Aqualillies for Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof Eye and Cheek Palette

Although the formula of the shadows, bronzer, highligher, and blush are soft, blendable, mostly matte with a touch of shimmer… I can’t help but be crazy disappointed in the blue shade Poolside. In the pan? Bright blue. Swatching it and then using it? Barely visible sheerest of sheer blues.

Tarte claims that the palette is waterproof and I haven’t had an opportunity to try that out. Not sure how I would either unless I do a full face and take a shower!

Overall I like it well enough for a neutral day look and I love the blush color.

Aqualillies for Tarte Amazonian clay waterproof liner in Splash

I normally do not buy gel eyeliners, I’ve always just preferred pencils but this color was too beautiful to pass up. The included brush made it very simple even for me (seriously, I NEVER use gel eyeliners) to apply. It’s a lovely teal color that you can wear on it’s own with just some mascara or it would be great for a pop of color on a neutral eye look.

When I saw the Benefit Cosmetics Matthew Williamson The Rich is Back kit mentioned in SO MANY of my magazines, I knew I had to get it. Golden neutrals with a pop of color? My favorite mascara? A sparkly lipgloss? HELL YES!

The Kit Contains:

• 0.14oz They’re Real Mascara
• 0.22 oz Lip Gloss in Inferno
• 0.07 oz Gimme Fever Cheek Powder
• 4 x 0.03 oz Eyeshadow Palette in Solid Gold, Get Down Brown, Disco Dust, Feel So Teal

I found the lipgloss could either be applied sheer with a finger (which is what I did) or layered and made more opaque. It had a fruity scent and flavor to it, not awful but I’m just not a fan of strongly scented lip products overall.

The Gimme Fever Cheek Powder, is a bit sheer. It’s very pretty though, with golden shimmer in it.

The eyeshadows were a bit drier but still easy to work with. Disco Dust is VERY sheer and I used it on the inner corners of my eyes. The rest of the shadows were nicely pigmented and easily blended. I used Solid Gold all over the lid with Get Down Brown in the crease and Feel So Teal smudged out on my lower lashline.

Overall I really like the kit. The box itself can have the products and insert removed and be re-purposed into something else, to hold jewelry perhaps.

I’ve recently subscribed to SquareHue, which is a monthly nail polish subscription box. You don’t get to choose the colors but each $21 box generally has a theme. The June 2013 SquareHue box theme is South Beach!

The Colors

• Ocean Drive
• Lincoln Road
• Collins Avenue

LOVED THIS BOX HARDCORE! Gorgeous colors and perfect formula!

Ocean Drive is this perfect shade of blue. It reminds me a lot of Zoya Wednesday actually. It’s a lighter teal creme, not TOO green or too blue. Just perfection.

Lincoln Road… you think “oh… a grey…” but no! It’s warmer than that. Reminds me a bit of putty or concrete in the sun actually. I think this would be perfect with a gold glitter on top like Deborah Lippmann’s Boom Boom Pow maybe? I’m going to try and see how that turns out.

Collins Avenue is a BRIGHT orange neon that leaned a bit coral on me and it has this micro silver shimmer. It dried a little bit matte but a topcoat takes care of that.

All swatches needed 3 thin coats and I did not use any base or top coat.

I can’t recommend SquareHue enough. You get a ton of polish for the price, a good variety of colors, they donate to worthy causes… no gimmicks. They do nail polish and they do it very well.

How would I describe this palette? In one word… EPIC.

The case itself is very sturdy with a full mirror and the eye shadows are removable to put in any other Urban Decay customizable palette case or if you run out of a shade in this palette, you can put another in its place.

It contains eight eye shadows in six pans, as two of the pans contain dual colors.

The Colors

• Tornado (vibrant deep purple shimmer)
• Aura (2 shades in 1: iridescent white w/blue shift and iridescent white w/red shift)
• Magic (pinkish purple w/golden shimmer)
• Illusion (pale peach satin)
• Oz (2 shades in 1: gold shimmer w/gold glitter and silver shimmer w/silver glitter)
• South (warm pale gray shimmer w/silver micro-glitter)

Magic is my #1 reason to recommend this palette. It’s this perfect warm pink with golden shimmer, I wish they sold this separately because I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

The gold shade in Oz has a bit of chunky glitter so pat, don’t rub, this shade when you’re using it.

The formula on all of the shadows is what you’ve come to expect from Urban Decay. Soft, creamy, smooth, pigmented, and blendable. I always recommend using an eyeshadow primer underneath any eye look and my favorite one, naturally, is the Urban Decay Primer Potion. It makes your shadows last longer and more vibrant. I did not use any primer on the swatches above so you can just imagine how much more vibrant they will be when using primer.

It also came with a travel sized 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Rockstar which I love! It’s a really dark purple shade.

You also get a full sized Super-Saturated High Gloss Lip Color in the shade Glinda. It’s described as a “light sheer beige” but for me it’s a much more pigmented peachy pink. It’s creamy and hydrating. They DO require sharpening so my standard trick is 15 minutes in the freezer, then sharpen so you don’t make a mess or lose too much of the product.

And here I am wearing the eyeshadows Magic, South, Aura (both sides swirled together), and Tornado. I’m also wearing the Rockstar eyeliner.

My love for eye shadow pencils can not be contained. LOVE THEM SO MUCH! When I came across these at the store, I couldn’t resist grabbing most of them.

