Category Archives: Swatches
Wet n Wild Summer 2018 Collection – Flights of Fancy (Review, Swatches & Looks)
There is nothing that gets me more excited in drugstore makeup than a brand new limited edition Wet n Wild collection. Not only are the prices good, but I feel like Wet n Wild also takes risks and tries new things out with these collections which just makes it all the more exciting.
Their latest is the Summer 2018 collection – Flights of Fancy. Wet n Wild springboarded off the idea of birds and dove straight in. By purchasing from this collection, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Los Angeles Audubon Society, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect birds and their habitats. These funds will benefit a habitat restoration project for the Allen’s Hummingbird, an endangered California native.
There’s a lot in this collection, so let’s get started.
We’re starting off with the items in this launch that intrigued me the most – the Color Icon Baked Blushes.
The brand describes these blushes as delivering a “tropical glow”, so don’t expect a matte formula at all – these are glowy as all get out!
…and they’re also pigmented as all hell! Fundamentally these are a really pigmented, really shimmery blush. In practice it can take some getting used to as you learn to balance the pigmentation with the shimmer. I found that these worked best with a super light hand and avoiding highlighter. The blushes themselves provide such a solid sheen that adding a highlighter overtop was often complete overkill (and I LIKE a lot of highlighter!).
Don’t Flutter Yourself is the palest shade and definitely the one that is the most like a highlighter. Surprisingly, it does still drop a decent amount of pigment on my cheeks so this can play that dual role quite easily. I preferred using this as a cheekbone highlighter instead of a blush – opting to put it ontop the blush that I was going to be wearing that day. The beam on this shade is wonderful!
Hummingbird Hype is also heckin’ pigmented and has a beautiful sheen. Once again – no need for a highlighter here! This delivers my cheek colour and my highlighter all in one!
Dare To Soar had the most pigment and the least amount of sheen. Tread lightly with this sucker, it’s a pigmented one! The colour is beautiful though and I love wearing this shade.
Second in line for exciting products were the eyeshadow palettes. I had high hopes for these babies after their recent eyeshadow relaunch.
Stop Ruffling My Feathers is definitely the most neutral of the bunch, but it has a nice twist on it with the copper and pink tones. People tend to say orange and pink don’t go together, but those people are so very, very wrong when it comes to eyeshadow!
The pink tends to show up the least (it’s on my inner corner) and comes out more as a light pink sheen. The copper colour (on the lid) is incredible – buttery, smooth and soft.
Hasta La Costa Baby was an interesting combo of colours and something I’d tend to gravitate towards in a larger palette – so I definitely liked how they put these shades together.
The soft caramel tone in the crease works well to fade out the purple on the outer corner. Sadly, the purple itself did fade quite a lot by the end of the day (and I wish it had been a matte shade personally). The teal on the lid though? WOW. Much like the copper from the previous quad, this one was pigmented, soft and smooth!
Flock Party seemed to be playing off their Rose in the Air 10 pan palette as it seems like an extension to that palette (or to the ABH Modern Renaissance!).
Sadly, Flock Party was the most disappointing despite how good the shadows swatched. While the look above is pretty, it was difficult to build up the colours as I had to layer them a lot. I do like that they were able to layer, but I hadn’t expected to layer four or five times to get that outer corner pink/read shade to show up that softly. I wanted the colour that I saw in the swatch!
There are four lip glosses in this collection – two on the neutral side and two on the bolder side.
I am not a lip gloss person at all as I feel that there just isn’t enough longevity in any gloss when you compare them to a lipstick, but I was so pleased with just how pigmented and pretty these shades ended up being on me. Sadly, the darker two shades do bleed and feather on my lips, so I’d need to wear them over top of a lip primer and lip liner to make them work. This is not a unique problem to Wet n Wild‘s formula however – every pigmented lip gloss EVER has always feathered on me.
Fly Gal is a soft translucent somewhat milky pink.
Featherless is a stunning slightly peachy nude – if I’m going to be wearing a lip gloss, THIS is the colour I go for.
Holyyyyyy – look at this colour! I’m so sad it feathers, because Shut The Pluck Up is INCREDIBLE!
And can we talk about Pout of Paradise? What a glorious deep orange. I was so pleased with how pretty this colour was on my lips. I wish I had this particular shade in a lipstick – I swear I haven’t got a shade like this in my collection at all!
Wet n Wild also launched two different eyeliners with this collection – one from their regular range of liquid liners, as well as one in their metallic range.
The metallic shade – Gilded Wings – is as you would expect – a slightly shimmery liquid liner that requires a little bit of layering in ordering to get full opacity. Winged n’ Wild is more your traditional matte liner that doesn’t require building up.
Gilded Wings is really pretty, but since it’s kind of a molten pale gold, it has a tendency to gather around the edges of where you stroke with the brush. I had to layer a few times to get it to look solid. The metallic liquid liners tend to be chunkier than their matte counterparts which makes it a little bit more difficult to work with. This one was thankfully much easier to work with and not even close to as chunky as the ones from the Goth-o-Graphic collection.
Winged n’ Wild isn’t nearly as finicky (sorry no eye picture!) and much easier to work with. The colour is opaque and I love the tone of it – what a solid hunter green!
I’m ending this review on a low note (despite how many good products were in this launch), but these ones just aren’t for me: the Watermelon Lip Scrub would be well suited for anyone who likes the taste/scent of artificial watermelon. That person, however, is most definitely NOT me as I just cannot stand that particular scent.
As for the Paradise Primer Water… it doesn’t do anything. Over or under makeup I saw no different to my overall appearance (although I will note that it made my face feel tacky when I wore over top of foundation). So sadly this is a pass too.
Final Thoughts
My picks from this launch:
- Baked Blushes: I loved these so, SO much. The colours are beautiful as is the sheen they deliver on my cheekbones. I’m not one to skip highlighter, but these were so pretty that I didn’t want to cover them up!
- Eyeshadow Quads: Not every single shade in every single quad works out exactly the same, but they’re so dang cheap that if you like even half the shades in each palette they’re worth picking up. Stop Ruffling My Feathers was my top pick with Hasta La Costa Baby in second. I’d not bother with Flock Party personally.
- Lip Glosses: I know these don’t work for me because of my feathering issues, but these colours are beautiful. The glosses are comfortable to wear and I’m so impressed with the colour selection!
I realize this review was massive, but there was a LOT in this Flights of Fancy collection by Wet n Wild. And you know what’s amazing? You can pick up ALL of the products mentioned in this review on their web site for a measly $35 USD. I think that’s an incredible deal since there’s so much in there!
The products featured in this review were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.
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Swatch Sunday: Kat Von D 10th Anniversary Eyeshadow Palette
To celebrate the launch of her brand’s 10th anniversary, Kat Von D launched a collection of products – the eyeshadow palette, of course, grabbed my attention immediately.
The 10th Anniversary Eyeshadow Palette comes with 16 shades in sleek packaging that has a design on the cover that was drawn by Kat Von D herself.
The 16 shades housed in the palette are named after 16 muses in Kat Von D’s life that have helped to inspire her. A full review video will be coming to my YouTube channel this week, but in the meantime, please enjoy the swatches.
Kat Von D 10th Anniversary Eyeshadow Palette Swatches
The Kat Von D 10th Anniversary Eyeshadow Palette is limited edition and available at sephora.ca for $62 CAD and on sephora.com for $52 USD.
This post contains affiliate links.