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Day and Night with Lorac Pro Palette
Over Christmas I was able to get my hands on the Lorac Pro Palette. This is an amazing collection of shimmer and matte shades and probably the most versatile grouping of shadows I own. The texture of this product is buttery, pigmented with little fall out, even when using the darker shades. There isn’t one color that I don’t enjoy or was disappointed with. In a humble attempt to show the wide range of looks you can create with this palette I’ve put together a day and and night look using only these shadows.
DAY:
For this look I applied the shade cream all over my lid and deepened and defined my crease with Taupe. I took sable and smudged it beneath my lower lash line to add a bit more dimension. I used L’oreal Carbon Black Lineur Intense liquid line to create a quick cat eye and lined my lower water line with NYX’s Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk. I finished off my lashes with a quick coat of Benefit’s They’re Real Mascara. I used Revlon’s Soft Nude on my lips and Tarte Flushed on my cheeks.
NIGHT:
This look only requires 2 shadows and takes about 2 seconds to complete. I swept the shade pewter all over the lid, staying below my crease. Then for some definition I took the matte shade black and concentrating the color at the outer v of my lid blended out the shadow, then I took whatever was left on my brush and deepened my crease. Taking a pencil brush I then applied black under my lash line and finished everything off with a few coats of Maybelline’s new Rocket Volum Express mascara. Pewter is such a pretty and unique shade and gives you such a rich smokey look without looking too harsh. On my cheeks I wore Tarte’s Amused blush and I added a quick layer of L’oreals Color Riche Caresse lipstick in Merino Mauve.
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TheBalm: Nude ‘tude Eyeshadow Palette
I picked this lovely palette up on hautelook a few weeks ago and I’ve been so excited to try it. I got also got a Thebalm blush, bronzer and lipstick as well but I’ll review those separately. This is my first experience with this brand and while I’ve heard amazing thing about the blushes I hadn’t seen many reviews on the eyeshadows. I was very happy with this, and while I paid a discounted price by purchasing it on hautelook, I do think this would be worth the full retail value of 36 dollars and would make a great alternative to the Naked Palette if you don’t have the 50 dollars to shell out on Urban Decay.
The first thing I will say about this brand is the packaging is awesome. Everything comes in really cute kitschy boxes and the palette itself is slim but sturdy. The lid is magnetic so I feel like you could travel with this easily. So definitely an A+ on packaging. This palette also came with a brush but I’m not a huge fan of it. The bristles aren’t very soft and I probably wouldn’t reach for it ever.
The shadows themselves are very nice quality. They aren’t quite as buttery as Urban Decay shadows but they had minimum fall out and the colors were decently pigmented. You get a mix of matte and shimmer shades which is great and I appreciate that even though this is a nude palette they included a good selection of darker shades. I’ve actually been using this mostly for darker smokey looks than a neutral eye. Not because the lighter shades aren’t pretty but I just really love the dark colors this comes with.
The top shades from dark to light:
Serious, Sexy, Sophisticated, Selfish, Stubborn, Sassy
Serious is actually a pretty pigmented black but it wasn’t swatching that well on my arm. I’ve mostly been using it to line my eyes and you can get a very dark concentrated line with this shade. My favorite colors from the top row are Serious, Sexy and Selfish. Sassy which is the white shade is a pigmented shimmer white and works well in the tear duct.
Bottom Shades from dark to light:
Sleek, Silly, Schitzo, Sultry, Stand-Offish, Snobby
My favorite colors from these are Sleek which is a dark chocolate brown and Sultry which is a great matte mid-tone brown. If you own the Wet n Wild Vanity palette Sultry is very similar to the medium brown shade in that palette. I also really like Snobby which is a yellow gold that looks great in the inner corner of the eye.
Things To Know About This Palette:
1. This is a great cheaper alternative to the Naked Palette
2. You’ll get a nice mix of matte and shimmery shades, the only one that seems to have glitter is silly but it has little fall out.
3. This has enough variety of light, midtone and dark shades that you could use this as an all in one palette on a trip
4. My favorite way to wear this palette so far is wearing sultry all over the lid and using a mix of sleek and serious to smoke out my upper and lower lashes
5. The packaging for this palette is super cute, sturdy and fun to display
If you need an invite to hautelook you can click here
Let me know if you’ve used this palette and your favorite way to wear these shades! 
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Hautelook Haul: Stila
Notice a trend lately? This past month there were a lot of good deals on hautelook so I couldn’t resist picking up some cheap palettes of my favorite brands. From the Stila sale I purchased this Glitz and Glam Palette which came with a Stila lip glaze as well as a Kajal eyeliner pencil. A few weeks back I posted a review on some Physicians Formula Kajal eye pencils that peaked my interest into this type of eyeliner. Since I was interested in them I wanted to try out a few different brands!
I just got these in the mail today so I’ve only had a chance to swatch them but I wanted to take some pics and give you my first impressions.
This palette is so cute! It’s small so it would be great for travel and I feel like the colors are super wearable. The swatches are from top to bottom the kajal eyeliner in smoky quartz, the four eyeshadow shades from the palette, blush, highlight and then the lip glaze ( In shade raisin).
The texture of the eyeshadows were great. The two lighter colors didn’t swatch that well but I think they would make pretty all over shades on the lid. The bronze and purple color would be great for a smokey eye look, so this palette is not only compact but versatile.
The eyeliner is very creamy. Since the texture is so soft it would be really easy to smoke out and I’m excited to use this in a How To look.
This was my first Stila lip glaze and I was pleasantly surprised at the texture of these. I always imagined these would be very thick and sticky but they actually feel very natural on. In the tube I thought I would hate this raisin color, but when I applied it to my lips I actually liked it. This definitely peaked my interest in lip glazes and I think I’ll probably pick up a few more next time I’m shopping.
The only other Stila item I own is a foundation so I’m glad I got to explore this brand a little more.
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Tarte NeutralEYES Volume II Palette
The Tarte NeutralEYES Volume II Palette is a 10 shadow palette with colors ranging from pale pink to a a milk chocolate brown. This palette comes with a Tarte emphasEYES brown eyeliner, a dual shadow brush, and a sample of their eye primer. I think it also came with a card with some ways to use the palette but I lost it. I bought mine from ULTA for $44.00. I’ve had about a month to play with it and I have some good and bad things to say.
I’ll start with the packaging:
The case is pretty sturdy and the lid is magnetic so it snaps into place. I feel like this would work really well for travel. It’s not too bulky or large and you could easily throw it in a suitcase and not worry about it shattering everywhere.
Next the eyeshadows themselves:
You get an even mix of matte and shimmer shades with the palette. The top 5 colors are matte and the bottom 5 are shimmer. None contain any noticeable glitter which is great because I hate glitter fallout. The colors themselves look nice in the pan but I find that the colors themselves don’t have the best payoff. The first 2 top shades and first 2 bottom shades had the least color payoff for me. When I swatched them on my arm you could barely even seem them. I also found that the 4th bottom shade also shows up very light. Considering I spent 44 dollars on this set I was a little disappointed that almost half the shades didn’t show up against my skin. However, the buttercream shade (third in the top row) and the two brown shimmer shades on the bottom have great payoff and I love wearing them. The brown shimmer shades both remind me of cooler toned versions of Urban Decay’s smolder. I also think the grey shade in the top row looks nice paired over Maybelline’s Tough as Taupe Color Tattoo. Here are the colors swatched on my arm:
The feel of these varies, the matte shades are a little more powdery while the shimmer colors are pretty creamy. One huge plus is these colors literally last ALL day on me. Tarte products always have amazing staying power for me these are no exception.
The freebies that come with this are great. The eyeliner is such a crazy consistency. Its an aqua-gel liner in pencil form, it’s so soft it almost feels like a liquid when you are applying it. The only problem is that since it’s so soft you could blow through this pencil in 2 weeks if you used it as an everyday liner and I’m pretty sure they retail for $22 so that would be a big budget buster. The brush is great and I enjoyed the primer as well.
Things You Need To Know:
1. The color payoff isn’t great on some of these shades but the lasting power is unbeatable.
2. My favorite way to wear this palette is to apply the buttercream shade all over my lid and then mix the 2 shimmer brown shades into my crease.
3. This palette has a good mix of matte and shimmer shades and avoids chunky glitter
4. Be careful when you apply the eyeliner to your waterline, it melts into a liquid and I’m always getting it in my eye which burns like crazy for the first 10 seconds. (However the staying power is great so I still use it, I’m just very careful)
5. I use these with a primer to get the most color payoff
Overall I feel like this palette was more a miss than a hit for me. I definitely can find ways to wear it and the eyeliner it came with was awesome but I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone on a budget. This was kind of an impulse buy for me and I wish I had done a little more research and swatched the colors in the store. While I still love Tarte products this just didn’t impress me very much.
Shop Tarte at the link below:
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My FAVORITE (and cheapest!) Neutral Eye Palette
Hi everyone!
For a long time I was skeptical of Wet n Wild makeup. It was a product I had used when I was in middle school and I had my doubts it could ever hold up against the pricier makeup I began purchasing as I got older. I was wrong!
The Wet n Wild Vanity Palette cost me $4.99 at CVS and is my absolute favorite collection of neutral eyeshadows. The set comes with three highly pigmented matte shades as well three frosted colors.
When I’m going for a fast neutral eye I take the middle shade on that matte side and use that in my crease and I’m all set! If I have a few more minutes I’ll use the lightest matte color all over and the middle beige shade in my crease. The lightest color on the shimmer side is a great highlight and inner corner shade. This past weekend I used the darkest matte shade on my outer V area and then lined both my top and bottom lashes with it to make my lash line more pronounced. It gave a great subtle smokey eye look.
