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Swatches & Review: High Voltage Lip Whips

Heather — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:05:01 +0000

High Voltage Cosmetics makes more than just eyeshadows. These are lip whips: very opaque glosses in a squeeze tube. They have a slight mint scent and are non-sticky. I love that a little bit goes a long way with these – you really have to apply them with a lip brush (especially the darker shades). The colors are gorgeous and the formula is so silky smooth. Sadly, her ingredient supplier has discontinued some of the key ingredients in these, so Jasmine will be phasing these out. But not to worry! She has several left, and she is always creating new things that I cannot wait to try. Ok, on to the swatches! (Sorry for the messy towel background…that was my swatching towel, and some pigments got on it.)

Top Row: Talk Talk, Slow Jam, Life of the Party
Bottom Row: Little Misfit, Kashmir, Sour Candy

See close-ups and swatches!

Top Row: Talk Talk, Slow Jam, Life of the Party
Bottom Row: Little Misfit, Kashmir, Sour Candy

Top Row: Talk Talk, Slow Jam, Life of the Party
Bottom Row: Little Misfit, Kashmir, Sour Candy
(blurred to show shimmer & sparkle)

Top Row: Talk Talk, Slow Jam, Life of the Party
Bottom Row: Little Misfit, Kashmir, Sour Candy
blurred to show shimmer, shine, & sparkle

Top Row: Talk Talk, Slow Jam, Life of the Party
Bottom Row: Little Misfit, Kashmir, Sour Candy

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Swatches: Evil Shades

Heather — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:20:08 +0000

It took a while for me to dive in to Evil Shades cosmetics, but I’m so glad I did. I only ordered eyeshadows, but Evil Shades sells everything from cuticle balm to amazing (and best known for) lip colors. To tell you the truth, these shadows shocked me, in a good way! The jars were a little messy and the stickers on the inside were difficult to peel off, but the shadows themselves are really top notch. Even Devil’s Bonfire which looks to have chunky silver glitter in it…I was expecting it to be, well, chunky and not blendable, but boy was I wrong! Every one of these shadows is incredibly smooth and finely milled. Color me impressed! Seriously. I can’t even pick a favorite. I really love them all. Drakon and Cerberus are so complex and beautiful. Oh, and Dryad, Wonderflower, and Nixies are all amazing too. Andrea, the girl behind the genius of these shadows, has something really great going here. She’s a sweetheart on Twitter, and I first discovered her through the MUA Nail Board. Her nails are to die for beautiful, and she loves polishes too! Woot! Anyway, on to swatches. I cannot wait to use these in some looks too!

Top Row: Drakon, Zombie, Cerberus
Bottom Row: Phyrra’s Fantasy, Moirae, Devil’s Bonfire

See more pictures of these in different lighting, plus 7 more shades after the jump!

Top Row: Drakon, Zombie, Cerberus
Bottom Row: Phyrra’s Fantasy, Moirae, Devil’s Bonfire

(Blurred to show sparkle) Top Row: Drakon, Zombie, Cerberus
Bottom Row: Phyrra’s Fantasy, Moirae, Devil’s Bonfire

Top Row: Drakon, Zombie, Cerberus
Bottom Row: Phyrra’s Fantasy, Moirae, Devil’s Bonfire

Top Row: Sylph, Dryad, Reondite, Chusi
Bottom Row: Kharon, Wanderflower, Nixies

(Blurred to show shimmer & sparkle) Top Row: Sylph, Dryad, Reondite, Chusi
Bottom Row: Kharon, Wanderflower, Nixies

Top Row: Sylph, Dryad, Reondite, Chusi
Bottom Row: Kharon, Wanderflower, Nixies

Have you tried anything from Evil Shades? What are your favorites??

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Review & Swatches: Sugarpill Cosmetics

Heather — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:21:35 +0000

Well HELLO gorgeous!!!!!!!!!! This was a much anticipated haul. After seeing some outstanding reviews of this indie brand called Sugarpill, I had to check it out. Oh it is sooooooo flipping worth every penny. Amy, the maker of the brand, is a goddess. Seriously. How did she make these colors?! She’s a super sweetheart and she really stands behind her products (vegan btw). Now I’m a girl who knows her shadows. These go at the top of my list. Best ever. My only complaint is that there aren’t more colors for me to invest in LOL!!

OMG everything about this line is sexy. The boxes are sexy. The website where I ordered it all from is sexy. The packaging is sexy. The names are sexy. The colors….blow. my. mind.

My order came in a beautiful box stamped with the oh-so-cute Sugarpill logo (cute kitteh!).

Everything was wrapped in hot pink paper and there was even a little note hand singed by Amy!

See the palettes and swatches of the pigments!!!

