Tag Archives: Maybelline
Maybelline City Bronzers (Review & Swatches)
I feel like more and more bronzers keep popping up on the market lately… and I ain’t mad about it because it’s one of my favourite face products to apply. I just love swirling my big ole brush in a massive pan of product and using it to warm up my face. It’s the next best thing to having a real tan, and obviously much, much better for your skin. I’ve been trying out the new(ish) Maybelline City Bronzer range lately for all of my bronzing needs.
The City Bronzers are actually labelled as a bronzer and contour product, but it’s going to depend entirely on your skintone if these will work for you as a contour shade. I don’t contour with any kind of frequency, so I use these strictly as a bronzer. The City Bronzers are infused with whipped cocoa butter and come in three matte-finish shades.
Of the three shades, I have 100 and 200 which are the most likely to suit me. There’s quite a shade gap between 100 and 200, so I think medium skintones may be able to use 200 if it’s applied quite heavily. 200 also has a bit more of a warmer edge when compared to 100. For me, 100 is a winter bronzer, and 200 is a summer bronzer on my skintone.
Since it’s July right now and I have a bit of sun on my face, 100 comes across very, very pale. You can barely even tell I have bronzer on my face in the above shot. For me, this makes it an ideal winter bronzer since I know it won’t look too obvious when I’m at my palest.
Right now, 200 definitely has more depth on my skin and I’ve been using it a lot to add some strength to my summer tan!
Final Thoughts
Although I didn’t use the Maybelline City Bronzers as a contour, I’m impressed that they lean neutral enough that I could’ve potentially used them that way if I wanted. Bronzers, for the most part, tend to have a very warm edge to them which can make them harder to wear as a contour product so it’s so nice to see a bronzer that isn’t so warm toned because not everyone is comfortable using such warm shades. In practice, they’re easy to apply and quite pigmented. I used a lighter hand for 200 in order to ensure I wasn’t going ham with the bronzer, but I think that’s good because medium skintones may be able to use as a bronzer. There is only one darker shade though (300), so I’m not sure how super deep skintones will fare with these shades.
TL;DR: Nice tones and good shades for light (potentially medium) skintones. Soft and easy to blend.
The Maybelline City Bronzers can be purchased on shoppersdrugmart.com for $10.99 CAD or on ulta.com for $9.99 USD each.
Post contains affiliate links.
VIDEO: What I Bought This Month – June 2019 Beauty Haul
Five Nude Lipsticks I’ve Been Wearing Lately
It was by sheer accident the other day that I realized I’d suddenly become nude lipstick obsessed. I was emptying out my backpack of the five lipsticks I had worn that week to the office, when I realized they were all very, very similar in tone!
I was so amused by my discovery that I thought I’d turn it into a blog post that some people may find quite useful. I’ve started pairing nude lipsticks a lot more with my bright eyeshadow looks and it’s been working out really, really well. Seems kind of like a “no duh” moment, right? Well, I agree, but I also like wearing bright lipsticks so it’s kind of a struggle for me to convince myself that I shouldn’t be going loud with both my lipstick and eyeshadow colours! (My dear friend Sam pointed out how much a nude lipstick made my bright eyeshadows pop and I was kind of sold from that moment on!)
So here are the five shades that have been gracing my lips lately.
When I want a comfortable to wear matte lipstick I often reach for a Too Faced Peach Kiss lipstick. The texture is so lovely and easy to wear and actually hydrating. Bridezilla is a shade I never thought I’d wear because it’s more towards the pink side of things and I’ve never found that I gravitate towards the colour pink. It’s a shade I often revolt against because I hate the notion of being “girly” and all the frilly stuff that everyone seems to associate with pink and girls. If I want to wear pink, I usually want it to be neon, you know?
But there is something definitely magical about Too Faced‘s Bridezilla lipstick. I’ve seen it morph from a more pink toned lipstick to a more peach shade depending on what I’m wearing on my eyes. Fundamentally it is a medium pink lip and not really a nude I suppose, but it does a hell of a job complimenting a bright eyeshadow look!
Suva Beauty‘s Awakening Moisture Matte Liquid Lipstick knocked me out of the park the first time I used it. Not only is the product not one of those “dry as paint” liquid lipsticks, but it also smells like vanilla cake batter!
And on my lips, Awakening is truly my most perfect nude. It’s pale, without going overboard. It’s peachy-pink, without pulling strongly one way or the other. And it literally goes with every single bright or dark eyeshadow look I’ve thrown at it.
Hilariously… the Maybelline Matte Ink in Loyalist is basically the exact same shade as Suva‘s Awakening. They don’t look like it in the tube, but wait till you see them swatched side by side at the bottom of this post! I’ve yammered on for days on end about how much I love the Maybelline Matte Inks – they are truly, in my mind, the be all, end all of liquid lipsticks because of not only their longevity, but also their comfort. They are flawless!
Since the shade is identical to Suva‘s Awakening, it works just as perfectly as that shade does – it truly is the perfect nude for me. And it’s funny too – because I initially thought this colour was WAY too pale for me when I first saw it in the tube. I’d discarded it for months because I thought it would give me baby pink/white lips. However, that’s not the case and it really is perfection.
Sadly, the Too Faced La Creme lipsticks have kind of been shoved out of the market by all of the liquid lipsticks that seem to be taking up space. But let it be known that the La Creme formula is one of my favourites that I have ever tried, and if you still own a few of those shades then you’re a lucky person. The La Cremes are a wonderful cream lipstick with a sweet lemon scent (so unique) and I love mine dearly!
This shot is ancient because I couldn’t find a new one to use, but anyway… Topless is more of a beige nude on me. I wear it when I want a super pale lip. The glossiness of the formula helps to bring some life to the otherwise quite pale shade.
Oh man, the Too Faced mini Melted Mattes from their most recent holiday launch… so. damn. good. Sugar Cookie has definitely been the shade I’ve worn the most. I don’t LOVE the Too Faced Melted Matte formula since it’s a touch drying, BUT I can’t resist the shades and the scent (vanilla cookie batter!).
And, like all of the other shades in this post, it works really beautifully with bright eyeshadow colours. This is one of my more darker nudes, but I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw them all swatched out together:
Do you see how Suva‘s Awakening and Maybelline‘s Loyalist are identical?? I love them both, so I ain’t even mad about it!
So those are my nude lipsticks picks as of late. Do you have a favourite nude lipstick? Let me know!
All of the products featured in this post were sent to me over the course of the last four years. Post contains affiliate links.