indie nail mail & NYX glitter look

Supppppp?

Exciting and disappointing post for you guys today.

But let's do the positive first!

Yesterday I got in my Halloween nail mail!

Can you guess the polishes!?

If not, you'll have to wait until later this month to find out :P

Can't wait to show you guys these.

NOW on to the disappointment...

I posted the other day about the awesomely glittery NYX cream eyeshadow palettes I purchased.

I finally got around to playing with them and creating a look,

and let's just say it didn't work out too well :/

So head on isn't too bad,

but in the second picture you can see the horrible creasing and clumping going on.

I was afraid this would happen before I bought them, and lo and behold- here we are.

First (after primer), I applied UD's 'Maui Wowie', 'Honey', & 'Chopper' on the inner, middle, and outer corners of my eyes respectively. Then I dabbed on 4 of the 5 glitter cream shadows lightly over the area, attempting to build up a little opacity if I could but not expecting much. THEN, i dabbed on some more of the 3 UD shades BACK over the glitter to hold it in place. 

I gave it ample time to dry.

I'm just not sure what's going on.

I'm no pro with cream shadows, but I've heard this might by patchy regardless of your skill level. However, i'm not willing to chalk it up to crappy eyeshadow without playing with them more and studying up on different techniques to use with glitter cream shadows.

We shall see!

The jury is still out.

What are your thoughts on cream eye shadows?

Easy to work with or no?

What works best for you?

Any help would be awesome! :)

NYX Glitter Cream Palettes

HAPPY FRIDAY!

I'm pretty excited about today's post.

I was shopping in one of my favorite clothing stores yesterday and while waiting to check out, I saw these two gorgeous glitter palettes sitting all lonely on a table...

SO OF COURSE I HAD TO RESCUE THEM.

NYX 'Bronze Goddess'

NYX 'Ice Queen'

Woooooo! So much glitter and glitz,I can hardly stand it.

These are cream shadows, and i have very little experience with those, so adding the fact that they're GLITTER cream shadows might prove to be difficult for me to work with. At least at first. But they were too mesmerizing to pass up.

They'll be perfect for upcoming fall and winter holidays/parties!

I've never tried any NYX products (but I've been wanting to), so i'm anxious to try these out. 

Have you of you tried this palette?!

PLEASE let me know if you have- i'm super curious to know what you think about them.

Stay tuned for a look/review with these soon!

ALSO,

Have you entered my giveaway yet?!

Do so here. It ends Oct 8!

Open to international followers, too!! :)

look w/ & review of Maybelline Color Tattoo

Happy Labor Day!

I'm celebrating today by taking advantage of sales and buying my daughter's 1st birthday outfit :)

CAN'T WAIT. Yet I can at the same time, because I don't want her to grow up :'(

But anywayyyyyyyy,

I bought several products from Maybelline the other day,

and two of them were the new Maybelline Color Tattoo shadows.

I chose my favorite of the two and dutifully did a look with it,

and I have that + a small review here :)

This is 'Tenacious Teal' :

(not my picture!)

Despite being described as teal, I found this to be a BEAUTIFUL bright blue (see swatch here). I love wearing bright blue on my eyes so I was excited to try this sucker out.

Initially I did something very simple. I noticed this shadow was primarily used by itself in the commercial and I wanted to see how I liked that on myself. Though it's definitely bright and gorgeous, the look just felt naked with the shadow and mascara alone... so I added to it a bit.

That's better! Here I added Urban Decay's 'Haight', 'Evidence', and 'Maui Wowie' to my middle lid, outer corner/crease, and brow bone respectively, along with UD's 24/7 Eyeliner pencil in 'Peace' on my lower lash line. MUCH better looking, in my opinion. The look just seems more whole.

Now for the pros and cons of Maybelline's Color Tattoo in 'Tenacious Teal':

Pros:

- GORGEOUS, vivid color

- packed with shimmer

- smooth texture

- applies easily, without much balding

- cheap, compared to many of the prestige cosmetics I use

- lots of shadow for the price

Cons:

- STILL creases and crumples, despite myself letting it dry for a good time. This is marketed as lasting 24 hours- which has got to be total bull. I gave this about 6 entire minutes to dry and it immediately started clumping some

- an exact dupe of Urban Decay's Peace', which I already have loads of, so no use in having a dupe of this, for me personally (see look using 'Peace' here)

- a little pricey for the quality

Whether or not I would recommend this product depends who I'm talking to.

 If you're like me and already have this shade from another (& better) cosmetic company, then you're probably not going to find much use for this particular Color Tattoo, especially since it creases, where UD never does. HOWEVER, if you don't already have this shade OR can't exactly afford the hefty price tag prestige cosmetics cost (which I often can't), then I think this product would be great for you, on the condition that you don't expect it to last more than a couple hours. I DID dab on some 'Haight' in the spots that were trying to crease or clump, and that seemed to take care of it, so a similar tactic could be used to preserve it, maybe.

As you can see, I DID have more pros than cons- so for most people I think this would certainly be something worth trying! :)

You can get this at any larger supermarket like Walmart or Target, as well as most (if not all) drugstores, beauty stores like Ulta, and online for about $7-8.

SO, what are your thoughts?

If you have 'Tenacious Teal', or any other shadows from the Color Tattoo collection,

what has your experience been with them?

Maybelline haul, swatches, & look! (pic heavy)

Hey guys!

So after miss Nancy over at The Dark Side of Beauty featured some Maybelline eye shadow products, I decided that I was going to go ahead and give and buy them, since i'd been considering it for awhile.

Here's what I bought!

Maybelline Color Tattoo in 'Painted Purple' & 'Tenacious Teal'.

Maybelline 'Amethyst Ablaze'

Maybelline 'Sapphire' quartet.

Woo! I haven't used any Maybelline eyeshadows in manyyyyy many years,

but I have to say the pigment and shimmer in swatching these totally surprised me! :)

Now I didn't have time to do a look with everything,

but I DID attempt one with this last quartet of shadows.

Here's that:

This is very simple and straightforward. It's exactly how the back of the package suggested the colors be used, and honestly i'm not sure I would differ from it that much myself if I was determined to use them all together.

These didn't blend quite as easily as I'm used to with Urban Decay or Sugarpill,

but they weren't too bad. AND like i've already mentioned, I couldn't believe how great the pigment and shimmer was- I was really afraid they would be flat :/ I didn't wear this long enough to see how much staying power they had, and that will be a big determinant in if I reuse or purchase any more of these. I'll test that and then give a full review of these shadows later :)

I'll post looks with the other products soon.

Do any of you have any of these?

What do you think about them?!

Thanks for reading! :)