Wet N Wild palette in "Blue Had Me at Hello"

I've been having a love affair with Wet N Wild eye shadow lately. Their trios are heavenly! When I saw the teal in this palette, I knew I had to have it.

There are two looks to this palette. On the left is a smokey look and on the right is a teal look. Both of them are stunning when applied. Hopefully you can see how beautiful the swatches are. These shadows are buttery. My favorite color is the teal. It's beautiful and true to color.

If you want cheap, high quality shadows, check out these palettes!

Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Barbie Loves Stila Smudge Pot in Cobalt Clutch

I eyed this product for a long time before I bit the bullet and finally bought it. The funny part is that it was on sale the entire time I was eying it for only $8! Seeing as how Smudge Pots retail for $20, I'm not really sure why I waited... Oh yea, the color. I was both fascinated and terrified of the electric blue. Instead of calling it "Cobalt Clutch" they could have called it "The Most Beautiful And Impractical Color Ever."

As you can probably see from my swatch, it swatches more on the sheer side (buildable coverage) and it is a little blotchy at times. I would suggest wearing a primer with this color because it smudged and creased on my pretty easily when I wore it as a liner (I am still afraid to wear it as a lid color).

Do you have this color? What do you think of it? Let me know!

Show Your School Colors!

As you may know from my previous post, I graduated with an Associates Degree yesterday. I thought it would be fun to do a post showing the colors of various schools on my friend's eyes. Now to do these looks, I primarily used the ELF 100 shadow palette which has SO MANY COLORS. On my friend Leslie, I used the Maybelline Color Tattoo eyeshadow in Too Cool as a base as none of the whites in the palette were opaque enough.

First up we have my sister Maddy. The colors of our local High School are green and blue. I thought this would be a fun way for her to show school spirit at her sports games and pep rallies. As you can see, I used blue all over her lid and green in the crease and outer corner. I didn't blend the two shadows much as I wanted them to stand out individually.

My best friend Becca attends the University of Guelph in Ontario Canada. Their school colors are gold, red, and black. I lined her eyes heavily with black, covered her lids in the gold color, and blended red into the crease. This gave her a pretty fiery look, perfect for school spirit (or Gryffindor fans).

This patriotic look was the most difficult to come up with. My best friend Leslie attends American University in Washington D.C. When making half an eye red and the other half blue didn't work, I gave her a look similar to the one on Becca, but I lined her eyes with the blue. The Maybelline Color Tattoo really helped to give her eyes the patriotic white color. Not only is this look perfect for her school, it could also be used for any of the patriotic holidays. Only a month until July 4th people!

And finally me! Instead of doing the school I just graduated from, I did the colors of the University of Vermont, the school that I will be attending in the fall. This is probably the most wearable look of all of them because they colors are much more neutral.

Now I have a challenge for you guys. Send me a picture of your eyes done up in your school colors. I don't care if you are graduated or just starting out, I want to see! Give me your information and I will do a post with all the looks I collect! My email is themakeupexplorer@gmail.com.

Naked vs. Naked 2, A review and comparison

Naked 2 on top and Naked on bottom

Naked 2 on top and Naked on bottom

As a graduation gift to myself, I bought myself the Naked 2 palette. I had been wanting this for a while, but because it was $50, I wanted  to save it for a special occasion. I will now review and compare the palettes!

So first off, the packaging. The original Naked palette is in a velour cardboard palette with magnets that secure it. It has a small mirror on the inside. Naked 2 comes in a hard case that closes with a clasp. It has a much bigger mirror inside. In terms of packaging, Naked 2 is clearly superior.

Naked and Naked 2 both come with brushes and extras. Naked comes with an eye shadow brush and a mini Urban Decay primer potion. I absolutely love the brush that comes with the Naked palette. It is my brush of choice every day when I apply my eye make-up, no matter what shadows I am using. The primer potion is also really good. A lot of people were happy that the Naked 2 palette doesn't include a primer potion as Urban Decay usually includes it in their other palettes. I do think that it is unfortunate that they don't include it because for people who are new to the brand and who decide to buy Naked 2, they won't be getting the primer potion. I recommend the primer potion highly! Naked 2 comes with a dual sided brush and a mini lip junkie in Naked. The shadow brush on the dual sided brush is smaller than the shadow brush in the original Naked palette. I don't like it as much as the original brush because of this, but it is still a very high quality brush. One thing I do enjoy about the dual sided brush is the crease brush. It is a nice brush, although I have crease brushes from Sigma that I prefer. I like that they include a crease brush, if I take this palette with me on a trip I won't have to bring two separate brushes! The lipgloss isn't my favorite. When it comes to lip plumpers I prefer Buxom plumpers. The color also kind of washes my face out. It's so neutral that I probably wouldn't use it in conjunction with either Naked palette as I feel it looks best with a bright eye. I would have to say when it comes to the additional items in the palettes, the original Naked wins.