I probably use this palette 3 times a week and would recommend it to anyone looking for a great neutral eye set of shadows. I reach for this over my NYX nude on nude palette all the time and its a fraction of the cost.
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NYX: Nude on Nude Eyeshadow Palette
Hi everyone
For those of you looking for a cheaper alternative to the Urban Decay Naked Palette I suggest you try this NYX dupe.
For $20 you get 20 eyeshadows and 10 glosses. The palette has a nice mix of shimmer and matte shades and are nicely pigmented. The texture isn’t as creamy or blendable as Urban Decay but with a primer you can make some great neutral eye looks. There are some nice highlight shades and the navy and black shades work well in the outer v area or in the crease. I could live without the glosses, they aren’t anything special, but I do use them from time to time. I think this set makes a great gift as well. I bought mine at ULTA but I believe you can order it from the NYX website as well.
This is definitely worth your money and a great overall value.
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Urban Decay Sustainable Shadow Box
So I was at ULTA a few weeks ago and on a whim decided to buy this palatte. I had never read any reviews on it and it wasn’t on my WANT list but I saw it and grabbed it and hoped I would love it as much as my Urban Decay AMMO shadow box. The cost was $ 36.00. I listed the colors in the palatte and my opinion of them below:
YDK – Love, a very nice blendable bronzy neutral
Flipside – Love, a great pop of turquoise
Grifter – Like, a pretty lilac
URI – No color pay off, too glittery, should be white but looks like nothing by the time you blend it
Twice Baked- Love, a rich chocolate brown
Midnight Cowboy Rides Again- Too glittery, but swatches a neutral pinky beige
Flash- Like, bright purple
Oil Slick- Like, glittery black
Kiddie Pool- Too glittery, sky blue but very hard to blend because of the glitter
Half Baked- Love, a rich coppery orangey color
The swatches start with YDK and go in order across the top, ending with half baked on the bottom
I know the packaging is supposed to be eco-friendly but I don’t like it. The lid flops all over the place so its not good for traveling.
My favorite colors to use are YDK and Half-Baked for a neutral look and if I want to add a pop to the look I’ll take flip-side and use it as a liner under my bottom lashes.
Oil Slick is also in my AMMO palette and I feel like it has better pigmentation in that one.
While I do like some of the shades that came with this I don’t feel like this was a very good buy. I rarely reach for it and have had a better experience with other sets by UD. Save your money and buy the AMMO or NAKED palette instead
Do You Love This Product?
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NYX The Runway Collection: Haute Model
This is a really pretty palette that won’t put a dent in your bank account. I picked mine up from cherryculture.com for only $8.50
(These are swatched in order from the top left )
The Runway Collection has a number of 10 shadow palettes to choose from but I think this one stuck out to me because of the teal and goldish brown color. I was just as happy when I saw the colors in person as I was when I saw it online. All of the colors are slightly metallic but none are overly glittery. The goldish brown color in the 2nd row has some slight gold glitter in it but it doesn’t create crazy fall out or interfere with the pigment of the color. Today I wore the bottom brown shade and lined my eyes with the dark green from the top row. While the color payoff isn’t amazing it’s really good for a cheaper brand. I wore this with a primer and didn’t have any problems blending. I think these colors will make some really pretty smoky eye looks and I’m excited to keep playing with it. My only complaint is the two silvery gray colors basically look the same once they are swatched, but they still look pretty.
For those interested in picking up the palette I got mine here
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Lorac Multiplex 3D Eye Shadow Palette
I was very excited to get this in the mail today! I ordered it off hautelook.com about 2 weeks ago and only paid $14.00 which I think is a great deal. The box it came in describes the palatte as a set of 3 warm, 3 cool, multi-dimensional shadows. They can be applied wet or dry and also work as an eyeliner. It’s from the Spring 2011 collection but I think these colors will be lovely for fall.
The packaging is pretty nice, the outside is a snakeskin hologram finish with a full size mirror inside. Its a great size to throw in your purse if you’re traveling or just need it for touchups.
The colors are beautiful, they’re shimmery but without any big chunks of glitter (which I hate). They all have a slight duo chrome finish and definitely have a nice color pay off. The texture of the shadows are very creamy and easy to blend and I found they did work well both wet and dry.
My first experience with Lorac eyeshadows was not that great. I had ordered some mineral shadows off hautelook.com and hated the pigment and texture of them. These are definitely much better and I’m really excited to create some pretty looks with them!
You can get this on sale today at hautelook.com here
Sidenote if you go look at the sale: ( I don’t recommend the single baked shadows, I bought a few last time and I get very LITTLE colorpay off with them. I know they are only 2 dollars but I never use the ones I bought)
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