Dollipop, Afterparty
Midori, Tako

Ok, so along comes my order and I’m snapping pictures overjoyed…but then…

Oh nooooooooos! A casualty!!!!!! :-((( I was super bummed, but I took these pictures and sent Amy an email. She responded the NEXT morning and sent a new palette out to me, which got here like two days later. Like I said, GREAT customer service!

I’m awesome?! No no, Amy! YOU’RE AWESOME!!

Flamepoint, Buttercupcake,
Love+, Poison Plum

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?! A TRUE RED!!! Seriously unprecedented. I’ve never seen a true red eyeshadow that was MEANT for the eyes. No joke. The colors are smooth, crisp, pigmented, blendable, and huge (way bigger than MAC)! There’s really no point in swatching them since the colors look exactly like how you see them here.

But here are the loose shadows. You get a whole 5 grams of product in that jar. Good thing too, or else I’d be so tempted to order backups! :-P Yeah, I took a lot of pictures. They’re well deserved. Each of these swatches are done first dry (no primer), then wet using MAC Mixing Medium (water base).

Junebug, Goldilux, Royal Sugar

Hysteric, Lumi, Stella, Magpie (on bottom)

I couldn’t be happier with a purchase. I’ve already created several looks using some of these colors and cannot wait to show you. Really, I’ve been super impressed with all of the indie brands I’ve ordered from lately: Meow, High Voltage, Sugarpill, Fyrinnae. I hope to try some more too – Evil Shades, Aromaleigh. And of course I am already plotting my second Sugarpill order… :-)

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Review & Swatches: High Voltage Order #1

Heather — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:36:29 +0000

I mentioned recently that I’ve been into Indie cosmetic companies. What I love most is that I can actually talk to these people on Twitter. I found out about High Voltage Cosmetics from Brian from Makeup by Brian Kelly. She was having a buy 2, get 1 free sale (still going on until the end of October), so I had to try some. I am nothing but impressed!

From the personalized note to the quick response to the beautiful colors – this is a brand I’m instantly in love with. I’ve already placed another order. High quality for a good price…seriously hard to beat! :-)

My order came wrapped in a cute Halloween bag!

A sweet personalized note from the maker of High Voltage cosmetics (Jasmine).

She put tap on the jars to make sure they stayed shut in transit!

Very clearly labeled on the back (and I got a sample of another color in the baggie).

I swatched these colors both dry and wet. Truly amazing!! You HAVE to see the swatches after the jump!

All swatches are done first dry, then wet. I took a lot of pictures in different lighting and with different cameras to try to get the full effect from color accurate to sparkly. Bare with me…lots of gorgeous pictures ahead!

Radio Star, Little Miss Perfect, Fairy Blood

I HAVE to comment on Little Miss Perfect. I almost passed on this one, but it turned out to be my favorite! It’s this blue/purple color with a strong gold undertone. The gold POPS when it’s applied wet. It’s nearly a different color – truely amazing. It made me say: “Well HELLO Beautiful!!!”

Stargazer, Born to Rock, Kiss of True Love

Encore, Heart Throb, Dark Romance, Unplugged (on bottom)

Isn’t Heart Throb amazing also? It’s an orange/rusty color with a green/gold undertone. They’re all beautiful!

Other

Review: ZPalettes

Heather — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:55:50 +0000

I love palettes.

Let me tell you a story…once upon a time, I had so many individual pots of MAC shadows, that I filled an entire makeup trunk case. What ended up happening was that I’d use the newest ones that were sitting on top, and almost never again see the ones on the layers underneath. Of course we all know that with the way MAC comes out with collections (every other week it seems like), those shadows got burried before even being used sometimes!

Then I discovered depotting.

A long, long time ago, an MA briefly whispered to me that I could depot with a candle…just put the pot over the candle to loosen the glue, and it pops out! Stupid me (this was before youtube btw) didn’t take out the inside, and just put the poor shadow above the flame which burned off the sticker and practically caught my shadow on fire…that shadow remains, to this day, the only MAC shadow I do not know the name of (it’s dark purple).

Now that I know the iron method, it works beautifully. My parents own a sign shop that my mom runs up in the Sacramento area, so she makes the little magnetic discs that I put on the back. Once I had some of those, I went to town and depotted well over 100 shadows all in one night, with a glass of Chardoney and my best friends over for a sleep-over. It was the greatest feeling ever – being so organized and having them at the tips of my fingers…ahhhh…wait….gotta organize them….which one is where?…I have to open 15 palettes to find it….Noooooo!

Enter: ZPalette.

One of the most ingenious things, and my favorite part, about the ZPalette is that the top is clear. Omg, duh! I only wish I had found it sooner. Wow, being able to see the colors that are in each palette = a serious time saver. I understand that I’m a huge exception to the norm – I have so many eye shadows and blushes, that I do not need one palette to hold both, because I have enough of each for them to have their own. However, the ZPalette has one huge space that is not divided into sections. It can hold shadows from different brands that are different shapes: MAC, UD, NARS, MUFE, and the list goes on. You could also put blushes and shadows in the same palette, take it with you, and save time and space. Genius!

ZPalettes come in two sizes: small and large. The small ($14) holds 9 MAC-sized shadows in a square. The large one ($20) holds an impressive 28 MAC-sized shadows (7×4). No, they’re not as cheap as the MAC palettes, and if you’re getting the small…you might as well get the large! Do the math! $20 holds 28 which is 2 short of twice as many as 2 MAC palettes, so really it comes out the same money wise. Plus, the space it saves! There’s none of that inbetween stuff to take up room, and bottom line is, you need less of them! I have 15 palettes people! That’s a LOT, and they won’t fit anywhere….can’t even pick them all up with one hand. These will consolidate my massiveness that is my eyeshadow collection.

Even though they’re all that…I still wish…

…that they were made of plastic. I get that they’re all about recycling, so it’s made out of hard core paper, but I don’t intend on recycling this – I want to use it forever!

…that the magnatism was stronger. When I have the label on the bottom of my magnet on the MAC shadows, they don’t “stick” to the bottom. They will slough around. I REALLY wish they held the shadow in place better, in case I don’t have a full palette. But for now, they just need to be pretty full for vertical storage and travel…or maybe I just need stronger magnets, haha!

All in all, I love ZPalettes! The large one really meets my needs, and I can’t wait to consolidate. Plus, the creater, Zena (love that name) is super nice, and they have great customer service! Now the only problem is…what to do with the old MAC palettes? ;-)

Order them online at www.zpalette.com. Have you tried ZPalette? Will you try ZPalette? Share!

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Tutorial: Depotting MAC Shadows

Heather — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:35:42 +0000

I depot my MAC shadows using a regular clothes iron and some parchment paper. It works well, and I never have any casualties. I’m sorta afraid of fire, so I try to avoid having to use it if possible. But later, I’ll post another tutorial to show how I depotted my Smashbox shadows also. It’s my very first video tutorial, so be nice :-) But let me know what you think! Toward the end I did a mini-review of one of the new ZPalettes I got. I will do a full review of them very soon, so stay tuned!

Other

Review & Swatches: Kat Von D Eye Palettes

Heather — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:05:09 +0000

When these first came out, I thought it was kinda gimicky and I don’t usually go out and get stuff from brands I don’t know and trust. After hearing about it by roaming throught the beauty blog world, I caved…and my expectations were low, so WOW did I get blown away!

I’ve actually been putting off this review for a long time because when I think about how much I love these, the words escape me, and I’m not sure how to explain myself. Seriously though, these are fantastic shadows. The colors are rich and pigmented. The texture is soft and powdery (in a good way). The color range is really good too, and I really like how Kat Von D has put thought into them. I only got three (or is that all there is?): Beethoven, Ludwig, and Gypsy. Everything from the artwork on the boxes to the beautiful packaging to the names of the colors reflects her perfectly. She paid attention to detail, and I appreciate that. I don’t think she’s one to sit on the sideline and let others come up with stuff for her to just “approve” (though I don’t know this for certain). The names are recognizable – especially if you watch LA Ink, which I do. I’ve watched her since she was on Miami Ink actually. I’m secretly fascinated by tatoos. I don’t have any, and will most likely (never say never) never get one. Part of it is the artistry – I can blend colors, but I can’t draw worth a darn! I admire the talent of tatoo artists!

There were only two things I didn’t like: one was that one cream Brass Knuckles shadow – the texture sucks on that one; and two: Lucifer is the same color in all 3 palettes, but hey with only one bad color in the 3 palette bunch, I’m still happy. :-) I highly recommend these palettes for eyeshadow lovers.

See product photos and swatches!!

Beethoven Palette: Lucifer, Speed Blue, Razor Gray, Tequila, Sinner, Rad Purple, Leather, Galeano

Sinner, Rad Purple, Leather, Galeano

Lucifer, Speed Blue, Razor Gray, Tequila

Ludwig Palette: Lucifer, Orbi, Dimebag, Tequila, Clay, Downtown, Baroque, Leather

Lucifer, Orbi, Dimebag, Tequila

Clay, Downtown, Baroque, Leather

Inside the Gypsy palette – isn’t it pretty?!

The Gypsy Palette: Lucifer, Stryker, Frankie, Hawkwind, Brass Knuckles (cream), Birdcage, Ego Sum, Gunner

Brass Knuckles (cream), Birdcage, Ego Sum, Gunner

Lucifer, Stryker, Frankie, Hawkwind

Other

Look & Review: Dior Amber Design Quint

Heather — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:48:47 +0000

I’m not a huge fan of Dior quints only because their pigmentation is usually too weak for my taste. The quality is great, but most of the time the colors muddy together on my lid.

That being said, I have very mixed feelings about this particular “quint” which I wouldn’t even say is a quint because it only has 4 eyeshadow colors, and one of those is only a “shine” color. In place of the 5th color is a brown gel (I think) liner. To be honest, I felt jipped! I have a ton of brown eyeliners! Ah well, I do see the value in having everything all together in one place I suppose, and to give it credit, the liner was very nice and dark, so it worked well with the palette.

The shadow colors themselves, are pretty nice. They’re not incredibly unique, but they’re very pretty. I love golds and coral colors and browns. It creates a nice soft look, which is great, but not what I’m all about, you know? The shadows are soft and go on smoothly. And on a side note…I’m really liking this lip combo! :-)

What are your thoughts?

For this look I used:

Eyes: UDPP (primer), Painterly PP (base), Dior Amber Design quint (as suggested – including liner), Plushlash mascara
Cheeks: Cheek & Cheerful mineralized blush
Lips: Bobbi Brown Brown Metalic lip color + Nice Mix Up tri-color lipgloss

See more pictures!!

Other

Review: Dior Bronze Couture Palette

Heather — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:44:42 +0000

This Dior Bronze Couture Palette ($80) blows my mind! Yep, it’s THAT good! Ok, I’m not going to end every sentence with an exclamaition point lol. Anyway, I must rave to you about this palette. Usually these are little gimmiky things that I skip over and don’t even give a second look to. But when I was at the Dior counter, the lady helping me get my Electric Lights and Pop Diamond wasn’t an actual Dior lady, so she was a little slow. While I was waiting, I swatched this palette just for kicks, and whoa! I was so impressed!

I did a complete look using all 3 of the palette products HERE.

Included in this palette is two brushes: blush & lip brushes, both with caps. And of course the beautiful D for Dior impressed in the bronzer…simply gorgeous!

Read a detailed review of all 3 parts plus close-ups and an Overall Coloruza Rating!

The bronzer is shimmery, but in the most sophisticated way. I’ve used it as a blush and it’s not OTT at all. It’s silky smooth and a perfect color for my NW20 skin.

The eyeshadow is creamy and looks very gold on the top, but once I used it, there is a more orange color to it underneath. It’s a little darker underneath. It’s seriously an amazing color though, and paired with some gold, orange, or brown shadows, wow what a look! I put it on over UDPP Sin, but without a Paint Pot, it did crease on me by the end of the day. I need to try with Cash Flow PP under it first.

The lipgloss is stunning! It has the most sublime texture – my lips were gliding over each other like butter. I think I reapplied 3 times during the day, which isn’t a lot, so it has good staying power. I just wanted it to look perfect and fresh all day, so I kept doing little touch-ups :-) It’s color is a sheer coral with golden shimmer – pretty sheer, but gorgeous!!

Overall Coloruza Rating: 5/5 for quality; 3/5 for price. Although I do feel that this palette is worth every penny, unfortunately I also feel that an $80 price tag is extremely steep, even for a stellar palette like this one. I think $60-65 would have been much more reasonable for a lot of people, and it’s quite sad that it’ll be passed up by many for this reason. Personally, I LOVE it!

Other

Review/Swatches: Bobbi Brown Pastel Palette

Heather — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:54:16 +0000

While doing some online shopping at Neimen Marcus, I had to reach a certain amount for a free gift, so I browsed their exclusives. What a little beauty this was!

The colors are all really pastel, and I haven’t used them yet except for the teal one (second from the left) and I was quite impressed. It has a descent texture and the color came out nice. The palette itself is kinda small, and you only get a little strip of each color, but there are a lot of colors! Seriously, when’s the last time you saw so many colors in one little palette?? At first I didn’t like how they were all packed in there, but I think I actually appreciate that they didn’t waste space on dividers. I can use the 239 brush or my trusty 213 and get only that specific color very easily. I’m not planning on mixing any of the colors together before they’re on my eyelid :-)

See swatches and color names!

(L to R): Tangerine, Sea Glass, Sea Salt, Sunshine, Petunia, Bronze, Blush, Peachy, Sand Dollar, Iris

With the flash
(L to R): Tangerine, Sea Glass, Sea Salt, Sunshine, Petunia, Bronze, Blush, Peachy, Sand Dollar, Iris

Without the flash
(L to R): Tangerine, Sea Glass, Sea Salt, Sunshine, Petunia, Bronze, Blush, Peachy, Sand Dollar, Iris

Other