Now on to the colors. Between the two palettes, there is one color that is the same and that is Half Baked. One interesting fact about Naked 2 is that the shadows were formulated with Urban Decay's new formula. I couldn't really tell the difference between the two when I swatched both versions of Half Baked. When it comes to the two palettes, Naked has more warm shades and Naked 2 seems to venture more into cool shades, especially more towards the right side of the palette. I love that Naked 2 includes two silver colors. One thing that I would change about Naked 2 if I could would be to arrange the colors from light to dark like they did (more or less) in the original Naked palette. Naked contains two matte colors, both brown crease colors. Naked 2 contains three matte colors, a highlight color, a crease color, and a black. I enjoy the selection of mattes in Naked 2 more than the ones in Naked.

All together I do like both palettes. I believe that both palettes stand alone but can also easily be used in conjunction with each other. I think the original Naked is perfect for a beginner. It was one of the first palettes that I ever purchased. I would say that Naked is what really enthused me about make-up. I think Naked 2 is great for someone with more experience. I love both of the palettes, but it is not necessary to own both.

Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Urban Decay 24/7 Pencil Stash

Left to Right: Delinquent, Rehab, Juju, Sin, Clash

Left to Right: Delinquent, Rehab, Juju, Sin, Clash

Left to Right: Delinquent, Rehab, Juju, Sin, Clash

 I had been eying these for a long time before I found them for $12 on HauteLook. Now they are $9 in the sale section on the Urban Decay website!

So let me describe these for you all. Delinquent is a dark purple with purple glitter. Rehab is a shimmery medium brown. Juju is a shimmery taupe color a few shades lighter than Rehab. Sin is a shimmery champagne color. Clash is a bright blue with silver sparkles.

These pencils are not full size, but they are well worth the price. I brought these with me when I went to Florida and I loved them! They can be worn as a shadow, liner, or base! They don't crease on me and they are easily blendable. As you can see in the third picture, it is pretty easy to blend them out before they dry. My sisters even ditched the make-up that they brought to Florida to use these every day and when we got back, one of them bought this kit!

These are perfect for anyone who wants quick and easy tools when they are on the go!

Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Maybelline Color Tattoo Eyeshadows

Top Left to Right: Too Cool, Tenacious Teal, Tough as Taupe. Bottom Left to Right: Bad to the Bronze, Audacious Asphalt.

Left to Right: Too Cool, Bad to the Bronze, Tenacious Teal, Audacious Asphalt, and Tough as Taupe

Everyone say hello to the first huge overly hyped product of 2012. People are calling these an exact dupe for MAC paint pots. Everyone is raving about these on youtube and in blogs. Well I'm about to give an unpopular opinion.

First of all, the colors that I purchased (minus the blue) are the only neutral colors that they have put out. Every other color is very bright and vivid. If these are going to be the dupes for MAC paint pots they are going to have to put out more neutrals. None of these colors make a good neutral base for eyeshadows in my opinion. I love champagne colors like Stila Kitten and MAC Bare Study for bases.

Although the range of color isn't anything to talk about, they do swatch beautifully. Here is my theory. Everyone who has raved about these has primarily swatched them. Because they aren't the most wearable colors, people have probably reviewed them based on the swatches. If I was reviewing them based on the swatches on my hands I would say how much I loved them. How long they stay. How they don't wash off when I wash my hands. How they stayed better than Stila and MAC's equivalent products... Yadda Yadda Yadda.

Here's the deal. Yes they do swatch beautifully. I love looking at them swatched on my hands. But on my eyes it's another story. I do not have oily lids. I never have creasing problems. My eyeshadow usually never budges. But no matter what I do, I can use primer or use it by itself, this product creases on me. I don't know if I'm special in this, but it is the most frustrating thing. All of the color will migrate into my crease. I always end up with a line of color tattoo in my crease. It's not attractive.

I really tried guys. I wore these every day for a week and I tried different primers under it. I am very disappointed with it. I wanted to like this more than anyone can possibly know. Some of them stayed better, but the color faded really quickly and it was just no good. I'd be interested to see if anyone else comes out and says they hate this.

