Yearly Archives: 2016

Too Faced Spring 2016 La Creme Lipstick Additions (Review, Swatches + Video)

Makeup, Reviews, Swatches, YouTube

Too Faced Spring 2016 La Creme Lip Swatches

If there’s something you know I like, it’s a good Too Faced collection!

Too Faced Spring 2016 La Creme Lipsticks: Topless, Double Bubble, Mean Girls, WHAM!, Berry Naughty, Ursula and Unicorn Tears
Too Faced Spring 2016 La Creme Lipsticks: Topless, Double Bubble, Mean Girls, WHAM!, Berry Naughty, Ursula and Unicorn Tears

I’ve got seven out of the 10 new shades in the La Creme lipstick range and wanted to try them all on. Let’s go!

Too Faced Spring 2016 La Creme Lip Swatches

Too Faced La Creme in Topless
Too Faced La Creme in Topless

Topless is a beautiful peachy nude – this is a nude that I love seeing on myself.

Too Faced La Creme in Double Bubble
Too Faced La Creme in Double Bubble

Double Bubble is the Barbie pink of the collection.

Too Faced La Creme in Mean Girls
Too Faced La Creme in Mean Girls

Mean Girls is a slightly deeper pink chockful with glitter.

Too Faced La Creme in WHAM!
Too Faced La Creme in WHAM!

WHAM! surprised the hell out of me. The tube looks like a total glitter bomb, but I LOVE how this looks on me. The glitter doesn’t really transfer as much as I expected – instead I’m left with a gorgeous glossy berry shade.

Too Faced La Creme in Berry Naughty
Too Faced La Creme in Berry Naughty

Another stunner! Berry Naughty is quite plum/purple and unlike anything I own. I tend to steer towards the red-berry shades, but this is sooo nice.

Too Faced La Creme in Ursula
Too Faced La Creme in Ursula

Another killer one. Ursula is a deep plum with a lot of glitter in it but it doesn’t look like a glitter bomb on the lips which I highly appreciate.

EDIT: I wore Ursula to work the next day and encountered problems with the glitter in the product moving around on my lips. The colour is still gorgeous, but I’d recommend wearing a similar coloured lip liner all over your lips and then applying this shade on top.

Too Faced La Creme in Unicorn Tears
Too Faced La Creme in Unicorn Tears

Unicorn Tears is the most unique shade out of the whole launch. It’s blue in the tube but turns silvery purple on my lips. It definitely has a lot of duochrome in the shade, which can make it look a bit chunky on the lips. This would be best for layering on top of other lipsticks to give them more dimension. (Although I kind of want to wear it to work as is and see who comments on it!)

Too Faced La Creme Spring 2016 Additions
Too Faced La Creme Spring 2016 Additions – Swatches

If you want to see me apply them and talk a little bit more about the shades, I’ve also done a lip swatch video as well:

Final Thoughts

I was a little apprehensive about some of the shades because I had seen that Too Faced was starting to add glitter into the some of their La Cremes which kiiind of didn’t make any sense to me (I mean… La Creme does not mean “with glitter”!). I’m so happy to be proven totally wrong. The only shade that had noticeable glitter was Mean Girls, the other two (Ursula and WHAM!) are beautiful with the addition of the glitter particles (and they also don’t feel super chunky which I appreciate).

These new shades are just as amazing as the original shades I have from the line and it was really nice to see Unicorn Tears being added into the mix. It’s a “strange” colour, sure, but part of what makes Too Faced such a fun brand is that they add whimsical touches onto their products. It may not always be conventional, but it definitely keeps it intriguing!

Out of this launch, WHAM!, Berry Naughty, Topless, and Ursula are my favourites. And I’m currently eyeballing 9021Oh (not pictured above) which I may “need”. Let me know what shades were your favourite!

Too Faced La Creme Color Drenched lipsticks can be purchased on Sephora.ca for $26 CAD and on Sephora.com for $22 USD.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration.

Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact (Review, Swatches & Look)

Makeup, Reviews, Swatches, Tutorials

Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact

I’m fairly new to Mary Kay makeup. My only lasting impressions of the brand was that it was always an Avon-type brand. You know the kind… where older women in your neighbourhood would have makeup parties and they’d all go through the catalogue together and pick out items they wanted to wear. They’d then place their order via their representative and wait for their products to get delivered. Since my recollections of this were from an eight year old perspective as I watched my mom take part in these things, the brand kind of became branded with a “that’s for old ladies” perspective. And while I think some of those memories still linger for me, I’m quite happy to try out a brand for the first time and see what *I* think about it, and not what my 8 year old self’s impressions are of it.

Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact
Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact

Well that was an intro and a half. Let’s get into this. As part of their spring collection, Mary Kay has released their Into The Garden collection (available now) and this Color Compact is part of that release. Florals for spring is hardly a new theme, but I know there’s a lot of women out there who appreciate the softness of pastels and gentle colours when it’s finally time for us to exit winter.

Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact
Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact

The Into The Garden Color Compact comes with four eyeshadows that all have a shimmery finish. The three lip colours are more of a gloss, but they do have some colour in them so they’ll help augment the colour of your lips.

Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact - Swatches
Mary Kay Into The Garden Color Compact – Swatches

The eyeshadows impressed me: they may all have the same finish, but they’re soft, easy to blend and the pigmentation is definitely there. There’s no chalky-ness to them and all four colours are highly complementary.

The coloured glosses stood out a bit more to me in this palette as they’re not shades I would expect to see paired with these eyeshadows. They also have a bit of glitter in them.

Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden
Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden

Here’s the look I put together using the Into The Garden Color Compact.

Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden
Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden

I used all four eyeshadows and the more coral-red lip shade.

Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden - close up
Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden – close up
Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden - close up
Wearing Mary Kay Into The Garden – close up

I applied the taupe shade all over the lid, the deep, dark purple on the outer corner and through the crease. I lined my lower lash line with the vibrant purple and applied the soft pink shade to the inner corner. The look came out quite pretty, and yet dramatic enough for my tastes.

Let me know what YOU think of Mary Kay products! I was pretty impressed with the eyeshadows in this palette and would love to hear more about what you recommend from the brand.

The product featured in this post was provided to me for consideration.

VIDEO: The 100’s Wanheda/Clarke

Makeup, Tutorials, YouTube
The 100 - Season 3 Episode 3 - Ye Who Enter Here Makeup Tutorial
The 100 – Season 3 Episode 3 – Ye Who Enter Here Makeup Tutorial

I love, love, LOVE the TV series “The 100” and I got a liiiiittle excited during the  Season 3 episode “Ye Who Enter Here” and Clarke’s incredible Grounder makeup during that council scene. So I sat down to recreate it. Enjoy!

A few housekeeping notes…

  1. I’m going to try doing two videos a week going forward (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) because I’m really enjoying the format.
  2. Blog posts will continue on the Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule with Saturday posts when I have skincare to talk about, and Sundays while I continue to have makeup palettes to swatch (annnnd there’s still about twenty of them left in the queue!).

That’s it! I hope you’re enjoying my videos as much as I’m loving making them!

Maybelline Master Prime Long-Lasting Eyeshadow Base (Review & Testing)

Makeup, Reviews

Maybelline Master Prime Long-Lasting Eyeshadow Base

I’ve really been struggling with eyeshadow primers in the last two years. I’ve been unable to use a single primer on my greasepit eyelids and have had to double up (lately I’ve been using Too Faced and Milani in conjunction). This is expensive, time consuming and, frankly, quite frustrating.

So I’m ALWAYS up for trying out a new eyeshadow primer in the hopes that I can find THE ONE. Suddenly… along came Maybelline‘s brand new Master Prime Long-lasting Eyeshadow Base in 420 Prime & Matte (although I believe this is the only shade available).

Maybelline Master Prime Long-Lasting Eyeshadow Base
Maybelline Master Prime Long-Lasting Eyeshadow Base

Here are the basics: The Master Prime contains a colour grip formula to hold pigments in place – making any shadow a 24Hour formula. It creates a perfect, smooth canvas for pure colour impact – no creasing or smearing to get in the way of showcasing your eyes. It retails for approximately $11 CAD.

24 hours is a HUGE claim, but the reality is that most people just want their makeup to last an entire workday (which is somewhere in the 10-12 hour ballpark area when you factor in commuting).

Maybelline Master Prime wand
Maybelline Master Prime wand

The Master Prime comes with a typical doefoot applicator. It does collect a lot of product on the wand as I think the filter on the inside of the packaging isn’t very tight. That being said, it works out quite well because the amount of product you see on the wand above is exactly how much I use to cover both eyelids.

Maybelline Master Prime swatch
Maybelline Master Prime swatch

I almost totally disregarded this product based on how it looked. I mean, it’s this awkward colour of brown that doesn’t go translucent (or so I thought), how the heck was I going to wear this on my eyes as a base? I was very, VERY wrong however. Despite the stark colour difference in my hand swatch, the colour seeps into my lids and loses a lot of its colouring. I don’t know how it does that, but it works for me!

Maybelline Master Primer Time Trial - comparison between 7:30 am and 5:15 pm
Maybelline Master Primer Time Trial – comparison between 7:30 am and 5:15 pm

So here’s how it plays out. On the left is my eye makeup at 7:30 AM right after I’d applied it to go to work. The shot on the right is how my makeup looked when I got home from work at 5:15 PM. Aside from a slight lighting change, I see no difference in my eye makeup at all.

Maybelline Master Primer after roughly 10 hours
Maybelline Master Primer after roughly 10 hours

Here’s a close up shot of my closed lid so you can see a little bit more. I’m starting to show faint signs of creasing on the inner most corner of my eye where the deep fold in my lid is. And… that’s it. For 10 hours, while only using a single primer, this is INCREDIBLE for me. I’ve been using it for a week solid now and it’s the same results every single day!

Final Thoughts

I may be totally done with all of my other eyeshadow primers, because the Maybelline Master Prime is totally doing it for me! I’m so pleased with the long wear time, the lack of creasing which I’m excessively prone to and the fact that this is a drugstore product with an excellent price point. If you’ve been struggling with your eyeshadow creasing on you like I have been, you may want to give this one a shot!

The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration.