IT for Ulta's Contour Set is IT!

Well, I love this contour set from IT. The brushes fit nicely in my hand. The brush head is dense with soft synthetic hair, but not so densely packed that it's too firm to work with. I was so disappointed with RT's Bold Metal flat contour. IT has made the contour brush that I didn't that I needed! At $39 for essentially 3 brushes & a case, in comparison to the $26 that I dropped for the Bold Metals brush. I feel like IT gave me a way better deal over Real Techniques. Especially because I'll be using the Contour Must-Haves kit everyday. I've used that RT brush 5 times in the year that I've owned it. This kit from IT Cosmetics gets an A+ from me.

NYX Slide On Lip Pencil review pt.2

My order came today, yay! Of course I had a camera fiasco last week, so I did the best I could taking photo swatches via my tablet's cam. Here they are:

The colors are rich & true to the descriptions. Sugar Glass was described as a yellow toned brown (beige), in the neutrals category. Nude Suede Shoes was described as a pink toned neutral (beige). Both of these are exactly the colors as described. All of the Slide On Lip Pencils apply very smoothly with good color payoff, & are matte. These are really reminding me of the original formula CG Smoothers lipliners. (If only they would resurrect my holy grail CG Smoothers liner in Sleek Teak, a mauve toned taupe!) In comparison to Urban Decay's Glide On lipliners they're not as dry & Nude Suede Shoes doesn't pull orange on me like Naked & Naked 2 did. They do come off fairly easily with Garnier's makeup removing lotion cleanser, but they don't smudge very much when I directly wipe them with my fingers. Price points:  NYX Slide On Lip Pencil $7.99(Ulta); Urban Decay Glide On Lip Pencil $20 (everywhere). I don't care about the difference in price points, even if both these lines were priced at the more expensive $20, I would still prefer NYX's color range. This is not because I have anything against Urban Decay, I actually really love the UD Ozone Primer Pencil along with the Super-Saturated lip color pencils (discontinued). I also do not care for NYX's High Voltage lipstick line. I ordered French Kiss based off the swatch & description of being a cool toned pink. It was neither of those things! More like neon peach, yuck. My point is that every makeup company can have hits or misses. I feel like the Slide On lippies are a hit for NYX.

Real Techniques How Could You???

  I don't know who to blame this on. Real Techniques was doing great until the last year or so. I hadn't purchased a brush that I didn't like from RT until 2014. Of course there were some brushes in my kits that weren't getting as much love as my daily used favorites, but now it's happened. I've gotten terrible brushes from Real Techniques; the silicone liner brush. It's a pointed silicone tip that's supposed to be excellent for gel liners, but I hate it. It does not glide gel liners evenly onto my lashline as promised. It skips & drags them along, unpleasantly & unevenly as possible. Here's a pic of the offending party($6), courtesy of RealTechniques.com

Now,  let's talk about the Bold Metals flat contour brush 

@$26, this was not a cheap mistake for me to make. The handle is plastic (not metal), it's way too long, & feels weighty in the hand. I often end up banging the handle into my makeup mirror. The brush is very densely packed, but it doesn't blend out contour very nicely. I've got a lot of makeup experience under my belt, & I'm getting the sense that more isn't necessarily better when it comes to packing the bristles into brush heads. Especially when making them so dense, counterintuitively makes the brush heads too firm. I want a precise contour, but I want the brush to work with me, not against me....  Here's to hoping that I have better luck with IT's new Contour set (from their Ulta line).

Oh Joy! NYX is duping UD's Glide On lippies! Pt.1

    Happy day to you all! So Nyx has recently released their Slide On lip pencil line:

 From the appearance, & description, I'm going to assume that these are the dupe for Urban Decay's Glide On pencil line. Although, I hope not exactly! I mean in reference to UD's color range. I haven't been exactly salivating with the direction they've went with the "nude lip" trend. Everything seems to have a warmer brown, or peachy undertone. Or the lip pencils are pink & on the bright side. I don't care what undertone you are, if you're fair (like myself) only a cool, pink toned nude shade is going to look MLBB. Ok, rant over. Crossing my fingers that NYX nailed the nude lip for us fair skinned ladies. I couldn't find nary a review ANYWHERE on the interwebs, so I was forced to buy the colors that I was deliberating over, all 5 of them. I go first, so that others may know the pros & cons before they buy (you're welcome). The colors I purchased from Ulta.com (my nearest Ulta is 90 minutes away) are: 1.Bedrose; described as soft, nude pink w/mauve undertone, 2.Dark soul; deep, wine red, 3.Nude Suede Shoes; nude w/pink undertone, 4.Sugar Glass; true nude w/yellow undertone, 5.Red Tape; deep red. 

 Yes, I did get a yellow toned nude in there, but the swatch online looked really enticing. Besides in my experience, Ulta's online swatches/descriptions are usually waaaaay off. Why not buy directly from NYX online & enjoy the lower free shipping cut off, while saving myself the sales tax, you may ask? Well, I also have my suspicions that this may have something to do with the lack of reviews on this product, but the NYX site warns in its basket to expect shipping delays because they're revamping their site. I also took note of the banner announcements for their flagship stores opening (in the L.A. area). So, I should be getting my order of these in the next couple days & I'll be back with some swatches & reviews!

Makeup Overhaul

  I'm wondering how many other women suffer from this disorder? Is anyone else a makeup "hoarder?" 

