All posts by Chelle

Challenge Week: Urban Decay Full Spectrum

January 9, 2017Makeup, TutorialsUrban DecayChelle

I’m finally getting this Challenge Week up! I’ve had the Urban Decay Full Spectrum for over a month now and it was definitely one of the releases I was looking forward to the most this holiday season! Even better? It’s still currently available at Sephora!

A rainbow palette… be still my heart! I used no other palette with these looks, so if you need neutrals to flesh it out, you’ll need to grab something else! If you’d like to see swatches of this palette, please see my Swatch Sunday post here.

Urban Decay Full Spectrum Looks

Please note that in all cases, I did use a white eyeshadow base to help amp up the colours. This says nothing of the pigmentation of this palette as that is just my habit with any and all bright eyeshadows.

I wanted some kind of rainbow-y, sunset look for my first look, so I that’s exactly what I did! Want to see it live? I wore it in my November 201 Favourites video.

Eyes

Calavera on the lid.
Seize on the middle of the lid.
Gossip on the outer corner of the lid.
Sketch through the crease.
Delirious to deepen it up the outer corner.
Iced on the inner corner.
Bump was used lightly on the brow bone to highlight.

I lined the inner lower lash line with Hatter and used Blindsided on the outer half. I lined my lower waterline with the MUFE Aqua XL Eye Pencil in M-26 and applied Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara to my lashes. I also have a pair of House of Lashes Bombshell falsies on.

Face

Foundation: Dermablend Smooth Liquid Camo in 10N Cream
Bronzer: Soap & Glory Solar Powder
Blush: BECCA Flowerchild
Highlighter: Anastasia Beverly Hills Marshmallow
Lips: Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Lovesick

A more red/warm toned look to watch my lips and the ever-present holiday season! To see it in action, check out my Beauty Empties for Q4 2016 video.

Eyes

Warning on the lid.
Alchemy through the crease.
Delirious on the outer half of the lid (also used to line the lower lash line).
Platonic to deepen up the outer corner.
Jones on the inner corner.
Bump on the brow bone.

I created the wing Kat Von D’s Tattoo Liner in Trooper and applied Charlotte Tilbury’s Legendary Lashes mascara. I also have a pair of Sephora Collection Plush falsies on.

Face

Foundation: Revlon Colorstay Liquid in Buff with Illamasqua Skin Base in 6.5 mixed in
Bronzer: Soap & Glory Solar Powder
Blush: NYX Bright Idea in Coralicious
Highlighter: NYX Bright Idea in Chardonnay Shimmer
Lips: Kat Von D Everlasting Liquid Lipstick in Plath

I didn’t notice it until I rounded up my looks, but I’m really focusing on gradient lids with a different lower lash line colour with this palette! You can see this look in my December 2016 Makeup Favourites video.

Eyes

Mean on the lid.
Hatter on the outer corner.
I tried to blend Hundred in, but it wasn’t working, so I added in Platonic to the outer corner.
Goldmine on the inner corner.
Bump on the brow bone.

I applied Jones to the lower lash line and some of Warning to the very outer corner. I created the wing with Kat Von D’s Tattoo Liner in Trooper and applied Charlotte Tilbury’s Legendary Lashes mascara. I also have a pair of House of Lashes Siren falsies on.

Face

Foundation: Revlon Colorstay Liquid in Buff with Illamasqua Skin Base in 6.5 mixed in
Bronzer: NYC Fire Island Tan
Blush: Physicians Formula Butter Blush in Rose Plum
Highlighter:
Lips: Bite Beauty Pepper with NYX Butter Gloss in Cherry Pie on top

Again… one colour on top, and one on the bottom! I wore this one in my 2016 Beauty Favourites!

Eyes

Blindsided on the lid.
Minx on the outer half of the lid.
Bump on the brow bone.

I lined the lower lash line with Jones and a touch of Warning. I created the wing with the Too Faced Sketch Marker in Black and applied Charlotte Tilbury’s Legendary Lashes mascara. I also have a pair of House of Lashes falsies on, but I’m not sure which particular pair it is.

Face

Foundation: Revlon Colorstay Liquid in Buff with Illamasqua Skin Base in 6.5 mixed in
Bronzer: Soap & Glory Solar Powder
Blush: BECCA Songbird
Highlighter: Anastasia Beverly Hills Mimosa
Lips: Revlon Snow Peach with Clinique Melon Drop Pop on top

And for my last look, I was inspired by what I was wearing: I had a dark purple sweatshirt on that says “Look Me in the Eyeliner and Say That” that I got from the Urban Decay Square One Launch Event last month and I was wearing a neon chartreuse sports bra. Perfect colour combination in my opinion!

