Lunar New Year was February 5, and BECCA celebrated by launching their Year of the Pig Shimmering Skin Perfector – a limited edition item embossed with the cutest little pig you ever did see.
BECCA Year of the Pig
The Pig is the 12th of all the zodiac animals, and it’s actually an emblem of my own birth year as well: 1983. So this is the third time a year of the pig has occurred in my life as I’m now 36!
BECCA Year of the Pig
BECCA‘s Year of the Pig highlighter comes int their standard compact, this one with a gold edge. The embossed pig on the powder matches the pig on the box: very chubby, and very, very cute!
BECCA Year of the Pig – swatched
While BECCA says that Year of the Pig is a soft, peachy pink, I’d personally call it more of a soft icy white. I don’t see any peach in the product, but there is a small nuance of pink. It’s not as strong as their Pearl highlighter, which can appear as a very stark white.
Wearing Year of the Pig
On the cheeks I was a bit surprised with the outcome. I’m used to BECCA’s highlighters being incredibly showy, and Year of the Pig is really quite soft. It has more of a “lit from within” look than a “lighthouse beacon in the middle of the night” look. This product is definitely for those who want a soft highlighter. If you’re used to BECCA‘s usual blingy highlighter and that’s what you want, then this isn’t for you.
Final Thoughts
While the initial application of BECCA‘s Year of the Pig surprised me (because I expected something much, much stronger), I have to say I really like the outcome. I don’t play with subtle makeup very often and I sometimes miss out on that just overall pretty glow you can get from something that’s a bit softer, more nuanced. If you’re someone who is after that softer look, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by this limited edition launch.
The BECCA Shimmering Skin Perfector Highlighter in Year of the Pig can be purchased at sephora.ca for $51 CAD. (Sorry, I no longer see it on Sephora USA!)
The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.
Hard Candy has recently put out some fun highlighters, and I was definitely game to try! I’m up for anything that has a bit more of a colourful tint… and even moreso when it has fun embossing on the pan! (What can I say, I’m a sucker for packaging.)
Hard Candy Just Glow Highlighters in 24K Gold and Fairy Dust
The Just Glow Highlighters are a 3 in 1 powder highlighter that claim to have a creamy, silky formula that will blend smoothly onto the skin. They retail for about $6-7 USD/CAD and easily found at Walmart stores in North America.
Hard Candy Just Glow Highlighter in Fairy Dust
The shade I was the most excited to try was Fairy Dust – a pink, blue purple combination that looks absolutely freaking stunning in the pan.
Hard Candy Just Glow Highlighter in Fairy Dust – swatches
Swatched out I was really impressed with how strong the pigment is on the individual shades – I wasn’t expecting that at all! And while you could use each shade individually, I think we can all acknowledge that most of us are going to be swirling our brushes in the whole pan, so we’ll more than likely end up with the shade on the far right – a soft, silvery lavender.
Wearing Fairy Dust
On the cheeks the pigment is surprisingly intense. The lavender-silver comes across *very* strongly. While I found the product a bit dusty in the pan (you get a lot of kick up), I was impressed with how softly it applies to the cheeks. It does deposit a lot of colour and you will need to either tap off your brush and/or buff the extra product into your face a bit more, but the overall effect is quite pretty!
Hard Candy Just Glow Highlighter in 24K Gold
The other Just Glow Highlighter I tried was 24K Gold. There’s a small sliver of white, but the predominant colour scheme is more gold/copper.
Hard Candy Just Glow Highlighter in 24K Gold – swatches
The colours are even stronger than the Fairy Dust highlighter, but there’s a lot more flakes and chunks in this shade, and I think most of that is coming from the gold in the center. The gold has all of the the sparkle/shimmer bits and they were definitely quite dusty. Swirled together they make a soft bronze-copper, although you can still see some definite gold chunks that stick out.