Ok, well I am. I might have to blame this partially on Leslie over at Bare Minerals, with her mineral makeup that can last practically forever. I had gotten into the habit of never throwing anything out. Unfortunately, Bare Minerals doesn't do it for me anymore. I've graduated to IT Cosmetics' line, so it was time to overhaul my makeup cart. 

This was all brought about because of an itch I got to try out blue eyeshadow, which led to an overhaul of my eyeshadow drawer 

So now here we are. It's probably good that these events came to pass, everything is orderly, the stuff I use most is easily accessible & my impulse purchases in Walmart's makeup aisle have been curtailed. Also, I did end up finding a great blue pallet from Revlon's CustomEyes; the greyer leaning smoky blue one.

HUGE Makeup Don't!

 

  I'm not going to post any pics with this post as the following events that I'm about to record for your edification, are ones that I want to forget & never, ever repeat again! Well, that was a bit dramatic but have you ever tried a new look, or thought to see if doing things in a different order would be a good idea? I will admit that I was intrigued by the Wayne Goss technique of applying powder, then liquid foundation. So you can see how this happened then.
 The order that I apply my sunscreen moisturizer ( Cerave spf 30) & makeup primer had been bothering me for a while. The sunscreen (moisturizer) was going on, then the primer. Was this removing my moisturizer's sunscreening capabilities?  This question was beginning to really weigh on my mind. It had occurred to me that I should try applying my primer before the spf, to prevent any loss of sun protection. Actually I thought about it for a week before I proceeded. Yesterday was the day. I broke my routine, I applied the primer after my serum, then I put the Cerave spf 30 over the top. My makeup went on just fine. Everything I was expecting from the primer was there as per usual. The day went on as normal....then I started to feel the breakthrough oil. I do not have oily skin. I used to have normal to combination skin, which has changed into normal to dry skin as my 30s progress, but my skin hasn't ever been oily. Well, this was my first experience of having to hit up Starbucks, for their napkins, to blot the excess sebum off of my greasy mug. I had attempted to powder with IT Cosmetics HD Micro powder in the car, but that was like trying to plug the whole in the dam with bubblegum. When I checked my makeup I was in shock. My normally trustworthy IT Cosmetics powder foundation had oxidized to a shade of cheap-drugstore-foundation-orange! Every pore & line (I hadn't previously known existed) was emphasized. I realize that this is because the primer normally seals in all the benefits from the moisturizer & evens the texture of your skin. When I reversed the order I was sealing OUT my moisturizer & creating a greasy mess sitting on my face that my foundation couldn't deal with. The headline to this story is to please be innovative on a day in. I was walking around town doing my errands all while rocking this horrible makeup don't!
  I'm not Wayne Goss, I know that now. His reversal of powder & liquid foundation was innovative & inspiring, but I think he would be horrified if he knew that he had inspired yesterday's hot makeup mess.

Sale News & IT Cosmetics Updated Reviews

  It is Labor Day weekend......and bye bye summer!!! :'(   Just kidding. I'm actually kind of relieved that summer is over. With all the changes that me & my family have experienced this year, the summer just flew by, really. To follow up with the All Love Potion Releases testing; the variants I ended up going full bottle on were: Love Potion: Flutterby, Love Potion: Incandescence, & Love Potion: Rouge. The runners-up were Love Potion: Ceremony, Love Potion: Blue, & Love Potion: Tropique, but that doesn't mean that I won't possess them in the future. If you forced me to pick my absolute favorite for the collection, it would have to be Incandescence.

 What can I say? The tangy gourmand notes in this one smell so delicious I get tempted to lick my arm when I'm wearing it, but since I'm smelling delicious cake all day I really don't feel like having any. Plus people are just NICE to me when I smell like this, just REALLY super helpful/friendly/generally pleasant to be around. 

 In more Love Potion Perfumerie news they put out an extensive one note collection; titled Sugared Layerables. Which is actually a revamped re-release of a discontinued line. I like what they decided to do for their label art, which was to include their forum community on the labels. Here's mine 

(Which is a picture from about 20 lbs ago, lol) Anyway, Mara does a wonderful job on the photoshop :)

 So far I've acquired Sugared Strawberry, which is a true Strawberry scent,but think along the lines of strawberry preserves. I, of course, need to get my hands on a bottle of Sugared Lotus, & Sugared Grapefruit.Also there's a huge Buy Some Get Some Free sale going on:  http://www.lovepotionperfume.com/

  Now, let's talk about IT Cosmetics. I have a love/hate relationship with this cosmetics line, but lately I find that a couple drawers in my 7 drawer cart of makeup & hair are being slowly, but surely taken over by products from this line. I think it's because their bronzers & highlighters just blend so easily & end up looking so natural. Plus they make these really great, & expensive, brushes that they just give away in their value kits on shopping channels. I still don't recommend their mascara, but they have upped their game with their cream-gel liners. I use them on my waterline & they don't budge. My Smashbox gel liner doesn't budge either, but IT Cosmetics makes a creamier, i.e. easier to apply version & you get twice the amount of product for the same price.

 I also took a picture of the bronzer with my flash on to show that there's absolutely 0% percent shimmer to this product. It's 100% percent matte, blends easily, & manages to have a satin finish. I have no idea how they do that; a matte, yet satin finish. Maybe they're wizards? IT Cosmetics is priced at the higher end, but they do offer free shipping over $25 on their site https://www.itcosmetics.com/

~Blessings, B~