I never ended up purchasing the 2014 holiday tarte blush palette… so imagine my surprise when Tanya of I, Redhead offered to send to send me her backup! I was so THRILLED! I love, love, love tarte blushes and couldn’t wait to add these to my collection!
This is the tarte Pin Up Girl palette and it was released for the 2014 holiday season. Unlike the previous year, Off The Cuff, it does not contain a bronzer.
Without a doubt, the first thing that grabbed me about this brand is that fact that they’re called “MyChelle“. So obviously, since my nickname is Chelle, this MUST be for me right?
(Sidenote, as someone with the name Rachelle and nickname Chelle, I NEVER see my name anywhere. It’s not on souvenir key chains, glasses, paraphernalia… NOTHING. So this is very exciting to me!)
Getting into the grit of the product, MyChelle‘s Refining Sugar Cleanser is for all skin types. It gently exfoliates (it’s definitely not a sugar rough/coarse texture), clarifies and hydrates. It’s also boosted with “anti-aging Matrixyl® Synthe’6™ Peptide, bioactive Plant Extracts, and Hyaluronic Acid to help keep skin hydrated.”
I’ve been using the MyChelle Refining Sugar Cleanser for the last few weeks and I have to say… it is 100% love at first sight. The consistency of this cleanser is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It has sugar particles suspended within a thick, pillowy consistency of a cleanser. When you add water to it and massage it into your face, it turns into this creamy marshmallow-like texture. Honestly, it’s a lot of fun to play with while washing your face. There’s also a sweet sugary marshmallow scent to the product so it’s all around an extremely pleasant face washing experience!
MyChelle is a brand that is available via Murale in Canada and will be popping into stores this September. They’ve got a HECK of a lot of products, and after trying out this Refining Sugar Cleanser, I am definitely keen to find out more about this brand. This particular sugar cleanser retails for $32 CAD, if you’re in the USA, you can purchase it online at ulta.com for $25 USD.
The products featured in this review was sent to me for consideration.
Coming soon to a counter and store near you: NARS‘ Audacious fall collection! New shades of lipstick, limited edition eyeliners and a brand new brow cream!
The NARS Audacious lipstick line ($39 CAD/$32 USD) hit the beauty world by storm a while back. But for me, I never managed to experience the amazingess of that launch. You know how it is… you get caught up in beauty launch after beauty launch and somehow you don’t get around to trying everything. So this was my first time interacting with a NARS Audacious lipstick.
I knew about the hype… but guys… I was not prepared…
At first swipe (I was doing my swatches), I actually gasped. While the bullet felt solid, it also glided onto my arm like absolute butter. The swatches you see below are my very first time swiping the product AND it’s a single swipe.
These are hydrating, creamy, and completely luxurious. They have no scent and are opaque in a single swipe. For me, this has been an absolute jawdropping experience – I don’t think I’ve ever worn a more comfortable lipstick…. ever. This the kind of lipstick that makes me want to own the entire range (I can see my wallet staring at me in horror).
Stefania is a stunning fuchsia with a cool-toned edge. I managed to pair this with pink and purple eyeshadow and it didn’t look like pink overkill (which can be difficult!).
Kate is a gorgeous medium-deep purple with some pink in it. Scared of purple lipstick? This might be one to try since it seemed to look quite natural (in my opinion) and less fluorescent.
NARS is also releasing their Brow Defining Cream with this collection (although I’m looking on Sephora and I already see it in stock – $29 CAD/$22 USD). Danakil is their darkest brow colour so it’s not going to match me, but I wanted to play with it and get a sense for the texture.
As you can see, Danakil isn’t quite made for blondes! 😉 Regardless, the texture is creamy and yet is has a hint of grit to it. That sounds weird, but bear with me. It’s not as stiff as the NYX Tame & Frame (which I’m not a fan of) and it’s not as creamy as the Anastasia Dipbrown (which I do love). This feels like the perfect hybrid between those two products because it helped me carve out my eye brow (which I don’t have much of to being with!) and yet it wasn’t slopping all over the place.
I love the shape and texture I got with the Brow Defining Cream. I’m absolutely going to look into purchasing my correct shade (there are three other shades on top of this one) since I loved how well this applied to my brows. As you can see in the shot above, my eyelashes are quite blonde, even white in some areas (the tips are stained from mascara of course!), so I wasn’t going to show you a full face shot because it would have looked weird. But yeah, suffice to say, I’m impressed.
The limited edition Unrestricted Eyeliner Stylo comes in two shades: a matte black (pictured in this post) and a satin finish one. It’s a felt tip liner that is long enough to make me happy (yay!) and comes to a fine point.
At first swatch, I was a little bit unsure of this liner. However, a swatch doesn’t tell the full tale:
This NARS eyeliner is nuts you guys! I took this picture after a work day – so I applied my liner at 7:30 am and took the above shot at 5:15 pm when I got home. You can see some of my eyeshadow has transferred onto the liner, but the liner itself HAS NOT BUDGED. It’s not faded or less crisp than when I went to work in the morning. From the swatches, I had thought that maybe I’d be dealing with an eyeliner that spread (since you can see it spreading into my arm texture lines) but that was not the case on my eyelids. Really, really happy with this one.
This is one of those collections that really makes you fall in love with the brand. Between trying out their Audacious lipsticks for the first time, to discovering a new brow cream that applies beautifully, to finding an eyeliner that stands up against an entire work day… I’m really, really impressed. There really wasn’t a dud in everything I tried and it’s piqued my interest to perhaps jump on the bandwagon a bit quicker when NARS releases a new product.
Let me know if you’re going to be picking anything up from this collection! The NARS Audacious collection will be available at your usual NARS retailers (Sephora, The Bay, Holt Renfew, Nordstrom and Murale) on September 1, 2016.
The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration.
Guys!! We are right around the corner from the MAC Star Trek collection launch! I previously posted about some of the products I received for review in this post and this video, but I didn’t have access to the unbelievably gorgeous face powders at the time.
Thanks to Swatch & Review, I was able to play around with MAC Trip The Light Fantastic Powder in Strange New Worlds. And I’m more than a little bit smitten!
Strange New Worlds is a beautiful nebulous swirl of creams, oranges and reds. This product looks an awful lot like MAC‘s Mineralize Skinfinishes (older style packaging however), but on me this one is a lot more pigmented so I can’t really wear it as a highlighter. That’s okay though, because this beauty makes a stunning blush.
Swirled all together Strange New Worlds is a pearly orange with hints of gold. It’s absolutely stunning and I found myself slowly falling in love with it.
I’ve opted to wear Strange New Worlds as a blush without adding any additional highlighter. There is a bit of a sheen to this product, but if you want that BAM from a highlighter, you won’t really find that in this product. (Not complaining, just observing.)
I found that this blended on smoothly onto my cheeks and gave me a gorgeous warm flush. Seriously guys.. between the product and the end result… this whole product is just simply breathtaking.
If you’d like to see more from the MAC Star Trek collection, you can check out my video here:
Let me know if you plan to pick anything up from the MAC Star Trek collection! It launches online tomorrow August 25th and in stores on September 1. I expect this collection to go *extremely* fast since it’s been hyped up since March!