You may have seen my Annabelle Spring 2017 Try On video, where I put most of the new Annabelle products on my face (and there’s a lot of REALLY good stuff in there!). However, one of the items I didn’t get to try was the new Skinny Palette.
So voila, here are swatches of the palette!
The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration.
PRODUCTS USED:
– Maybelline Master Prime*
– ARTDECO Eyeshadow Base*
– MAC Cork
– Inglot Matte 334
– Kat Von D Alchemist Holographic palette* (Ultra-violet Amethyst and Pink Opal)
– Urban Decay Electric palette (Jilted and Chaos)
– MAC Blanc Type
– ARTDECO High Precision Liquid Liner*
– Lit Cosmetics Glitter in Afternoon Delight Size #2
– Lit Cosmetics Clearly Liquid Glitter Base
– MAKE UP FOR EVER Step 1 Skin Equalizer (Pink)*
– MAKE UP FOR EVER Ultra HD Stick in Y225*
– Physicians Formula Butter Bronzer
– Laura Geller Baked Gelato Vivid Swirl Blush in Plumberry
– MAKE UP FOR EVER Aqua XL Eye Pencil in M-92
– Maybelline Lash Sensational Luscious Full Fan Effect mascara
– House of Lashes Siren lashes*
– ARTDECO Eyebrow Pencil in #6*
– Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in L.U.V.*
Beautycounter is an entirely new to me brand. In fact, the only thing I even knew about them was that they made some kind of skincare and that Stephanie Nicole had mentioned them buying up one of her favourite facial cleansers. That’s REALLY not a lot to go on, so I was essentially diving head first without looking into this brand!
Beautycounter produces makeup alongside skincare, but their backstory is not dissimilar to a lot of other brand creators out there who are suddenly becoming more conscientious about what they’re putting on their faces. Beautycounter was on a mission to get safer products out there to everyone. They even house a “Never List” on their web site that tells you a shortened version of all the chemicals they were never dump in their products.
Moving on to the actual reviews! First up are the lip glosses. These are part of the Desert Sunrise collection release, but I believe they’re being added to their permanent range of glosses as they’re now listed as “new shades”.
They are lightly vanilla scented (very similar to MAC’s lipglasses) and have the most unique applicator I’ve seen to date: it’s a triangular doefoot applicator with a slot in the middle of it. I like the rounded-point tip as it makes it very easy to get around your cupid’s bow, and the slot in the middle actually helps to collect the excess product you may have gotten onto the wand. It basically gets pushed through to the other side so that you can get them flip the applicator over and do your bottom lip with the remaining product.
Of course, the two shades in the collection, Coralbell and Beeblossom, are right up my alley.
Coralbell has the most pigment out of the two shades I tried. It will require a little bit more fussing to make sure you have an even coat.
Beeblossom is the easier shade to wear since it has a bit more translucency to it.
The Desert Sunrise palette is beautiful to behold: it comes with three hefty sized blushes (and that red shade is everrrrything to me!), as well as six eyeshadows (two of which are new shades to the brand – Khaki and Bark). Unlike the lip glosses, this is a limited edition palette, so keep that in mind if this selection of colours really piques your interest.
The shades in the palette range from a satin finish to a lightly shimmery one. There’s no glitter on sight which is good news for those of you who are allergic to it! 😉
The blushes were the real stunners of this palette for me. I am IN LOVE with that Flamingo shade, and the pink shade makes for a great every day colour as well as the bronzey-pink which does wonders to liven up my cheekbones.
On my eyes I have Champagne all over the lid, Pinot on the outer corner and a mix of Dove and Bark through my crease. To highlight my inner corner and brow bone, I used Pearl, and then lined my lower lash line with Khaki.
One of the things I haven’t mentioned up until now is the cost of these items. I found the price points kind of shocking since they’re rivalling some high end brands at Sephora: the lip glosses retail for $36 CAD and the palette is $75 CAD. While I can get behind the lip gloss packaging okay enough, I’m struggling with the palette. It’s entirely made up for cardboard with no mirror. For that price tag, I would expect to see a mirror in there!
Moving on to the quality of the products… The lip glosses are glorious! They’re creamy and non-sticky. They smell wonderful and apply easily. My personal favourite was Beeblossom just because it was an easy to wear shade that didn’t require you to really make sure your lips were done “properly”. They are glosses, so the longevity isn’t anything amazing, but they do wear off nicely which is something I always appreciate.
The eyeshadow palette is smooth and easy to use – the colours blended together very, very nicely without much effort. The only thing I found a disappointing for me personally is that shades came off very muted. This may be appealing to some people though since not everyone is looking for in your face colour with every single palette! The end result IS pretty, but I like a little more impact in my eyeshadow. Those blushes though? They are INCREDIBLE! I love the texture, the finish and the shades so, so much!
The products featured in this post were sent to me for review.
Continuing on down the path of exciting Too Faced releases, I’ve got the newly launched Sweet Peach Creamy Peach Oil Lip Glosses!
Each tube comes with 4ml/0.14fluid ounce of product in a gorgeous colour coded tube and outer packaging. One of the most enticing things about this Sweet Peach launch is that these lip glosses smell and taste like artificial peaches. It’s a juicy, sweet, candy-like kind of artificial scent. Some people may find it overpowering (I think), but I’m in love with it!
If you’re like me and saw “Peach Oil” and assumed these would be a very sheer finish with an oily consistency… then let me correct you right away. These are fundamentally lip glosses infused with peach oil, coconut oil and vitamin E to soften and moisturize lips. And they are saturated AF with pigment! No sheer lip glosses to be found here – these pack one hell of a pigment punch!
As I’ve already mentioned, the tube handles are colour-coded to match the product inside. A lovely touch that I really feel like all brands should be doing.
Too Faced always goes just the right amount of over the top for their packaging too: the Sweet Peach emoji dude is sitting pretty on top of all of the lip glosses as a little bubble sticker. They actually come off pretty nicely, so you could stick that happy little guy anywhere if you so desire.
As you can see from the swatches, these lip glosses pack a lot of peachy goodness pigment! The top row has your basic set of peachy nudes for those who aren’t looking for a ton of colour in their gloss, whereas the bottom row gives you more of an assortment of shades with a peachy-pink, a solid coral, an orange and in-your-face peach-red.
Before we get into the lip swatches, I have to put out an enormous thank you to Kristelle of Crystal Candy Makeup. I was super frustrated with how my face shots turned out (the green background ended up tinting my skin very green) and she offered to help me out by colour correcting them (I had tried and failed!). She said I didn’t need to thank her, but a job well done (and unexpected!) always deserves praise. Thank you Kristelle. 🙂
If you’re looking for that peachy, healthy glow in a comfortable to wear lip gloss, you really don’t need to look much further than the Too Faced Creamy Peach Oil Lip Glosses. They’re not tacky or gloppy, so you needn’t worry about gross strings of lip gloss collecting anywhere on your lips. I do find some of the paler shades a touchstreaky (namely Peach Fuzz and Peach-sicle), but I’d suggest not going in with a lot of the product and you won’t have to worry about the streaks. As these are a non-tacky lip gloss, you can’t expect serious longevity with these, but I find they last just fine for about 90 minutes before I want to touch them up. They do wear off nicely though so you don’t have to be worried about some weird ring around the edge of your lips either.
Honestly, these are just a no-brainer for me. Easy to wear. Comfortable. Smell and taste good. Peach shades as far as the eye can see! My personal favourite shades are Papa Don’t Peach, Tickle-Me Peach and Peach Tease.
The Too Faced Creamy Peach Oil Lip Glosses can be purchased at sephora.ca for $24 CAD each or on sephora.com for $19 USD. If you’re an Ulta shopper, you can also snag them there as well!
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration.