NYX Ultra Pearl Mania Loose Pearl Eye Shadow swatches

If you know me, or watch any of my videos, or have seen some of my other blog posts, you know I LOVE pigments.  This hasn't always been the case. I was afraid to try them, fearing they'd be super messy, have a lot of fallout, or I'd lack the skill to work with them.  Thankfully that is not the case because I would be missing out on a lot of good stuff out there!

 

 

Not too long ago one of my awesome besties sent me a package and in it were 3 of the NYX Ultra Pearl Mania pigments.  I had seen them at Ulta and wanted to try them, but never picked any up.  I am SO glad she sent them to me because I fell instantly in love with them.  So much that while Ulta has had their 40% off sale on NYX, Revlon, Almay, and Physicians Formula (this week only!) I ended up getting 5 more!  I love them so much I just had to swatch them and show them to you!

 

 L-R:26 Yellow Pearl, 09 Lime Pearl, 15 Lilac Pearl, 02 Pearl



L-R:24 Penny Pearl, 21 Oro Pearl, 29 True Purple Pearl, 30 Jade Pearl

 

The lightest colors, while beautiful, don't look as opaque as the other colors.  My absolute favorite out of all of these is 24 Penny Pearl.  I used Penny Pearl and Oro Pearl in a look yesterday and I loved it so much.

 

These shadows are on sale at Ulta until tomorrow, September 29th, for $1.79, and regular price is $2.99.  These are an AWESOME steal on sale, and still worth every penny at full price.  The only thing I do not like about these is the packaging.  The lid screws off the top and the opening is pretty small making it hard, and messy, to get to the product. I ended up buying some contact cases and tranferring the product into those.  MUCH easier to get to, and way less messy.

 

Do you have any of these or have you tried them? What do you think of them?

 



Walgreens Profusion palettes

I have been stalking Dollar Tree since I found the Profusion palettes there, but unfortunately it doesn't seem they have any more.  After doing a little school shopping today I decided to stop by Walgreens to see if anything caught my eye.  As soon as I walked in I spotted a ton of the ProfusionColour Me Glow 12 shadow palettes.  I started looking through and they ALL caught my eye.  I realize now there was one I didn't grab (07), so I'll need to go back for that one.   I have swatches of the ones I picked up today.  Like last time some of the shadows are absolutely awesome, while others don't offer much other than a little sparkle.  Also, some of the shadows appear in more than one palette.  Still, for $1 a piece I'm content.  As usual these are all swatched on bare skin.

01

02

03

 

05

06

08

My favorites are definitely 01 and 02.  Can't wait to play around with all of them!  Have you picked up or tried any of these? 



Profusion eyshadow palettes from Dollar Tree

I was talking to my friend Sammie and she mentioned she had seen Profusion palettes at her Dollar Tree.  I have 2 of the bigger 36 palettes and I like them. So I thought ok, we're going to Dollar Tree!  I walked down the makeup aisle and didn't see them at first, there were so few of them.  I bought all of the different ones I could find, which ended up being 5.  I swatched them all for you so let's get to the good stuff!  All shadows were swatched on bare skin.

Gemineye palette in 07

 Gemineye palette in 03

Twinkle twinkle palette in 05

Perfect ten palette in 01

Colour me glow palette in 04

Obviously some of the shadows aren't as pigmented as others, but for the most part they are absolutely beautiful and for $1 a palette I think these look to be a great deal!  I can't wait to play with these!



LA Colors eyshadow swatches

A few years ago most of the shadows I used were LA Colors.  I have all of the 6 pan palettes you can find at Dollar Tree.  For such a low price most of them are nicely pigmented.  I hadn't really been using them for a while, and then I saw an ad in Cosmopolitan magazine.  The trio they had used on the model was called Forget-me-not and the look was gorgeous.  With that picture seared into my brain I went looking for the trio.  I checked I don't know how many Dollar Trees, Family Dollars, Five Below, Roses, and Dollar Generals.  I never did find that trio, but I did pick up some other trios, as well as the 5 pan palettes.  Since LA Colors isn't a brand you really ever hear a lot about I thought I'd share some swatches with you.  All of these swatches are on bare skin.  Thank you to my daughter for volunteering her arm!

Peony

The blue in this trio is not pigmented at all.  The pink and yellow aren't bad and can definitely be built up.

Water Lily

These are pretty decently pigmented and such pretty pastel shades.

Iris

Again not super pigmented, but they can be built up and over a primer they'd look better.

Orchid

Out of all the trios this one is probably the most pigmented.  These colors are very pretty.  You can see how soft the shadows themselves are.

Now onto the 5 pans-

Tease

Most shadows in the 5 pans are pretty well pigmented.  There are a few here and there that would really take some working with, I don't mind that.

Waterworld

I grabbed this palette with the hopes I could use the colors in here for the colors in the ad I saw in Cosmo.  I do not believe they are the exact same colors.  I wish they were.

And I saved my absolute favorite for last-

Lollipop

I LOVE this palette!  The colors are so bright, they are all pigmented, and wore ALL day over primer.  Here's a look I did with this last week:

For some reason my camera could not pick up how vivid these colors are, but they are absolutely beautiful!  I found Lollipop on clearance at Family Dollar for 90 cents!

Have you ever used LA Colors before?  Interested in trying them?  I say go for it-the trios I found at Dollar Tree for $1 each, and I believe Tease and Waterworld were either $1.50 or $2.  These would be a great way to play around with color if you're a neutral gal and don't spend much on other brands.

FOTD

I wanted to do a really colorful look today.  I'm into the brights right now.  I dug through my pigments and came up with a handful of colors to use.  Here was my result:

You can see my green hair bow and my green shirt-my husband kept telling me I looked like a leprechaun.  At least it's a pretty leprechaun! Haha!

Products used:

Face-

Estee Lauder Double Wear Light in Intensity 1

Maybelline Age Rewind Dark Circle Eraser in Fair

Maybelline Super Stay 24 concealer in Ivory

Coty Airspun powder

Wet N Wild Color Icon pencil in Taupe for brows

Elf lash/brow gel

Elf Studio blush in Candid Coral (I used to hate this, but it's becoming a favorite!)

Eyes-

LA Splash shadow base/sealer

Madd Style Cosmetix pigments in Princess Buttahcup, Ecto Cooler, Witch's Brew, Honey Rose, and xRay Spex

L'Oreal Lineur Intense liquid liner

Wet N Wild creme liner in black

Wet N Wild eyeshadow single in Trashed (to set creme liner)

Revlon Photoready 3D mascara (1 coat)

Rimmel Scandal Eyes mascara (1 coat)

Lips-

MAC Creme Cup

Sinful Colors Pucker up



Quick pigment swatches

So yes, I ordered MORE pigments.  These samples are a great deal though.  You get plenty of product for cheap, and the colors are gorgeous.  On to the swatches. I had my daughter help me out today-I swatched on her arm!

L-R:Cuddlefish, Pish Posh, Honey Rose, King Moonracer, Soylent Green, Snuffy, Sucker Punch, Goathead Redd, Phantasm, and Monster Mash

I took a closeup of Goathead Redd because in the swatch above it just looks black.

 Here you can see the red glitter in it. 

I can't wait to play with my new piggies!  Once again, some seriously gorgeous colors.

More L'Oreal Infallible shadows and swatches (and a FOTD)!

I already posted swatches of 5 of the shadows I own, but while I was out last week I found a new display in Walmart.  The display contained all the core shades and new shades.  I was SO EXCITED to see them!  Here's what the display looks like-

This side was totally covered by a display of sunscreen, so I made my husband pull the whole thing out.   I grabbed 3 of the new colors.  I purchased Endless Sea, Liquid Diamond, and Smoldering Plum.

Liquid Diamond, Endless Sea, Smoldering Plum

And here are the swatches:

L-R:Smoldering Plum, Endless Sea, Liquid Diamond

These swatches are only 1 swipe each, and I can't quite catch how awesome Liquid Diamond is.  It's like a lilac-y silver.  It's absolutely beautiful.

I'm kicking myself for not grabbing Glistening Garnet, so that's what I'm on the look-out for next.

Here's my FOTD today, using Liquid Diamond and Smoldering Plum.

And a close-up of the eyes:

I am totally addicted to these shadows.  I could totally see, over a period of time, ending up with every color of these shadows.  I love the pigmentation, they apply well, the texture is great...I have nothing bad to say about these.  Have you tried them? What do you think of them?

FOTD-Green eyes

My makeup isn't super special today, but I rarely use bright greens and I really like how my eyes turned out today.



On my face I used Estee Lauder Double Wear Light in Instensity 1, Maybelline Age Rewind undereye concealer in Fair, Maybelline SuperStay concealer where needed, Coty Airspun powder, and Hard Candy Pinup blush.  I also have NYX lipgloss in Sugar Pie on my lips.  Now on to the eyes!

Products used on eyes:LA Splash shadow base/sealer, shadows-L'Oreal Infallible shadow in Iced Latte, Madd Style Cosmetix pigments in Morning Dew and Who R U?, and L'Oreal Infallible shadow in Golden Sage to darken up just a tiny bit of the outer corner.  Wet N Wild creme liner and Revlon Photoready 3D Volume mascara. 

I used to be afraid of color, always sticking to neutrals or a light pink.  Now I sometimes feel dull and boring if I'm not brightly made up.  What do you feel more comfortable in-neutrals or color?

L'Oreal Infallible shadows and swatches

I know these shadows have been out for a little while, but I just recently decided to pick some up.  I had been eyeing the purple one for a while, and after a friend sent me a picture of one of the shadows she bought, I decided it was time to check these out.  I have ended up with 5 of them, 4 being from the core line and 1 being from the It's Gold Or Nothing At All collection.

L-R, top to bottom: Perpetual Purple, Golden Sage, Bronzed Taupe, Gold Imperial (from the summer collection), and Iced Latte

And here they are swatched-

L-R:Iced Latte, Gold Imperial, Bronzed Taupe, Golden Sage, Perpetual Purple

I've heard these are supposed to be dupes for Giorgio Armani Eyes To Kill, but I've never seen those.  The texture of these remind me of some of the Urban Decay shadows in the Naked 2 palette (which are the only Urban Decay shadows I own).  They're very creamy, almost buttery, if that makes any sense.  I'm wearing Gold Imperial and Bronzed Taupe today.  The shadows are holding up well and have stayed put (over my LA Splash eye shadow base/sealer).  I look forward to trying the rest of the shades I have and possibly picking up more.  I'd love to have Pink Sapphire!

Well hello there!

Wow, I have seriously been slacking.  Or busy. Or both.  I had intended on picking up on the March Happiness Challenge and finishing it out, but that didn't happen.  There have been a myriad of things going on and I just haven't really felt up to blogging and I've been slacking on filming vidoes.

I was sick for almost the whole month of March.  And then one day while I was driving home from errands, my transmission went out. Ugh. Luckily things were arranged and I had my van back a week later.  My father-in-law was nice enough to let me borrow one of his trucks during that time.

April is the month of birthdays around here.  All 3 of my childrens' birthdays are in April, and they each fall about a week apart.  My youngest son turned 11 on the 5th, my daughter turned 8 on the 13th, and my oldest son will be 16 on Thursday.  Doesn't seem they could each be as old as they are.  I feel like I blinked and poof!

I haven't been volunteering at school for a while.  I stopped going in when I got sick and I was sick for so long by the time I started to feel better the kids got out for spring break.  We didn't really do anything special, just kinda vegged out and relaxed, which was actually pretty nice.

I'm in my second month of my low-buy.  (I am allowing myself 9 products a month.)  In March I went over by 11 or 12 items.  That sounds pretty bad, but I would have purchased WAY more than that if I hadn't been doing the low-buy.  This month I have purchased 3 products, but 2 of them got returned, bringing me down to one.  So I'm doing a pretty awesome job this month!  My one item is the Pink Popcorn lipstick from MAC's Reel Sexy collection, but I don't have it yet.  I ordered online at Nordstrom and it's on back order.  I'm not a patient person either, so it's driving me crazy!

I am sick again.  Nothing horrible, mostly sore throat, runny nose, sneezing...I'm definitely not as bad as I was last month.  Still I skipped my workout today and took a nap instead.  While it was nice to do that, I will be kicking myself for NOT working out because I'm weird like that. 

Speaking of working out, I had completed the 30 Day Shred a while ago and moved onto the Ripped in 30.  Trying to keep up with that while being sick was pretty hard.  I got to level 4 and had to quit.  I started alternating days between Killer Buns and Thighs and 6 Week 6 Pack.  2 weeks ago I didn't feel I was getting anything out of it so I decided to restart on the Ripped In 30 plan.  I will start level 3 tomorrow.

Anyway, that's some of the stuff that's been going on here.  Thought maybe if I wrote up a post it would help get me back into trying to blog.  We'll see!

Taking stock

Today I decided to count all of my makeup.  Yes, ALL of it, including nail polish.  I know my collection isn't nearly as big as some, but I still wondered how many of what I had.  This is what I came up with-

Lip products:

96

(I was going to do it by glosses, lipsticks, and liners and forgot and just counted it all together.)

Eye products:

eye primers

4

cream eye liners

6

eyeshadow palettes

41

eyeliners (pencil)

22

single eyeshadows

21

loose pigments

62

liquid liners

3

mascaras

6

Face products:

foundations

13

concealers

3

powders

4

blushes

28

bronzers

5

primers

3

Nail polish

292

607 items.  SAY WHAT?! The big shocker for me was nail polish because I thought I only had about 200.  And I have given away probably at least 30 bottles-I had over 300 nail polishes!  Palettes were another number I was a little surprised with.  But those Wet N Wild trios, 6 pans, and 8 pans add up quick! (Along with the other palettes I have.)

I must admit I have a sick feeling in my stomach now.  I do have a few things on my wish list, which I have been waiting to get until we get our tax refund back.  After counting everything I think I can safely say after I make those purchases, my low-buy is NEEDED and I think knowing how much I already have will make it pretty easy.

You'll notice I didn't include perfumes, skincare, or hair care in my tally.  Probably a good thing-when I saw 607 I felt a bit faint.  I'd hate to see what it is including these other things.

FOTD

I thought I'd do a FOTD post today. When I gathered all the products I used so I could take a picture, it was a little overwhelming seeing them all together. It seems like a LOT. I'm not the best photographer, and I don't seem to photograph well, but here's the look I'm sporting today.

I know this second one is a luttle blurry, but I like it better. :)  Now for all the products I used-

These aren't arranged by the order I apply them, but I'm going to list them that way. I start off with my Lacura foundation in Transparent, which I apply with one of the flat top Elf powder brushes (slightly damp). Then I use my Maybelline Super Stay concealer in Ivory where it's needed. I used a tiny bit of the Coty Airspun powder, just to set things under my eyes, across my cheeks, and the tip of my nose and chin. Today I grabbed Wet N Wild's mineral blush in Purely Mauve and applied that with the 2nd flat top Elf powder brush. Threw some of the Elf clear gel in my brows, and some of the LA Splash shadow base/sealer on my lids (it's the very last thing on the right).  The main palette I used for my eyes is the LA Colors one. Here's a closeup with better lighting-

I purchased this at Dollar Tree probably 2 years ago. I have I think 6 of these palettes. For $1 I can't believe the pigmentation. It's incredible!

After I slapped on 4 of the colors in the LA Colors I palette I used the top right shade from I ♥ Matte to blend, the top left shade for a highlight and slapped on some black liner and mascara. I've been using Urban Decay's Zero on my top lashline and a waterproof Rimmel liner on my waterline (which never stays so I don't know why I use it). I usually never layer mascaras, but today I did a sweep of Rimmel Wow Lash and then a coat of L'Oreal Voluminous False Fiber Lashes (but for some odd reason I grabbed the Rimmel Volume Accelerator for the picture).  I'm not much of a lip product wearer, which sounds odd considering I have probably at LEAST 100 lip products. Seriously.  Most of the time I just have Blistex Lip Medex on my lips (in the blue pot).

That's it for my FOTD.  Seeing it all and typing it all out seems like a LOT of products to me. I guess since I grab a few things at a time while I'm doing my makeup I never realized how many things I actually use every day. How about you? Do you use a lot of products daily when doing your makeup?