Sleek and ELF Haul

So earlier on, I posted about two parcels that arrived for me today.

So I received some ELF and Sleek products that I ordered on Friday, so I am very happy about the time it took for it to come, it was very quick.

Form ELF I got a High Definition Powder from the Studio line, a mineral lipstick in Nicely Nude, A studio cream eyeshadow in Candlelight, I also bought two new products that are now available on their website, which are the eyeshadow primer trio, in three different colours, Nude, Champagne and Pearl, and also the new Clarifying Oil Blotting Sheets.

I plan to do a full review on the eyeshadow primers and the Clarifying Oil Blotting Sheets once I've use them.

From Sleek I bought two eyeshadow palettes, the Storm, and the Oh So Special. 

I will do another post latter on or tomorrow, with swatches.

I am so excited about these two palettes I cannot wait to use them, and do some looks with them.

No meu outro post, eu disse que tinham chegado dois pacotes para mim.

Recebi umas coisinhas da ELF e da Sleek que encomendei na Sexta, estou estremamente contente com o tempo que demoraram a chegar, foi muito rapido.

Da ELF, comprei o High Defenition Powder da linha Studio, um batom mineral na cor Nicely Nude, uma sombra em creme na cor candlelight tambem da linha Studio, e tambem comprei dois produtos novos no site deles, um set de 3 primes com cores diferentes, Nude, Champagne e Pearl, e tambem comprei ums Clarifying Oil Blotting Sheets, que é para usar durante o dia quando a minha pele começar a ficar muito oleosa, vamos ver como eles trabalham.

Quando os usar faço uma review deles e dos primers tambem.

Da Sleek comprei duas paletas de sombras, a Storm e a Oh So Special.

No proximo post irei falar delas ainda hoje ou então amanhã.

Mal posso esperar para usar estas paletas especialmente a Oh So Special, que é linda, tem cores mesmo lindas, e vai ser tão facil usar essa paleta para fazer look que vão do dia para a noite.

XOXO

Sleek Makeup Curacao Palette Swatches

The hottest, brightest, boldest palette of summer is here! And it's mine! All mine! Sleek Makeup's Curacao is officially the loudest, brashest set of colour you can wear on your eyes. Just look at all that brightly coloured goodness!



The Curacao Palette is part of the Carribean Collection, out for this Summer. It's supposed to be full of bright, happy, confident colours - like a Carribean holiday! I've never been to the Carribean, but hey, now I can pretend that I'm on a holiday just by looking at the tropical-looking box!



Box aside, I'm so glad to see that Sleek Makeup has nammed all the colours in the palette - previously their palettes didn't have colour names, so I think this is pretty cool. Coming from Singapore, I especially love that there's a hot magenta pink colour called Singapre Sling - I know it's named after the cocktail, and not the country, but hey, it's still cool, right?



1st Row, L-R: Tequila Sunrise (warm russet orange, shimmer), Martini (shimmery light neutral beige), Blue Hawaiian (a pale but bright blue-green aqua), Bloody Mary (matte primary red), Screwdriver (bright matte crayon yellow), Green Iguana (shimmery deep forest green)

2nd Row, L-R: Apres Midori (shimmmery yellow grass green), Blue Lagoon (matte light aqua blue), Purple Haze (deep matte grape), Green Martini (shimmery deep olive green), Singapore Sling (shimmery hot pink), Espresso Martini (matte black)

My favourite shades out of the palette are Blue Hawaiian - it reminds me of China Glaze's For Audrey, but in eyeshadow form! I think if I ever did my China Glaze For Audrey manicure again, I can totally wear Blue Hawaiian to go with it! I also love Green Martini, because it's the perfect deep shimmery olive green with a great deal of complexity.

And here's a shot of the colours without the plastic sheet over it. Aren't the colours gorgeous?



And of course, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't offer you swatches, so here you go! Swatches of the Curacao Palette!



As you can see, the palette has pretty good pigmentation and texture, much like the other Sleek Makeup palettes. However, I did feel like the shimmer shades were softer and a bit more pigmented than the matters, like other Sleek palettes I've tried. If you've liked the previous palettes produced by Sleek Makeup, you'll definitely love the Curacao Palette as well, as the formula hasn't changed - this is pretty much the same thing, but with a zing and a zest in the bright shades!

Over the next few days, I'll be producing a few eye looks with the Curacao Palette, so do keep a watch out for those - I'm pretty excited about the wide variety of looks this little baby can produce, and I can't wait to share them with you!

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

NYX Smokey Eyes Eyeshadow Palette: Awesome Neutral Colours!

The latest addition to my palette collection is definitely a kickass one - I officially have gotten my hands on the NYX Smokey Eyes Eyeshadow Palette! As you know, NYX Cosmetics is pretty hard to get here in Asia, so I just have to show off! By a stroke of luck, I won it on Makeup Merriment's giveaway awhile back, and, boy am I glad to have this!



Isn't this thing gorgeous? It's so pretty, I can't bear to touch it yet - but I will eventually!

It comes in the cutest paper box, with a very alluring photo of a smokey eye. The Smokey Palette comes in a simple plastic packaging.



Here are the colours all laid out for you in their beautiful glory. I love how there are a bunch of awesome TAUPES in there, along with the standard range of greys.



Have any of you used this palette yet? I'm so excited, I can't wait to get to use this palette and show you guys the awesome colours in the palette!

26 Colour Eyeshadow and Blush Palette: Swatches

One of the items that has been gaining popularity in recent years has been makeup palettes containing large number of colours, like the 88 colour eyeshadow palettes that have been popular in various forms. The reason why these are so popular is that they are cheap, and have a large variety of colours. I couldn't help but end up with one myself - the ES 26 Colour Eyeshadow and Blush Palette, from this page on the KKCenterHK site.

As you may know, KKCenterHK has been gaining popularity with some makeup fanatics for its wide array of cheap and cheerful makeup items. The 26 Colour Palette cost US$15, which works out to less than a buck per colour. Not bad at all, price-wise. But I was curious as to the quality of the palette, so I thought I'd provide some swatches for a start.



The palette itself comes in a plastic case, that, while not luxe-looking, certainly doesn't seem cheap and flimsy. The palette is also of quite a substantial size - sometimes, with these palettes with humongous numbers of colours, each individual colour can be the size of a dime or something like that. But each individual eyeshadow pan size is only slightly smaller than that of a MAC eyeshadow, which is pretty decent. Here's a photo for comparison. The MAC eyeshadow, Dazzlelight, is placed in between two eyeshadows on the palette. The two larger pans below it are blush colours.



Altogether, there are 21 eyeshadow colours, and 5 blush colours, making that 26. As you can see from the photo below, the colours are mainly warm neutrals, with some bright "sunset" colours (e.g. rust orange, gold) thrown in. Some of the blush colours look a little similar to eyeshadow colours, and a few of the eyeshadow colours are quite close to each other. Generally, though, I'd say the palette colour range is quite decent if you like these types of colours.



Here are swatches of the palette, row by row. The first row is below:



Row 1, L-R: bright orange with shimmer, light tangerine orange with shimmer, warm brown with slight shimmer, matte light pink, bronzey brown with shimmer, brown with a tinge of red with shimmer (think along the lines of Stila's Barefoot Contessa), medium brown with shimmer, which I really like - it could almost be a taupe!



Row 2, L-R: pinky-peach with shimmer (sort of like NARS Orgasm blush in eyeshadow form), burnt orange brown with shimmer, muted neutral brown with no shimmer, rust-red-brown with shimmer (it isn't as red as it looks in the photo, but it is quite rusty in colour), medium warm matte brown, deep matte brown, shimmery brown-gold.



Row 3: Warm orange-pink, shimmery burnt-orange brown, muted matte brown, deep purple with the slightest hint of shimmer, muted neutral brown, slightly darker and less warm-leaning than the previous brown in this row, midtone purple-magenta, and a gorgeous taupey brown shimmer, my favourite eyeshadow colour in the entire palette.

Lastly, here are the blushes.



Row 4: Light peach, pale baby pink-beige, medium pink, deep purple (sort of like the second-last purple in Row 3 of the eyeshadow range), and russet red-brown (similar to the middle colour in Row 2 of the eyeshadows).

Pigmentation and texture of the eyeshadows was actually very decent. In general I didn't have too many problems with pigmentation, and texture was pretty decent. As with some of these palettes, the shimmer colours for some reason were of better quality than the mattes, being softer in texture and better in pigmentation Still, the palette in general was of better quality than expected.

