As we reach the end of Pride Week here in Toronto, I thought I’d share another vibrant makeup palette that I own: Sleek‘s Acid palette. Due to the nature of some of these shades, they do benefit from a white base. So while the swatches on the neons may look a bit chalky, they do go on super pigmented with NYX’s Jumbo Eyeshadow Pencil in Milk. Just something to keep in mind!
Last month I picked up Kat Von D‘s Ink Liner in Neruda (white) as a last second “oh just add it to your cart” addition to my Sephora order last month. A liquid white eyeliner is an intriguing product and I wanted to see how this would work out for me.
The Ink Liners, unlike the Tattoo Liners, have a felt tip brush. However, unlike a lot of felt tip brushes I seem to have encountered over the years, this one has a flex to it that is near identical to the Tattoo Liner’s brush tip. I was really, REALLY happy about this because I much prefer using brush tips for their flexibility. They give me the ability to create a sweeping line when drawing on my eyeliner AND it fills in all the necessary folds in my (aging) eyelids. By comparison, a hard felt tip tends to leave me with a jagged, disjointed line.
The formula is a wonderfully pigmented liquid. It doesn’t feel heavy, but the pigmentation is so intense that it doesn’t require much building up. This really surprised me because whites are notorious for being translucent and nowhere near opaque. Imagine my surprise when a single swipe delivered about 90% opacity (shot on the left). Incredible! I am also able to layer it without the colour lifting!
On the eyes, Neruda is so much fun to use. It can create a very mod, stark look like the one above (which I LOVED wearing, it looked so different from my usual black winged liner) or you can use it to create small accents to your eyeliner. I’ve often seen it used in double winged looks (one black wing, with a small white line beside it to add some amazing contrast).
I didn’t buy the Kat Von D Ink Liner expecting it to be waterproof, so I wasn’t disappointed in that respect. I love that the white colour is almost totally opaque, was easy to use and had a wonderful felt tip brush that mimicked my beloved brush tips. I’m also incredibly pleased that the colour stayed true to itself through a typical 12 hour day. Love, love, love! Highly recommended. If white isn’t your thing, there are also the usual black and brown shades, but there’s also some gorgeous greens and blues you may want to check out too!
It’s Pride Week in Toronto everyone! In light of Pride Week, I thought I’d bust out one of my most vibrant palettes – the Urban Decay Electric palette. Today you’ll get the swatches and sometime this week there’ll be a Challenge Week as well. (Check that out here!) Enjoy!
One of my most popular posts was my Drugstore Foundation Roundup from 2013. At the time, I only owned drugstore foundations so it was a fairly inexpensive collection. I’ve now branched out a bit more and have a few new foundations to share.
I know colour matching can be difficult , so here’s a little information about my skin:
Enjoy the comparison swatches and short reviews! There’s a full comparison swatch of every foundation at the very bottom of this post.
First up are my Revlon Colorstays. This used to be my absolute favourite foundation, but then they went ahead and changed the formula. The ones that smelled like paint thinner and had an SPF of 6 (the bottle on the left is the old formula) were amazing. The stuff would cover anything and everything and it looked better and better as the day went on. With the new formula, I don’t find the coverage is as longwearing nor does it wear as well throughout the day and that’s been very disappointing.
150 Buff and 200 Nude are in the Combination/Oily variety, whereas 220 Natural Beige is Normal/Dry Skin. If I’m honest, I don’t notice much of a difference between the two varieties.
Neutrogena Healthy Skin Liquid Makeup is a recent addition to my collection and I got a shade that’s really only going to suit me in the middle of summer when I’m quite tan. Right now it’s wearable, but I have to blend it down my neck quite a bit. To me, this feels very lightweight and is easy to blend into the skin.
Definitely too dark for me right now though!
Oh Boots No7, I love you so, so much. I feel their colour matching technology (that gun thing they put on your face) is incredible and seems to nail my skin colour every time.
On the left is Instant Radiance in Cool Vanilla. This is my absolutely FAVOURITE foundation. It’s exactly the kind of coverage I enjoy (light to medium with a somewhat dewy finish) and it feels fantastic. Cool Vanilla works for me when it’s late spring into summer.
On the right is Stay Perfect in Deeply Ivory. This is my late summer into fall foundation. It’s way, WAY too dark for me right now, but it blends in seamlessly when I’ve got more of a tan. The only reason I didn’t pick up another Instant Radiance in this shade is that the Boots at Heathrow didn’t have Instant Radiance on hand. However, Stay Perfect is a gloriously matte foundation that works wonders at keeping me from looking sweaty.
Cool Vanilla is quite pink toned and Deeply Ivory looks (frighteningly) orange, but I assure you it really is a good suit for my tanned skin.
I’ve done a recent review on Bourjois‘ Healthy Mix Serum foundation so I’ll keep this short. I don’t know a single person that doesn’t like this foundation. It’s a soft (I guess that’s the gel?) liquid foundation that smells absolutely incredible and feels wonderful on the skin. It has a light to medium coverage. They’re considered drug store in the UK/Ireland, but they’re high end here in Canada. Absolutely worth the price tag though.
I will say that the Bourjois Healthy Mix Serum foundations do lean yellow and there aren’t an awful lot of shades. If they do suit your skin colouring though, get them!