Wearing 24K Gold
Fundamentally, the 24K Gold highlighter will work on me, but it definitely deepens up the outer edges of my cheekbones and changes the colour of my blush quite a bit. And that’s simply because I’m of a light skintone and the reflective quality of the product is not quite as strong as Fairy Dust is on me. I can get away with this highlighter, but it’s not something I’d find myself gravitating towards because a) the colour isn’t *quite* right, and b) I’m not a huge fun of the chunkier particles in this formula.
Final Thoughts
The Hard Candy Glow Up Highlighters were a bit of a mixed bag for me. Fairy Dust was definitely my favourite due to texture and colour, whereas 24K Gold was on the darker, more dustier side for me. That being said, although I liked Fairy Dust, I have to say that the texture of it doesn’t come anywhere close to their (now discontinued) Tiki Bronzer (which was basically a highlighter). The texture and colour on Tiki was phenomenal and I’m surprised that Hard Candy has recently discontinued it in favour of a product that doesn’t deliver the same kind of quality. While I think the packaging and the colours of the Glow Up Highlighters are fun, it’s really left me longing for more from their baked range.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.
Sometimes you avoid buying a product… only to regret it later on. The Cover FXGlitter Drops are one of those products. I wish I had picked these up when they first launched!
Cover FX Glitter Drops
I think it was last summer that Cover FX launched their Glitter Drops in three ethereal shades – Aurora (multi-tonal pink glitter), Lunar (multi-colored pastel glitter) and Mirage (golden champagne glitter). The three liquid highlighters promise to impart “a multidimensional glitter highlighter [with] a high impact, light-reflective finish”. And good grief… do they EVER!
Glitter Drops up close
Within each bottle lives a multitude of glitter and sparkle – enough to take your breath away. Lunar is pictured above, and while Cover FX refers to this as a pastel glitter, clearly it’s more blue than anything else. Within that blue base, you can see teal, purple, lavender and silver particles. The dimension of the glitter is absolutely breathtaking.
Cover FX Glitter Drops with a dropper style applicator
The Glitter Drops come in a glass bottle with a dropper style applicator. While you can pump the dropper full of product, you really don’t need that much product to highlight your face. I opt to dab the dropper on the high points of my cheek bones and then blend it out with my finger. However, if you were trying to cover your whole body in glitter then the dropper would be pretty handy for dumping a lot of product on an area (let’s say your arm) and then spreading it out with the palm of your hand. While the dropper style isn’t helpful to me for application, it’s not detrimental either. Probably the best part of it is the fact that it doesn’t get gunked up because it’s not a fuzzy doe foot.
Cover FX Glitter Drops in Mirage, Aurora and Lunar – swatched
I think the swatches above showcase the multidimensional shimmer imbued in each bottle the best. Mirage (gold) has the least amount of colourful sparkle, while Aurora and Lunar carry a lot more fragments of other colours. These are heavy swatches of course – I dabbed a little on my arm and then smushed it out with my finger. When I’m wearing it on my face, I dab a little bit on my cheekbone and then pat it out with my finger.
Wearing Mirage
The saddest thing about all of these photos is the fact that the glitter looks like almost nothing in a photo! In photos the effect is subtle and simple – a highlighter you probably wouldn’t think much about.
Wearing Aurora
However, in person, the glitter particles are astonishingly pretty. Aurora (pink) ended up being my favourite because it had the most colour on my cheeks and it had a luminous, brilliant glittery finish that wowed me every time I looked in the mirror.
Wearing Lunar
Lunar is my second favourite (although they’re really all beautiful so you can’t go wrong with any of them!). While blue in the bottle, it comes across more as a pale silvery blue with a lot of sparkle.
Up close – no light editing
It’s utterly sad to me how subtle these show up in far away photos, so I wanted to show you what this looks like up close. And even then… damn is it ever hard to capture the visual appeal of glitter in a photograph. This a phenomenal product that looks like fairy dust on the skin! The particles also don’t move, nor do they feel sticky on the face. Once the product dries down, that glitter won’t be going anywhere!