Over the next few days, I'll be showcasing a few EOTDs (Eye of the Days) using this palette, and we'll see what looks I can come up with! In the meantime, if you're looking for a palette of decent quality at a cheap price, and if you like warm colours and neutrals, this palette would definitely be worth checking out.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Jelly Pong Pong Brazilian Sun Bronzer and Wide Awake Palette

Think of cutesy makeup, and Jelly Pong Pong immediately comes to mind. I swear, the brand finds a cute way to package even the most mundane of products, and their recently-released Lavish Gift Bags are no exception to the rule.

There are two Gift Bags, Gift Bag A and Gift Bag B. In my last post, I looked at some of the Gift Bag products, namely, the Jelly Flush cheek stain and Lip Frosting. Today, I'm completing my peek into the items by featuring the Brazilian Sun Bronzer, and the Wide Awake Palette.

Okay now, let's gush at the packaging together! Ahhh, so cute! *Happy squeals* However, unlike the previous products featured which smelled of sweet edibles, these two products don't have any fragrances added to them.



The Brazilian Sun Bronzer is probably one of the cutest-packaged bronzers I've seen in my entire life. To be sure, the huge packaging is kinda clunky and not very travel-friendly, but it's just so cute. I was wondering why the bronzer needed such a large box, and when I opened the lid, I was quite surprised to see this:



My first reaction was - what is that? There's a flower in my bronzer! But it's not a flower. It's actually a powder puff for the bronzer, but it has the cutest flower top ever.



So what about the bronzer itself? The bronzer pan is glued to the bottom of the entire container, and it's a pretty big pan of bronzer. Since it's lodged inside the container, though, you'll have to use either the puff, or your own bronzer brush to apply the powder.

The colour of the bronzer is also very pretty. It's a medium brown, that doesn't run orangey or look too brash. It's actually quite wearable. It has some shimmer, so this probably won't be your best choice for contouring.



Here's a swatch of the Brazilian Sun bronzer, applied perhaps a bit more heavily than a normal person might apply. On me, it looks a little ruddy, so I'm actually considering using this as a blush colour, in addition to being a bronzer.



The last item that I have to cover is the Wide Awake Palette. This is also a very pretty palette. The packaging is clad in paper, though, so you wouldn't want to put this on your sink, or anywhere it would get wet.



The packaging is so pretty! I love the flower and bird illustrations on the cover.



The Wide Awake Palette consists of an illuminating cream, which is a cream highlighter with a beige colour, a soft lemon yellow highlighting cream, and an eyebrow sculptor, which consists of a trio of eyeshadow powders.



Here's a close-up shot of the products in the palette.



I've swatched the two cream highlighters side by side. Honestly, on my skin, they both turn kind of off-white and look quite similar. The good thing about the creams is that there isn't any discernable shimmer, and both creams are good for highlighting the high points of the face, or even acting as a concealer or brightener for the skin.



Here are swatches of the eyebrow sculptor powders. There is a good gradation of powder colours in the set, consisting of a tan beige colour, a medium warm brown, and a lovely neutral dark brown. A pretty wide array of shades are covered with the colours in this palette. The powders are also actually very soft and pigmented. I actually kind of think they could double up as eyeshadows in a pinch.



Would I recommend these products? I love the bronzer and would recommend it, cute flower puff and all. The palette is also very useful with its variety of creams and shades, but I wouldn't recommend it if you are planning to bring it along for travel. But if you are planning to use it at home, or if you want something with pretty packaging, this would be a good choice to check out.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Budget Beauty: Simple and Natural FOTD

Today's FOTD (Face of the Day) has a budget beauty theme. I decided to try using the US$3.80 Love Alpha Summer Gradually palette I got recently to see how the palette would look on. Yay for cheap makeup!

Love Alpha seems to be a generic brand of makeup that is available through various cosmetic wholesalers, and I got mine from KKCenterHK. My experiences with them has been good so far - customer service is prompt, and packages arrive without delay.

I decided to go with a girly, more natural look this time round, since my previous EOTD was a little more intense. Here are the shades I used:



The blush, despite looking really intimidating in the pan, actually applied sheer, and could be built up for more colour. So if you're worried about having too much colour on your cheeks with this palette, don't! It isn't as bad as it looks.

And this was the outcome. Not too bad, actually. Although I do apologise that you don't see enough of the eyeshadow, and see too much of my undereye circles.