Illamasqua‘s Skin Base was a panic purchase when I found out that the brand was leaving North America. The texture is very thick, surprisingly so, and yet it doesn’t feel thick on the skin. I have no idea how they managed to do that, but somehow it works. The name is apt too; Skin Base. It does feel like a second layer of skin and probably one of my more comfortable to wear foundations.
I have shade 6.5 and it does lean a bit orangey/yellow on me.
Last up are my it Cosmetics CC+ Creams with SPF 50+. They are hyped out the wazoo on YouTube, so I *had* to try them out. I picked up the shade Fair when I was in the US in April because Light was so incredibly dark. Of course, then I realized Fair was too pale and gotLight as well when I got back to Canada. Right now I’m in between both shades, so I mix them together to get the right tone. (Seriously, can you believe how dark Light is? I was astounded.) I love that there’s a huge amount of SPF in these, but I haven’t tested them enough to see how they perform through sweaty days.
I feel these ones have far more neutral colouring than my other foundations which is really, really nice.
I feel you really can’t go wrong with the Boots No7 line or Bourjois‘ Healthy Mix Serums. They’re my favourite foundations to wear by far! How about you? Any top picks? Or anything in this list that you love or hate?
June 2015 saw the launch of Charlotte Tilbury products in Canada and my god was I ever excited. If you’ve been lurking around the internet for a while, you may have seenCharlotte Tilbury products popping up on blogs and YouTube since late 2013. It first started in the UK, then spread to the USA. Now, finally, Canadians can pick up her products without ordering from overseas! For the month of June, all sales on charlottetilbury.com/ca/ will have free shipping!
There’s zero disputing her products are exceptionally highend. The price tags alone were enough to curb my spending and I ended up purchasing only two products (however, my mental list of what I “need” continues to grow longer and longer…). I hope you enjoy reading about what I’ve picked up. There’s also a full look at the bottom of this post that features both products.
The one thing I knew I wanted without a shadow of a doubt from Charlotte Tilbury‘s line was the Filmstar Bronze & Glow. At $80 CAD, this is by far the most expensive single item I own in my makeup collection. (Hilariously, given the current exchange rate, this is actually cheaper to buy in Canada than in the UK! So that means… it was a total steal right? ) The packaging feels and acts luxurious – it opens and snaps shut with a solid click. It’s slightly weighted, but this is a plastic compact and not a metal one. And it’s just stunning to look at. This is the kind of item you want to proudly display on your vanity.
Inside the compact are two shades intended to sculpt and highlight your face. There’s also an enormous mirror on the inside which is massively appreciated.
The Sculpt shade has an orange tinge to it, and there’s some shimmer. I would recommend using this as a bronzer instead of a contour because it does wonders to give you a sunkissed glow. (As a note, I’ve seen it look far cooler toned on other blogs, but when I tried it out it definitely came out more warm.)
The Highlight shade is a fairly standard gold shade that will give a beautiful sheen to the high points of your face.
Neither product has particles of glitter, they are both infused with a sheen. It’s also worth noting that these are incredibly pigmented and buttery soft. I made the mistake of jabbing my brush into the Sculpt shade the first time I used it and I picked up WAY too much product. Go gentle and sweep lightly into the product to pick some up!
Just look at that stunning quad. I mean come on… doesn’t that just look and feel fancy?
Three of the shades are buttery soft ranging from satin to shimmer. The fourth shade, the gold, is basically a glitter topcoat. It’s described by Charlotte as a “Pop” shade – intended to glitter up your look and make it more nighttime appropriate. (If that matters to you that is, I’d wear it during the day regardless.) The Pop shade is definitely chunky and a bit awkward to work with. I couldn’t decide if using a brush or my finger was best.
I do feel the Enhance and Smoke shades are far too similar to each other. They look completely identical on the eye. However, they are both lovely shades and ones I’ll get an immense amount of use out of, so it’s not really a downer for me. However, if you’re looking for more definition, the two deeper shades in this quad won’t offer much difference in depth between the two of them.
Here’s the look I came up with! There’s no denying that this is a sultry look, and I’m impressed with how easy it was to create. I wasn’t sure how well the champagne-pink shade would work with the gold topcoat, but I’m happy to report that it seemed to meld together seamlessly. These aren’t necessarily colours I would think to throw together in a look, so I’m glad they put them together for me as it forced me to try something different.
We may be on the brink of summer here in Toronto, but I love how autumnal this made me feel. The dark berry lips with the intense eyes is something I would wear regardless of the season. Heck, I think I’ve even already figured out what my Christmas makeup is going to be this year! (As ridiculous as that is to say in June!)
The shot above shows a bit more of the Sculpt and Highlight shades from the Filmstarpalette as well. The highlight is gorgeous, although not too intense. The Sculpt shade is heavily applied at the backs of my cheekbones and I like how it transitions my blush to back of my cheekbone.
Read on for full details on how to achieve this look.
Eyes
I used MAC‘s Blacktrack fluidline to create the wing and Marc Jacobs‘ Highligher Gel Crayon in Blacquer to tightline both waterlines. I applied CoverGirl‘s Clump Crushermascara to my lashes and threw on a pair of Ardell Demi Wispies false lashes as well.
Rest of the Face
If you’re in Toronto, Charlotte herself will be at Holt Renfrew on Bloor on June 24, 2015 between 6 and 8 pm. I’ll be there with bells on!