Eyes

Faded on the lid.
Sketch through the crease.
Delirious to deepen up the outer corner.
Iced on the inner corner.
Bump on the brow bone.

On the lower lash line I have Mean on the inner portion and Hatter on the outer portion. I created the wing with the Too Faced Sketch Marker in Black and applied Charlotte Tilbury’s Legendary Lashes mascara.

Foundation: ARTDECO Nude Foundation in 70 Neutral Vanilla Chiffon
Bronzer: The Body Shop Honey Bronzer in 01 Light Matte
Blush: BECCA Flowerchild
Highlighter: Anastasia Beverly Hills Sassy Grape
Lips: Urban Decay Ex-Girlfriend

And there we have it! Five fun, colourful looks using the Urban Decay Full Spectrum palette! Did you pick this one up?? If you didn’t, it’s currently on sale at sephora.ca for $57 CAD or on sephora.com for $39 USD.

Swatch Sunday: Too Faced Love

January 8, 2017Makeup, SwatchesToo FacedChelle

Too Faced Love

I’m digging through my older palettes now, so you’re getting one from mid-2015 today: the Too Faced Love palette!

Released amid not much fanfare, the Too Faced Love palette was one that left me wanting more. Overall the shadows are flaky/shimmery and it’s just really not an enjoyable palette to use. I’m swatching this just for the sake of working through all of my palettes, but it was a limited edition item that can only be found now (on sale) on Too Faced‘s own web site. It’s almost unnecessary to say at this point, but Too Faced has come a long way since this palette so I would not look at these swatches and be like “ugh – what a terrible brand”.

Too Faced Love Swatches

Too Faced - Cherish — Too Faced – Cherish

Too Faced - Amorous — Too Faced – Amorous

Too Faced - Dearest — Too Faced – Dearest

Too Faced - Smitten — Too Faced – Smitten

Too Faced - Romance — Too Faced – Romance

Too Faced - Obsessed — Too Faced – Obsessed

Too Faced - Passion — Too Faced – Passion

Too Faced - Sweetie Pie — Too Faced – Sweetie Pie

Too Faced - Devotion — Too Faced – Devotion

Too Faced - Puppy Love — Too Faced – Puppy Love

Too Faced - Everlasting — Too Faced – Everlasting

Too Faced - Darling — Too Faced – Darling

Fitness Friday: Improving My 5K Race Time

January 6, 2017Fitness, RunningRace, RacingChelle

Although my fitness posts may have fallen a little bit off the radar in 2016, I still managed to stay really consistent with my exercise. In 2016, I ran two half marathons and four other races ranging from 5 kilometers to 5 miles. And while I did okay with these races (except for that terrible Iceland half marathon – that was just BAD), I never really improved upon my race pace. It’s been a dream of mine for a while to get better and faster at my races, but when it comes down to it, I’m more than willing to put the hours in to running on a regular schedule, but I generally don’t want to put the effort in that is required to get faster. (Because let’s face it – getting faster usually involves doing something like sprints and those are pretty nauseating.) I can usually do it for a handful of weeks, then I fall completely off the rails.

Anyway, where’s this going? One of my favourite races is coming up in the middle of March – the Achilles St. Patrick’s Day 5K race. I put out my personal best time on this race back in 2015 and I’d really like to beat that. Ideally, I’d like to get under 25 minutes, but for now I’ll settle with under 26:10 which was my previous PR. Considering I barely squeaked in one race under the 27 minute mark in 2016, I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I’ve only got ~~three~~ two months to do it (shit, I literally thought I had three months, but nope)! This may seem like short notice, but I like it for a number of reasons:

It gives me a concrete deadline. The race is March 12th – which means I need to get my butt in gear immediately.
I’m better at accomplishing things with a relatively short timeline and under high stress. This is because I have zero opportunity to push it off till “later”.
I frigging love St. Patrick’s Day and want to do well in a race I already have immense fun doing.

So, where to start? I have always used the Hal Higdon training programs for running. This time I’m going to be following the 5K Intermediate Plan which is intended to make you faster. Having done Hal’s programs in the past, I know that I usually need more time than what’s allotted (just in case something happens like injury or laziness). This 5K program is an 8 week one, which is great because (as of typing this) I have 9.5 weeks until the race.

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Although I won’t be able to complete all of the runs on a weekly basis in the race chart found in Hal Higdon’s plan, my goal is to complete the difficult ones (like tempo runs, long runs and the horrific sprint/recovery/sprint runs). I’m opting for this because I do not want to give up weightlifting and I still play soccer every week which is a lot of exercise to shoulder on top of everything else in my life.