I actually like this look - to me it's as simple and as natural as makeup can get, while still being pretty. Lasting power of the blush and eyeshadow was pretty decent. They faded after a few hours, but for $3.80 I'm not going to complain.

This palette would be pretty useful for occasions where you're not concerned with the lasting power of your makeup - for example, if you're just running errands, or dashing out for a couple of hours. It woudln't make sense to use your expensive makeup then, right? (Well, not to me, at least. Did I say I'm cheap?) So palettes like that would bridge that gap where you want to wear something on your face, but it's only just for awhile.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Swatches: Love Alpha Summer Gradually Eyeshadow from KKCenterHK

As a girl on a budget, I'm always on the lookout for cheap makeup options. Is it possible to find cheap makeup products that are just as great as more pricey brands? As a cheapskate, that's a question I always seek to answer. And in the process of doing so, I somehow ended up with not one, but two, eyeshadow and blush compacts from KKCenterHK, a Hong Kong-based online retailer of wholesale cosmetics you probably have been seeing around online.

The compacts, although procured from the site (KKCenterHK has the entire range of eyeshadow compacts, by the way), appear to be rather generic-brand makeup, and are called Love Alpha Summer Gradually Compacts. These come in 3 sets of colours, and I ended up going with 01 (listed as M176-A) and 03 (listed as M176-C).



The compacts arrived all whole and unharmed in the post (thank goodness!) after a slight delay - you know, international post is always a little bit iffy, and it was Chinese New Year over on this side of the world, which wrecks the same havoc on the mail system as Christmas does over in the West. Both times I received packages from them, they arrived quick and intact, which is definitely a good thing.

The Love Alpha Summer Gradually compacts are quite small, and are around the size of my palm (as well as my digital camera!), and come with no-frills, no-fuss, basic black shiny plastic packaging. The lids have clear windows, though, so you know what colours are inside without having to look inside the palette. The palette itself consists of 8 eyeshadows and 2 blushes in a colour-coordinated little package.



When I saw the cheap-looking plastic packaging, I didn't have high hopes for the product inside. (Although at US$3.80 a compact, they're actually pretty cheap.) But the two palettes are actually not too badly colour-coordinated. They're actually colours that would go together, and they even seem to have colour themes for each of the palettes.

Palette 01, or M176-A on the site, is what I'd call a girly neutral summer theme. The colour scheme for this palette is mainly warm, summery neutrals that are wearable for daytime. Here's a close-up shot of Palette 01:



Palette 03 (or M176-C on the site), on the other hand, is a palette that has a much more intense colour scheme. This is composed primarily of jewel-toned blues, greens and some teals - perhaps a smokey mermaid theme?



The first thing I noticed about the compacts when I opened them was - OMG GLITTERBOMB EYESHADOWS! I was quite worried that these were clunky, glittery, un-pigmented crap with lots of fallout. Oh well, I thought, what did I expect for $3.80?

But I decided to put them to the test, and swatched them. Here you can see what the swatches look like - not as fantastic as the high-end brands, perhaps, but definitely better than I thought. I would like to caveat, though, that these shadows are packed with tons of glitter - and by glitter I mean big discrete specks of glitter, so you'd really want to use a sticky base with these to prevent fallout, and help them adhere to the skin longer.

It is my personal experience that with these types of eyeshadows that are primarily composed of glitter (very common in the Asian market although less so in the West), it helps to foil the shadows, or use a primer or a sticky base to make the colours really show up. Without the base, you'd just end up with glitter and no pigment. So moral of the story is - don't forget to use a base for best results!

Here's Palette 01. I've swatched the eyeshadows on the left, and the two blushes on the right, in the order that they appear in the palette. As you can see, the shadow colours show up, and give a metallic, almost-foiled finish, with some gold sheen. I did use my fingers to swatch these, though, and I imagine with brushes they'd look different.



The colours in Palette 01 are very pretty, and quite feminine. I especially love that eyeshadow in the bottom right corner (fourth from the left in the second row), because it looks like a gorgeous browned taupe! We have a taupe, everybody! Taupe Alert! Taupe Alert!

Other attractions of the palette are the blushes, both of which are wearable and devoid of glitter. I think that's a good choice - if the blushes had as much glitter as the shadows, I'd end up looking like a glitterbomb if I used the palette.

