Category Archives: Swatches
Hard Candy Plumping Serum Volumizing Lip Gloss (Review & Swatches)
Lip gloss is making a comeback it seems, and Hard Candy is there to help you fill in the gaps in your collection (if you’ve been on a matte lip kick like I have, that is!) with their Plumping Serum Volumizing Lip Glosses.
I believe these Plumping Serum Glosses were recently repackaged but the formula remains the same. Hard Candy promises us “an outrageously shiny, volumizing, hydrating lip gloss that is formulated with [our] exclusive Plumping Serum System.” Thankfully, the plumping serum isn’t overly aggressive and I didn’t feel like my lips were being stung by bees (seriously – some lip plumping agents are horrible). You will feel a slightly cooling/tingling sensation on your lips while wearing these, but nothing extreme. Interestingly, these don’t smell like mint (I find a lot of plumping serums do) – these have more of a honey/caramel scent that is really, *really* appealing to me.
The tube contains 0.12 oz/3.55 ml of product and retails for approximately $6-7 USD/CAD. Hard Candy is available exclusively on their own web site as well as in stores at Walmart (USA & Canada). The wand is your typical doefoot applicator and you’ll find you need to dip back into the tube a few times to get full lip coverage.
While Hard Candy has a plethora of shades available (~20!), I tried three shades out that covered the range of the spectrum – a pale nude (First Kiss), a dark brown-red (Skin Deep) and a medium purple (Dirty Mind). The colours had roughly medium coverage in a swatch, although I’d venture to say the lighter shade was more opaque than the darkest one!
Hard Candy Plumping Serum Volumizing Lip Gloss Lip Swatches
First Kiss ended up being my favourite shade out of the three I tried. It’s a bit on the milky side of things, so you will get a little bit of colour gathering where your lips crease, but I still loved how this one looked on me. It’s an easy to wear shade that I can grab on the go – love!
Dirty Mind really surprised me – in the tube it looks more like a grey-purple, whereas on the lips it’s much more of a purple with some pink it. Beautiful shade.
Skin Deep was the most problematic and I think it’s simply because of the colour of it. With any dark lip gloss shades I inevitably run into issues – the pigment slides around and won’t ever really stay “put” where I want it to. The colour is beautiful, but this would work best on top of a lipstick. Sadly, the packaging on this one actually broke on me after first use – the stopper stuck inside the cap and even when I re-inserted it back into the base it still popped out the next time I used it.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for an easy to wear lip gloss that has a little bit of plumping (but is honestly not *that* visibly apparent), then the Hard Candy Plumping Serum Volumizing Lip Glosses are a good pick. They’re comfortable to wear, have a lovely scent and are fairly inexpensive.
The pale to medium shades are definitely more my pick than the darker ones, but I will basically always say that about any lip gloss on the market simply because I find dark lip gloss pigment too difficult to work with (I said the same thing about the Bite French Press glosses). Now that might be a skin tone problem – I may fundamentally be too pale to wear shades like that and have them look good on the lips by themselves. (If you’re a darker complexion and wear deep lip gloss colours, please let me know how you feel about those kinds of shades – I’m super curious to know if you can wear them without a lipstick or lip liner underneath!)
The Hard Candy Plumping Serum Volumizing Lip Glosses can be purchased at walmart.ca for $6.98 CAD each or on walmart.com for $6 USD each.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.
VIDEO: Fenty Beauty Moroccan Spice Palette – Review, Swatches & 6 Looks
Swatch Sunday: Too Faced Razzle Dazzle Berry
Too Faced has just launched their Tutti Frutti collection at ULTA, and of course I snapped up the eyeshadow palettes!
The Razzle Dazzle Berry eyeshadow palette is, as you would expect, berry scented. It kind of has that stereotypical blue raspberry scent – something you’d expect from a gummy candy or a freezie.
Too Faced Tutti Frutti Tazzle Dazzle Berry Swatches
The Too Faced Tutti Frutti Razzle Dazzle Berry eyeshadow palette can be purchased at ulta.com for $34 USD.
This post contains affiliate links.
Too Faced Tutti Frutti Twinkle Twinkle Liquid Glitter in Ice Queen (Review & Swatches)
Too Faced‘s Tutti Frutti collection has launched, and with it a whole slew of new products – including the Twinkle Twinkle Liquid Glitter Eyeshadows!
I snagged Ice Queen at ULTA as soon as the collection launched because I’ve been fairly obsessed with my Stila Glitter & Glows, and I wanted to see how this one compared.
The Tutti Frutti collection is a little bit harder to get your hands on as a Canadian unfortunately – ULTA is the only physical retailer to carry the product, so you basically have to buy it sight unseenvia either ULTA online (like I did) or via Too Faced’s own web site. For the Canadians out there who are unaware – ULTA does ship to Canada for the last year or so, and you can get free shipping with a $100 minimum spend. Keep in mind you will pay customs in advance via Borderfree, but it means there’s no worrying about some crazy charge when the package arrives on your door. The customs charge was as if I was paying sales tax AND I avoided that horrid Canada Post opening fee of like $12 per package (before charges).
Back to the actual product review! The Too Faced Tutti Frutti Twinkle Twinkle Liquid Glitter Eyeshadow “are a high-shine liquid glitter eyeshadow inspired by candied fruits”. Of course, one can only immediately begin to draw similarities between the Too Faced liquid glitters in comparison to the Stila Glitter & Glows. However, at $22 USD, the Too Faced ones are two dollars cheaper than the Stila Glitter & Glows ($24 USD) and they contain 25% more product in terms of weight.
I picked up the shade Ice Queen because it seemed the most unique of the lot – the rest are predominantly neutral champagne colours, although there is a BEAUTIFUL orange called Citrus Mistress in there as well.
The first thing I noticed when I swatched Ice Queen was that the base colour is not that strong. There is a lot of translucency in the base that holds all the glitter in, which is significantly different from the original Stila Glitter & Glows that have a very pigmented base (although it has to be said that more recent Stila glitters have become more translucent – Perlina is the one that comes to mind immediately). The glitter flecks in the Too Faced one are slightly larger, and Ice Queen has a lot of different glitter colours in it – silver, pale blue, dark blue and the occasional golden orange.
Since the base was more translucent than I normally go for, I opted to lay down a similar coloured shadow on my lid before going in with the glitter. This helped to really amp up the colour of the blue and bring out more of the sparkle.
I found the wand tip fairly easy to work with – although not as easy as my Stila glitters, but I think that may be due to the length of the wand – the Too Faced one is REALLY long, whereas the Stila one is shorter. I personally prefer a shorter wand across all products (specifically thinking about liquid lipsticks here too) because it gives me slightly more control. The edge blend is do-able with the wand, but you might have slightly better luck if you used a brush.
Final Thoughts
Fundamentally, the application was good, but not quite as nice as the Stila glitters – I found those more fluid and I like that they have a stronger colour base. That being said, I only bought one shade from Too Faced, so it’s possible that the other colours have a stronger tint. The wear time was excellent and I only experienced very minor creasing after 9 hours of wear.
I am always happy to see brands put out similar products to the Stila Glitter & Glows, especially if it provides us more variety in colours. While I like the colour of Ice Queen, I do wish the lineup had provided slightly more variations of colours. I would LOVE to have seen a hot raspberry shade, or a candied lime colour. The selection of colours that is there will appeal to a wide variety of people I’m sure, but for me, I wanted something a little bit more unique. I have hopes that Too Faced will continue to launch more Twinkle Twinkle Glitters though!
The Too Faced Tutti Frutti Twinkle Twinkle Liquid Eyeshadows can be purchased at ulta.com or toofaced.com for $22 USD each.
Post contains affiliate links.