HAVING A CONTEST!!!

Don't we all love free stuff?

I'm giving away a full size Too Faced eyeshadow duo, in Boy Toy and an ELF makeup brush. The shadow retails for about $20. It is amazingly good quality, I promise. I have a couple, this was one of my back ups, THAT is how much I love the PINKS in this duo. JUST perfect for Valentines day!!!!

All you have to do is:

(follow this blog for starters)
AND
1. have a facebook account
2. "LIKE" my facebook makeup art page
3. leave me a comment how you found my page and what you'd like to see on it.
4. remain a fan on my page forever... lol
5. Spread the word by reposting then posting the link on my page or on this blog.

Easy, right? What's even better is that... you don't have much competition in the contest! Only 2 other people have followed the rules so far.

Feel free to share this post w/ anyone and everyone! I'm trying hard to build up some fans on facebook b/c I need me some work! hahah

Thanks everyone for your support!

Wet N Wild 8 Pan Palettes swatches... Released today, January 27th

Here they are... been lots of talk and hype about these palettes coming out. I picked them up tonight at my local Walgreens for less than $5.00 each. Each palette had 8 shades in them. Instructions on the shadows (browbone, eyelid, crease, definer) for those who need some direction or idea where to put them. I would not recommend using the little applicator that comes w/ it, it is junk. Waste of plastic. (Get thyself MAC 217 and a synthetic paddle brush, I keep saying, ladies!)

Color Icon 8 pan shadow palettes: Petal Pusher (purples), Comfort Zone (neutrals) and Blue Had Me At Hello (the blues, dur! haha) 

Here are the palettes for your eyes to gaze upon:  (PLEASE click on the photo to see enlarged and more detail, small photos do NOT do these beauties justice!!!!! Just sayin')

Here are the swatches of the palettes:

Blue Had Me At Hello

Petal Pusher

Petal Pusher

Petal Pusher

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comfort Zone

    

Comfort Zone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My rating???? 9/10 

Easily blendable
NICE colors
good pigmentation 
awesome quality for drugstore brand (is in the running w/ most high end shadows) 
CHEAP!
PERMANENT (not limited edition)
Only con: exclusive to Wal-Mart and Walgreens (in my area Wal-Mart does not carry Wet N Wild, so here you can only find them at Walgreens, which carries limited stock at a time)
OH and, be ready for some fallout on a few shades.


Best of the three palettes: Comfort Zone... smoooooth like butter!

Wet N Wild - oh so sexxxxxy

FYI: IF YOU CLICK ON THE PHOTOS YOU CAN SEE THEM QUITE ENLARGED FOR DETAILS ON THE SHADOWS!  :-)

There has been a lot of talk about the brand Wet N Wild and so I gave in during the weeks before the holiday season and when I noticed the limited edition holiday palettes hanging on an end cap at Walgreens, I snatched them up to try them out. I was skeptical of their quality. I'm not a makeup snob, but ever since I started using higher end shadows, I have noticed a huge difference when I apply eyeshadow. It could also be the technique, though... right? I picked up Night Elf and Snow Sprite palettes which each come w/ six shades in them. They are quite hard to find now (if you are desperate, check ebay, but don't pay over $10-$12 for them. Brand new, full price was about $4.99, if I recall correctly.

This is leading somewhere, I promise... Recently I heard Wet N Wild came out with new "trios" and although I had not seen any pictures of looks using the colors, I ventured out seeking to purchase them and give them a go. May as well, right? They are (at time of purchase) 50% off at Walgreens, which comes to a whopping $1.49 for three decent sized shadows!

While there, I picked up some lippies, the new Maybelline Fit Me foundation(s) in colors 115 and 120. <--- I am NW15 MAC for reference and 115 was perfect for me, 120 a tad darker than I like (good for summer) and had a bit of a yellow undertone to it.

So, want to see the pictures of the shadows and STUFF??? I'm gonna post a couple photos of looks I completely using theses shadows, also....

Above look was using the Wet N Wild Silent Treatment Trio palette

The above look was done w/ the Night Elf palette

above look created using the Snow Sprite palette (obviously this is two different looks done at once, I'm not actually leaving my house w/ my face like this, haha)

just being silly w/ ma'hat! .... (and yes, I know the shadows are still two different colors, haha!)