Here's 03. As you can see, the eyeshadows have the same frosty, metallic finish, with a gold sheen. And the blushes are also matte.



My favourite colour in this palette is the teal, that's third from the left in the second row. You can't see it in the swatches, but it's actually teal with a gold flash. Very pretty, and very aquatic, and reminiscent of mermaids.

Over the next couple of days, I'm going to be trying out a few looks with these two palettes to see how they fare on the eye - in other words, OMG this neutrals girl is going to be using teal eyeshadow! Judging by the swatches for now, these seem very decent for the price tag (8 eyeshadows and 2 blushes for $3.80), and although they aren't of top-notch quality, are decent enough to work with, provided you use a good eyeshadow primer. So if you're on the market for cheap shades that could pop, these are worth looking into.

(Product was sent for review. Review is my complete and honest opinion. I am not affiliated with/compensated by the company.)

Lancome Etoile du Soir Palette: Day to Night Eye Looks

Ah, eyeshadow palettes, and my undying love for them. There is just something about palettes that always tempts my wallet - the packaging, the sheer prettiness of seeing a nice choreographed set of shades neatly lined up side by side, the fact that you feel like you could be getting more value for money with more shades - whatever it is, I end up buying palettes, even if I don't even use them all that much.

The latest palette to capture my eye is the Lancome Ombre Absolue 3D Eyeshadow Palette (which I've swatched before) in Etoile du Soir, G10. It's a set of five varying shades of greys, from white-grey to black, and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's also my personal favourite palette right now because it's just so versatile.



The palette comes looking much like any other Lancome compact, complete with shiny sleek back packaging and the Lancome rose at a corner. Very classy, and very nice looking. There are a couple of small tiny travel eye brushes inside, consisting of sponge applicators of various sizes, as well as a tiny natural hair shadow brush. The shadows inside are arranged from lightest to darkest, and my favourite shades are the three greys in the middle row.



It appears that this palette was created partly with the Asian market in line, as part of it's marketing is that it provides you with shiny, glittery eyes, which tend to be more a staple of Asian market eyeshadows than Western ones. For some reason, Asian eyeshadows tend to be a lot sheerer and contain larger, chunkier glitter - both of which are often viewed as traits of "bad" eyeshadow in the West. I don't know why this is the case, but it just seems to be a difference in market preferences.

Anyway, all the Lancome Ombre Absolue palette fortunately doesn't make the mistake of imparting heavy craft-style glitter into its shades. Instead, most of the shades are kept glitter-free, with the exception of the black liner shade, which has specks of glitter, and the shade imprinted with the Lacome rose. The shade with the Lancome rose on it is just purely a glitter shade, and is meant to impart that "fairy eyes" look so popular in Asian makeup. Which is a good thing to me - if I don't feel like fairy eyes that day (e.g. if I have to work), I can just skip that particular shade, instead of passing over the entire palette. Perfect.



Etoile du Soir, consisting of grey-based neutrals, is thus very work-appropriate (if you don't wear the glitter shade), and suitable for virtually all occasions. And just to prove the point, I've done not one, but two(!) EOTDs (Eye of the Days)!

Here's the first EOTD. This is the day look:



For this look, I just used the three lighter shades. The off-white shade on the top row was a highlight, while the lightest grey shade in the second row was used on the lid. The middle grey shade in the second row was used to contour the eye.



As you can see, this look is very soft, simple, and girly. Very appropriate for any occasion where you don't want to look like you're wearing too much makeup, yet still want to bring out your eyes. This look would also be totally appropriate for Spring, since grey eyes seem to be all the rage lately!



Now, here's the night look, created using the same palette, but just a different array of shades:



For this look, I used the middle shade in the second row as a lid shade, and used the black shade to contour the eye. The white shade was used as a highlight.



I really love this look. It's a smokey, sutry, sexy look that is still very wearable - perfect for a smokey eye without being too dark. I would absolutely wear this out even during the day, although I'm sure most girls would probably only wear it out at night.



Although a palette of greys might look a little bit boring to some people, Etoile du Soir really stands out in its versatility. The quality of the palette is also pretty good - the shadows start off moderately pigmented but are buildable, and have a soft texture that makes it easy to blend. I love this palette, and if you love neutrals and greys, and are out on the market for a palette that can take your eye from day to night, this could be worth looking into.

(Product sent for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion. I am not compensated by/affiliated with the company.)