Let me know if they work for you. If there is some secret trick for getting these to stay in place let me know as well. Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Mattese Elite Stardust Powders

Top: Purple Haze, Left: Kaleidoscope, Right: Glitzy

Purple Haze

Kaleidoscope

Glitzy

These powders were my first purchase from the member-only site Haute Look. If you want to check it out, follow this invite link: http://www.hautelook.com/short/3CkaV and sign up!They have really great beauty deals (and other great stuff) every day! They also have and iPad app which I find to be really handy. I have since purchased two other things from them that I will talk about later. You really get a good deal on this stuff. I got each of these for $5! Check it out!


Anyways, I was a little surprised when I got these. First of all, I live on the east coast and Haute Look is on the west coast so shipping took forever. I don't mind though because you never know when your package is going to come (awesome surprise) and the prices are so good. The second surprise was the color. (For the record, I do not blame Haute Look in any way for this. This was all the fault of Mattese Elite. I checked their website and the pictures were inaccurate there as well). The pictures of the products were nothing like the colors I received. Purple Haze was darker than it looked on the site, Glitzy is bronze when on the site it looked like a champagne, and Kaleidoscope appeared to be a light brown when in truth it's a rust with green duo-chrome. I do like the colors that I received, but I feel like I would enjoy them that much more if I had received the colors I thought I was going to receive. 


Anyways, on to the review. These products are similar to MAC pigments (not quite the same quality wise but very similar). The difference in packaging is that these have a plastic sifter on them. This does not mean that the powder will be prevented from spilling everywhere if you let them free in a travel bag. These powders are best stored in an upright position to ensure cleanliness (I wish someone had forewarned me!). You also really need to use a primer with these or wear them wet. When swatched, it is easy to just rub the colors off.


Purple Haze is a very pretty deep purple with blue, purple, and silver micro glitter. This shade would look nice dusted very lightly over the lid, used more concentrated in the crease or the outer lid, or used wet as a liner. 


Kaleidoscope is probably the most difficult to pull off but the most fascinating to look at. As I said earlier, it is a rust color with a green duo-chrome. It has green and blue micro glitter. As a lid color it would probably be best for a night time look or on dark skin tones. For the day time it makes a nice outer lid or crease color. 


Glitzy is a very vivid bronze with gold micro glitter. It is probably the most wearable of the bunch, but you need to be careful when applying it or everything will end up way too bronzed. This is definitely a lid color though. 


I'm not blown away by these products but I like them. I'm not sure I would buy any more of these unless they were $5 again. I definitely won't trust the color options though. 


Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

L'Oreal Infallible Eye Shadow

Perpetual Purple and Iced Latte

Perpetual Purple and Iced Latte

Perpetual Purple and Iced Latte

Perpetual Purple and Iced Latte

What a spring season it has been for drug store companies! First Revlon hit it big with their Lip Butters, then Maybelline had their Dream Bouncy Blush and Color Tattoo Eyeshadows, and L'Oreal has their infallible eyeshadows! They are giving high end brands a run for their money!

First of all, the texture on these is amazing. In the pot it is almost damp. It swatches and applies in a beautiful long lasting powder. My swatches don't really do the product justice! The two that I purchased have a glorious high shine and gorgeous micro glitter. I only purchased two because I wanted to try them out before I got a whole bunch. I decided to go with a crazy color and a neutral color.

So first of all Perpetual Purple is a very pretty deep purple color. I am very attracted to purples of all shades so I had to have this when I saw it. It is probably best used as a liner if you want to use it for everyday but it also makes a gorgeous outer eye-lid/crease color for a more dramatic look. The micro glitter is blue, pink, and purple which gives it a lovely shimmery effect.

Iced Latte was the color that initially drew my attention. It is probably the one that most beauty gurus will be drawn to. Why? Because it is the perfect highlight color. It is a gorgeous champagne with silver and gold micro glitter. When not in direct light it matches my skin exactly, but when the light does shine on it, it is the most attractive color! I have been using this like mad, not just for my eyes but sometimes for my cheeks as well. As a lot of people know, I'm obsessed with highlight colors right now so this is perfect for me. I would definitely repurchase this color again and again.

I have one caution for anyone buying this product. When I opened the packages there were two gray things on the colors. I took them out and threw one of them away without really looking at it. I should have because it says clearly: "Do not discard." Some people think that it is because the product will dry out. That's not the case. I know for a fact that if you DON'T keep the gray plastic thing in it and try to travel with these shadows, the color will come apart from the bottom of the pan and get all over the cap. KEEP YOUR GRAY PROTECTOR THINGS! You'll be sorry if you don't!

Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Maybelline Great Lash Mascara in Green Envy

I have to be honest, I bought this by accident. I've heard so many great things about Great Lash mascara that I wanted to try it. I saw this one and the package said special edition. Clearly I didn't read it as well as I should have because I ended up with green mascara - not that I'm complaining.

I've been infatuated with colored mascaras ever since I was a little girl and I saw my aunt wearing blue mascara. I thought it was the coolest thing that I had ever seen. It ended up being great that I bought this by accident because it IS the coolest thing. It gives your eyes a beautiful green fringe and it's lengthening to boot!

I'm going to have to try the original great lash in the future but for now this is really fun!

Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Urban Decay Cream Shadow in Midnight Rodeo

Of all the three Urban Decay cream shadows that I own, this is the best. It is very subtle and pretty. I tend to wear the same types of colors over and over again, and this is one of them. It is the perfect every day color.

Midnight Rodeo is a shimmery champagne color with lots of sparkle. The great thing about these cream shadows is that there is no glitter fallout. This can be used like a MAC paint pot to put powder shadows over or it can just be used on its own.

What do you guys think? Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Tarte The Starlet Makeup Vanity Review

Closed Palette

Open Palette

 Traditional Smoky Eye

 Top to Right: Celebrity, Superstar, Luminary, Opening Night

Left to Right: Celebrity, Superstar, Luminary, Opening Night

Earthy

Top to Right: Talent, Idol, Cameo, Virtuoso

Left to Right: Talent, Idol, Cameo, Virtuoso

 Plum Smoky Eye

Left to top: Stardom, Icon, Siren, Major

Left to right: Major, Siren, Icon, Stardom

Blues

Left to Top: Fame, Big Break, Toast, VIP

Left to Right: VIP, Toast, Big Break, Fame

 Browns

Left to Top: Popular, Timeless, Trophy, Prestige

Left to Right: Trophy, Prestige, Popular, Timeless

 Pinks

Left to Top: Ingénue, Prima Donna, Diva, Leading Lady

Left to Right: Leading Lady, Diva, Ingénue, Prima Donna

 

Left to Right: Bronzer in Park Avenue Princess, Blush in Glory, Blush in Starlet, Shimmering Powder in Rose

Left to Right: Park Avenue Princess, Glory, Starlet, Rose

There is a lot here. A lot a lot. First of all, the entire palette is set in a beautiful mirrored jewelry box. The idea is that you can pull out the glittery trays that hold the makeup and use the box as a jewelry box. I haven't done this because I really don't have a protected place to put the make-up. Maybe if I ever invest in z-palettes I'll do it but for now I like to keep the box on my vanity.

Onto the colors. There are a lot of shimmery colors and a lot of matte colors which is nice to see in a large palette like this. The matte colors tend to be lighter and therefore less pigmented but that's ok too as the mini palettes aren't all overpowering. The shimmery colors tend to be amazingly pigmented, especially the cooler ones.

I spent a lot of time debating whether to get this or the Lorac palette that was along the same lines as this. I had never tried Lorac and I wanted to, but then again I've had such fantastic luck with Tarte so far that I knew I wanted this one. In the end I went with what I knew and I'm pleased I did. Not only did I get a bunch of new eyeshadows handily arranged in matching groups of four, I also got four cheek colors and two mascaras.

The cheek colors are amazing. I've wanted to try the amazonian clay blushes for a long time and based on the two that are in this palette I think I will order some more. The pigmentation on them is spectacular. The bronzer is also very nice, but the highlighter is probably my favorite. It's that perfect shade of pinky glow that I look for in a highlighter.

The mascara is great too. The lights camera lashes mini will be the third lights camera lashes mini that I have received. You won't hear me complaining though as it is my favorite mascara. I also love that they included a lash primer in the set. I currently use a Clinique lash primer but it is nice to have another one for when I'm on the go!

I love this set. If it is still available I would recommend it to anyone who wants a ton of makeup! Please leave questions and comments and subscribe!

Urban Decay Matte Eye Shadow in Electric

What?? You say this is a matte shade?? No way!

But seriously Urban Decay makes the most pigmented matte eye shadows that I have ever seen. I also love the color. It's so bright and turquoise!

Now on to the more practical stuff. How do you wear this eyeshadow??? First of all, I wouldn't just sear this over my lid. This eyeshadow is really great for everyday as a liner. I would line the top lid of my eye with it for a little pop! It is also good paired with a brown color.

Please leave any questions and comments and subscribe!