Haul from Walgreens - all of that for $35

L-R "I'm Getting Sunburned", "Spoiled Brat", "Walking on Eggshells"

L-R "I Got Good Jeans", "Knock On Wood", "Don't Steal My Thunder"

L-R "I Dream of Greenie", "Silent Treatment"

these are identified by #'s AND names... click on the photo to see the names enlarged

Revlon Colorstay (R) was on sale for $3.50 (can't beat that, so I bought some to add to my kit for darker toned ladies- or gents)

Urban Decay pigments

So, recently, I was able to find these on sale on Hautelook and I could not pass them up for the price. I have never tried Urban Decay's pigments before. I've tried a couple shadows and of course, their PRIMER POTION (Heaven sent). I've heard wonderful things and read great reviews about most of UD's products...so when given the chance to get them cheaply, I had to buy as many as I could.

So, first, let's swatch these beauties...

from top left to right: GUNMETAL, YEYO, SMOG

2nd row: SHAG, ROCKSTAR, GODDESS

3rd row: GRAFFITI, ASPHYXIA, PROTEST

I have to say, a couple of these are very nice. The pink color, Asphyxia, is smooth, highly pigmented and is a soft pink that can easily be used in many looks w/out going "over the top". It's shimmery and like satin.

The green color, Graffiti, is also a wonderful color. It has a slight hint of gold to it, but still manages to remain a "cool" color. I have a hard time wearing warm colors, but greens like this are great to work with.

The color (next to the green) called Shag is what I would call a melon-gold color. Not orange, not gold, but it has a slight peach tone to it, which I LOVE. Highly pigmented, easy to blend. Yeyo, the white pigment, is the perfect inner corner highlight color. Vibrant, smooth, easy to work with/blendable. Stands out as a highlight. Each color has qualities worthwhile. I will try all of them in looks and hope to get lots of use out of them.

That all being said... the packaging for these is the worst I've came upon ever. It says that these are 1 gram. I'm not really sure how that looks in a jar, as far as the amount, but I'm guessing it's not much. Not a problem, usually, b/c you only need a TINY bit to go a long way. HOWEVER, being that the packaging is so bad, you end up dropping a lot of the product... the brush that is attached to the lid is useless and causes more problems with fallout. You can NOT use it to apply the pigment unless you want to cover your whole face with the pigment fallout. Not the easiest thing to get off if you completed the rest of your makeup first (foundation, etc). So, if there was a way to extract this from the container it comes in (I'm working on it), it'd be worth it to use these. If not, it's quite hard to not spill and you can not fit most brushes into the tube if you tried that route. It's just not going to happen.

So, for quality, color and blendability, this is decent enough for the price I paid. I'd never pay full price, which was originally about $17. I believe most places have them for approximately $5. As far as packaging, this alone makes it hard for me to want to repurchase these pigments in the future.

I'd give this product a 5 on a scale of 1-10, and that deduction of 5 points is mostly due to the poorly designed tubes and useless brush it comes with.

UPDATE: I was able to get out what appears to be most of the pigment from each container. I just put them into sample jars. There is a lot more than 1 gram in each container. So, Urban Decay advertises 1 gram, but if you shake and pound the container on a table (on top of a piece of paper) then funnel it into another container, it does measure out to about 3-5 grams!!!!! So, quite the difference in size! I'm actually a lot more pleased that I bought these now.

Stila, not such a steal

I heard great things about Stila from the girls on the makeup site I frequent over the years. Here and there, I'd try a shadow without much luck. I thought maybe I was just picking the wrong colors/formulas (mattes, satins, etc.). However, upon placing an order from Sephora recently and trying a few Stila palettes, I realized, they are just crap. Every single color was hard to work with and took so much to build the color on a primed eye. They were chalky, had no pigmentation and in the palettes, the shadows are TINY.

I purchased these palettes for a "great deal", $10 each.

Stila: Road to Radiance Across the U.S.A. which includes 4 shadows and one convertible color (dual lip and cheek cream)

Stila: Pretty In Paris which, also, includes 4 shadows and one convertible color.

I'd rate these BOTH a 2/10

It gets 1 point for price and 1 point for being in a cute palette (Stila always makes "cute" items)

That's it. Not worth the money. If it was a freebie, I'd still not give it any more points on my scale.

Sorry, Stila, I am not a fan of these items.

Now, as I type, I checked Sephora. These items are no longer listed as available, however they have other similar sets for $10 and they claim it's a "$65 value". HA. Hardly.