Maybelline Total Temptation Mascara, Shadow + Highlight Palette

Have you guys seen the new Total Temptation makeup from Maybelline in stores yet? The collection debuted early January and says it's "the most addictive makeup yet"! I tried out the mascara in Blackest Black, as well as the 10-pan eyeshadow and highlight palette recently (the brow pencil was unfortunately not the right shade for me.)

The Total Temptation mascara claims to have a "soft touch" and a "sensuous glide" o__o;; The brush is your average mascara wand. While it did apply through my lashes cleanly without too much clumping, it didn't deliver much of the promised "addictive volume". My straight, classic-Asian lashes also quickly lost their curl. The black area on the tube packaging is flat, which gives you a nice area to rest your thumb while applying mascara, but that was basically the only thing I liked about it. Sadly, this mascara was just like all the other standard drugstore mascaras I tried as a teenager that left me feeling disappointed.

ArtDeco Mystical Forest: FOTD + swatches

I'm back with more from ArtDeco's Fall/Winter Mystical Forest collection! I posted about one of the nail polishes previously, but makeup always takes a bit longer to test and photograph. Today I'm sharing some details and looks using the lip and eye products, including a unique eyeshadow system! Though it's a seasonal collection, these shades are still available for purchase online at retailers like Beauty Bay.

Hydra Lip Booster is a lip gloss that promises translucent colour, shine, and hydration all in one. 46 Translucent Mountain Rose is a neutral-toned dusty rose; on my discoloured lips, it evens out the discolouration just a bit but dark spots are still visible. This would be a great staple in a lip wardrobe, since the MLBB-ish soft rose shade pairs well with any makeup look.

Application using the standard doefoot applicator was very smooth, and it doesn't settle into lines. I hate glosses that feel super thick and sticky, so I'm glad that this one wasn't too heavy and very comfortable to wear. The formula is forgiving even if you have chronically-dry lips like mine.

Clinique Pretty Easy Eye Palette: review + swatches

With the holiday season upon us, that means lots of company Christmas parties, family dinners, and friendly get-togethers. Clinique's new launch promises to make things a bit less hectic with a super-portable, 8-pan neutrals palette that can create eye looks for day or night.

Clinique Pretty Easy Eye Palette; Clinique Pretty Easy Brow Palette

Clinique Pretty Easy Eye Palette ($55 CAD) is compact and fits comfortably in my hand. It comes in Clinique's classic mirrored packaging, which is simple and chic but an absolute pain to photograph! :P

The mirror side has a peel-off sticker with suggestions for a "naturally pretty" day look and a "dramatically pretty" evening look.

The palette also comes with two Skinny Stick eyeliners in Slimming Black and Slim Sable. Much better than crappy eyeshadow sponge applicators that nobody uses! They're about 2/3 the size of full-size Skinny Sticks (~$27 value for both eyeliners). I forgot to take swatches of the eyeliners, but they are creamy and smooth, with a super-skinny tip that would work well for tightlining. Slimming Black is a deep, matte black, and Slim Sable is dark, warm brown.

Empties #5 (decluttering edition!)

Well, technically not empties. You know how sometimes your closet gets so full of old clothes you don't wear anymore that there's no room in there for the clothes you actually wear? My makeup stash is like that. Lots of super old stuff tucked away neatly in drawers while products I'm actually using were scattered everywhere on my dresser. I went through my stash earlier this year (you can see the beginnings of it in Empties #4) and tried to be a little more ruthless/a little less sentimental in an effort to make some room.

Tackling my bathroom:

Daiso Nose Pack - a charcoal-based mask you apply all over your nose and peel off to remove blackheads. This is one of those things that are simultaneously fun and gross to do with friends and family to compare your results, but I quickly forgot about it. The contents of the tube have become super super thick, rendering it unusable.

Nivea Eye Make-Up Remover - it had more of a lotiony texture so I thought it would be hydrating for my eye area. It burned. Stopped using it immediately but stubbornly (hoardingly?) didn't throw it out for some reason. I don't think they make this one anymore.

Actual empties:

Marcelle Ultra Gentle Cleansing Gel (press sample) - I really like this one. It's called a gel but it's more of a lotion or lightweight cream that doesn't leave my skin feeling too tight. It's the one I use on no-makeup days or as a follow-up to a cleansing oil. This one was a press sample but I've since purchased another one during a sale.

Marcelle Essentials Soothing Cleansing Water - I liked this one so much that I literally called my review of it a "love letter". It's since been repackaged as Marcelle 3-in-1 Micellar Solution, which I've also repurchased. Amazing for sweeping all over the face to catch any leftover makeup, or removing non-waterproof eye makeup and lipstick.

Empties #4

Time for another empties post! My little David's Tea bag was starting to overflow again, and I recently did a big overhaul of my entire makeup stash, which revealed a bunch of old product I should have parted with a long time ago.

The Body Shop Facial Blotting Tissues in Rose Pink - I think these are discontinued now but this product was my first foray into blotting papers - I started buying TBS tissues in grade 11! They worked pretty well but they were dusted with blotting powder which isn't always ideal for my dry skin. I prefer Sephora blotting papers now.

Marcelle BB Cream in Light/Medium - my first Marcelle BB Cream, purchased years ago when Marcelle first came out with this and beauty bloggers were all abuzz about it. I really did use it all up! It was my staple for a while and I repurchased a replacement, but now that I've amassed a collection of base products I use it less and less. I still like it and would recommend it as a drugtore BB option though.

CeraVe Hydrating Cleanser - I purchased this in the Great Eczema Breakout of 2013 because my skin was really sensitive and raw, but I still needed something to gently cleanse. This fit the bill perfectly and didn't irritate my skin further. This is a good option for morning cleansing for dry/normal/sensitive skin; since it's so gentle, don't expect it to remove any makeup.

Nature's Bounty Hair, Skin & Nails Advanced - I picked up this multivitamin totally on a whim, on sale at Shoppers. I wasn't really expecting anything at all but after maybe two weeks, I suddenly realized that I was shedding way less hair than before. I shed hair like a cat and lose a lot of hair in the shower. It's kind of gross but the hair-catcher thing in my shower drain used to catch so much lost hair that the water couldn't quite drain fast enough. Lately I had been having a lot of anxiety about how much hair I've been losing - how could my hair possibly regrow to replace the hair I was losing all the time? Now I don't find much hair in catcher and I'm so relieved. I compared it to a Centrum bottle in the closet and found that the amounts of vitamins and minerals between the two are pretty close (please note I am not a doctor!) with more biotin and folate in the Nature's Bounty. Both of these are associated anecdotally with hair and nail health. Since finishing this bottle, I've switched to the biotin gummies instead, because gummies.

Lise Watier Féline Eyeshadow Quartet

Hello! More Lise Watier today: here's the lovely Féline Eyeshadow Quartet, which is another piece to the fall Féline collection, along with the Féline Lip Lacquer in Rouge reviewed previously this week.

The gorgeous leopard print takes centre stage here in a rose-gold trimmed compact. The compact has a pleasant weight to it--not super heavy, but doesn't feel flimsy--and is held shut with strong magnets (no need to wreck your mani trying to pry this open!)

The compact looks a little yellow on my monitor but I promise it's rose gold!

The four colours in this quad are a pale champagne, medium taupe, pale rose pink, and copper, all with some shimmer to them. They are lightly stamped with leopard-print impressions. A small well holds two dual-tipped sponge applicators, but could hold a small travel eye brush as long as it is 8 cm or less.

I really liked the soft, buttery texture of these shadows. Bonus: unlike some other eyeshadows from various brands I've tried, these didn't kick up a lot of powder when I ran a brush through them, so things don't get messy.

Preview: LUSH Emotional Brilliance

For me, LUSH products have always been about pampering and feeling great about yourself, so it's no surprise that their new line of vegan colour cosmetics, Emotional Brilliance, is no ordinary makeup range. I had the opportunity to preview Emotional Brilliance at the newly-renovated Robson location in Vancouver and check out the upcoming liquid lipsticks, liquid eyeliners and cream eyeshadows, as well as face powders, tints, and mascara.

Emotional Brilliance is a collection that is all about wearing the colours that will help shape your behaviour--products have names such as Wise, Calm, and Vibrant. The company worked with a strategic behavioural therapist, who specializes in changing attitudes, to carefully choose the words to suit each shade. Feeling unsure of yourself today? Swipe on Decisive, a bold red, to change your mood for the better. The power of the words associated with the shades you choose to wear can help focus or shift your perspective.

The shadows, liners, and lipsticks ($22.95) are all packaged in small glass bottles with black caps reminiscent of droppers. Liners come with a fine-tipped brush, while liquid lipsticks and shadows come with a doe-foot applicator. True to established products such as the solid shampoo bars and Toothy Tabs, LUSH has designed Emotional Brilliance to minimize packaging or use recyclable materials. The bottles are glass, so they can be recycled easily or repurposed after you have used up the product. Emptied black pots that once contained LUSH facial masks were recycled to become the black caps. The brush wands are not nearly as long as cosmetics from other companies, which also reduces the amount of material that goes into the packaging.

Review: Revlon Luxurious Color Satin Eyeshadow in Peacock Lustre

This is an updated repost from my original blog on Tumblr

Peacock Lustre was really an impulse buy: Ulta had buy one get one 50% and the colour was just so pretty and unique to my current stash of shadows. I don’t have a teal quite like this, since it leans more green than my other shadows. The base is a sort of foresty-green (I’m terrible at describing colours).

The large window on the packaging is great at showing off the colour and catching your eye at the drugstore, but overall the black plastic case feels a bit flimsy and cheap; I wouldn’t suggest throwing this in your bag where it could get knocked around a lot.

Not that it's especially important to me, but I don't really feel it’s “peacock” enough—the shimmeriness is right, but it needs to be either brighter or deeper (see: Joe Fresh Peacock nail polish). For its price range, it feels fairly soft and smooth.

Swiped twice each: wet / dry over concealer / dry (flash / no flash)

Swatching it over concealer gave the shadow a teeny bit more depth, although it’s kind of hard to tell in the picture.

The only shadows I used for this look are Peacock Lustre and a white shadow for under the brow. I really had to pack it on in layers in order to achieve the colour you see here. Peacock Lustre ends up applying a bit sheer, although using it wet can help (I used it dry here.)
I wore it for several hours with zero creasing and didn’t notice much fading. My skin is normal/dry though, so I can’t say people with oilier lids will have the same results.

Overall, if you are looking for something to use as a sheer wash of colour on the lids, this could be a good buy. It takes some work to get the shade to be as dramatic on your eyes as it looks in the pan, but at least you get there (or close) eventually. I got this on sale for about $2.50 USD in Washington, but if I had bought it in Canada where it runs for about $8, I might have been a little peeved at the level of colour payoff.