FOTD (+ Mini Reviews)

Today I decided to give something different a go. I have a collection of various makeup samples sitting in a drawer so I dug them out and did a FOTD using entirely free samples.

 I wish I had a sample of some sort of brow product because I think my face looks unfinished without them being filled in but other than that I think it turned out alright.

The products I used were:

• Mac Skin Base Visage Primer

 I liked this, it made my skin feel very soft and its slightly shimmer when you look at the product but its unnoticeable  on your face so I think it might have a similar but possibly more subtle effect as Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder. I can't say anything about if it makes foundation last any better than usual because I didn't keep my makeup on for very long and I wasn't wearing my usual foundation anyway.I'd definitely like to buy a full size of this since I've been looking for a new primer to change to for a little while and this felt lovely on my skin.

• Bare Minerals Complexion Rescue in Vanilla 02

The coverage of this was far too sheer for my liking, I didn't feel like it evened out my complexion at all which is what I was hoping it would do. I prefer a medium to full coverage foundation because I have some redness which I don't like. The colour of this was a really good match for me though which I was surprised by since free samples of foundation rarely match my skin (looking at you Mac). I definitely wouldn't buy a full size of this but I might look at their other foundations since the colour was really good for me and I've never even considered them before.

• Urban Decay Primer Potion in Sin

I already know that I like Urban Decays original Primer Potion so this is fairly similar. I expected it to be a lot more shimmery on my lid than it was but once it was blended in it wasn't very noticeable. It works fine for stopping eyeshadow creasing but I didn't notice any difference to the intensity of my eyeshadows shimmer. I wouldn't bother buying the full size of this because I already have a full sized tube of the original which I expect will last me ages. 

• Shiro Cosmetics Eyeshadow in You Can Mclean On Me

I liked the colour of this eyeshadow and it was decently pigmented but I cant get past it being a loose powder. I really don't like loose powders because I find them such a hassle. I wouldn't buy the full sized version of this but they are really cheap so I understand why people do and I don't want to put anyone off if they're someone who doesn't mind working with loose eyehadow.

• No7 Stay Perfect Liquid Eyeliner in Mermaid

I love the colour of this eyeliner, it's beautiful and not something I would usually go for. I wish it was a bit more pigmented and opaque because it was very patchy when I applied it and I really had to build up the colour. The staying power off this eyeliner though, is incredible. I literally had to soak my eyelids with coconut oil for a little while to take it off because nothing else would shift it. The brush is a bit thick for my taste but from looking at pictures I think that the brush on a real one is much thinner so that might only be a problem with the sample. I hate when companies do things like that though, why is it not completely the same, I want to know about everything including the applicator before I buy! I wouldn't buy a full sized version of it though because I can't see myself using a huge amount of that colour. I know they do sell other colours but when I've swatched them in the past I haven't seen nearly the same amount of saying power.

• Mac False Lashes Extreme Black Mascara

I wanted to like this because I usually love big dense brushes but this one might have been too big and dense. I thought it ended up getting a bit messy because the brush was accidentally touching my skin and it was definitely too big too use on my lower lashes. It might be less annoyingly big if the wand was longer like in a full version though. I don't think I would buy this because I didn't think it was good enough for the price tag.

• Benefit Lollitint

I liked this, it's kind of pinky purple and I like a purple blush. I have a hard time applying these though because I don't like to dot it straight on my cheek because sometimes it ends up not blending well enough and leaving me with darker dots where i applied it. I ended up applying it by wiping some onto my finger and blending it onto my cheek like that instead which worked quite well. I might consider buying a full version of this if I actually finished the sample version of it but I don't think I'll be using it a lot so I'm not sure.

• Lancome Lipstick (I'm not sure what it is exactly)

I don't know what this is but I hate it. I didn't like the colour too much or the texture and the smell gave me a headache, it was so perfumey. I wouldn't buy this, not that I even know exactly what it is, and I threw out the sample because it was horrible.

Too Faced Cocoa Contour Review

Part of me wants to ask why I bought this product, but deep down I know exactly why. They enticed me in with that delicious chocolate smell and I fell for it. I'd actually been really excited for buying one for a while but  it hadn't been available in the UK until recently when I saw it on Debenhams website and decided to pick it up. Most contouring kits come with at least 6 colour's which I think is a bit excessive for what I need personally, so I liked the look of this palette with only for shades.