I’m excited to get this going because the timeline is really contained. I’ll try to do an update here and there on how I’m doing and I’ll definitely be posting a race recap after the 5K to see just how well this training schedule worked out. Wish me luck!

VIDEO: Seven Deadly Sins of Beauty Tag

January 5, 2017Tags, YouTubeChelle

Urban Decay Vice Lipsticks (Review & Swatches)

January 4, 2017Makeup, Reviews, SwatchesUrban DecayChelle

Urban Decay Vice Lipsticks

In 2016, for some unknown reason, Urban Decay discontinued their rather large (and relatively NEW) Revolution lipsticks. It was a weird move since the lipstick range really wasn’t all that old (circa 2013) and yet it was completely wiped out with Urban Decay‘s Vice Lipstick launch.

The Vice lipstick launch was ENORMOUS. UD unleashed 100 shades of lipstick onto the unsuspecting beauty community and it caused a bit of uproar. There were people who loved the Revolution formula and were pisssssed that that formula was now gone. However, beauty junkies know how to find excitement in turmoil, and with 100 shades of lipstick to choose from, how could you NOT be excited?!

But for me, when the UD Vice launch happened, it was so overwhelming I personally just went “NOPE!” and never looked at them again. I now know how some newcomers to makeup feel when they walk into Sephora for the first time – where do you even BEGIN?

Thankfully, UD got me started gently. I went to their Square One launch party in Mississauga, (there’s a vlog of it here if you’re interested!) and in their swag bag for the event were two lipsticks. I subsequently ordered a third with a PR gift card for Beauty Boutique online (which I highly recommend by the way) because I wanted to pick a colour that was very ME.

The UD event furnished me with Jawbreaker (a mega matte) and Ex-Girlfriend (sheer shimmer). I chose Tryst (cream) because that colour is everything I ever lust for in a lipstick.

Urban Decay Vice Lipsticks in Jawbreaker, Tryst and Ex-Girlfriend - swatches — Urban Decay Vice Lipsticks in Jawbreaker, Tryst and Ex-Girlfriend – swatches

Swatched up, you can definitely see the variety in the finishes. The Mega Matte, Jawbreaker, can only be described as “matte AF”, the Cream Tryst was, aptly, very creamy, and the Sheer Shimmer Ex-Girlfriend was all sheer gloss with zero shimmer.

Wearing Urban Decay - Jawbreaker — Wearing Urban Decay – Jawbreaker

The first shade I tried was Jawbreaker, and sadly, I was not a fan. It was difficult and stiff to apply. I could only keep it on my lips about 15 minutes before I said “enough” and took it off . It pilled along my lip line, gathered in the corners of my mouth… not a win for me.

Wearing Urban Decay - Tryst — Wearing Urban Decay – Tryst

However, Tryst was an absolute freaking winner! It’s a cream, but there’s less slip to it than most cream formulas out there (this makes me happy as I prefer a tackier cream finish as opposed to a slippery one). It feels like the more comfortable mattes that are on the market right now – highly pigmented, easy to apply and just overall completely beautiful. This was one of the more comfortable formulas of lipstick I’ve worn on my lips as of late.

Wearing Urban Decay - Ex-Girlfriend — Wearing Urban Decay – Ex-Girlfriend

Ex-Girlfriend is beautiful and even more comfortable to wear that Tryst. It’s a very faint “my lips but better” shade, but don’t expect it to last an exceptionally long on your lips simply because of it sheer, high shine finish. The bullet is also very soft and within the first use I was already cramming the back of the lipstick bullet against the back of the tube. I like this one for easy application on the go. It’s an easy to wear shade that I dare say will match anything else you could possibly put on your face.

Final Thoughts

There’s no denying how daunting 100 shades of lipstick can be! I mean really, go to the Sephora site and tell me that that wall of lipstick doesn’t make you go “holy crap”. However, for those looking for variety, you really don’t need to look any further. Although I tried out three different finishes, UD does offer even more as well (such as Comfort Matte, Sheer, Metallic, Shimmer and High Shine) which will help you figure out what kind of shade to go for if you know what kind of finish you like.

For me, the Mega Matte wasn’t worth my time, but the Cream and Sheer Shimmer finishes were downright delightful. Tryst is an astonishingly pretty shade – the kind that makes me SUPER FREAKING HAPPY to wear it. Ex-Girlfriend is also a winner because it’s 100% failsafe on me. I’m really happy with how they wear too – comfortable and zero issues with odd fading, etc.

Even better? I like that the price tag isn’t astronomical! The Urban Decay Vice Lipsticks will set you back $17 USD on sephora.com or $21 CAD on sephora.ca.

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