As part of their Spring 2017 collection, Lancome released La Palette La Rose. This palette is a combo lip and eyeshadow palette – you’re getting three lip products and six eyeshadows. La Palette La Rose retails for $75 CAD and $50 USD.
The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration. Post may contain affiliate links.
The liquid lipstick fad is never-ending and MAKE UP FOR EVER are dipping their toes into the fray with their Artist Liquid Matte Lipsticks!
And I do meaning “dipping their toes”! MUFE has released six shades of their Artist Liquid Matte formula and I hope it’s just a testing ground to see how consumers feel about the products because I would love to see some vibrant shades added into the mix. Currently, MUFE has six shades of neutrals – which, if you look at the tubes, you’d swear they were all near identical shades! (More on that later.)
The claims on the Artist Liquid Matte lipsticks are pretty lengthy (taken from Sephora):
Finally, a comfortable liquid lipstick with intense color in an ultra-matte finish. With concentrated pigments, Artist Liquid Matte provides truly matte, saturated color payoff with a lightweight feel. Its unique formula boasts beeswax for long-lasting wear and avocado oil for soft, nourished lips. It’s an ultra-matte, liquid lipstick with high color payoff and 20-hour, comfortable wear. Its precise applicator coats and defines every peak and valley of your lips to perfection.
As we’ve discussed before, I am not someone who is going to wear their lipstick for longer than 6 hours, so a 20 hour wear time is insane to me. (I have no idea how you people do it.) So while I can’t tell you how this will wear for practically a full day, I can tell you that I find this quite comfortable for 5-6 hours. Even me just saying that about a liquid lipstick is kind of wild – I struggle with liquid lipsticks and often want to rip them off my lips due to the dryness. That wasn’t the case with these!
I mentioned earlier that a lot of the shades in the collection seem very, very similar in the tube – so much so that I thought swatch and face shots were going to be incredibly boring. That is not the case! The colours dry down a few shades darker than what they appear in the tube and there is definitely more variety amongst the shades than I had previously anticipated.
When I put the very first shade on my lips, I was astonished. Not only was the colour completely solid, but I could also rub my lips together. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this with other liquid lipstick formulas, but generally, you can’t rub your lips together for fear of the liquid lipstick balling up and/or generally feeling like sandpaper. With the MAKE UP FOR EVER Artist Liquid Mattes I could do some light rubbing and it made wearing a matte liquid lipstick so much more relieving to me. Because of this, I felt like my lips were less dried out! However, with a little bit less of a dry factor, I did notice that I would lose a little bit of product on the inside rim of my mouth at a slightly faster rate than other liquid lipsticks. It wasn’t really bad though (just thought it was worth mentioning) and the product does layer well so I was able to re-apply on the center portion of my lip without issue.
In short, for me, as a non-liquid lipstick lover overall, the MAKE UP FOR EVER Artist Liquid Mattes have been one of the most comfortable liquid lipstick formulas to wear. They are less drying than others which makes me feel less trapped in my makeup (please tell me I’m not the only one that can feel that at times!). I love the colours that I tried (Praline is especially gorgeous), but I really do hope they come out with more vibrant shades.
The MAKE UP FOR EVER Artist Liquid Matte Lipsticks can be purchased on sephora.ca for $25 CAD each or on sephora.com for $20 USD each.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post may contain affiliate links.
I’ve had this review sitting on the backburner since I took the product shots in January. Why? I don’t actually have a good reason for that other than that makeup never seems to cease being released and there’s always some other enormous launch out there to cover. And these Cover FX Custom Enhancer Drops? They’ve been out for a while, so they’re kind old news, right?
But, I was recently reminded how epic these seemed to be when they were first released when I saw my friend Shawna of Spill the Beauty sporting the brand new Halo shade while we were at a beauty event. She looked amazing, and I was suddenly reminded of the fact that I had a sample size of their older Moonlight shade from a previous Sephora order.
I have a very mini, but generously portioned, size of the Cover FX Custom Enhancer Drop in Moonlight. It’s on the paler side of things in their range of shades. This is billed as “imparting a soft, silver glow”. Which you would NEVER KNOW from the colour selection item on the Sephora, or even by looking at the jar. I mean… we’re all agreed right? That looks rose gold? It’s not just me?
FAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! In swatches, Moonlight is flat out blinding. This is shockingly bright – almost electric really. Silver? Almost. I do see more of a rose gold shade on the edges of the product where it curves around my arm. That center portion though? Full on silver goodness.
Despite the shocking swatch, it actually goes on the cheeks surprisingly softly. I suppose by most people’s standards a reflective surface isn’t soft, but given what the swatch looks like in comparison, this looks REALLY soft.
So while it LOOKS soft in these photos, I think, but it’s not really IRL. And that’s not a negative either. It’s an aggressive, but beautiful highlighter. Its reflectiveness was far surpassing my beloved BECCA highlighters and for the first time in a long time I found myself wondering “is this TOO much highlighter?” (Real talk: no, it’s not!)
Yes, it’s aggressive. Yes, it’s “loud”. And yes, it’s completely and utterly beautiful. It has an ethereal quality to it – that “I’m a fairy!” look that I’ve been searching for in a lot of products for a very long time (I’m looking at you Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Ethereal! *spits*).
I think we know I love this product by now, so let’s just chat about how to actually use it. I only used this as a cheekbone highlighter as I’m not interested in mixing it with my foundation. I found I liked it best when used with a medium sized duo fiber brush. I used the dropper to apply it to the back of my hand and then dabbed my brush in it. Wiped it off quite a few times on the back of my hand, and then applied it to my cheekbones. It’s not the easiest product to blend either, so start with very little and then build as it’s pretty easy to get harsh lines. (Try your finger maybe? I hadn’t thought to do it until I typed this review out.)
Is this worth your money? Look, no one can answer that question for you (for ANY makeup product on the market – we all have our limits) – these highlighters are insanely expensive ($52 CAD/$42 USD) and even I’m balking at that price tag. But after having used Moonlight and loving how it looks, I am 100% buying Halo… when it’s on sale.
The Cover FX Custom Enhancer Drops can be purchased on sephora.ca for $52 CAD and on sephora.com for $42 USD.
Relatively new on the market are the MAKE UP FOR EVER Star Lit Powders! They’re essentially a loose pigment type formula that come in predominantly subtle, neutral shades, but there are a few in the lot that really enticed me with their brightness.
The Star Lit Powders are an “ultra-fine shimmering powder that can be used to highlight your eyes, lips and cheeks. The micronized ingredient technology allows for ease of application that can be applied wet or dry, to customize coverage intensity and luminosity.”
I feel like packaging is always an inherent problem with loose pigment. MAKE UP FOR EVER tried to solve the “powder flying everywhere” problem by creating a sifter that’s big enough for your brush to fit in to, but small enough to keep the opening from being enormous. While it does work better than the usual pigment packaging with a huge open neck, I still don’t find myself in love with the delivery system. And honestly, I think that’s just going to be a problem with pigments in general – I really don’t think there is a way to make the packaging not suck. This is the best solution so far, but I’m still not over the moon about it.
The two colours I chose to try out are at very different ends of the scale. Shade #5, Frozen Purple, is a white base with a violet duochrome. It’s one of those shades that is near impossible for me to photograph correctly – but trust me when I say there is a definite purple hue when that pigment catches the light. Shade #19, Ultramarine, is an in-your-face electric deep blue. It can occasionally look matte in some lights, but there is some shimmer running through it.
Application was interesting on these. The powder is finely milled, but there is a weird sensation that feels similar to chalk. I don’t even really know how that works, but it’s there. It was more apparent on the purple shade and the end result was an interesting combo between matte and luminous (again, I have no idea how that works, but that was my impression of it!). The Ultramarine shade is hella pigmented and applied to the eyes beautifully. Go easy with this one as the colour is intense and it will spread easily!
One thing I need to point out is that I had inconsistent application on certain areas of my eye while using these products. In the end, I found I needed a sticky base to make sure the product adhered properly to my eyes when used dry. I think that may be as a result of the chalk-like texture I encountered. So keep that in mind if you’re going to be using these on your eyes!
As is my nature, I tried out some of the more “out there” shades in the range. There are a whole bunch of subtle white-gold, champagne and rose gold hues if you’re looking for something a bit more “wearable”!
The MAKE UP FOR EVER Star Lit Powders can be purchased at sephora.ca for $25 CAD each or on sephora.com for $21 USD.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post may contain affiliate links.
I’m once again hitting you with some swatches from an item you can no longer get your hands on: the Too Faced Holiday 2016 The Chocolate Shop palette!
The lovely Zoë of Writing Whimsy knows how deep my Too Faced obsession runs so she sent me this palette when she was done reviewing it! It was such a lovely surprise since she saved me the cash of picking it up for myself! (My Too Faced hoarder status is getting a bit ridiculous…)