I've been using Light Cocoa to set my concealer but that's really the only colour I expect to get any real use out of. Medium Cocoa isn't too warm for me so I could use it as a contour shade if I applied it with a very light hand and blended it a whole load, but I'd prefer to use something else which looks good without all of the extra effort. It might look good if I'm going to a club or something though so I might try it out for that. 

Dark Cocoa though, is so warm its practically orange. There is no way I can make that colour work on my skin as a contour without it looking like a streak of dirt down both of my cheeks and it's too dark for me as a bronzer. I hate pop of light too. I love highlighters, I really do, but this is horrible. It's not a nice sheen or even a shimmer, it's like a cream eyeshadow with huge chunks of gold glitter in it. I don't know who thought it  would be a good idea because when I tried it on my face I looked ridiculous. It doesn't look like my skin is catching the light, you can clearly see the giant pieces of sparkle!

 

T-B: Pop Of Light, Dark, Medium, Light

I do like the brush which comes with the kit though, especially for a brush which came with a palette because I don't often like the brushes which come with stuff. The only other Too Faced brush I have to compare it with is the Powder Pouf but I know all of their brushes are made of their teddy bear hair so I'm assuming they're all pretty similar. The Contour Buki is very similar in softness to the Powder Pouf but feels a tiny bit stiffer and for some reason smells a bit chemically but that'll probably wear off when its washed. The shape of the brush is pretty good for contouring too since its narrow and densely packed. I wish that the handle was a tiny bit bigger so it felt better to hold but I suppose it's that size to fit into the little slot in the palette.

Overall I don't think this palette is worth buying if you have quite pale skin. It might work better if you're darker but I cant say for definite since Dark Cocoa seems very warm to me. For 1, maybe 2, usable colours though, I don't think this palette was worth the money for me.

FOTD

I love the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette, the smell is to die for and the colours are very pretty. 

Today I did a slightly adjusted version of the 'Haute Chocolate' look which is in the little look book that comes with the chocolate bar palette. I really love the combination of the purpley red of Cherry Cordial with the gold of Creme Brule that is suggested but i also added Salted Caramel and Strawberry Bon Bon as transition colours and Semi-Sweet in my crease, as well as Champagne Truffle to highlight my brow bone and as an inner corner highlight. 

I prefer Butter Pecan which is the highlight colour in the Semi-Sweet palette, but I like to do a whole look using just one palette. 

I also really loved how my eyebrows turned out today. I've started using a different brush to fill them in too which I think is making a lot of difference, before I was using a small softer angled brush but I felt like i was using a lot of product and ending up really packing it on but now since I began using the brow brush which came with the Real Techniques Starter Kit I find I'm only having to dip my brush into the product once for each eyebrow and i can easily draw the shape of them with 2 sweeps and then use a spoolie to blend the colour through them. I've also changed the shape a bit recently and I love how natural but still 'done' they look.

I was also applying for a makeup based job today so I tried to look pretty flawless, honestly I spent so long blending my eyeshadow its ridiculous. Fingers Crossed though!

Product List

• Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser Primer
• Urban Decay Primer Potion
• Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette (Cherry Cordial, Creme Brule, Strawberry Bon Bon, Salted Caramel, Semi-Sweet, Champagne Truffle, White Chocolate)
• Mac Pro Longwear Foundation - NC15
• Nars Radient Creamy Concealer - Chantilly
• Mac Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder (Pressed)
• Nars Blush - Orgasm
• Makeup Academy Undress Your Skin Shimmer Highlighter - Iridescent Gold
• Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder - Diffused Light
• e.l.f. Eyebrow Kit - Dark
• Mac Fluidline - Blacktrack
• Benefit Roller Lash
• Maybelline The Collosal Volume Express Mascara - 100% Black
• Mac Lipstick - Pure Zen
• Urban Decay All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray

Inglot Dupe for Limecrime Venus Palette

Review and Swatches

When it first came out, I was drooling over the Limecrime Venus: The Grunge Palette, but reviews seemed to all say that the shadows felt chalky and had lots of fall out and that the red shades even stained your skin. Because for a palette at that price I expect better quality, and because of the controversy surrounding the brand, I decided not to buy the palette.

I was in love with the colour scheme though, so when I saw the idea of making a dupe palette with Inglot Freedom shadows, I was excited. I'd never really considered buying Inglot shadows before but I had heard that the formula was good and that the pans were huge (almost twice the size of Mac!), so it seemed like a good option. I looked at some swatches online and then because there isn't an 8 pan version of the Freedom System Palette, I purchased a 10 pan palette, 8 dupe eyeshadows and 2 other eyeshadows which I thought would fit with the rest of the colours.

The shadows I bought were:

• 450 (Pearl) - Dupe for Venus
• 397 (Pearl)- Dupe for Shell
• 45 (Shine)- Dupe for Aura
• 335 (Matte)- Dupe for Creation
• 329 (Matte)- Dupe for Icon
• 361 (Matte)- Dupe for Rebirth
• 349 (Matte)- Dupe for Divine
• 55 (AMC)- Dupe for Muse
• 382 (Matte)- A bright pinkish red, the Relentlessly Red of the eyeshadow world
• 387 (Matte)- A light warm grey (And a dupe for an FCUK eyeshadow I loved, panned and could never find again)

I love the packaging of the Inlgot Freedom Palettes, they come in two parts, with a black side with slots for the pans to fit in and a clear lid with 'Inglot' printed all over it. The two parts are magnetic and stick together really well, so you don't have to worry about it accidentally coming open and your eyeshadows getting damaged. The black part is also magnetic to hold in the metal eyeshadow pans, they fit really snugly and need to be removed using another magnet to pick them up. Inglot have recently released a tool specifically for removing the pans from the palette but I've heard the corner of the lid or another Freedom work just as well. Because once the pans are in, it's not easy to be removing them all of the time, I wrote the names of the shadows on the edges if the palette in pencil so that I can see what they're called, but I can also rub off the writing easily if I decided to rearrange my palette.

The texture of the 'shine' eyeshadows is my favourite, it feels incredibly smooth and is packed with shimmer with not too many huge chunks of glitter. I love 45 as a colour for my inner corner and brow bone highlight, however its definitely much more yellow than Aura, so I wouldn't consider it a true dupe.

The 'pearl' formula is my second favourite since it feels smooth and soft but needs a couple of swipes to get it to full opacity. Pearl is the perfect description for the finish of these shadows since they're not shimmery or glittery and just have a sheen to them. 450 is a pretty good dupe for Venus while 397 is less pink and more golden than Shell but is still a beautiful lid or highlighting colour.

'AMC' is a strange formula, it is full of gold specks of glitter when in the pan but the glitter doesn't seem to transfer well in swatches or on your eye. This isn't a bad thing as such since Muse is described as a matte shade, so obviously a shadow full of glitter wouldn't be a good dupe. 55 is close to Muse but with less red in it.

I was excited to try the 'matte' formula of these eyeshadows since I had heard good things about it, and matte is such a hard formula to do right. I think maybe my expectations were too high because I found that I was a bit disappointed when i swatched these. They don't feel bad, they aren't too chalky or powdery and don't kick up a lot of powder when you dip your brush in but they aren't as soft as the Lorac PRO shadows, which is what i had heard them compared to. Don't get me wrong, they are good shadows, they're definitely better than drugstore shadows, and i prefer them to urban decay and find them slightly better than Mac, I just over hyped them in my head.

335 is a bit lighter and more orange than Creation and  329 is slightly warmer and lighter than Icon and I think this was my least favourite shadow in my palette, I found it less pigmented than the other matte shades and quite patchy and hard to blend. I really love 361, which is slightly lighter than Rebirth, but I love it as a transition colour for the red shades in the palette, and as a lid colour. 349 is less purple than Divine but is a lovely cooler toned grey, which when used in the crease looks like a shadow and really helps to deepen it. 382 is a beautiful colour but it didn't seem very pigmented and I had to go over it a couple of times to get a solid opaque swatch, while 387 is my favourite shadow which I chose, its very pigmented and soft and its really versatile, it can be used as a lid colour, a crease colour, as a smokey liner.

The swatches were all done over Urban Decay Primer Potion and were either one or two swipes.

Inglot do have shops, including one in London, but since isn't one near me I ordered my shadows from their website. The UK website isnt the nicest or easiest to navigate but it's not too terrible and my order shipped out and arrived quickly.  The US website looks much slicker and there's always the option of using beautylish's palette builder to play around and create different combinations.

The 10 pan palette was £12, but they also have 1,2,3,4,5, 20 and 40 pan options. The eyeshadows themselves are £5 each which is incredible considering they have 0.09oz of product in which is almost double the price. So a filled 10 pan palette costs £62 before shipping, which is more than the Venus palette, but is really nice quality, contains a huge amount of product and you get to choose 2 extra colours, so I definitely think that it is worth the price.

To see looks using this palette check out my post.

FOTD

Limecrime Venus Palette Dupe - Inglot Freedom Palette

Recently I made myself an Inglot Freedom Palette which is a dupe for the Limecrime Venus palette but I hadn't actually got round to playing with it yet, so this week I decided to do a couple of looks with it. It was my first time using Inglot shadows and I'll do a full review later but they were so nice to use, they were pigmented and blended easily and felt almost creamy.

I didn't take a full face photo for the first eye look i did which i regret. Until now I've always been weary of pink and red eyeshadows so I decided to jump straight in at the deep end with this palette and used the pinks and reds, with a dark brown in my crease.

For the second look I used the browns but it ended up looking quite orange toned. I really love the highlight colour I chose for my palette to use in my inner corner, Inglot's 'shine' formula is so shimmery.

If I was going to do this look again I wouldn't do the double wing with the dark brown eyeshadow but I was in a hurry and didn't have time to take it off, so i decided to just go with it! I also decided to layer my lipsticks because I wanted something super opaque but not matte and i was really pleased with the results. I first applied Jeffree Star I'm nude and then layered Mac Pure Zen on top, giving me a really pigmented, glossy nude.

Product list

• Maybelline Baby Skin Instant Pore Eraser Primer
• Urban Decay Primer Potion
• Mac Pro Longwear Foundation - NC15
• Nars Radient Creamy Concealer - Chantilly
• Mac Prep + Prime Transparent Finishing Powder (Pressed)
• Benefit - Coralista
• Makeup Academy Undress Your Skin Shimmer Highlighter - Iridescent Gold
• Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder - Diffused Light
• e.l.f. Eyebrow Kit - Dark
• Mac Fluidline - Blacktrack
• Benefit Roller Lash
• Urban Decay All Nighter Makeup Setting Spray 
• *Look 1* Inglot Freedom Palette (397, 382, 450, 349, 329, 45)
• *Look 2* Inglot Freedom Palette (361, 335, 329, 45)
• *Look 2* Jeffree Star Velour Liquid Lipstick I'm Nude
• *Look 2* Mac Pure Zen

The Best of Mac Lipsticks

My Top 5 Favourite Mac Lipsticks 

 

5. Sin (Matte)

Sin is a really dark purple, burgundy red. It is in the permanent line, although I bought it in the limited edition Mac and Toledo packaging. Even though I love this colour and it’s really opaque and long wearing, it’s only number 5 because it’s the old Mac matte formula which can be quite hard to work with and really drags on your lips when you apply it.

4. Candy Yum-Yum (Matte)

 

Who can resist a bright Barbie pink lipstick? This one is matte too but I don’t find it anywhere near as drying and hard to apply as Sin.

3. Heroine (Matte)

Now I’m thinking about it, I like a lot of matte lipsticks. Heroine is a really unique colour, it’s a bright purple which looks different on every skin tone and it’s opaque and feels very creamy when applying it. It lasts a really long time and looks so dramatic and interesting, it’s my go-to if I want a slightly ‘out there’ lip colour.

2. Sweet and Sour (Cremesheen)

I LOVE sweet and sour sauce, so as soon as I saw the name of this lipstick I was obsessed, but I couldn’t decide if it would suit me or not. I spent hours looking at swatches, I’m pretty sure I even had a dream about it. Finally I went to a Mac counter and tried it on and it looked so good so I bought it. I think a lot of people don’t really like Mac’s cremesheens but I find them so nice to use. They’re not drying and even though they don’t last very long, I don’t mind reapplying every few hours.

1. Pure Zen (Cremesheen)

Pure Zen is a gorgeous peachy nude shade but I hardly ever hear anyone talk about it. I love it because it’s easy to touch up even without a mirror and it looks good with any look. Whenever I’m running late or feeling lazy I throw it in my bag and it just finishes a look without requiring any effort. It doesn’t last very long but since it’s a creamy nude it doesn’t look patchy when it fades or rubs off and since it’s not matte it isn’t drying.