The Colors

• 340 Ginger Flame – pinky champagne
• 320 Hot-Pink Flame – bright medium tone pink
• 330 Gold Flame – bright gold yellow
• 315 Lime Green Flame – bright lime green (my favorite of the bunch!)
• 335 Ashen Glow Flame – glittery taupe / khaki

You do have to sharpen these so pop them in the freezer for 15 minutes so you don’t waste too much product or have it be too soft to sharpen. The names are NOT on the pencils themselves, only their product numbers. However the name is on the plastic wrapper it’s packaged in.

I really like these. They actually felt cooling when applied to my skin which is unique. Because of whatever ingredient they have that causes the cooling, do NOT apply these to your waterline at all as it could cause some irritation.

Ashen Glow Flame was MUCH more sheer and glittery than the rest and Gold Flame was a bit more sheer (not as sheer as Ashen Glow Flame though) than the rest. Lime Green Flame is my absolutely favorite shade out of the bunch.

Eyeshadow pencils. Purples. Bronzes. Um YES PLEASE! When I originally saw promo images for the MAC Temperature Rising Collection I about fell over. It’s almost like they created the collection with me in mind. Just sayin! I freaking LOVE the packaging. The bronze color, the semi-matte rubbery feel… just lovely.

Powerchrome Eye Shadow Pencils

• Rich Glance – light golden champagne
• Copper Strip – mid-toned copper
• Life’s Luxury – deep bronze brown
• Polished Jet – charcoal with pearl (in some lights this also had a dark blue-ish tone to it!)

From MAC’s website:

Creamy yet weightless, powerful metallic chrome colour in limited-edition shades. Combination of large and small particle pearls gives shimmering, multi-dimensional sparkle. Layers for intense vibrancy or blends easily for soft shine. Ophthalmologist tested

These are also long lasting and they set fairly quickly so when you work with them, do just one eye at a time so you have enough time to blend out the edges.

You do have to sharpen these so pop them in the freezer for 15 minutes so you don’t waste too much product or have it be too soft to sharpen.

Lipglasses and Lipstick

• Soft Serenade lipglass – sparkly medium neutral pink
• Underdressed lipglass – sparkly bronze plum
• Rhythm lipglass – sparkly bright magenta
• Caliente lipstick – bronze violet (a bit sheer, super sparkly)

Soft Serenade | Rhythm

Underdressed | Caliente

Seriously, reviewing can’t possibly be my strong point because all I want to say about these is “OMG PRETTY!!!”. We’re hardcore around here!

I was a bit wary of purchasing Caliente because the reviews I had read before the release all stated it was “gritty”. Um. No? It was actually very creamy, a bit moisturizing actually. Zero grit at all.

The lipglasses are classic MAC formula. A bit tacky/sticky with a light vanilla scent/flavor.

Bare My Soul Eyeshadow Quad

• Romantico – light taupe bronze
• Bare My Soul – light golden champagne
• Friendly – dark bronze
• When in Rio – duochrome bronzey green

Holy hell if you can find a local store that has this quad? GET IT! The shadows themselves are pigmented, smooth, soft, just a joy to use. The colors? Absolutely stunning. When in Rio is an amazing shade that can look deep green in some light, brighter green / teal in other light / dark bronze with a tint of dark green in yet other light. It’s a really great color.

Overall I’m absolutely thrilled with the collection and I really hope they come out with more colors for the Powerchrome Eyeshadow Pencils because I love them!

The Colors

• Mermaid’s Eyes – medium blue base with small dark blue glitter and gold shimmer
• Do the Mermaid – medium lilac purple base with bright purple glitter and silver shimmer
• Mermaid’s Kiss – pink base with dark pink glitter and gold shimmer
• Million Dollar Mermaid – light tangerine peachy base with orange glitter and gold shimmer

Amazing. Beautiful. I have no other words. Except for Mermaid’s Eyes (the blue one) all of them needed 3 coats to be opaque. The formula was super easy to work with and just… I have no words. The pictures do these polishes no justice!

I’ve recently subscribed to SquareHue, which is a monthly nail polish subscription box. You don’t get to choose the colors but each $21 box generally has a theme.

The Colors

• Happy creme – a pale true pink creme
• Mother’s pearl – a pearly medium pink
• Day glow – super bright dark hot pink creme

Holy heck are these polishes AHHHMAZZZING!!! The formula is absolutely perfect, each polish only needed two coats to reach opaque and that dark hot pink? Just alone that made the May 2013 SquareHue box worth it for me. Absolutely stunning. It does dry down to a semi-matte finish but a nice shiny top coat will take care of that.

Plushest Punch | Voluptuous Violet

I absolutely LOVE THESE! Easy to use, no need to sharpen them, and super moisturizing. I know, what a long winded review. Really though these are awesome. I need to save up and get a few more colors!

Availablity: Sephora | Clinique | Department Stores
Pricing: $16.00 – $18.00

Mango Sheen on the left & Almond Blossom on the right | Almond Blossom on the left & Mango Sheen on the right

Almond Blossom swatch on the left and Mango Sheen on the right

I absolutely hardcore LOVE the Sheen Supreme Lip Glasses. HARDCORE LOVE! I love the clicky pen style with the brush, I love the formula, just… so much love.

It has that classic MAC vanilla scent / taste to the gloss and the gloss is not as sticky as the regular lip glasses but it’s a bit tacky which is fine by me. These were a limited edition product but you can still find them at CCO’s.