Final Thoughts
While my face photos don’t capture the incredible glitter and sparkle of these Glitter Drops, I hope you accept my words at face value. The Cover FXGlitter Drops are incredible. They’re *everything* I could possibly want in a liquid glitter highlighter. My only complaint is now that I’ve tried all three shades… I want even more. I want a green one. An orange one. A purple one! Give me the whole rainbow spectrum in this formula and I will happily snap them all up! Of course, it needs to be said that this is not for people who a) don’t like glitter and b) are looking for something subtle. These are loud, sparkly, and utterly gorgeous!
It’s been a long, LONG time since I’ve looked at a new MAC launch and desperately wanted to throw my money at it. Why? Because the novelty of MAC has worn off on me over the years. It was the ONLY brand I wore from the ages of 12 through 25. I was so obsessed that I would barely even entertain the idea of other brands back then. But when I discovered the world of beauty on YouTube I suddenly had exposure to more people, and those people were using brands that were MAC (and there was a LOT of MAC back then), but it wasn’t JUST MAC. I suddenly had a whole new world open up in front of me.
And, just like that, MAC collections started to lose their appeal. They were putting so many limited edition collections launches every year that it became hard to keep up with it all. And product launches started to get very, very repetitive. There were changes in “themes”, but the colours seemed so similar time and time again.
But I saw the MAC in Monochrome collection promoted a few weeks ago my mind EXPLODED. MAC‘s strengths, for me, have always been in their permanent range of products. Limited editions come and go, but their mainstay range of permanent lipsticks and eyeshadows have been their stronghold for years and years for a reason – they’re solid products that have stood the test of time. So when the MAC in Monochrome collection took five of their permanent range of lipsticks and expanded on them I was EX-CI-TED. And then I was EVEN MORE excited when they chose Ruby Woo as one of the shades to blow up.
I’ve loved the novelty of red eyeshadow for a very long time – long before it became popular in palettes (I think we have ABH to thank for popularizing it in their Modern Renaissance palette). And while MAC had a red collection a few years ago (Red Red Red for the Holiday 2014), I feel like I had already moved on to other brands at that time. But there was something about THIS collection that struck me. Maybe it was taking a classic colour and expanding upon it that did me in – I just loved the idea of it.
Surprisingly enough, given all of the classic MAC lipsticks I’ve had over the years, I’ve never actually owned Ruby Woo. I’ve done a number on my Russian Red lipstick, but never delved over to the Ruby Woo side of things. Fundamentally, they are both very, very similar lipsticks in terms of colour. Ruby Woo has a flatter, more matte finish (it’s a retro matte formula) and appears brighter than Russian Red which, while matte, comes off as much more of a cream lipstick in comparison to Ruby Woo since Ruby Woo is SO matte. The retro matte formula is okay-ish to wear in terms of comfort at first, but it has a very dry consistency which results in a lot of catching on the lips during application. I had to use a lip brush to push the product out to the edges of my lip in order to get a smooth line. At the end of the day, I can understand why people love this shade because the colour is gorgeous, but for me the finish leans towards uncomfortable after a few hours. Personally, I’ll stick to my Russian Red! But if you want something more matte than that shade, Ruby Woo would definitely be the way to go.
Oh! I almost forgot to mention. The Ruby Woo that comes in the MAC in Monochrome collection actually comes with a tube that matches the colour of the lipstick (love that – I wish all of MAC‘s lipstick tubes were like that). But I definitely do not need a full size lipstick ever again for the rest of my life, so I opted to buy the mini size for $12 CAD (which doesn’t come in special packaging).
MAC eyeshadows in Walking Heartbeats and Holly Folly
While I love the collection as a whole, the two items that got me REALLY excited were the eyeshadows. I was happy to see that they were launching a matte (Walking Heartbeats) and a frost (Holly Folly). The texture of these two shadows are quite interesting. Both are incredibly pigmented on application, but you would NEVER know it from the swatches (they’re below). On first swatch I was horrified. I thought these were going to end up going on the eyes really, really poorly. Walking Hearbeats was stiff and seemed to be poorly pigmented. Holly Folly seemed to be really chunky. However, in practice I found they had plenty of pigment and applied well. The matte shadow does have a tendency to cling for dear life to eyeshadow primer which means I need to blend it a bit more than I was expecting, but it looks nothing like what the swatch demonstrates. Holly Folly works best applied with a wet brush, but it’s beautiful with a dry brush as well (I just prefer the more shimmery impact that a wet application will provide).
