USD each.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Some links may be affiliate links.
Juvia’s Place has been blowing up online lately, so when I was in New York for IMATS 2017, I decided to pick up their Masquerade palette. Since this palette comes in both a small and large version, and I own more than my fair share of eyeshadow, I opted to get the mini version of the palette. I believe it normally retails for $25 USD, but I think I paid $19 USD at IMATS.
One thing I noticed while swatching is that the more neutral two bottom rows definitely swatch more colourful and warm than I was expecting. This was a hugely pleasant surprise to me, but it might be a bit of a shock for others. You’ll see what I mean in the swatches below. Enjoy!
You may remember that stila released a trio of highlighters called Star Light, Star Bright for the 2016 Holiday season (Temptalia’s review of that is here). I remember playing around with it at a PR event and loving the look of it, but HATING the texture. It felt like putty and I could never really get any kind of colour payoff on my finger swatches, so I kind of figured it was just a dud.
So when stila released these Heaven’s Hue Highlighters… I was a bit skeptical. The texture and appearance look absolutely identical, but how were they going to play out on my face?
There are three colours in the Heaven’s Hue Highlighter range: Kitten (stila‘s infamous bronzey-pink shade), Transcendence (an ethereal purple-pink) and Bronze (which I don’t have). These are the same shades as the ones that appeared in the holiday trio, but I really feel like these got a formula update. I say that because the colour payoff is amazing and completely unexpected because the product feels like putty under my fingers. I was expecting that a brush would get zero colour payoff because of the weird texture, but that was not the case at all – my brush picked up plenty of product!
stila‘s infamous Kitten shade is a warm copper-bronze with a pink tinge. This is verging on too dark for my skin tone (around NW20), but I wear it anyway because it has enough of a reflective tone that it doesn’t look like it’s deepening up my cheek that much.
The fun colour in this collection is Transcendence – a beautiful lavender-pink shade. I love that more and more brands are hopping on the oddly coloured highlighters bandwagon. This is not a shade for those of you who want something that looks natural. If, however, you want to look like some ethereal being, this is definitely the highlighter for you!
See what I mean about the texture? IT’S SO BIZARRE. The product is impressionable, but it will buckle and pucker if you apply too much pressure (look at the space between my fingers – the product cracked and broke a bit there). Granted, I doubt most people are going to be jamming their fingers in this – but it was certainly fun to play with while I did!
And yes, just to reiterate – your brush will pick up the product, even though it looks like untouchable pudding. I’ve seen a few reviews where people couldn’t get colour payoff, and I’m not really sure what to say to that other than that I used my Real Techniques Contour Brush and had no problems whatsoever.
Swatched out you can see that Transcendence has that ethereal sheen (although it looks more impressive in person to the human eye) and Kitten is definitely a bit deeper in tone than you’d expect. Neither highlighter has any particles of glitter within it.
I’m wearing only the highlighter on my cheek in these shots (on top of foundation).
Kitten does have a deeper tone than my skin, but when you blend it out you’re left with mostly a sheen.
Transcendence is a lot of fun. The purple-pink glow is so, so much fun to wear!
As all of my input in this post has been positive, I think it’s safe to say that you already know that I’m really into these stila highlighters!
For me, the most impressive part was seeing how well my brush picked up that weird putty like texture and applied to my face. It also applied as if it were powder too, so this highlighter is basically witchcraft as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been enjoying wearing both of these shades for the last 2-3 weeks and I never cease to be amazed at how well they apply and wear on me throughout the day. If you’re looking for a new unique highlighter, I think one of these is definitely worth your money!
The stila Heaven’s Hue Highlighters are available on sephora.ca for $42 CAD each or on sephora.com for $32 USD.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post may contain affiliate links.
I’ve been a long time lover of Rimmel‘s liquid lipstick type formula (RIP Apocalips 🙁 ) as as well as their more recent Provocalips which are hands down the most comfortable liquid lipstick formula EVER… But WOW, I am getting off topic fast here, moving on! What I’m trying to get at is that while I’ve loved a lot of Rimmel lip products over the years, I’ve never actually tried one of their more traditional lipsticks. So this my first foray into them!
Rimmel makes a few versions of their “The Only 1” lipstick – this one with the red tube is their matte version. They call this formula “the perfect balance of high impact matte colour, moisture, all day comfort and staying power”, while also referring to it as a velvet matte.
Can I get a big HOORAY for the slanted bullet style lipstick? While I find it visually less appealing than the traditional bullet, this slanted style saves me the heartattack I experience when I break a lipstick (which literally happened to me to another lipstick while I was typing this review up over the weekend. Bah!). So a bit YAY to this bullet style!
Looking at these swatches you’d never think that these were matte lipsticks. While they do glide on the lips fairly smoothly, I’d say the first swipe is actually a bit stiff. However, the product melts with the heat of your lips and any swipe after the first is infinitely smoother.
As a matte lipstick, the Rimmel The Only 1 Matte lipsticks do glide on the lips smoothly which I really appreciate. The texture is such that it will require a little bit of body heat to warm the product up, but it’s really good once you get going.
In terms of comfort, these aren’t the most comfortable matte lipsticks I’ve ever worn, but they are far, FAR from the worst I’ve ever tried. Consider this a decently comfortable matte lipstick. They are matte enough that I did experience the “butt hole lip” phenomenon, but it was easily smoothed out with a fingertip. For those sensitive to scent, these do contain the traditional Rimmel lipstick smell – it’s a fake perfumed, fruit scent that’s hard to pin point as to what EXACTLY the scent is. As someone who hates most scents in lipsticks, I have to point out that the Rimmel scent doesn’t actually bother me, but I know some people would want to know about it.
I think these are a solid drugstore matte lipstick option as the longevity is quite good and the colour selection is solid. Let me know if you’re tried these out and what you thought of them!
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration.