Review: Too Faced Boudoir Eyes

I love eyeshadow palettes. There, I said it. I'm always on the lookout for the eyeshadow palette that will soon become my favorite. Ever since I got this Too Faced palette a couple of weeks ago, it has been my go to palette for creating every sort of look, from a daytime I'm-going-to-class look, all the way to Amelia's smokiest look out there. Which really isn't all that smokey. Sometimes I feel like I'm not living up to my generation (my favorite way to spend a Friday night involves my couch and a beauty mask, I've never been clubbing, I don't really go out). Honestly, I should start acting my age. Wearing weird makeup, weird clothes. There are only so many years in one's life when they can pull shit like that off, and I'm wasting my time in conservative dresses and simple makeup.

Anyways, back to the actual point of this blog post: my new favorite palette. 

The first thing that I noticed about this palette, and probably the only reason I purchased it over the other Too Faced palettes available, was the packaging. If you read this blog, you already know that I almost value packaging more than I value the product itself. This package is just exactly what I want out of an eyeshadow palette. And I like that it's a metal packaging, instead of cardboard. Every other Too Faced eyeshadow palette (save their Summer Eye Shadow Collection) are packaged in cardboard.

I just don't like it. Eyeshadow palettes (and makeup in general) sort of lasts me forever. I feel like I never use up a product: why in the heck would I want it packaged in a material that can fall prey to any number of things in my life (water, hard falls, general mishaps). Like seriously, if I can't put it down into the little puddle of water from washing my face, I'm flat out not buying it. This explains why I don't own a single Benefit blush, any Benefit set in general, or Too Faced eye shadow palettes.

So when I saw that this palette is packaged in beautiful metal, I was all over this palette. It also makes this beautiful clicking noise when you close it. I sit around sometimes and just open and close this palette because the click is just so pretty.

But when it comes down to it, that isn't really why this palette is my new favorite thing since the invention of iPhones (on an unrelated note, I'm super excited about the iPhone 5S). What I love about this palette is the eyeshadows.

One of my favorite things about Too Faced is that they're smart. They understand the way in which people apply eyeshadow. They know that I don't need equal amounts of light pink and black. In fact, Too Faced, if you're reading this, I don't really need black. Again, I'm way too old internally for my physical age.

Anyways, the eyeshadows. The light colors are the ones that you're going to use up the quickest, so they've made them significantly larger than the darker colors that you'll primarily use for the crease. Too Faced also organizes their shadows into three groups: Day, Classic, and Fashion. While I like this way of arranging eyeshadows, it also bothers me a bit. I can honestly say that after months of using this palette, I've never used eyeshadows that didn't all belong to the same group. I've never mixed a Day color with a Fashion color. For me, it takes some of the creativity out of my makeup, but when I'm in a rush and need to get eyeshadow done, it can be very useful.

These swatches are done over no eyeshadow primer, one swipe from my finger (or my sister's finger because I ran out of fingers that I could use to swatch, seeing as I needed to also hold a camera). From left to right: In the Buff, Fuzzy Handcuffs, Voulez-vous, Satin Sheets, Sugar Walls, Garter Belt, Birthday Suit, Lap Dance, and French Tickler.

I really enjoy that this palette has different textures of eyeshadow. In the Buff, Fuzzy Handcuffs, and Garter Belt are matte shadows, Voulez-Vous, Satin Sheets, Birthday Suit, and Lap Dance all have more of a shimmer to them. Sugar Walls is similarly shimmery, but then it also had glitter. And French Tickler has gold glitter in the black shadow. Because of the glitter, I've found Sugar Walls and French Tickler to have a little bit of fallout, but it's not terrible by any means.

I use this palette for a more subtle eye look for class. I'm wearing all of the classic colors here: Satin Sheets, Sugar Walls, and Garter Belt.

One of the things that I like most about this palette is its versatility. I can go subtle, but it also has the colors to go in much more of a going-out direction.

Needless to say, I love this palette. I'm buying it for my sister for her birthday (don't worry, this isn't a spoiler, she asked for it because she loves mine so much). This palette is packable, seeing as its a decent size (I hate traveling with my Naked or Naked2 palettes). It has a variety of textures and colors. I'm planning on buying the Summer Collection palette when I have the extra money lying around.

It retails for $36. It's beautiful. I totally recommend it to anyone and everyone.

Sephora Haul #1

Every once in a while, I do something that I really shouldn't do, and I spend an insane amount of money at Sephora. Usually it has something to do with rewarding myself. That's true of this week's Sephora purchases. I've been holed up with 40 other Resident Assistants and our bosses for approximately the last week, doing training and staff bonding and such. Today, we moved some 500+ freshmen into their dorms, a HUGE accomplishment. I personally helped about 50; there were a lot of boxes, a lot of microwaves, and a lot of my personal sweat. But I survived, and to reward myself, I bought a bunch of stuff online at Sephora a couple of days ago knowing that they would arrive today. So after finishing up with the freshmen, I headed over to the mailroom and picked up my swag!

All the boxes.

Because I'm a VIB Rouge, I get free shipping on any order from Sephora.com, so I broke up my purchases so that I could get the maximum number of free samples possible.

I basically bought everything that had been on my "Loves" page-everything from masks to lip lacquer and eyeliner to eyebrow mousse.

I've had the old versions of the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils on my wish list for so long, it's not even funny. I think spending $19 on a colored eyeliner that you'll only wear once in a blue moon is silly, but dock those suckers down to $6 each, and I'm all over that. Since I already own a teal Kat Von D eyeliner (Waterproof Autograph Pencil in Eyegasm) and a liquid Stila mint eyeliner (Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner in Turquoise), I figured it was time to purchase some purples. I bought Crash, Lust, and 1999.

I think that 1999 is going to turn out to be the most wearable (in fact, I'm wearing it as I type this), and Lust will probably be the one I use the least. But they're all beautiful, and I love increasing my makeup collection.

Crash, Lust, and 1999 on my hand. 

Directly after doing this swatch, I washed my hands, then took a bath, then a nap. And there's still a faint smudge of 1999 hanging out on my hand. They really do mean 24/7 when they say it with these eyeliners.

Then I picked out the Too Faced Ready.Set.Prime duo. I'm a faithful user of the LORAC Behind the Scenes primer, it's one of the best and cheapest eyeshadow primers at Sephora, but I just can't turn down a great deal. These primers are .17 oz each, combined they're .34 oz. It's a $12 set. For comparison, the Too Faced Shadow Insurance retails $20 for .35 oz of product. Needless to say, this was a phenomenal deal. And who knows, maybe I'll love them.

I've been researching brow fillers for quite a while. If you've looked at any of my posts where I've included a picture of myself, you know that I don't have thin or sparsely populated eyebrows. I'm half Greek, so I've always had eyebrows that, to a certain extent, had a life of their own. I think my mom sat me down when I was probably twelve and taught me to tweeze them. And thankfully I avoided that middle/high school issue of overplucking eyebrows. Instead, mine have always been full and I love them that way. They're pretty low maintenance these days, but I've been looking for a way to make them look just a little bit more "solid," I guess. It's a hard thing to describe, but I've been wanting them to make a little bit more of a statement and make me look a tad more put together.

Then I found the Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof Brow Mousse in Rich Brown. At first I was a little worried, I have BLACK eyebrows, and I was worried that this would make them look awkward and mismatched. But it's such a dark brown that it blends right in with my black brows. And it's such a great product. It doesn't look harsh like a pencil filler and it doesn't look chalky like a powder. I love it so much I may have to do a separate review of it.

Oh, Ren, how did I live this much of my life without discovering the beauty that is your products and packaging? I recently bought the ClearCalm 3 Clarifying Clay Cleanser and I fell absolutely head over heels in love. It's important to note that I don't even have acne anymore, I did in high school, but I've long since gotten over it (save the occasional stress pimple and the blackheads that refuse to leave the pores of my nose). But I can't get enough of this line of products. I got a sample of this mask from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and I can honestly say that it's the only mask that I've tried that leaves a NOTICEABLE difference in my skin. The night I tried this mask, I had a stress-related pimple on my forehead. It was red. It was angry. When I washed this mask off, I honestly thought magic had happened. The pimple was significantly smaller. It wasn't red at all. Basically, this is about to become my holy grail of spot treatment masks.

I also decided to try this Shiseido Lacquer Rouge in RD305, or Nymph. I've fallen in love with lip lacquers, and I can't wait to see if this one lives up to my expectations.

It's a beautiful blue-rose color, although it's sort of difficult to see because my camera only wanted to focus on the books in the background. In case you can't tell, I (a) love to read, and (b) I'm a history major (although I'm also a religious studies major).

The Lacquer rouge on a human hand. I'm so excited about this product that I actually almost put it on before my bath/nap. Review to come.

The last product that I actually spent money on: Boscia Clarifying Detox Mask. I got a sample of this from Sephora a couple of weeks ago, and initially when I applied this mask, I didn't think I was going to like it. But I loved the tingling as it dried, it make my skin feel minty fresh. Also, considering that I spent $45 on the Ren mask above, I was thrilled by the $25 price tag on this one.

Sample time! I got four samples of different foundation primers. I'm only 20 and don't struggle with keeping my makeup on my face, so I can't justify spending money on foundation primers just yet, but if offered a sample, I will always accept.

Another thing I love in sample form: shampoo and conditioner. This stuff will definitely come in handy when I travel.

I'm about to run out of my favorite foundation (well, to be honest, it's a BB cream), Garnier Skin Renew BB Cream Combination to Oily Skin in light/medium. I'm worried that once I lose my slight tan from the summer, it'll be just a tiny bit to dark/orangey for me. And I've sort of developed a crush on the Urban Decay Naked Skin liquid foundation. It comes with four different samples in a range of shades, I'll probably fall somewhere in between the included 2.0 and 3.5, but it'll give me an idea on whether I like this foundation enough to spend $39 on it.

The final set of samples that I picked were the Philosophy Full of Promise Treatment Duo, mostly because it was the only remaining sample that I was even remotely interested in trying. I got four samples, each with .14 oz of product, so in total, I have .56 oz of product (.28 of each: the day cream and the night cream). The full size version of this product retails for $75 and you get 1.0 oz of product. If you do that math, that means these samples are worth $42. I love it when samples turn out to be worth that much.

Finally, the random samples. I'm not really sure how I ended up with these, we'll see if I ever use them.

Overall, I love Sephora. An inappropriate amount. I really wish I was in my dorm room playing with all of my new makeup.

Review: Benefit Sun Beam

In my last post, I talked about how I really wanted a product that made my cheeks glow/shimmer/sparkle. Not like I went to some sort of rave and got glittered on, but more like a glow from within sort of a deal.

Well, in the last week and a half, while I was hating on and ranting about Too Faced Candlelight, I lucked upon a product that did EXACTLY what I wanted: Benefit Sun Beam.

I was shopping at Sephora a couple of weeks ago and when I went to check out, the girl checking me out discovered that I'm a Sephora VIB (if you shop at Sephora and don't have a Beauty Insider card, I suggest you get one! Between the point perks and the random exclusive offers for Beauty Insiders and VIBS, I've found quite a few products I've fallen in love with). Apparently, just for shopping at Sephora on that particular Saturday meant that I got a free gift with my purchase!

It was through this VIB only gift that I discovered Sun Beam, a product that I would probably never have tried on my own. I'm so glad that I tried it, because I'm straight up in love!

Sun Beam, like the other liquid highlighters in the Benefit product line, comes in a nail-polish-like bottle. The other two liquid highlighters, Moon Beam and High Beam, come in clear bottles. Sun Beam's bottle is actually golden, so as the product runs out, I won't necessarily be able to tell. Which I'm okay with. My sister Jennifer was deterred from trying this product because of the bottle; she thought that the color of the product would closely match the color of the bottle. That isn't really the case: I've found that the product itself doesn't look nearly as gold as the bottle. It's a lot more wearable than that color gold would be!

You can see how different the colors are: the bottle is a true gold while the highlighter on the brush is much closer to human-skin-color.

The highlighter goes on smoothly, I use my fingers to blend it in.

You can see that my hand looks a little shimmery here! It's definitely a subtle thing (as long as you don't lather it on), and I like it that way! I wanted my cheeks to look like I was glowing, and now they do! Success!

Things I've Hated This Month: July

Generally speaking, I do a LOT of research before buying any makeup or skincare product. Like, hours worth of research, comparisons to other products that are similar, if it's a product that's easy to sample I get samples from Sephora. Basically, I already know how I'm going to feel about a product before I spend the money on it. But some things, you just can't help. These are the things I've hated this month.

Meet one of my family's cats: Felix! Anyways, I bought these two products in the last few weeks, thought that they would become holy grail products, then had them seriously disappoint me. And it wasn't for lack of research/sampling: I researched both on blogs and on Sephora reviews and I tried them both in my local Sephora multiple times. I put so much effort into research that multiples times, I left my dorm and went to Sephora without mascara on so that I could easily try the Benefit BADgal Plum. I swatched Too Faced Candlelight on my hands, my fingers, my face, my arms. Basically, the women who work at my local Sephora thought that I was crazy, but I'll be damned if I purchase a product and end up hating it. I also just feel bad returning things to Sephora. What happens to that unloved, discarded makeup? I think it just gets returned to its company (Benefit, Too Faced) and there it meets its destruction.

I'll start with the BADgal. The plum color is supposed to make your eye color pop more than a black mascara would. Reviews I read on Sephora specifically said it made their hazel eyes look great, and of course I thought, "My eyes are hazel! This will work great!" When I tried it over and over again at Sephora, I just kept thinking that the lighting in Sephora is funny, and that it would look better out in the real world. So I bought it.

Without flash, it honestly looks like plain old black mascara, except for that chunk of extra product on the tip of the brush.

But with flash, it looks amazing! Almost TOO purple.

To show you exactly how inadequate this mascara was, I decided to show what it looked like on. This is me prior to mascara application. All I'm wearing is concealer to cover up my I-look-like-I've-never-slept-in-all-twenty-years-of-my-life issue.

Photo sans flash. Can you guess which eye is wearing the plum mascara and which one is wearing black LORAC Pro mascara? The eye on the left is wearing the Benefit BADgal Plum. The eye on the left has black mascara. 

With the flash, the difference is a little bit more noticeable, but it's just not enough to warrant the purchase of a mascara solely for its color. Additionally, although I have no photos to prove it, if I put ANY of the BADgal Plum on my bottom eyelashes, by the end of the day I had faint purple circles under my eyes. I already have a dark circle issue; I don't need a PURPLE circle issue. And if you don't put this on your bottom lashes, they noticeably look like they don't match: purple top lashes and black bottom lashes do not a good eye make.

The second product I struggled with: Too Faced Candlelight. One of the girls that I work with in my RA job has absolutely glowing cheeks. I think she's actually caught me staring at them before. I need to just suck it up and ask her what product she uses. Regardless, I thought this might be it for about a hot minute. It turns out, this powder is about as illuminating/highlighting as an entirely translucent mattifying powder.

The packaging is adorable, but alas, I don't use/keep crappy products simply because the packaging makes me want to drool.

The powder itself looks to be slightly yellow-cream-ish.

I turned on my flash, in an attempt to make some shimmer show up. It really is a testament to the uselessness of this product that even my camera's flash couldn't pick up a single shimmer.

So I turned the flash off and tried a different angle. From this angle, you can almost see a little bit of the shimmer!

You can't see it at all on my hand, except for maybe that one sparkle down in the bottom left hand corner. I won't bother with showing it to you on my face, because there's just no difference between wearing this product and not wearing it.

Needless to say, both of these products are going back to Sephora this weekend. I've come home to east Tennessee to hang out with my mom and sister/celebrate one of my best friend's 21st birthdays. Jen (my sister) and I have already gone to Ulta and our local JCPenny Sephora, we'll go to the Sephora in the mall on Monday, most likely! There will be plenty of new products for me to play with.