MAC blush in Apple Red
A red blush. A bright, freaking red blush. Apple Red is the red blush to end all red blushes. I’ve got a decent number of red blushes in my collection, but NONE of them put out pigment like this sucker does. There is SO MUCH pigment in the blush that I find I have to continuously go back over my blush after I’ve applied it with my foundation sponge to pull down the colour. It is NOT a blush to be trifled with. It’ll give you clown cheeks in the blink of an eye. I’m not bothered by this because I love me some red, but this blush is absolutely not for the faint of heart!
MAC in Monochrome: Ruby Woo – swatches
Ruby Woo lipstick definitely has the strongest swatch here! And you can see why I had cause for concern with the shadows and powders though. Holly Folly is decidedly chunky, Walking Hearbeats looks like a patchy mess, and Apple Red looks like Walking Heartbeats‘ older, but slightly more pigmented (yet still dull) older sister.
Swatches are always fun to look at, but they really do not tell the true story of how the shades perform on the face. Because on the face? These were wonderful!
MAC in Monochrome: Ruby Woo look
I love a monochromatic look because it’s super easy to do and it always looks very put together and cohesive simply because it all falls within the same colour scheme.
MAC in Monochrome: Ruby Woo look
So even though this is a lot of red – more than most people are ever likely to wear – I have to tell you just how happy this makes me. Red lipstick, and even red blush, are easy enough to come by… But red eyeshadows in a variety of finishes? That just makes my heart sing.
MAC in Monochrome: Ruby Woo look
Would you have EVER thought I could get this kind of eye look with how those two eyeshadows swatched? I sure didn’t!
MAC in Monochrome: Ruby Woo look
There’s no patchiness issues whatsoever and the pigment is exceptional.
For a full tutorial on this look, see my YouTube video!
Final Thoughts
I. Am. So. HAPPY!
I’m so glad MAC put out this collection with Ruby Woo as one of the focal points. While I’ve discovered I don’t actually love Ruby Woo itself (it’s the formula man – I can’t handle stuff quite so dry), the rest of the collection that I picked up is incredible. The eyeshadows are frigging glorious, and the blush, while incredibly aggressive on application, can be tapered down to a lovely red cheek flush. MAC, you’ve got one happy customer here! <3
I think it’s safe to say that my brother won at Christmas gifting this year. Not only did he buy a bomb present for my husband (a Nintendo Switch game that’s very reminiscent of Final Fantasy games from years gone by – not like the current terribleness that exists), but he also picked me up a bunch of items from KIKO’s holiday 2018 collection. My brother has never bought me makeup before, and I actually thought my *MOM* had purchased these items, and not him. So imagine my surprise when he said he’d lugged these over from Europe (he lives in the Netherlands)!
I realize holiday collections being reviewed in January are kind of stupid (and I’m personally laughing at bloggers putting out holiday advent calendar reviews right now… really guys… what are you doing), but all of these items are still currently available on KIKO‘s site, so I figured I might as well show off these gorgeous products. KIKO isn’t readily accessible in Canada whatsoever, so this was a nice treat!
KIKO Sparkling Holiday 2018 Eyeshadow Palette in Party Time
I think the first item I opened was this Party Time Sparkling Holiday eyeshadow quad, and while I was doing so my brother was telling me the story of how he was in KIKO and the sales clerk kept pointing him towards neutral makeup for me. He kept correcting her – telling her that I wore bright colours, but she kept pushing him towards more neutral options. (The whole idea of this scenario makes me laugh – because she probably thought he had no idea what he was saying because neutrals are definitely more common than colours. I bet she was shaking her head at him thinking he had no idea what he was talking about!) She did manage to sell him on this very neutral eyeshadow quad with three mattes and one metallic glitter-shimmer shade. The matte shades are very basic in tone – a brow bone highlight shade, a transition colour, and an outer corner deepener. The star of the show is definitely that copper-gold shade, and it’s HECKIN’ glittery. It applies smoothly and opaquely, but if you want the glitter to not drop all over your face throughout the day (I’m not bothered) you’ll need to use some kind of glitter adhesive primer on your eye. I feel like this quad would make a lot of neutral lovers happy because it’s got all your basic shades and a glitter for fun. The colours are pigmented and easy to blend.
KIKO Sparkling Holiday 2018 Liquid Highlighter
The Liquid Highlighterwas an interesting choice by my brother. He’s not up to speed on what kinds of makeup I wear, so I was surprised to see a highlighter in the mix (it’s not one of the first things I would think a guy would pick up to be honest), especially a liquid one. At first swatch it’s really reflective (swatches are below by the way), but once you blend out it blurs out to a more creamy, less shiny consistency. I found I preferred this layered twice on my cheekbones for extra impact. I’m just so used to blazing highlighters that a subtle one never feels like enough anymore! That being said, I like that you CAN layer this. If you want to wear it subtly, apply one layer. Extra bang? Apply a second. I also like that the tube isn’t enormous. I have some liquid highlighters that I have no hope in hell of ever finishing because there’s just SO much product in the tube (hello Cover FX highlighters!).
KIKO Sparkling Holiday 2018 Metallic Eyeshadow in All of Blue
And the last item he picked up for me from KIKO was this unreal metallic eyeshadow in All of Blue. I could NOT believe the colour on this, and, truly, my photograph of it is not doing it justice. This is like blue, molten fire. It’s super saturated in the pan. It’s looks like a kind of metal that is in the middle of cooling but would still be hot to the touch. That’s the best way I can think to describe the impact of this colour in person. I quite literally gasped when I saw it. And I was so proud of my brother for managing to snag this colour from KIKO despite the clerk trying to steer him towards neutrals!
KIKO Sparkling Holiday 2018 – swatches
Swatched out you can see the colours a bit better. The liquid highlighter is obviously a heavy swatch – but I liked to blur it out with my fingertips on the tops of my cheekbones. The Party Time quad is a solid neutral palette with that extra bang of glitter. And the All of Blue metallic shadow? Swatches like garbage. *lol* Initially I was really worried about that swatch because it wasn’t coming across as beautifully as I had hoped (it’s a different story on the lids though!).
Wearing Party Time eyeshadow quad
Party Time quad on the eyes is the easiest holiday look you could ever hope for – easy to use shades with that extra orangey-gold glitter.
Wearing the liquid highlighter
The liquid highlighter is stunning! It’s actually more subtle here in this photo than I feel like it is in person (this is two layers), but man is it ever gorgeous! I’m starting to have a soft spot for liquid highlighters because they have a more “lit from within” look than powder highlighters (could be my aging skin!).
Wearing All of Blue on the lid.
And the blue eyeshadow. Wow. WOW. Just look at that colour! I used a very stiff, flat brush to apply it to my lids and was so happy with how the pigmentation came out on my eyes. It is SO much better on the eyes than the swatch belied. You may notice a tiny gap in pigmentation on the inner third of my eye – it’s not the shadow doing that – I’m having a weird problem with gaps there lately with any and all shadows I’m using.
Final Thoughts
Uhhhh…. wow?!? First off, I never expected my brother to buy me makup for Christmas, so that was one hell of a surprise! Secondly, while the neutral quad is not quite up my alley due to the nature of the shades, the quality is excellent and I enjoyed playing with it. BUT… the best products I tried were definitely that liquid highlighter and that bold metallic blue eyeshadow. Those are phenomenal products that really suit what I look for in makeup, so I am dead pleased to have those in my collection now!
